Loki and the Witchling

Chapter 45

 You were so glad to get your powers back. You felt so vulnerable and defenseless without them, even though you were obviously perfectly capable of taking care of yourself without magic.

You were practicing combat with Loki and Sif one afternoon, focusing on mixing physical combat with magical combat. A call came in while you were working that there were bandits and monsters attacking a village. "Is this a common problem?" you asked Loki as you ran for the horses. You and Loki could teleport there, but it was better to go with the entire team.

"Unfortunately," Loki replied. "Bandits and monsters are always problems. Are you sure I cannot convince you to stay here?" You didn't dignify that with an answer and took his offered hand so he could swing you up behind him on his horse. You were settled behind him with your arms wrapped firmly around his waist a moment later. You could ride on your own now for fun, but for the breakneck speed you would need for this trip, it was better to ride with Loki. Loki chuckled at your too-tight grip, but didn't say anything about it, or about your grip tightening even more when he kicked the horse to speed. You didn't like the lack of control that came from riding horses. You preferred driving. Cars were much easier to control. The speed was as breakneck as you had expected, this village was farther away from the palace than the first one had been.

You, Loki, Thor, Sif, and the Warriors Three all arrived at the scene at the same time and stared over the highly under-exaggerated battle. This was carnage. "Brother, with me. We need to stop the monsters before they tear the village apart. The rest of you focus on the bandits. Protect the people," Thor ordered. The team split up without arguing, though Loki looked to you and kissed your forehead before he'd go with Thor.

"Stay safe, darling," he bid you. He wasn't going to order you not to fight. That wasn't going to happen and you were perfectly capable. Instead, he was going to tell you to be careful.

"You be careful too," you replied. After a quick kiss you both went your separate ways to your separate tasks in the battle. The battle was brutal and the bandits knew they were in trouble as soon as they saw your group appear. It took all of the skills and experience of the team to stop the fighting. Sif and the warrior boys appreciated that you fought like Loki. They knew how to work with you and your skills immediately because of it. You stuck to mostly physical fighting, saving your magic for healing after the battle. The villagers were in bad shape, they would need the healing.

The villagers fought as well, defending a main central building. You rushed over there. "Are the children and elderly inside?" you asked one of the men guarding the outside.

"Yes, lady, as well as the healing women and those unable to fight," he replied, offering you the head-nod of a battle bow.

You nodded. "Good job," you told him and ducked into the building. The children were quietly in one corner of the room with the eldest child holding a staff in front of them, guarding from potential attacks. The elderly were helping the healing women prepare for after the battle, setting up cots in the big central room.

"Lady, what can we do for you?" one of the healing women rushed over.

"I am going to put a shield around this building and have the warriors begin sending the injured here. No one will be able to get through my shields unless someone on this side brings them through." Or if it was Loki, your shields would recognize him and let him through, but they didn't need to know that right now. "Station someone at the door to help the injured through, not one of the children, as the person guarding the door must be prepared to be injured for the cause,"

One of the elderly men stepped forward. He wasn't strong enough to fight the battle anymore, using a spear as a cane, and his words broke your heart. "I will do my duty for my people,"

You didn't argue with him. That would be an insult to this man and his honor. Instead you tipped your head. "Thank you for your service, grandfather," with that done and a moment of quiet, you got to work on the bubble of shield around the building. No one was getting through your work without invitation from those inside. "The shields are up," you told them. "The injured will be on their way,"

You left the building again and told the guard outside to spread the word. The rest of the guards dispersed to help other places in the battle and start bringing the injured here. Sif was fighting a crowd of bandits nearby and you rushed in to help her, back to the physical battle.

At one point during the battle you turned from one attacker, just to get stabbed in the side by another. You shrieked in rage and pain and stabbed him in the throat. It wasn't your brightest move. His dead body took the blade in your side and dragged it down the lower half of your body. Good job you. The wound was deep, and hurt and was bleeding everywhere since the idiot dead guy had made the wound all the way down the right side of your body. You took a glance at it, through some shields on it as makeshift bandages, and got back to the battle, shimmering an illusion into place so no one would see that you were injured, praying that it wasn't as bad as it had looked.

Thor and Loki defeated the monsters and joined the battle against the bandits. The villagers slowly funneled into the safehouse you'd created. Finally, the battle was done, the remaining bandits were captured for questioning, and you made your way back to your safehouse, where your real work began.

The healers had triaged the injured and were working on the most injured. You took over from them and got to work healing all of the injured from the battle. Loki joined you, walking right through your shielding around the building. "Lady, you can remove the shields from the building. All of the bandits have been captured or killed," he reminded you. You nodded and with a flick of your wrist the shields were down and the energy reabsorbed into you so you could use it in the healing. Loki had taught you that trick to not waste power. He walked with you as you worked, guarding, helping, reassuring the people that everything was ok now. There was a part of the back of your mind that was impressed he hadn't noticed your illusions, or was being too noble to mention it at the least, not when you were still needed here.

You had healed everyone in the safehouse besides bruises and small injuries that would heal quickly without interference. When one last gravely injured person was ran into the safehouse, carried by an out-of-breath guard from outside of the building. It was a toddler who had been nearly sliced in half. You took the toddler from the guard who looked like he had run the child across the entire village to try to get her here in time. She was still breathing, but barely. You handed the child to the head healer. "Hold her," you ordered. There was no time to be polite. She held the child in her arms and you got to work. The wounds were bad and took the rest of your power to heal.

"Sig!" Loki's voice from behind you with gasps of shock and horror from the others in the room. Loki was directly behind you, standing centimeters from touching you. He knew better than to interrupt a healing. He wrapped his arms around you the second you lifted your hands from the healed toddler. You smiled at the healer, but she wouldn't smile in return, instead she passed the toddler to one of the elderly and turned her attention back to you.

"This way," she told Loki, gesturing to one of the cots that had been set up in the healing room. You looked between them confused, until you saw your side and the illusion that had disappeared as you ran too low on power to maintain the illusions. The shields you had placed as makeshift bandages had faded too. You were low on power after healing an entire village again.

"Healers..." the elderly man who had offered his services as the doorman commented.

"Oh," you said dumbly, looking at the wound. No wonder they were all horrified and shocked. They hadn't realized you were injured, which was the point of the illusions, and now they saw just how bad it was. At least you'd gotten everyone else healed before the power had faded from your fixes to yourself.

"Y/N!" Loki exclaimed as you collapsed against him, dropping like a stone into unconsciousness. The wound must have been bad indeed for Loki to slip from carefully avoiding your Midgardian identity while on Asgard. You'd all agreed before you made the trip that it was the best course of action.

Not much made Loki's tongue slip.