Spaces Between

||42||

•Chapter Forty-Two•
Secrets
(MIDGARD)

In one moment, the Lady Koa was conversing with Natasha, and in the next, she stood in a forest. Giant evergreens shot up around her as her boots sunk into the decaying needles scattering the forest bed.

Her hands shot for her Sikæd blades as she turned.

"Pardon me for bringing you here unannounced," a heavy voice drawled and Koa's hands fell away from her waist in an instance.

"Heimdal," Koa greeted as the word, vision, seeped through her thoughts. It felt odd, she thought. To have her conscience drawled away in order to speak to another. "You received our letter."

The guardian nodded his head, his breath heavy, as if he had been running, "Yes, and the reinforcement is more than appreciated."

"Aye."

"I can summon enough dark magic to bring you to Asgard, but I can not guarantee you will arrive at the palace." Heimdal began, shifting his golden gaze warily past her as if on alert. Wherever he was, on Asgard, it wasn't safe. "Where you land may vary."

Lady Koa bowed her head, "I understand, when should we prepare?"

Heimdal glanced past her again, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword. Koa glanced over her shoulder, but she did not spy what he was watching for.

"I'll see you when you are ready." Heimdal explained. "Warn your friends that the trip will not be exactly pleasant."

Koa nodded again, "thank you."

Heimdal sent a single glance to her.

And then she found herself thrown from the vision.

***

A steady hand laid on her arm.

"Are you alright?" Tone blunt, but sincere. Lady Koa's eyes focused on the Midgardian named Natasha.

"Heimdal received our letter." She mused as Natasha's hand fell away. Koa's head was fuzzy, her thoughts jumbled, but she didn't let it show.

Natasha stared at her confused, but it was the cocky one that responded.

"How do you know that? You just kind of blanked out for a second. That Heimdal dude use some sort of Jedi mind trick on you?"

Koa glanced at him. His powder blue eyes and causal stance. It wasn't just his demeanor, she realized, that reminded her of Joshua.

"I can assure you, his gifts, are by chance more difficult to master than that of the Force." She drawled out, in an attempted jest. It was not a second later that shock bloomed across not only Tony's face, but several of his companion's as well.

"An Asgardian," he gapped, "understood a Star Wars reference? Since when did Asgard have movies?"

Koa realized her mistake. A flash of something—perhaps guilt, sadness—ripped through her. She cocked her head, "this is not my first visit to Midgard."