(2)The Avengers: The Goddess of the Sea

8

I woke in a panic the next morning. Gray light filtered in through the curtains leaving the room washed in an ethereal light. My heart was pounding and sweat clung to every inch of my body. Nightmares plagued me all night long and even Loki's arms around me couldn't keep them away.

He was gone when I woke up for good. Sweat obscured my eyes, stinging with every blink. The odd thing was, I don't even remember what my nightmares were about. So I shook off the sense of doom and dressed for the day. There was nothing else to do besides go looking for Loki. I didn't really know my role aside from being Loki's right hand woman.

As I neared the throne room, a sharp pain in my head nearly incapacitated me. A quick tingle ran through my body and I fell to my knees. Nothing was making it feel better, until suddenly it stopped. Back on my feet I felt fine physically, but I was terrified. A servant burst out of the throne room, startling me into an added panic.

"So sorry, your Majesty," he mumbled as he rushed by.

For whatever reason, a strike of fury ran through me. Without thinking, I raised my hand and crushed the man with my power. The amount of power surging through me scared me, but it was even worse realizing I hadn't meant to do that. With that realization came an even sharper pain in my head. I fell to the floor once again but was unable to rise.

In my muddled confusion, a voice came to me. I thought it was Loki, after all, he was leaning over me, his lips forming my name. But this voice was female; and familiar. All it said over and over was: get out. It scared me because what did it mean? Get out of the castle? Get out of this thing I have with Loki? The possibilities were endless.

As if someone were putting together a puzzle, it finally clicked in my head that the voice was Freya. Could she speak in my mind as well? Or was her voice my conscience?

My vision began tunneling and the sound of the ocean was in my ears. I couldn't hear anything besides the voice telling me to get out, get out, get out!

I wanted it to get out of my head, that's for sure. Then once again, it was over suddenly. When I was finally able to blink the black dots from my vision, Loki leaned over me, one arm around me, one hand holding mine. His gaze was fearful but also confused. He looked so vulnerable and my heart ached for him. So I pulled him down to me and hugged him as hard as physically possible.

It took a moment, but he relaxed into the hug, sighing with contentment. I wondered when he had been shown affection last. He pulled away and my heart ached even more. Come to think of it, when was the last time anyone showed me any affection?

"Is there a reason one of my servants is on the floor dead?" Loki suddenly asked, tilting his head with curiosity.

"Um, yes. He angered me, my dear Loki."

I was expecting anger, but instead I was rewarded with one of his bright, breathtaking smiles.

"Good girl," he whispered, pulling me in for another hug. He towered over me so he was able to rest his chin on my head. The gesture was so innocent.

"Come on, we have much to do today," he said, keeping his arm around me and guiding me into the throne room.

"Today I'm going to be allowing you to be the decision maker. How's that sound?"

My ribs tingled where his hand rested and despite everything feeling extremely wrong, I smiled and nodded, looking into his gorgeous eyes. Just as I was about to look away, Loki's left eye rolled to the back of his head, no pupil, no iris, just white was left showing. The smile stayed on his lips, making his face look grotesque.

A scream bubbled up, but I stifled it with my hand and pulled away from Loki's grasp, backing away, unable to take my eyes off of the horror in front of me. Through his distorted smile, Loki was trying to talk.

"What's wrong, darling?"

But it came out disfigured, slurred and even looked painful. He took one labored, limped step towards me, favoring his left leg. Was he having a stroke? His left arm slowly curled up close to his chest where he held it as if he were in terrible pain. None of this seemed voluntary; even worse, it's like he didn't even notice what was happening to him.

"Darling," this time it was a low gurgling sound in the back of his throat, like he was choking on his own spit.

The bad thing...I was rooted to the spot with fear. Anything in my body that could possibly scream MOVE at my brain was no longer working. My feet refused to move no matter how desperately I knew I had to. The disfigured body of Loki was limping towards me yet I still couldn't make my feet do their job. It was as if I had grown my tail on land, rendering me useless.

This wasn't real, it couldn't be. Nothing could ever be as horrific as this and still be reality. My feet were still tethered to the ground but my mind was coherent enough to make my eyes close. I didn't want to see this.

His steps were closer, echoing off the walls, his breathing was erratic and I could feel his breath on my hands but I still refused to take them off my face. That is until he put his mangled hand on my cheek. I quickly dropped my hands and was prepared to strike at him, but I noticed what was happening to the room.

The walls were dripping, drops of paint and wallpaper and even the very foundation of the walls were splatting on the floor. My gorgeous throne was nothing but a melted slab of black and gold. Even the gown I wore began dripping off of me, staining my body gold. My horns melted right along with everything else. Reaching up to wipe it off of my forehead, my hand came back with the dirty bronze color stained on my skin.

Loki moved to put his left hand on my cheek, but the mangled limb wouldn't move, so he settled for his right hand cradling my face. At first, I didn't notice the pain. It came on slowly and gradually to begin, but then it was all over my body and it was suddenly all I could feel. The worst of it came from Loki's scorching hot hand against my cheek.

I grabbed his hand, intending to push him away to relieve the pain, but his hand was stuck. My desperation was blinding; I was terrified. My nails started bleeding as they tore out from the attempt at removing his hand from my face. Slowly, as if from a bowl of goo, I was able to pull his hand from my face. The pain did not abate as I had hoped.

Instead, everything around me crumbled into ashes. My vision started blackening and I didn't even realize I was screaming. Everything went black, and I slipped into a blissful unconsciousness.