Can You See Me? (A Loki FanFiction)

Chapter One

Three days.

It had been three days since my entire world, life, existence had plummeted into the abyss.

Coming back from a solitary hunting trip, the life had been torn from my very soul at the sight of my family home burnt to a decrepit pile of smoking ash - my brothers' bloodied bodies lying strewn across the blackened earth. I had spotted my father, his body cold and lifeless on the ground. My entire family, mutilated and slaughtered. Marauders had a nasty habit of doing that sort of thing.

The worst thing was that in my shocked and grief-stricken state, I hadn't even waited around long enough to give them a proper burial - I had just run. My clothes blackened from the charcoal of my home, my face bloodied from the remains of my family, I had run.

And now here I sat hunched over myself in the back of a small, dark, slave wagon, surrounded by two other girls, and an old man who muttered nonsensically to himself. I had been picked up by the slave traders two days ago, wandering aimlessly around the moors, and they had obviously felt that I had been free for the taking.

So I was sitting in the back of a wagon, no idea where I was going, but knowing only that I was going to spend the rest of my pathetic, broken life in slavery. But despite knowing what hardships had past and were still to come, I could not cry. I just felt...numb. I was a broken and tattered boat, drifting aimlessly across a sea of misery. I could not cry. I would not cry. I wouldn't let anyone see my pain.

I don't know how long I had been in the back of the wagon, time seemed to stretch endlessly here. Not that it mattered. What did anything matter now? 

On my third day in the wagon, I think, I finally lifted my head from my knees when I heard distant voices coming from the front of the wagon, and discovered that it was one of the slave traders speaking to his companion.

"The city is just over the rise ahead." I caught a glimpse of him vaguely gesturing in the direction we were heading.

"Been too long since I've had a nice Asgardian wench on my lap. I'm looking forward to this," he remarked with a chuckle.

Despite my misery, my eyes widened slightly. Asgard? Were we headed to Asgard? My heart started to pound in my chest. I had never been to the capital, though my father had spoken of the grand city many times. The other trader turned to his comrade.

"How much do you think we'll get for this bunch?" he asked and gestured over his shoulder with his thumb as if we were a pack of cattle. His companion glanced back at us and I ducked my head away from sight. He shrugged and made a thoughtful expression.

"A pair of lasses, an old man, and a boy? Not much, but the palace is always looking for new servants."

My heart stopped dead this time. Not only were we going to Asgard, the most powerful city in all of the nine realms, I was to be sold to the palace? To serve royalty? My fear began to rise, I had heard the stories of what happened to female slaves in the palace. It was unpleasant, to say the least...

Hang on, did he just say 'boy'? He thought I was a boy? Despite my terror and grief, I couldn't help but feel slightly insulted. How could I be mistaken for a boy? But when I looked down and took in the sight of my attire, I immediately understood the case of mistaken identity. My long, dark hair was coiled and concealed beneath the worn cap I always wore when hunting, my clothes were baggy, dirty and hid any trace of femininity, and I could only imagine the state of my mud and blood covered face. He was right to presume that I was a man.

Suddenly, a faint idea reared its head in my mind; if I had fooled the traders into thinking that I was a man, who else could I deceive? If I could successfully make people believe that I was a boy, I could work peacefully in the kitchens, or if I was lucky, as a servant of a Lord. If it worked, I could go unnoticed, protected from the advances of male eyes. But would it work? Could I actually pull off this sort of deception? There was only one way to find out. Lowering my head, I took a deep breath as the wagon rumbled its way to its destination and attempted to think up some semblance of a plan.