19 FEBRUARY, 2011
ASTRID
The queen found her in the courtyard. The sun was going down, hugging the horizon as its orange light spilled out onto the vast crystal-blue waterfalls beyond the kingdom.
"Astrid," said Frigga breathlessly, rushing her into a hug that both knocked the breath from Astrid and surprised her. "Gods above, I thought you'd been hurt terribly."
Astrid felt a painful twinge of guilt in her chest. "I'm so sorry, Frigga. My magic was overwhelming me, what with everything you and Loki were talking about-"
Frigga stopped her with a swift gesture of her hand. "You were spying on me and my son?"
Her blood froze over. The queen's arched eyebrow struck more fear into Astrid's heart than any kidnapping or waterboarding ever had. "I-I didn't..."
But Frigga shook her head, smiling wickedly. "I suppose I shouldn't have underestimated your talent-nor your curiosity."
Astrid hung her head. "I'm sorry."
"What's important is that you're safe, dear." Frigga lay a hand on her shoulder. "I don't want to think what my son might have said to me if you were put in danger under my care."
"I have a feeling you're the only person he wouldn't eagerly turn into a toad," said Astrid.
Frigga laughed. "You're probably right."
"I'm worried," said Astrid. "And I think that's the worst part. I never used to be worried about anything."
"What changed?" asked Frigga, making a sweeping gesture towards the canopied alcove in which they had sat days before. Astrid took it as an invitation to walk and talk.
"Just about everything." Astrid wrung her hands. "Including your son coming into my life."
Frigga laughed lightly. "He's always been somewhat of a subject of worry for me as well."
"He's been one of the best parts, actually," said Astrid. "He's been a real friend to me. That's something I've never had before."
"Loki rarely socializes with anyone on Asgard besides his family, and even then it's often paired with reluctance. But to make friends with a Midgardian... I'd say you're very special, Astrid."
Frigga was smiling warmly at her, but all Astrid felt was an uncomfortable weight sitting on her chest. "I want to continue training," she said. "I won't give up this time. I promise, Your Majesty."
"I have no doubt in your resilience," said Frigga firmly. "What concerns me is not your ability, but that of your magic. Such unfiltered power within a human... I regret to say such a rarity has proven dangerous."
"Has?" Astrid sat down as they reached the flowery alcove. "People have had magic this strong before?"
"A select few," said Frigga in a way that suggested those humans hadn't fared particularly well. "There are people on Midgard who worship us as gods-have for thousands of years."
"The Scandinavians," said Astrid. She'd done some reading on Norse mythology in Loki's books. She'd held no interest in gods and goddesses until she met-and babysat-one.
Frigga nodded slightly as though appreciating Astrid's knowledge. "In older times, we would visit them from Asgard, and they would write stories of us in their own books. That was how those legends began," she said. "But the cost of interacting so closely with humans was high, and one poor girl paid dearly."
Astrid didn't want to ask, but she did. And Frigga, solemnly but still with all of her regal stature, answered. "Her name was Hild. She was a small, skinny thing because she always gave her share of food to her elder brother, who had fallen ill. She didn't want her brother to die, so she begged my husband to spare him. But Odin swore an oath not to meddle with human lives-not when they were put on Earth to be without guide from a higher power."
"So her brother died?"
Frigga didn't need to confirm it. "Hild was distraught, and furious-understandably so. She cursed the gods, cursed Odin, and turned her back on us."
Astrid's heart was heavier now. "Was the king..."
"Guilty?" Frigga's eyes flashed with something dark. "Not particularly. His father had instilled within him a tendency to avoid conflict. Taking a risk to heal Hild's brother would only lead to trouble in his eyes. More humans seeking aid, more coming to him to mend their problems when they were meant to thrive on their own, and eventually more humans warring with one another when they were not placed first in line."
"Humans are a volatile bunch," said Astrid.
"What we hadn't known-what I should have suspected-was that Hild was raised by a witch. She harnessed the magic of her ancestors to bring her brother back to life, and for a great toll.
"Necromancy is a dangerous affiliation, especially when channeled through predecessors. The magic was powerful, and Hild could only harness it for so long until she became weaker than she already was.
"I suppose, in the end, she got what she had bargained for. Hild's brother awoke one night and killed her with his once-dead hands. The reason for her desperation was ultimately her downfall."
Astrid breathed in the scent of flowers: Asgardian ones she knew didn't grow anywhere on Earth, for they were larger than dinner plates and riddled with razor-sharp spikes, yet smelled somehow sweeter than vanilla. "I know what it's like to be unprepared for tragedy," she said quietly. "I lost someone a while ago, and I would've done anything to get him back. Just like Hild. But..."
Frigga pursed her lips. "He was not what you'd thought him to be when he was alive."
"Precisely." She didn't bother asking how she knew that. "I had a dream earlier. It wasn't a dream, actually, because I remember it. Well, I didn't remember it, but I remembered not remembering it. You know?" Frigga tilted her head. Astrid sighed. "I have these holes in my memory. I'd assumed they were the result of lots of blows to the head throughout my career, but I think they were something else. And today, I began to remember."
"What did you see, dear?" Frigga lay a hand over hers, clearly sensing the weight that was crushing Astrid's heart into metal dust.
"He did something to me." She closed her eyes, tried to remember. Scott smiling, eyes emotionless, that damned light blinding her. "I think he made me forget."
"Forget what?"
Astrid thought harder. Pictured the heavy metal doors; the hard, cold table on which she'd lay; The Man in the Corner and his words: I'm sorry... again. "I don't know," she said, her mouth dry, the weight pressing so hard she was gasping for breath. "But I think that was the point. Whatever he did, so many times, for so damn long... it was bad, and cruel, and nothing I'd ever thought he would do to me. And he wanted me to forget it, because if I didn't, I would leave him."
"And he wanted you to stay with him because...?"
Astrid shrugged, but it took every ounce of energy that her memory hadn't chewed up. "I was his best agent. I did everything for him, and most of the time without question."
Frigga's brows knitted together. "Astrid," she said with a slight shake of the head, "what did this man mean to you?"
"He was my father," said Astrid simply. She'd rehearsed this many times in front of the mirror after Scott's death. After he would hit her for failing a mission. After he wouldn't talk to her for days because she'd done something wrong and he wouldn't tell her how to fix it. And she would have fixed it, because Scott Gilbert had deserved the best. Now, all Astrid could do was fight the bile rising up through her stomach. He was never much of a father, except when he was. Those were the times she'd chosen to remember, because he could be a person when he really tried.
Frigga was staring deeply at her. "Nobody who hurts their child with intent deserves to be a parent, Astrid. He was no father, nor was he a good man."
She knew this. Of course she knew this. Accepting it was a different story. "I just don't understand"-she surprised herself when she choked on her words, golden tears falling from her eyes in hot streaks that felt like they would scar her face-"why he would hurt me."
Frigga placed both delicate hands on either side of Astrid's face and Astrid, unable to breathe from the crushing weight on her chest, overlapped them with hers. She was back in that metal room, lying cuffed to that cold table, forced to stare at that blinding light and his haunting eyes that, as she thought more about them, seemed devoid of life long before he was murdered. He admired his tools. Brought the light closer... Grinned, wild and malicious and so unfeeling...
"Breathe, my dear," cooed Frigga. "You're panicking."
Her heart was in her stomach. Her head swirled with memory, golden forks of lightning stabbing her behind the eyes. Scott, the table, the light. Those tools, The Man in the Corner. Scott, Scott, Scott.
"Astrid, you are safe," said Frigga, a little more urgently. "You are not in that room. You are on Asgard, with me. You are safe."
Astrid wanted to listen. God, she wanted to listen so terribly that she screamed in hopes of shattering the memory like glass. She only saw Scott's face now, half-shrouded in darkness but looming closer now, holding something in his hand. Astrid sobbed, thrashing and begging and screaming at him to leave her alone, to just leave her alone-
And then, a voice.
She'd heard it before. Not Frigga's, nor anyone's she'd ever known. Inhuman, almost, but somehow more comforting now. No longer the malicious figure in her subconscious that she'd come to fear. Now, a relief. It splintered the memory into shards of deep black glass that she knew not to reach for because they would cut her open.
You will be saved.
Astrid opened her eyes. Breathed the air. Smelled the alien flowers and blinked. She was here, so here and so present, and she saw Frigga, sitting before her with a wildly desperate look in her eye, her hands clutching Astrid's with an Asgardian strength she'd only just realized hurt terribly.
"I'm sorry," was the first thing she said. Well, more like gasped as her breath returned in one swift push into her lungs.
Frigga's shoulders, which were always perfectly perpendicular to her slender neck, slumped in relief. "Gods above," she said weakly, pulling Astrid into yet another hug.
The weight in her chest was gone. The memory lingered, but it wasn't choking her. It was a distant cloud of bleak smog that loomed over the cityscape that sprawled before her in her mind. So much to think about, to consider, to learn...
"I want to continue my training," she said again, more firmly and without hesitation.
Frigga pulled away, using a motherly touch to tuck some hair behind Astrid's ear. "You need rest, Astrid."
She shook her head. "I can't fall asleep," she said. "I'll see it again, I know I will."
Frigga, despite her evident state of mild shock, smiled wryly. "So you plan to never sleep again? Even we Asgardians cannot thrive without the occasional long night's rest."
Astrid knew she would lose this battle, but she wasn't tired. Not yet. "I want to continue my training."
Frigga squeezed her hands and sighed. "Sleep tonight," she said. "Your magic cannot function properly if you do not. Meet me here, at noon tomorrow. If you are late, do not think I won't send a crow to peck at your ears until you are dressed and ready to learn."
Astrid smiled for the first time today, and her cheeks stretched so widely she felt her tear tracks burning. "Thank you."
"Go and find Loki," said Frigga in an almost playful tone. "I expect he will be worried sick when he finds you out of bed."
Feeling more awake than ever, Astrid bid good-bye to the queen (another hug was involved; Astrid had begun to crave her embraces) and took the long way back to Loki's rooms. She took three wrong turns before relenting to ask a guard where to find them, and, as she suspected, she walked in on Loki pacing back and forth, his fingers tapping against his mouth in a thoughtful yet desperate manner.
She knocked softly on the open door. Loki's eyes lifted and widened when he saw her. The scars on her stomach had begun to hurt less, but they still burned something terrible when Loki crossed the room and swept her up into a hug that lifted her off the floor.
Her nose was buried in his neck and his hands, one tightly pressed against her back and the other cradling the back of her head, felt so strong. She relished in the comfort he brought her for the moment in which neither of them spoke. But someone would have to say something eventually. Muffled as her voice was, Astrid managed a couple words.
"Loki... ow..."
Wordlessly he set her down, eyes scanning her for any more injuries. "I told you not to leave," he said, frowning just the way his mother did: in a way that displayed his concern even more clearly than if it were written across his forehead.
"A lot can happen in a few hours," she said. "How was your walk?"
Loki blinked. "I returned a half-hour ago," he said in a rush. She knew he'd forgotten about his walk until she'd asked about it.
"I was with your mom," said Astrid before he could ask. "I'll explain everything, Loki."
"I couldn't reach you," he said rapidly, as though trying to fit all his thoughts into a small square window of time. "I tried to talk to you through our thoughts, but your mind had been blocked off. It was dark, Astrid, so dark it could have been pitch. I thought-"
"I'm okay." Those words were such a massive lie that she couldn't even push them past her lips without her voice breaking. An attempt to be more convincing had her reaching for his hand, but he seemed so lost in the fact that she was alive that he didn't stop looking at her. "Loki."
He licked his lips and opened his mouth for a moment without speaking, as though he was trying to remember how to talk. "Please don't ever frighten me like that again."
She smirked. "Your concern for my life is flattering."
He stalled for a moment and then rolled his eyes, and Astrid knew he was back on this plane. "As though you don't value mine."
She flicked him in the forehead. "I care for you just about as far as I can throw you."
Loki's eyes narrowed. "If you do that again..."
"You'll kill me?"
"Some days, I truly wish I could."
"And why can't you?" asked Astrid. "Is it because I could kick your ass any day of the week?"
"It's because"-Loki pulled back his index finger and flicked her gently on the nose-"I happen to care whether you live or die."
She scowled. "I guess I care about you, too."
Loki's lips pulled back into a flicker of a smile. "Will you at least tell me what happened to you?"
She did. She sat him down first, though, because she knew he would get so riled up he couldn't stand still. She told him about her memory, about Scott, about the panic attack and the voice and how it actually comforted her, when days ago she would have felt as though death was on her doorstep upon hearing it in her head. She told him how she wanted to continue her training, and how she wouldn't take no for an answer because if there was a way to find out what Scott Gilbert had really done to her, if there was a way to find out why, then her magic was the key.
When she finished, Loki was quiet. His green eyes were ponderous and searching as he looked at her, expressionless though terrible at concealing his emotions. Mostly because Astrid could see them all the time. She counted a minute before he said anything.
"I can sleep here tonight," he said softly, as though he was afraid she would hear him, "if you'd like."
She didn't know what she'd expected him to say, but she was certain that wasn't it. "What?"
Loki looked down at his hands, which were clenched white-knuckled around the material of his coat. "I don't want you to be alone."
Astrid hesitated. "I thought you hated sharing a bed-what with the inner diva in you and all."
"I do not know what a diva is, but I would suggest you stop calling me one lest I transform you into a mouse."
"That's so something a diva would say."
"My offer is on borrowed time," said Loki through clenched teeth.
She sighed. "Fine. But if you hog the blankets, just know that I've got calves of steel and I'm not afraid to kick you in the nuts."
Loki threw his pillow at her head. "You are irritating to absolutely no end, Astrid Louvelle."
She peeled the pillow from her face and blew her hair out of her eyes. "Then why bother at all? I've got a lot of shitty baggage, you know."
"You are worth it," said Loki as thought it was the simplest thing.
She paused, halfway through preparing to hurl the pillow back at him. I'm worth it?
Worth what? Self-pity, long sleepless nights, and miserable days without even a glimpse of the sun? Why was she worth all of these things to him? Nobody would ever wish to go through that for something else. Nobody could possibly care for someone that much.
Or maybe they could. Astrid didn't know. Nobody had ever cared for her, nor she for anyone.
But now, someone did. And he was real, and infuriating, and gentle, and he was her friend. That was why she smiled and said, "We should go to bed, then."
Because no matter how desperately she wanted to stay awake, she knew he would be there all night. That was something different, and it wasn't bad.
They slept so far apart she was nearly slipping off the silk bedsheets onto the floor. He would tug the blankets towards him and she would proceed to kick him in the ankle, but he was there, and Astrid was almost tempted to smile.
"Thank you for staying with me," she whispered to the air, not caring if he was asleep but for some reason hoping he wasn't.
And he said in a tone that suggested he was smiling, Loki said, "You'd be lost without me, darling."
Although he wasn't far from the truth, Astrid snorted. "In your dreams."
He was quiet for a long while, and Astrid wondered if he was actually sleeping this time. "I'll always be here for you, Astrid."
The gears in her heart sparked to life something warm that didn't feel particularly dangerous. She allowed herself to feel it, grateful for the friend lying beside her.
"Thank you, Loki."
Knowing what would come once she fell asleep, Astrid closed her eyes, engulfed by an inescapable darkness, and let the nightmare greet her-ready, afraid, and so small in this infinite world.
•••
A U T H O R ' S N O T E
Sorry about the long chapter! I had a lot I wanted to do with it, and I needed to sneak some more Astrid and Loki time in there at the end. I hope you guys don't hate me for all the scrolling in this one. Until next time!