Chuck had… seen something.

"Why does no one ever believe me when I tell them these things?" He was a young man with strong build with a decent character. He slammed the truck door closed and zipped up his thin jacket in the morning air. Little pieces of flaking paint fluttered to rest on the pothole-dusted road.

"I'm not saying I don't believe you, man…" Chuck's companion on this little excursion (the driver, actually; Chuck's license had been rebuked after he was declared mentally unstable) was named Phineas. Though, he preferred to be called Finny, thank you very much. But everyone called him Fins. "But, I mean, are you sure it was a person, and not just a gatherin' of ravens?" Fins grabbed a flashlight from the dash. "It's early. The swamp could have just tricked you."

"Fins, do me a favor and don't judge me?" Chuck pulled a ballcap over his head to cover his messy brown hair. "The reason I asked you to come out here in the first place was because you know these swamps better than anyone. So just be my eyes and don't say nothin'. Nothin'."

"Whatever." Fins slammed the driver door. "People just droppin' from the sky. Totally normal, right?"

"Nothin' Fins."

The swamp air was thick and hard to breathe through, especially since the clock on the dash just ticked to 5 am. But Fins kept his mouth shut (as per instructed) and shone the flashlight beam through the swamp. The trees, what few were present, tangled up in eerie, artful ways. Where the branches would jut up to the sky like they were trying desperately to escape the suffocating atmosphere. And, to make Fins despise the scene even more, a thick fog clung to the shrubs, drifting down and stretching for the water. The less-than-sanitary, what-on-earth-is-in-there water. It was so thick, it didn't even deserve the decency of being CALLED water. More like… sludge.

Ew.

And Fins couldn't help but spit out, "Chuck, you owe me at least 50 bucks for this."

"Look, look!" Chuck's too-loud voice sent chills up Finny's spine. "On that island over there, do you see it?"

Fins squinted his eyes and tried to get the flashlight to push its light through the air. The dusty rays finally rested on what Chuck was pointing out – a mass resting on a piece of the ground, partially concealed by cattails and halfway covered by water. It wasn't moving, and (as far as Fins could see) was surrounded by black downy.

"It's probably just an alligator, you know? Ate a couple crows and just beached itself." Fins couldn't believe what he was thinking, but he was getting a little more panicked the more he kept the flashlight beam steady on the mass.

"We should go over there…" Chuck whispered, looking at Fins with curious brown eyes. "Check it out."

"Are you kidding, man?" Fins said. "I wore my good shoes today. You really think I'm just willing to go trudging through a swamp?"

"Well, what if it IS a person? And what if they need help?" Curse Chuck for appealing to Finny's humanitarian side. Curse him.

"Fine. One quick look. But if that's a gator, so help me, I will use you as a shield."

"Fair enough."

With a little moral boost that Fins conjured from deep within his soul, he gripped the flashlight steady in one hand and stepped into the shallow swamp water. It was in the silent moment when they were walking through the muck that the insects started to chirp to one another. Crickets sang their morning songs, even though it was barely dawn. The sun hadn't even made an appearance yet.

Water and mud flooded into the boots of the pair, but they ignored it. Especially when they saw exactly what it was that had washed up on the shore.

"I'll be damned," Fins said quietly, planting one foot up on the mushy sand that composed the island. "It's a girl."

She was extremely pale, wearing a set of soaking baggy clothes. Her hair was matted to her head, and her face had patches of black scales on it. Her arms, one of them completely in the swamp water, were covered in… what were they?

"Are those tattoos?" Chuck asked, gesturing down at the reddish brown patterns all across the girl's arms. Small black feathers were twitching in the breeze by her face, but she didn't move at all. "And… my God… are those… Fins, are those HORNS?"

"Should we help her… or…?"

Suddenly, something in the water right next to where the girl was lying began to disrupt the calm surface of the marsh. It swished back and forth, back and forth, back and forth…

Fins and Chuck took a step back.

Fins kept the flashlight shined on her pale, fragile face. Her neck was bloodied and sliced through, strings of flesh and muscle peeling away from the gruesome wound. And the thing in the water kept swishing back and forth, back and forth…

"She's gotta be dead, though, Finny, right? With a wound like that?"

Back and forth, back and forth…

"I," Phineas stuttered, "I think so."

"Not quite." The voice that came from the girl's lips caused Chuck to cry out in alarm and fall back into the swamp water. She sat up slowly, fingering the wound on her neck but not paying it any more attention than that. "Oh, KrishnaLan, my darling sister…" She laughed darkly, running one finger over the henna on her arms. "What fun I'll have possessing your body… after all, someone has to keep your work alive, no?" And her eyes turned up to look at Fins, holding the flashlight in one shock-stricken hand, and felt the insane adrenaline of the need to rid herself of the burden of Karma. "I'd best get to work, then."

PhantomHeiress Presents

LAVENDER FEATHERS

It all happened very quickly… very, very quickly. And after just what seemed like a few moments, it was over and Thor found himself sitting on the side of an Asgardian mountain, watching the sun as it shyly peeked over the horizon.

He expected to feel guilt - of course he expected to feel guilt. But the guilt that bore over his entire frame NOW was something that he wasn't expecting. He hadn't done anything wrong. In fact, Thor had done everything RIGHT. And yet his soul was heavy with the deeds that he'd executed.

It was enough that Thor was the one ordained to tie Loki to the pillar. And it was enough that he was the last one to walk away, glancing back over his shoulder to see Loki's green eyes bore angrily into his own. But now Thor was tormented with this incredible, painful guilt.

The sun's rays stretched slowly over Asgard. Golden rooftops glimmered happily to the sky, their light dancing merrily in tiny twinkles. The whole land seemed to yawn and stretch out its arms, wiping away everything from the day before. Soon the people would begin to move about. The palace would come back to life, full of laughter and joy like nothing had happened at all. Thor wouldn't be laughing with them - not today. The others didn't have to tie their own brother into an abyss. They could laugh all they wanted. But not Thor.

In just a few hours, the court would be melting down Loki's helmet and completely disposing of it.

"Loki," Thor muttered to himself, looking down at his hands - still dusted over with the residue from the chain he bound Loki with, "I hope you'll forgive me one day..."