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Chapter Seventy-One: Turtles

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"I need to see him," I said, jabbing a finger in the Hulk's direction. He was riling the crowd, lifting his fists into the air victoriously as Thor was dragged away below. I hoped Thor would be fine. He should be. Probably. He was Asgardian. I tried to dispel my worry as I turned to Brunnhilde.

She nodded slowly. "I can take you to him."

I thanked her as she began to lower her ship back to port. We loaded off, stepping into the crowded hallway as people poured from the arena. I couldn't help but to scan the crowd for Loki. He had said he needed to speak to me. And, now that I thought about it, Thor had had something he'd wanted to tell me too.

But that could wait. Right now I had to kick Banner's ass.

"So what do you want with the Champion, anyways?" Brunnhilde questioned.

I opened my mouth to answer, but before any words could come out: "Firebyrd!"

Sun grabbed me by the arm, tugging me toward the group of entertainers clustered around him. "The Grand Master is expecting us at the after party."

"But I needed to—"

"I don't think the Grand Master cares for your excuses, and I don't quite feel like watching you be executed," Sun shot back, "Though you are becoming quite the pain," he added jokingly.

I turned and cast an apologetic smile over my shoulder toward Brunnhilde, who nodded her understanding. "I'll find you later, Kárasdottir."

I smiled, a real smile. It was nice hearing someone call me that. It felt almost like my Asgardian side had finally been confirmed, like I finally belonged in Asgard. For the first time, I truly acknowledged my Asgardian blood. And it was a strange, and frightening, and exhilerating thing.

I followed Sun through a maze of halls, until we emerged into the same room we'd performed in the previous night. We went through our acts, my thoughts far elsewhere. There was so much going on, and all I wanted was to find Loki and tell him all of it. But my eyes swept the room for what seemed like the millionth time, and still, he was no where to be seen. I hoped he hadn't gotten in trouble for speaking during the fight.

"Your act is quickly becoming a fan-favourite," Sun's voice over my shoulder startled me. I was hiding in a less populated corner of the room, finally having escaped the crush of people wanting to talk to me. "Keep it up, and I'm sure you'll gain rank here. You've got a real shot at a good life on Sakaar. Not many can say that."

I turned to him, arms folded. "I can't stay on Sakaar. I have family, friends, that I left behind." Not to mention an evil entity that was hellbent on world-domination to take care of.

"There's no way out of Sakaar," Sun said.

"I'm sure that's not true," I frowned, "Cause there are sure as hell a lot of ways into Sakaar."

"Oh, getting into Sakaar is easy," Sun responded, eyes picking through the crowd, "It's the leaving that's often deadly. I wouldn't risk it, were I in your position. The Grand Master's favour is hard to come by, and you've already gained it in a short time—Say, isn't that your friend you were speaking to earlier?"

I followed his gaze, to where I saw the Valkyrie leaned against a buffet table, a massive bottle of amber liquid in one hand, while the other slowly shoveled some strange-looking finger food into her mouth from off a large platter.

I jumped in her direction, but I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I stopped. I turned back to Sun.

"Be careful," he said, a small smile on his face. "And good luck. If you ever get off Sakaar, I mean. Send me a postcard."

I smiled, a nodded. He dropped his hand, and I cut through the crowd, shrugging off people's grips and ignoring their ceasless questions as I made for Brunnhilde.

"Take me to him," I said, startling her with my sudden presence. "Before I get dragged off somewhere else."

"The Champion? Or you mean that blond fellow he ran off with?" She asked, her words slightly slurred.

"Blond..? You mean Thor? And ran off? What do you mean they ran off?"

I was all kinds of offended. They'd run off without me? They'd really abandoned me on a whole other planet? No, I was being irrational. Thor wouldn't have left without me. But, if he had, well, that made two people on my list to beat up.

"Where did they go?"

She just shrugged lazily.

Before I could badger her with more question, a voice adressed her from behind. "Scrapper 142," the Grand Master's assitant was suddenly beside us, glaring distatefully.

"Turtles," Brunnhilde smiled warmly, and drunkly.

"It's Topaz," she spat back. "And the Grand Master requests your presence immediately."

Brunnhilde shot me a comically worried look, her eyes wide. "Have I done a bad thing?"

"Now, Scrapper," Topaz said with a final glare before waltzing off.

Brunnhilde scrambled to follow after, leaving her now empty bottle on the table. She paused, as though just remembering me, and handed me a keycard. I frowned. "My apartments. Wait for me there. I'll be back shortly. Or dead. I'll find out soon, I suppose."

"Got it," I nodded, immediately vacating the room in search of Brunnhilde's apartments before I could be dragged off elsewhere.

It was a chore trying to find my way, but eventually I found a room number that matched the keycard, and let myself inside.

It was trashed, empty bottles of liquor scattered in almost comical amounts across the floor. I picked my way toward the table, where I perched and waited.

Time inched passed slowly. It was the first time in a while I'd been left to my thoughts after everything. After finding Loki alive, Odin's death, Hela's appearance, coming to Sakaar, Loki and I's conversation, and finding out my mother's identity. Suffice to say I had a lot on my mind.

But finally, after what seemed like hours but was likely only several minutes, the door slammed open, and Brunnhilde came lumbering in. There was something weird about the way she was walking. But then, I noticed she was dragging someone, an unconscious someone, in behind her.

"Loki?" I blinked, slipping off the table, "You didn't kill him, did you?"

"Almost," she admitted, tossing him against the wall and then stooping to chain him. "Proud to say I didn't, though."

"Oh," I relaxed, "Okay. It was probably well deserved."

"I promise you it was," she assured me, lifting a now chained Loki into a small stool, before turning to me with her hands on her hips.

"So?" I asked, leaning against the table, "What did the Grand Master have to say?"

"Set me like a dog on your two friends," she explained, "Would you like to come with—"

Brunnhilde stopped speaking abruptly, frowning as I accidentally sent a bottle I hadn't seen careening over the side of a table to crash to the ground.

"S-Sorry," I stumbled away from the glass, tripping against another table, "You were saying?"

"When was the last time you slept?"

Now that she asked... I realized it had been a while.

"Uh... Does being unconscious count as sleeping? Cause then it would've been in the hull of a Scrapper ship."

Brunnhilde nodded, placing her hands on her hips. "Right then. You're staying here. I'll return shortly with your friends. In the meantime, rest. Shouldn't be longer than an hour."

I didn't even have the energy to protest. Now that she'd brought it up, the fatigue seemed to spill over me like opened floodgates, the adrenaline from the events of the past few days draining away.

I slumped into a couch as she vacated the room with a wave. And within seconds, I was passed out.

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