Loki's Daughter, Mortem and Mischief

Chapter Two

From what I gathered, being sixteen was supposed to be fun.

Every single tv show and yound adult novel told me that I was supposed to be having the time of my life at sixteen. I was supposed to be getting my driver's liscense and tearing up the streets. As a sixteen year-old girl, I was meant to be attending prom and dressing up. I was supposed to be prying boys off of me and I was supposed to be annoyed at my parents for fussing over me too much. These were all things that I had read about and even dreamed about. The promise of a life like this at sixteen gave me hope after my mother's death. It all allowed me the capacity to believe that one day things might just be normal-that things might be fun.

But no. I was an Asgardian princess and refugee, confined to my nation's tiny corner of Norway. There was hardly a car in sight in New Asgard, and there sure as hell was no DMV. There was scarcely even a school, most of my learning was done asynchronously. Obviously there was no prom to be held when I was the sole teenager in all of Asgard. There was no boyfriend to be had, there was no boy at all! And worse of all, I had no parents to be annoyed with. My mother was dead, it's not like she could be a nuisance six feet under. And my father...was....my father.

I couldn't be angry at him, I couldn't even be annoyed. What quarrel could I have towards him anyways? We never disagreed. When we did talk it was nice, always filled with laughter and smiles. If I ever needed him, he would nearly sprint to my aid. He was doting beyond belief and the most loving father I could ask for. So it wasn't as if he himself was annoying. But, what was frustrating beyond belief was his incessat work in that teeny tiny little office.

Day and night, if he wasn't with me, he was in that office. If he wasn't fighting my uncle, he was in that office. And if my father wasn't arguing with anyone of my seven aunts, you guessed it-he was in that office. And yet, all the while, I had not a single clue as to what he was doing in there. I was certainly not allowed inside as he always said it was too dangerous. My father always made and effort to close the door quickly behind him and brush off the topic whenever it was brought up. But all this did was feed my curiousity. With nothing to do as a regular sixteen-year-old, my head was filled with the undying desire to know what was in that room.

If I wasn't allowed to know what it was like to drive for the first time, or to have a prom, or to even have a first kiss, I should've been at least allowed to know what my Father had been devoting himself to the last few years. In my mind, it was more than justified.

I had conjured up an idea in my mind about what could be behind those doors. I was almost certain that he was cooking up some scheme to overthrow Thor. Even after all these years and after the real Asgard had been destroyed, my father was still dying to rule out people. He truly believed he could restore us to some glory. For what little politics we Asgardians had, he seemed to always involve himself in them. He was obsessed with making sure our fishing operation ran smoothly, that we were debt free as a nation, and that we were taken seriously as a city full of Gods. And all the while, he was constantly making sure that my uncle stayed well out of his way. There was no way in mind that he could be working on anything but an overthrow behind those closed doors. I was sure of it.

As I sat across the table from my father at dinner that night, it was literally all I could think about. Even in the midst of our conversation, I was devising ways to sneak into his office.

"Hela," my father chided, quirking a brow, "Something wrong, dear?"

"Huh?" I replied quickly, immediately stuffing a large piece of bread into my mouth, "Ah, no. Just, um mouthful!"

He paused for a moment, chewing on his lip as he narrowed his eyes.

"You just took your first bite in about five minutes," he said, putting down his utensils and crossing his arms.