Loki's Daughter, Mortem and Mischief

Chapter Three

As I stepped into the room, I scanned every inch of the space. Not a single detail was overlooked or forgotten as I struggled to take it in.

It wasn't at all what I had thought it would have been. There was no sign of schemes to take over Asgard, there was hardly a remnant of Thor within the room. And even if there was, it was drowned by the paraphernalia that adorned every inch.

Stepping into the room was like stepping into a history museum. Maps, manuscripts, and pictures were scattered all throughout, however, there was a common theme throughout them all. Each piece of paper showed an inaccurate depiction of history. Images showed John F. Kennedy surviving his assassination attempt. Copies of the Rosetta Stone showed a language vastly different from the Ancient Egyptian dialect it normally carried. A small and tattered portrait showed Mary Queen of Scotts as the ruler of Britain rather than her sister Elizabeth. A loose set of documents gave statistics regarding what would have happened if Thanos had never snapped in the first place. Countless other writings and pictures flooded my father's desk.

Instantly, I was more than confused. Why had my father spent the last three years amounting material that concerned histories that didn't even exist? Not one of the papers upon his desk documented a real event. Everything showed a scenario of what could have been. It was as if all of the documents showed different variants of the past.

Sorting through the papers, I concluded that I needed to know more. I knew for a fact that I still didn't have the full story. The anthologies of false histories were only the surface of it all. He had told me that his study was too dangerous for me and I hardly believed that my father thought I couldn't handle a mess of papers.

Something was missing. It had to be. I knew my father had an...interesting relationship with time but I had thought that he had left that all in the past. Yes, he was a man outside of time but he never talked about it. He didn't want to, he didn't seem to care enough. Whenever I asked about how he got here, to this timeline, he would brush off it. Papa always insisted that it didn't matter how he arrived, rather it just mattered that he arrived at all. He would explain that all he had cared about was meeting me and my mother, the gritty details of how he accomplished that were a mystery to me. But I had hardly cared to know, I was grateful that I had a father and that was truly all that mattered. To say the least, it seemed uncharacteristic of my father to put so much thought into time and histories that didn't even exist.  

I sat down behind his desk and thought for a moment. I needed to find the missing piece to this puzzle, then it would all make sense. My eyes searched every inch of space before finally landing on the desk before me. Tilting my head, I saw three drawers on either side of the tabletop. Immediately I attempted to open the drawers, grasping their handles tightly.

To my dismay, the drawers didn't open. But, the handles turned bright red under my grip and my skin was seared instantly. Quickly I drew my hands to my chest, fighting the urge to scream out in pain. I bit down on my lip harshly, refusing to make a peep despite my pain. As I looked at my palms, small green boils began to blister through my skin. 

A spell, I thought to myself as I looked over my new wounds. My father had protected the drawers with some magic. The green hue of my blisters had made me sure of it. Anyone who would attempt to open up his desk would be tagged with his own signature color, thus he would be able to track down whoever was meddling in his business. 

Of course, he would do something like this. My father was crafty and sure to guard himself it mattered. He was starkly protective of the assets he most cared about. If something important resided inside this desk, my father wouldn't leave it unprotected. Hence, the boils.

All this told me was that I was on the right track. My father's office had been all too easy to get into, his desk was where the real battle began. Luckily, if there was anyone that could break my father's spells-it was me. After all, we had the same magic coursing through us and all I had learned, I had learned from him.  I could easily break his spell, I just needed to figure out how.