Soulmate Chronicles I - Part of my Soul // ft. Loki Laufeyson

4: I spy

Nemain:

To be honest, some tiny part of her still held onto the hope that the answer to the question she just posed would be "No" but alas, Loki confirmed what her mother had been fearing. She rubbed her forehead in distress. "That is really terrible news..."

Loki stared at her, she did notice how his wandering eyes went up and down her body, but having the spirit of a War Goddess with only security and fighting in mind she thought he just assessed her threat level the way she was assessing his.

"I know", the man lying before her said now, "I know what he plans to do with it too", he then said, as if it was news to her.

She made a swiping motion with her hand. "Yeah we already know that too. Unlike your Kingdom we have our spies everywhere. Damnit we're going to have to ask the Oracle on how best to stop him now."

"Wait wait wait...", Loki muttered out, looking clearly confused, "You say you have your spies everywhere, good enough to have intel on Thanos' motives but you didn't know who I was?", he actually looked hurt when saying this.

"We don't keep a description of every prince of every realm on hand so excuse me for not reading through our entire intel to figure out who you are and going the straight and easy way of just asking", she bit back.

Well... he still looked grumpy that she didn't recognize his famous face immediately, but it looked like he swallowed his pride and asked his next question: "And what do you mean by oracle?"

"Oracle you know? Sees the future? Can let us know how to proceed? She once had a run in with the time stone and some remnants of it still live inside of her, it enables her to see the future in a way", Nemain rolled her eyes a little.

"I know what an oracle is", Loki mumbled back at her, "Just didn't know you had one."

"You seem to not know anything that stretches too far from your Kingdom", she chuckles now, "But it's fine, the Oracle will tell us how to proceed." She gave a sigh of relief.

Loki just shook his head slowly since his neck still felt sore. "Where is the kind smiling woman from yesterday...", he muttered to himself.

Nemain laughed at him. "Oh you were half dead yesterday. I didn't know if you'd make it and didn't want to make you feel bad. Plus you couldn't have handled a real conversation", she ended with and stood up from her seat, waving the guards back in, "For now you should really heal up first and then see to your people. We've kept your departed somewhere safe so you can give them a proper burial according to your traditions", she smiled.

Loki:

This woman confused him. He got to know her as a kind and gentle soul, soft spoken and considerate. But today it was like she was a whole different person. Loud and annoying, yet still a sight for sore eyes. He thought back to the moment the golden ring around her pupils seemed to have sprinkled stars into the brown of her eyes. 'What a phenomenon...', he thought to himself, just lying still in bed since - even though he would never admit it - she was right. Healing up had to come first. He would figure out where to go from here. Staring up at the ceiling wouldn't help him much though so he slowly sat up and scanned the room, as he expected Thor wasn't in sight. Loki would be lying if he said he didn't worry for his brother. After all Thanos probably killed him too, or at least he had tried. He had to ask one of the other survivors about it asap. He still didn't know why he had burns all over his body because the last thing he remembered was Thanos snapping his neck.

And of course once he figured out how to proceed, he would teach that obnoxious woman a little lesson to mock and tease him. He was usually not on the receiving end of such jabs against him and his people. Though what she had said was true, his father never bothered much to look after anything that didn't include the nine realms and at times this fact had helped him greatly. Like when Loki himself formed a shaky alliance with Thanos that sort of fell into shambles when he lost the teseract and the scepter. Maybe he could learn some new tricks around here. At least these people seemed capable of a form of healing far beyond his mothers magic and they seemed to have a broader view of what was happening around the universe as he himself never heard all of Thanos' plans. He didn't care enough to ask which - in hindsight - might've been a terrible mistake.

He sighed, running his fingers through his hair and looking around for that healer, once he spotted him, he tried to get his attention and the other man soon came over. "Anything I can help you with?"

Loki nodded. "Am I allowed to walk around this room freely or does the doctor forbid it?", he asked with a crocked smile.

Noah smiled back. "If you feel up to it you can walk around, check on your people." Of course the healers mind would instantly go to what was most natural for him as a caregiver, checking on his people. But that wasn't how it worked for Loki, he just wanted to find out more about the crash. He barely knew most of the people that were in the room with him, let alone really liked them. After all some of them had shunned and bullied him all throughout his childhood for being born a frost giant. Of course back then he had no idea why that was happening to him. He had asked his mother about it multiple times but she would just avert his question and teach him another magic trick to defend himself against the bullies.

Loki now slowly climbed out of bed, flinching when stepping his bare feet onto the hard ground beneath him, the healers had stripped him off his leather gear and put him in a simple grey shirt and trousers, the fabric was light, yet still warm, and - to his surprise - so was the floor. He imagined stone floors that were cold to the touch but it was as if the stone tiles had been heated by the sun for the whole day and were still radiating off heat. The reason he flinched though was, because he was still hurting all over, but still it felt good to stretch his limbs.

Slowly he made his way through the line of beds, holding his side where he must've cracked a rib during the crash. He really had to compose himself not to wheeze from the few steps he took but it was apparent that he still had a long way to go in his healing process, even though he was the first of his people that got out of bed and walked around. The bed he was heading for, carried one of the few people he knew a little better. "Heimdall", he called out when he made it to his side. One of his brothers best friends, Heimdall could see everyone with his powers if he only directed his mind to it.

The man was still pretty much bound to the bed, a bandage wrapped around his left eye, but he turned his head at the call of his name. "Loki?", he guessed, clearly not strong enough to really see him yet.

"Yes, it's me. Listen... I need to know if you can see Thor. Because he's not here with us", he demanded to know, his heart squeezing at the thought of his older brother dying. Yes, he had stabbed him himself multiple times, but he still never thought his brother would ever die. He was as much of an unwavering force in his life as his father once had been.

"He's not here... I checked. But I can see him. He's with a Raccoon and a talking Tree", Heimdall informed him.

"Okay, you are clearly still out of it", Loki chuckled out, "A Raccoon and a talking tree?", he second guessed.

"Yes. He crashed into another spacecraft", Heimdall said. Loki left it at that, maybe they had given him something that caused him to hallucinate but he did believe that Heimdall had seen his brother alive. Exhausted from his journey across the room, Loki sunk on the chair next to Heimdall's bed and sighed, closing his eyes.