White sheets, smooth under her fingertips, a plump pillow dented by the side of her face, a wandering hand sliding over the edge of the bed in search of cool air. It was still dark in the room but the telltale signs of yet another repetitive solar event on course shifting the ink coloured sky outside into a navy twinkled with stars. She was too warm, her mind burning up with sleepy dream picked thoughts as her toes curled and stretched under blankets much like a waking cat.

With a rustle of bedding, Karian Motter, rolled onto her back away from the window and angled her neck to get a better look across to the silhouette that lay besides her. Air was sucked in, then released slowly through her nose as she carefully lifted away the blanket in a bid for freedom; her legs tossed out first, finding purchase of the ground below with a relieving coolness. It really was much to hot here, in this bed, besides him. Her bare feet were like well trained guide dogs, carrying swaying weight across the gap from bed to balcony but she did not venture out further than the exit with its drapes behind her in case of passers-by; not that there were likely to be any when so high above a great lake but nonetheless the reassurance was something worth the proximity.

How long had it been now? Two, three, closing in on four months since she last returned to Asgard in an irritated sweaty ball of no-hair-mousse-in-the-nine-realms-can-handle-this frizz. Oh, and Thor and prisoner Loki had been there of course but that went without saying. Jumping off the side of a skyscraper had really managed to fuddle her brain their for a few days; it really was somewhere in the realms of most silliest thing she had ever done but perhaps the lack of McFlurry with her McChicken sandwich was to blame. Still, landing on an alien's head as he flew by had really been a once in a lifetime experience, much like the part where they crashed through the window of a law firm and she somehow managed to flip during the momentum and land on the comfiest office chair since forever. If only her bid to flee the city and escape the CIA, asgardian gods and bailiffs had gone to plan but hey, that's what the NSA was for right? Tracking down harangued young women and giving them a full cavity search. Okay, well, maybe the cavity search thing really did not occur but by the rather interesting puse colour, Agent Something-face, had been turning during a rather unamusing interrogation it was not far behind. Thank god for Thor whacking his hammer through a wall and shouting a rather interesting threat involving someone's ancestor and a biblical reckoning resulting in a releasing of a certain curly haired detainee into his responsibility.

As much as she dreaded it, as much as she had argued and at one point kicked her blonde protector, the journey back to asgard was probably the right choice than staying on a home she once knew as Earth. The indignation, worry and eye stinging tears had made the roller-coaster rainbow ride at least bearable, or perhaps that was just her bodies way of telling her everything was going to be all right now; and it was going to be all right now, her grandfather told her so. And then there was this, now.

"What are you doing?" A low voice, etched with sleep, rumbled towards her from the bed.

Kari sighed, holding back the flood of questions long enough to enjoy the bathing glow of gold sifting over the horizon to cast light upon her face. A beautiful morning, like the one before and the next there after, always and forever. Her lips parted as if ready to devour the sun and yet it was a yawn that finally escaped as she turned to the man still watching her on his pillow cuddling side. He smiled wistfully, at the way the sunlight traced the outside of her naked form, before his attention fully resurfaced back to her words.

"I need to get back before Fandral notices I'm missing." She answered his question in half-truth as her padding feet once again guided her along a well known route about the warrior's home.

"You believe he does not know of us?" He half-joked, his eyes trained on admiring the way his nightly bed partner bent to retrieve her underwear, discarded on the floor.

"Hah!" Kari chuckled at her lovers attempt at humour, pushing her hair to the side in order to fasten a ironically white bra. "I believe he thinks I'm still in my room so he can hassle me awake and whatever."

"You will come this time, will you not?" The way his tone fluctuated from high optimism to low knowing did not go unregistered as a mid-length midnight blue dress was stepped into, adjusted and finally fastened with no occurring response. "Odin will be furious and I know not if his rage can be defeated if you fail to attend once more."

"Balder..." Kari paused, her back to the naked man in question, as she fumbled with matching flat shoes in her hands. "Do you love me?" The way her tone too fluctuated did not go unnoticed, though the silence in the room still stung. "Then what does it matter?"

With a shrug, slipping her shoes into a two finger dangle by her left side, she began a prideful walk of shame away from the scene of a old world moral crime; free hand lifted in a backwards curt wave as she disappeared from his bedroom. No doubt the warrior was probably sitting in there frowning to himself as he usually did when brooding and holding all his feelings in like a well trained man-child. He would forget about it later, or formulate some sort of simple gesture to pander to her vanity if she did not manage to scorn him somehow later on; and she was most definitely going to grate his nerves in a few hours.

Ever since she had arrived back to Asgard, gotten herself a really boring lecture from ole one-eye, been almost hugged to death by her grandfather and squealed in ridiculous joy at a basket full of Griffin coloured kittens – Fandral was so not letting her keep all of them – coming face to face with Balder again had been at the forefront of her mind. Of course, being the wandering adventure type asgardian, that had not come to fruition for almost three full, anguishing, months. She had wanted to get it over with at first, have a bicker, someone call someone's mother a llama and then officially break up so all the wounds could start healing; the actual first meeting had been a tad more complicated however. With all that pending time to think, a grandfather to do a little perspective placing, quite a bit of wine and ale, a lap full of mewling puss-cats and time to get over previous traumas, well, what she had hoped for and thought best became an impossible task.

There he had sat on his pebbled coloured horse, Kari and Fandral sparring most of the afternoon till both glistening with sweat from a mixture of exertion and summertime heat, and she found her eyes so very brazen in their staring. Love, lust, who cared, she felt like iron attracted to a magnet and the strangeness, unique in her short lifetime, was worth the exploration further. Well, until Odin had decided to get involved.

"My dear?" Fandral's worried tone danced across the room, through the open window and right into his granddaughter's alert ears as she dangled haphazardly on outer brickwork.

"Y-yeah, just a second, granddad." Kari shouted in a flustered manner as her fingers finally found purchase on the windowsill and she began pulling herself up and over the threshold back into her own room.

"Kari, what is occuring?" The moustache wielding swordsman tried knocking at the same time as demanding answer as if this might hurry a response after quite a bit of thudding and 'oohing' from the other side of a locked door.

"Nothing, what do you want?"

"You know what I- that is, what is happening."

"You know I'm not going." She was back on her feet now, tossing her shoes into a corner and beginning to undress from last evenings I am sorry for upsetting you but this dress comes off easy outfit.

"My dear-"

"Don't you "my dear" me!" She cut through his patronising tone like a warm knife to butter. "You're supposed to be on my side about this."

"Is it not for the best?"

"For who?" Kari froze, now in only her underwear yet again, as she eagerly awaited an answer to a question she was sure would not go in anyone's favour but her own.

"You, my dear."

"Argh!"

"Is that a roar of submission? Have you finally succumbed-"

"Granddad!" Kari slumped onto the edge of her bed, a cloth in one hand wiping away whatever make-up was left on her face. "He doesn't love me and I don't think I love him." There was a rather strange noise coming from behind her bedroom door, one that sounded reminiscent of choking and caused her heart to flutter in a moments fear for her very old in deed, but looking about the same age as his granddaughter, grandfather. "Granddad? Are you laughing at me? Oh my god!"

"I apologize, fear not, I am on your side, my dear, whether you believe it or not." Fandral fought against the urge to continue laughing at such lovers quarrels and antics; especially when it now sounded as if his daughter's daughter was flinging things around in a rage. "Can we not save love until after the wedding? There will be honey mead."

"You are not bribing me to come out with honey mead." She huffed back, furious at the implication and forcing on a pair of old jeans from her chest of draws. "What kind of whore do you take me for?"

"I suppose I could spare some coins and-"

"GRANDDAD!"

"You began this line of enquiry, Kari, please." The level of sigh in the man's voice was almost overwhelming enough to swallow his manners.

"I don't care what that stupid old man says or how angry his wrinkly face gets, I am not marrying Balder or anyone else!" She began fishing about in her wardrobe for hiking boots bought from some asgardian shop and smelling oddly of goat at all times. "Things are fine the way they are!"

"I agree, truly."

"But...?" Her brow arched as she drooped back on her bed and began doing up shoelaces with a hint of sarcasm in every knot and tie.

"But, why not pander to the all fathers strange decree. You will only end up married to, Balder, in a few years or so anyway."

"You are so against me it isn't even true!"

"Kari-"

"No!"

"Kari!"

"I said NO!"

"Kari, if you do not come out I will break down this door and drag you to your intended myself!" Fandral's composure, finally reaching its limit when confronted with such ruthless disobedience and out right danger educing disrespect, gave way to granddad with a backbone and an additional level of decibels to bellow back with. "Kari?"

However, as with the past two mornings, of the same repeating scene unfolding, the shouting match had not gone in the exhaustedly exhaling blonde's favour. Instead, Kari had once again tied back her hair, thrown on a coat, and climbed back out the window to the balcony on the floor below. What she had not counted on, during her third daring escape in exactly the same way as the last two times, was that her grandfather and his warrior friends would catch on and actually formulate their own sneaky plans.

"Ah ha!" Volstagg roared with pride as he cornered the mischievous waif slipping down a column to the garden below. "Now, lass, we cannot have you scurrying away to your rabbit hole during a day such as this. You are getting married! And on such a fine and sunny day. An omen I am sure of golden times ahead."

"Volstagg..." Kari really leaned in to her most impressive of pouts to date.

"No. No sweet pity filled maidens eyes will wrestle I from my mission today. Balder the brave and noble has waited two mornings and afternoons full for your presence and not a day further. I do not believe the wedding feast will last further delay from mould and sour and what a waste of food that would be."

"You have my permission to eat the entire wedding feast if you just, you know, get the heck out of my way and let me, er, hide in a rabbit hole?"

"Alas I-"

"OH MY GOD!" She screamed, pointing past the huge, rounded, belly of the plump warrior at something that made her eyes tear up with blood curdling fear.

"What is it? I do not see anything?" Volstagg was on the case, his body pivoting as he moved to draw his weapon and fight whatever foe presented itself.

"Volstagg?" Fandral's voice drifted from further along the gardens, having rushed down from his rooms to check on Kari traps.

"Yes my friend, I have your lost- Oh..." He turned only to find his captive girl missing and a greyed Fandral on his opposite side. "She has slipped through my grasps, friend. I am sorry for it, most dashing Fandral, but she is quite the slippery of snakes."

"Aye, but thank you all the same. Come let us see if, Hogun, fairs better than either you or I at catching prey."