Refuge

Idunn screamed.

There were no words, just a prolonged, primal shriek of rage and fear. Before she could charge at the man and run him through, turning him to dust, the blood covered knife sailed back over her head. It would have hit its mark had the assailant not dodged, his hood falling back in the process.

To the Asgardian, he was just another threat. His dark, dotted face made her no difference. But the shock in M’Baku’s voice from behind her, even through the pain, was clear. “W’Kabi?”

She looked between them incredulously, now unsure if killing him was the best option. “You know this man?”

“This traitor,” M’Baku growled, clutching his bleeding shoulder, “has been banished from Wakanda for months.”

Idunn’s hand tightened on the hilt of her sword as this W’Kabi chuckled humorlessly. “A traitor who only sought to serve the throne and who sat on it at the time. Whereas you, Great Gorilla, you consort with this filth? This alien?” He drew another weapon: a curved, intricate blade that she may have admired under different circumstances.

M’Baku barked in fury, but she spoke before he could open his mouth again. “Filth? Coming from a self-admitted traitor? You disgust me.” She spat, shaking with rage. Her vision tinted red and tunneled until she could only see his hostile face. She flipped Halvor down and rushed at him, drawing her muscular arm back. He pulled his blankets up and forward, and a glowing blue shield materialized before him just as she struck.

Idunn grunted, the red hot and cold blue contact of sword and shield traveling up her arm in dizzying waves of energy. She shook it off as he advanced, drawing his curved blade and using her momentary distraction to his advantage.

W'Kabi struck.

His vibranium blade bit into the knobkierie.

M’Baku moved rather quickly for someone with a grievous injury.

“M'Baku, I can—” Idunn's voice wavered.

“Let me deal with this traitor. For Wakanda.” His stance did not falter, though blood still fell from his arm. W’Kabi looked wildly between the two.

Idunn swallowed her pride in sake of his. “For Wakanda.” She echoed, a bit weaker than his own conviction.

“Who else but I could save Wakanda from these colonizers?” W’Kabi mocked as Idunn’s blood ran cold. “Do the Jabari truly not know the nature of Asgard? They’ve colonized more than the white men of this planet could ever dream. Nine Realms, if I remember correctly.” Another thud of vibranium against wood. “Earth is one of those realms. Ask your girlfriend how long she’s been fighting in war, colonizing the universe.”

M’Baku drew his knobkierie around and slammed it into W’Kabi’s side. “Shut your mouth!”

“Admit it, Great Gorilla,” he taunted, advancing, shield up. “You’re as bad as them.”

The battle was swift and short, each blow matched to another. Idunn watched with anxious eyes, her grip tightening and loosening with every quickened heartbeat that raced through her chest. Should she step in? She knew this was a matter of honor.

She also knew she couldn’t lose him.

It was a firefly that did it. The tiny, glowing creature landed on the arrowhead pommel of Halvor, and she jerked in surprise. Her movement drew M'Baku's eye, and in that moment, he faltered.

The gasp escaped her lips, not his, when the blade sunk into his stomach. M’Baku simply looked down and crumpled to his knees soundlessly.

Idunn’s vision went red, internally and externally, as Halvor glowed brighter than he ever had. The scream that parted her lips was primal with rage. The man she loved lay dying. She did the only thing she could think of.

W’Kabi crumbled into dust the moment her sword ran him through.

She dropped to her knees after sheathing the sword, hovering over the prone man whose eyes were beginning to roll back into his head. He was on his back, and she began to take note of more injuries as her mind raced; livid purple bruises across his temple, likely from the force of the energy shield. A peppering of small cuts here and there over onyx dark skin. His face went slack, and that was when she saw the brightness of infection at the jagged edges of his wounds.

Poison.

“What do I do?”

“M’Baku, please,” Idunn begged, each of her hands pressing against the bloody holes in his chest, his stomach, his life seeping out before her eyes. She cursed herself for the path she’d chosen; had she studied healing magic rather than war, death, and destruction, she may have been able to save him.

Midgardians were so delicate. One wrong move, and their bright, short lives ended too soon. “Wake up. Please, I need you to wake up.” She was ashamed at how her voice broke as tears began to fall. The blood continued to flow, the heavy metallic scent of it causing her head to start spinning. She didn’t know what to do. Idunn blinked, and the body in her arms was Kari; limp, lifeless, head lolling back.

A sob caught in her throat. She blinked, and her brother was gone.

Another flash of silver caught the corner of her eye. She didn’t turn. Couldn’t. She simply angled her body over his protectively. All that mattered was the man before her and protecting him. Saving him. She could save him.

He stirred.

“M’Baku?”

He groaned wordlessly, and she lifted him into her arms. “Where do I take you?” She asked desperately. She had no transportation; the massive, hovering vehicles that the Wakandans used were by requisition of citizens, and the cities in both directions were equally separated by wilderness and mountainside.

He groaned again, and she made up her mind, sprinting down the mountain toward the lab she had fled only hours ago. Idunn willed her limbs to move faster, holding the most precious cargo to her chest as her feet flew. He felt weightless, but she would have hauled the entire mountain down around him if that was what it took. Any lingering trace of the alcohol was long gone from her veins; now they were filled with a different type of fire.

“I love you.” Her whispers were lost to the wind. “I love you. I can’t lose you, please.”