Thor looked around the room they had been led to by the girl’s voice. It didn’t surprise him to see Sigyne in the room, as the girl had said she was there. What did surprise him was the fact Loki was standing in the room. He looked quite pained at the whole situation. The girl in question was staring out into the blinding white outside the balcony doors. She didn’t turn around at their entrance or make a sound to acknowledge their arrival. She gestured to the chairs scattered around the room, indicating they should seat themselves. They did as she asked simply because the aura she exuded was really unusual. No mere mortal should have an aura like that.

“Stjernelys,” Loki whispered to the girl.

Thor furrowed his brow in confusion. The word was Danish if he remembered correctly. How did Loki know that word, then?

“Are you sure about this?” Loki murmured to her.

“I am dying and so is my brother, I know this for a fact,” she sighed.

“You’re dying?” Sigyne asked dumbfounded.

“I am. You cannot see them but my back is covered in scars from the cat’o’nine. Well, until recently they were scars. All of them have reopened and now many of them have become infected, again.”

“What do you mean, again?” Loki demanded.

The girl turned, finally, and looked at Loki rather sadly.

“The first time was when I was with the nuns,” she said quietly. “I got blood poisoning and nearly died. I was sixteen. But that was not the worst of what happened there…”

She broke off and looked back out the doors.

“I’m sorry mit stjernelys,” Loki whispered, his voice breaking on the last word.

Thor stared in shock. He had never seen his brother like this. He looked positively broken. The girl turned and put a hand on his cheek.

“You could not have know the torture I was subjected to there,” she told him. “Just as my mother could not have known the very same. I was too like my father.” At this she smiled slightly. “A fact she often tried to push out of her mind so she would stop seeing him in me. But she would never be able to. She loved him too much and I was the only piece of him she had left to her. Despite my rebellious nature, she loved me very much. A fact I will never forget.”

She wiped the tears from his cheeks with a sad smile. It was then that Thor noticed she was essentially the same height as him, which meant his brother was only a few inches taller than her. He also noticed how similar their faces were in shape. The more he looked the more similarities he spotted between his brother and the girl in front of him.

“Come child, tell me why you have summoned the great Odin to you,” there his father went ruining a perfectly good moment.

The girl turned her gaze on him. Thor was stopped cold by her eyes. They were a mix between hoary and azure. The colors swirled together and would often shift between colors at random. Only one other that he knew of that had eyes that could do that was his brother Loki. The gaze she was leveling at their father was positively scary. Thor had never known a mortal to have a gaze so cold and calculating.

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“Call me child again and see what happens,” she practically growled.

His father went to reply but she held up her hand.

“I realize you are millenia old but that does not give you the right to talk down to me just because I am, in your eyes, a child,” she snapped.

She suddenly dissolved into a fit of coughing. The coughs wracked her body violently. So violently that Loki had to steady her. Before the fit could fully subside, the door to the room burst open. Three people dashed in, unaware of Thor or the others.

“Don’t,” she wheezed. “I’ll be fine. Just give me a minute.”

The three newcomers nodded then seemed to realized the girl was not alone.

“You!” One of the men growled glaring at Loki. “What are you doing here?”

“She called me,” Loki replied not looking up from the girl he was supporting.

“Like hell she did!” he snapped advancing on his brother.

Thor went to stand but Loki shook his head at him.

“Ehren,” the girl coughed.

“Why would she call on you when you were the one who cursed those lash marks on her back?” the man, now identified as Ehren, scoffed.

“Ehren!” the girl tried again to get his attention.

“You are the reason she had to relive that nightmare every time she slept!” he continued, ignoring the girl’s pleas.

“EHREN!” the girl thundered before dissolving into another violent fit of coughing.

The young man stopped and looked at her startled.

“Stop talking about things you don’t know,” she said as soon as she could catch her breath.

“But,” Ehren began.

“Don’t argue with her, princeling, there is something she is not telling us,” a woman said from somewhere near the door.

“Asena,” the girl said waving the woman forward. “They need to be changed.”

The woman, now identified as Asena, nodded and carefully took her from Loki’s grasp. While he didn’t protest, Thor could tell he looked almost sad to have the girl out of his arms. Asena maneuvered the girl to the bed and had her lay on her stomach. From his position, Thor could see the back of the girl’s shirt was soaked with blood.

“Why didn’t you send Kairos or Levi to come get me sooner, Akira?” Asena tsked in disapproval.

“I could not feel my back until about half an hour ago,” the girl, Akira, told her. “Plus, I didn’t know where Kairos was until he jumped on the bed two-ish hours ago.” She looked to the other young man for confirmation. “As for Levi, he hasn’t left Teylie and Vixy alone for more than an hour at a time.”

Asena nodded in acknowledgement at the girl’s words as she spilt her shirt from neck to hem. Thor watched in confusion. Why had she not asked Akira to remove the shirt? He got his answer moments later when Asena began to cut the bandages from Akira’s back. With each section she cut and pulled away, Akira flinched violently. Each time Akira flinched, so did Loki. When all the bandages had been peeled away and removed, Thor saw something that astounded him. A surreptitious glance at his father and Baldr confirmed that they too were astounded.

“What happened?” he heard Baldr ask.

“Did you not hear me?” Akira asked.

“The cat of nine tails,” Thor answered.

Akira nodded.

“Then how are they not scars?” he asked.

“Because of a curse,” Loki said. “My curse. I couldn’t remove all of it and now this is the price she pays for my inability to remove it in its entirity.”

Thor was stunned. Never had Loki been unable to do something and openly admit it. He looked so angry at himself for it too.

“Come here,” Akira told him gently.

“You could not have known your curse would mutate,” she told him.

“But I failed you and I failed Seona.”

Thor knew that name. It was the mortal woman that Loki had fallen in love with years ago. The resounding sound of a slap echoed in the now silent room. Thor looked on in shock. Akira had just slapped his brother. Hard too by the looks of the handprint on his face.

“You did NOT fail me or my mother,” Akira snapped. “You protected us both for 26 years! Twenty six years is more than either of us asked for.”

That meant Akira was Seona’s daughter.

“I did not protect you when your mother sent you to the nuns!” Loki cried.

Thor had never seen his brother act this way.

“Perhaps not but I did make you laugh with my insult to the Mother Superior.”

“Mija!” Loki exclaimed in exasperation.

“Oh so now you tell them?” Akira laughed and Thor watched as realization dawned on Loki’s face. “I was trying to draw it out to see who would figure it out first but you just had to go and ruin the whole thing.”

She didn’t sound especially mad. It was more like she found the whole thing funny. That was when Thor knew; Akira was Loki’s daughter.