Loki and Ingrid 36

Talk that Talk

“You promise not to kill anyone?”

          “Yeah,” says Lyd, shortly, “Why would I do that?”

          “Looked like you wanted to on the ship.”

          She gives me a look.

          “Honest!”

          “Maybe.”

          “I thought you hated me.”

          She shrugs. “You’re better than some people I’ve met, and that’s as close as you’re getting to a compliment, so don’t ask.”

          “I’m not.”

          “Fine. Guess we should be going back.”

          “Yeah,” I sigh, “Come on.”

          “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?” I whirl around to hear a familiar voice, “Calder? What are you doing.”

          “Making sure the Frost Giants don’t get in—kidding, Ingrid, but really what—”

          “Excuse me,”

          “Who’s this?”

          “I’m—”

          “Lyd, just don’t, okay?”

          “Don’t what? This guy is crazy! I had to live with him!”

          “What are you—oh, another disguise, huh, Lydvor? What’re you doing hanging out with this idiot, Ingrid?”

          “If I can’t punch my brother, permission to punch yours?”

          “No punching!”

          “Fine,” she growls.

          “I’m sorry, Calder, you see, I was going to get her after…”

          “Yeah? I actually like that hair. Might bang her if she was Asgardian.”

          “I’m right here, idiot! One, you’re racist, and two, that doesn’t matter since you’re an ugly turd anyway!”

          “Guys, tone it down, please!”

          “Fine,” sighs Lyd, clearly too defeated to care, “Just keep him off my ass.”

          “Calder…” I point at him suspiciously, “Behave.”

          “Wha…”

          “It’s legally binding! I’m Queen of Asgard and also your boss.”

          “I’m not going to answer to my little sister.”

          “Then you’ll have to answer to Loki.”

          “Absolutely not.”

          “I can get Sif you know? And she’s drunk.”

          “Fine, I give up.”

          I ignore him, and turn to Lyd.   “Are you okay?”    

          She shrugs, “Why are you worried about me? It’s weird.”

          “Well, like it or not, our destinies seem kind of tied up, don’t they?”
          “Not my fault you’re head over heels for a guy I happen to be regrettably related to.”

          “I am not head over heels!”

          “You keep going back to him, idiot! Stop lying to yourself.”

          “I would be mad at you calling me an idiot, except I don’t care anymore.”

          “Sorry, idiot.”

          “What do you want from me?”

          “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

          “You need me.”

          “Don’t talk like that. I don’t need anyone. You’re weak, Ingrid, and you’ll be dead before I can blink.”

          “What?”

          “Yeah, you love him too much. You know he’s all tied up with Thanos? You’re gonna be dead.”

          “Don’t you want to kill Thanos too?”

          “Yeah, but I’m smart. I know when to run away and when to fight and stuff, I plan things out. You rush into things like a little baby.”

          “I know you’ll go to the ends of the earth to save his skin, so you’re gonna die, bitch.”

          “Stop. Please. I don’t want to die.”

          “Then stop following him around!”

          “Yeah, I would do whatever I needed to do, but we’re talking about Thanos.”

          “No, you’d die and then he’d die anyway since Thanos is a creep,” she shudders, “So your life is meaningless and useless.”

          “If we both die that’s more work for him, since I know where four infinity stones are, sort of.”

          “That’s silly. He’ll find them anyway.”

          “Maybe, but it’ll still be more work.”

          “What are you, Romeo and Juliet? You need to stop with this idiocy!”

          “What is it with Romeo and Juliet? Everyone—”

          “Nevermind, I bet you got that in Midgardian studies. I got it in my life.”

          “Sure, whatever.” I spin around, self-consciously, “Calder, why are you following us?”          

          “What do you want me to do? You shouldn’t be out after dark without a guard.

          “Fair enough,” I sigh, as much as I want to dismiss him, “Just keep quiet about it.”

          “Lyd?” I ask, uncertainly, “Loki made me promise—well that I’d run away if anything happens.”

          “What?”

          “Like—he told me if Thanos comes for him—to leave him and run…”

          “You’re still dead.”

          “I know. It’s all luck once he gets his hands on that gauntlet.”

          “No, dummy, I’m not talking about Thanos, I mean if anything happened to him you’d kill yourself!” she lets out a dry chuckle.

          “What? No, I wouldn’t?”

          “You told me how you were feeling; you’re so weak and depressed, and since he’s the only person you care about—I’m just guessing.”

          “If anything, I’d want to fight Thanos and I can’t do that dead—dummy.”

          “Did you just—?”

          “I did. Anyway, no I don’t plan on killing myself, unless it would like somehow save the universe or something.”

          “Same, honestly,” sighs Lyd, “Umm, can we talk in private?”

***

Leaving Calder at the edge of the forest to watch for intruders, I sit down on a stump in the forest. “What’s up?”

          “I don’t know—I’m not sure if I can trust you, not to tell—you tell him everything!”

          “Who, Loki?”

          “Yeah. Maybe you should tell him.”

          “No! I wouldn’t trust him with my brainless cousin’s wife’s agent’s left shoelace. My cousin’s a guy by the way. I like girls.”

          “I know. Oh, are you trying to flirt? Is that why Loki can’t no!”

          “No! I mean—I mean I don’t like you—not that I don’t like you, although I don’t, but I mean I don’t like you.”

          “It’s fine, I get it. So, what did you want to tell me?”

          Lyd sighs, “I’m more than you think—you think I’m a jerk for no reason? You think I don’t have trust for anyone for no reason? You think I’ve never been hurt before?”

          “I never said that.”

          Lyd is quiet for a moment, then she finally speaks. “I wasn’t on Zephenare willingly—at least not at first. I lied—I said I wandered through space and raised myself…that’s not true. I was abandoned on Jotunheim when I was five—I know I said I hung out on Zephenare, but how do you think I got there, I was five, I didn’t have a spaceship! I didn’t know how to fly, I didn’t know anyone, I didn’t have anyone, I just wanted to get the fuck off Jotunheim, there was nothing more I wanted in the world then to run away from all of that trash! It’s trash, all of it. That’s when Rina found me.

          “Rina was a travelling merchant from Zephenare, or so she said—she was so nice, I was five…and I needed someone to trust…she found me and promised me room and board on Zephenare which even had a climate like Jotunheim, for my own good…

          “It’s not what it looks like under the glam and glitz under the hub, there’s a mad hierarchy, people like that bitch Rina, and others, lots of others, oh there’s so many of them, they take kids like me and they rent them out to the casinos and clubs to work—all so they can end up with a boatload of cash to invest in their enterprises—we didn’t get paid squat, just a mattress on the floor and table scraps at the end of the day—I worked sixteen hours a day, scrubbing, fetching, doing anything they needed. All the guests looked at me like scum and—the worst part is it went on for eleven years—I had no way out, no money no hope and I thought I’d be there until I got sick and died so yeah, I learned how to live with no one. I was so hungry, I scavenged for food out back late at night. I was fourteen when I met Gracia, she was so perfect, and she finally helped me get out, I was free, I got off Zephenare, but something always brought me back, I wanted to help—wanted revenge on those bastards and I didn’t care how I got it, then Gracia got captured and I started wandering around for bounty to break her out, and—after a few years of that I went back to Jotunheim, which was a mistake, and they said I had to rule—me—nobody, so I said no, is there anyone else in the royal line? And they told me of Loki, and I made a dumb decision to go find him, and somehow, I ran into you—and Thanos…and now I’m here, and I’ve learned not to trust anyone with anything, that people are always out to get you, that you won’t survive by hanging around dumb people, that you can’t get attached to people if you wanna live. I shouldn’t be telling you this, Ingrid, but I feel like I’m not going to have anyone else even though I want to stick your tiny brain into a blender half the time—you listening? You see, it’s not fair, Loki being an entitled brat, he wanted to be king, but he had goblets and dinners and games of chess! I had to work my butt for table scraps and somewhere to sleep out of the wind. It’s not fair!

          “That’s why I hate Loki so much, not because of Gracia, I should’ve found another way, shame on me!—but because he’s such an entitled brat, a child, always needs someone and you’re feeding that!”

          There’s a long silence. “There’s nothing I can do except hope you and Loki can talk about it before it’s too late.”

          “You don’t even care?”

          “I don’t know what to say.”

          “Tell me I’m trash just like all of Zephenare—that’s why I wish I could save the universe. I don’t want the other little girls to go through that—some of them had it worse—they starved, some of them are women now and still trapped. It’s a never-ending cycle, and I hate it.”

          “I’m sorry…and you’re not trash. But you need to talk to Loki about this when we get back.”

          “Look, normally I’d come up with something to say, but you’re right.”

          “Really?”

          “Yeah, just give me a minute.”

          “Ok. But why did you tell me all that if you don’t trust anyone and you want to survive? Since I’m caught up with Thanos—even without Loki I know things I shouldn’t—”

          “I feel like we’re gonna have to take Thanos down—”

          “What, you and me?”

          “Yeah…I just have a funny feeling…”

          “I do too,” I sigh, but I don’t want to say it or think about it.   

          Lyd suddenly tenses up. “Shhh! Someone’s here!”

          I try to lie low as I hear voices, low at first then coming closer.

          “Oh no,” I whisper to Lyd, “Junk traders, the same ones who tried to touch me—”

          “Shhh.”

          I shut up.

          “Hey, little girlssss,”

          Lyd, normally her killer instinct would kick in by now, is suddenly immobile, petrified.

          I stay quiet.

          “Let’s see what we have here, very nice, very, very nice.” He reaches for my chest. “Very nice.” I flinch, I’m used to it with brothers teasing me and sparring, (ugh) but Lyd is shaking. She normally isn’t like this, it must be after spilling the beans.

          I stay frozen. “You scared?” asks one of the men, shining a light on Lyd and getting closer, “You sacred?”

          Lyd lets out a shriek as the man grabs for her.

          “Ingrid!” she shrieks, “Ingrid!”

          “I’m right here!”

          “Ingrid!” she throws her arms around me, “Help!”

          “Shhh,” I whisper, holding onto her, “Maybe if we’re quiet they’ll leave us alone.”

          “I’m sorry I said those things about you being dumb or lovesick or a bitch—”

          “Shhhh, it’s okay.”

          “Ingrid, I’m scared,”

          “Me too, but we need to be quiet.”

          “I’m so so sorry, I’m dumb—shouldn’t have run into the forest—”

          “No, it’s not your fault be—”

          “What do we have here?” One of the men leans over and looks at Lyd, he’s too strong for both of us, and we ran in, unarmed. I watch in horror as he pulls Lyd away and from me and begins to pull up her skirt…

          “Hands off!”

          The man turns around sharply at the voice and the light now shining straight on him.

          It takes me a couple moments to fully grasp what I am seeing. Calder, holding a bright green light and looking down at us.

          “Calder?”

          “Said you shouldn’t go in without a guard.”

          “Party’s over, was wondering where y’all went, looks like it’s been eventful in the wrong kind of ways,” says Sif, “And I brought this loser along when I suspected things.” She gestures at Calder.

          Lyd is still paralyzed.

          “Don’t worry, now that Sif is here you don’t have anything to worry about,” I tell her.

          “Damn right she doesn’t! If you guys don’t go back to whatever hole you came from?!”

          “We didn’t mean anything—”

          “Oh, you didn’t—did you?” asks Sif, “You know I’m a notoriously hard hitter.”

          “Well that’s the end of that,” says Calder, “Come on back to the castle before you get murdered or raped.”

          “Got it,” I sigh, “I’m sorry, Lyd, but you might have to do some talking.”