W I N T E R

Daybreak

The day she first saw the sun again, the noise and darkness that had consumed her life for so long was banished into the recesses of her mind. The wrenching of her cell door had alerted her to something, something different; a change in her routine. The sharp whiteness filled her eyes for only a second or two, then her eyes worked to clear themselves. In an entirely inhuman way, she was able to see quickly. She shook her head, then looked up. She was met by a circle of colors. Colors she hadn't seen in so many years, yet remembered so vividly. The holder of the colors looked at her, his face strong in their features. She recognized him, vaguely. Perhaps he'd been one of the many men that had visited her over the many eons she had spent in the small room. Perhaps he was just a familiar face. He gazed back at her, frowning. Then he spoke, in tongues she wasn't accustomed to hearing. It was unlike the language her previous visitors had spoken. Where theirs had been harsh, this one was rounded. She dared not open her mouth and speak back. She had never quite grasped the harsh language, and she knew nothing of this softer one. She knew many languages, but she was certain this visitor would not know the alien tongues that she had been taught. She shook her head, a nervous tick that had followed her from her own home, and a nervous tick many of her kind had had as well. When she looked back at that man with the colors, there was someone else next to him. Someone she knew, someone she had once been afraid of. But now, she was no longer afraid of him, as she had long forgotten the reason behind her fear. He looked upon her, a foreign expression upon his face. Quiet and broken, he spoke her tongue. She blinked at him, for the first time studying this man who had the lightning on his side. He'd been a fabled warrior where she was from, one her kind had feared. Now, he didn't appear quite as frightening as her kind had made him out to be. He was the same height as the man with the colors, and held an object of his own. It was the hammer, she now remembered, that had struck down many of her kind. This man with the lightning on his side was the reason she was the last of her kind. Yet she still did not fear him. She spoke back to him, answering his question. Then as another response, she stood. Just like the noise that had started long ago, her joints popped, readjusting to her stance, and the gravity this world possessed. She shook her head. The man with colors and the man with the lightning turned, and walked away from her room. Hesitantly, she followed. She didn't want to leave the room that had kept her safe for so long. She didn't want to follow the very warrior who had killed her kind. But yet, she did. That former curiosity from so long ago sprang into play, and so she left the blackened room. The hallway outside it was small, cramped. Annoyed, she shrank her mass down, so she fit better. The stretching and popping of her joints continued still, and she knew her body wouldn't stop complaining until she could unleash the curled up membranes that lay under her skin. She watched the ground as she walked, noting the way the stone floor was crumbling. It was a long while before the true sunlight hit her face. When it did, the membranes jumped upon her back. She shook her head. Carefully, she observed the ground laid out before her. She was standing upon the threshold of the hallway, which appeared to have a jagged hole seethed along its side. She looked to the sky, observing the soft blue that was so strange in her eyes. Not far from the entrance to the hallway, a black craft loomed. She saw other figures gathered there, none looking familiar or welcoming. The membranes hidden under her skin yearned to be set free, and her instincts raged in her head. Her thoughts that had been so carefully caged for so long were set free as she stepped away from the hallway for the last time. The stupor that had clouded her thoughts and actions dissipated, and she left it far behind. The hatred for the man with the lightning on his side came flooding back into her mind, shoving everything else away. And so she stood, silent, and tall. She let her mass grow to its proper size once more, let the membranes unfurl themselves. The training of centuries that had been gouged into her every movement itched. She curled her hand, wishing for the weapons she had held so dear in her home. Without warning, she turned, and flew at the man with the lightning. She flew at him, a scream upon her lips. He was unprepared, and she easily knocked him over. She tore the hammer out of his hands, tore the weapon that had killed nearly all of her kind from the one who had swung it. She hissed at him, hissed in his own tongue. She remembered the languages now, remembered everything. She looked down at her hands, the long fingers that were wrapped around the hammer. Wrapped around Mjolnir. Then her gaze alighted on the long-locked man who called himself a god. Her mouth with its viper fangs revealed turned into a snarl. She swung the hammer up, knocking away the circle of colors, the shield, that had been flung at her. The hammer and shield met, and sparks flew. Back down her gaze went, and she twisted her head to the side. She leveled the hammer next to his head, and spoke once more. This time, she spoke in the tongue she knew the others that were approaching her at a dead run knew. She spoke them loudly, spoke so they could hear.

"How would it feel, dear Thor, to be killed by your own hammer, the same hammer that made my kind nearly go extinct, your precious, precious Mjolnir?"