Memory

Tick, Tock

Minutes, years, hours, centuries, seconds--I'm not sure how long it is until I decide to get up again.

I look up and see Loki gone. Why am I not surprised?

But emotion is beginning to crawl its way back into my heart, and panic starts to slowly well up in me.

I need to find the Tesseract.

I have to.

While I may not care about my own, now nonexistent, life, another depends on me. One that was not meant to be ripped from this world, or from the future that awaited him.

I sigh, sitting back on the edge of the fountain and bury my face in my hands. But I get up again, and I start to stalk back into the woods. I don't know how I'll find Loki, but I can find Thor. He can contact Heimdall, who can find Loki.

Before I can dwell on this plan, however, I feel the cold steel of the edge of a blade at my throat. I wonder what will happen to me if he slices it. Will I die die? Will I stay anyway?

I don't think I'd like to find out, anyway.

"What do you want?" I start.

"Explain to me how you are dead and yet still walking around like you are perfectly fine," Loki snarls, keeping me in a headlock with the knife in a hand, poised to kill with the flick of a wrist.

"Many would ask you the same, after your death from the Bifrost last year. Seeing as you have also fucking died and yet are still alive and have not answered the question, I guess I don't have to, either."

"Enough," he says, the knife digging in. "What deal did you make with Hela?"

"Wouldn't you like to know, snake boy." I let out a mirthless chuckle.

"Answer my question," he growls.

"Hmm," I start. "Nah. But I have other information about things you wouldn't even suspect."

I'm talking about Odin being a lying bitch and Hela being Thor's older half-sister. Oh, yes, and the fact that she can hold the hammer.

"Like what?" he presses the knife into my throat further, angling the edge away just so it doesn't draw blood. And at this point, I'm not sure I even want to see my blood.

"Nope. Give me the Tesseract, and I might tell you some secrets that can destroy Asgard or save it," I say.

"Regarding what?"

"Ragnarok," I reply.

What? I'm not lying.

I feel the wind on my neck again as his arms and the blade drop away, though not as cold as it should be. I don't have any idea where this is, but it must be somewhere cold, in the north.

"Say I give you the Tesseract. What are you going to do with it? What use is it of to you?" Loki interrogates me.

"Why?" I cross my arms.

"I hardly think you should be the one asking questions."

"No, this is a deal. You give me what I want and then I'll answer some of your questions, or I take what I want and you don't get to ask your questions."