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#and may or may not be hunting for hidden details in loki
chipper9906 · 3 years
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Heal The Cracks Within My Heart - Chapter 8: Homesick
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WARNING: SPOILERS FOR LOKI SEASON 1 EPISODE 6 ‘FOR ALL TIME. ALWAYS.’
Pairings: Loki/Sylvie
Rating: General Audiences
Chapter Word Count: 7,142
Overall Word Count: 72,547
Status: Multi Chapter Fic - In Progress (8/?)
Chapter Preview:
“Is it because you don’t want to hit me?” It takes everything Sylvie has not to physically laugh in his face. “I know we’ve grown a fair bit closer since then, but you seemed to have no trouble doing it in the past. You slammed my face into that… stool thing, remember? Just… think about how annoying you found me then, or… or think about when I accidentally destroyed the TemPad, or -- Oh! How angry you were when I tried to stop you from killing He Who Remains, that was -- Oh wait! A little bit earlier, when I said about falling in love with this other version of you! What would you do if you saw me after catching me flirting with—”
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The morning after was never usually so comfortable for Sylvie.
That was because most of the time… there was no morning after. It didn’t matter how kindly her partner for the evening has treated her, or how clingy they became — whether they knew the Apocalypse was upon them or not. She would never, ever, let herself fall asleep in a strangers bed, or… or couch, or… well, sometimes in an Apocalypse, it’s more of a ‘hook up in this dark alley’ kind of moment, so it wasn’t like she would be getting any sleep there, either. 
It was a new experience for her. For a moment, she wasn’t sure why she had awoken with a smile on her face, given that there isn’t usually anything good happening in her life to warrant its presence. But then her sleep-addled mind registered the sensation of arms securely wrapped around her, of warm, bare skin pressed against her own, and the memories of last night came flooding back: clothes haphazardly tossed to the side, slick mouths sliding together, hands exploring toned muscles that danced under each others touch, fingers tangling into long locks as breathy moans are panted against each other's lips, the feel of sweat covered skin as they moved against one another. 
She hadn’t realized just how much she wanted this, how much she had been missing. She had only really known the physical side of sex, because… it is a very physical act. But now she knows how different it is when she’s not letting some random stranger be the one to explore her body, but someone she cares for, and someone she knows cares for her in return. No, not just cares for her, but loves her. 
She still couldn’t quite believe it, even though Loki had repeated the confession a few times at her request. She had never really considered the possibility of love — both loving someone, and having someone love her back. There had been no room for it in her life, living the way that she did, and she could never look past the mission. It hadn’t seemed to matter what became of her life once she took down the TVA; revenge had been all she knew, and all she ever wanted. 
It was strange that now, that want had transitioned from one singular mission to… a person. Actually, when she thought about it… that was greatly oversimplifying things. She wanted more than just Loki, she wanted… a life with him, some sense of normalcy — as normal as normal can be in their life, anyway. Something other than being on the run constantly, or being hunted down, or being the one doing the hunting. 
Even now, living in this small slice of domesticity with Loki, she still struggled to see that future. Not just because she’s never lived that kind of life, but because… she couldn’t see an end to this. It had taken all this time to kill one man, and now… they have to kill endless amounts of that same man?
They still had so much to learn about the Multiverse. Even if she could wrap her head around the number of timelines that now exist, and even if they could kill every version of He Who Remains in those timelines… wouldn’t there always be timelines popping up into existence with every small alteration? From one singular timeline, there had been an eruption of other timelines, to which those timelines bred their own timelines, and so on and so on. Killing every version of He Who Remains — or at least, the bad versions — didn’t seem like a job they could just… wrap up and then carry on with their lives. It wasn’t even a job that seemed achievable in their lifetimes. They would have to pass it on to someone else — which then brought up the question of who they would pass such a burden onto, especially when… when all this was on her. 
Or… or they’d have to find a way to run things from outside the limits of time. Set up shop in the citadel at the end of time, keeping them from aging so they can do this… endlessly. Never growing old, never able to find a moment of peace. It would make these little moments they found within Apocalypses seem like dream vacations in comparison…
“Should I be worried over whatever you’re worrying about?”
Sylvie startles at the sound of Loki’s voice, shuffling around and glancing up to see him peering down at her with groggy eyes.
The clarity slowly comes back into Loki’s eyes as he wakes up. It was surprisingly easy for Sylvie to lose track of her thoughts when his eyes met hers, still able to picture the way they had looked last night:  the blue of his irises all but disappearing as his pupils took over; darkened eyes hungrily taking her in, drinking in every detail and preserving it to memory like he may never get the chance to see her like this again—
“Sylvie?”
“Uh…” Sylvie snaps herself back to the present. “…What makes you think I’m worrying over anything?”
Sylvie feels Loki’s arms shrug around her. “Call it a hunch. Or… call it the fact that you feel so tense, I was wondering if you were about to bolt from the bed.”
Loki’s tone was a joking one, but Sylvie could hear that little tidbit of anxiety hidden in there, too. He genuinely thought that the last part was a possibility, and whilst she knew that wasn’t going to happen, she couldn’t blame Loki for thinking so. 
“Nothing, just… overthinking, as usual.” She gives him a small smile, one that he mirrors back at her. 
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’m… just getting used to the feeling of all this, I suppose.”
Loki chuckles in agreement, glancing around at the cozy wooden and stone walls of the Inn that sheltered them from the elements. The single window situated in the wall to the left of them showed views of the snow-covered forest they had come from, the few snowflakes they could see lazily drifting to the ground in no way an indicator of the deathly snowstorm that was supposed to befall this picturesque little village. 
Sylvie turns herself around in Loki’s arms until they were face to face. “Aren’t we supposed to be out there saving all the universes?” she asks teasingly, playfully nudging her knee against his. 
Loki lets out an odd mixture between a hum and a groan. “We probably should be, yes. Doesn’t mean I want to right this minute, though.”
Loki was much too comfortable right now to do much of anything. He didn’t want this small bubble of peace they were engulfed in to be burst — which it would be. It always is. But if he could just get a few extra minutes of this, then… He’d do whatever good deed the universe… universes —plural — was now apparently expecting of him.
Sylvie apparently agreed with him, seeming in no hurry to escape the comfort of the bed’s plush blankets — or his arms, for that matter. 
“How did you end up being the big spoon?” Sylvie asks him, referring to the sleeping position she had woken up in.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Loki was getting strangely offended at the challenge to his role in spooning. “I am the taller one; it makes more sense for me to be the big spoon.”
“Hmm… you didn’t exactly have that kind of mentality last night,” Sylvie’s words land exactly the way she intended, grinning at the flush that steadily made its way across Loki’s face. “The man who clamors for control… actually prefers being dominated.”
“When it’s you,” Loki grumbled. 
“Oh? So you’re more… ‘in control’ with other partners?”
“Yes,” Loki asserts, trying to claw back some of his pride. “I usually prefer being the one who dictates the flow of things… leaving my partner at my mercy — and my mercy alone.”
“Mm-Hmm,” Sylvie hums thoughtfully, peering up at Loki through squinted eyes. “So… why did you leave all that to me last night?”
“Because, when I typically take control, I intend for my partner to thoroughly enjoy it,” Loki answers. “With you… I didn’t think you’d like that all that much; losing control, especially when in... in such a vulnerable state. I…”
Loki paused for a moment, frowning in concentration as he tried to find the right words. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but… I think we both know that all of your previous partners have been one-time affairs, have they not? With this, I…”
“Were you… worried you wouldn’t compare?” Sylvie asks.
“What? No—” It was kind of that, but it wasn’t the main point Loki was trying to get across. “—No, it’s…” Loki sighed harshly. “Call me sappy if you’d like, but… I guess a part of me was scared you might see this as another one of those one-time things. I… I didn’t want to do anything that you’re not comfortable with, so I just let you take the reins, because… the last thing I wanted to do was scare you off. I wanted to ensure that this, that our first time with each other, would be one to deposit into your good memories. Because, whilst it might be our first time, I was rather quite hoping that it would be the first of many.”
Oh…
Loki’s eyes dropped down and away from her, and just like that, any pretensions of teasing him any further had flown right out the window. Sylvie lifted up her hand from where it rested against the bed, placing it tenderly across his cheek. Her thumb slowly drifted up and down across the sharp edge of his jaw, drawing his line of sight back to hers. 
“First of all? You don’t need to worry about comparing yourself to the others. Not one bit,” Sylvie assures him. “In fact, it doesn’t even compare. None of them do.”
Her words at least seem to be reaching Loki as the truth she intended them to be, the corner of his lips curling up by just the slightest. A part of her wondered if he was playing this as a whole ‘self-conscious lover’ kind of thing so she’d sit here and boost his ego. Then again, she’d probably do the same thing…
“Secondly, I fully intend for this to be a regular occurrence,” Sylvie states like it’s a matter of fact. Loki raises an eyebrow in surprise at the confidence in her voice — but naturally, he doesn’t question it. He’d have to be crazy to question such a thing. “And… okay, so you might have been right—”
“I’m sorry, what was that?” Loki asks in disbelief, untangling one of his arms to cup his hand around his ear. “My, my… hearing that might just have felt better than—”
Sylvie shut him up with a swift punch to the arm, glaring at his ear-to-ear grin. “Egotistical bastard…”
“Sorry, sorry -- you were saying?”
Sylvie kept up the glare for a good few seconds more before she continued. “I was just going to say… thank you. Letting me… be the one in charge, it… it helped keep me at ease. And I know you wouldn’t do anything to me, but… bad habits die hard, I guess.”
“It’s okay,” Loki reassured her, lazily drifting his knuckles across the soft skin of her chin. “Having this… it’s already more than I ever thought I’d have. One step at a time, right? These are big changes; I wouldn’t just expect you to jump between them like it they’re no problem.”
“No -- but I’ll still give it my all.” Sylvie surges up to plant a soft kiss on his lips, pulling away before she lets it lead into a repeat of last night that they, unfortunately, didn’t have time for. 
Ironic, considering they had two devices in their possession capable of transporting them through time and space. 
“But that means you’ve got to start pushing me a little, too. Sometimes I’m going to need some help, someone to nudge me out of my comfort zones, okay? I want to start meeting this other Loki your other partners have had the privilege to meet.”
Loki grins unabashedly at her, raising a hand to his head in a mock salute. “Yes, Ma’am.”
“Good. Now, come on—” Sylvie makes a start to get up, pulling herself out of Loki’s grip. “We should really start getting ready—”
Loki’s arms almost immediately snake back around her, dragging her back towards the warmth of the bed. Loki’s smile was nearly bright enough to match the pure white of the snow-blanketed on the windowsill, placed there not because of his actions, but because of hers. He knew that, if she really didn’t want to be pulled back into the bed, she would have stopped him. The fact that he was able to pull her back into his arms was because she was letting him.
Because she didn’t fancy leaving the bed as much as he didn’t
“Five more minutes?” he offers when she falls back into his chest. He uses his free hand to pull the blankets back around them before she even has a chance to respond to his offer. 
“Fine.” Sylvie sounded annoyed, but Loki could hear the pleased undercurrents to her tone. “Just five more minutes.”
Two hours later, Sylvie was perched on the edge of the bed, finishing up tying the laces on her boots. She watched Loki out of the corner of her eye as he crouched by the fireplace, extinguishing the last few stubborn embers that continued to burn despite most of the fire having burnt out during the night. 
Sylvie shrugged on the fur coat Loki had created for her — and then later discarded to the ground in his haste last night — reaching into its pockets and pulling out the TemPad. She slides it over her hand, squeezing her hand into a fist as she stares down at the TemPad. 
“Would be nice to stay here forever, wouldn’t it?” Loki says wistfully, leaning back from the now-empty fireplace with a bitter-sounding sigh.
Sylvie barely hears him, too preoccupied with running a finger down the singular timeline that glowed up at her. Loki looks over at her silence, standing up from the fireplace and making his way over to her. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his trousers, cocking his head at Sylvie as he comes to a stop in front of her. 
“Is it whispering secrets to you that I can’t hear?” he asks teasingly, leaning forward as if trying to listen in closer. 
“Oh, definitely.” Sylvie looks up from the TemPad with a sly smile. “It’s telling me every little dirty secret you’ve been trying to hide from me.”
“Ah… I’m afraid I don’t have any,” Loki counters. “At least, none that I’m aware I’m keeping from you.”
“Well, that’s not ominous…” Sylvie returns her gaze to the TemPad, tapping her finger against its surface. Not to input or choose anything, from what Loki could see. 
“Are you keeping secrets?” Loki jokes… for the most part. 
“None worth telling.”
Now that was ominous, Loki thought. 
Loki takes a seat on the edge of the bed next to her, sighing softly as he runs a hand across the top of his head to push his hair back and out of the way. “You going to tell me what you’re thinking about? Is it… something to do with what you were worrying about earlier?”
“No,” Sylvie answers, and it’s the truth. She wasn’t thinking about that — not right now, anyway. “I was… thinking of doing something selfish.”
A beat of tense silence passes between them. Sylvie glances up to see Loki looking rather concerned, his eyes darting between her and the TemPad she held. It was only natural that he was thinking back to the time she last used the TemPad doing something ‘selfish’, resulting in him tumbling back through a Time-Door and nearly ending up imprisoned and potentially reset. 
“...And… what exactly is that?” Loki finally gathers up the courage to ask. 
“I… I know that we should really get a start on this whole… saving everyone thing…” Sylvie begins, her choice of words getting a hushed snort of laughter from Loki. “But… ever since what Mobius told us, I… I haven’t been able to get them out of my head.”
“Get… who out of your head?”
Sylvie taps at the TemPad, the patterns of squiggly lines atop its surface shifting around until one lone timeline shone up at them. “My family. I know they’re out there now; my past life -- the life I could have lived.”
“You want to see them.” Loki didn’t phrase it as a question. 
“I know I probably shouldn’t. I know it… it won’t do me much good, to see everything I missed out on. But… it’s…”
“It’s home,” Loki uttered softly. 
“Is it selfish?” she asks him, dropping her hand back down to her lap. 
Loki takes in a deep breath through his nose, rocking back slightly. “If it is… I think you’re permitted to be, after everything that’s happened; everything that was taken from you. And besides—” Loki gestures to the TemPad. “—Maybe after we regale them with stories of the terrifying dictator we are courageously facing, we might just sway them into giving us a helping hand. The soldiers of Asgard would certainly be a good acquisition in the coming fight. We’ll need all the help we can get…”
“Kind of sounds like we’re building our own army…” Sylvie notes. 
“I suppose… we are,” Loki realizes. “But… not in the traditional way. There’s a difference, fighting using those under your command, than with… fighting alongside allies.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Sylvie says with an awkward shrug of her shoulders. “The only other person I’ve had fight by my side is… you.”
“Well... it won’t be long before we have more allies for you to compare.” Loki stands from the bed, nodding his head towards the TemPad on Sylvie’s hand. “And family is as good a place to start as any.”
A grateful smile hitches at the corner of Sylvie’s lips. She looks down to the TemPad, letting her finger hover over it for a moment before she pressed down on her timeline. The lights of the TemPad pulse with her touch, fading away as the Time Door materializes into existence in front of them. 
“Do you… want me to come with you?”
Sylvie whips her head around at his offer, confused as to why it was even a question of whether he was coming with her. She had thought it would be a given by this point. 
“I understand if you’d rather not have me there for something like this. That’s not to say I feel particularly comfortable with the thought of you being quite so far out of reach, but… if that’s something you want, then I can stay here with the other TemPad and meet up with you on a different—”
“Loki?”
Loki stops in his ramblings when she says his name, mouth snapping shut at the part-adoration-part-exasperation on her face. 
“...Yes?”
“Are you always this much of an idiot the morning after, or is this just a rare occurrence?”
Loki shoots her quite the impressive bitch-face. 
“You’re coming with.” Sylvie reinforces this by grabbing hold of his hand, giving it a squeeze as they move towards the shimmering time-door. “Let’s go home.”
“Wait, wait, wait—” Loki splutters urgently, digging his heels into the ground to bring Sylvie to a stop. She does so, looking back at him expectantly. “Just thought I’d check… you did enter a time before the events of Ragnarok, right? Just… you know, to make sure there’s actually a home to go back to…”
* * *
They hadn’t moved an inch since stepping through the Time-Door.
It was quite the juxtaposition: them, stood hidden within the shadows of the forest that sat on the outskirts of the city, whilst the streets of the city itself were bustling with life, crowded with people as they went about their lives. 
It was both overwhelming and not enough at the same time. Neither one of them had said a word, greedily taking in every sight of the place they both once called home. 
The palace stood proud and tall as always, golden and gleaming in the afternoon’s sun, casting an impressive shadow across the city it sat within. Loki wasn’t too sure if it was just nostalgic memories taking effect, but even the bridge itself seemed to be sparkling just that little bit more than what he remembers. 
“Does it live up to your memories?” Loki breaks the silence, somehow finding a way to tear his gaze away to look down to Sylvie. 
“I don’t know yet.” Sylvie’s eyes dance across the sights of the city, repeatedly landing back on the palace. “It… it doesn’t feel like I’m home. If anything, it’s more like… this weird sense of Deja-Vu. It feels familiar, and yet… like it’s the first time I’ve stepped foot in this place. 
“Well… maybe your memory will be jogged as we take a closer look,” Loki offers, gesturing towards the city. “…That is why we’re here, isn’t it? To see home, see our -- your -- family?”
Sylvie nods, unable to hide the nerves that were on full display. Loki steps in front of her, blocking her view of Asgard as he wraps his hands around the top of her arms. “I won't pretend to know how you’re feeling right now. Our memories of home are different; the way we see our home is different. But I know you want to do this.”
“I do,” Sylvie agrees, a glint of determination in her eyes. “I’m just… I never thought I’d get this, you know? Returning home was never something I thought I could do, because… because there wasn’t a home to return to. And now… I don’t know. I guess I’m worried it won't be the way I’m thinking it’ll be.”
“It probably won't be.” Loki surprises Sylvie with his answer — not at all the reassurance she thought she’d hear from him. “Expectations are almost always impossible to reach. But whatever home ends up being for you… surely it’ll be better than never knowing?”
Sylvie’s eyes drift to the small sliver of the palace she can see past Loki. Somewhere in there, is her family. Her mother, her father, her sister… even herself. She can’t walk away from them. She can’t just… leave them again. 
“Okay…” Sylvie modifies her fur coat with a burst of magic, forming a hood that she flips over her head. Loki raises an eyebrow as she hides her face within the shadows of the hood, reminded just a bit too much of the mysterious figure of her that he face to face with back in the RoxxCart. “You should be fine to walk the streets, but I’d rather not risk our people catching sight of two of me if my other self is out there somewhere.”
“Right…” Loki steps back to her side, joining her as they take one last look at the city from this distance. “Do we… do we want to meet the other you?”
“Could be fun,” Sylvie says with the beginnings of a smile. “It’d be interesting to see the type of person I became if… you know — the TVA had never decided to ruin my life.”
“Aren’t you worried?”
Sylvie frowns. “Worried about what?”
“Another version of you out there…” Sylvie could hear the smile in his voice before she saw it on his face, knowing right away he’s about to say something stupid as a joke. “Better hope I don’t go and fall in love with her, too…”
Sylvie slowly turns her head to face him, sporting a bitch-face that looked almost identical to Loki's. She steps up in front of him, wiping the joking smile off his face as she grabs hold of the neckline of his coat, tugging his face closer to hers. Loki swallows nervously, eyes flickering from the eerily calm look in hers to her lips oh so close to his. He wasn’t too sure whether she was trying to terrify him, or turn him on. Either way… both were working. 
“I suppose I’d have to get rid of my competition.” Sylvie’s other hand brushes agonizingly slowly up his chest, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake despite the thick clothing he wore. Loki finds himself leaning towards her, eager to close the minuscule gap between their lips. Sylvie jerks her head back before he gets what he wants, forcing him away with a firm push of her hand against his chest and a teasing smile on her face. “Or I suppose I could call you out for the idiot you’re being and leave your dumb-ass behind.”
Sylvie turns around and walks away from him, heading in the direction of the city and leaving a rather stunned-looking Loki behind. Loki stands there watching her retreating form for a moment until coming back to himself, shaking his head as he hurries after her. 
“So, just to be clear—” Loki starts as they approach the beginning of the city, emerging from the cover of the trees. “—Making jokes about myself and the other you are strictly off the table?”
“That depends.”
“On?”
“On whether you value your jokes over my affection.”
“Consider them off the table,” Loki asserts with a wave of his hand. “In fact, they’re more than just off the table; they’re no longer on this plane of existence, reduced to nothing more than a wisp of a former construct developed from—”
The first impression of the two Loki’s this universe is not entirely familiar with is seen through the eyes of a young Asgardian child, who watched as Sylvie unceremoniously shoved Loki into a stall to shut him up. 
“My deepest apologies, I must have tripped over my own feet.” Sylvie bit back a smirk as she continued walking, waiting for Loki to catch up with her after apologizing to the bewildered-looking owner of the stall. 
“Sorry, that was a tad bit harsh of me.” Sylvie has the decency to apologize to Loki as he reaches her side with a huff. 
“I think I might have landed on a wedge of cheese…” Loki wonders out loud, getting a snort of laughter from Sylvie. “If that man chases us down and demands payment for damages, I’ll pass the bill along to you…”
The people of Asgard were all wrapped up in their personal lives, some making their way through the busy streets as they make their way home, others congregated in small groups that added to the bustling crowds within the center of the city. All around them was the buzz of multiple conversations all occurring at once, muted laughter from their people as they went about their day, all sounds of… life. 
Sylvie had lost count of the number of people who had bumped her shoulder as they passed by each other in the crowded streets, tensing up at every touch as she waited for the inevitable moment they would recognize the Princess of Asgard mingling among the common people. Every time, she would pull her hood just that little more over her head, turning her entire body towards Loki as they walked. 
Yet… no one seemed to notice. She was just another name-less and face-less person to these people, going about her business the same as they were. Loki’s towering presence next to her was comforting, his hand wrapped securely around hers, appearing as just another couple walking the streets of Asgard. 
“They look happy,” Loki points out, referring to the swaths of people they had walked through. “It’s… good. Nice.”
“I’m just glad to see that me not being pruned doesn’t result in the destruction of our home…” Sylvie murmurs quietly, still not wanting to attract too much attention to herself.
Sylvie went to continue forward, only to find herself being pulled to a stop. She glances behind her shoulder, confused to see Loki frozen in place, staring at something to their right. She slowly turns towards the direction he was looking to, immediately laying eyes on what had brought him to a standstill. 
It was… her. Not the actual her, but a statue. Its well-polished bronze surface shone brightly as the sun beat down on it, displaying her in a rather impressive looking set of Asgardian Armor. Her metal figure stood proudly, wielding a familiar-looking sword in her hand that she held pointed to the ground, looking out towards the city and its inhabitants. 
“Huh.” Is all Loki can think to say. “That’s, um… that’s something.”
“I don’t know whether to take this as a good sign, or… a very bad sign.”
“...Bad as in…?”
“As in, this version of me had a similar hunger for ruling that you did.” Sylvie glowers up at the bronze cast version of herself. She shifts her gaze from the statue to the palace, the golden spires now looming over them, having inched closer and closer to home.
“We don’t know for sure yet,” Loki says. “We can't be sure of anything until we get in there, and… see exactly who it is that sits on the throne.”
* * *
The Palace was as beautiful as she remembered. 
She would have dreams of walking these halls, albeit from a much shorter height perspective. Everything was as pristine as usual, still clearly well looked after by those that serve her family. Sylvie was only really able to get a few moments to reminisce before yet another patrol of Einherjar would appear, this now being the fourth time she and Loki have had to duck and hide from their watchful eyes. 
“You know, Thor and I did something similar when we snuck out one night.” Loki’s breath tickles the side of her face as he whispers, the two of them hiding behind a marble pillar after waiting for the next set of patrols to pass.
“What for?”
“We were young, and decided that the fading of the sunlight shouldn’t dictate when the fun was to come to an end.”
Sylvie quickly checks to make sure the coast was clear before tugging at Loki’s sleeve to signal for him to move with her. Their footsteps are near-silent as they make their way down the hall, each step careful and deliberate to reduce the amount of noise they make.
“Were you caught?” Sylvie whispers in asking.
“Of course we were caught,” Loki answers. “Two foolish children stood no chance hiding from father's guards. I had only just started learning magic from mother, and to say I wasn’t particularly well-rehearsed in the art of deception and mischief at the time would be an understatement.”
“They realized you had snuck out, then?”
“Realized? They saw us making our escape attempt from a balcony. We weren’t terribly subtle with the way we went about it…”
"I can believe that." Sylvie holds out a hand to stop Loki as they approach a corner. They stand flush against the wall, Loki waiting just behind Sylvie as she cranes her head around the corner, taking a peek at what lies ahead. Or, more in particular, to see just who stood in the way between them and the throne room.
Between her, and..her family.
Or... Her and whatever this other version of herself had become...
"Two guards stationed outside the door," Sylvie whispers over her shoulder to Loki. "We could enchant them, but... I don't see a way we could get close enough to do it before they spot us."
"Hmm... If we can't rely on the element of surprise, then..."
Sylvie glances back over her shoulder, waiting for Loki to finish his sentence. She nearly has a heart attack when, instead of Loki, she comes face to face with one of the Einherjar. Her hand twitches, reaching for her sword, when something in the man's eyes brings her to a stop. There was something... Familiar shining in them. An odd sort of... Glee...
Oh, right, of course... Illusion Casting. What else did she expect from the God of Mischief…?
"Bit of warning next time, Loki," Sylvie grumbles under her breath. 
“I did,” Loki counters. “I said ‘we can’t rely on the element of surprise.’ That was my warning I was about to do something.”
Sylvie rolls her eyes with a barely audible sigh, leaning back around the corner to check on the guards. They were still stood ramrod straight in position, attentive eyes staring dead-ahead, as they usually were. 
“I could pretend to be escorting you, like I did on Lamentis,” Loki suggests. 
“Except the guards would probably be wondering why you’re escorting their Princess,” Sylvie shoots down his idea. “Also, there’s every chance you might be escorting me into the throne room, and in front of… me.”
“Right…” Loki mumbled in defeat. “Um… Illusion Casting requires a little bit more tutoring than a basic crash course, so… unless you suddenly become a master at that, too… we’re running out of options.”
Sylvie sighs from frustration, chewing absentmindedly on her bottom lip as she thinks. She takes another glance at the still stoic guards, quickly ducking back behind the corner to avoid being spotted. 
“Wait -- I think have a plan!” Loki whispers excitedly, bringing Sylvie’s attention back to him. “You need to punch me in the face.”
Sylvie was sure she hadn’t heard that right. “You… you want me to punch you in the face?”
“Need, not want; big difference between the two.” Loki lets the illusion of the spear in his hand fade away. He grabs Sylvie by the shoulders, maneuvering them around until he was the one standing by the corner, his back to the edge as he places Sylvie directly in front of him. “You need to get me right in the nose -- make me bleed.”
“You still haven’t explained to me what for?”
“To make it believable, of course!” Loki states like that helped explain his plan any further. “You’re going to hit me as hard as you can, and I’m going to be sent flying backward. The guards are going to rush to help me, and that’s when you step in and enchant one of them.”
“And what about the other one? I can’t enchant both at the same time.”
“I’ll enchant him from the ground,” Loki answered with a grin full of confidence. “Then we can just… put them to sleep and store them somewhere for the time being, steal their armor, and waltz right into that throne room.”
“I don’t know…” Sylvie didn’t hold quite the same confidence in Loki’s plan that he did, given that his last few plans have been less than stellar in both execution and their outcomes… 
“You have any better ideas?” Loki asked, and he had her there. “Look, I have complete faith that the both of us could… go rush them and subdue them ourselves. But could we do it quietly enough that no one hears us on the other side of the door? This way, we bring the guards to us, and take care of them before anyone knows what’s going on. It’s perfect!”
“I think ‘feasible’ would be a better word than ‘perfect…’”
“Is it because you don’t want to hit me?” It takes everything Sylvie has not to physically laugh in his face. “I know we’ve grown a fair bit closer since then, but you seemed to have no trouble doing it in the past. You slammed my face into that… stool thing, remember? Just… think about how annoying you found me then, or… or think about when I accidentally destroyed the TemPad, or -- Oh! How angry you were when I tried to stop you from killing He Who Remains, that was -- Oh wait! A little bit earlier, when I said about falling in love with this other version of you! What would you do if you saw me after catching me flirting with—”
CRACK
Sylvie’s knuckles land squarely in the center of Loki’s nose, the force of the impact sending Loki crashing into the wall opposite. She winced, both from not meaning to hit him that hard, and because the punch was forceful enough that it had ripped open the skin above her knuckles. Loki’s nose was — as expected — bleeding quite profusely from the hit, made all the worse by the edge of the TemPad on her hand catching him right across the bridge of the nose. 
Loki groaned from where he had crumpled down to the ground, and Sylvie had to remind herself to stick to where she was and keep to the plan than go over and help him. She wasn’t too sure whether he was struggling so much to push himself up because it was all part of the act, or… if she had perhaps gone a bit overboard with her punch. 
Either way, what mattered was that the plan, miraculously, was working. The guards had sprung into action the second they heard the crash of metal from Loki’s fake armor smashing into the wall, their weapons held tightly in their hands as they marched over to him. 
Sylvie waited until their echoing footsteps were upon her before darting out from her hiding spot, grasping onto the closest guard's arm whilst yanking the spear out from his other hand. The man underneath the armor didn’t even get a chance to voice his protests before her magic was flowing into his mind, his face going slack as his eyes pulse with a burst of green light. 
Thankfully, Loki was not concussed from the hit, and still had the mental capacity to carry out his part of the plan. His hand had shot out towards the other guard who had come to his aid, wrapping it around his ankle and hoping more than anything that his first time using enchantment on his own on someone that wasn’t Sylvie would work. He squeezes his eyes shut tightly, focusing every little drop of concentration he has towards the task at hand. 
Loki’s eyes pop open in surprise when he feels the man’s foot shift under his hold, greeted by the sight of the guard going slack and collapsing to the ground next to him, landing in a less than graceful heap. Seconds later, the guard is joined by his friend as Sylvie releases her hold on the other guard's arm — although Sylvie does at least do the man a kindness and slowly releases her hold so he drops down gently. 
“Ow…” Loki groans from the ground, letting his hand flop down the ground as he rolls over onto his back. He raises his hand to his nose, wiping away the excess blood that had congealed around his face, wincing as he brushes across the tenderized skin. 
“Gods -- are you okay?” Sylvie hurriedly steps over the unconscious guards, rushing to get to Loki’s side. “I probably shouldn’t have hit you that hard…”
“I said to make me bleed and to hit me as hard as you can…” Loki says, his voice nasally due to the blood blocking his sinuses. “You certainly did as I asked.”
Sylvie grabs hold of one of his arms, helping him get back to his feet. Loki groans as he gets upright, pinching up and down his nose to check for any breakages. 
“In my defense, you were doing everything you could to rile me up,” Sylvie says, gently knocking his hands away to check his injury for herself. Loki lets her examine him, surprised by the gentleness of her hands as they brush across his skin, feather-light and delicate as they pass by the area of his nose where the skin had been broken. “And for the record? That wasn’t me hitting you as hard as I could.”
It probably shouldn’t make her feel proud of herself that Loki looked genuinely afraid of her. And… a little bit awed by her. “It wasn’t?”
“Not even close.”
Loki’s nose had long since stopped bleeding by the time they had stealthily moved the guards to an unused room nearby. Whilst he didn’t need to steal the guard's armor given his abilities to cast Illusions, it was much easier to do so than use up most of his focus on keeping the Illusion up and —more importantly — believable. 
Sylvie finished up the last of her temporary golden armor, securing the helmet over her head and making sure it fits snugly. It was a little loose given that the man she had taken it from was slightly taller than her, but not so much that anyone would question it. She looked over to Loki as he scooped up the guard's weapons and shields, nodding in appreciation as he passes one of each to her.
“Wait—” Sylvie stops him just as they reach the doors to the throne room. Loki looks to her with a questioning frown, to which she gestures to her own face with a twirl of her hand. “You’ve still got blood all over your face.”
“Oh.” It only takes a small wave of magic washing over him for the blood to be wiped clean like chalk off a chalkboard. Sylvie nods her approval when he looks back to her, turning back with a shaky breath to the door that, just beyond it, held the answers to what was supposed to become of her family.
What was supposed to become of her. 
Loki didn’t say a word next to her, which she was infinitely grateful for. He was doing all that she wanted from him, which was… just to be there, standing by her side. He knew how important this was for her. He knew that now, more than ever, she just needed to know he was there for her if she needed him. 
And it was rather terrifying just how much she did need him. 
“Okay…” Sylvie breathes out, steeling herself for whatever is about to come their way. She just about catches sight of a flicker of a proud smile from Loki out of the corner of her eye as she nods to herself, raising a hand up and placing her palm against the intricately engraved golden doors. Loki’s hand joins her seconds later, her eyes trained on the door under her hand whilst his were focused solely on her, waiting for her to make the first move. Sylvie pushes hard against the solid metal, Loki following suit and joining her as they push against the heavy weight of the doors. 
Slowly… the doors open.
Next Chapter - - - >
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mother-of-a-murder · 3 years
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Spooky Scary HiddlesSmut
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🧡🖤🧡🖤...to set the mood for Halloween, of course 😘🧡🖤🧡🖤
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Ngl, this post is a shameless self-promo-post of my previous fics. I haven’t written anythimg in quite a looong time, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss doing so for ya’ll ☺️💕 I dunno how many new/old faces there are in the Hiddles fandom these days, but if you’re looking for some erotic fantasy-creature-variants of our ole’ Tommy boy, I can provide some titilating stories 😈 N O T E: all of these fics listed are rated Explicit & some may contain subjects relating to BDSM, D/s, DubCon, impact play (whips, riding crops, spanking etc.), various kinks, and some of these have terato themes. Please check the listed tags on Ao3 for more details!
An Ocean’s Entrancing Lover (feat. Naga-Loki) Abby’s on vacation at the beach, and she decides to take a late night stroll for some relaxing meditation. Whilst enjoying the sounds of the ocean, someone (or something) emerges from the water to help relieve her of some stress with a more hypnotic approach.
Golden Treasures & Emerald Scales (feat. Naga-Loki [not related to the above fic]) An adventuring maiden-warrior explores a mysterious cave hidden in the forest that’s rumored to contain treasures beyond one’s imagination. However, she will soon discover something else lies within the cave, a long forgotten deity that may not take kindly to strangers hoping to steal his treasure.
Sweet Dreams (feat. Vampire Twins AU!Thomas & AU!William Buxton) A harlot wanders the dark streets of London and meets a pair of brothers, and they are more than eager to use her for their entertainment… among other things.
Das Tier in Mir (feat. AU!WereTom) Tom has received a painful wound from an animal and something strange begins to happen; He craves red meat on the rarer side, his eyes change color, his body heat is insufferable, his arousal is too painful to deal with himself, and he becomes possessed with an animal inside him that needs to hunt for prey, to slake his appetite.
Monster in the Dark (feat. AU!Incubus!ThomasSharpe) Edith prepares for her first night in Sir Thomas Sharpe’s mansion. He mentions how the house has a life of its own and not to be alarmed by noises she may hear within her new home. As she prepares for bed, she hears mysterious & unsettling sounds, but tries to ignore them. However, her mind comes to a screeching halt when she feels a presence in her room… [A/N: This was written BEFORE Crimson Peak came out in theaters, so yes, I'm fully aware this doesn't go along with the movie. This was merely written as an AU and for fun :) ]
Magical Summer Night (feat. AU!Merman!Oakley) Elizabeth tries to take a summer vacation but isn’t too thrilled to find a long-time crush of hers, Oakley, is staying at the same hotel as she is. Things turn awkward for them when she snaps at him, but when she apologizes and asks him out on an innocent date, he rejects the offer. Saddened by the rebuff, Elizabeth decides to take a lonely walk on the beach late at night. When she hears noises, she’s stunned by what and whom she finds.
Bloody Baptism (feat. Adam from OLLA) Adam is out on the prowl and catches the scent of something delicious. He tracks down the source and comes to find out he's stumbled upon a nice girl that can relieve his appetite in a most unique way. Oh, and if want to have a listen to what playlist I listened to while writing this to set some mood, go here!
Paranormal Encounter (feat Ghost!Thomas Sharpe) The year is 2015 and Olivia loves investigating old haunted houses. She always gets a thrill if she’s able to spot and record strange happenings and spooky occurrences. However, when she sees the lonely spirit that haunts the mansion atop Crimson Peak, she’s not quite prepared when she meets him. Will she live to tell this spooky but erotic tale?
Demon in the Night (feat. AU!Incubus!Tom) A certain Tom Hiddleston fangirl finds herself restless, unable to write, and feeling just a tad lonely. When she daydreams of him to relieve herself, it seems those daydreams linger into her sleep… and become reality. An old bday fic for dear @angryschnauzer 😘
Tagging some peeps: @bookworm-christina @abbessolute @thecutestlittlebunbunfairy @elfpunk @lokiperfection @maxwell-demon @inkededucatednnerdy @sarabeth72 @tomhiddleston-kikibfairy @nuggsmum @toozmanykids @wolfsmom1 @ice-queen-of-music @lowhostrikesback @the-haven-of-fiction @pedeka @writernotwaiting @calgal48 @angelofhiddles @angelus80 @harpo7879 @quoting-shakespeare-to-ducks @storylover92 @onlypassingthings @neither-blue-nor-green @adamcansuckme @geminiloveca @later0varies @rosebudwhite @ourladybinxthings @adder24 @joanbushur @slytherin-pixie @onyxfyrefly @tomkurbikston @awolfbeneath @xdelayedgratification @ophelia-tagloff
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anavantgardener · 3 years
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Frost and Mischief Ch. 7
Summary: A search for magic enchantments begin, and the rogue guard’s intentions become a little clearer for Elska and her friends.
Pairing: OC x Loki Laufeyson
Warnings: mentions of violence, friends fighting
Word Count: 3,498
-----
The Note
"You are quite positive you do not want to stay with any of us until we get this guard situation sorted?" Sif asked Elska for the third time since they'd left Thor's chambers. "We really do not mind."
"Sif," Elska placed her hands on her friend's shoulders as they arrived at her own chambers. "I am most positive I will be okay in my own chambers. I appreciate your concern."
"We only worry because you are our friend," the warrior replied.
"And I am so thankful for you all," Elska turned to open her door. "I will see you tomorrow, Sif." With a final smile, she walked into her chambers and slipped off her sandals.
Walking to the window, she realized how sore her body had become over the past week. Training was taking its toll, but her aching body was proof that at least she was getting somewhere.
I think it is time for a bath, Elska began making her way to her bathing chambers, stretching her arms high above her head. A sharp pang in her stomach told her that her wounds from the attack weren't quite healed yet. Arms shooting back to her sides, she began slipping her gown off, rolling her shoulders as she did so.
A soft knock came from her door and Elska reluctantly pulled her gowns back over her shoulders, careful to ensure she was properly covered before peeking out and seeing who had come to see her.
“Loki?” her face was puzzled as she registered who stood before her.
"I wanted to ensure no one had strung you up from the rafters without me,” he grinned down at his friend.
“Yes, because on the way from Thor’s chambers to my own, Sif accompanying me all the way, I was brutally murdered,” Elska rolled her eyes.
“We may joke, but you have registered how serious this situation could potentially be, yes?” Loki’s face took on a more pressing tone. “Are you sure you do not wish for any sort of protection detail?”
"Does nobody believe I can fend for myself?" Elska threw her arms in the air, regretting it as another sharp pang ran through her abdomen. Turning around to retreat into her room, Loki followed her in before the door closed.
"I think you overestimate yourself if you think you could defend yourself against whoever is looking for you," Loki now looked genuinely concerned, and simultaneously frustrated with Elska’s stubborn attitude.
Frowning, Elska knew he was right. She was not as independent as she liked to pretend she was. Three days of combat training definitely did not make her a warrior. She was still reluctant to change her living situation; after all, the guard in question only wanted to talk to Elska.
"Might you know any enchantments that will keep my door sealed to all other than myself??" She finally met Loki's eyes, a defeated sigh escaping her.
"Yes, but what of your daily activities?" he pressed.
"During the day I am either with the queen or with Sif and Fandral," Elska replied. "When I am with the queen, there is never a guard too far away. When I am with Sif and Fandral, I have two of the very best warriors in the Nine Realms by my side." She shrugged, unworried.
"How can you not feel even the least bit concerned?" Loki was growing frustrated.
"It was one guard who, as far as I could tell, merely wanted to speak with me," Elska was sincerely befuddled by how worried each of her friends seemed to be. "Why should I be afraid of a conversation?"
"Because conversations do not always end in peace," his reply was simple.
Elska sat on her bed, placing her head in her hands.
"I should have never told you all anything," her voice was so quiet, she wasn't sure if Loki had heard her statement at first.
"And yet you find me to be the confounding one," Loki pinched the bridge of his nose. As he sat next to her, she rose from the bed, attempting to walk away.
Standing, Loki caught her hand in his own, turning her around to face him. His other hand he placed on the side of her face, forcing her to look into his eyes. Elska’s heart began racing as confusion bubbled in her mind. The last time their skin touched, the man had rubbed his hand like it was on fire. Now, here he was, gently holding her face like it was some precious treasure he was afraid to break.
"I am still upset with you," she tried to break from his grasp, unsuccessfully.
"Had you not told us, we would have never forgiven ourselves if something ill came of this little incident," while his voice was quiet, his words were urgent. "I would not ever forgive myself." His hand fell from her face, though the other remained latched around her wrist.
Turmoil growing inside her, Elska pulled away and stood at the window, arms crossed. While she could see all of Asgard from her spot, her eyes focused on the floor.
Loki walked over to the young woman, raising his hand as if to place it on her shoulder, then letting it fall back to his side.
"Should you change your mind, you know where to find me," he sighed. "I will place the enchantments on your door as I leave."
"Thank you," was all Elska said in reply.
She waited until she heard the door click before looking up.
Definitely time for a bath, she thought, making her way to her bathing chambers at last.
*****
The next morning, Elska was in better spirits. She smiled as she greeted the palace staff she passed in the hall.
"Elska?" she heard from behind her.
"Eira!" Elska turned around, running to embrace the woman who had called out for her. "How have you been?"
"I have been most well, though I hear you may not be faring the same," Eira gestured to Elska abdomen.
"Oh, just some jealous men pining after me," Elska waved away the topic, wanting to keep the conversation light. "How is the dwelling? Might I be able to visit soon?"
"Everyone is doing well," Eira followed Elska's lead, moving the conversation forward no problem. As the two continued walking, she began chattering away, listing off how each individual had been in the past week.
Elska soaked in the information, absolutely overjoyed to be back with the first person she'd ever called her best friend. It baffled her that she'd only been living in the palace for a mere few weeks.
"You must visit soon," Eira said as they reached the queen's study.
"I plan to celebrate the festival in the lower district if possible, so count on seeing me then," the two girls shared a final embrace before parting ways.
Elska knocked lightly on the door before entering the study. As she walked in, she noticed the queen had her nose in a book.
"Good morning, my queen," she walked over to greet Queen Frigga.
"Good morning, my dear girl," the queen stood, kissing Elska's forehead before returning her focus to the book, sitting back at her desk. "How do you fare this morning?"
"Quite well, my queen," She said, taking her seat beside the desk. "And yourself?"
"Concerned," she did not look up as she responded. "It seems we have found previously hidden traces of magic surrounding the thief we caught in the merchant district. Now, it is up to me to figure out how to find the source of this magic, as well as figure out what spells were cast."
Thinking for a moment, Elska thought up an idea.
"Perhaps a trip to the Royal Library may be warranted?" she suggested.
"It definitely couldn't hurt," the queen marked her spot in her book before closing it. "I do not know where to start looking, though."
"You're in luck," Elska met the queen's gaze. "I am quite acquainted with the organization of the library."
"I sometimes forget we have a Royal Library," the queen joked as they began the short walk.
"I think most do, with the exception of Loki," Elska replied. The mention of the prince reminded her of their conversation last night, and she secretly hoped he would not be in the library when they arrived. Eira would be done cleaning, so he most likely would feel no need to protect his research.
Of course, she could not be so lucky.
As Elska opened the door for the queen, Loki's eyes darted to her instantly. He started to say something, but found himself silenced when he realized his mother was with her.
"Good morning, mother, Elska," he nodded his head, rising to kiss his mother's hand. "What brings you all here?"
"A prisoner," the queen replied, gazing around the library. "You might be able to help."
"I am listening," Loki cocked his head to the side, interest piqued.
"While you inform him of the details, I will begin searching for books that may help us," Elska stated, eager to be further from the prince. She curtsied as she took her leave.
First you develop feelings for the man, now you avoid him like the plague, Elska was confused by her own actions. You should have been overjoyed by his actions last night, instead you run from them. She did find her avoidance helpful in her efforts to keep their relationship platonic, however.
Shushing the voice in her head, she began her hunt for anything that would aid in their endeavors. Running her fingers over the many book bindings, Elska relaxed into a much more natural state. She had spent countless hours in this library, concealed, gleaning information from any book she pleased. Truthfully, this library was the reason she was late returning to the dwelling on numerous occasions.
"Spells of Coverage." No.
"Spells to Conceal Documentation." Oddly specific.
"Cloaking Traces of Enchantment."  This is more like it.
Pulling the book from its cubby, she began reading through it as she made her way back to the desk area. Looking up, she realized it was now only Queen Frigga and herself in the library.
"I sent Loki to see the magic traces for himself," the queen said, sensing Elska's realization. "He will be back soon."
"I see," Elska stated before handing the book she'd found to the queen. "I found this, it may prove useful." Looking at the cover, the queen smiled at Elska's find.
"Thank you, my dear," she sat and immediately began reading, prompting Elska to go find her own book to aid their research.
Returning to the section she'd found their first topical book, her search resumed. Title after title, Elska was finding that cloaking traces of magic wasn't the most common item of research. After a few minutes, she finally found another book relevant to their goal.
"On Hidden Enchantments," she read.
She returned to where the queen was seated, grabbing a blank piece of parchment from Loki's desk, as well as a quill. Sitting in the nook, not too far from the queen, Elska allowed herself to become absorbed in her reading, pausing every once in a while to make a note.
Unsure of how much time had passed, she was only pulled from her book when she felt a tap on her shoulder. Reluctantly looking up, she saw that it was Loki getting her attention.
"So, where might that guard be that you told me surely would not be too far," he asked with a grin, sitting on the desk nearest to Elska. Rolling her eyes, she returned her attention to her book. "Are you really still so upset with me?"
"Truthfully, Loki, I am unsure of what I feel," she spoke to him, but her eyes remained focused on her book. "Until I know more, it feels more logical to not pay my emotions any mind."
"Perhaps I can help you discern what you are feeling?" Loki offered.
"Tell me, Loki," she glanced up at him. "Can you tell me with certainty that you can discern your own feelings toward me right now?" Elska had a feeling he could not. She hadn't been reading his mind, but she had been paying attention to his actions of late. From his strange reaction the first time they touched to their conversation last night, she had a feeling he was experiencing at least a fraction of the confusion she was.
Just as she expected, Loki answered her question with a scowl.
"Mother told me to inform you of her plans for the remainder of the day," He began walking away, and Elska realized that the queen was no longer in the library with her. "The All-father has requested her presence. She did not wish to interrupt your reading."
"What am I supposed to do?" Elska closed her book and ran after Loki.
"I did not ask," he kept walking, ignoring her appearance as she fell in step with him.
"Should I go find her?" Elska pressed.
"Probably not," Loki turned to her as they arrived to the door of the library. As he made to leave, Elska grabbed his arm, forcing him to look at her once more.
"You really are such a thick-headed, pompous ass," she ensured their eyes were locked as she spoke. "You really want to know what I think, Loki? What I feel? Take a look, the walls are down. I do not care if you know, not anymore, because I have already made my decision."
Clearly taken aback by her permission to access her thoughts, Loki shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. Elska watched as he regained his composure and looked her in the eye. It surprised her that her awareness of his presence in her mind allowed her to feel him as he read her.
She brought to the forefront of her mind all she had thought about her relationship with the youngest prince in the past few days. Her appreciation for their friendship, her attraction to the man, her learning of what happened in his marriage. Every bit of it, she showed him.
Including her decision to avoid pursuing anything further than friendship with him.
"This decision, it is final?" he swallowed, looking to the ground before he looked back to her.
Elska hesitated a moment, unsure of what he wanted to hear, yet simultaneously unsure if she cared to know.
Rather than answer, she left the room. Like she had said earlier, Elska found it best to just ignore her feelings till she knew more about them.
*****
"You are still leaving yourself too open," Sif spoke, holding her sword to Elska's throat.
"I can not really contradict you, there," Elska laughed. Trading her sword for a hand, Sif helped her sparring partner up.
Elska had told Sif everything that had transpired between Loki and herself. To keep her mind off of things, Sif suggested some combat training. Elska was surprised to find that it was working quite well.
Elska appreciated the confidant she had found in Sif. Leaving the dwelling, she had left Eira behind, a woman who she'd always gone to for advice; she had been someone Elska could tell her secrets to. This was not to say that she didn't still love and trust Eira, she just wasn't as present in her life anymore. In the palace, Elska was afraid she would no longer have someone like that, and then she'd met Sif. In only a few short weeks, she was finding that Sif was becoming a wonderful friend whom she could trust.
The pair reset before heading into their next match. Elska's first day training, Sif and Fandral had helped her discover her talent in dual wielding, a dagger in one hand and a rapier in the other. It limited the control her opponent had over her weapon in battle, and allowed her to keep and enemy preoccupied with one weapon while she utilized the other.
Dashing across the sparring arena, Sif dealt the first blow; if Elska had learned anything from watching Fandral and Sif fight, it was that Sif was fast and would utilize her speed.
Elska tended to be a slower fighter, an observant one. She liked to learn her opponent's habits before getting into the nitty-gritty of the fight. It was harder as a new warrior, still learning the basics of combat, but she was finding that her observant tactics helped her learn quicker, catching on to fighting styles with ease.
Elska deflected Sif's initial blow with her rapier, bringing the dagger in low and swift. An armor-clad forearm pushed the weapon away with a cling as Sif sidestepped to regain space.
The two began circling each other as Elska's mind bounced from idea to idea, debating what her next move should be. Her eyes darted around the arena, seeing if her surroundings might provide any use in this fight. Rather than land on anything helpful, her gaze found a man watching the two as they engaged. Studying his face, recognition sparked in her brain.
"That's him," she whispered under her breath, weapons lowering as her brow deepened.
"Elska, are you alright?" Sif looked behind her, attempting to find what had distracted Elska. Her eyes found the same man, and she put the pieces together.
"Sif, that is him, that is the guard," Elska said, louder this time.
The two women exchanged a single glance of agreement before beginning their chase.
*****
Elska's chest was on fire, she could not remember the last time she'd ran this much, let alone with one weapon strapped to her hip, one to her back.
This man was fast, faster than Sif even.
Right, left, down the alley, up the wall.
The speeding crew must have looked insane to passers by, chasing a guard of Asgard. Why would a warrior and a lady in waiting be after a man of high regard, anyway?
Through the garden, past the fountain, right.
They'd followed the guard to the entrance of the upper district when they lost him in the crowd. It was then Sif and Elska decided to split up and cover more ground.
Elska was perching on a stone fence, eyes scanning over each and every face in the crowd, paying attention to the eyes. The only focus she diverted from searching was being dedicated to casting an invisibility enchantment around herself. She figured it would be easier to catch someone who could not see you coming.
Dwelling on the edge of a gossiping group of nobles, she spotted him. Acting as if he was standing guard to a shop entrance, Elska noticed his eyes were hopping from person to person.
I suppose he is looking for me, she thought to herself. Or perhaps paranoid Sif is about to end his life. Elska smirked at the idea.
Creeping through the crowd, ensuring she did not even breathe on a single soul, she stopped behind the guard, who was none the wiser. She gave herself a moment to relish in her success.
"Looking for someone?" Elska whispered so only he could hear, one hand on his arm, the other on her dagger.
As if he knew she would find him, a wicked grin appeared on the man's face.
"Perhaps you can help me with that," he said, continuing his charade of protection over the shop. Elska's eyes quickly glanced through the crowd, hoping Sif was nearby. She was not too keen on going into this conversation alone.
"Why did you run?" Elska asked, unable to see Sif anywhere close by.
"My business is with you, and you alone," he began walking, startling Elska as she hurried to keep up with him, letting down her enchantment. "I come bearing a message."
"Then speak," Elska demanded, sparking a sick laugh to erupt from the guard.
"Not from me, little Valkyrie, from someone far greater than I," the name caught her off guard.
"I suppose that is better than mutt," she muttered under her breath. "What, then?"
The mysterious guard simply handed her a folded piece of parchment.
"Do not open it here, open it in private," he whispered to Elska as the two caught sight of Sif, who had yet to see them.
'Open it in private.'  Like Hel I will open it in private, she quipped silently.
Elska turned to look at Sif. Turning back to the man, she found he was gone. When the two friends finally met in the midst of the crowd, Elska was silent, a stunned look on her face.
Elska motioned for Sif to follow her back to the palace, planning on opening the note when the two were away from prying eyes.  Their return was anxiously quiet, heads on a seemingly constant swivel. The 'little Valkyrie' felt no small amount of stress over the contents of the small bit of parchment she now carried in her pocket.
What in the Nine Realms am I supposed to do?
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dearlazerbunny · 5 years
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Lie to Me (Ch. 15 of 28)
Pairings: Loki x Reader
Genre/Ratings: M eventually (aiming for a slow burn here); warnings for kidnapping and subsequent anxiety/PTSD (will be marked before every chapter)
Words: 1900
Summary: If you had to guess what the captured, traitor, trickster god Loki Laufeyson wanted or needed at this moment, a babysitter would be far, far down on the list. (Set after the events of Avengers 1.)
SHOUTOUT TO @molmcb and @jessiejunebug, who are the best goddamn ego boosters a girl could ask for
Requested Tags: @deraniel, @iamverity,  @yasnooshka24, @wegingerangelica, @themusingsofmany, @dark-night-sky-99, @tarynkauai, @stuffandstuff-stuff, @angelicshinigami, @my-current-fandom-is, @geekysimmerthings
((So because I don’t know how to use tumblr I JUST realized that copying and pasting tags doesn’t automatically make them active... to my requested tag list, I am SO SORRY! Please forgive me! Also, surprise! Now you have a lot to binge read!))
On the fourth day you fail to visit, Loki lets himself begin to worry.
He wasn’t expecting you back right away, not after admitting just how much of a monster he actually is. But he’s come to have faith in you, to the point where even if you are going to reject him for his crimes- he wouldn’t blame you if you did- he thinks you’d at least do him the courtesy of telling him. So the first day of your absence, he waits, trying to ignore the anxiety in his chest. The second day is spent in self-loathing; the third, hating the universe at large with more viciousness than usual. But the fourth… that’s when he lets a few tendrils of doubt creep into his brain. But not about your potential sudden change of heart- no. That doesn’t sit right with him.
It’s nothing. Most likely, you’ve left, just like everyone else, once realizing the depths of the horror of the man standing in front of you. Most likely, you’re moving on with your life without involving yourself with the villain. Most likely…
Then why does he still feel uneasy?
He glances where he knows a camera is positioned, tucked into the ceiling’s seams. How closely he’s being monitored, he’s never figured out, but he has an inkling that he could hang himself by his hair and no one would bother trying to stop him. So how to get their attention? He has little magic at his disposal, not enough to conjure anything disturbing, and his cell is lacking anything remotely useful.
With a sigh, he hefts his cuffs, twisting his wrists nervously in their prisons, unsure of so many things. Using as much strength as he can gather, the manacles are hurled at the glass barrier with enough force to make his bones ache and his teeth clench.
This may take a while.
X
Thor has never liked scavenger hunts- he lacks the brains for riddles his brother so gleefully loves- but a chase without clues is proving even more frustrating. Every inquiry about your whereabouts is met with indifference or confusion, and his visit to your offices was fruitless, as your colleagues don’t seem capable of anything but stuttering and terror in his presence. It is quite annoying. Why Loki prefers to rule through fear he will never know.
Loki. He sees you every day, from what little he can gather- no doubt he knows of your wellbeing. But he is not allowed passage into his brother’s cell…
“Thor.” A woman’s sharp voice cuts through his thoughts. “What the hell is your brother playing at?”
Ah. Very occasionally, fortune does favor him.
Maria Hill stands tapping a brisk toe. “He’s been intent on breaking out for the better part of three hours now. Can you please go talk sense into him? If there’s any sense there to reason with,” she mutters under her breath.
“Of course. Please, lead the way.”
In the depths of SHEILD, locked behind glass, stripped of his grandeur and posturing, Loki looks more himself than he has in a long time. Thor watches the muscles in his shoulders grind to a halt as he abandons his latest attempt at what looks to be smashing his handcuffs against the barrier. Neither the glass or the manacles are any worse for wear, from what Thor can see, but his brother is noticeably exhausted.
“Thor.” The relief in Loki’s voice is palpable. “You came.”
A small spark of happiness flares in Thor’s chest. When was the last time his brother welcomed his presence? “You wished me to?”
“Obviously.” Loki sets himself down on his cot. His hands rest in his lap, and raw rings of skin peek out from underneath his bindings. “Where is Y/N?”
For a moment, Thor only blinks. “The lady Y/N? Have you not seen her? I wished to ask you the same.”
A dark shadow passes over his face. “No. I have not.”
Maria is looking between the two gods impatiently, clearly not following the conversation. “Y/N? Who are we talking about?”
Something low grumbles in the back of Loki’s throat. “Y/N Y/L/N. An archivist under your employ. She has been- assigned to me, for however long I have been in SHIELD’s grip now.”
Her eyes widen just a hint. “You’re pitching a fit about your babysitter? Is she even still still here?  I would’ve thought you’d have run her into the ground a month in.” The incredulousness in her voice makes both Thor and Loki bristle.
“You do not keep count of those under your care?” Thor asks.
“We keep track of the important ones.” When the atmosphere of the room dampens to the point of stifling at the clench of Loki’s fists and the stretching of Thor’s shoulders, Maria backtracks. “I mean- okay. Get to the point. Why are you worried about her?”
“She has been absent for the better part of four days now,” Loki grinds out from clenched teeth. “And such behavior is… unusual.”
“Aye.” Thor nods. “It is unlike her to remove herself from Loki’s side for so long.”
“Okay- okay.” The agent rubs her temples briefly. Her migraine isn’t getting any better. “I have two semi-immortal beings worried about someone we hired a year ago on a lark. Wonderful. You realize she’s just on vacation or something?”
Loki looks to Thor with a glance that clearly communicates everything he isn’t voicing. “Perhaps I could verify her whereabouts,” Thor says casually, unwilling to alert Hill to his brother’s turmoil. “To ease his mind, if nothing else.”
She sighs. “If it’ll get him to calm down, fine. Go find Stark, he’s been fiddling with the security system anyways.” She leaves mumbling something under her breath, shaking her head and looking like she needs a very strong drink.
Once she’s gone, Loki visibly deflates. “Thor-”
He holds out a hand. “I will investigate the matter,” he says calmly. “I am sure she is fine, brother.”
Loki nods. “Just- be certain.”
It strikes Thor, in that moment, that as meaningful as you are to himself, he has not begun to scratch the surface on your worth to his brother.
X
Stark is, as predicted, sequestered into a room full of glowing screens, his attention on all of them at once. “Sparky the Hammer-Bro. What can I do for you?”
Thor lets his eyes rove over rows of code, none of which he understands. “I need to view security recordings. The Agent Hill said you may help.”
“Uuuuuuuuuuuumsure.” The genius waves a hand, dismissing several rows of numbers. “Anything in particular?”
“Five days ago, roughly. As for what I seek- I believe I will know when I see it.”
Stark raises an eyebrow. “Cryptic. Fun times! Uno momento, por favor.” One by one, computer screens are filled with a past SHIELD, going about its business. It could be any given day- agents roam, papers filed, choice global secrets exposed and others hidden. But Thor zeroes in on the one displaying you and his brother, in some sort of tense conversation. Loki lashes out, and you reply with remarkable composure- enough to apparently reassure him you aren’t going anywhere. In his head, Thor adjusts every opinion of you he’s ever had.
You talk for a while more, underscored by Stark’s idle whistling from the corner. You leave, bag tucked under your arm, and say goodbye to a scant few colleagues. Outside, a car pulls up in front of you, and you go to open the door- only, it’s opened for you, by gloved hands belonging to an unseen being. While they grab you by the arms, another man in a suit is busy administering a blunt object to the back of your skull. You crumple into the waiting vehicle. The door is shut. It pulls smoothly away from the curb, as though you were never there at all.
To Thor’s right, static electricity shorts out a bank of monitors.
And now Tony is talking, leaning in to examine the footage- “Who- wait, isn’t that your brother’s pet? What the hell-?” But Thor is already gone, hurrying in a way that magically clears everyone from his path before he even arrives. Every thud of his heel echoes a crisp and succinct no, no, no, no, no, no
Loki has been pacing, but he pauses to turn his sharp gaze on his brother. “Well?” Thor can’t even open his mouth before green eyes turn deadly. “No.”
Thor’s mouth is suddenly dry. “Brother-”
There’s an inferno behind Loki’s voice, one that Thor has only ever seen herald destruction. “Bring me the director. Now.”
X “Let me get this straight,” Fury drawls slowly, in an obvious effort to try his prisoner’s patience. Even Thor is having to keep his fingers from curling into fists. “Your babysitter- who has apparently stuck around for the last ten months, even though by all accounts she should have run screaming from the room- has been kidnapped by a mysterious force, and you want me to release you in order to go on a harebrained rescue. Unchaperoned.”
“Yes.”
Fury snorts. “No.”
“I would be with him,” Thor argues, “and I would not let him-”
“-escape off-world with his magic in tow? Pardon me if I’m not inclined to believe you.”
“You don’t understand!” Loki looks incredibly close to breaking something, and for the sake of their argument, Thor very much hopes he doesn’t. “She is in peril and you would sit back and do nothing-”
The director holds up a hand as the door opens and Hill slips in, holding printed camera stills. “HYDRA, most likely,” she says, pointing out various details in each photo to her boss. “Why they’d target her I have no idea.”
Fury sighs. “Fantastic. Let me ask you something, Mister mortals-are-ants-beneath-my-boot. Why the hell do you care?”
Too many thoughts to count flit across Loki’s face, and Thor has had a thousand years to catalogue every one of his brother’s expressions. “Is it not enough that I simply do?” Loki asks, apparently at a loss for words, and Thor can’t help but notice everything he isn’t saying in that one question.
“I’ll tell you everything,” he continues, almost vibrating with desperation. “Everything you want to know, that is in my power to tell. I swear it.”
Fury’s eyes narrow. “The Chitauri? The Tesseract?”
“Yes.”
A pause. “Deal.”
Maria startles. “Nick-”
“No, Hill, don’t start with me, not now.” He nods at Loki’s cell. “If you would.”
Maria unlocks Loki’s cell and releases his manacles with the grace and poise of someone who has a revolver trained at her temple. Once his hands are free, she tenses, as though expecting a quick death- but he simply rubs his wrists, in the places they bleed slightly.
“You’re insane,” she says as Fury leads her out of the room, not bothering to lower her voice.
“Insane saved the world, once,” he shoots back. “How much worse can this be?”
“I can think of a few-”
The door closes behind them.
The two gods look at each other. “Four days is a long time,” Thor says softly, unnecessarily stating the obvious. “I would not even know where to look. Perhaps the captain would know-”
He stops as a rage of green flares up to Loki’s elbows, mirroring the fire that has suddenly blazed to life in his eyes. His voice is haunted by things unknown- “I have her.”
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aion-rsa · 4 years
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Best Marvel Comics to Binge Read on Marvel Unlimited
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With an enormous swath of the world involved in varying degrees of social distancing, many of us suddenly find ourselves with a lot of time on our hands. Never fear! There are more options for streaming comics than ever before, and that means we have access to more of comics history, more hidden gems, and more epochal runs than ever before. But the variety of options to read can be daunting. That’s why we’ve put together a recommendation list of some of our favorite comics binge reads to help you through quarantine. Marvel Unlimited has been around for more than a decade. It runs about six months behind print release of books, so it’s a good way to stay sorta-current with the stories you love. But the real draw is the back catalog: with 25,000 issues in its library, you’ve got access to some of the most important and most entertaining runs of superhero books of all time. From Lee and Kirby creating the modern superhero comic in the pages of Fantastic Four through Chris Claremont and John Byrne revolutionizing the X-Men, and through several Wars (Secret, Infinity, or Civil), everything is here. 
You don’t need us to tell you to read some of these stories. You know “The Dark Phoenix Saga,” Kraven’s Last Hunt, “Demon in a Bottle,” or Jonathan Hickman’s behemoth are all important and good. And some of them, Marvel’s even giving you for free. We’re going to skip over some of the obvious ones and point you towards hidden gems, the harder to find stories that fill in the edges of the Marvel Universe and make it such a rich, lush experience. We are also looking for monster runs that will keep you occupied – you can read six issues in one sitting with no danger of nearing the end. Some of these might take you an entire round of social distancing to finish. 
A quick note about the reading guides: We’ll list out the issue numbers for most of these. Many of them may have their own separate entry under Marvel Unlimited’s reading lists – those are helpful, but these are definitive. One of them, we’re going to refer you to the events – to find those, you can go to “Browse”, then scroll over to “Comic Events.” And for one of these, we’re linking to the inordinately helpful Comic Book Herald. They’re a great site for comic reading orders in general, and have helped me through several other binge reads before. 
Walt Simonson’s Thor
Thor (1966) #337-360, Balder the Brave (1985) #1, Thor #361-362, Balder the Brave #2-4, Thor #363-382
This probably shouldn’t be on the list. It is in the conversation for the greatest runs on any superhero comic ever. But if you’ve never read it, you’re truly missing out.
If you watched Thor: Ragnarok and loved how it looked or any of its story, chances are you are going to adore this, the run that Ragnarok borrowed so much from. Walter Simonson took the Asgard realized by Jack Kirby, the mythological realm pumped full of color and Kirby dots, and turned everything way up to create the most iconic Thor run of all time. Simonson started the run on art before handing off to Sal Buscema, and Simonson and Buscema are two of the artists I could recognize by style the soonest. Everything is HUGE. 
Read more
Movies
Thor Comics Reading Order: Ragnarok for Beginners
By Marc Buxton
Movies
Thor: Love and Thunder Release Date, Cast, and Story Details
By Mike Cecchini and 1 other
It’s paced immaculately, with whatever story is in the foreground holding your complete attention, but always with something drip drip dripping in the background that will eventually crescendo. This run made so many characters wonderful, but Loki, Volstagg, and Beta Ray Bill are highlights. And have I mentioned the art? It’s incredible, and doesn’t suffer one bit when Buscema takes over. This is my favorite run on any comic of all time. You absolutely must read it. 
X-Men: the Messiah Cycle
Messiah CompleX, Messiah War, and X-Men: Second Coming
The hottest take you’re going to find on the internet today is this: the Messiah Cycle is the best era of X-Men comics. It has everything I want from the X-Men line: books have distinct voices and missions, but contribute to the overarching direction of the line. There IS an overarching direction to the line. New characters are brought to the front, and new ideas are injected into the line.
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Comics
First New Marvel X-Men Crossover Revealed
By Jim Dandy
TV
X-Men: The Animated Series – The Essential Episodes
By Michael Mammano
You get all of that from the Messiah era. Messiah CompleX picks up with Cerebro identifying the first mutant birth in years; Messiah War has the members of the Mutants with Claws and Swords era X-Force heading to the future to check up on that baby; Second Coming is when she returns to present day. Each one has a different tone; Messiah CompleX and Second Coming bring together every book in the line to tell their stories, but also let each creative team keep telling their stories and end up being the best-handled X-crossovers since Inferno. And Second Coming is the best straight action X-book I think I’ve ever read. 
If you like these crossovers, you should absolutely check out other books from this era. Utopia X, a crossover between Uncanny X-Men and Dark Avengers, is amazing, as is Duane Swierczynski and Ariel Olivetti’s Cable and Zeb Wells’ New Mutants.
Mark Gruenwald’s Captain America
Captain America (1968) #307-422, 424-443
Full confession: this is my current binge read. After years of hearing about how wonderful Gruenwald’s Cap was, I finally decided to jump in and within three issues, I was texting people to scream at them for not forcing me to read it sooner. For starters, the goddamn Serpent Society turns into a union. In fact, the Serpent Society’s union meeting is the most fun I’ve had reading a comic scene in a while, and the fact that it is based on a real meeting of comic book creators from 1978 makes it both more accurate sounding and HILARIOUS (I think Constrictor is Gil Kane, when you read it).
Read more
Comics
Avengers: Endgame – The History of Captain America’s Climactic Moment
By Gavin Jasper
Movies
Captain America Comics Guide and Reading Order
By Mike Cecchini
But the real appeal is how much movie Cap is based on this era. Gruenwald’s Steve Rogers is a really nice guy. Everybody loves him, everyone respects him, and there’s not a lick of condescension or mean spiritedness about anything he does, from sparring with Black Knight to taking on a gang of criminal jugglers with Hawkeye to trying to help joke villains like Rocket Racer. He’s also extremely competent, and Gruenwald and artist Paul Neary do an incredible job of showing this, as Cap breaks into the West Coast Avengers’ headquarters while trying to figure out, through his jet lagged brain, what day it is. It only gets bigger and more traditionally superhero as it goes on, with artistic contributions from the likes of Kieron Dwyer, Ron Lim, and others.
You’ll see even more of this run’s influence in Marvel’s The Falcon and The Winter Soldier TV series on Disney+, as it introduces key characters who we’ll see on screen there, so get reading, and pay attention!
Runaways 
Runaways (2017) #1-current
Rainbow Rowell’s current run as writer on Runaways captures the Marvel spirit better than just about any comic coming out right now. It’s a masterful mix of superheroics, joyful immersion in Marvel continuity, and soapy teenage drama. A lot of people are doing good work at Marvel right now, but nobody is hitting these notes as consistently well as this crew. 
This book is remarkably accessible for something so steeped in its own history. If you’re new to comics, or if you’re here because of the Hulu show, you’ll find plenty to love. But if you liked the original series from Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona, you’re going to be shocked at how much this feels like if that same book had never ended. Even though the characters have grown and changed substantially, their voices are distinct and seamless. This is one of my favorite Marvel comics being published right now, and once you’re all caught up, make sure you add it to your pull list at your shop.
Darth Vader
Darth Vader (2015) #1-12, Star Wars: Vader Down #1, Darth Vader #13, Star Wars (2015) #13, Darth Vader #14, Star Wars #14, Darth Vader #14-25
Remember that moment in Rogue One where Vader just kicked the shit out of everyone without looking like he was trying? And how everyone squealed in delight at old, force of nature, badass villain Darth Vader being back? If you were reading the comics at the time, that moment had already happened for you a full 18 months before the movie came out, in Darth Vader #6. 
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Comics
Star Wars Canon Timeline in Chronological Order
By Megan Crouse and 1 other
Movies
Star Wars: Darth Vader’s Best Moments from the Marvel Comics
By Marc Buxton
This entire series is Vader killing everything he can. It’s like watching a space tornado. What’s especially surprising, though, is how Kieron Gillen manages to sneak some important character development into the book. While Vader slices through Sith intrigue and Rebel scum and the entire royal line of a mining planet and a bunch of others, we’re also learning about why he’s the way he is. This series takes place between A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back, so some of the lines that get filled in add to the rest of the OT as well. There have been several very good Star Wars comics since Marvel got the license back, but this run on Darth Vader is the best. 
Ultimate Spider-Man 
Ultimate Spider-Man saved Marvel Comics. Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley didn’t do it with flashy variants or crossovers. They did it by telling good, pure, core Spidey stories. 
It’s hard to separate Peter’s origin from Ultimate Spider-Man from Peter’s origin in the 616. The Ultimate origin is so definitive and iconic in how it fills in the spaces between the necessary beats. Bagley’s art especially – even now, thinking about this series that I haven’t read in forever, I can still pull up Peter jumping over Norman’s car, or MJ’s face when she and Peter have “the talk.” 
Read more
Movies
How Shifting MCU Release Dates Could Impact Spider-Man 3
By Don Kaye
Movies
Spider-Man 3 Story Is “Absolutely Insane” Says Tom Holland
By Kirsten Howard
For the absolute best, and purest this book can be, just read the first 38 issues, ending with the first Venom arc, but the book stays solid for its entire run. Bendis’ work with both Peter Parker and Miles Morales is my favorite work of his career, especially when Miles joins the cape world, but nothing will ever match just how fantastic these first few arcs of Ultimate Spider-Man are.
The Annihilation Era
Annihilation, Annihilation: Conquest, War of Kings, Realm of Kings, and The Thanos Imperative
You will be hard pressed to find better comic book space opera than the Abnett/Lanning era of Marvel’s cosmic characters. Marvel’s cosmic line was an afterthought when these first started coming out. By the end, it was a widely beloved corner of the Marvel Universe that was popular enough to be mostly transcribed whole by the movies.
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Movies
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: Cast, Release Date, Director, Story, and News
By Mike Cecchini and 1 other
Comics
Guardians of the Galaxy Reading Order
By Gavin Jasper
The nice thing about this era of the cosmic line is how neatly the main books move from event to event. Annihilation tells the story of a cataclysm that befalls the universe, and how the remaining heroes – Nova, Star Lord, Silver Surfer, Drax, Gamora, Ronan the Accuser, and Super-Skrull, among others – fight a war to survive. Rich Rider gets his own solo Nova comic from there, and it leads right into Annihilation: Conquest, about the catastrophe that follows in Annihilation’s wake. It also sees the formation of the Guardians of the Galaxy as we know them and launches their book, before tying both comics together in War of Kings where the Shi’ar and Kree empires collide. Realm of Kings is the aftermath of that war (and has one of my favorite Shi’ar Imperial Guard stories of all time), and that leads directly into the conflict that mostly closes out the era, The Thanos Imperative. This is a great introduction and immersion in Marvel’s cosmic universe, and will have you hooked by the halfway point of the first crossover.
Black Panther
Black Panther (1998) #1-22, Deadpool (1997) #44, Black Panther #23-62
There are certainly better parts to this run, but there is a scene where Namor, T’Challa, Doctor Doom, and Magneto stand around an apartment outside of the United Nations shouting at each other about diplomacy, and to this day I still have not found a comic book more specifically designed for my interests than this one. 
Read more
Movies
Black Panther 2 Cast, Release Date, Villain, Story, and News
By Mike Cecchini
Movies
Best Black Panther Comics: An Essential Reading Guide
By Jim Dandy
Priest is one of the sharpest minds ever to write comics. He’s so good at misdirection and storytelling – he will overwhelm you with style and flash, and you won’t even notice the subtle clues he’s dropping, or the way themes and characters weave together to show key parts of the story. This run on Black Panther is probably the definitive one for the character, and contributed a ton to the movie version, but there’s so much more depth (and humor!) that Priest puts into the Marvel Universe that it’s very worth reading.
Incredible Hercules
Hulk (1999) #106-112, Incredible Hercules (2008) #113-115, Hulk Vs. Hercules: When Titans Collide, Incredible Hercules #116-137, Assault on New Olympus Prologue, Incredible Hercules #138-141, Hercules: Fall of an Avenger #1-2, Heroic Age: Prince of Power #1-4, Chaos War #1-5
Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente are two of the best people writing comics right now. Each individually writes really good comics, but the two of them working together almost always put something special out. Incredible Hercules spun out of World War Hulk and came out better than it had any business being. 
Read more
Movies
Hulk Movies Marvel Should Make
By Marc Buxton
TV
Who is She-Hulk? A Guide to Marvel’s Next TV Star
By Gavin Jasper
Hercules exists in a unique place. Pak and Van Lente used him as a gateway to the mythology of the Marvel Universe – the Greek pantheon, but also the Norse pantheon, Japanese gods, Inuit gods, even Skrull deities. And several of these aren’t exclusive to Marvel, so you get a very clear and obvious statement about some of the differences between the Big 2 universes, some clever in-jokes, and the requisite moving story about godhood. This all comes with wonderful characterization, clever plotting and a great sense of humor. 
Nextwave: Agents of H.a.T.E.
Read Nextwave after you’ve read everything else, not because it’s a good capstone to your Marvel experience, but because it’s aggressively anti-continuity, and (lovingly) EXTREMELY disrespectful of the rest of the Marvel Universe. It’s also one of the funniest comics Marvel’s ever put out. 
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This whole story is Warren Ellis brutalizing superheroes. Boom Boom from X-Force, Monica Rambeau (sometimes Captain Marvel, sometimes Photon), Machine Man, monster hunter Elsa Bloodstone, and Captain &#($$&*#!@ (or The Captain) are brought together by the Highest Anti-Terrorism Effort (H.A.T.E.) to fight Unusual Weapons of Mass Destruction. It’s aggressive nonsense, less anti-continuity than acontinuitous which isn’t a word but also fits the spirit of the book – characters make no sense even from issue to issue, and only serve the plot, but that nonsense later serves the plot. And it is an absolute tour de force from Stuart Immonen, who draws every type of comedy you can imagine – slapstick, absurdity, somehow sarcasm, puns – with incredible layouts and storytelling. This is not a good Marvel comic, but it is an incredible comic book that you’re going to love.
The post Best Marvel Comics to Binge Read on Marvel Unlimited appeared first on Den of Geek.
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19mrs-barnes17 · 5 years
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Witch Of Asgard - Chapter 4
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Summary: Svala has spent the last few months on Midgard in peace, that is until her new friend is asked to hunt down a weapon of great power that she never believed she’d see in her lifetime.
Part: 4/?
Pairing: Loki x Svala (OC)
Warnings: none?
Word count: 2,002
A/N: Hey, I’m still alive and so is this series! Neat.
~
~ Part Two: Midgard ~
“Well, you certainly have gotten us into quite a predicament, my dear doctor.” Dr. Bruce Banner stood running a hand through his dark locks as he adjusted his glasses. The tapestry before the window, in which the deceptive child rushed out, fell into its original place.
“And that is why you get paid upfront.” His gentle brown eyes sent her a bemused expression, his shoulders shrugging. 
A woman, cool and calculated in her steps, emerges from around the corner with a soft smile upon her lips. She sits with Bruce explaining her reasoning for being here, Svala listens in while also intently watching her body language. Something about her feels off, something in the way she sits or perhaps in the way she carries herself. When the redheaded woman pulled out a gun, Svala instinctively moved to grab her dagger. As the woman lowered the weapon the Asgardian woman dropped her hand back to her side. Svala’s gut instinct was telling her not to trust this strange woman for she knew not her true intent. Natasha Romanoff may claim to be here only to retrieve Bruce but Svala felt this was a part of something big. And something big was exactly what she needed.
“Val?” Her eyes tore away from the stranger and trailed over to the familiar eyes of her friend, “Are you up for a trip?”
“Always.” Her smile is matched and the pair followed the woman, Natasha, to a van just outside the home. 
 Svala felt uneasy as she traveled down the roads of Calcutta, Bruce at her side, and an unknown destination lying before them. They needed Bruce’s expertise so desperately that her added presence was allowed, but what did they need him for exactly? Svala’s thoughts ran rampant while Bruce attempted to keep his cool, their minds equally worried about their final destination.
Nerves only grew worse as they boarded a jet and flew to a floating craft on the ocean. Svala was out of her depth, her Midgardian knowledge only extended so far and by Odin they were close to reaching her limit. Bruce was weary of being on such a structure, his level of control would only last through so much and he feared he might not remain himself if he were to be here for too long.
“We should make a deal. As soon as your services are no longer required, we get off this floating disaster waiting to happen.” Bruce chuckled, shaking his head at her.
“A brilliant plan that I can get behind.” A blonde man, with the build of a fighter, approached the two as they shook hands.
“Dr. Banner!” Svala studied the man with intrigue, he carried himself like a soldier despite his civilized clothing. Her friend seemed to recognize the man and greeted him, squinting from the wind that had begun picking up. Svala diverted her focus until she overhears the mentioning of a cube and her interest is regained.
“This is my colleague. Val, this is Captain America .” She glanced into the crystalline, tired blue eyes of the Captain before extending her hand.
“Please, call me Steve.” He held a warm manner about himself, she almost felt like she could tell her whole story on the spot. However, she would not reveal herself so easily to a Midgardian for fear of causing a panic. Bruce was the first she had met upon her arrival, and had helped her to remain hidden. He understood her need to be under the radar for he had felt the same when he traveled to India, space was sometimes necessary. He swore not to reveal her to anyone and she helped him with healing others using her magic when able.
    ******
    “Once we get our hands on the Tesseract-” Svala eyes widened at the mention of the powerful weapon, she began to listen intently to every detail mentioned. When Bruce was shown to his laboratory, Svala was not far behind following his footsteps. Bruce noticed the unease in her eyes as soon as Natasha left the room.
    “What is it Val?” He began utilizing the technology before him while occasionally casting her a concerned glance.
    “The Tesseract? Please my friend, please tell me we are not thinking of the same dangerous weapon of power.” She began to feel the panic creep back into her veins.
    “If you’re thinking of a glowing blue cube then I’m afraid we are.” He stops working and turns to face his Asgardian friend. “What do you know about the Tesseract?”
    “I have read very little on it and the powers like it, but I do know that it is something that should not be handled indelicately. You cannot destroy the object without causing a disruption that would likely decimate your planet.” 
    “Okay, noted. Anything else? Anything that could help in locating it?” Svala shook her head, she knew nothing of Midgardian science and would be of no use in locating such a powerful object with their technology. 
    “No, nothing in your science. I can only sense its presence, it's incredibly strong, but that would take longer than we have.” She sat upon a stool and watched Bruce work, he stood with the most focused look Svala had seen in a great long while.
~
    Svala laughed lightly as she watched his blue eyes scan the final few pages of the novel, his brow furrowed and gaze flowing over each line as if they were the answer to a lifelong problem. He paused, eyes travelling up to hers before tearing away and casting them toward the page.
    “Must you mock me as I read? You claim this to be your new favorite and yet you seem keen on my not finishing it.” A ghostly smile hid upon his lips as he returned to reading the last page before closing the now finished book.
    “I am merely amused at your expression. You seemed rather focused upon your reading.” He sighed and raised a brow at her.
    “Well I am forced to be so with you watching me so intently. You are quite the distraction.” A bemused expression filled his icy blue gaze as he pushed the book her way.
    “I am no such thing. In any case, it is not my fault that I finished my reading at a faster pace than you Loki.” He narrowed his eyes before shrugging and turning away.
    “What is my next read then, my speedy opponent?”
~
    Such a memory brought a pang to her heart and Bruce could see the hint of sadness in her eyes as she sat in silence, still watching the screen before him. Svala hadn’t thought about him so intensely in a long time and she was barely able to rein in her emotions. Bruce appeared as if her he were about to question her until something snagged his attention.
    Svala followed his gaze, certainly glad that she did, for being escorted past the lab was someone she had been searching for. Svala attempts to back away in shock, forgetting that she still remains seated, and nearly falls off of her stool. Quick to her rescue, Bruce catches her before she slides off and she just barely catches sight of a guard shoving Loki forward. He had stopped. He had stopped to look at her. No words could express the emotions nor the thoughts within her as she stood before the glass.
    “Val? Are you alright?” Bruce stood in the same place by the stool, something past concern flooded his eyes as he glanced over her. “C’mon, you can tell me. I promise it won’t leave this room.”
    “That is not a promise that you will be able to keep my friend for it is likely that it will be public knowledge soon enough.”
    Natasha interrupts before leading them back to the glass table in which they had sat at earlier. A projection played at each seat on the glass of what seemed to be a prison chamber, one that now held an Asgardian prince prisoner. Her heart ached seeing him imprisoned, but simply the sight of him brought her great relief. 
Something indescribable in the way he acted toward the man in charge, felt...off. He was different and she needed to know why. There was no way for her to speak with him, even if she came clean she feared they would throw her in a separate cell. She is Loki’s wife, and that could make her both dangerous and useful to them. 
The Director returned promptly, but her gaze remained where he once was, fingers aimlessly grazing over the glass. Bruce placed a hand on her shoulder, notifying her that he was returning to the lab with Tony Stark. Svala stood and made her way down the hall.
“Svala?” Her blood ran cold, body tensing at the mention of her true identity. She felt completely unable to move, unable to believe that she had managed to miss his presence. A hand hovered over her right shoulder until he rescinded it, deciding it was better not to, given the circumstances.
“Hello, Thor.” Her eyes slowly trailed up his form to meet his perplexed gaze, she smiled softly at him and relaxed herself. He took a step forward and pulled her into a tight hug as if he’d lose her if he let go.
 Svala had missed her family over the years, however, the pain of remaining on Asgard was too much for her. Everywhere she went, everyone was watching, pitying her, treating her like a broken vase. She was Asgard’s princess, and yet she had never felt more powerless. All this being said, she still found something thrilling in being someone else for a little while.
“Is this where you have been all this time?” A solemn nod, she was reminded of the pain she inflicted upon those she had left behind when she gazed into his eyes. 
“You must not reveal me, not yet. They will not understand. Promise me you will do no such thing Thor?” She could practically feel the desperation rolling off of her in waves. Soon enough she would no longer be able to hide, they would treat her as an accomplice no doubt. There is a great war in his eyes as his mind wrestles his heart.
“I swear to you, I will not betray you. You are still family. My family.” Wrapping her arms around her brother one last time, Svala sends a wave before disappearing around the corner.
“What I don’t understand is you.” Tony held a bag of blueberries in one hand as he pointed toward her with his glasses in the other. She tilted her head to the side, a perplexed expression painted on her face.
“Elaborate.” Tony throws his hands in the air exasperatedly, launching into a rant about how she didn’t seem to exist before a few months ago and there are no living relatives listed. “You’re looking into me?”
“Of course. I like to know just who it is that I’m working with.” Svala smiled coyly, raising a brow at the eccentric man.
“But we do not work together. I am simply here with Bruce, I am no more than a shadow on the wall. A background character if you will.”
“See, that’s what I find so strange. Why would Bruce here request your presence, if not to help? It was one of his terms.”
“Perhaps because you can stir a rather stressful atmosphere with only your words/”
“And you can what, calm him down?”
“Or remove the source of aggravation.” Tony leans against the lab table with a glint of curiosity in his eyes as he nods. 
“So you’re a bodyguard then?” Svala shakes her head chuckling at the mere concept of being there for Bruce’s protection. As if he’d need it.
“No Mr. Stark, a friend is all I am.”
“If only that were true…” He turns back to a nearby screen without another word and Svala releases a breath that she didn’t even realize she was holding in.
~
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thebifrostgiant · 5 years
Text
If You Know Where to Look - Part 8 (1/2)
Summary: in which Loki hunts, and you listen. Thunder rumbles from a distance
Part 1 / Previous
Read on Ao3
Word Count: 2,423
Rating: T (for now)
Pairing: Loki/Reader
*
Chapter 8: A Crown’s No Cure
A week. Loki has a week until he’s meant to be married. And yet here he is, in the middle of a self-appointed task, a task that he sees the necessity of even if there were a fair many other things he’d envisioned himself spending this time doing. It seems he has elected to take a hunting trip after all — and wouldn’t Thor be quite chagrined that he had gone off without his brother or their companions — but rather than terrorizing some poor beast of the forest and bringing its head back as a trophy, he follows the cold trail of another wretched creature, seeking blood not for sport, but to satiate the burn for vengeance on a more personal matter.
He urges Fóthradr into a trot with a gentle prod of his heels into the palfrey’s dappled flanks, and ducks beneath the lowest hanging branches of a small alder as he scans the ground for any slight clue. The air is cool as it streams against his face, bringing with it the damp wash of a brewing storm and the scent of upturned leaves.
The trail is already faded and nearly imperceptible. A heavy downpour would sweep away any chance of following it altogether as barely-there spoors became slicks of mud and patches of faintly crumpled grass, telling of a stray footstep here and there, were whipped flat by the squall. But subtlety is Loki’s art, and it is not raining yet.
His eyes find traces where most others would not. A broken twig here, the smashed cap of a mushroom there. A winding track a hairsbreadth too wide to be used simply by deer. The trick, Loki has found, is not to come at it head on, for one often misses even the most obvious of signs when they are right in front of one’s face. Instead, he knows that it’s far better to approach things of this nature sideways, seeing without seeing, and he glances around from the corners of his eyes. Underlooking to avoid overlooking, catching the tiny details in a most delicate manner. And...
Ah. There.
In his left periphery, Loki can just barley make out the hazy glimmer of a dew trail, a slender pathway through the grass where the droplets have been wiped away by shuffling boots. Loki smiles. Thor may be the stronger hunter between them, able to take down large prey by sheer force, and Fandral the better shot with an arrow, but when it comes to tracking, to uncovering hidden passages and noticing the unnoticeable, it is Loki who is best.
He slings his leg over the bare back of his mount and drops gracefully to the forest floor, and goes to take the bit out of Fóthradr’s mouth and slides a halter over his nose, tying the rope to a sturdy branch and leaving plenty of slack for his horse to graze. He pats him twice on his freckled cheek and turns his oblique attention once more to the moisture-ridden earth, slipping through the forest on foot as he pursues his ravin.
***
When the door swings open with no warning, you have to jump back a bit to avoid being smacked with the heavy wood, and once you recover, you're met with the frowning face of a woman who is decidedly not pleased with either you or your response to nearly being knocked unconscious.
“Ah. You must be the little servant brat Loki mentioned,” she says coolly, as if you’re some insignificant child and not nearly of an age with her. You notice there is a slight accent to her discourteous tone that you vaguely recall is Vanir. Then she sneers, and somehow manages to look down at you even from the scant inch she has on your own height. “It certainly took you long enough, but I suppose if this was the best Asgard had to offer, I shouldn’t be surprised.”
Her eyes flick to your scar and you suddenly wish she had hit you with the door. You feel cold, and your hand itches to cover your cheek, but you stand there, lips pressed together so hard they’ve lost color, trying not to feel so humiliated and waiting for some instruction. You hate this, you realizes with fervor, especially since Loki’s betrothed is every bit as awful as the prince himself, but you’d hate it as much even if she was as kind as Eir, because taking orders and being expected to comply to every demand of another is degrading, and when compared to your simple life on the farm, where all there was to worry about was plucking the worms off the cabbage plants and gathering fatwood for the winter and chopping apples so they could be dried and stored for the rest of the year, not even the ethereal glory of the palace is enough of a counterbalance.
“Well?” she says, brimful of impatience, after a long moment, still standing in the doorway
Oh. Evidently she expects you to enter, despite not inviting you forth, so you gently step around her into the room and she pulls the door shut with a snap behind you.
The room, or rather the suite of rooms that makes up her chambers, is larger than your whole home, with towering shelves crammed with tomes of all sorts, a bed big enough for four people stacked high with pillows and silk sheets, desks and wardrobes of carved wood inlaid with brushed silver and deep perse garnets, and curtains draped elegantly over floor length windows. It all makes you feel very small and paltry.
The woman moves across the floor to stand in front of a set of ornate mirrors bordered with floral designs in wrought brass, and you’re not sure what you’re supposed to do. You get the impression that she doesn’t particularly wish to have you speak to her, but should you ask? Perhaps you’re just expected to know, only you’ve never done anything like this before, and you have no idea what duties a servant of a princess is meant to oversee. You run your hands down the sides of your tunic, trying to get them to stop sweating as you continue to hesitate in the corner of the room. Her bright yellow eyes find yours through the glass of the mirror, leaving you exposed under the second-hand scrutiny.
“Are you going to help me get dressed or not? I don’t have all day.”
Right. Of course. You’re only just now realizing that she’s clothed only in a slip and there’s a splendid golden gown spread out before her, seeming to shimmer in the light, and yes, perhaps she would need an extra set of hands to manage getting it on properly. Right. You nod, and step forward to do just that. It couldn’t be that hard, could it?
***
It’s almost too easy, Loki thinks as he spots the rising smoke above the trees and treks on silent feet to the campsite. Several old, patchy tents dot the clearing centered around a felled tree and a shoddy fire pit. It’s pitiable, almost, or would be if Loki were inclined to feel such things for these lowliest of people who would disgrace themselves as they had.
Loki watches for a moment, unseen amongst the trunks, as a handful of men and a young woman drift back and forth across the site, idly chatting, the men carrying buckets and roughly hewn hide packs, the woman mending the torn outsole of a boot with neat little stitches. They seem harmless enough, simple-minded, dirty peasants concentrated on survival, but Loki is a sensible man, and he puts no stock in depthless suppositions.
He steps forward and reveals himself.
Impressively, no one screams, but they do take off running. Mead and wash-water slosh everywhere as buckets are overturned, needle and thread and leather flying as they scramble like panicked deer in all directions.
“No, no. I don’t think so,” he chides, and all seven or eight of them freeze. He smirks. “You’ll be coming with me. You see, some of you” — he recognizes two of the men from their part in delivering the girl to him on that cur Einvald’s behest — “seem to have blood on your hands, and you will be punished for it, have no doubt, and the rest of you... well, you’ve been privy to such crimes and yet you’ve deliberately held your silence, so it would appear to me that you are guilty in equal measure. But your fate is not for me to decide, and so, an extemporaneous jaunt to the palace’s prison cells is in order. Come along, now, let’s not waste any more time.”
It’s hard not to feel smug as they all march like ducklings after him, but he knows he’s missing one, and it does put a damper on the taste of victory. It seems Einvald may be more wily than he’d first thought, slipping away from him like a weasel slinking from a falcon’s claws. But he will be back for the man, to ensure he is repaid tenfold for his insults. And, in spite of the imminent storm, Loki can hardly wait.
***
It can be that hard, you find out. Maybe if it weren’t the strange, Vanaheim style of dress with so many straps meant to be tied just so, and maybe if the one you were attempting to dress wasn’t so irascible and fidgety, and maybe if you had the first clue about any of this it wouldn’t be so bad. But you don’t, and by the time you’ve finally managed to get all the parts of the dress situated properly — and you have to admit it does look rather nice — your mistress is practically frothing as she grits her teeth, flared nostrils visible in the mirror as she lets out a furious breath. Clearly, your incompetence is a cause of great irritation to her, a fact that she lets you know in no uncertain — nor, really, construably polite — terms.
In fact, everything you do over the next few days is met with much the same reaction. It’s a steady stream of “What are you doing? No, not like that!” and “I said braid my hair, not turn it into a tangled wreck! Ouch, stop pulling!” and “Why isn’t my bath ready yet? The water’s too hot! Ugh, now it’s too cold!” and “Élivágar and Ginnungagap, girl! Can’t you do anything right?” without you being able to get a word in edgewise. It’s enough to give you a headache, and make you think that Prince Loki may actually deserve her.
You’ve been kept busy making the ridiculously lavish and comfortable bed in Ülle’s chambers, stoking the fire in the hearth to maintain the perfect temperature, drawing baths in the largest tub you have ever seen — complete with wonderfully fragrant and, you imagine, expensive oils and soaps — dressing Ülle, brushing and plaiting her hair — which is slippery and fine, and resists being done up in even the most simple of styles — picking up and putting away all the assorted things she leaves strewn about, retrieving this and that and the other thing from who even knows where, all on top of being expected to follow Ülle around wherever she goes as her personal attendant, which leaves precious little time to do all the other tasks, but you still have plenty of time to get yelled at, of course.
On the positive side, you’ve just about figured out all the turns to get to the kitchen and back, having made the trip several times a day to bring Ülle her breakfast and whatever else she requests, and you no longer fear getting lost in the palace. The bad news is the other servants don’t seem inclined to be friendly toward you, not that you go out of your way to encourage any interactions. You know they whisper about you when they think you can’t hear. Mostly they talk about your scar, predictably. No one seems to know how you got it, and there are several trails of gossip going around, some more wild than others.
But you do learn some things from their tales. Apparently you had been so limp and covered in blood when Prince Loki carried you in that you had looked dead, and the prince was so bloody and disheveled, with a somewhat frightening look on his face, that some had thought he had killed you. But since you are obviously still alive, that idea had been proven wrong, though most seem to think that Loki had, at least, given you the scar, and at most actually tried to kill you, and that you perhaps have other scars elsewhere on your body hidden beneath your clothing (which does in fact match that of the other servants). Still, there’s a theory that Loki hadn’t been the one to hurt you, but that he had rescued you in some daring fight against those who had hurt you and rushed you back to the palace to save your life. A bit closer, but still nowhere near the truth of it. On the tail end of that one was a particularly absurd rumor that you were the prince’s secret lover, although how that gained any credence you shudder to wonder.
Despite the high stress of it all, and the work you know you’ll have to make up later, the most interesting parts of your days are when you do accompany Ülle when she leaves her chambers, following at her heels like a trained dog and fetching whatever she demands, often loaded down and carrying assorted chattel that she couldn’t possibly be expected to carry herself as she strolls the palace gardens — extravagant, interwoven pathways with shady bowers covered in bright pink, orange, and blue-violet blooms, and creeping clusters of tiny white and yellow flowers that grow on trellis archways and smell wonderfully sweet, and thick, verdant grasses and shallow pools and clinging vines cascading from berry laden rowans and stooped, feathery willows as far as the eye can see — or the library — central to the palace, massive enough to get lost in, with low lighting provided by lanterns and warmed by cozy little fires lit in corners meant for reading comfortably, with wooden tables and long chairs upholstered in velvet, the scent of thousands of books’ worth of parchment and leather permeating every crevice — or several other various and grand locations throughout the residence of the Allfather and his progeny.
(2/2)
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miguels-talons · 6 years
Text
Silenced Tongue- Part 1
Warning: This fic has graphic depictions of torture; including the sewing of human lips. If you are uncomfortable with this, then do not read this fic. There will be kinder fics in the future from me.
ok right off the bat... sorry guys. ya’ll be leaving me a ton of cool ideas to write, then im over here writing something literally no one asked for and something probably no one wanted aside from me lol. besides, people were wanting angst, and this has angst and ton of pain 
sorry atreus
anyway, enjoy:
Atreus doesn't know how long he has been in his captor’s grasp before he woke from unconsciousness, but he knows it's been long enough already. He groans, sitting up from the hard ground his captors has left him. He lifts a hand to his aching head, noticing the iron shackle around his wrist. Normally, if held like this- which was one other time, his father doesn't much like him being in the enemy’s hands- he would use his magic to make them unlock. However, upon further observation, he curses silently when he sees glowing runes etched into the metal. So they must block his magic and keep him from using it.
He sighs heavily and looks around where he is currently; what appears to be old ruins, it would seem like. He's on the edge of a large, circular stone, huge rocks stacked around the circumference in different patterns. Nearby, he can see what looks like tents and a campfire. And, sitting around the fire, are a group of dwarves.
Ah. So he was captured by dwarves of all creatures. Father would not be amused. He's not amused.
They don't seem to have noticed he's awoken, yet,  though. He could try to find a way to escape while they haven't noticed.
He reaches under the sleeve of his armor, thanking whatever god is listening- probably his father, then- that they hadn't patted him down. He finds the lockpick hidden underneath his wrist and pulls it out, setting to work on freeing himself. When the shackle clicks off, he lightly sets it on the ground beside him and slowly stands, glancing towards the dwarves.
And stops when he sees that they're no longer there.
He's just thinking of how terrible a fool he was when one randomly appears beside him. “Well, boys, would you lookie here,” the dwarf snickers, moving so fast Atreus can hardly see him. He ends up getting a fist slammed into his gut. He wretches and is then pushed to the ground as another of the dwarves kicks his backside.
“The little bastard is awake!” another of the dwarves exclaims, licking Atreus square in the face. He falls to his side, rolling just as another dwarf appears out of nowhere, landing where his head had just been.
“Woah!” Atreus exclaims, hopping to his feet, backing up until he hits one of the boulders surrounding the circle. He pants, looking from dwarf to dwarf as they slowly approach him, each holding a look of ill intent in their eye. Maybe he could somehow get out of this. Dwarves weren't exactly the brightest of creatures, after all. “What is going on? Why did you kidnap me?”
“Don't act stupid, bastard,” the first dwarf said. He was the tallest of the three with a set of golden armor similar to Sindri’s- though, of course, it doesn't have the same attention to detail. “We know who you are.”
“And we know what you will do,” says another, the shortest of the bunch. His armor is ragged cut fur, covering most of his body.
“And we know how to stop you from doing it,” the lay dwarf finishes and Atreus can now see how similar they look. Brothers, perhaps?
“I honestly don't know what you're talking about,” Atreus says, hoping he sounds confused enough about the situation to their thick skulls. “You must have the wrong person.”
The dwarves pause and look from one another. Good. His words are working so far. Maybe he could push a little more. “I promise I'm just some random mortal Midgardian who was out hunting with his Midgardian Father when you attacked us.”
They begin to mutter to one another. Atreus begins to slowly inch along the face of the boulder, thinking that he could possibly slip away. “And look, I’ll even leave, free of charge,” he said. And then he's darting around the boulder, sprinting down the side of a hill the ruins are situated on. He wobbled forwards and back to keep his balance as he hurries down the steep hillside, nearly losing his footing once or twice.
“Get him!” one of the dwarves shouts from behind and he knows they're chasing him now.
Atreus clears his throat and gathers his magic back to him, yelling out the words of a tracking spell. One that his father knows as well, and that will tell his father where he is currently. “Jag är här!” his voice booms from his mouth, echoing loudly around him and soaring through the sky. In the direction of his father. He sets off that way, hoping to try and at least meet him halfway.
But then the tallest dwarf appears in front of him, punching him in the face before he could stop. He stumbles backwards, nearly falling again because of his body’s continued inertia and he grabs at his throbbing nose, sure that it was broken as blood trickles from it.
“And where do you think you're goin?” the dwarf demands, grabbing a handful of his hair and yanking his head towards his face. Damn. A dwarf is still taller than him. He really needs to have his growth spurt already. “We ain't finished with you yet.”
“Yes, well, I could hardly breathe around you three,” Atreus snarks, unable to help himself. It's his last line of defense. “You stink worse than the World Serpent’s breath.”
The dwarf growls, slamming his fist back into Atreus’s face. Atreus sputters and throws a blind kick, hitting the dwarf in the shin. He tumbled back a few steps, drawing in another deep breath, readying himself for another spell. “Jeg opfordrer-!”
But a fist connects with the back of his head before he could finish the incantation. He bites down on his tongue, tasting even more blood just as a knee slams into his stomach. He ends up coughing, splattering the blood on the ground that was suddenly very close to him.
“We’re gonna need to do somethin about that tongue of his, aren't we?” one dwarf asks of the other two. They all snicker.
“I have just the idea, brother,” a second agrees and ah, Atreus had been right. They are brothers. He looks up, vision blurry just in time to see the dwarf reach into a sack hanging from his hip not unsimilar to Sindri’s, pulling out a clump of long, golden string. Atreus’s stomach turns when a needle is pulled out afterwards. He doesn't know what they're planning, but he knows whatever it is, it's not going to turn out good for him.
“Clever, brother,” the third dwarf remarks, taking the needle and thread from much thicker hands into his more nimble fingers. Atreus’s eyes widen as they look towards him, malice in their eyes. “To shut the bastard up, we just have to sew his lips together, after all.”
Atreus’s heart stops and he kicks at the ground, scrambling to get away from them just as the two larger dwarves dive at the ground, grabbing him by the armpits and forcing him back. He kicks and thrashes, pulling at his arms and struggling best he can to get away because oh gods they're actually going to do it. “No no no-!” he screams, drawing in another breath, a quick spell coming to mind, “Pola poltta-!”
But a hand slaps over his mouth and then his head is getting slammed into the ground. He chokes on a cry, not willing to give them the satisfaction as the dwarf with the needle bends down. “Keep the bastard still,” he said, threading the golden string through the needle. “This may take a while.”
The dwarves then situate him to where his stomach is pressed to the ground, the tallest dwarf digging a knee into his spine, holding his arms by his wrists, while the other is holding a handful of his hair, one hand gripping his chin in a vice grip. Atreus tugs at his head, trying to yank it back but the dwarves hold firm and he can only kick his legs- not that it does much for him. He kicks and thrashes best he can just as the third dwarf crouches in front of him, raising the needle towards his face.
“This ought to silence your silver tongue, Loki,” the dwarf spits his mother’s given name out like it were poison. And then he's pressing the tip of the needle through Atreus’s skin where his lip begins. The boy’s entire body jolts as the metal needle slips through skin and lip, through the bottom and lip and through the top where the dwarf pulls it through fully, dragging the string after it. Atreus’s head snaps, trying to jolt backwards, but the dwarves hold firm, even as his body instinctively thrashes.
“Stop stop stop stop-!” Atreus screams but the dwarf holding his head forces his mouth closed by grabbing both of his cheeks, applying enough pressure to keep his jaws shut. He continues trying to thrash, trying to fight as the needle is now forced through his top lip. He can feel the cool metal needle sliding through his flesh and skin, can feel the golden thread dragging after it, pulling his top lip towards his bottom. He now willingly keeps his mouth shut as they pull the needle through for the fifth time- the thick string is forcing his lips to stay together, yes, but it is also too blindingly painful for Atreus to try and open them again. This would cause the string to pull on the new wounds in his skin.
Blood seeps down his chin and drips to the ground beneath him and what feels like an eternity of agonizingly slow minutes to Atreus sluggishly pass. The dwarf dragging the needle and thread through Atreus’s lips is nearing the other corner of his lip. The other two dwarves have slackened their grips, having found the boy limp and unresistant now as the pain completely set throughout his entire body. In fact, if it weren't for the dwarf holding his head up, Atreus probably would have already pressed his head into the ground. Smashed it in, too, probably.
And finally, finally, the dwarf pulls the string through the opposite corner of where he had started. He removes what's left of the thread from the needle, tucking on it a little- Atreus flinches and groans softly- to make sure it was in good. Satisfied with his work, he ties the two ends into knots. Then, he shakes his blood covered hands and smirks at his brothers.
“Finished,” he announces, standing straight up. “I feel like he won't be causing anyone else any trouble for a long time, brothers. What do you two think?”
The large dwarf removes his knee from Atreus’s back but still the boy does not move. He hovers in front of the boy, scrunching his eyes to examine his brother’s work. “You sewed pretty crooked there, brother,” he points out, touching the middle of Atreus’s top lip, a dark amusement in his eyes as the boy whimpers in pain. “Perhaps we should redo it?”
Atreus whimpers more at the thought of going through that utter hell once more, finally letting the tears he'd been holding back up to that point run free. He just wants to go home. To wake up from a nightmare.
He just wants his father.
“No, no, brother,” the third interjects, letting Atreus’s head drop to the ground as he stands as well. “We wouldn't want to waste our precious string on this vile silver tongue, now would we?”
“Right you are, brother,” the first agrees. “Shall we be off then?”
“Well, it seems our work here is done, so let's,” the second said.
And then, thankfully, the dwarves leave.
Atreus curls in on himself, tears flowing quicker as he begins to hyperventilate. His body instinctively tries to open his mouth to draw in the quick breaths of air that it needs, only for the strings to tear and more blood to gush out and for more pain to explode throughout his body. He sobs loudly, body lifting from the ground so that he could tenderly like at his sewn mouth, sobbing more as even this causes more pain.
His young mind could hardly even process how much agony he was in currently. It was just too much and he knows he was going into shock but he couldn't stop it as his back arches, body shaking as it tries to gain the air it so needs.
He ends up thankfully passing out.
At least he can't feel the pain when unconscious.
~~~
yea... i kinda feel bad for doing this to atreus but like... i hadnt written anything brutal in so long that i really really wanted to.
Anyway, tell me what you think. And yes, there will be more parts. At least two or three more parts if I continue to be motivated to write it.
REBLOGS>LIKES
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dawnquafam · 6 years
Note
Any tips on actually plan a fanfic? I've always wrote my fics without planning beforehand but it isn't working very well for me (as I end up with big plot holes and fanfics that have no plot whatsoever), which makes me really sad because I end up wasting hours of work on something I will never post online. Thank you for your time and have a nice day/night! 🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈✨🌈
I’m just gonna startthis off with a little disclaimer saying that everyone needs to do a differentamount of planning, and different lengths of fics are gonna require differentamounts of planning. Every author and every fic are unique. Me personally, Iair on the side of laziness, aka minimal detail when I do actually sit down andforce myself to plan something (which I never do for one-shots, onlyintentionally multi-chapter fics and my actual book). Luckily, you sound likeme, so hopefully this’ll work for you too.
Second, before I explainmy strategy, heed this quote from Leonard Snart: Make the plan. Execute the plan. Expect the plan to go off the rails.Throw away the plan.
(Ok, don’t actuallythrow away the plan. It’s the first three sentences that are important.)
If I’ve learned anything since I started writing back when I was 12, it’s that fictional charactersmay be figments of your imagination, but they have minds of their own. Thatjoke you think is absolute genius? Yeah, they ain’t gonna say it. Where didthis piece of backstory come from? Not your head, that’s for sure. Thisplotline that was supposed to be resolved within a chapter? Nope, it’s fivechapters and counting now.
Basically, they’regonna tell you what they’re gonna do. They’re like unruly children who’ll dowhatever they damn well please. Don’t bedeterred by this, and definitely do not force your will on them. If you’vegotta force it, odds are the writing will come out unnatural and clunky andyour readers will notice and you’ll hate it. You’re gonna be sad that yourgenius moment didn’t make it in, but believe me, your characters know best – it’stheir lives, after all. And sometimes, those spur of the moment ideas are farbetter than anything you could’ve come up with ahead of time.
(If you’re really attached to the idea they’rerejecting, write it in a separate doc to do something with later. Keep it foryourself. Maybe post it as a deleted scene once you’re done with the fic. Or,there was one time I started a one-shot, couldn’t figure out where to go with it, abandoned it, and it later ended up as a flashback scene in a different fic that did get posted.You never know.)
Essentially, just bewarned that no matter how much planning you do, things are gonna change. Thoseplot holes you mentioned, they’re going to create themselves, because that’sthe nature of the beast. Forge ahead anyway – fixing those is what editing isfor.
Now that I’ve spent six(6) paragraphs explaining why planning is gonna get derailed, here’s how Iplan:
First, write downkey details. Making up a new place or alien species? Give it a name (GIVE IT ANAME BEFORE YOU START WRITING ITS SCENES FOR THE LOVE OF ALL YOU HOLD DEAR, NOTDOING SO COULD TRIP YOU UP FOR HOURS) and describe it briefly (nothing fancy,you can get fancy once you’re actually writing, planning is just to get thebasics down). Same goes for any OCs you may be incorporating, be they villains orside characters or whatever – name them and give them a basic appearance andpersonality/motivation. Basically anything that needs a name, come up with itsbasics before you start writing.
A couple examplesfrom my fic Operation: Memory:
Ascorix- Criminalplanet, crowded slums, overpopulated and heavily polluted, tall narrow greybuildings, little to no plant/wild animal life
Kutral- Moarian,tall and wiry, long wavy sky blue hair, navy blue skin, unnaturally brightgreen eyes, expert art thief and murderer, superspeed (top speed 100mph);motivated by money for fancy expensive things
And while we’re onthe subject, here are some sites I use to name things, I’d be lost without them:
http://www.behindthename.com/ (forhuman peoples, and I think it can even give your person some background detailsnow!)
http://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/alien-names.php#.WvjToUxFy3A(alien peoples/species)
http://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/planet_names.php#.WvjTskxFy3A(planets/alien species - take the planet name and change the ending to -an or -er or something, like Andorians live on Andoria, Asgardians live on Asgard, etc.)
Now for the scenes(not entire chapters, just individual scenes). Just write down shortdescriptions of what you want to happen. Keep it specific enough that you canremember what you meant weeks or months later, but vague enough that you’re nottrapped and the idea isn’t completely ruined if and when an earlier scene veersoff-course. For example:
Team (minus Mantis?) goes hunting on Ascorix,split in half to cover more ground, Loki gets nervous and guilty cause itreminds him of Sakaar (“Sometimes I wonder…” “You’re a hero, Loki” “…Maybe”), trio(quad?) kidnapped
Vague enough to beflexible, specific enough for me to remember where I’m going (the level ofdetail you’ll need depends on your own preferences). And yes, you are mostcertainly allowed to not know exactly what’s gonna happen – your characterswill fill in the gaps for you. As weird as it sounds, trust the figments ofyour imagination.
If you’re like me,you’re gonna want to mark down where you think each chapter will end, and byall means, do so. But keep in mind that some scenes could go on far longer thanyou think (in my fic Hidden Heartbeat, Nidavellir was supposed to be onechapter and it turned itself into three), while others might struggle to reacheven half the length you wanted. Sometimes a good cliffhanger pops up mid-sceneand you’ll decide to end the chapter there to torture your readers (I am guiltyof this). You won’t really know until you get there.
And that sums up theofficial planning that happens before the writing begins.
Unofficially, nomatter where you are in the fic: If and when you have a random idea, WRITE IT DOWN. On a napkin, in yourphone, in your planning doc, at work/school, at 3 in the morning, it doesn’tmatter. I don’t care how good you think your memory is, just run on the ideathat YOU WILL FORGET IF YOU DON’T WRITEIT DOWN IMMEDIATELY.
And if and when yourplan switches tracks, WRITE DOWN THECHANGES BUT KEEP THE OLD SCENES SOMEWHERE. They could still inspiresomething, they could still happen but just later than you intended, the main ideasthe original scenes were supposed to convey could still be perfectly relevant,and if you’re in the middle of the story, you could eventually wind up back onthe original track. Keep every bit of your plan. Leave deleting for the actualstory.
To sum up:
Outline key details,names, and scene ideas.
Keep it flexible,but know where you’re going. Odds are details will change, but your overarchingplot will stay relatively intact.
Make a plan, butlisten to your characters if they wanna go off on a tangent. Best-case scenario,that tangent is the best part of your fic. Worst comes to worst, you can cutthe tangent from the final draft.
And, last but notleast, delete nothing, absolutely n o t hi n g, from your outline. Move it down the page, move it to a differentdoc, whatever, but keep it for futurereference.
(Whoo, that gotlong. I hope at least part of it was helpful, and good luck in your writing!)
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larissaloki · 6 years
Text
Walking Avengers
With frantic steps, the group hustle as fast and as silently as they can to hide behind a large goods lorry. Peering underneath, Bucky watches as a massive horde come shuffling around a corner. Coming from the direction they themselves, had just come from. His long brunet hair hangs in-front of his eyes, but he doesn’t dare look away from the feet of the undead. Carefully watching, he makes sure that none head towards their hiding spot. Next to him, his group painstakingly nervously hunker down. Listening to the nightmarish snarls and growls from the other side of the vehicle. Quietly trying to catch their breathes. Steve glances around trying to find an alternative route should they get discovered. Its a blank wall behind them belonging to an old factory.  Silently cursing he kneels down by Bucky to peek under as well. Sharing a glance they both grimace when realising how bad their situation is. Bucky quickly goes back to keeping watch. Behind him Clint and Bruce are tending to Natasha’s wrist that she strained- possibly broken during their escape. The minutes crawl by as the group wait..and wait...and wait. What seems like hours of uncomfortable squatting in the weeds and a few close calls with some dead wondering a bit to close. The horde finally pass.
Standing with a sigh of relief, Steve looks over his fellow companions. Each of them dirty from rough living, suits and armour looking worn and ill maintained, being on the run has prevented them from checking their gear over. Bucky’s arm aches and spasms every now and again. Enough to cause a worry should they have to confront any enemy. The group is made up of entirely of domiants, meaning their stronger than switches or subs but sheer strength won’t be enough anymore. Good for Protection, but they need others, Switches that have skills in building or farming. Anything that could benefit the team. At least Bruce knows how to make bullets. That is if they find the right factory equipment to make them. “We need to get out of this city Steve...It’s to dangerous here, not enough cover or directions to run in if we encounter a horde again.” Bucky stands dusting off his knees clutching his rifle tight as he looks around. Paranoia is getting to them all due to lack of sleep and food. “We take the East road we should be able to get out of the city, head to the country side. Look for a farm maybe?” Natasha chips in after thanking Bruce for wrapping her wrist. Thankfully its only sprained, “It would be the safest place for us if most Deados are in the cities” Nodding, Clint stands by her holding a tattered backpack holding some supplies and hands her hers. Steve looks at Bruce and Bucky for their thought, both nodding to Nat’s idea. “Maybe we can find a car or a van to take us some of the journey on the way out?” Checking his equipment, Bucky looks at Steve as he heads on out, taking point. They move across to the closest road leading out of the city, slowly. Taking extra precautions to not get seen. Many times having to duck and hide, wait for the few walkers they come across to pass. Slowly but surely they make it to the road. Checking each car they come across for any extra supplies or if they can use it. Most have already been siphoned out of gas.  Several pile ups here and there, that had at one point been burning. “I’ve found one!” Clint calls from just ahead of the group, grinning he holds up his hand to wave tem over. A land Rover is the car he was looking in. Keys still in the ignition, ready to go. Gas full, or near enough full.  A quick check in the back seats and the boot reveal the car to be clear of any hidden surprises. With a determined look Steve takes the drivers seat as the others pile in and they drive. In the back Natasha is riffling through the pouches on the backs of the front seats and grins as she finds candy bars and a map. Handing out the sweet chocolate she shakes out the map. “WOO!” pumping his fist excitedly, Clint tears into his candy and gives out a dirty moan of pleasure. “Better than any partner I’ve ever had!” That statement was met with everyone exclaiming their disgust at him, Bruce even going as far as to throw his water bottle (empty) at his head. “Gross man...” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ “If you take the next right, we should be at a farm...if this map is correct that is” Natasha reads off to Steve. Who’s starting to grow weary at driving, the sun would be setting soon. They hope, if anyone still lives here, that they can stay. If not, well lets hope its not over run and they can still stay! Pulling up the long drive, they pass massive fields on both sides, at the end of the drive is an old rickety two storey house. It’s in dire need of a paint job but it looks secure. Shutters are still attached to windows which would be useful. To the left of the house, a small distance away, is a old rusty red barn. The paint really faded but still visible.  What Steve thinks, is a well out in the field which means, separate water supply which he hopes is clean. The most important detail though, is there’s no walkers around. Out side the house is an old jeep that’s covered in mud. But the mud is dry and would brush off like dust. Bruce peers out his window squinting out as the sun is starting to set behind them. “I can’t see anyone, maybe they fled?” Scanning the grounds Steve murmurs to his group. “Stay vigilant in case still, they could be hiding or simply out hunting. Until we can be sure this place is clear, I want everyone to stay on guard ok?” A chorus of agreement is his reply as they get out of the car, keys left in for a quick escape if needed. Clint pauses as he gets out and looks at the barn, thinking as he turns to Steve, “Lets check the barn first? I mean it would be the fastest one to clear?” Steve looks at the barn before nodding himself. “Sure, lets do that, Bucky, Nat watch behind Bruce in the middle ok? Clint point with me” getting into formation, they quickly make their way over to the barn. The closer they get to it,they can see a note attached to the front. At the top in bold marker is the word –‘Danger’ Getting closer Steve looks at the note silently reading it.                                         ‘dead inside. Lots. Do not go in’ Pulling back, Steve shakes his head at the group and motions for them to silently walk back. At a safe distance Bucky whispers to him, “What did it say?” “dead inside, lots of them” “Shit...” Grimacing the group back to the house. “If someone left a note...there may be someone still here right?” “Lets hope so Clint” Walking to the front door, Steve carefully opens it holding his shield up and a gun at his side as they enter the house. Inside looks like any other home, furniture clean, tv on a stand facing the sofa. In a corner is a pile of children’s toys, of building blocks and stuffed animals, on a small shelf are some books. Oh god he hopes the child isn’t here... Carefully, the group move around the bottom floor, all clear. Nodding to each other, Steve heads up the stairs first followed by Bucky then Clint who has his arrows at the ready.  To the left are three doors and the right are two. After careful planning he heads to the right first checking the furthest door, it opens up to a empty master bedroom. He bed is made and the air smells fresh. Indicating someone was in this place this morning at least. A quick check of the closests reveal no walkers, they go back out into the hallway and try the next door revealing a bathroom. The next two reveal a spare room and an airing cupboard. Taking a deep breath Steve puts his hands on the last door, the door with the kiddie stickers and animal letters spelling out the name ‘Peter’. Taking a deep breathe, he opens the door and raises his gun going into the room before freezing. Staring at the two figures in front of him in shock. “Tony?!” Lowering his gun and shield Steve can’t help but stare at Tony. The only sub their group had who Fury had kicked out of the group after the invasion led by Loki. Post Battle Tony’s pheromone covers had worn off and Natasha reported back that Tony, who everyone had thought to be a dom. Was actually a sub...It caused a massive rift in the group, they had all come to like Tony, he and Tony had even shared a small passion filled moment. It had hurt them to find out they had been lied to. Fury, in light of this had decided to inform others. It had gone from there, Stark had lost his company to Pepper who had tried to help him but Tony had asked her not to. He wanted someone he trusted to run SI. No one had known where Tony had gone after that. Pepper refused to tell them as well. Opposite the Group stands a man. 5ft 7 man, his messy brown locks gently curling around his head, his once pristine beard now a full short fuzz instead. His Golden wide eyes watch them coldly. An arm is raised with a gun in it, he must have gotten it through a farmer permit. He’s wearing a red plaid long sleeved shirt and washed out well worn jeans. His feet have heavy duty boots on. The more (is possible) shocking fact, is the small child at Tony’s Side. The child looks to be around 4 years old watching them with fear filled eyes as he hides behind Tony’s legs.
The room is filled with heavy thick silence as both sides stare at each other. The group unable to believe what their seeing. Tony is scared for his son. He’s the one to eventually break the oppressing silence.
“Get out of my home..” His tone is like steel, a no bullshit tone. Lowering all their weapons Steve goes to take a step forward, only for Tony to take off the catch on the gun. Making him stop.
“Tony, we’re just looking for somewhere safe to spend a little while to. You must have seen the news?”
“I did, Doesn’t mean I want you lot here. I’m not risking Peter’s life. How do I know none of your are infected? “ Glaring his gaze jumping from one dom to the next as if daring them to try anything.
Bruce raises his hands in a non-threatening manner and steps a bit closer, “Tony, its us? Surely you’re not so cruel to kick us out? It’s dangerous out there “ he nods to the darkening sky, “it’s dark now...please? let us stay the night at least?” He looks at him imploringly. He’s shocked when Tony snorts mockingly.
“You expect me to care? Seriously? Give me one good reason why I should let you stay”
“We can help protect you, take turns keeping watch?” Natasha speaks quietly, calmly like you would a startled animal. With a harsh laugh Tony looks at them as though he can’t believe what their saying. “Protect me? Please don’t kid yourselves. I Don’t want back stabbers around thanks” his voice lowers to a growl “just go, I don’t want a fight in front of peter but I will if I have to...”
Clint the whole time had been looking at Peter and speaks up finally. “Let us stay, to help protect him, I mean, sure you could most likely do ok by yourself but chances are much higher, if your in a group right? So lets make a deal? We stay, help out, you can concentrate more on your son when and if we have to run. We get a place to stay, win win”
“What about when we have to run, you’ll just leave us behind, no... I don’t want that false sense of security...” At his words the group look at him with something akin to horror. Does he seriously believe they would leave him and his kid the moment this didn’t benefit them?!
“Tony...we...why the hell do you think we would do that?! Christ we aren’t heathens!”
Snarling almost Tony takes a step closer making them back off wearily, Peter whimpering a bit. “well sorry if I’ve been given the impression Doms don’t care for subs at all unless we have some use...” Out of the corner of his eye he sees Natasha look down briefly at that.
“Tony, I swear, we won’t abandon nor do anything that could directly or even indirectly lead to your and your son getting hurt, you have my word as a captain..”
“Sorry captain if I don’t trust your word much...”
“Ddaddy....who are they?” Steve turns his gaze back to the kid, so young, by themselves they wouldn’t last long out there. Tony looks torn at how to reply, he sneaks a worried look at him before turning back to his son. “You remember I told you about the Avengers kiddo?”
“Your old team?”
“Thats the one” Nodding Tony bends down when Peter gets an excited look in his eye and turns to the group with a look of awe.
Sighing, knowing his son won’t allow him to kick the group out now he gives them a stern look. “Fine, you can all stay, someone can have the spare room or you can all use it I don’t care. Or you can use the sofas down stairs. No complaining no debate. Understood? If your staying here you will do as I say. Any arguments without good reason and I’ll shoot you got it? “ his demands are met his hasty nods of agreement.
“Thankyou To-“ Bruce is cut off by Tony raising a hand, “Save it, the only reason I’m letting you stay is because my son likes you all for whatever reason...in the morning I will show you around, tell you how everything works and the perimeter. You all pull your weight or else your gone”
Bucky hesitantly raises a hand, with an exasperated look Tony nods at him to speak, “just a question, how did your barn get full of deados?”
“Ah! That um...a group of them came by during the early hours of the morning, I was just about to turn on my kitchen light when I saw them. Luckily I didn’t or else...yeah...but they had been attracted by the sounds of my horses...” Taking a deep breathe he looks him square in the eye. “I went out, waited till they were all in before locking the barn doors. Stayed away quietly until their movements died down. They are calm in there. Lack of stimulation causes them to sorta just go in saver mode I guess. So please, no loud sounds or bothering the barn, I Don’t know how long it would hold for. “  
“Good to know Tony,”
“Stark... call me Stark, we’re not friends Steve.” A pang of sadness hits him at that. We hadn’t wanted Tony to be kicked off the team. The anger at the time stopped him from helping Tony, now, he and the others wished they had helped.  
Walking out of the bedroom carrying Peter, Tony leads them down stairs carefully, all the windows are carefully covered and shuttered.
“Please don’t open any windows unless its absolutely dark in here, I don’t want to attract any attention to the house ok? Use the candles or oil burners at low light to light one room at a time, or carry a candle with you ok?”
Placing Peter into a chair at the kitchen table after lighting a few candles he turns to the group. “I suppose your all hungry, well chop chop, I’m not doing all the cooking make yourselves useful!”
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cult-of-death-blog · 7 years
Text
Garden Dwarves and House Spirits by Claude Lecouteux
The impression that we have of dwarves from fairy tales is essentially based upon nineteenth-century folk literature. In fact, once upon a time they were a fantastical people that lived in wild and uncultivated regions, some of whom entered into the service of lords or heroes.
According to the Poetic Edda, dwarves were originally born out of the decomposing body of Ymir, the primordial giant, although the traditional accounts are hardly unanimous. These children of Ymir who created a race in their image were named Móðsognir and Durinn. They were not the only ones, however, since the gods took Ymir’s skull to use as the celestial vault, set it atop four columns, under each of which they placed a dwarf. These dwarves bear the names of the four cardinal points: Norðri, Suðri, Austri, Vestri.
In the tenth century, the various Germanic terms for a dwarf—such as Old High German zwerc, Old Norse dvergr, and Old English dweorg—were portmanteau words that concealed all manner of figures from folk mythology. The names designate elves as well as nightmares, howlers, fauns, satyrs, ogres, goblins, and brownies. The dwarf’s own image suffers as a result of this, and a number of its actions can only be explained in the light of such conflations.
The first dwarf turns up in medieval German literature between 1023 and 1050, but other non-literary evidence exists to show that dwarves were present long before this. As a result, it becomes apparent that the medieval romances drew upon folk traditions, among other things.
In this same geographical region, the Heldenbuch (Book of Heroes), printed in Strassburg around 1483, puts a Christian spin on the earlier mythological material when it relates how God peopled the earth that he had just created. God first made dwarves to develop the earth; afterward he created the giants whose duty it was to protect the dwarves against the then teeming population of dragons. But the giants turned treacherous and began oppressing the dwarves, at which point God created heroes to restore and keep secure His order. Another very old text, the thirteenth-century Middle High German translation of the Magnificat, says: “God distributed the demons among the entire earth. In the waters and mountains lived the Nixies and the Dwarves, in the forests and swamps the Elves, the Thurses, and other spirits.” We should note that an Icelandic tale collected in the nineteenth century, Huldumanna genesis (The Origin of the Hidden Men), made dwarves the children of Eve. Because they were unwashed, Eve hid them from the eyes of God, who then decreed: “Whatever should be hid from my sight should also be hid from that of men.” These children were therefore invisible: they dwelt in the hills and mountains, in holes, and among the rocks.
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Illustration by Helen M. Armstrong, from “The Peasant and the Brownies,” Swedish Fairytales, 1901.
There are three major types of dwarves in the Germanic regions. The first is the old, bearded figure, who is somewhat rare but whose existence is attested to by the figure of Alberich in the Nibelungenlied; this type of dwarf is ubiquitous in folktales and, much later, in European gardens. Next, there is the extremely beautiful child, a type for which the sole evidence is found in the thirteenth-century epic romance Ortnit, but this depiction actually corresponds with that of an elf. Finally, there is the figure of the dwarf knight, which appears quite frequently and is a diminutive version of a human hero.
Dwarves reside in hollow mountains, have hierarchical systems and families, and their society is similarly structured to that of humans. Like human beings, dwarves fall prey to their passions, wage war, become jealous, and so on.
Originally, the dwarf had no set size, but rather could transform at will to whatever size he desired. Furthermore, we constantly come across expressions in the Middle Ages like “little dwarf” or “miniscule dwarf,” as if it was necessary to indicate that a given dwarf was a small or tiny figure. The small size of the dwarf undoubtedly stems from the influence of the scholarly tradition regarding the pygmies, which were called Trispithames because they measured three spithames, in other words, around three feet tall. Generally speaking, dwarves measured between two to four feet in height.
The dwarf possessed the strength of twelve to twenty men, which is sometimes explained by their ownership of magic objects such as a belt, a helmet, or a ring.
As a cave dweller and a subterranean inhabitant of wild and rocky places, the dwarf knew all the secrets of nature: the virtues of plants, waters, and minerals. For this reason, he is an excellent smith, although the weapons that he manufactures under coercion—often after having been captured—turn out to be malevolent in nature. He can go wherever he pleases in the blink of an eye, knows the future, is the keeper of great wealth, and sometimes kidnaps women to be his brides. His hereditary enemies are dragons and giants. In Germanic mythology, dwarves and giants often bear the same name, and giants have dwarves for sons. A figure like Regin, the smith who took in the young Siegfried, was even described as a giant with the size of a dwarf. Again it becomes apparent that “dwarf” and “giant” do not connote the size of the creatures they designate; these are the generic names of mythological races.
Names That Speak
Thanks to the names of dwarves, we are able to see that these creatures are regularly confused with elves—one is named Gandálfr, for example, which literally means “Elf with the magic wand.” Elves are typically craftsmen and more especially smiths, and we find dwarves with names like Sindri (“Spark Sprayer”), or even simply Brokkr (“Blacksmith”). The harmful nature of dwarves is evident from names like Alþjófr (“Master Thief”), Ginnar (“Deceiver”), Þráinn (“Threatener”), Dori (“Damager”), Eitri (“Poisonous One”), or Mjǫðvitnir (“Mead Wolf”). They know magic, as is evident in such names as Galarr (“Enchanter”) or Finnr, Fiðr (“Finn,” i.e., Sámi or Laplander, a people who were regarded as sorcerers). Their physical nature is displayed in such names as Dúfr (“Twisted”), Bǫmburr (“Fatty”), Hárr (“Hoary”), and Blindi (“Blind”). This last name refers to a very specific characteristic of dwarves: the sun blinds and petrifies them. Undoubtedly even more interesting are the names that clearly show that dwarves represent a mythical vision of the dead, or, at the very least, that they have a very close bond with the dead. 
Here are several of them: Dáinn (“Died”), Nár and Náinn (both meaning “Corpse”), Frosti (“Cold”), Funinn (“Decomposed”), Dvalinn (“Torpid”), Hornbori (“Pierced by a Horn”), Haugspori (“The One Who Enters the Burial Mound”) and Búinn (“Ready for- Departure,” i.e., for burial). To this list we can also add Nýi (“Dark”) and Niði (“New Moon”), since this planetary body is that of the deceased, and Ái (“Ancestor”), which clearly indicates the transformation of the dead into dwarves. Furthermore, the natural habitat of the dwarves is the lithic realm, which is of course that of the deceased. We should note that the malevolent dead (those who experienced a premature, violent, or unusual death) become dwarves and revenants. The good dead, as I have shown in another study, Fantômes et Revenants au Moyen Âge, become elves. One final detail is that whoever follows a dwarf into his kingdom never returns, as is related in the legend of the Scandinavian king, Sveigdir, and, with a subtle difference, in the legend of King Herla in England, the leader of the Infernal Hunt, which is also known under the name of Mesnie Hellequin.
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Freya in the cave of the dwarves.Illustration by HLM, Asgard Stories, 1901.
Dwarves are fabulous artisans who forged various instruments and objects owned by the gods: Thor’s hammer, Odin’s spear, Njord’s boat, the ring Draupnir, and Freyr’s boar. All of these items are magical. But it was dwarves, too, who crafted the grate that seals off the underworld, Hel, and the chain that shackles the wicked Loki. When they forge things for men, their wickedness comes to the fore: the weapon is baleful. As for their treasures, whoever makes off with them will die, the best example being the cursed gold in the legend of Siegfried. In short, what is predominant among the “true dwarves” is their sly and ill-scheming nature, a quality that reappears in the romance literature. It is this character attribute that distinguishes them from elves.
Household Deities
Garden dwarves have adopted some of their traits from goblins and from spirits of the mines: their red caps come from the former and their lanterns from the latter. The beard is an old attribute intended to represent their great age and therefore their erudition and wisdom. The pipe is an element that was apparently added to this figure during the nineteenth century. But the garden dwarf has another, much more profound meaning, in that it actually represents the household deity: a creature that oversaw the proper functioning of the house and the well-being of its inhabitants on the condition that they granted it their respect, gave it regular offerings of food (broth or dairy products), and made sure never to set foot in the territory reserved for it, such as a corner in the attic. There is a spirit that lives in the main house, and others reside in the outlying farm buildings. All of these spirits have various names in the Germanic countries and are characterized by their physical aspect. Names referring to objects are not uncommon, such as “Piece of Wood” (Poppele) or “Block” (Butz); these beings were originally amorphous and gradually were given human features. In earlier times they were certainly idols. Their generic names may also refer to anthropomorphic features., such as Junge (“Youngster”), Kerlchen (“Little Fellow”), Männchen (“Little Man”), or, in the case of Grieske and Schrättli, connote the idea of deformation. They can refer to their color (which may be gray, white, or red), or a distinctive feature of their dress, such as Hödeken (“Little Hood”), Blauhösler (“Blue Pants”), or Stiefel (“Boots”); or simply their vague and indefinite nature such as Umg’hyri (“Disturbing Monster”) or Spuk (“Phantom”).
The majority of these spirits are of male gender and their names, which are quite often diminutives, suggest the notion of their small size as well as that of familiarity and affection. Beyond the aforementioned sorts of names, we come across those that simultaneously designate spirits, deities, and the dead who are predisposed to smoothly running households.
A house can have one or more spirits. When they are numerous, a family of spirits may be involved, although this notion seems due to a contamination with the dwarves. A Frisian account relates how a poor peasant finally managed to finish building his house thanks to the gifts from his neighbor. To ensure his good fortune, he invited the Puke [spirits] to live with him. They soon arrived to inspect the new house, and danced about it until one of them, about three inches high, decided to stay there and chose a hole in the beam for his home.
Typically, each individual building of a homestead is inhabited by its own spirit. This explains the multiplicity of names that we find for these spirits in a single geographic area.
These spirits that we see today, frozen in our gardens and reduced to the status of simple decorations, are the misunderstood vestiges of a former time when they were vitally alive and participated in the lives of men. They have lost their names and are now little more than generic dwarves. Since men no longer believe in them, and because our habitat has profoundly changed, they have abandoned us—they no longer perform any domestic duties, and, with their disappearance, part of a dream has vanished.
(Translated by Jon Graham)
A version of this article originally appeared in La Grande Oreille 35 (2008): 52–55. For publication in English, it has been slightly expanded in collaboration with the author.
Selected Works by Claude Lecouteux on This Theme:
Claude Lecouteux. Nos bons voisins. Nains, elfes, lutins, gnomes, kobolds et compagnie, textes réunis, présentés et annotés. Paris: Corti, 2010. ———. Les nains et les elfes au Moyen Âge. 3rd edition. Paris, Imago, 2004. ———. Eine Welt im Abseits. Studien zur niederen Mythologie und Glaubenswelt des Mittelalters. Dettelbach: Röll, 2001. ———. “Zwerge und Verwandte.” Euphorion 75 (1981): 366–78
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