Taken
Becoming aware of the soft bedding beneath, Five anticipates being met with half-consciousness; a prisoner in his own body. Able to sense the bruising grip of a heavy shadow, and hot breath grunted into his ear, but unable to intervene. A familiarly intimate woe swells, escaping as a low mournful sob at the looming possibility he’s imagined yesterday.
How am I going to save my family now?
In anticipation of a meaty fist’s prickling sting wrenching his hair back, hopefully his only punishment for the presumed protest — Please, please, ple-e-ease be my only punishment — a strange touch is exchanged with the pounding ache of hardwood.
Wiping off the foggy remnants of sleep, and quickly moving away from the unoccupied restraints, Five turns around to discover Angrboda in the large ornate bed they’ve shared. Paralysed with shock, her callused fingers are still hovering mid air as Loki rushes in with daggers drawn.
The benevolent god asks, “Is everything okay?” as he pockets his weapons.
Five only hears the thump, thump, thumping of his racing heart. However, the sensation soon subsides as he looks up at his companions.
Ignoring the feathered mattress, he runs a reassuring palm up his bare neck before scratching his head and replying, “I was expecting, uh, to wake up to straw.” He huffs. “Good news! My powers are back.” Five then grasps Loki’s offered hand and leaves to break fast. He wants to test his weapons prior to departure and desperately needs the practice.
It felt wrong being unarmed for so long, like a phantom limb. Five had had Diego’s knife and a rifle since the wasteland’s earliest days. The latter only lasted as long as the bullets, but it came in handy with wolves and wildcats. They took Two’s blade after Five’s capture, but the bassa probably carries it as a memento. At least the warrior sure hopes so. He wants to stab the bipedal wank splatter’s other eye with it. In the meantime, he settles for two seaxes carried in sheaths suspended horizontally and a small hafted axe tucked into his belt. The single-headed axe is for emergencies. It’s a balm for the wounds gone, but not forgotten.
Never in Five’s wildest imaginings did he consider someone like Loki actually existed, let alone that their lives would intersect. In retrospect, it’s a close-minded thought process, given his extraordinary upbringing, education, and time to think. The long-lived, fantastically endowed alien isn’t just an unparalleled master trained by a war god and a sorceress in a society hardened by interplanetary conflict spanning aeons. He’s also a brilliant, kind, and humble yet cheeky soul. Whereas Asgard didn’t value the god’s ‘feminine’ fighting or skill with magic, the skywalking warrior will be forever grateful.
Five catches himself thanking the Norns for their wicked weavings. He’s discovered his faith in the possible personification of existence’s unhinged statistical absurdity and the support of a not-all-powerful, but devastatingly handsome, Aesir Jotunn. Barely any time has passed yet Five does not doubt, if given the choice, he will fight by his Lord’s side for eternity. Anything’s possible with the right calculations and some guidance. Loki sees behind the youthful exterior and yet, because he’s a powerful being more than a millennium old, Five’s unbothered by his shielding nature or tenderness. In fact, he secretly loves it.