A/N: *moon-walks to the center* Surprise, bitches. *twirls on heel* I bet you thought you've seen the last of me. *smirks*

It's been years, whoop-dee! I actually gave up on this fic a lo~ng time ago. But I was checking my hard drive and saw that I had written another chapter. Then, I saw that HOLY MOLLY HOOPER, this gained a lot of followers, favs and reviews.

So here you go!

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Chapter 6

Golden Shimmer: The Fates are Weaving

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In a place untouched by most mortals and immortals alike, enormous roots circled around a clearing like a protective barrier. The roots belonged to Yggdrasill, the Tree of Life and the tree who held the realms in its branches.

By the base of the tree lied a small clearing of marble. Three voluptuous and ethereal women were weaving. Threads scattered in a messy tangle beneath their feet and all around the roots. All of the filaments were of different colors and length for each one was a soul these three women were responsible for.

These three women were the Norns, the goddesses responsible for the fate of every being in all of the Nine Realms.

The ginger-haired woman passed a silver thread to her sister's waiting hand. The other woman of silky brown tresses who held a pair of blade in her other hand, cut the thread with soft snip. Then, she picked up a roll of bright orange filaments and tied the excess of the previous thread with it. A strand of brown hair strayed to her face and she demurely put it behind her ears.

The third woman was sitting on a glimmering deep well in the corner, away from the chaos of strings. She gazed through the clear waters, silvery gray eyes staying sharply on the well. After a few moments, her eyes widened with surprise.

"Skuld!" she called out. The ginger-haired woman raised her head in reply. Similarly silver eyes gave her a blank stare. "Is this your doing?"

Skuld placed the threads in her hand beside the spindle. She approached the dark-haired woman looking upon the Well of Fate. Skuld followed her gaze and saw what she was surprised about. The brunette also halted in her actions and made to join her sisters.

"It is our doing." Skuld replied. "Do you not remember?"

"Urðr, what surprises you so?" the brunette asked, her voice echoing like a soft melody.

Urðr shook her head. "They never should have met again. Did we not agree on that?"

Verðandi, the brunette, grasped the situation fairly quickly. "But they have to!" she exclaimed. "Do you wish to doom all the Nine Realms? The threads, have been weaved, sister."

"We promised Odin." Urðr reminded. "And the threads can be changed."

"I have no care for that misguided and imprudent excuse of a king." Skuld remarked with no inflection in her tone, making the statement sound a lot harsher. "He should not be able to dictate the fate of any creature. That is for us and for us alone."

"Don't be so cruel in judgment, Skuld." Urðr frowned with disapproval. "He was only doing what he thought was best for his family."

Skuld raised an unimpressed brow. "Well, he is not wise enough for those decisions."

"We have followed his orders before." Verðandi said with a near scowl on her beautiful face. "The aftermath had been unpleasant."

Urðr and Skuld both wrinkled their nose at the reminder. They preferred not to reminisce that incident.

"Besides, we vowed to 'never let them conspire against him'. No conspiring is happening, is there? And if there is, it is not against him." Verðandi reasoned with a smile.

Urðr sighed in resignation, seeing that her two sisters had no desire to change their fate. "I suppose that is acceptable." She glanced at the wavering image on the well. Two tall dark-haired pale-skinned men were walking side by side. One was laughing, stormy-blue eyes crinkling with mirth. The other was trying to fight down a smile, emerald eyes belying amusement.

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Clint Barton let out a harsh breath. Breathe in. Breathe out. He fought down the bubbling anger mixed with fear burning in his chest.

Screams of your own allies, some people you had considered as friends, echoed throughout the falling Hellicarrier. You ignored them, stalking determinedly towards your destination. An agent crossed your path, a gun aiming right at you. He was shouting something but was abruptly cut short as your arrow found its way through his chest. You coldly kicked the bleeding corpse to the side and out of your way.

Nothing mattered but the will of your master. Nothing will hinder you from your goal—not even the screams of your own conscience as your body move against your will, as a flash of dark red hair hinder your path—

He opened his mouth and said in a calm manner, "What?" Okay, maybe not that calm.

Thor turned to him, frowning. "I said that Loki has escaped—"

"I know what you said!" the anger finally burst out of his chest. He felt a comforting hand on his shoulder, grounding and calming him. Clint shot a grateful glance at Natasha before taking a deep breath. Everyone's eyes were on him, looks varying from sympathy to downright uneasy. "What I meant was how the hell that bastard escaped from what you assured us as the 'most secure prison of all Nine Realms'?"

The Thunder God nodded. "I share your concern, Son of Barton. No one alive saw how Loki managed to escape, not even my father or Heimdall. He could have not escaped unaided."

"The Chitauri?" Natasha asked, getting right to the point. "Is it possible they could have a hand on this?"

"We have found Chitauri scales—" Tony made a disgusted face. "—and weapons." Then, Thor shook his head, confused. "However, the Chitauri themselves have no magical prowess to speak of nor any known teleportation device that isn't the Tesseract. They couldn't have gotten in Asgard without help."

"So, there's another—what? Enemy? Some unknown entity that may be helping Loki?" Steve piped up, contemplating.

"Great." Tony groaned, hands twitching for some glass of alcohol. Then, he tilted his head as he realized that nothing's stopping him from having one. Shrugging, he made a beeline towards his bar at the corner. "Ever thought it's an inside job? One of your guards got bribed into letting out the prisoner?"

"No Aesir would be so dishonorable," Thor growled, taking a threatening step towards Tony.

The inventor instantly raised his hands in surrender. "Whoa, man. Chill. I'm just running through the possibilities here."

"Tony's right, Thor," Steve stepped between the fuming Thunder God and the billionaire who was more or less hiding behind the wet bar. The angry blue gaze of the god turned to Steve. The man didn't even flinch. "We have to consider the possibility that someone with access to the prison helped Loki out."

Thor glared at them, obviously offended at the insinuation. But he reigned in his anger, knowing his shield-brothers were just trying to help. "Four Aesir guards are dead because of this. No proper Asgardian would betray their fellows."

Clint scoffed. "Well, your brother certainly didn't have that problem."

The Thunder God's sharp gaze snapped to Clint with clear frustration. "That's because Loki—" Thor cut himself off quickly, mouth shutting with a click.

The rest of the Avengers stared at him expectantly. After a pregnant pause, it was obvious that Thor wasn't planning on adding anything else to that. Tony shrugged and grabbed a scotch from the shelf and glass.

Natasha, the heartless and relentless spy she was, refused to let it go. "You mentioned once that he was adopted."

Thor didn't flinch but it was quite close. Tony raised a brow, pouring the scotch into the glass, filling half of it. He dropped some ice cubes onto the drink.

"Aye, he is." The god admitted with a sigh, eyes on the ground. Tony had never seen him look more defeated than he was now. "He had not reacted well when he found out."

"Oh?" Tony was intrigued despite it all. "How bad was it? Did he set all your capes on fire? Maybe changed the label of the sugar to salt? No, wait, I've got it! He—"

"He attempted to commit genocide in the name of my father." Thor growled out, obviously displeased that the inventor had made it all a laughing matter. In reply, Tony just took a long drink.

"Genocide?" Bruce spoke up, fiddling with his glasses. "It was—It wasn't us, was it?"

"Loki had no qualms with your realm back then." Thor assured. "Loki . . . He is not Aesir-born. He is of Jotunheimr. He—He is a frost giant."

With his head down and expression shuttered, Thor clearly expected some kind of reaction. Natasha and Clint exchanged confounded glances. Steve stared at the Thunder God with a puzzled frown. Bruce seemed to be the only one who understood the significance because his eyes had widened in shock. Tony raised an unimpressed brow.

"I suppose him being this big frost is a big deal?" the inventor drawled.

Thor sputtered, to Tony's great amusement. He's got to ask JARVIS of the footage of that moment. "You—Do you not—Your ancestors, do they not speak of the monsters that invaded your realm?"

"Hmm, not really a big history buff." Tony replied, scratching the side of his head.

"According to Norse mythology," Bruce cut in before Tony could further comment. "frost giants are beings that lives in a frozen wasteland. They're usually depicted as villains in stories and one of them will supposedly cause the end of the world."

"Many centuries ago, they launched an attack on Midgard. My father and other veteran warriors had stopped them and drove them back to Jotunheimr. Since then, there has been an uneasy peace between our realms." Thor further explained, a pinched look on his face. "I—Loki and I grew up hearing tales of the Aesir's bravery and the Jotunn's savageness in that battle." His eyes flicked between the floor and the ceiling, seemingly unable to meet the others' gazes. "The Jotunn's were painted as the monsters that needed to be killed off in our childhood. The very thought of their race was used to scare children into obeying the elders."

Silence ensued in the wake of Thor's account, all of them letting the information sink in.

Tony placed his drink down with an ominous clink. "So, let me get this straight; Loki discovered that he's practically the Bogeyman himself and then he tried to kill his entire race." Tony frowned. "That's pretty messed up."

"Something's not adding up," Natasha piped in. "Why? Why would he elect to destroy a race he belong to? Shouldn't his loyalty switch to the other side as soon as he found out?"

Clint snorted in response. "The mind of a cracked-up egoistical bastard is pretty hard to understand, Nat."

Thor hesitated but eventually revealed, "Loki told my father that . . . he did it for us—for Asgard."

Bruce frowned and mumbled something like "internalized racism."

"It doesn't matter what his motives were." Clint reasoned, sounding irritated. He probably saw the statement as Bruce defending Loki. "The fact that he just tried to destroy an entire race should speak for itself."

Tony's brows raised in surprise. "Wow, Clint. Didn't know you had the morality of a child," he quipped, not really with the intention of justifying that bastard's actions.

It just irked him whenever people ignored the motives behind an action; he hated it when people preferred to see situations in black and white to make life easier. He admitted that he might be projecting a bit.

"What?" Clint snarled, whipping his head towards the inventor.

Again, Steve, ever the patriot, stepped into Clint's path. "Calm down, Clint."

Thor sighed, rubbing his forehead. This discussion of his brother's motives and actions were exhausting him. He had been contemplating about them for a long time and still reached no conclusion.

"It matters not," Thor boomed, cutting short any upcoming arguments. "What matters is that Loki is now here in Midgard."

There was a collective sharp intakes of breath.

"You know, you should really prefaced the discussion with that," Tony said, tone dripping with sarcasm.

"I think," Natasha spoke up for the first time in a long while. "we should call Fury first before continuing this."

Tony groaned, rubbing his face with both hands. This was going to be one long day.

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When he heard heavy footsteps climbing up the stairs, Loki pulled his magic back to himself. Losing his seiðr was less like losing a limb but more like lacking a sense. Now that he was finally able to use it, he would take every chance he could get to let it out.

And because of it, he had learned more about his surroundings and current circumstances. He had transported himself in a populous region of Midgard – one of the noisiest and most guarded, that was. In this house, however, the mortal with magic remained the only occupant. Should Loki feel the need to escape his non-prison, he would only be fighting one being, although it was one with an unidentifiable amount of power. Unfortunately, his seiðr was too weak to gauge the level of magic the mortal currently possessed.

Loki turned as the Midgardian entered the chamber, holding a bowl of something smoking. The delicious smell of food wafted in Loki's nose and his stomach gave a sound of hearty approval for it.

The mortal placed soup atop a furniture beside the bed. "Wait just one moment," he said with a smile before rummaging through the knickknacks around the room. He bent down ruffling through the books in the shelf, opening cabinets of the wardrobe.

Loki silently watched him trip over the clothes on the floor and then trip on pure air. This happened thrice in the span of a minute. The liesmith was amazed at inexplicable clumsiness of the mortal. If Loki had not been healed by the very same mortal, the trickster would have thought him a bumbling fool.

"Aha!" The mortal cried triumphantly, brandishing a tray with thin metal rods as legs. "Can I . . . ?" He asked and Loki realized he was asking permission to be in the god's personal space. Loki tilted his head in a small nod.

The mortal carefully placed the tray over Loki's lap and balanced the bowl of soup on top of it. What a primitive invention, Loki said to himself as he noted the tray's purpose. It was to make the food easily accessible from a seating position. The Aesir had one of this; only, the tray hovered instead of using legs.

Immediately, Loki performed a wordless spell on the food, hiding the tiny gesture he made by picking up the spoon. He checked if any poison dangerous to him had been added. The soup remained its normal yellowish pallor. Either his seiðr was too feeble to even detect dangerous chemicals or the Midgardian poison added to it posed no danger to Loki at all.

"That was magic," the mortal spoke with undeniable delight, practically bouncing on the chair he had settled on. "What did you do?"

Loki suppressed a flinch of surprise. He gave the mortal a genuine-looking smile. "I am merely checking if it contained ingredients to which I am allergic."

The mortal detected the subtle spell he performed. Sensitive to any magical usage or merely observant?

"Oh." The Midgardian sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, I forgot to consider that. What are you allergic to?"

"Nothing that is in this soup," Loki replied smoothly.

He gulped down a spoonful, unable to deny his stomach any longer. Gods may not need food as regularly as mortals but they still had to eat eventually. Loki had gone too long without food or drink.

He waited a moment. He didn't feel any additional pain nor any strange sensation. He took another sip.

"Well, that's oddly specific," the Midgardian said dryly. Then, he started, seeming to come to an epiphany. "Oh, have I introduced myself?" He held out a hand, grinning. "Marvin Ambrose, doctor at the Albion Hospital."

Ah, a fake name. Of course, one did not give a real name to a seiðr-user. Act friendly, indifferent, or antagonistic? Loki weighed his options.

A split-second later, he clasped the mortal's outstretched hand and gave it a firm shake. "Lucas Loptr." The alias fell unhesitatingly from his lips. "I apologize for my rudeness earlier. I'm afraid, when your –" Loki adopted an anguish expression and swallowed audibly. "When you've experienced what I have, it is easier to lash out."

It was always wise to make friends with currently unknown entities.

The mortal's gaze softened, signaling that he had believed Loki's act. "Nothing to apologize for. I understand completely."

You understand nothing. Loki relinquished his grasp, making sure not to do unhurriedly as to avoid suspicion. "How did you come by your powers, if I might ask?" Loki inquire, sounding blasé. It was best to gather information while the mortal's trust in him was still whole. "I have not met anyone else who had the capacity for magic as you do."

"I was born with it," was the eager answer. "And I haven't met anyone who has magic for a lo – a while. How abo –"

"There are others?" More mortals with extensive magic? Loki truly had underestimated Midgardians.

Something akin to pain flashed in the mortal's eyes. Loki did not miss it.

"They're all gone now," he said quietly. "I was starting to think I'm the only one left, actually." Then, the mortal shrugged any negative emotions off and plastered on a smile. "But apparently not. How did you come by your magic?"

Since there was no easier explanation, Loki decided on the truth. "Same as you. And it manifested during my formative years."

For the next few hours, Loki talked to the mortal about magic, wanting to find any kind of weakness to use against him. He found out that although the mortal was a physician and had healed Loki's fatal wounds, healing magic was apparently his area of weakness. Loki feared how powerful the Midgardian was in his area of strength, which appeared to be elemental magic.

The trickster gave little information about his seiðr in return. The mortal noticed but it seemed the Midgardian did not mind the unequal sharing of information. The mortal probably knew enough to realize he had the upper hand on Loki.

The mortal pointedly avoided any topic concerning magic bindings but Loki did not miss the anxious glances he kept shooting on the wounds around the trickster's lips. Loki nearly snarled at him; he did not need the mortal's pity. He was a god. Loki would show him who needs pity and charity – But the trickster restrained himself. He could not afford to make this mortal his enemy.

After finishing two more bowls of the soup, Loki had feigned tiredness. Well, he truly was tired so he supposed there was little to feign. The mortal nodded, collecting the trays, bowl and utensils. "It's been a very interesting conversation, Lucas," the mortal said sincerely, looking like he had been given a wonderful gift during Yuletide. "I'll leave you to your rest. I'll be downstairs so just holler any time you need anything."

"My thanks, Marvin," Loki returned with an exhausted smile. "Your company and help has been appreciated." And your weaknesses noted.

The mortal smiled and switched off the lights to the chamber, although he did leave the door slightly ajar.

Loki gingerly laid down, mind whirring. A plan unfolded in his mind after the information he gathered.

The mortal was clueless and careless. He was too trusting and too kind. Loki would recuperate in the house for a few more days, take advantage of the Midgardians idiocy and let his magic build up its strength once more. The mortal would ensure his safety, provided Loki did not do anything to provoke his ire or suspicion.

Then, there was a spell. It took minimal amount of magic. It was risky but it would instantly replenish his depleted seiðr. He had not a chance to try but this would be the perfect opportunity to test it. If it fails, Loki would have enough seiðr to escape.

Gather enough magic, Loki thought, on the verge of sleep. Then catch the mortal off-guard.

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In a dimension touched by death herself, a desolate piece of rock floated aimlessly in the dark of space. Lizard-like creatures crawled throughout the place, hissing and clawing.

"Master." A voice hissed, the sound echoing throughout the empty space.

A disfigured creature stepped out from behind a large boulder, tattered robes trailing behind him. His hands of six fingers twitched from its grasp of the boulder, the only sign of fear he showed. He spoke to another creature sitting on an outcrop of rocks—a creature of enormous figure, a red skull, bright blue eyes and a cruel smile.

"The Liesmith has escaped." The voice hissed again, body bending over in curtsy.

Blue eyes cast a dismissive glance at the bowed figure. Then, those eyes went back to gaze at the stars blinking throughout the galaxies. "No matter." He said, voice an almost growl. His smile became wider, teeth shown in both menace and delight. "He brought me a gift."

"A gift, my lord?" the still bowing creature ventured after a while.

"Yes." The red skulled creature answered. "A particularly amusing toy." Bright blue eyes closed and he saw an image filled with golden strands beneath his eyelids. "One that can perhaps be as useful as he was."

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A/N: I don't know if I'll ever continue this but know that this has been completed . . . in my mind, that is.

Man, the plans I had for this. They were awesome! The plot-twists, the angst, the hurt/comfort, the friendship between Merlin and Loki, their magical sparring/practices/training, that asshole Thanos, the friendships I wanted to develop between the Avengers and Loki and Merlin, poor Thor and his sickness, how Tony and Merlin met, BAMF!Merlin moments, Arthur's return. Ahhhh, pity the plot will never leave the confines of my mind.

I'm sure you guys have magnificent ideas about what happens next with this premise. Play them in your imagination and enjoy. Good luck to you all!

Vaguefuture