I'm so afraid to admit that you're real

cause I'm afraid of what I might feel

when your words start to come to life

& it brings my demons into the light but I know you're here.

I shiver as you whisper in my ear, "Child have no fear".

Come back to me love, I forgive you.

Oh how I've missed you!

Just know every time you run I'll be right here waiting!

Come back to me love.

I hope you know I'm always with you.

I forgive you!

Memphis May Fire - No Ordinary Love

"How much longer do I have to stay here?" Sigrun asked the healer after Thor and Loki left. She tried to ignore the sounds outside the palace, but her body wouldn't stop shaking.

"Your wounds are not healing as we would like," The healer motioned over for help, as some of the wounds began to ooze freely. "We are doing what we can." As confident as she tried to sound, Sigrun could see the concern in her face.

By the time they got the oozing and bleeding under control Sigrun was in tears again, everything was quiet.

"Here, drink this, it will help you sleep."

Sigrun was about to say that she had slept enough, but thepotion was tipped into her mouth anyway. It tasted awful, not like the normal sleeping elixirs she usually took, it must be extra strong. She was beginning to wonder where Thor and Loki were before her mind drifted off into sleep.

"Allfather, Sigrun needs rest, she shouldn't have any visitors."

"I heard you let her have plenty visitors before. One of them a escaped traitor." Odin countered.

Sigrun heard the healer mumble something, but Odin dismissed her. She kept her eyes shut, hopefully, Odin would think she was asleep and leave, Sigrun heard his heavy body ease into the chair by her bed, and the tinkle of glass bottles as he played with the medicine on the bed side table. He wasn't normally one to fiddle, the mighty Odin.

"Your brother has acted very foolishly." He said as if he knew she was awake. "Letting Loki go, as if he could expect Loki to help him."

Really? She opened her eyes slowly.

"Maybe he can, and he will." Sigrun said as strong as she could muster.

"Loki will be our downfall, all of us."

"Maybe, you seem to have been foolish enough to get us into this situation. Our downfall could very well be because of you."

Odin said nothing.

"You never seem to think that anything can touch you, and you never listen to your sons. Thor was right all along about the dark elves, and now he has to clean up the mess."

"Thor never should have brought that woman here!"

"Whether he did or not we would still be in this situation. Only the dark elves would have found Jane sooner."

"How could I have raised you all to be this way?"

Now it was Sigrun's turn to say nothing.

"Perhaps it is all my fault, as you have said, Loki should have stayed with his own kind, and I should have done the same with you." Odin stared at her with one eye unblinkingly.

"I am pretty sure my life span would have tipped them off, I would have been burned at the stake, or mistaken for a vampire. Now I guess in their timeline it would be pretty cool."

"Thor would be king, and my wife alive," He continued ignoring her, "Thor would have never met Jane Foster, and my realm would be intact."

"I am sorry to have been a burden on you." Sigrun said stiffly.

Odin considered her for a long moment, "As much as I can say those things, it would have been impossible for me to have done them, at least with you. I loved your mother, so much so that it almost made me abandon my home, and family here, I could not have left you behind."

"But you could have done so with Loki."

"I thought I was doing the right thing by him." The same weak argument.

"By lying?"

"And if I had told him the truth do you really think it would have made a difference."

"It couldn't have hurt."

"You will never think ill of him, will you?"

"I know him differently than all of you, I know him differently. I love him." Sigrun shrugged her shoulders, wincing and hoping she didn't causing more oozing to start. Her throat hurt from talking, and her voice was getting harder and harder to understand.

"My King, I must speak with you." A guard stood in the doorway, Odin waved a hand.

"I am with my daughter, it can wait."

"Sir, I have news of Thor."

Sigrun struggled to sit up in the bed as Odin stood to face the guard who walked slowly but surely into the room.

"Well?"

"There was no sign of Thor and the woman, but they had been to Svartalfheim, many bodies of dark elves littered the ground. We believe they have moved on." The guard looked at Odin strangely and sifted his weight from one leg to another.

"What else?"

"We found…we found a body."

Sigrun's head was filled with a whirling noise; she thought she had also gone blind as well as deaf.

Loki you fucking idiot.

"Loki." Odin said as more of a statement than a question.

The guard simply nodded his head once.

If she hadn't felt the pain rip through her throat Sigrun never would have believed the sound came from her. Something primal and animalistic, agonizing and horrific, she struggled to get out of bed and stand. The floor was slippery and she couldn't get traction, her nightgown felt soaked. In her frenzy her skin, already cracked and charred, ripped open where it had finally begun to heal. The glass bottles on the bedside table were smashed as she slid and almost fell onto the floor.

She wanted to hit someone, hit someone so they could feel just an ounce of what she felt. And Odin stood so close to her that he seemed opportune.

"Healers! You! Come here and help me!" Odin roared, as the guard hurried over to help hold Sigrun on the bed with one hand as the other grabbed the nearest towel to help stop the bleeding.

"How could he have been so stupid?!" She screamed.

A body, they found a body.

She felt something wet hit her face and realized the guard above her was crying, this infuriated her and decided she would claw his eyes out.

"So fucking stupid!" She reached her hands up to scratch any part she could reach.

"Don't just stand there do something!" Odin roared at the team of healers who stood stunned, taking in the scene, darted forward and grabbed the only bottle that hadn't been smashed on the table.

"Hush now child."The blonde healer said, "It will be better when you wake up."

Not that fucking sleeping potion again!

Once again she had no choice as they wrenched her mouth open and poured almost a whole bottle into her mouth. Her body began to feel heavier and heavier, and finally she gave up struggling.

"It will be better when you wake up." Odin echoed the healer.

"He is dead." Sigrun sobbed, she had thought it many times before, but this was the very worst pain she had ever felt.

As she finally drifted off into sleep, she thought she felt an abnormally cool hand stroke her face softly; she leaned into it, and opened her eyes and saw a blurry figure in a guard uniform, before Odin called him away to let her sleep.