Disclaimer: I own nothing but the OCs. All of this is unbeta'd, so read at your own risk.

Five years ago, I woke in the eternal halls of Asgard with immortality newly woven into my blood. I told my family the entire truth of what I had been doing and who the God of Lies, Mischief, and Chaos actually was to me.

Three years ago, they'd gotten over the disapproval of his sketchier past enough to come back with me to the golden citadel and watch me get married to him.

Three months ago, I was hurled back to Midgard in a flurry of sobs and fury. I was still in the loose sleeping gown that I'd slid on two days prior. My engagement and wedding rings lay gleaming in my jewellery box on my dresser in the wardrobe that Loki and I had shared.

I had left Midgard as Kate Lee, a girl giddy with the prospect of spending forever with a man she loved more fiercely than life itself.

I returned as Princess Katharine, consort of Prince Loki of Asgard; cold, empty, and running from my husband.

I went home. Not Stark Tower, not SHIELD, not New York. When I turned up at my parents' doorstep in Singapore at three in the morning, exhausted from flying to the main island from the outlying one that Heimdall had thrown me at, my mother took one look at me and burst into tears.

During the first month, I only left my room for meals. I kept the blinds down and lived in darkness like a fucking vampire because sunlight reminded me of afternoons in the Asgardian sunshine, and afternoons in the Asgardian sunshine reminded me of him. I'd always been thin and fair, but I grew skeletal and frail, losing whatever weight I had gained from three years of ambroisa. My mother fretted and shoved vitamin pills at me, which I woodenly swallowed.

My father, predictably, exploded that first night I was home. He ranted and railed at the man I had married, and begged me to tell him what had happened. As if you could run up to the home of the gods and get the most dangerous god in a chokehold. As if you could make me feel better by hurting him more.

It's not that I wouldn't tell him. I couldn't. I couldn't tell anyone. Remembering why I had left made me feel like I had inhaled an ocean and it was slowly drowning me from the inside.

My little brother, Ian, was only fifteen and didn't fully understand why I had come back. Not to belittle fifteen year olds, but he is privileged and blessed and sheltered and doesn't fully appreciate the extent of emotional damage that could cause the breakup of a marriage. All he knew was that his big sister was a shadow of a wraith and spent her time either staring at her hands or crying. One day, he came to my room, sat on my bed and held me gently like one would hold a small bird. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry you're so sad, and I'm sorry that I can't help you to do anything about it."

I just rested my hands on his back, remembering when he was the little child and I was the strong one, making him laugh with telekinetic tricks and soothing his bruises and scrapes. Things had changed.

After that one last concentrated burst of willpower that carried me home on that first night, my telekinesis stopped working. It's probably because I couldn't focus enough on things to do anything with them, but it didn't bother me. I didn't even try to access my telepathy. My own mind was a chaotic mess. I didn't need to deal with the thoughts of others.

During the second month, I spent my days in the safety of my family's garden, so different from the ones in the palace. I re-learned the names of the tropical jungle around me: sealing wax palm, sago tree, frangipani.

I took to wearing frangipanis in my hair. Local custom associated them with death. I felt that it was fitting. Death to a marriage, death to a lifetime, death.

I started helping out in the kitchens. Everything was so unfamiliar, but I found my hands remembering the way to make achar, and I realised that my nose still knew when anything needed more chilli. My grandmother would sit in a corner of the wet kitchen with her woven fan, guiding my measurements where memory failed. Food solves all problems, she used to tell me. They didn't really, but being in the kitchen tethered me more strongly to what was happening now, so I didn't think about what had happened before.

At the start of the third month, I began volunteering at the daycare near my house. I coddled and cared for bright-eyed, bouncing children, braiding hair with shaking fingers and perfecting my hot-chocolate-making skills.

Everything was becoming bearable again right when he came to get me back.

A/N: This is going to be a little darker than On Loan; it probably won't be as jocular, because Kate's dealing with some trauma. Only this prologue will be in first person – the other chapters will ping pong between Kate and Loki in third person, because I figured it wouldn't be entirely fair to Loki if we just looked at their marriage from Kate's point of view.

If you haven't read On Loan, I recommend that you do! It provides a great deal of context.

Please review and let me know what you think!

Achar: A cold dish of pickled vegetables and pineapples.