The Jotun's Daughter

Chapter 7

        "Sit." Coulson motioned to the table where the scepter lay. I walked over to it cautiously, still in shock. The world was now fading in a whole different way. He sat down across from me, the scepter in between us, and I looked down at it. 

        "You can change back, you know." He said. I suppose he's right. I reached out numbly and took the scepter in my right hand, willing it to change me back to my normal. I watched as my skin turned, the revelation spreading up my arm and across my body until I was me again. Then I dropped it promptly on the table with a clatter.

        "What is this." Coulson sighed.

"We really should start at the beginning." I looked up at him.

        "Then start." He rested his elbows on the metal.

        "You mother loved you, you know."

        "Coulson." He dropped his head for a minute, rubbing his neck, and then nodded, straightening.

        "Twenty years ago, your mother joined S.H.E.I.L.D. She wasn't recruited, not really-she was a hacker-amazing with computers. We tracked her down, took her in. For a year, we unveiled her past, what she was, what certain alien artifacts had to do with her. She became one of us, which meant she didn't just sit in the seat, she was buckled in and taken for a ride. She was hit, betrayed, shot, hunted...May taught her a lot of things, including how to disappear. Your mother was a good student; perhaps to good." Coulson looked sad, as if he missed her, like a father misses his daughter. Nothing he was saying made sense, but I stayed quiet.

        "After the whole ordeal with her link to alien artifacts was resolved-"

"Excuse me?" I leaned forward in my chair, but Coulson just continued.

"- she stayed with the team. But it became her greatest mission to track down other artifacts, other objects that...weren't from around here. I let her do it, too, because she was really good at it. She was uncovering things that no one had seen in centuries. And the thing was, she could communicate with them, figure out what they were, use them. She soon had top-level access to all S.H.E.I.L.D. files. The ones that were stored on computers-" He looked around the room. "-and the ones that were not." Coulson looked me in the eye. 

        "She was one of the best agents S.H.E.I.L.D. had ever seen, Kayla. The best-even the former director stayed in contact with her." Coulson's gaze slowly dropped until it rested on the scepter.

        "She stumbled across something." He said softly.

        "A portal, to another world. She didn't tell us, didn't warn us. She just entered it-she was always too curious, and although I'll give credit where it is due, I won't lie to you-she was a bit overconfident in her skills."

        "Where did it lead?" I asked, my throat dry. Coulson licked his lips and glanced away from the scepter.

        "That's just it. We don't know." I raised my eyebrows.

        "Your mother was good with alien tech, but she had never seen something like this. She didn't tell us where she went, or what happened while she was gone. All we know is that she came upon something; someone, to be more exact. She never told me who-but after seeing the change in you and the connection you have with the scepter, I have a pretty good guess." He looked at me.

        "Whoever she discovered needed help-they were wounded, dying from a trick gone wrong, or so she told me. She found that the portal had closed, and she couldn't get home, so she did what she could to help them. They took her somewhere-they never hurt her, but many people thought she was kidnapped. They were too weak to harm her even if they wanted to, but if she stumbled upon who I think she did..." He once again looked at the scepter.