I changed quickly and went straight back to the main chamber, where Odin was tapping his foot on the golden floor. He was standing in like the only spot in the room that wasn't covered in plush carpet so the rhythmic sounds echoed off the walls, getting on my nerves. It was like clicking a pen, I never had a problem when I did it but when someone else did it, it was the most annoying thing in the Nine Realms.
"Let's go." Odin sounded bored and impatient. I looked towards Loki but he shook his head.
"Why isn't Loki coming?"
"You have developed an unhealthy relationship with him," Odin explained as we went down the hall, "As heir to the throne, Thor must marry first."
"That was not a law last time I was here and I get the sense that if I ask Frigga about that, she will say that the first to get married will take the throne."
"Well it's going to be a law whether you like it or not starting tomorrow." I clenched my fists and growled.
"Fine, Loki and I will court until Thor gets married."
"You make it sound he has already proposed."
"How do you know he hasn't?" I walked a little faster.
When we reached the Rainbow Bridge, just as promised, Thor and the Warriors Three were there waiting for me on horseback. Kurt stood among them, waiting for a rider. Sleipnir was also there, probably waiting for Odin. It figures, Odin scorns Loki and rides his offspring like a common beast of burden. He could at least pretend to have some level of respect for the son of his adopted child. Sleipnir was a living, breathing animal, not a motorbike, seriously Odin! We rode across the Rainbow Bridge to the Bifrost, where Heimdall stood waiting.
"Greetings. Someone seems to be missing from your little group."
"We are all accounted for, Heimdall. You know where we're headed." Heimdall did not press the matter but he gave me a look that told me he knew what had transpired between myself and Loki.
"That I do." I didn't want to put Kurt through the stress of going through the Bifrost again so I dismounted and hopped up on Sleipnir instead after getting permission from him.
"You need not worry about traumatizing your horse Istara, my wife has made certain the he will not be bothered by the Bifrost." Odin informed me. My brow furrowed, why was he talking to me like I'm a person and not an animal? More importantly, why did he call me by name? I didn't have time to ponder that much, the only thought that came to mind was that he wanted me off 'his' horse. As soon as I remounted Kurt, the Bifrost activated and my thoughts were whisked away by the flying colors.
Just as Odin had said, Kurt did not react to the Bifrost at all, he remained completely calm, as if he were standing in a grassy field on a sunny day! Of course, that's about where we ended up on Vanaheim, just substitute the grass for ash and the sun for rainclouds. A type one village. The destruction had not been exaggerated on any account, everything was gone, not a single wooden beam left standing. It looked as if nothing had been there in the first place! Upon closer examination, I found that that was not entirely true, in the middle of the ashen field was a collection of tiny pebbles. The remains of a well and the only evidence that civilization had once been here. There was no cloud of smoke in the air but the stench of burnt wood and flesh reached my nose, this was a recent loss. If I had to guess, within the past day or two. There were no bodies, or even the faintest remains of bodies, just black ash all over the ground that clung to my fingers whenever I brushed it, trying to pick up some sort of evidence that the others had overlooked but the only thing I found was that this land would never be suitable for any sort of settlement again, the fire had been so bad that even the very roots of the grass had been destroyed. Normally, after a fire, the ground is very fertile but that was not the case here. There must've been some sort of chemical in whatever caused the fire to make it destructive instead of regenerative. I thought about looking for patterns in the ash but even as I walked around, the wind was blowing. It wasn't blowing that hard but hard enough to make a little ash cloud over the surface of the field, ensuring that any symbol or message would be erased. At last, when I was certain that there was nothing else for me to find, I headed back to where Odin and the others were waiting, not far beyond where the ash began.
"Nothing at all, if it weren't for the pebbles and my prior knowledge as to what is going on here, I would think that this was just an unfortunate mishap in the middle of nowhere."
"Did you find anything else?"
"This ground will never be suitable for farming again and if my suspicions are correct, neither will any of the other Type one villages. These are no marauders, not even those on Earth possess this kind of destructive technology even on this small a scale. Where is the Type two?"
"Not far from here."
"How long ago were they lost?"
"Both of them fell two days ago. I did as you requested, I sent one armed guard to each village you said was in danger and so far, all of the ones have been attacked just as you said they would be and no others outside the symbol you outlined have been disturbed. The 'type two', as you call it, is perhaps a twenty minute ride from here."
"Ten if we gallop but the old coot can't seem to handle more than a trot for extended periods of time."
"Ooo, that's no fun. I'll tell you what, as soon as we get back to Asgard, I'll take you out on a ride personally."
"I thought you were confined to your room?"
"Long story short, I'm not." I mounted Kurt before anyone could comment on my moment.
"Which way?"
"Pardon?"
"Which way is the second village?"
"You are to stay with us." Odin stated before anyone could answer.
"Due East, why?" Sleipnir informed me.
"I do my best work when I'm alone!" I whirled Kurt around and spurred him into a gallop, ignoring Odin's call to come back.
Sleipnir had been right, no more than ten minutes after I started out, I came upon the village. I had known there was something off about it when I had first caught sight of it from a distance, there was just a foreboding feeling about it. Surrounding it were empty fields, probably for large domestic animals to graze yet they were all empty. When I reached the village, it was much the same, as if the people had simply got up and left! Not wanting to take Kurt into the village, I dismounted and tethered him to the nearest fence. The closer I walked to the village, the more and more uneasy I got. What was wrong with me? As a teenager, I had gone to an insane number of haunted houses with Jane but I had never been this unnerved. Alarm bells were going off in my head and I could almost feel several dozen pairs of eyes on my, coming from every direction. I was beginning to regret not bringing any weapons but I didn't regret leaving my escort behind. The structure of this town was much like the last, with a water well in the center. How appropriate. I closed my eyes used my ring to draw a mental sketch of the area in my head, including all traces of magic but specifically evidence of Infinity Stone use.
What I found astounded me. My senses picked up life forms. No more than thirty or forty, but that was the average of the population of each village. Surely I was mistaken. Nope, a second scan of the area confirmed that thirty six souls were here but they were all located in specific places. More than half of them were gathered around, or even in the water well, there were a few out in the fields and two or three in one of the bigger buildings. This was starting to creep me out. Where were the bodies? My ring picked up a strange aura surrounding several seemingly ordinary objects but upon closer inspection, I found that they were objects of everyday use. That water well bucket, stones, and pulley system, the gates that led into the fields, and the doorknob of the largest structure, probably where the chief of the village lived. Using this secondary vision, I walked around the village for quite some time, careful not to touch anything with the strange aura.
I should've known it was going to happen. There were too many objects in the village that were surrounded by the aura and he couldn't sense it. I should've known better than to leave him by himself. The whinny of a horse scared me. I whirled around just in time to see Kurt fall on his side and a strange, mist-like green fog leave his body and go into the gate of the paddock. A gate that was laced with the mysterious aura.
"No!" I ran to him, kneeling by his side and searching frantically for a pulse, the rise and fall of his sides, anything at all that indicated he was alive. Nothing. As far as I could tell, the gate had sucked his soul from his body. First Kayerith, now Kurt. I didn't know how much more loss I could take. But I didn't have time to mourn. I had to find out what was going on. I stood on shaking legs and examined the gate as best I could without touching it. There was nothing out of the ordinary aside from the haunting aura but I could not detect any way to figure out what was going on with it without touching it. I had no choice. My fingers were millimeters away from touching the gate, just close enough to get a green-colored electric shock, when I was pulled away.
"What in the name of the Nine Realms were you thinking?!" Odin roared at me. "You were told to stay with your escort and you deliberately run off!"
"I told you I do my best work alone." I snapped back, "Now if your son releases me, I'll be going back to Asgard now." I didn't need to look behind me to know it was Thor, he was holding me slightly above the ground and no one else in all the universe had hands that big.
"Don't let her go for one moment, Thor. She's a treacherous snake. Heimdal!" The spiral of the Bifrost swept us off the ground and before I knew it, I was back on Asgard in bronze cuffs.
"You take these off me right now or I will–"
"What? You can't do anything." Odin sneered at me, "You are fortunate I don't put you back in the dungeon after that little stunt! Take her back to her chambers. She is not to leave and no visitors whatsoever. I except the five of you to work out who will keep watch on her door when."
"Surely she can't be that dangerous, with beauty like hers–" Fandral was cut off by an angry Odin.
"That's enough. Now GO!"
After Odin took off on Sleipnir, Thor released the crushing grip he had on my arms. I could already feel the bruises. I asked him to remove the cuffs but he refused. The Warriors Three, as well as Sif and Thor escorted me back to my room. I was expecting Loki to be there upon our arrival but that was not the case. My room was empty. They turned to leave but I made one last attempt to get the cuffs off.
"Come on Thor. Why are you Odin's lackey all of a sudden? Even when you were three, you loved defying him!"
"That was when I was three, Aunt Istara. The punishment was a reprimanding and that was it. Now, it will be much more severe."
"Are you telling me you're scared? You know, I have burns on my wrists right where the cuffs are and I need to take care of them and see to it that they do not become infected. If they did, I would be useless in a fight." I saw a flicker of doubt in his eye.
"Very well. But only until the burns heal." He came forward with the key and my chains fell away.
"Arista!" Loki's voice came echoing down the hallway, "What have you done to her?! Arista, answer me!"
"I'm fine, Loki!" I called back. I was far from fine. Why couldn't I sense him intimately anymore?
"A servant will come by later with your evening meal." Thor departed, taking the cuffs with him. I heard something click as the door shut. I didn't need to try and open the door to know that he had locked me in.