Prologue

"See ya mom!"

A little 8 year old girl hollered as she ran out the door, scared that she'd be late for school.

She was Elisha Greens, short and skinny for her age but really, really clever. She tried to hide her smart brain, not wanting any extra attention, although she was somehow forced to skip two grade levels in school.

As she ran through the empty hallways, she noticed something was weird. There were nobody there, not even a single teacher. When she checked her watch after swinging her head around a few times, she saw that she was two hours early.

"Well, I didn't even get breakfast. Great."

She sighed as she packed her backpack full of binders and textbooks from her locker.

Elisha's dad American and her mom was Korean. South, obviously. She had dark brown hair with equally dark brown eyes that hardly shone like a proper 8 year old eyes should.

She dragged her feet into her homeroom, tired from the heavy running, and slumped down in her seat and rested her chin in her hand, looking outside. The school hasn't even started yet, and it was already boring. Way to go, El.

Staring out the window, she daydreamed, like she always did in classes. She dreamed of something interesting happening to her. She wasn't naive or innocent like most of the class, so she didn't believe in magic or anything, but she did believe in making unusual friends. Maybe she could take a different route to her cram school today.

She snapped up when her friend Sally tapped her shoulders.

"Hey, El, why are you so early?" she asked cheerily, oblivious as to what El was thinking.

'Oh, lord. Her voice is so high-pitched all the time.' thought El as she returned the bright smile and said, "Oh, my alarm clock was broken, and I thought I was going to be late, but it was actually two whole hours early!"

The two spent their homeroom period with menial talk, one truly happy to see her friend while the other probably cursing inside.

Then, in the corner of her eye, El saw something...shimmer. Wait, what? Things don't shimmer in the middle of the air! When she turned her head to see what it is, the thing was gone.

"Hey, are you alright?" Sally asked, more offended than worried that El wasn't paying attention to her.

"Yeah, I'm sorry, I thought I saw something. It was just a leaf, though." El replied, still not paying attention. She never really did, so no real difference here.

"Hello, class!" chirped Ms. Cooper as she entered the 4th grade class. El was only 8, but because she skipped two grades, everyone here was at least two year older than her, some even three, and so was Sally.

Ms. Cooper was wearing a green cardigan that El never saw her wearing before. "Ms. Cooper, is that a new cardigan?" she asked, knowing her young teacher will like the attention.

"Why, yes it is, El! You're very observant, aren't you?" she said, clearly glad that somebody noticed, even if it was a little girl.

"You look very nice in it, Ms. Cooper." El added, earning a smile and probably a misunderstanding that she really cared for the teacher.

"What's observant, Ms. Cooper?" asked Joe, a boy sitting in the front row.

By then, El had tuned out the sounds around her and looked out the window, daydreaming about how interesting her life could be, but isn't. Again.

The rest of the school went on like that, and she forced a smile on her face as she stood in the playground, engaging in a useless, mundane chat that her friends thought was fun.

One of the kids, Jennifer, had a green dress on.

As soon as she parted with Sally and Jennifer at a corner, she ran home, threw her school bag on the ground, and ran out again, this time with a different backpack. Her mom was South Korean, and although her dad didn't think so, Mrs. Green thought all children should go to cram schools.

She was walking to her math cram school, daydreaming again and barely avoiding bumping into huge people when she saw the green shimmer again.

'Why all this green today? My mom was wearing a green blouse, too, and my dad a green sweatshirt. It's not St. Patrick's, is it?' she thought to herself as she followed the green shimmer, forgetting about her cram school altogether.

Then it happened. She bumped into someone. She never bumped into people, even when she wasn't paying attention to where she was going.

El looked up and said, "I'm so sorry, sir, I wasn't paying attention to where I was go..." she stopped mid-sentence and her eyes met a set of bright green ones.

A man, with long black hair and almost translucent skin, wearing a freaking armor stood in front of her, looking down with those emerald eyes.

"Do go on, do not stop mid-sentence, Midgardian." he said in a British accent.

"Um, I wasn't paying attention to where I was going. I'm sorry." replied El, feigning her favorite face, the innocent smile.

"Why do you apologize?" he asked, confused.

"Uh, because I bumped into you and it might've hurt? It's just basic manners." she answered, then regretted saying the last part, which sort of implied that he didn't have manners.

Instead of the indignant scoff or the offended frown she was expecting, the man just chuckled. "You thought you could've hurt me. And you just called the Prince of Asgard a man without manners. I could kill you, you know." he whispered in a threatening voice, but he still had the smile.

Okay, so now El had officially landed in nutsland. She bumped into a lunatic with an armor thinking that he's some prince of Ass-guard? Perfect. No, literally perfect. It was more interesting than her math cram school, and she'd have an excuse as to why she didn't go today. It wasn't right to leave a mentally ill person on the streets when you can take him to a hospital, right?

"I'm sorry, sir. I've never seen you around here, are you new?" El asked, a sorry face replacing the previous smile.

"You could say that." he said, still looking down at her.

"I could buy you tea, then show you around." she managed to say without sounding suspicious. Her small figure helped.

"Lead the way, young Midgardian."

The two entered a Starbucks. Apparently, this lunatic didn't know what coffee was, so she settled with green tea latte for her and earl grey for the man. People were looking at them all weird, probably wondering why a little kid was buying a tall man in an armor tea.

Once they sat down beside the windows, El asked, "What's your name?"

"Loki." he replied, drinking his tea.

"I'm El, in case you were wondering. Where're you from?" she inquired, although she wasn't really curious.

"Asgard. I am Loki, the Prince of Asgard, the God of Lies and Mischief." he said in a barely audible tone, whispering, but sounding smug at the same time.

Okay, he was either a) a real crazy lunatic thinking that he's from Ass-guard, or b) a cosplayer fooling a little kid. Since she knew there weren't any comic conventions or anything like that nearby, she promptly crossed the latter out. That left her with a lunatic. Awesome!

"Wait, so I'm sitting in Starbucks after just buying a god who is the prince of this place tea?" El blurted out before realizing what she had said, failing to hide the amusement and the slight sarcasm.

He'd picked up on her tone, and became sort of pissed, if that was the right word. His face wasn't the easiest to read.

"You do not believe me?"

"Well, yeah, but that's because what you're saying sounds impossible. There isn't a country called Ass-guard, and I don't believe in gods, and you're wearing an armor. You could at least prove it to me while saying that, and then I'd believe you."

Nothing happened, and he only sat back with a smirk on his face. "Well? Are you done fooling with me or are you going to prove yourself." El asked, although it wasn't really a question.

He just pointed under the table, and El looked to see that her red Allstars were replaced with...white flats?

Holy shit, was she dreaming? Negative. Was she dead? Negative. Was she hallucinating? Negative. This lunatic just turned her shoes into freaking flats. FLATS. With magic.

What the hell did she get herself into?