In The Shadows | Loki

MOUNTAINS

"Hey." I let out a small groan, every part of me aching. "Hey, wake up. Hello?"
        "Stop bothering her."
        "But she's just lying there!"
        "Let her sleep. It's better than being awake."
        "Where's her collar?" 
        I force my eyes to open, and it doesn't take long for my eyes to adjust to the dark room. The room is mostly dark stone, and I'm laying on the floor. I pull myself into a sitting position, ignoring the pounding pain in my head. There are bars making up two of the four walls, and I can see other people through them. 
        "Hey. Hey!" I turn at the voice. "Ophelia?"
        "Kurt?" I whisper, surprised and a little confused. "What... where are we?" There's a little girl clinging to Kurt's leg, and one glance around I count at least ten mutants, and Kurt is the oldest. He was only twenty. 
        "You don't look right." Kurt replies with a frown. "What happened to your hair? And your eyes?" 
        "This coming from the kid with blue skin?" I ask, reaching up to touch my hair. It was the brown I had grown up with instead of the silver I had come to know. I take in a shaky breath, pulling myself up straighter, my back against the wall. I take note then that all of them have thick, heavy collars on their necks. My hand falls to my throat, only to find it bare of any device. "What does that do?" I ask quietly, nodding at the collar. 
        "It dampens our abilities.  Where is yours?" He asks. I let out a small laugh of disbelief. 
        "Why collar a mutant you've given the cure too?" I ask. Kurt's expression falls, and I see hopelessness crash over him. "Do you know where we are?" Kurt shakes his head. 
        "I left the mansion to travel. I was only out for two days when I was snatched. They had the collar on me before I could get out. I woke up here." I nod, glancing around again. 
        "How many?" I ask.
        "There's thirteen of us, including you and I." Kurt replies, glancing around. "The youngest is Milly here, she's seven." He runs a hand through her grungy blonde hair, and she holds onto him tighter. I send her a small, soft smile, and she replies with a shy wave. I look around at the other kids, concern growing in me.
        "Why are you all here?" I ask, struggling to get to my feet. "I mean, why did they grab all of you?"
        "They're using our.... our...." One of the younger boys, who couldn't be older than twelve speaks up, thinking. "D... DNA." He finally gets out. I frown.
        "They're using your DNA for your powers?" I ask, and the young boy nods. 
        "They're weaponizing our abilities. I'm not sure how." Kurt agrees. "I don't know why they would use the cure on you though. It doesn't help them or you." I nod in agreement, thinking. 
        "Do any of you know where we are?" There's a round of answers, and none of them are yes. 
        "Mountains." Kurt looks at Milly with surprise. 
        "Do you know what Mountains?" I ask quietly, and she shakes her head. "That's okay. Knowing it's the mountains helps a lot." She glances at Kurt before letting him go, and I watch her easily slip through the bars into my cell. She sits next to me, leaning over to draw in the dust on the floor.  She drags her finger through it, creating a fairly simple drawing of four triangle mountains, making a small dot on the biggest one. "That's where we are?" I ask, and she nods. "Thank you." I reach over and squeeze her hand lightly. She responds by reaching up and hugging me tightly. Kurt chuckles. 
        "She's a hugger." He informs me. 
        "And that is perfectly fine." I reply, getting over my surprise. "Are there security cameras in here?"
        "There is one watching the door, but none of us can use our abilities, so why would they waste that on us? We're in the middle of a facility that is heavily guarded. Someone checks on us once ever few hours." I nod, moving Milly so she was by my side instead of in my lap. 
        "How long do we have until we're checked on?" 
        "Someone came by right before you woke up, so we have some time." I nod, moving my legs so that I was sitting in a criss cross position, my open hands resting on my knees.
        "Tell me when someone is coming, okay?" Kurt frowns, leaning against the bars. 
        "What are you going to do?" He asks, confused. I send him a small smile, doing a test by pushing magic to my fingertips. Green mist comes out and falls, disappearing when it hits the floor. There are shocked expressions all around. "How?" Kurt whispers, glancing towards the small window on the door.
        "I've got some new tricks I've acquired since I've last seen you, Kurt." I reply with a shrug. "Just let me know when I need to stop." He nods, turning to an older boy who was in a cell close to the door. The boy nods, moving to the edge of his cell so he can see out the small window.
        I shift my weight a little, adjusting before doing as Loki had taught me and focus. I wasn't exactly sure what the extent of Loki's magic was, but I wanted to try something before I pulled out the bigger trick I was hiding. That I hoped I was hiding. 
        I focus the magic, trying to find something, anything that resembled the bond. If there was a magical bond between Loki and I there had to be some trace of it, right? Something I could tug on and focus on. It had to be on me somewhere, and I just needed to find it. My biggest problem was going to be how complex the magic was. I could barely make an illusion, I didn't know if I'd be able to do anything to get Loki's attention. 
        Loki's magic travels over my body, and I try to find any magic that was permanently there. My biggest issue was that this was a soul bond. Where exactly was my soul? Where would the focus of that magic end up residing? Would there even be anything for me to tug on, or would magic just be magic? There and not there all at once. 
        Then I found it. If the soul bond wasn't cliché enough, the fact that I found the connection over my heart pushed it over the edge.