~Asgard, One month later (3 months since Loki fell)~

She’d told Jane it would take some time.  Some time indeed.  Four weeks to be exact.  Day and night Sigyn had read, her nose buried in Loki’s well worn books, the spines permanently creased and nearly torn apart after centuries of overuse.  Meticulously perusing through his original spells, conclusions, sketches, narratives, and rather intimate daily journal entries (honestly, had it been necessary to describe each sexual encounter in such detail?) with little more than two hours of sleep every other night, Sigyn found the answer she’d been looking for tucked away in a lone corner of his seven hundredth journal, on page four hundred eighty-two of nine hundred pages.  

“The Unknown Gateway to Midgard,” he’d written, his typically beautiful swirling script replaced by nearly illegible scribbles.  

Hastily recorded without concern for proper penmanship, one could actually feel the excitement in the ink.

“I’ve lost track of the time that has passed since I first began my quest for a door to the mortal realm.  Has it been two centuries?  How old am I?  Three hundred and sixty-two years old.  Though after today, I feel as young and eager as a boy on the first day of the academic year…. ”

Grinning at the mental image of Loki sitting at his desk, his tongue sticking out and licking his lips subconsciously the way he did when he was thinking hard, Sigyn quickly scrolled through the lengthy account of his discovery.  The portals followed a pattern.  Jotunheim was nothing more than a rock, thus the portal itself was hidden inside a large boulder.  Vanaheim, the greenest of the realms, covered in forests, connected to Asgard through a lone evergreen tree.  The portal to Muspelheim, the land of fire itself, hid deep inside a volcanic trench under the Eternal Sea.  Likewise, since the majority of Midgard’s surface was ocean, Loki had searched the floors of every body of water in Asgard, even taking on the absurd task of searching the floor of the Eternal Sea, which was when he’d discovered the horrid Muspelheim portal.  

“Why did I scour the bottom of the sea first?  What a ludicrous waste of time!  I nearly killed myself in that fire portal!  One wouldn’t expect to find the door to the home of the fire demons under water, for fuck’s sake….”

Not in the sea, but deep inside Silver Lake, he’d found it.

“Of course it would be in the last place I looked.  How fitting that it had been right under my nose all this time, quite literally, since Thor and I swim in the lake every day of every summer.  We’ve been swimming there since we were boys….”

Slamming the book shut, exhilarated to have found the answer at long last, Sigyn yanked her boots on and dashed out of the room.  

---

Riding on Sinir to the lake, Sigyn pulled the furry hood of Loki’s jacket up to shield her hair from the hard rain, and dismounting once they’d come to the shore, she paused staring at the waves lapping up on the sand.  Heart pounding, hands and feet numbing, head swimming, fear washed over her with such force that she stumbled to the ground trying to catch her breath.  

Had she not been in deep water since her fall in Vanaheim?  No, she hadn’t.  Now she knew why.  The water terrified her.  The thought of drowning, of the pressure closing in on her, breaking her apart piece by piece, was the worst death she could imagine.  Even though there would be no falls to tumble over her body this time, the sheer idea of submerging herself had her in a panic, and unfortunately, the portal was at the deepest part of the lake.  She had no choice, though.  She’d promised Jane.

More importantly, she’d promised herself.  She’d promised to actually do something with her life rather than just wander aimlessly for eternity.  Not that she’d had even the slightest taste of eternity.  It had only been three months since he’d fallen.  Still.  Three months without him had felt like a small eternity in and of itself.  

Shaking her head, determined to overcome the fear (you are Sigyn of Asgard, and you can and must do this)she removed the jacket, leaving only her armor and boots and walked into the shallow water until she could no longer touch the bottom.  Diving below the surface, her eyes adjusting to the dark water, she turned slowly in all directions looking for the portal that Loki had described, and spotting the blurred shifting of light at the bottom, she swam deeper toward it.  

Able to hold her breath for a little over an hour, she didn’t need to breathe.  She could have made it to the bottom and back up easily.  Unfortunately, for some unknown reason (maybe she’d been distracted by the relief of getting closer and knowing the gut-wrenching experience was almost over) she took a deep idiotic breath.  Water down her windpipe, her body reacting violently to the invasion, she coughed involuntarily, sucking down more water still.  

For Hel’s sake!—If she’d wanted to kill herself, she certainly wouldn’t have done it this way.  She’d died underwater once, and oh gods she was about to do it again.  Why did her lungs keep trying to breathe?  They didn’t need air!  Granted, they didn’t like the water (she wasn’t a fish after all) but why couldn’t they figure out that they were only causing her to suck down more water with each cough?  Panic was setting in.  The very thing that she’d been afraid would happen was coming to fruition, but at the moment the blackness on the outside of her vision had started closing in, she found herself falling rather than sinking as black smoke burst from her fingers, the water around her evaporating in the intense heat within seconds.

“What the-!” 

Gasping, her cry cutting off when she landed just inches from the portal, she gaped at the sight around her.  Fiery magic still flowing from her hands of its own volition, it swirled around her body protectively and exploded up and out in all directions, the scorching smoke keeping the water at bay.  Silver Lake was disappearing right before her eyes.  Not only the lakewater, but the downpour of Thor’s making was drying up as well.  Momentarily stunned, she watched the absurd phenomenon open-mouthed.  

She hadn’t meant to use her magic.  She hadn’t even considered using it.  What the Hel had happened?  It was as though the smoke had a mind of its own, and seeing its imminent demise, it had sprung to life with the same power she’d experienced fighting back to back with Loki on the bridge.  Only this time there was no Loki.  It was just her.  For the first time in three miserable grief laden months, she felt dangerous once more.  Strong.  Powerful.  If he were still alive and they’d combined their magic, they could have destroyed an entire realm together.  

Blinking, she cleared her head and flexed her fingers, testing the magic.  It twisted and bent with each curl of her fingers.  She reined it in just enough to keep herself dry since an entire lake vanishing in an instant might have been alarming to distant prying eyes, and staring in wonder at the fish swimming just outside her little bubble of safety, she gingerly walked back up the floor of the lake and onto the shore.  Pulling the smoke back into her body completely, the steam transformed once more to water at the loss of the heat.  It rushed back into the lake, waves slamming against the shore, and the once evaporated rain began drenching her again.  Turning to Sinir, she smirked before looking up at the swirling stormclouds. 

“Apparently, even the God of Thunder himself can’t put out my fire, Sin.”

Infinitely proud, she practically skipped across the shore to the horse, her boots kicking up water and sand, and climbing onto the saddle, smiling wide, she urged him forward toward the palace with the click of her tongue.  She would take Jane Foster home tonight, and she didn’t need a damn bifrost to do it.  

---

~THE DESERT~

Wiggling his fingers, green sparks shooting out from the tips, Loki stood at the base of the same set of stairs where the grey man had first told him the proposition.  This was the day that he would leave the desert.  This was the day he would escape to freedom.  Midgard wouldn’t have been his first choice for that escape, but it was a start and would feel like Valhalla compared to this place.

His magic was back in full force—Beyond full force, in truth.  He was filled to the brim with it, seiðr flowing through his veins as fast as it had when Sigyn’s smoke had melded with his green light on the bridge.  Not only his magic, but his body was stronger than ever before.  Two months had passed since the proposition, and he’d done nothing but train his magic, his mind, and his muscles during the course of that time.

His torturer clearly thought it was worth the risk to make him strong enough to destroy their desert with just a flick of his wrist if it guaranteed he would retrieve the cube. They’d removed whatever magic blocking barrier had surrounded his prison cell and had given him empty journals and spellbooks (gods only knew how they’d acquired such books in the first place) and had ordered him to retrain the magic that had all but ceased flowing through his veins.  

After the first week, he’d self-duplicated sixteen times.  They were not illusions.  No, these had been sixteen corporeal copies of himself.  Never before had he conjured that many at once.  Up until his fall, five had been his best effort.  Perhaps he’d just needed proper incentive.  Escaping from an eternity of torture and possibly saving the nine, Sigyn included, was a bit more motivating than a simple competition with himself.

Along with his magic, which had been impressive, to say the least, to the grey man and the native race which he learned were called Chitauri, his body had been forced into its top physical condition.  Forcing had been hardly necessary though.  He’d desired to be strong since he could remember.  Asgard had little tolerance for perceived physically weak males, after all.  But comparing himself with his impossibly stronger brother had been slightly demoralizing.  It was why he’d never put as much effort into physical training as he could have, but there was no big brother anymore.  That ship had sailed the moment the blond bastard had broken the bridge.

Loki’s prior weight of five hundred pounds, which had shrunk to three hundred during his time in isolation, had returned plus some.  Well toned, he hadn’t bulked up to the ridiculous size of Thor, but at five hundred and fifty pounds of nothing but organs, bones and lean muscle, he was capable of running faster and longer, of lifting four times his weight, and laying waste to each bestia and Chitauri they put in the training ring with him.  He was quite sure that the absurd amount of seiðr running through his veins had strengthened him more than the lifting, running, and sparring.

Biting his cheek to keep an excited smile from spreading across his face, he watched as the grey man, who he’d learned now was simply referred to as ‘the Other’ (they’d thought really hard over that name, hadn’t they) descended the stairs slowly, eyeing Loki up and down.  Midgardian clothes had been fashioned for him, and as much as Loki disliked them, it would be easier to work with the humans if he at least dressed like them.  

Black leather lace up boots hid beneath close fitting dark denim (an odd fabric indeed) pants.  Clinging to his lean torso, a dark green short-sleeved t-shirt (what an absurd name for a garment) with a too low neckline was tucked into the hip hugging pants that were fastened with a black belt.  He was pleased with the black leather jacket, too short in length for his liking, only reaching his hips, but the smell was perfect and reminded him of his clothes.  He’d tied his hair back.  It was a short tail, just barely curling over the black elastic band, but it was less conspicuous than leaving it loose as long as it was, and he most certainly would not cut it.

The Other tilted his head sideways, glaring at the fully restored Asgardian two steps down from him. “I do not think it is necessary to remind you of our terms, Loki.”

Glaring back at the hideous rather aptly named Other, Loki fought to keep from snapping the man’s neck right there.  He may have been in their desert for three months, but he was still Asgardian royalty and deserved to be addressed by something a bit more formal than ‘Loki.’  He’d been a king for fuck’s sake.  

Calmer after taking a few deep breaths, Loki nodded. “Just get on with it.  I am quite ready.”

The Other showed his yellow pointed teeth once more from under his black hood and nodded. “Very well, Loki.”

Turning away from him, the Other looked up the stairs.  Loki followed his line of sight.  He’d never actually attempted to see the top of the stairs since there had been so many, and they were so dimly lit that he could scarcely see the top in the first place, but now looking up, he saw the back of a chair (more like a minimalistic throne) with no legs swiveling slowly from side to side.  Purple in color, a large hand snaked out from the side, palm up, fingers wide.  Ever so slowly, the fingers curled into a fist, a faint blue light pulsing around it.

Head tilted, Loki waited.   Ten minutes went by.  Sighing, jaw jutting out slightly, he rolled his eyes.  Nothing was happening.  Where was this magical tesseract portal that would send him to Midgard?  Should it have taken this long?  Were they playing tricks on him?  Had there been no mission at all?  Were they getting his hopes up just to torture him when they shattered them?  No.  He was the trickster.  It wasn’t the other way around.  Maybe they had discovered his not so obliging intentions, though he didn’t know how they would have.  He was most certainly not talking in his sleep.  The instant his magic had returned, he’d cast a dreamspell in order to keep his secrets safe while unconscious.  Maybe his torturer simply wasn’t as powerful as the Other had claimed.  

Turning to him now, Loki laughed dryly. “I must say, never before have I seen such a fantastic display of power.  Perhaps you should fetch him the tesseract owner’s manual-”

His quip halted mid-sentence as a dull ache formed right behind his eyes.  It wasn’t too painful.  Nothing he couldn’t ignore.  He’d had worse headaches than this.  They usually dissipated with a glass of water.  It was becoming more intolerable with each second though, and he winced at the growing discomfort.  Closing his eyes, his brow furrowed as that dull ache right behind his eyes sharpened, the pressure increasing tenfold.  He’d never felt anything quite like it.  He’d been stabbed, had his ribs broken repeatedly, been kicked in the face, fallen through deep space and had felt as though he was being ripped apart, but this was the most acute agony he’d ever experienced.  If he’d been home, he would have gone straight to Eir.  He needed an ender—Now.

He took a deep breath.  Maybe the blood would move faster and stop building up right there in that horrid spot right behind his eyes with the extra oxygen.  Although now the pain was no longer behind his eyes but in his eyes.  He felt as though syringes full of water had been stabbed into them, the plungers pushing the liquid through the needles.  His forehead beaded with sweat.  Gods, this was torturous!  He feared his eyes might actually explode.  How in all the godsdamn nine was he supposed to accomplish anything if he was blind?!

The Other grabbed Loki’s chin, and prying one eye open with his thumb and forefinger, he smiled crookedly. “Hello there, Blue Eyes.”

Loki wanted to ask why the man had called him that, but the pain was too great for him to speak.  His vision was clouding over, a bluish tinge tainting everything he saw, and he blinked at the color, instantly regretting the movement.  Shit!—It hurt to use his lids at all, and he slammed them shut.  Jaw clenching, he rubbed them trying to relieve some of the pressure.  Blue Eyes his torturer’s minion had called him.  Were they making his eyes blue?  No, no, no, no, no.

NO—Sigyn had adored the green!  Her words from what felt like a lifetime ago echoed in his mind.  

“….I started having dreams.  Dreams of a pair of mesmerizing, beautiful eyes….emerald eyes….I must have sketched them a thousand times.  Those eyes haunted me….I looked for them in every face, to no avail.  Everyone had the same brown or blue color….”

If he ever saw her again, doubtful at best, what would she think of the blue?  And just how blue were they?  Thor blue?  Oh gods, he hoped not.  Would they change back?  They had to!  Loki of Asgard had black hair and green eyes.  It may have been petty (it wasn’t!) but he hated the thought of looking in the mirror and seeing blue eyes looking back at him.  What had his mother once said to him?

“Green is for life, and I want your life to be so beautiful, Loki….”

Oh how wise his mother was.  What an absolute prophetess.  Green had brought Sigyn to him, and taking away the green was akin to taking away everything that had made his life beautiful.  Surely this wasn’t permanent.  It had to be part of traveling through the cube, which he knew was blue.  The great book of history in the hall of the world tree had a living picture of the ancient relic.  They would change back once he was through.  Yes, they would change back.  He refused to think anything else.  He wouldn’t spend another second dwelling on it.

Despite rubbing his temples, his fingertips glowing bright green as he sent pain relieving magic into his eyes, the agony refused to stop.  This truly was a fantastic display of power.  No one had ever delivered a blow that he couldn’t at least dim with his magic.  It had to be the cube.  His torturer wasn’t capable of doing this to him, not with Loki’s renewed and superior seiðr.  

He managed to snarl through his teeth, spit soaking his chin. “End this!  Please!  I can’t-”

Bile rising and burning his vocal chords, his words caught at the back of his throat as the Other shushed him, a hand on his raven head, slowly pushing him to his knees.  Not that it took much effort.  Loki could hardly have stayed on his feet much longer.  

Backing away from Loki, the man crooned, “There there, Blue Eyes.  It’ll all be over soon.”

Stop calling me that!—Face screwing up in agony, Loki bent over, fingers splayed wide on the stone surface beneath him as sudden positively stifling heat gathered around him.  Now would have been the ideal time to turn Jotun and spare himself from what felt like fire surrounding him.  Gritting his teeth, he managed to get one eye open and marvel at the translucent glowing blue sphere of heat encircling him.  It rippled, the strange physics of the sphere moving and bending what little light shone from the stars.  Chest burning with each breath, bracing himself against the rock, he curled over as the glowing sphere pushed out further from him, the blue orb growing in size.  He had a bit more room to breathe now, but it was still too hot, and his throbbing eyes continued to torment him.  

He hadn’t been told expressly, but he imagined the cube was being heavily guarded.  Hopefully, no one would attack him before he’d had a chance to speak since his torturer hadn’t furnished him with a weapon.  He did have his magic though, and it would be more than enough to protect him.  That was, if he could even use it.  He was positively exhausted already, and he hadn’t even gone through the cube.

The Other, still visible through the sphere, smiled wide then as the desert faded, his grating voice echoing in Loki’s ears. “Bye bye, Blue Eyes.”

Agony coursing through his body, the acute pain in his eyes tripling in strength, Loki screamed then as the sphere exploded.

---

~THE MIDGARD PORTAL, SILVER LAKE, ASGARD~

It had been black as pitch outside the balcony of Jane’s healing room, the moons covered by the twisting storm clouds when Sigyn had helped gather the papers strewn about the room and had tossed them in a satchel along with the strange contraption called a ‘phone’ and the small leather thing that held American currency and plastic cards that had been in Jane’s pocket when Thor had brought her to Asgard.  Moving silently through the great halls of the palace, the dark of night shielding them from the guards, they had escaped to the stables.  

Riding back to the lake, now with Jane’s tiny arms wrapped tightly around her waist, Sigyn considered the consequences of what she was about to do.  If anyone discovered how Jane had disappeared, if it somehow led back to Sigyn, she would be packing her bags and moving into the comforts of the dungeons when she returned.  She hadn’t exactly been on Thor’s good side lately.  Not that he seemed to possess a good side at all anymore (maybe that wasn’t fair).  But the current certainly useless king didn’t know any portals other than the one that led to Jotunheim existed, and without Heimdall’s sight, with Odin still asleep, there was no way for him, for anyone, to see the Midgard portal.

Thor would be beyond pissed if he learned that she’d been withholding such information from him.  No doubt his pride would be wounded further if someone let it leak that the portal had been known only to his now beloved brother.  Thor had become mad with envy where Loki was concerned.  There was a sound reason for the secrecy though!  Loki had known that it would have only taken one person.  One person would become two.  Two would become three.  Three would become four.  And so on and so forth until all of Asgard knew, and if Asgardians knew of the portals, the other realms would learn soon enough when random Æsir appeared in their lands without the bifrost.  What then was to stop further invasions?  Look at what the Jotuns had done when they’d discovered their portal!  

It mattered not.  She was taking Jane home regardless of the outcome.  It may have seemed a small and insignificant thing, but this task was all she had.  Without it, she had nothing.  Nothing but despair and longing for Loki.  She would walk right back into his dressing room and scream into his clothes until sleep overtook her.  Day after day.  Night after night.  Until she found another small thing to give her existence something resembling purpose.

Pulling on the reins as they came to the sandy beach, she lowered Jane down easily with one arm (little thing couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds) before hopping off.  Jane approached the shore, her feet wet from the waves crashing over her shoes, and Sigyn turned to Sinir, stroking his mane.

“Wait for me, Sin?” The stunning horse lowered his head and put his nose into the crook of her neck. “I will return before dawn, dear one,” she said, a tear running down her cheek as she stretched up to kiss the stallion’s forehead. 

Jane looked nervously over her shoulder at Sigyn and pointed to the lake. “So this, um, portal to Earth is at the bottom?” Nodding, Sigyn grabbed Jane’s hand, but the smaller woman yanked it back nervously. “Okay.  That might be a problem.  A big problem.  I’m a good swimmer, but I can’t hold my breath for that long.”

One corner of her mouth raising slightly, Sigyn shook her head. “You won’t need to hold your breath.”

Jane furrowed her brow, confused. “What do you-”

Jane’s mouth slammed shut as Sigyn dragged her into what had once been Silver Lake, the water turning to steam as they walked down the muddy lake bottom further and further, black smoke enveloping them protectively.  Mouth agape, Jane stared wide-eyed as they descended to the deepest part of the lake, the smoke barrier evaporating even the pouring rain.

“Holy shit.”

Sigyn smirked sideways at her. “Did I not tell you that you needn’t hold your breath?”

Unsettled by Sigyn’s magic, Jane laughed nervously as they neared a large faintly shimmering hole in the middle of the lake bottom.  Sigyn looked at her then, a delighted smile spreading across her face. 

“Are you ready to go home, Jane?”

Gulping audibly, Jane breathed more quickly. “That’s the portal?  God, Sigyn, I don’t know if-”

Without a word, Sigyn grabbed her hand and jumped into the hole, Jane’s scream echoing in the prismatic tunnel.  Magic still protecting them from the water, they came through the portal, their feet landing on wet sand as steam shot up from outside the smoke sphere, fish swimming away from the thick barrier.  Clinging to Sigyn as though letting go would be the death of her and positively terrified, Jane refused to look at their new surroundings.  

Gingerly removing herself from Jane’s tight hold on her waist, Sigyn whispered, “Open your eyes.”

Hesitant to oblige, Jane peered through one squinted eye and squealed in sheer delight as they ascended the floor of what would have been a lake or ocean (how was she supposed to know what body of water they’d just fallen into?) and continued until they reached the shore, completely dry.

“Okay, you are officially amazing, Sigyn.  That was unbelievable.  You make Thor’s lightning tricks look boring.”

Sigyn laughed out loud at that and shrugged.  What a nice change.  To laugh.  Genuinely.  Even for a moment.

Checking out their surroundings, Jane twirled on the sand.  It was a star filled night, though some light pollution was dimming the effect, and that light pollution was coming from one source: a gigantic white compound just south of the beach they’d stumbled upon.  

Jane’s jaw dropped, and Sigyn looked to the building asking, “Are you familiar with that place?  Do you know where we are?”

Nodding excitedly, Jane pulled out her phone and slid her finger across its glassy surface, a picture of an attractive strawberry blond woman’s face appearing on the screen.

“I can’t believe this.  I mean, this is insanely convenient.  I know exactly where we are.” Bouncing on her feet to keep warm in the strong sea breeze, she put the phone to her ear. “Pepper?…. Hey!….Yeah, it’s Jane!….Um, yeah, I’m fine….Oh my god, really?….How the hell did you know that?….Erik is there?…. Well, so this is gonna sound absolutely crazy, but bear with me.”

Pursing her lips, Sigyn listened to Jane’s side of the conversation as she sat down and ran her fingers through the soft white sand.  It was slightly cool, refreshingly so.  Oh gods, how marvelous to sit outside with not a cloud in sight!  It had been three months since she’d felt the fresh air without the sting of freezing rain hitting her cheeks, and sighing, she leaned back and lied down.  Huh, so this was Midgard—It was surprisingly lovely.  She couldn’t stay, obviously.  Sinir wasn’t the only creature waiting for her.  Frigga needed her desperately, and she refused to simply run off while Thor destroyed her home with his idiotic rule.  

Jane’s high pitched voice broke through her thoughts. “Sigyn?”

Still gazing at the stars, Sigyn sighed. “Hmm?”

Jane began speaking so rapidly that it was difficult for Sigyn to make sense of her words. “So that huge house over there is Tony Stark’s summer home.  Or at least, one of them.  I’ve been here before.  I mean it was a while ago, but I recognized it obviously.  Can you believe that?  Of all the places in the world, the portal is right here off Catalina?!  Right by Stark’s place?  That is insanely convenient.”

Sitting up, Sigyn blinked at her. “Stark is the Iron Man, correct?”

Jane paused before waving her hand and nodding. “Oh right, I’d forgotten that I’d told you about him.  So his assistant, Pepper Potts, is an old school friend of mine.  She’s at the house right now and told me to come on up.  And you know what’s better?  Erik is there, which is awesome, though it sucks that he got pulled into all this S.H.I.E.L.D. shit.  Apparently, Stark is working on something for them that relates to my research, so they flew Erik in to help.  I’m so glad that I don’t have to get an airline ticket to New Mexico.  Did I mention how insanely convenient this is?  I really can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done.  Seriously, I really appreciate it.”

Smiling, Sigyn nodded once and stood, brushing the sand off Loki’s leather jacket and her leggings. “You’ll be alright then?  There is nothing more I can do?”

Waving her off, Jane chuckled. “No, I’m good.  So, um, I guess, travel safe?”

Sigyn nodded again with a small smile, and Jane turned and trudged through the sand in the direction of the compound. Sighing heavily (she wasn’t exactly eager to return to her stormy grief laden Asgard) she walked back into the waves, and feeling her magic swelling within her, the smoke sphere appeared once more around her.  Wait.

Pulling the magic back into her fingers, eyes squinting, she turned on her heel to once again face the compound.  Everything had taken on a faint blue hue.  She blinked at the color.

“What the Hel…?”  

It hit her like a ton of bricks.  Fullness.  Wholeness.  Completeness.  For the first time in three months, her mind wasn’t remotely fuzzy but clear as daylight.  The dull chronic ache in every muscle that had plagued her since that day on the bridge disappeared.  She felt strong, and she wasn’t even using her magic.  She inhaled deeply as the breeze turned colder.  

Peppermint.

Woodsmoke.

Leather.

Sometimes she got a whiff of it in Loki’s chambers, though it seemed more like a memory rather than an actual smell.  This, however, wasn’t just the lingering scent on his jacket that she was wearing.  No, this was not a memory.  This was the real and living smell of his throat, and it was on the breeze that was coming directly from that obscenely large compound.  It was pulling her like a magnet, filling the empty spaces in her bones, in her heart, in her mind.  The half of her that had disappeared from the bridge three months ago was reappearing out of nowhere.

Norns, help her—The bond.  How in the universe was she feeling that again?!  What sort of cruel trickery was this?  Only one thing could stir up that amount of energy within her, and that was impossible because that one thing was dead.

Loki.

Eyes wide, she bolted after Jane, and catching up quickly, she grabbed her by the elbow. “I’m coming with you.”

Gaping at her, Jane whispered heatedly, “What?  Sigyn, did you forget what S.H.I.E.L.D. did to Thor?  They would do the same to you!  You can’t be here!  We’ll have to tell the whole story about the portal!  If it was just me I could say I didn’t know how I’d gotten back because my mind had been wiped or something!  But if you come waltzing in there?  My god, you are basically a walking red flag.  They thought Thor was crazy.  I mean, do you wanna be locked up?”

Jaw clenched, glaring at the compound, Sigyn walked ahead of her. “Thor had been stripped of his power, Jane.  Of course they thought he was mad.  I can easily prove that I am not of this realm.  A little fire.  A little show of strength.  Honestly, though, I could care less if they think I’m mad.  I’m coming with you either way.”

Taken aback, Jane ran after her. “Okay okay, so you’re coming with me.  But why?”

Sigyn stopped then, and eyes wild, she looked back to Jane. “Tell me, do you believe in ghosts?”

Blinking rapidly, Jane fumbled for words. “Ghosts?  I, uh, I don’t, um, know, uh, I mean science, or reason, that is, doesn’t reallyー”

Rolling her eyes, Sigyn turned back to the compound, and stalking towards it, she spoke over her shoulder. 

“Well, start believing, Dr. Foster, because you’re about to see one.”

FALLEN CONTINUES IN CHAPTER FOURTEEN: I WILL FIND YOU

Visit the Trilogy main page HERE.

Fallen Chapters: ¹ Come Back to Me, Sig. ² I’ll Protect You From Everything ³ Let’s Just See How This Plays Out ⁴ When Did I Get So Soft? ⁵ Bring Me Home (But Not to This) ⁶ Death is Everywhere ⁷ The Bridge ⁸ The Desert ⁹ Remember Remember (It Hurts Like Hel) ¹⁰ Green is for Life ¹¹ I Don’t Make Deals With Monsters ¹² Rain Rain, Go Away ¹³ Are You Ready? ¹⁴ I Will Find You

CHAPTER THIRTEEN THEME SONG:

“Fractures” by Illenium feat. Nevve

What Readers Have Said

About CH 13 “Are You Ready?”

“Oh finallyyyyyyyyyyyy”

-Pixelerrante, on CH 13 “Are You Ready?”, 27 Aug 2017 (AO3)

“I am enjoying this story. I like the inclusion of Sign and the effect of having that extra relationship on Loki. I like Thor finally feeling the consequences of his actions in the previous chapter. I look forward to its continuation.”

-Lindalynn, on CH 13 “Are You Ready?”, 28 Aug 2017 (AO3)

“Ah great update!!!! I cannot wait for Sigyn and Loki to be reunited. I neeeeeeeed it.”

-RomanticObsession, on CH 13 “Are You Ready?”, 31 Aug 2017 (AO3)

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