American Girl: An Avengers FanFiction

Chapter 53

"I killed her, I killed the queen." I bury my head in my uncle's chest, a few stray tears  leaking out of my eyes. "I- I was trained for it. That's why they took me, made me into an assassin. I killed her. The Light Queen. I killed her, I put an arrow through her heart. I knew exactly what I was doing, and I killed her."

"Did she deserve it?" Loki seems to be fighting demons of his own as he asks.

"I- I- don't know. Maybe, does any one actually deserve to die?"

"Sometimes you don't have a choice." Steve says, also staring at something only he can see.

"I didn't shoot her. I stabbed her with the arrow. I put it through her heart with my hands. Does that make me a bad person?"

"No worse than any of us."  Comes the reassuring answer from Clint, I didn't even know he was in the room, "You can tell us what happened if you want. I think you'll find talking helps."

"Okay." I breathe, "Y'all remember the first story I told?"I give a brief summary of it and then I go into more detail. I start with the night I was taken from the camp of the Shadow Fey.

^^^^^^^^^ The story as seen by Beth^^^^^^^^^

A calloused hand clamps down over my mouth, a glint of steel and iron flashes in the other hand,  a low male voice calls out to the other man, "I found her."

A second man moves towards me, a sharp piecing pain in my neck and then I lose conciousness.

When I wake up I am securely bound to a cot, weaponless, and surrounded by little girls. The youngest around seven, the oldest maybe thirteen, if that. Their eyes are old, all of them, even the littlest ones, leanly muscled, scarred, and desperate. The oldest crosses her arms, "You're at the Night Era camp. I'm Flos, but they call  us by numbers here. Rankings by age. Don't talk back to them, when they are around call me 13-1. Follow orders and you'll be okay. Steal a knife. Keep under your pillow- the guards-" 

She stops quickly and all of the girls back off and lie down quickly on their own cots. One of the men who kidnapped me walks in, stands by my head where I can see him. "Welcome to Night Era halfling. I assume you want to know why you are here? You are here to become a killer, an assassin, in short, you or one of the others are going to kill the Queens.  13-1 will be your guide to camp, I expect full compliance with the rules. Punishment is harsh here, but we can't afford to have one of most promising recruits damaged, don't worry, we'll take it out on one the Sevens."

With that he leaves. The girls surround me again, they work on untying my restraints, when they finish I rub feeling back into my wrists where the bonds were tightest, Flos/13-1 whispers, "Sleep, they'll be back at dawn or sooner to wake us."

"I don't sleep between midnight and three, I never have been able to."

"You better start cause training ends at eleven and begins at five thirty. Don't tell them. Are you Shadow?"

"Yes."

"How many generations since full blood?"

"I don't know, the first prince wanderer."

"Don't tell them that. The more human you are the more valuable to them beause human blood does funny things to Fey magic."

"What about elven blood?"

"How far back? Please don't say the first prince wanderer. The first Prince wanderer and the Elven prince were wanderers at least a thousand years or more ago. You can't tell them any of that. A few generations is okay, but that is too many. Look, most Fey don't  trust halflings, we aren't as limited, the more human the more possibilities of forms of magic, more deviation from straight elemental. And Elven heritage, well, they aren't bound to elements the way Fey are."