A Very Unlikely Tale // Loki

Prologue

{edited}

   The year it happened was 1656 and it was an absolutely stunning Tuesday morning in March. There were delicate little frost flowers on the windowsill, and pushing their way through the damp earth, creating icy crystals beneath the ground. The sun was bright and golden against a sky bluer than I could remember, yet the cold was still as sharp as a knife. I'd already finished my chores and Mother had given me permission to go down to the little brook that ran through the pocket of forest surrounding our cottage.

Everything was as perfect as I could've hoped.

And then it wasn't.

I was sitting by the stream with my back against a tall oak when a blinding light stole my attention away from the handkerchief I was embroidering with little pink flowers. A hot wind flung it into the brambles and entangled its ribbons in the thorns.

My breath hitched in my throat as I looked up to find the source of the disturbance and instead found an older gentleman in gleaming armor that shined like the sun. He lay struggling to move in the center of what seemed to be a large circle, decorated with designs unlike any I had ever set eyes on. The man was obviously very injured. His right eye was missing from its socket and while he seemed to have been missing his eye for a long time, he was bleeding profusely from a wound on his arm.

I stood still, gaping at the sight, my bonnet completely forgotten. It seemed as though I could barely breathe as I stared at the growing pool of blood. Finally, I decided to offer my assistance. Everything about this man screamed danger, but my parents had raised me to never assume the worst of someone before you speak to them.

"Mister?" I spoke carefully, "May I be of some assistance to you? You seem to be very hurt, and I would be glad to help." I didn't even know if he could hear me. What if he died here, under my watch? I could be accused of witchcraft.

There was no answer.

With my heart in my throat, I steeled myself and took a small step forward. Then another. Then another. Until I was merely inches from the golden gentleman. With as deep of a breath as I could manage, I knelt down beside him and looked him in his good eye.

"My lord," at least, I assumed he was a lord, "can you hear me?"

"Yes."

I let out a sigh of relief, all thoughts of witchcraft leaving my mind. "What is your name?"

Once again, no answer.   This was beginning to be a little tedious.

"...Sir?"

"My name is none of your concern," he groaned.

I fought the impulse to roll my eyes.  Mother hated it when I rolled my eyes.

"Sir, is there any way I can assist you?" 

"You may help me sit up, and then you will help me to the water."  he spoke with authority and control.  I decided he must be a man of power.

Without a word,  I put my right hand around the back of his neck and grabbed his shoulder with the other, helping him to a seated position.  His left arm hung limp at his side.  At last, something I knew how to do.

"My...lord, your shoulder is dislocated, let me help." 

Before he could argue, I had grabbed his shoulder and jerked it back into its socket. Ignoring the resulting shout of pain, I asked, "Can you move it now?"

He wriggled his fingers and bent his arm to cradle it against his chest, "Indeed I can, thanks to you. Though I would have preferred it if you had given me some warning before you jerked my arm in such a manner."

I gave a slight laugh, trying in vain to rub some of his blood from my hand, "You would have tensed your arm. It would have been even more painful, my lord."

He had seemed to soften at this point, looking at me and speaking more than a few words at a time. "I am Odin," he said regally, "king of Asgard."

"He's mad," was my first thought. Taking a small step backwards, I decided to play along.

"Well...Your Majesty, I am called Flora.  Flora Adams."  I reached for his hand in order to help him to his feet.  I led him to the stream, where he knelt down and washed his ravaged left arm. We were silent for a few moments until,

"I am on Midgard, yes?"

"I beg your pardon?"  I had not heard of a place by that name.

"It is called by another name here, I believe.  I am on the planet Earth?"  He questioned, looking at me intently.

"Yes, Sire.  This is Earth." Where else would he be?

"I see." He looked down, his focus seemingly entirely on the water running beneath him.  Suddenly he turned to me, a mysterious glint in his eye.

"You have aided me greatly, lady Flora. For that I shall bestow unto you a most generous gift," he boomed while producing an apple the color of his armor. Gold. Like the sun. 

Where it had come from I had no idea, but I took it nonetheless, thanking him.

"Eat it when I have departed, and your life will be forever changed." His instructions made no sense to me whatsoever, but I nodded regardless.

He looked to the sky, "Heimdall! Take me home."   No sooner than he said this did the same blinding light engulf him, and he was gone.

I stood, dumbstruck, staring at the place Odin has stood.  I held the apple close to my face, looking at it warily.  Then, not only because I was now convinced that if I did not obey I would face some horrible circumstances, but because I was hungry, I took a bite.

Pain.

Indescribable pain.  Like being stabbed with a dull sword and being burned and drowned and drawn and quartered all at the same time.  My insides seemed to be hardening into stone and shattering like glass in the same second. Every breath burned my lungs.

I could not scream. 
I could not cry.
I could not move.

Then, as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.  Gasping, I dragged myself over to a still part of the stream and peered at myself, checking for injury and saw none.  I did, however, see my eyes.  Once brown and plain, they were now shockingly green. 

I stood and staggered back, catching a sapling for support.  The young tree began to writhe under my touch, as if sensing my panic and imitating it in its own way.  I let go of the innocent plant, staring as it ceased its struggle.  Tentatively, calmly, I reached out to stroke it again.  It began to grow, slowly or quickly depending on what I willed it to do. 

I once again drew my hand back, panting, gasping, panicking. Tears spilled from my eyes in an unrelenting torment. A single thought ran through my head over and over.

He has made me a monster.