Free Fall

Nevaeh snapped her eyes shut, trying very hard not to curse Loki under her breath and clutched the Norn pendant tightly. Loki had told her that she must very much want to voluntarily know the vision she was trying to predict. Lucky for her, she really wanted to find out if they were going to die, or how Loki might save them from their eventual, airborne doom. A flash erupted inside her mind. Her eyes snapped open. 

'You don't save us!' Nevaeh yelled in horror, realizing her vision. 'Loki! You don't save us! You don't do anything!' 

'But do we die?' Loki asked hastily, not being 100% sure himself.

'No, we don't!' she said in confusion. 'Screw this! I don't have faith in this illogical prediction! Do something!' she screamed. 

Loki quickly held her in his arms, but didn't do anything. They were going to crash any second on the ground. 'Loki!' she yelled in horror, looking at him just holding her and staring beneath, as if looking forward to their untimely death.

Fifteen feet above the ground, their propelling speed came to a drastic halt, and their fall slowed down. Loki stretched his legs and landed on the ground, letting go of Nevaeh, whose legs were barely standing up. 

'See? The experiment was successful!' Loki said happily.

POW! POW! KAPOW!

Nevaeh's fists hit him all over his head. 'You are a psycho!' she said. 'Who pulls a stunt like that?' 

'But you made an accurate prediction!' Loki said in protest. 'Also, we didn't die! I knew we wouldn't! I was 93% sure!' 

Nevaeh internally wished that he hadn't told her the odds, but seeing as they were indeed alive without a scratch, she decided to drop this. Loki sat down on one of the rocks next to the river, and noticing her slightly trembling legs and twitching face, he motioned her to do the same. She shot him a glaring look, but sat down nonetheless. 

'I am so sorry if I spooked you—'Loki immediately raised both his hands in a cautionary manner as soon as she opened her mouth to retort, 'but, come on!' he raised his voice. 'Do you really think I would've put us in danger if I wasn't sure that you would succeed in your prediction? Also, you learned the very first lesson of our training!' he added quickly as she again tried to snap back. 

'What lesson?' Nevaeh said. 'That we might die if we fall from the sky without a parachute?' 

'No. That magic works best under pressure,' Loki said, nodding wisely. 

She slapped his hand. 'You said "no pressure!"' she said disbelievingly. 

'Ehehehe, right. That was a lie,' Loki grinned.

Nevaeh felt like pummeling him, but her face couldn't help but break out in laugh. 'You are unbelievable! And you have wings! How do have wings? Oh, they are so beautiful! How did I not know about this?' 

'I don't know why that is surprising,' Loki said. 'I am a shape shifter, am I not? Meaning, I can shift my shape anyway I want.'

'God, that must be so handy,' she said in wonder. 'Also, our freaky flight explains why we needed SPF and that breathing-thingy.' Now that she had a few seconds to catch her breath, she took a look around. 

The massive river next to them was all that she could see on her left. It stretched out far, far ahead till the land broke out in the forest they had flown over. They were sitting on one of the rocks next to the river, in front of which was the ground stretching towards the end of the grassy slope moving upwards, eventually breaking out in the massive mountain next to it. The top of the mountain had crooked trees which had something umbrella-like hanging from its branches, but she couldn't understand what it was.

'This is so soft!' Neveah said, kneeling and touching the ground. 'Have you felt this grass? Nothing is smoother than this! It's so shiny!'

'Not even my hair?' asked an indignant Loki.

Nevaeh squinted at him and hastily changed her excitement over the ground. 'Pff! I am not going to compare my lover's gorgeous, out-worldly hair with some grass!' she said, internally thanking that the grass can't hear her. Loki beamed. 'But seriously,' she said, standing up. 'Why is this place so deserted? Why isn't anybody here?' 

'Because that—'Loki pointed to the left, where the forest was a distinctive little outline far across the river, 'is the end of the forest. People usually tend to the East part of the forest, ahead of which lies the capital city. Then, it's mostly neighbor hoods and suburbs, acres and acres of it. There are two major rivers in and near the capital city. This one, however, is isolated. Mostly because this side has much cooler temperature than the rest of the planet and the habitants do not prefer cold temperatures. Even this hill hasn't had much company since centuries.' 

'Poor hill,' she said. 'The temperature,' she said after a moment. 'Oh, SPF! Air-flight! Of course!' she said happily, as realization dawned on her. 'This is Alfheim! Tell me I am right!' 

'Indeed, you are,' Loki smiled.

'Is this why you haven't told me much about this realm?' she said, pleasantly suspicious. 

'That's right, little one. Why tell you tales when you can see everything for yourself?' Loki said. 

'Oh, Loki, you are the best!' she said, hugging him. 'Does that mean we are staying right here?' 

'Damn right, we are,' he said, only to receive a hearty kisses from her all over his face. Loki sighed in bliss, wondering that she hasn't even seen 0.47% of what he had in mind for them and began counting the number of kisses he was receiving for this travel to add and tally it later along with the future kisses he was going to receive. 

'I was thinking,' Nevaeh said slowly, 'what if we don't use that fold-out-handkerchief that turns into a house like we did on Asgard? We can build a roofless tent of some sort so that we can look at the stars while we sleep!' 

Loki chuckled. He had not revealed even a single aspect of their journey here, let alone the things he had in mind. 'We are not using the handkerchief. But we are not building a tent either.' Loki removed his Norn pendant from her neck to fasten it around his own. 

'Umm, okay,' she said. 'I don't mind being homeless for a while.' 

'No, you misunderstand,' Loki laughed. He took her by the hand and walked near the centre of the land. 'I said we are not building a tent. I did not say anything about not building a castle.' 

Nevaeh waited to recognize any signs of exaggeration, but none were visible. 'A Castle?' she whispered slowly. 

'Oh, yes. I am a King! You are a Queen! We must have a Castle!' Loki said as if it were implied. 

Nevaeh stared at him, slightly dumfounded as he drew a little, gold circle on the grassy ground by his finger. He gave his wrist a flick. The circle grew bigger and bigger, eventually staying still when it was huge enough to fit two sixth of the massive land they were standing on. Nevaeh was just waiting for Loki to flick his finger once, making a huge ready-made castle erect right in front of them, but nothing of that sort happened. 

Loki clapped his hands together, about to say something, when Nevaeh hastily turned around to once again stare at the circle, wondering Loki's clap may have erected a castle, but again nothing happened. 'Are you okay?' Loki asked, watching her stare at the circle. 'Because we have a lot of work to do.' 

'I am great,' she said. 'What work?'

Loki handed her wand back to her. 'We need to conceal this entire area before we begin. You take care of that side of the river and I will handle the rest,' he said. 'Also, do not use your Impenetrable Shield. It's meant to keep out the dark forces—' 

'Yeah, I got it. Cloaking and concealment charms only!' she said, instantly trotting towards her side to get started. She wanted to reach the castle part as soon as possible. Mostly because she had no idea how Loki was going to manage to build one. Waving her wand in sharp X's, she began murmuring under her breath and covering the open skies with a mixture of concealment charms, while Loki did the same by his hands on the other side. By the time Nevaeh had covered her little space, Loki cloaked their patch of land, the mountain, the borders of the shore and put on an extra layer of complete invisibility surrounding them, so that if anyone were to pass from there, they would see nothing but the view as it was before they had occupied the place. After they were done, Loki teleported the two of them right in the middle of the mountain. The surface was covered with dense shrubs and wild grass which was as high as their knees. 

'Come along,' Loki took her by the hand and started walking ahead. 

'Are we in the forest?' she asked.

'No, it's the mountain. The forest doesn't have what we need at the moment,' Loki said. 

'And what do we need?' she asked. 

'That depends. Tell me, what do you want our palace to be made of?' Loki asked. He quickly continued, realizing that she hadn't understood his meaning. 'Gold? Diamonds? Glass?' Loki was saying, when she interrupted him. 

'To be honest, I absolutely love your palace on Asgard,' Nevaeh said. 

'But?' Loki arched an eyebrow.

'It's a bit too gold. It shines so much that it hurts the eyes! Also, we don't have so much gold to build a castle of off it!' she said. 

'Diamonds?' Loki asked. 

Nevaeh scoffed, 'yes, because it is raining diamonds!'

'Why don't you let me worry about the material? You just think about what you want,' Loki said rather impatiently. 

The grass began to thin and the tree coverage was lessening. Loki stopped mid-track and turned around to look at her, still waiting for a response. 'Well, what do you want?' Nevaeh asked him. 

'I already have a palace,' yawned Loki. 'I want what you want.'

'Diamonds is a bit much,' Nevaeh said slowly. 'Diamonds shine more than gold. A glass palace doesn't sound like a good idea, keeping your temper tantrums in mind. Also, you like to break stuff. So, glass, just - no,' she said more to herself than to Loki. 'Unless,' her eyes gleamed with a twinkle. 'Do you mind if we go a bit darker?' 

'Darker how?' Loki asked curiously.

'Like a black castle. With pointy chimneys and everything. It would look dark but—' 

'It sounds perfect,' Loki hushed. 'A black castle will also stand out lovely on this planet, especially at night.' 

'You agree?' she said happily. 'Oh, this is amazing!'

'So, now I know exactly what we need,' Loki said, rubbing his hands together. 'This might also take less of our time than I had previously estimated.' He once again took her hand and marched straight ahead, waving a hand in the air as he did so. 

The plush trees in front of them rippled to reveal a huge stone-like structure standing there covered in green veils and veins. A slight whoosh in the air made Nevaeh look around, where two more similar structures were visible. 'That one there is a mine for diamonds,' Loki said, pointing towards a distant one. 'And that one is for gold. Whereas this – this will give us exactly what we need.'