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

16: Knowledge of the Soul

Loki:

He didn't know how long he slept, but it was clear that the night had turned into daytime, making him groan as the sun hit his eyes, they must've forgotten to close the blinds before sleeping. Once his eyes adjusted to the light though he realized he was no longer on the couch.

Freezing in his spot he made an assessment  of his surroundings. He was on the bed, his arms were wrapped around Nemain who was sleeping with her head resting gently on one of his arms, facing him and their legs were tangled. 'Crap', he thought to himself, 'How did that happen?', he wondered. Trying to figure out how to untangle himself from her without waking her up. First he slowly pulled his legs away from hers, staring at her face to see if anything changed. She didn't even stir.

He bit back a sigh of relief and gently stabilized her head as he pulled his arm back, propping another pillow under her head and then slid out of bed, all while still making sure she wasn't waking up. For a soldier this woman seemed to have a really deep sleep, which was concerning to say the least, so he went ahead and felt her forehead in case she was running a fever. Feeling like a dumbass for doing so. She was of Otherworld as Thor was of Asgard. They sprung from the same original species so she couldn't get sick with a mere flu. However she did burn through her powers so he had no idea what the aftereffects of that could be.

Indeed she was running a fever, which worried him even more. 'What do I do? What the fuck do I do?', he asked himself, 'That's just great. I boasted about making her rest to make her feel better and making her take better care of herself and she's lying here in front of me, running a fever and I don't fucking know why.'

He began pacing in the room, knowing now that she wasn't going to wake up from that, he gripped his hair, combing his brain for a solution. "Come on Loki. You're smart. You can figure out why she is like that", he said to himself and then spotted the Raven, narrowing his eyes.

The bird had its head tucked underneath its wing and was sleeping just like Nemain. But it had entered his body before and gave him her powers of shifting into an unkindness of ravens, maybe it could do so again... or more?

He reached his hand out to the raven, gently touching its neck and tried to form a connection with the mind of the animal.

It pulled its head out of its wing and croaked, staring at him, with subtle intelligence. "Show me", he demanded now, "Show me how to help her."

The raven gave another croak before opening its mind to his. Allowing Loki to enter the deep knowledge of Nemains soul.

He would be lying if he said it wasn't overwhelming. He was dragged into a spiral of color, hearing whispers of words left and right. Weaving through all of them was tiring but he tried to zone everything out that wasn't useful, focusing on the words "burnout" and "fever". After what felt like hours his mind finally opened up to a scene from way back, entering the garden around Nemains home, where her mother was seated talking to a handsome man that shared Nemains hair color or rather she must be sharing his.

- around 1000 years ago - 

"Are you saying what I think you are saying Lachlan?", Danu asked her husband, frowning deeply as she absently stroked her hand over her visibly pregnant belly. 

"I'm afraid so", Lachlan replied, "Your sister Morrigan burned herself out in the last fight. She has fallen into a deep sleep and is running a fever."

- Images of a sleeping woman with jet black hair popped into Loki's mind. - 

"I-I need to go to her, heal her!", Danu said, standing up and starting to make her way but her husband caught her wrist, holding her back. "You know that no one can heal her from this state. Only Casius could be of help but he's no longer with us", Lachlan said, pulling his wife into his lap, "If you go there now and try to heal her, it will take too much of your power and then it will be you lying there. You don't want that while you are carrying our child do you?", he asks, placing his hand on top of hers as it was propped on her belly.

- Another image triggered by the scene in front of his mental eye appeared. Showing two wounds, connected by a red thread of magic. The soulmate bond? -

"No...", Danu admitted, "Only her soulmate can transfer energy to her without draining himself", she admitted, "But as you said he is no more... so what do we do? We can't just leave her like that."

"Without a soulmate she will sleep for a thousand years. We cannot do anything about it", Lachlan said and the memory started to fade.

Suddenly Loki was back in the hotel room, the raven simply staring at him before putting his head back underneath its wing to sleep some more.

Loki turned around to the bed and walked back over. "Do I just cut any part of skin or the part where the mark is...", he muttered to himself, conjuring a dagger into his hand, "Best be safe", he shrugged and gently turned Nemain so the mark on her neck was facing him, nicking her skin before he nicked his own where he too had the mark of celtic knots.

"And now... what...", he mumbled out, waiting for something, anything, to happen. And when nothing did he dipped his fingers into his blood and then onto her wound, trying to make any kind of connection, but again to no avail. "Oh come on!", he angrily growled, "This can't be so hard to figure out!"

He now actively tried to wake her, gently shaking her shoulder. "Nemain! Wake up you stubborn woman and teach me that stuff!", he demanded, but again nothing happened.

His anger and worry slowly slipped into desperation, repeating the words he said to her in front of the tent. "Goddamnit I just want you to be okay already!", he growled out, and that was when finally, that thin red thread he saw in the ravens vision connected between the two of them, the intensity pushing the air out of his lungs. It felt like a truck had hit him head on, his ears were ringing and it felt hard to breathe. But he went with it since he had power reserves again and she didn't. Again it was as if he got sucked into a deeper reality, to the level of a soul where he saw the glimmers of her power struggling to stay alive and - out of sheer instinct - he conjured up some firewood, stacked it on top of the embers and blew them it as if it was a fire that was about to burn out, trying to get it to burn again. It took some effort but not as much as he thought it would until the flame was rekindled and burning inside of her again. Giving a sigh in relief he was then cast out of the deep level he went into and landed on his ass.

Giving off a few colorful curses he stood back up again and sat on the bed, feeling Nemains forehead again, her temperature had gone down and when he turned to the window he found out why. If it had been daytime before it was now dusk, the night moon already showing.

He sighed, looking from the window back to Nemains sleeping face. "You better teach me all about this soulmate stuff as soon as you wake up. I will not be doing weird trips into the soul-kaleidoscope again", he said to her sleeping figure, picking up the menu on his bedside table now to order himself some room service.