Hans sat in the ship's prison. The wooden stool he sat upon was hard and unfriendly. When a particularly strong wave rocked the ship, he would slam into a wall. It would be several hours before they reached the port of the Southern Isles. He dropped his head into his hands. How could everything have gone so wrong?

The boat suddenly leaned to the right and Hans slammed into a wall. He groaned and righted himself.

Men started screaming; swords clang against each other. Hans sprang forward and gripped the bars of his cell, but the door was closed beyond it and he couldn't see anything. After a few more minutes, the ship became quiet. Then the door slammed open.

"Aah!" Hans jumped and pressed himself to the back of the wall and into the corner, wishing that there was some way he could escape unseen. Before him was a large, blue-skinned creature armed with some kind of weapon and sharp teeth.

"Hello, Hans of the Southern Isles," the creature said, stepping forward.

"H-How do you know my name?" he squeaked.

"We have a business opportunity for you."

Hans perked up and leaned forward, resting an elbow on his knee. "Do you now?" His trip might be shorter than he thought.

"Good morning, beautiful." Loki materialized out of thin air next to the breakfast table and popping a grape into his mouth.

"Get out of my castle," Elsa snapped.

"Hm, I do recall hearing those same words a few days ago from a girl in bad need of my help. What was it she said after that? Oh, yes. 'I'll do anything,' was it?" Loki asked.

He found a spoon shoved threateningly underneath his nose. Anna, on the opposite end of the spoon, glared up at him. "You better treat my sister nicely. She's the queen, and she's my sister. What happened to Hans is nothing compared to what I can do with this spoon."

Loki held up his hands in a placating manner. He could threaten to turn her into a newt, but he'd already used that one. "Of course. I'll be on my best behavior." He gave her a charming smile.

The spoon was removed. Anna sat back down at the table. "Ew, I've got alien germs on my spoon. I can't use it now. Elsa, do you have an extra spoon?"

Elsa sighed and passed one over.

"So, Loki, what are you teaching us today?" Anna asked, and shoved a spoonful of cereal into her mouth.

Loki had a feeling he knew who had received the manners in their family. "Us?" he asked.

"Well, yeah. I just got my sister back. You don't really think I'm going to be letting her out of my sight, do you?"

"What magic do you know?" he scoffed. Loki could sense magic and the younger girl had not a drop in her.

"I know the magic of this silver spoon," she threatened.

"I'm terrified."

"You ought to be."

Loki cleared his throat. "I was going to actually have her help me, for once."

"Who found whom unconscious in the snow?" Elsa muttered.

Loki pressed on. "We'll be scrying today. It's an advanced technique. You'll be using your magic to heighten my power and get a feel for how it works, and we'll be looking in on a few people of interest."

"Ooh, is that like magical eavesdropping?" Anna asked, eyes shining. "Yeah, this is gonna be so much fun!"

"This is so boring," Anna rolled over onto her stomach.

Loki's eyebrow twitched. Elsa's eyebrow twitched.

They had been sitting in Elsa's royal bedroom for the last half an hour trying to establish a contact with Yggdrasil, what Loki called the world tree.

"It would take but a moment if someone had the patience to be quiet," Loki hissed. "Have you the attention span of an infant?"

"It's boring! I've just been back from being half-dead and I've got a lot of pent up energy. Can't you try something a little more interesting?" Anna asked.

"And you're about to become half-dead again," Loki grumbled.

Elsa elbowed him sharply. "Anna, why don't you grab a book to read?"

"Oh, yeah, okay." She got up from off the floor and turned to look at Elsa's book case.

Loki and Elsa closed their eyes and breathed in as one. Then, they caught a branch of Yggdrasil. It was a pulsing, golden color in the blackness of their minds. Loki pulled Elsa to it, and they moved along the golden beam. It wasn't a literal branch, but a golden pipe that ran parallel to the ground in infinite pathways. They rode Yggdrasil until they came upon a towering city unlike anything Elsa had ever seen before.

Loki pulled them inside the city and to the palace. They roamed its halls for a moment until Loki took them into a golden bedroom. There was a large window to one side. In front of an easel, an older woman with golden curls and a crown atop her head sat painting. She was painting a nebula with bright blues and purples against a dark background, and her shoulders slumped. The woman put her painting set down and dropped her head into her hand. She didn't cry; she just sighed and sat still. Eventually, she picked up her brush and got to work again, looking more determined to finish.

Loki moved them to another room; a group of men sat around a table. "The reparations to the bifrost must begin at once," a gray-haired man with an eyepatch said.

"The dwarves refuse to oversee the project; they wouldn't be able to build such a thing anyways," another man said. "No one knows how its magic was built."

The man with the eyepatch sighed. "Scour the libraries of the realms. Asgard's library had no such books, but another realm may. Now, the summer festival will be hosting the dignitaries of Alfheim; we need a change to the banquets..."

Loki took them to a sparring field. A few people sat or stood around watching the two fighters and cheering. One was a broad, muscled blonde with a hammer, and the other fighter was a massive, red-headed giant with a sword. The blond sent the red-head sprawling onto the ground, and the spectators cheered. The blond raised his hammer in victory, then set it down to help the red-head up.

"A fine fight, Volgstaff," the blond said.

"Aye, Thor."

Elsa felt anger pulsing from Loki. Loki pulled them from the scene and back to Yggdrasil. They followed it's golden beam once more. When Loki moved to drop from Yggdrasil, a black tendril curled around him and Elsa.

"No," she felt Loki whisper.

They were pulled to a dark rock, and a fanged, blue creature stood waiting for them. "The lost prince," it hissed, "finally found. Did you think you could escape His wrath? You cannot hide. When He comes, you will fall to your knees and beg for mercy. He will bleed you in every way you feel pain, cause you to become undone, and as you tremble upon the ground He will taunt you with death's embrace. You cannot flee Him. Say your goodbyes, Asgardian. Death is coming for you."

Elsa expected some sarcastic comment, something like, "I didn't know your mother taught you enough words to speak so eloquently," or "Did you come up with that one on your own? How original." But Loki was silent.

"You are nothing before Him," the creature said. "Taste the first drops of His wrath." The creature stretched an arm forward and pressed its claws to Loki's face.

"Stop," Loki gasped, starting to tremble. Elsa could feel the pain radiating off Loki in waves.

The creature sneered, and with another push, he sent Loki to his knees. "He will rip you limb from limb, He will make you bleed from every pore, He will-"

"-lock you into a cave and make you pet bunnies for all eternity if you don't get up this instant," Anna's voice said. "Ugh, this is so lame. I'm going to have Kristoff find me a cave- Kristoff! Oh my gosh, I forgot! Bye, I've got to show Kristoff the new sled I got him!" Anna slammed the door shut, and Elsa was able to open her eyes.

She was back in her bedroom. Anna had broken their trance with her rambling, and now she was gone.

Loki came to his senses by falling forward and gasping for breath. His muscles twitched and shuddered from his contact with the Other. He tried to make his body obey him, but his nerves wouldn't stop screaming at him. It had been all he could do to keep back his tears from the Other. He wouldn't cry before his enemy.

"Loki!" Elsa ran to his side and placed a hand on his back. "Are you okay? What happened to you? What was that thing?"

"Leave me," he said.

"But you've been hurt," Elsa said. "I can-"

"Leave!" Loki roared, and his instinctive magic threw Elsa into a wall. She let out a grunt of pain when she hit the wall and fell to the ground.

She pulled herself to her feet and closed her hands around her elbows. "Fine," she said. "I'll go."

The door closed solidly behind her and left Loki to become a puddle of shame on her floor. He should never have been born.

I think the chapters have been getting shorter, which is kind of annoying. I'll see if the next one will be longer, guys. I'm debating if I want to bring the Avengers into this. I think they'd add a great dynamic to the story, but they might take it over and I wouldn't want that. Also, I've been ignoring the whole Arendelle-wouldn't-exist-at-the-same-time-as-New-York thing, and I'm perfectly happy to continue doing so. Maybe I'll add a 'what-if' scene at the end, though, because the scene I thought of is pretty amusing.

Don't mess with Anna, people. She knows the magic of the silver spoon.