The Girl In Battle (Carol x Valkyrie)

Thor's friends with a tree? Valkyrie wants to punch him again.

The next morning, a servant knocked on Valkyrie's door, but she's been awake since three in the morning, and she was still trembling from her nightmare. Carol had come to her with arms outstretched in a meadow smelling of flowers, her eyes nearly squinted shut from the enormous smile on her face. Valkyrie was so close to touching Carol, but suddenly the sky around them darkened and a pair of large, purple hands wrapped around Carol's neck. Her smile turned into a horrified scream, her eyes wide brown pools of terror. Valkyrie had tried to pull the hands away, but she was paralysed in place. She could only watch helplessly as Carol suffocated to death in front of her, and she had jolted awake in a pool of her own sweat.

  Valkyrie waved the servant away with a small nod, and when the door closed, she lay down again and gripped the locket she had been holding for the past long hours tightly, the locket damp from her sweaty palms. She then stuffed it under her pillow and went to the bathroom, getting herself ready. When she fit the chestplate over her body and braided the few final strands of her hair into plaits, she pushed the door open, grabbed the locket, looped it around her neck and ran out of her room. She then jogged to the door, the locket cold against her chest, and slipped her boots up till below her knees. Then, she raced back to the living room in her boots to her little weapons cabinet in the corner. She yanked it open and started browsing through rows upon rows of knives, daggers, axes, swords, bows and arrows. She snatched up two daggers and sheathed them on her belt. Then, she grabbed Dragonfang from its place on the cabinet wall and slammed the doors shut. She headed for the door and burst outside.

  Loki startled back, and she yelped when he almost fell. He regained his balance gracefully and canted his head to the side with an irritated frown on his face. "Do you really have to open the door with such vigor? In the next few weeks, I'm sure your door will break open, and it's not the first time and I am not helping you fix it if it breaks again."

  Valkyrie huffed and shoved him in the chest. "Where's Thor?" Thor had gone to space to find his friends and bring them to Asgard.

  "He's over by the platform where all the spaceships are displayed," Loki said, pointing to his right. In the distance, a few gray and black blobs were just in Valkyrie's field of vision. Spaceships.

  "Oh, thanks." Valkyrie started toward the direction of Loki had pointed. As she neared the large platform, Thor was leaning against one of the larger ships. He saw Valkyrie and grinned.

  "Thor." Valkyrie panted slightly. She could feel Loki's cape billowing around from the wind. "You ready?"

  Thor gave a confident nod.

  "Wait." Loki grabbed her wrist when she started to climb up the spaceship Thor had leaned against.

  Valkyrie looked at him over her shoulder. "What is it?" With a teasing grin, she added, "Your Majesty?"

  Loki rolled his eyes and swept his arms around to acknowledge the crowd of Asgardians that had begun to gather. "Before you and my brother go, your people will like to say goodbye."

  Valkyrie faced her body to the crowd. Hopeful and scared faces stared back up at her, and she smiled and waved her hand. "Thor, Loki and I will keep you safe. You shall know no worry, for we will come back when the world is saved!"

  The Asgardians cheered and bid her farewell and she began climbing up the ship, before she glanced down. She smiled, hopped down, and approached Loki. She punched him on the shoulder lightly. "Don't crumble under the stress. I'll miss your stupid face."

  Loki gnashed his teeth in a wolf-like grin. "Oh, go away. Shoo." He turned to his brother and smiled. Valkyrie watched a knife magically appear in his hand behind his back, and when Thor hugged him, he stabbed his brother as usual.