The King and The Lionheart (Loki fanfic V:1)

Part 11

Each of us take our horses and ride down the rainbow bridge approaching the gate. I can't help but feel calmed by the beautiful colors rushing by underneath our horses' feet.

We get off and approach Heimdall, Loki turns to Thor and says "Leave this to me."

"It won't work." I whisper to him, but he ignores me going up to Heimdall.

"Good Heimdall-" Loki starts.

"You're not dressed warmly enough." He says cutting off Loki's lie before it even get off his tongue.

"I'm sorry?" Loki says taken aback.

"Do you think you can deceive me?"

"You must be mistaken-" Loki says and gets interrupted again. I send him a sympathetic smile that asks if he really expected that to work.

"That's enough!" says Thor.

"That's what you get for getting us into this mess." I say low enough that only he can hear.

"Oh, stop it." Loki sends back clearly disappointed in himself.

"Heimdall may we pass?" Thor asks getting in front of Loki.

"Heimdall, please," I plead trying to show him with my eyes the urgency of our mission.

"Never has an enemy slipped my watch, until this day. I wish to know how that happened." Heimdall says.

"Then tell no one where we have gone until we've returned. Understand?" Thor says and passes him going to the gate.

"What happened silver tongue turned to lead?" joked Volstagg as he passed Loki who was staring at Heimdall.

"Oh, please. You know it would've worked on anyone other than Heimdall. His job is seeing everything, he's smarter than everyone in all the nine realms." I say defending Loki. I put my hand on Heimdall's shoulder and nod my thanks, I take Loki's arm and we go into the gate along with everyone else.

Heimdall's sword is the key to opening the gate and puts it into the slot causing lighting to echo around to the room and the room itself to start spinning. I love the whole process of going places and using the bridge.

"Be warned, I will honor my sworn oath to protect this realm as its gatekeeper. If your return threatens the safety of Asgard, the bifrost will remain closed to you and you'll be left you die on the cold waste of Jotunheim." Heimdall reminds us before opening the gate.

"Couldn't you just leave the bridge open for us?" Volstagg asks.

"To leave the bridge open would unleash the full power of the bifrost and destroy Jotunheim with you upon it." He says showing no emotion.

"I have no plans to die today," Thor says cockily.

"None do." Heimdall says.

"Very true." I mutter under my breath causing Loki to send me a reassuring smile. Heimdall opens the bridge the rest of the way and we are pulled through and traveling through space so fast one can only observe the beauty for an instant before landing on Jotunheim.

We land at the edge of a large cliff overlooking the frozen wasteland, "Good thing we weren't a few feet backwards, right?" I ask jokingly, but only get some quiet and quick laughs in response. It's as if the importance and danger of this is hitting all of us at the same time. I'm reminded of the severity of the mission and keep my eyes straight.

"We shouldn't be here," Hogun observes.

"Let's move," Thor says and starts walking.

I walk over to Loki close enough for our hands to brush each other occasionally, but neither of us wanted to show true affection considering where we are. In a place like this emotions like friendship and compassion are considered a sign of weakness.