It was dark. Dark all around me.
The cold, high ceilinged room, hewn from rock and ash, had walls you could barely see for the eternal blackness, although you could plainly hear the dripping of the acidic amber substance trickling in slim streams that smelled of burnt out car batteries, down the jagged stone into the sizzling river snaking around the outside of the chamber.
In the middle of the room, an elaborate podium grew up out of the gently sloping ground that led up to it as it stood tall and imposing on the pinnacle, in an effort to stab through the stars. On top the of podium was a glass ball, clouded by mist, and covered in frost, like an aeroplane window.
It seemed to leach all of the warmth out of the air.
Around the ball stood three Angels; wings closed and dark as their surroundings, with silver battle armour on over their black clothes. As soon as I saw them, I knew who they were, despite having never seen them before. Angels of death, soul stealers and life takers, who worked for the illustrious Valkyries of Asgard.
The said nothing to one another, and all their eyes were focused on the ball, as though it were alive, contolling them.
Or talking to them.
"Angels." A voice souded in the darkness. Smooth as velvet, but glacial as the midwinter frost. It laughed. "I am here for what I bargained for."
The three Angels turned to look towards the direction of the voice, slowly, with the pace of the immortal. "We know why you are here, young Asgardian." They replied, their voices all in perfect unison, cold as starlight.
"Oh, come come, I'm flattered, but I am hardly young." The speaker stepped out of the darkness. He wore a fine green tunic and black trousers under his leather jerkin and golden armour, over which he wore a long leather trench coat and a large broadsword at his waist. In his right hand was an ornately crafted staff, although he didn't use it to aid him in movement. His hair was the colour of the Angel's wings, raven black, and his eyes were so brown they were almost indistinguishable from his irises.
I knew who he was too.
Loki, the Trickster God.
"Younger than those we usually have dealings with." The Angel's voices concealed a smile, although there faces remained impassive. "We have the prophecy you asked for."
"I'm listening." Loki walked slowly towards them, stopping a meter away.
This time, only the Angel at the front spoke, spreading his wings fully, and in a strange double timbre.
""In precisely sixteen years, Earth time,
The comet will again take flight.
The time to act will be at hand;
To unleash Ragnarok and your Monstrous band
Then the once proud Odin will fall,
And you, Loki, will rule them all!
But a word of caution to this tale:
Should Odin's bane fight, you will fail."
* * *
I jolted awake, the double timbre voice of Angel still resounding in my bones and my heart pounding.
And was instantly cross at myself. For heaven's sake Aria, I scolded myself. You've been having this dream long enough that you shouldn't still be react like this!
