✍🏻 Bonds of Fear (Loki)

7 - Vermin

Loki

I returned to her room with well over a dozen of books I took from the large library on one of the lower floors and settled on the bed, starting with the basics.

Human Body

The more I read the more I was astonished at how utterly useless the humans are. I naively thought that ever since I spent my time here hundreds of years ago that they did evolve yet it seemed that nothing has changed. Moreover, after I got to the political books, it turned out they got actually more vacuous.
Well, this little creature that was now sleeping next to me was definitely smart but after I saw the bruise I left on her ankle or the even worse ones on her ribs, I had to note she is otherwise just another, fragile and flimsy....human.
How disappointing.
I finished another book and grabbed a new one from the pile, doubting I would find anything new.
As it turned out, humans still had to sleep every night, unable to go for days without rest. They even made breaks during actual war fights and fought mostly during the day, considering it a complacent strategy when they attacked the enemy when the night fell.
I had to read those parts twice, making sure I wasn't mistaken. There was no chance we would ever stop the battle until every single one of our enemies was slain.
And their fragility was beyond belief. A simple stumble on the stairs and they could break their necks and die....just like that.
As if that wasn't enough, they were riddled with diseases so often that some of them even had the word "common" in their name. The common cold. The common flu. They were like vermin, serving absolutely no purpose whatsoever.
Useless but harmless too.

Except for this one.

She was anything but harmless.

I didn't know how she did it but she somehow got to the most inner part of me and unlocked everything that I so carefully kept stored away. Within the span of only several minutes made me doubt my own sanity.
Now I understood Thor's stupid laughter when I used that word and wondered if he went through the same thing. What were his fears and past experiences that she pulled out of him? Probably not much, he always dealt with everything much faster, forgetting about all the terrible things that happened and focusing only on the future.

But more than Thor, I wondered what hers were. What could I exploit.

When she fell asleep, I assumed her shield has weakened a little as there was something within her that made me pause. I cautiously tried to get into her mind, but the shield was still present and I knew I would not be able to do it without waking her up.
And she was not a person I wished to anger. At least not until I would find out more about her. What was the dark thing I saw within her but couldn't grasp through the shield? What was the exact nature of her powers? How did she get them? And most of all, how can I shield myself from it?
There was no way in hell I would let myself go through that ever again.
It was so much worse than anything I could have ever imagined. Given I have already died on more than one occasion I believed it was not an overstatement.
I never felt more vulnerable and what's worse, even when it all ended and she fell asleep or fainted - or whatever happened to her - I still felt absolutely terrible.

I looked down at her, the black hair covering most of her face and I gently brushed it away not to wake her. She looked so innocent, dainty, and weak that I still couldn't comprehend how could she wield such power.
Giving up on doing any more reading, I hovered over the books with my hand, letting them all disappear into my own, vast library in the pocket dimension, ready to be summoned when needed.
I flicked my fingers and a dim, green light appeared hovering above her. I pushed it slightly and it moved over to the girl's feet, letting me once more examine her injuries. Her ankle was not swollen but my finger marks were clearly visible, painted in red with a small bruise shaping underneath.
Assuming she should survive that, I let it be and pushed into the light, letting it hover over her stomach. With more view now, I once more rolled up her shirt, hooking my index finger underneath and lifting it by her sides, examining the ribs.
That was much worse. Black and dark purple bruises were staining the sides of her ribcage and I snapped my fingers, conjuring one of the medical books.