I'm sitting here in Loki's flat in Chelsea, London, Earth, the Solar System.......waiting for my phone to ring; the occupational hazard of being an actress.
Okay not being in Loki's flat (though who knows with that man), the waiting part.
I've had my audition, yesterday afternoon, and now the wait begins. One of the final two, I've been promised that I'd know at least if I was being called back by this afternoon.
In my limited experience it doesn't usually happen quite so quickly but a number of actresses, including myself, are going out of town in the next few days and none further than me.
I'm going back to Asgard.
Back to my grandmother and family.
Back to be a princess.
Back to give Loki the hard time he deserves.
Not that anyone knows.
For all intents and purposes I'm here on earth for good. That is, according to king of Asgard, the safest way to be.
But if I'm honest it's highly likely I'll be back on Asgard by the end of the day.
I'm pretty sure I bombed my audition – I was too distracted and apparently it's not a good idea to accidently hit your co-star in the face while gesticulating wildly. I'm sure Tom Hiddleston will survive (the ice seemed to be taking the swelling out when I left). Yes he'll survive. My career? Not so much.
It's all Loki's fault – but isn't everything?
That kiss, that kiss curled my toes and fogged my brain. That kiss is one of those five kisses in the history of the kiss that people write about across the universe (don't ask me to come up with the others I'm still recovering from being part of THAT one). It was something I didn't expect and something I'm still thinking about, something that turned my world upside down in more ways than one. It was a simple kiss, the answer to what we have been dancing around for a week and a half but it's something that has brought up more questions than it answered and there has been no time to answer them.
No time until now and no-one who could or would except the man taking up the entire couch in this Chelsea flat; the man happily snoring away, while we wait for news, the man who gave me life and then changed it forever.................my dad, Tony Errikson...............Thor -the mythical god of Thunder. Yes the man who is the actual god of complicating my life and turning things upside down.
After the kiss, okay series of kisses...........yeah it might have been a bit of a snogging session, I rested my forehead breathlessly on Loki's. Still trying to work out what had happened both in the moment and in my head.
What the hell were the visions? What the hell had been happening to me? Why the hell did I kiss that man (okay I kind of knew the answer to that one – there had been some weird kind of attraction from the beginning – he was an arse and I still wasn't sure about him but he's a sexy arse (and he has a sexy arse) and he fascinated and frustrated me in equal measures right from the moment he plucked me from earth). The kiss had been an accident waiting to happen. The visions of the other kiss, a gentler more chaste version of the full-on passionate, heated almost vicious event that had just taken place (I think I bit his lip at one stage this time) – those were what really threw me.
"We've done that before," I whispered through my laboured breathing. Heaving for breath and still clutching my face, though a little more gently now, Loki didn't answer me but looked a little stricken.
"How have we done that before?" I asked still breathless and bewildered, pulling away from him to shake my head.
"I don't understand," I say now a metre away from him and shaking my head like I could shake the memory (in or out I wasn't sure).
"You're getting your memory back, I shouldn't have kissed, you I'm sorry," he said actually looking slightly contrite, shaking his head like he was also trying to shake the vision of either this moment or the previous one out of his head. We're a fine pair!
"I want answers!" I huffed softly but not with the usual aggression I might show towards him though I kind of regret kissing him now because Loki the obtuse was back and I figured I'd get no more out of him.
But he surprised me again by moving forward and taking my hand. He looked down into my eyes, his now a storm of green/blue. A look of sadness flashed across his face.
"I really want to give them to you darling, I really do," he said caressing my hand with his fingers, "there's no time and they aren't mine to give, you need to talk about all this with your father and if you are going to make your audition, you're going to have to leave almost immediately."
I looked into his eyes not satisfied with this reply; looking for answers I knew I wasn't going to get. If he said I had to ask my dad then that was subject closed.
He rubbed my hand again, sighing like he really wanted to say more but I could see his mind ticking over and knew he wouldn't, knew he was up to something, knew there was some sort of internal struggle going on in that great big brain of his. But there had been a switch and he finally felt fully human to me. My heart panged just a little and I wondered if I really needed to leave. It's beautiful here in this garden, a garden I get the feeling we've spent a bit of time in over the years. Flittering images of reading books, catching butterflies and of daisy chains enter my mind and exit out again just as fast. Flittering images of a young man and a gawky teen; flittering images of my grandmother and occasionally an older man. I look from the garden back into his eyes and I see something switch.
"You need to get going," he say a little more forcefully, like his mind had suddenly clicked in and overcome his emotions (yeah I'm still getting use to him having emotions but I think he really does run a lot deeper than I gave him credit for and I have a feeling I might be part of the reason he buries things deep – but I can't be sure).
"But what if I want to stay?" I ask looking defiantly into his eyes.
"You need to do your audition," he is all matter-of-fact now.
I nod.
"But I need to come back too," I say and now I'm rubbing his hand.
"It's too dangerous," he says quietly looking at me sadly.
"My choice," I say standing my ground.
"You don't have all the information!"
I sigh.
"Still my choice when I do."
He sighs in exasperation and shrugs. It's his way of giving in and I know I'll be back. I kind of don't care at that point what my father says, Loki feels less aggressive and more lost now and I'm the sort of person who collects lost souls (usually stray animals) but something in me is changing. I might be remembering or sensing something, I might be falling under his spell or I might just be going insane – (short trip in this family).
I reach up and touch his face gently with my hand and then softly I touch our lips. It's soft and it's quick and he barely responds.
"You have to go and you have to be safe," he says quietly when I pull back.
"Oh yeah," I smile a little, feeling a little more brave. "So are you going to come."
"No," he says shaking his head. "No you're safer without me, your safe when no-one knows how I feel about you," he adds looking out over my head when he says this last bit. My heart pounds a little at this. I want to ask how he feels but I know there's no time and I know I'd probably get a smartarsed answer at the moment.
He gives me a wry smile and he rolls his eyes as if he's reading my mind.
And it finally clicks. He is – maybe not all the time but he is.
"You bastard," I hiss shaking my head.
"How long?"
Loki chuckles.
"I really do have to stop kissing you," I hear. But he doesn't say it out-loud –oh no now I'm hearing the ratfink in my own head.
"I couldn't really at first but every touch and contact brings you clearer and clearer into my brain."
I shake my head.
"You bastard," I think back to him. A mischievous smile plays on his lips.
"You said that!"
I huff out a breath in exasperation.
His eyes go serious then and he tells me that it really is time to go but that we can't go with anyone knowing our connection; they have to think we hate each other. It's the only way I'll be safe.
"Won't be hard," I send to him still mad that he's been slowly but surely insinuating himself into my mind. I feel remorse roll back off him and I giggle. So it's a two way street. A smart-arsed comment comes my way and then I snap us back to the here and now.
"What do you want me to do?"
It's then we formulate a plan – we fight – verbally joust I run back into the orangery he stalks behind me, I tell him I never want to see him again and demand to go home. Nula checks me over and I'm out of there.
It works, I'm a good actress and Loki missed his calling too.
Nula's checks clear me – as long as I travel properly and not in the unhinged and untethered way I arrived then I should be fine. Heimdal and suddenly I'm on earth, in Loki's flat with dad and Nula, who checks my vital signs and gives me more of her vial potions and orders me to rest.
Two hours later, earth time, she rouses me – more potion and a cup of tea and I'm off to the theatre and into the audition, with my father by my side. There is no time to talk then and it's seven pm when we get back, just time to eat the takeaway we've brought in for dinner and for Nula to give me the sleeping draught she wants me to take.
And now here I am in the morning light watching the large man, who is my father sleep. He's stretched out on a lounge that fits me (at Six foot) comfortable but makes his 6'4 frame look a little more like a concertina than a human being. I wonder if Loki has ever tried to sleep on the lounge probably not if my father's predicament is anything to go by. But I don't think my father would have slept much last night. I know him, thought I heard him walking down the hall, and passed the bedroom I shared with Nula. He has always been protective of me, I'd always thought it was because I was the first born and only girl, I'm starting to realise it's more than that. Starting to realise that after losing my mother, his grip on me would have tightened. And yet he ran for a time, overcome by grief, before Jane rebuilt his heart and he came to claim me. His infant daughter.
But I wasn't an infant.
Couldn't have been if my memories of Loki and that kiss were correct.
And they were.
I knew that now.
I'd kissed Loki.
Lord Hotpants and I had locked lips before yesterday – though of course nothing like yesterday's kiss – there wasn't much like yesterday's kiss in existence.
I make my cup of tea as I stare are my father, quietly gathering cups and teabags, trying not to wake him. He looks tired, even in sleep and I wonder what is going through his head. I wonder what he isn't telling me, hasn't told me, I wonder why and then of course I trip and drop my cup on the floor, it smashes on the tiles and he bolts upright.
Sigh.
God I'm a klutz.
He looks dazed and his head swivels and his eyes darts as he tries to work out a) where he is and b) what happened. Finally he settles on me cursing to myself as I lean down to pick up my cup, well the pieces of said crockery.
"Are you okay Caity?" he asks with concern.
I sigh again.
"Yes just my clumsy self – there wasn't any water in it yet – all good."
He breathes out then, visibly relaxes as I find the dustpan and broom and hope to gods that this wasn't one of Loki's favourite cups.
The jug boils finally as I wrap the pieces in kitchen towel and throw them in the bin.
"Do you want one?" I throw over my shoulder as I reach for another cup.
"If there are enough cups," dad teases.
I groan, he laughs heartily and it all feels normal and oh so domestic.
Except it's not.
It's still weird and there is a long-horned, long-haired, tight-clothing wearing elephant in the room and we both know it. Both know it's time to really discuss who I am, what I am and what I need to be. I'm drawn towards Asgard, I'm drawn to Loki. Yeah he's an arse but there's more to the story than what I've been told. I've had the beginners abridge version but dad needs to come clean. I need to know.
I don't say any of this. He's moved to the table and I come across with his tea – English breakfast – a touch of milk. I plonk myself on the chair opposite him and hold my cup of earl grey – black – in both hands. It's April in the UK and it should be getting warmer but we're from South Western NSW, the outback to anyone who doesn't live there, April in London is never going to be warm when you've just started to come out for 30 C plus weather.
I say nothing I just sit quietly on my chair, opposite him, warm my hands on my cup and stare into its depths. The liquid inside is dark, dark like my hair, dark like Loki's hair.
"I left for a long time, years and years I travelled the universe – the whole universe," he said finally his blue eyes clouded with memory.
"You were, well you were just becoming a woman, growing up, you needed a mother more than a father than. You didn't have one of your own but you had my mother and your aunt – Sif – your mother's sister – not my younger sister," he added sipping his tea thoughtful.
"I'll always need you dad," I say placing my own cup in one hand and reaching across the table with the other. He looks down at my outstretched fingers and tentatively reaches to touch them with his own.
"I was no use to you then, I was no use to anyone."
"And then I met Jane, out of the entire universe I met a woman from the same planet as your mother's mother – not a Celtic princess this time but still someone to love and be loved by.
"I had a new wife and I wanted you with me, I wanted my daughter to be part of my family but I returned home and you'd grown up, sixteen in earth years I suppose," he sighed taking another sip.
"So much like your mother, so headstrong, I wanted you to come with me but my mother told me your life was on Asgard and you were reluctant, so reluctant"
He sighs and takes another sip of his tea, a long look in to his cup and then his eyes return to me. Sad and a little lost.
"I didn't know why until that night – the feast for your name day – you're coming of age – you danced with him that night, it was all clear then, too clear," he sighed.
I look at him inquisitively and he smiles, it's still sad and comes nowhere near his eyes.
"The whole of Asgard saw the two of you dance together, you would have to be blind not to realise that Loki had chosen his queen, I suppose it came as a surprise to know one and yet..........." he breaks off looking back into his cup.
"And yet," he mumbles, sighing before looking back up to me. "And yet it must have shocked someone because just a day later there were death threats against you, or so I thought. I'd been going to leave, to leave you to him with him but............well when my father told me. I knew I couldn't leave you, except they weren't true. I know that now, I found out a year or two ago – Loki found out and he made me promise to tell you. My father made them up – I'm not sure why."
I look shocked at that, shaking my head profusely, trying to work out why my grandfather would do that. It didn't make any sense. Surely he'd want the future king to marry his grand-daughter.
"We convinced you – Loki and I – convinced you, that the two of you would be safer, my father did the magic, I took a toddler to earth," he said draining the last of his tea and looking at me for? For reassurance? Comfort?
All he got was wide-eyed shock.
"Loki found out, when he took the throne and he's been insisting ever since, insisting you be told," he finished.
"But I selfishly thought you'd forgotten."
He squeezes my hand then.
"But the heart wants what the heart wants," he smiled then, a brighter smile and I've finally reached the point where the power of words are back within my grasp and I go to talk.
Of course it's then my phone rings.
And once again my future hangs in the balance.