The Villain

harmless fun

'Are you done?', it echoed through Nick Fury's office, who watched the monitors in front of him attentively.

He hadn't done a lot else since the system was working, and by now had gathered just about any information possible. She was feeding her cat, nothing out of the ordinary.

"Yes. We will be able to watch all her moves from now on."

'Their moves...very soon.'

"What?" the mortal asked in confusion.

'Forget it,' the Titan answered.

"What do we know about seidr, separated from its original source?" Phoenix asked, dropping some purple lines of her own into the glass in front of her.

Raven watched how Trisha took notes eagerly, trying to stay in Phoenix' exceptionally good books for now, so their teacher would help her avoid that arranged marriage. Raven looked forward to later, planning on grabbing some Nagarfī, which was the plant that apparently could help you get your prophecies sooner.

Helping Trisha becoming an oracle took the biggest priority in Raven's life right now, she had let her studies slouch a bit, concentrating her reading solely on how to fasten the process of getting prophecies. Sadly a not very successful task until now – the shelf dedicated to seidr in the library lacked any useful information, no wonder, considering how small it was.

Many books were missing too, and the librarian only hesitantly answered that Queen Frigga had taken them for the time being.

"Since seidr isn't just a source of power for those who manage to control it, but also a gift given at birth, it has a special connection to its original heritage."

Raven's look wandered down to Trisha's hands, observing her beautiful handwriting.

"For clarification, this means it always tries to return back to where it came from, once it has completed its task, like this."

Out of the corner of her eyes, Raven could see how the purple lines in the glass found their way back to Phoenix' fingers at ease.

Trisha wrote it down, as if she didn't already know that.

They needed a plan B, if Phoenix wouldn't help them, and if Trisha didn't get her first prophecy, Raven needed to find a way to get Trisha into safety, somewhere away from her parents and the king and possibly every grown-up.

"If one is capable, they can tell a lot about a witch just by having a fragment of their seidr in their possession. Raven, pay attention," Phoenix scolded her and the girl ripped her eyes away from Trisha to look at her teacher.

"My apologies, but...isn't all that very obvious? Seidr is a part of our soul, clearly you can tell a lot about us by looking directly at it," Raven shrugged, leaning back in her chair, to which Phoenix sighed.

"I see. Are you bored, Raven? If that's the case, you're absolutely welcome to leave anytime," Phoenix said, staring her down.

"I'm a little bored actually but – wait," Raven interrupted herself, sitting up straighter. "I should leave?"

"Lately I'm not really happy with how you behave during my classes. If you don't wish for further education, you can leave. I'll write your parents a letter and they will happily greet you back home, if that is what you want," Phoenix said, scribbling something down on a piece of paper in front of her.

Raven stared at her teacher for a moment, then at Trisha, slightly tensing under the curious looks of her classmates in her back.

"No, I –"