Dragon - L. Laufeyson ✓

14.

He pressed something to her skull and it burned into her skin as if it wanted to become one. Her throat quickly grew raspy from the screaming she had produced. Her own cries of agony echoed over the void of stars. A nebula in the distance and even a black hole.

The madman's hand grasped her throat preventing her from crawling away. Her wings almost felt fictitious. How much easier it was to bend forward was alarming and new to her.

Once he stopped, he tossed her aside and walked past her, thundering g footsteps and now she could see that the man wasn't Loki. He was a giant with a body mass of ten times of Loki --even Thor.

She wheezed through her crushed windpipes.

"You are only a child." He said. Caelum started to curl around her abdomen as a convulsion racked her body like a gong. "I hate doing this to you, but the universe is so cruel that it's inevitable."

What was he going on about?

She tried to pry her head from her knees and see a face but it was too dark. Only his eyes gave off a small ounce of light but even that was wisped away into the tunnels of space.

"Wh-why don't you  ju-just ignore me then?" Her words backtracked and stumbled over each other as she continued to shake. The man turned to her and she could only imagine the smile that had spread across his face.

Oh, how she hated him.

"You stand in the way of my plans."

She heaved and shivered. "I'm sorry? I wasn't aware that I was."

"Of course you wouldn't." He bent down to her and stroke her cheek with his thumb. Horrified she had to look back at him, a being simply comforting another like he hadn't been torturing her before. "You are a small vessel of life."

The voice.

Somewhere in her expanses of memory she knew it. She clutched her eyes closed and remember Hela before this man had taken over. The stars around her swirled in whirlpools of mayhem and fury. The convulsions morphed violently as she tried to see past it all. Fire, gold, iron, even a flash of green. Blue flames from the Tesseract. She pushed past it like a curtain, but it burned her hand until she jostled it away from her at last.

There it was.

The picture was clear now. The man wasn't near here, but standing before someone else in the distance. She squinted to see who it was but all that was visible was a cloak, too dark of a color to contrast everything else that was poorly lit.

She retreated to a mound to conceal herself.

"This realm is yours, Asgardian only if you bring me the the Tesseract."

Beats of silence.

A bone cracked and a body was lifted up off the rocky ground. Caelum winced knowing she didn't need to anticipate what was going to happen next.

"If you fail, I promise your brother will be the first to go." The man hissed again. Caelum gasped into her hand as the smaller figure was thrown against the rocks near her. Black hair and pale skin, green eyes found hers.

Loki.

She reached out intuitively, but his eyes turned blue and his profile morphed into a man unafraid to kill. He picked himself up and lunged at her like an animal.

She shot up from her bed and screamed. Inherently she reached for her neck. Nothing was there. She looked around her small shelter. No one was here. The bathroom was empty and only her own sweat had shriveled up the sheets on her bed.

Moments later, she found clothes that would be decent enough to suit her for her small adventure within the compound.

Once she stepped outside her room cameras were on her. One in every corner, she could sense them watching her as she pushed past other nigh-goers and through the maze, found the elevator.

The camera in the corner, buzzed as it moved. Instantly, she balled her hand and clenched, sending the small mechanism into flames. It even wheezed as it imploded. Fury's irritation would find her soon, but she didn't care. He had blood on his hands and acted as if he didn't. She grew dark thinking about Coulson, wondering if the afterlife was promising to him. It should be.

Her body ached with a days worth of fighting and it was only starting to kick in. Crying had helped, but as she stood there upright yet drowsy. Was this life as an Avenger? No, they don't get nightmares and dreams about madmen, Asgardian goddesses, and trees.

Oh, god that tree. The power it held and Caelum was well aware she couldn't possess it on her own. If at all even. Why did she need to? Hela still had yet to give a full, clear, and honest answer.

The elevator dinged and the door opened. All Caelum was thankful for was that it didn't look like the room on the ship where Loki had be before and where Coulson died.

It was white and empty with only a cell in the middle of the room. Guards standing in all four corners with masks over the bottom half of their faces and an intimidating gun resting in their hands. Her eyes grifted to the man in green who sat with his back to her, feet propped up and a magazine in his hand. 

How amusing. True power really did need something to avail his boredom.

"Loki." She spoke. He didn't budge, just kept turning pages slowly. "You and I both know why I'm here at odd hours. So please, don't make this difficult."

"What's so difficult about this?"

She sighed. "I saw you okay. I saw you in my dream and that man was torturing you. Please, you need to tell someone if you aren't really all here when you do what you do."

"I am here. Thor threw something at me to be sure. It was a sizeable object too."

Of course he was going to be difficult. She bit down her lip and thought of something else.

"When we were fighting...how did you burn me and why?"

"Just because you aren't all human doesn't mean you'd understand everything this universe has to offer."

His back was still to her.

"But that doesn't mean I can't try." She said. Mentally she begged him to turn around and face her. She wanted to see him...to see that man who wanted to kill her in her dreams. And as if her thoughts were audible an expressed verbally, he did turn around, but she saw only a man beaten and bruised by someone neither of them could explain.

Her heart began to ache the longer she looked into his eyes, so green. Emeralds glinting in small streams of light cracking through barriers.

Almost there. 

He looked away, knowing she saw more than the tyrant.

"He hurts you doesn't he?" She asked, finally. He was vulnerable now, but he didn't try to cover it up.

Not here. A voice said in her mind. She narrowed her eyes on him, spotting a small smile. Caelum rolled her eyes knowing her reaction must've looked amusing. He enjoyed fooling with others. Fury. He said newly. Caelum nodded and pressed her hand to glass.

"I hope we can see eye to eye one day. There's more to you than just this cage." Slowly, she retracted her hand and stepped back. The guards around her eyed her sending shivers up her skin.

Skin.

The markings. 

She was about to turn back to Loki and ask about them but again, on cue, his voice rang in her mind.

Not here.

Promptly, she lowered her shoulders and let her wings relax and drape behind her. Slick floors were good for one thing, apparently.