Unforeseen

Discovered in the Library

I shot up from my bed with a scream that seemed to rip out of my throat. Why was it so dark? Were my eyes truly open? I wanted them to be open! I needed to see light! I scrabbled towards the edge of the bed, fighting with the silky covers that seemed to have corded around me in my sleep. Grabbing a fistful of the bed curtains, I yanked them aside. My bedchamber's curtains let just a bit of moonlight peek into the room, letting me see my surroundings dimly.

Hurriedly I held my hands out in front of me, inspecting them. They were young, with light callouses on the tips of their fingers from years of typing and other callouses born from agent training. They were my hands, just as normal as they'd always been. Pulling them to my chest I felt my heart still racing beneath my skin. The collar of my nightgown clung to my clammy skin, stuck to me by my sweat. Flopping back, exhausted, I wiped at my face where hot tears had burned their courses down my face. The bed chamber was dim enough without my eyes being bleary from tears too. Why wouldn't they stop?

"My lady, are you alright in there?" A voice suddenly called from the door of my chambers, sounding muffled as I heard metal gloves knocking on the door.

It must be a guard. He must have been patrolling and heard my scream... My voice caught in my throat a few times before I managed to respond, "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm alright. Don't worry about it."

Was I fine though? The guard did not speak up again, probably having walked away to continue his rounds, but that meant I was left alone in the dark with my mind still whirring from my nightmare. It had only taken one night before my nightmares had followed me all they way here to Asgard, huh? I huffed a humorous laugh, wiping at my face again. What time was it? The small slivers of light that came into my room were silvery, letting me know that the sun had not yet risen. Perhaps it was still the middle of the night.. In any case, there was no way I was going to try to fall back asleep, not after that nightmare. I was almost positive that it was still waiting there in the back of my subconscious, just waiting for me to fall asleep and back into its clutches.

Unwinding my legs from the silken sheets, I pushed myself up and out of the sumptuous bed, fumbling in the dark towards the closet. It took a minute to figure it out in the dark, but I managed to trade my nightgown in for the wine-colored dress again before digging through my vanity's drawers for the hairbrush to tug through my tangled hair. Not caring too much, I pulled my hair up and away from my face and neck into a bun.

Now dressed, I quietly slipped out of my chambers and into the hall. The guard was nowhere in sight. Good, I wasn't in any mood to answer questions right now. There was only one face I wanted to see, but, of course, I had no idea where the man who owned that face was. Loki had not shown me his chambers, so I had no idea where it was. I lived in the wing designated for the living quarters of the royal family, but I would surely get completely lost before I discovered the chambers he lived in. Besides that, I couldn't go to him now. It was the middle of the night. He should sleep. He was king after all.

I shook my head at myself, sighing a tired laugh. I haven't wanted to find someone in the middle of the night since I was a little girl. Even then I'd been plagued by nightmares. I vaguely remembered knocking on my mother's bedroom door asking her to sing me back to sleep because I was afraid. I'd also knocked on Grams and Grumps' bedroom door plenty of times as a child when I couldn't go back to sleep. What was I going to do now? Go to Loki's room and wake him up like that? Like I was a child again? No. I would deal with this myself as I'd learned to do as I'd grown up.

I picked my ways through the torchlit halls, trying to use the tapestries and portraits and relics decorating the hallways as landmarks until I reached a certain familiar door. Pushing it open, I sighed at the sight of the endless rows of bookshelves, looking like great tree trunks and walls of shadow in the darkness, a mysterious forest shrouded by the night. The ginormous room was empty of course and dark, all the lights having been put out for the night. I edged my way along the wall until I came to a sconce. It took me a good few minutes to figure out how to light it, but once I did, repeating it a few times in the flickering light was much simpler.