Choices

Chapter 88
With Loki home she hadn't expected her lust filled dreams to continue, but they did. She dreamt of him in the way she always did. His loving touch across her body, ravishing everything she had to offer.
She woke in the same manner but now she had nothing to be completely sad for. He was alive. Her husband was alive and well. Odin hadn't made any announcement yet regarding the abolishment of their marriage, but Frigga was working on him.
Her visit with Jör and Fenrir had brought her a sense of comfort. They worried for their father just as much as her. Sometimes, Cephera wondered if Hela was ever watching them from her world of Helheim. Did she miss them, even a little?
Cephera just had to sit tight regarding her future and Loki. Nothing was for certain yet, but a stirring made her uneasy. An awkward feeling of..., life.
An awakening power deep inside her abdomen that chilled her for a mere second before her breath caught in her throat. Pregnant? How could this be possible?
She sat in the bed, her hand to her lips pondering how it could be. There was no other solution, Loki had found a way out of his prison and to her last night. It was the only thing that made sense.
Unable to contain her excitement, nor her curiosity, Cephera rushed to the queen.
***
It took a good bit of convincing and a tad amount of lies, but Frigga had managed to allot Cephera one visit to Loki and only one. She would speak to him outside his cell, given the briefest of privacy.
It was all she needed. Frigga too was wondering how it could be that Cephera was pregnant. If Odin found out, he would be furious. Cephera had assured the queen she would return to her home world after speaking to Loki. She would have the child there and when the day came she'd hopefully be reunited with her one true love.
She rushed to the prisons and Loki was surprised to see her. He moved with measured, thoughtful steps to the threshold of his prison cell and looked down at her. "I haven't got a long time." Cephera said as the guard who had come with her stood far enough away to give them the privacy she'd been promised.
"How did you get Odin to allow this?" Loki asked a mixture of happiness and caution on his face.
"It doesn't matter." Cephera told him. "How did you do it?" She asked, excitement fully visible in her stance and expression.
"Do what?" Loki asked her.
"Come to our room last night?" She whispered. Loki shook his head.
"I didn't." He insisted shaking his head.
"The guards cannot hear." She assured him, glancing over at them just to make sure. "Loki, last night..., I'm pregnant." She told him, but the look that dawned on his face was not excitement, but one of horror. Her stomach dropped in seconds, a deep lost feeling filling her.
"You...," he began and stopped. It was the one time Cephera had seen so many emotions run through Loki's face so freely. Pain, bewilderment, surprise, anger.
"Do not joke with me now Loki, you came to me last night." She insisted. Maybe he couldn't remember, like that stupid wedding band.
"I didn't." He stood straight, shoulders back, glaring down at her.
"Tell me no lies, Loki! Did you come to me last night?" She demanded, desperation made her use the anklet he'd given her.
"No," he replied with deathly menace. He slammed his hand on the barrier making it spark. "Of all the people I'd expected to remain loyal to me, it was you of all of them. Instead, I've come home to a whore."
Cephera stumbled back a step. Her heart jumping, a lump forming in her throat. "No..., that's not it. I swear to you he wore your face. I swear I thought he was you." Confusion spun webs in her mind. Thousands of thoughts skittered about like insects. "I thought he was you." She repeated.
"I suppose it was too much to ask for you to wait more than a year before finding another." Loki's angry face deepened into that shadow. He was retreating mentally away. He was becoming the pretender she'd seen in him long ago.
"That's not true. I hadn't found anyone else. Loki please believe me." She begged, tears streaming down her face.
"You come here to pawn off a child that is not mine now that you know I live." He laughed at her and her anger kicked in.
"You had children during our relationship that were not by me." She reminded him.
"I was not in control of my actions." He snarled.
"Then why is it so hard to believe I was used as well! It is not I who has betrayed you Loki, you betray me. I stuck by you, believed you every step of the way and you cannot afford that in return. You are not the man I married."
For a second she saw guilt in his eyes, quickly replaced by malice. "I was always this man, you were just too blind to see it." He retorted. She couldn't handle this conversation any longer. Cephera walked away without another word.
It wasn't until she was back upstairs did she run as fast as she could before anyone could speak to her. She locked herself in the bedroom, fell to the floor, and cried.
(Sif)
"It's amazing how well the Tesseract has worked to repair the Byfrost," Sif said to Hogun.
"And in time for our task." Hogun replied with a nod.
Odin had tasked Thor and his warriors to travel to each of realms that were still in dire need of help since sieges began when the Byfrost had been destroyed.
As Thor was the one to cut off Asgard from the other worlds, Thor was tasked to fix it.
Sif was glad to help. Thor had grown into quite a man lately. He resembled the man she once fell in love with and a small glimmer of interest had sparked inside her since his return. Nothing big enough to jeopardize their friendship.
Sif knew all too well of the human woman Thor had taken affection to and Sif believed it was Jane Foster she owed thanks. Jane opened Thor up to his faults. Humbled him in a manner no one of Asgard could.
He looked at Jane with a stare that he hadn't even looked at Sif with back when they had been in love. There was a respect he held for the mortal, a deeper feeling than what Sif had shared with him.
"Ready to go?" Thor asked, his demeanour one of determination and restlessness.
"Yes, are we splitting up?" Sif asked him.
"I think it would be best to split up and see the carnage that unfolds in each realm before we make a move on any. We should chose the one most in need first, rather than let them be swallowed up in death while we aide the ones in less need."
"I'll take Alfheim," Fandral offered.
"I'll return to Muspelheim," Sif said.
"Niffleheim," Vostagg raised his hand. Everyone knew Hogun was to go to Vanaheim, his home world.
"I'll be off to Jotunheim. It's high time I repair the damage my brother and myself have caused there." Thor looked glume in the wake of his words. The reminder of how all this came to be.
"Is there news on Cephera's marriage?" Sif asked before they all departed.
"None," Thor shook his head. "I am baffled why father would want to break the vow at all." She knew what Thor was thinking. He would do it for Loki as a punishment, but not for Thor and Sif upon their own request.
"I don't think he'll go through with it. He spoke out of anger." Sif tried to sound confident. She could only imagine how Cephera was feeling right now. Going from losing her husband, to losing him again in two very different ways..., it was madness.
It was cruel.
No matter what Loki did, Sif couldn't understand why Cephera was having to be put through more heartache.
"Perhaps, we should seek Cephera's help. She is an able warrior." Sif knew the answer.
"She would not come. She doesn't have the guts for spilling blood and participating in war unless she absolutely has to." Thor frowned.
"She would be better off to that, than to mull about in the palace awaiting her fate at the hands of your father." Thor nodded. He couldn't argue with that.
"Still, you know as well as I that she will refuse to come." Thor shook his head. He was right, no matter the arguement they set forth, Cephera would not join in battle, not yet.
"May I go?" Rorik called out running across the newly shining Byfrost.
Everyone looked to Fandral who shrugged. "He's trained as any of his kind, he'll come with me." Sif smiled. Father was a good look on Fandral, though it didn't seem to damper his philandering ways. Only Seraphina could do that and Sif knew well enough that Seraphina was hard to hold on to.
"Let's go," Thor ordered them. The time for chatting was over. Peace was in need of replenishment and to do that they had to first access the dangers and extinguish them.
(Seraphina)
"I didn't expect the Byfrost to connect back to us so soon." Seraphina admitted as she met the queen at the dome. It was odd to have gotten a personal summons from Frigga.
"It has worked wonders." Frigga agreed.
"But testing it was not why you sent for me." Seraphina lifted an eyebrow in curiosity. "Has there been word of my sisters marriage?"
"Not yet. The Alfather has been busy with other things." She looked dismayed, a look that unsettled the elder twin.
"Then why have you brought me here? There is nothing I can do to help my sister right now." Seraphina sighed. It had hurt to be separated from Cephera after Loki had died, but Mechanova needed their future queen. Seraphina was never a good one for heartache or advice. It was better she hasn't been around her sister to say something to upset her more.
"There is something I need to discuss with you. Word has not yet reached anyones ears but mine, and now yours." There was a cough in the background and Seraphina noticed Heimdall. "And Heimdall it would seem." The Queen gave him a soft glance.
"I wish I had answers to the conundrum, but I did not detect any outsider in the palace on the night in question," Heimdall said. Baffled and curious, Seraphina urged the queen on. The queen looked around. "There is no one to hear but me." Heimdall assured her.
"Cephera had a visitor last night." Frigga began.
"Ah shit, did Loki escape?" Seraphina rubbed her temple.
"No, worse. Someone took Loki's form and your sister is pregnant." The words washed over Seraphina a second. Shock resonating through her mind before her they settled down.
"What!" She yelled. Her blood boiled as her anger rose. Her fist were trembling with the urge to beat the shit out of whomever took advantage of her sister. "That prick that used Loki!"
She spat the words like venom. At first, she thought of Krystoff, but they knew he was always settled in Mechanova with no way to Asgard.
"We are unable to say for certain." Frigga reached out and lay a hand to Seraphina's shoulder making her whip her head around looking for a fight. "All we know is that your sister is distraught and confused, she needs you."
"Whoever did this, when I get ahold of him, I'll stuff his cock and wear it like a trophy..., while he's still living." The queen looked a little grossed out by Seraphina's comment, but she didn't care. It was how she felt right then.
In her anger, she blamed the stranger who took over Loki's body, but in reality she knew it could be anyone with magical knowledge. She would hunt them down, who ever they were, and they would pay. Could Amora become a man? Seraphina hadn't seen her since her crazy days.
She had recovered and left the palace decades ago. No one had heard nor seen from her since, not that they had tried to stay in contact.
A baby? Of all the ways to find herself pregnant, Seraphina knew Cephera was not enjoying this one. It had always been a secret dream of her sisters, to have Loki's child. That dream had been stolen. She never conceived for Loki in their hundreds of years together, which frightened Seraphina to wonder if magic was used.
Would Cephera have a condemned child of darkness?
"Where is she?"
"In her bedroom," Frigga replied. Not glancing at the queen, or even thanking her, Seraphina ran off.

Notes