Confrontation

Daniel quickly stood in front of a sobbing Nevaeh's back, who was ignorant of the fact that someone had just stepped inside the room. Daniel stretched out his hand. 'Don't come near us.' Loki's eyes were flickering rapidly through each of the slides hovering in air around her, as though Daniel was much more than invisible to him. She whipped around on the floor after listening to Daniel's words.

'What do we have here?' Loki said in an icy voice.

By the time she stood up and faced him, Loki had already analysed each of the gleaming holograms. He met her gaze, noticing that she was wearing her tiara today. 'Why the tears, love?'

'PFF! Look at him, Nev! He is no God!' Daniel scoffed, his voice suddenly as high as Loki's self-esteem.

Loki chuckled, now completely turning his gaze over him. 'Really?' Loki asked in a mockingly polite way, bending his neck a little.

'Dan, don't,' Nevaeh warned him in a choked voice, hastily wiping the tears off her face.

Loki's appearance changed roughly, emitting a few sparks for dramatic effect. Suddenly, he was wearing his entire Asgardian attire, green and gold, embossed with gold plates, along with the cape on his back, draped well above his shoulders and his helmet on his head – his horns. Nevaeh's heart started thumping against her chest as she stared at his helmet. Daniel now understood Nevaeh's neurotic shrilling after the display of the golden horns on her changing holograms. Maybe it was Loki's appearance, or the lethal way in which he was staring at him, but Daniel's eyes turned horrified as he watched his transformation.

'How about now?' Loki asked as he gazed into the boy's gaping face, whose mouth was wide open in horror. Daniel was speechless. Loki sighed; he didn't have time to wait for an answer. He had things to do, like, kill the boy, then talk to Nevaeh, and later attend her farewell dinner.

'Back at the house, I told you I would teach you new things,' Loki turned his gaze towards Nevaeh. 'For instance, how to take care of irksome flies.' Loki waved his hand in the air as though shooing something away.

Daniel was thrown into the air away from them. He hit the far opposite wall in a blinking second. 'That's how,' Loki smiled. He once again readied his hand, staring at Daniel's distant, crashed figure through cold eyes.

Before Loki could attack him again, Nevaeh shot a beam towards Daniel who was hunching next to the wall he had hit. A gold dome, much similar to the one she had created for herself in Asgard, surrounded Daniel, who had his back pressed against the wall, giving her enchantment a semi-circular look as it stuck on the wall's sides.

Loki scoffed, but did not turn to look at her. He conjured a dagger out of thin air, sending it plummeting towards him. The dagger collapsed with the shield and fell lifelessly on the floor outside.

'Huh,' Loki pouted a bit. He went ahead to analyse the enchantment, being his curious self.

Nevaeh felt like smothering Loki then and there, but she tore her gaze from him and turned around to watch the frames once again. One of the new slides depicted Loki fashioning a weapon out of mistletoe. Despite all the new imagery, she couldn't help but stare at the god's acid-burnt face displayed on the unchanging slides, who was now cackling as the venom dripped on him. She couldn't bring herself to believe that this was him, but her mind was constantly telling her that it could be.

Loki halted in front of her shield. He ran a hand in the air, a mere inch away from the golden dome while Daniel stared at him with terrified eyes from within. Loki had easily penetrated it inside his palace, but after analysing this new shield, he knew for sure that he would get burnt if he tried to do that right now. Loki shrugged; he always had a plan B.

'You know you are dead, right? Give me a few minutes,' Loki whispered, winking at Daniel before turning his attention towards Nevaeh. She was now converting a few newly appeared pages written in Old Norse into pictures and captions.

Loki's jaw clenched. 'So, where is the ice cream, Nevaeh?'

Daniel wondered if all the rest of the evil Gods craved ice cream too while they were angry.

'How did you come across all of this?' Loki asked quietly, taking a step towards her, but she refused to turn around. 'LOOK AT ME!' yelled Loki. He saw her wince a little, but she didn't oblige.

Loki read the last point of her table and scoffed. He sent an invisible charm plummeting towards his imprisonment-frame by the intention of making it disappear. Nevaeh sharply turned around and deflected it in a blink.

'Get away from those,' Loki's voice was more serious than Nevaeh would've liked it to be. Without responding, she began to turn around when Loki sent yet another charm towards it. She deflected it.

'I am not done yet!' Nevaeh said.

'Oh, you're done,' Loki whispered. He disappeared in thin air.

Loki had made himself invisible.

Nevaeh grasped her wand tighter, but she had a vague idea what Loki was about to do. She stood in front of the slides, but it was impossible for her to cover all of them by her arms.

Her suspicion was confirmed as she saw five green beams shoot towards each of the hologram from all the sides. Nevaeh hit her right knee on the floor and swung both her arms at her sides, her right hand holding the wand. Golden light burst in their midst, enveloping all the beams within it and they disappeared. She stood up straight a bit shakily.

'You are on fire today, aren't you?' Loki's amused voice came from right in front of her. She glanced at his visible self, minus the horns. Nevaeh laughed a little while staring at his carefree face.

She pointed a finger at him. 'After healing you in the ocean, I said, "Oh my god, Loki. Say something." And you said, "I am one, but not the kind that grants wishes," Nevaeh recalled his response the night he had drowned. 'You weren't exactly hiding that fact, were you? I was just too stupid to understand.'

'No. You were too concerned for my life to grasp the meaning behind my harmless, spontaneous bragging. I did almost die that night,' Loki reminded her. She opened her mouth to close it again. 'Come on. Just ask the question, girl. I can see you are dying to do so.'

Nevaeh took a shaky breath, mostly being glad that he'd stopped making the holograms disappear. 'Is this – Is it – I mean – why – I – I don't,' her voice faltered. She rubbed her face by her hands. Loki saw her hands tremble and realised that this was the first time she had difficulty in framing her question in front of him, but he had a vague idea what was running in her mind.

'Now, that's a stupid question,' Loki nodded, 'are you trying to ask me if I have fathered a wolf, a world-long serpent and the goddess of death, yet? Did I shape-shift into a mare, got pregnant and gave birth yet?' Loki's voice was bordering on shaming Nevaeh, but she had no idea what to say about that last part.

'So, that's a no, right?' Nevaeh squeaked.

'IT'S A NO!' spat Loki, 'those books reek of inaccuracy! Thor was running around with that mortal woman, when in mythology, he is married to Syf!'

'But, they do have a little right information too! Your – your parentage is—'

Loki cackled, interrupting her before she finished that uneducated statement. 'Laufey is my mother and Farbauti is my father! You saw Laufey with your own eyes, yes? Tell me, was he a female frost giant?'

Nevaeh frowned in confusion. She turned around to watch the last slide which had changed to a display of Frost Giants. 'You – you saw his Giant father?' Daniel's voice came from a distance, but she didn't even hear it.

Loki pressed a finger on his lips. Daniel stopped talking immediately as he saw him from a safe distance.

'There is too much resemblance, Loki! Odin and Frigga are married. Thor is their son. Thor has children, you have children, after both of you grow up. You appear to be Thor's archenemy, who at times went on adventures with that enemy for some fun and mischief, which isn't far-fetched at all, despite Thor being your brother in real life. You are referred to as, The God of Mischief, The God of Trickery/deception; titles that I couldn't help but strongly agree with. You are an illusionist, shape-shifter, can manipulate fire, and you eventually annoy everyone to such an extent that you are driven away into a prison by Odin and Thor, which is not far-fetched either,' Nevaeh finished.

'You are quite the sponge, aren't you? Soaking all the information and a language like that,' Loki clicked his fingers to imply quickness. 'I am glad you thought of using the stone for processing all of this, otherwise your synapses would've been crisp till now, assuming you could process that in its absence, which is highly unlikely as you are an Atheist who had no knowledge of Old Norse till an hour ago,' Loki said in an amused voice.

'Loki, look at all this' Nevaeh said, as if burnt neurons were least of her concerns. She turned around to point at the frames. 'The accuracy of certain things makes me fear—'

'Alright, that's enough!' Loki snarled. 'Get away from those and do not attempt to stop me. I am in no mood to play today.'

Loki raised his arm. Nevaeh raised her wand.

'I do not want to fight you. But, you need to explain why you didn't tell me all of this. If you would've told me about you being a goddamned god then all of this could have been averted! You don't have to keep things from me, Loki! I wasn't going to run away if you had told me about the books!' She paused as she remembered a minute detail from their past which was making sense now. 'Oh my god, this – this is why Grace, teleported us to the mythology section, didn't it? It wanted me to know about the book! Oh my –'Nevaeh rubbed both her hands over her face. Loki took the opportunity to silently send a spell to vanish the frames for good, but Nevaeh, even in her flustered state, instantly waved her wand and deflected it.

'Loki, stop! Just talk to me for a minute and explain! Grace could've easily told me about you being the King of Asgard and everything! But the only thing it did was to teleport us into the mythology section of my huge ass library. It wanted me to know this! Why? Why this? If it doesn't matter, then WHY?' bellowed Nevaeh.

'My guess is that it wanted you to worship me,' Loki shrugged airily, 'now, step aside. And do not make me snatch that twig from your hands.'

'The mermaid,' Nevaeh muttered to herself.

'I beg your pardon? What mermaid?' Loki asked sharply.

'Before I met Crystal, I ran across a mermaid who was inside a river I stopped by. She said so many things, and she repeatedly mentioned Gods!' Nevaeh shuddered. Tiny goose-bumps erupted at the back of her neck as she wondered if she had made some sense after all.

'You never mentioned a mermaid once during our entire journey!' snapped Loki in an accusatory tone, 'and what was she doing in a river?'

'I don't know, Loki. But, this doesn't look good,' Nevaeh's voice was sounding tired, yet her eyes flickered once towards the imprisonment frame and she quickly looked away, making an audible squeak. 'Do you think that there is any chance—'

'That I would end up like that?' Loki hissed, reading her painstaking expression. 'Bound by the chains fashioned by my child's intestines? Don't you think that is something I, myself, constantly fear? I have read my depictions by the hands of the mortals. But Helheim shall freeze and perish before I end up anywhere close to that depiction! Mortals are stupid! They don't know anything about me or my future!' Loki's face was contorted in rage, just like the night he had confronted his father. There was a distinctive rumble within all the nearby objects in the room.

Nevaeh pocketed her wand and sobbingly sprinted towards Loki to hug him.

Daniel screamed out-loud to warn her, mostly because Loki was making objects vibrate by his rage and all, but Nevaeh didn't even hear him.

She wrapped her arms around his waist. 'You will not end up like that! I – I am sure of it,' she cried, 'you have changed so much since I first met you. And you will never kill someone for fun! Thor is your brother, Odin is your father, and they love you despite your differences. They could be this brutal! These books don't make any sense and I'm sorry for asking you such stupid questions!' Her tiara was clinking against his chest plates as she shook with her sobs.

Loki gingerly clutched her head. 'That doesn't change the fact that you have finally stumbled upon one of the most sinister imagery of mine, and trust me there are quite a lot scattered throughout the realms, but this was something I was adamant on avoiding,' Loki whispered in a surrendered voice.

Before she tilted her head to glance up at him, Loki rotated his fingers behind her back, as though turning down the volume of a CD player. The holograms couldn't be vanished this easily, so he merely made them invisible. She met his gaze without realising any of it.

'Maybe that's a good thing! You were reluctant to reveal about your family, but everything turned out to be great! We can connect the links while we are away, just like we will dig deeper in my history! This can all work out, we – we don't have to worry,' Nevaeh said in a slightly high pitched voice which reeked of worrying. He knew she was trying to be her optimistic self.

Loki nodded. 'Maybe, it was for good that you came across this information. Maybe, it wasn't. But we will never find out. There is no point in further dwelling on that.'

Nevaeh frowned as she gazed into his slightly misty eyes. She opened her mouth to question him, but he nodded once towards something behind her and his eyes stayed there fixatedly. Loki blessed her naivety as she expectedly turned around 180 degree, withdrawing her arms around him, to notice that all the holograms had disappeared.

He lightly clutched her shoulders from behind and rested her back over his chest.

'I don't care anymore about those holograms. It's fine that you made them—'Nevaeh stopped mid-sentence as she felt his gentle grasp on her shoulders tighten. Loki's forearm slithered across her front shoulder to hold her across the neck.

'I am so sorry,' he whispered in her ear.

Nevaeh's stomach did a back-flip. She couldn't move an inch.

Loki clutched her forehead by his palm. Immediately, Nevaeh could feel a lowering in all her senses. She grabbed his forearm by both her hands, but she didn't even get enough time to horrify over his effortless strength.

'Loki, what – what are you doing?' grunted Nevaeh. Loki maintained his grasp across her neck to stop her from moving and charmed her body to do the same. She couldn't even move her legs to give him a good kicking.

Nevaeh felt her eyes shut themselves regardless of her wish. Her head felt like something was slithering inside the folds of her brain. Her memories started flashing in front of her eyes, backing to the time she came over to Daniel's apartment. Nevaeh tried to shake him off, but she couldn't move his arm even half an inch, or her own body, for that matter. Her hands felt frozen as they tried to resist him...