HeartBound {Avengers Fanfic}

Prologue: The Wanderer

Hi everyone! So, before we start, I just wanted to point out that the song to the right is what I like to think of as this book's theme. Continue reading and you'll understand.

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  She never should have remained in Nidavellir. It was the one thought that seemed to throw every other worry out of her mind. Running a burnt hand through her singed hair, she tried to put a little effort into healing the burns that crept across her skin like paint splatters. Her lungs burned, her mouth tasted of ash, and her muscles ached from running but she had enough strength to manage the feat.

Leaning against the stone wall of one of the many labyrinthine caverns of the dwarven city, she tried to catch her breath. Her eyes turned to the smoldering village that lay a few hundred paces behind her. The fires had died down, leaving smoking skeletons of several homes and the corpses of those who hadn't managed to escape the inferno. Her pursuer, a blue-skinned assassin she had not recognized, had been far too easily fooled by an illusion she had cast and had left shortly after burning the town to the ground.

She clapped her hands against her ears as though the action might drown out the dying screams, which still rang through her mind, of the dwarves who had lived there. They had been so kind to her. Though she was almost a complete stranger, known only by reputation among them, they had taken her in and made her feel as though it could be a home of sorts. She had been running for so long that she had almost believed it.

Then, as was always the case, her pursuer had sent his assassin and shattered her little fantasy. Tears slid down her cheeks as she thought of the dwarven family she had unintentionally killed solely by staying for so long. How could she have been so selfish as to believe she could escape? She thought of Dvalinn, Alfrik, Berling, and Grer, the brothers who had offered her shelter and taught her much more about their culture than her pilgrimage many eons ago had offered.

Her hands moved to the gold armbands they had forged for her, her fingers tracing over the glyphs that spelled the nicknames they had given her. The one on the right read Vanadís, goddess of Vanaheim, and the left read Stígand, the wanderer. Both were true to what she was and what she had become. Part of her felt as though they should have called her 'murderer'. It certainly seemed to fit, she thought venomously, now that her folly had led to the ends of too many lives.

Fifty-three dwarves had called that little village their home and fifty-three dwarves had died there. All because she had tarried for far too long. Her mind wandered to the previous night, when she and the four brothers had gathered around a fire to share stories. The flames had cast light on the strangest little details of their bodies and she had caught sight of strange scars on Alfrik's forearms. They were short and straight and grouped by fives with one line crossed over each group. She had asked him about them out of curiosity, having seen a few other dwarves bearing similar scars.

"You are right to assume they are not from any battle," he had explained. "It is customary, should one ever take another's life, to carve a mark into one's arm. It is a reminder of how many we kill."

She had wrinkled her nose in distaste at the thought, as her people had always scorned unnecessary death, "As a warning to others?"

Despite it being Alfrik's story, Brer had been the one to shake his head at her.

"You misunderstand their purpose, Vanadís. You believe it to be a show of strength. In a way, I suppose you are not wrong. But it is the strength of our souls, not our swords. They are meant to remind us of the burden of each life we take. An eternal lesson which we will carry to our own graves."

His explanation had taken her aback at the time. Inflicting physical pain upon one's self in order to keep track of how many one killed, regardless of the exact reason, seemed rather ridiculous at the time. Now she understood it entirely. The pain of each incision worked as a muted mirror of the suffering caused by the deaths. Of course, she would never carve the marks into her skin. Her people could not bear scars without paying a high price.

Slipping off one of the golden bands, she looked over the last works of the four brothers. Her eyes brimmed with tears as she thought of them. They had worked so tirelessly over the forge to create the jewelry, refusing her help on the grounds of customs. They resembled woven chords pressed tightly together to hold a plaque between them, the detail in them so meticulous that they almost looked like they could be as pliant as actual threads. She couldn't bring herself to deface the beautiful pieces.

Running her thumb over the plaque with her offered name on it, her attention turned to the inside of the armband. She could not bury the bodies of the dead in the sides of the caverns, as was demanded in dwarven culture, for fear of endangering other towns nearby by her presence alone. Perhaps she could honor their memories with this one small gesture.

She traced her index finger slowly across the smooth surface of the inside of the armband and silver smoke began to trail lazily from the palm of her hand. Where her fingers ran over the gold, marks similar to those on Alfrik's arms appeared in the surface of the precious metal. Fifty-three marks were inlaid in the gold when she had finished.

It was a small gesture, one that she knew did the dead dwarves no good. But perhaps she could learn from their ways and honor their spirits. Their deaths had been caused by her unwillingness to leave when she knew she must. With such a permanent reminder, the feel of the marks against her skin, she could remember to never be so selfish again.

Slipping the armband back in its place, she pushed herself off the rock wall slowly. She had to leave now. Where she lingered, death followed. Her eyes wandered once more to the lost village below, another tear running down the side of her face.

"Forgive me, my friends," she whispered, flinching away from the sight. "May you find peace in the next life."

Without another word, she headed down the tunnel and further from the town. She had to reach the surface of Realm to return to her ship in order to leave. From there, she would travel somewhere beyond the Nine to throw off her trail. It would be a temporary fix, she knew, but she could never stop running. She wasn't brave enough to face the prophecy just yet.