The Tower: The Queen of Asgard

The Spirit Journey

The white flare blinded me for a moment. As my vision gradually returned, blackness replaced it from the inside out. Not that I was blind. I could see myself perfectly well. The colors in my dress. The painting on my arms. I was illuminated perfectly. Only there was no source of light. Everything around me was black. There was no way to discern the ground from the air except that I was standing on it, and it was perfectly solid. I just existed in a void.

"Steve?" I called out as I looked around. "Thor?"

There was no answer. There wasn't even an echo indicating that my voice had traveled any distance. Something did change though. To begin with, it was like a current passed over my skin. It ran along the gold line in the Henhalda that connected each scene to the next and seemed to burn the rest of it away. My skin felt like it was bubbling, though it felt no different to the touch, and that bubbling feeling sunk down into my flesh and then my bones until there was a deep painful heat in my core, burning me from the inside.

I cried out in pain and squeezed my eyes closed tight. It felt like something burst inside of me and I was sure that I had failed, that I had been judged unworthy and I was going to die for thinking I could be the Queen of Asgard.

Quicker than it came on though, the pain faded. I opened my eyes and now, stretching out into the void ahead of me, and seeming to burrow into me, were these threads of light. Just faint, but I could definitely see them. I also felt these strange jumble of emotions. Mostly fear and confusion and somehow I knew I was feeling what the others were feeling. That somehow, these threads were attached to them and if I followed them, I'd find them.

They were all going in the same direction, so I moved off in it. As I moved along, they spread out a little more. I stopped for a moment and ran my hands over them. The emotions I was gleaning off the others became stronger for each person with each thread I touched. When I hit the Natasha one I could tell she was the closest, so I followed that one.

I reached a point where the thread abruptly cut off, and yet, I could still feel Natasha. I knew she was close. Almost close enough to touch, but I couldn't see her. She was scared, but also angry and trying to figure out what she needed to do.

"Natasha?" I called. "Natasha, where are you? I can't see you!"

The thread burned brightly for a moment and a sense of relief hit me and just like that, Natasha was standing right in front of me. "Can you see me now?"

"Oh my god!" I yelped, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her close. She let me hug her but only returned it with one arm as she continued to scan the void we were sharing. "Where were you? I could feel you but I couldn't see you."

"You could feel me?" She asked. "That's your new power? Some kind of telepathy?"

"No. Through the threads." I said, not quite understanding how she couldn't feel me too, if we were connected by the thread of light the way we were.

"Threads?" Natasha asked. "What are you talking about, El?"

"These -" I say running my hand over the threads that were stretching from me into the void.

"There's nothing there, Elly," she said and shook her head like she was trying to clear it. "Tell me what happened?"

"I woke up and it was nothing," I explained. "I called out and it felt like my body was about to burst into flame. It was bubbling..."

"I had that too," Natasha interrupted. "All I could think was you all needed to be safe. I needed to keep you all safe."

"I just needed you. I needed to know where you were and if you were okay," I said. "Then the pain stopped and there were threads. I can feel people. Clint's terrified."