Captive - Loki Fanfiction

Chapter 1

Monday 9th of May 2016

"Dad I'm here!"

I stood impatiently in the doorway of the small apartment, my hair damp and dripping from the rain, two small suitcases trailing behind me as I slammed the peeling red door behind me.

It was early on a clammy, wet Monday morning and I was not in a good mood. After a hectic weekend of packing my belongings in boxes and helping my aunt load several moving vans while trying to revise for my upcoming GCSEs, I was thoroughly exhausted, glum and fed-up. It didn't help that I had to spend three entire weeks with my father, in his tiny crammed apartment in the middle of London, a warren of dirty, noisy streets.

The kitchen door opened and my father appeared, a tall thin man in a loose grey t-shirt and dark jeans. His narrow white face was framed by the mass of unruly black curls on the top of his head, so thick and long that it almost covered his sharp blue eyes.

His t-shirt read 'This Is What A Feminist Looks Like'. My father was weird like that. He had some very intense views that some people would find rather out of the ordinary for a famous scientist. He was a passionate feminist, animal rights activist and had an avid interest in fashion, a rather unusual jumble of hobbies.

"Freyja!" he exclaimed cheerfully and I flinched at the sound of my name. I quite honestly hated it; it sounded ancient and uncanny. Of course it had been Dad who had chosen the name. He was into some kind of mythology and had named me after a goddess that I hadn't bothered to research.

"Hey, Dad," I said, forcing a smile but my tone remained apathetic.

Unfazed by my lack of enthusiasm, he beamed at me like a clueless child and I hung my head, unwilling to meet his gaze. I just wanted to get out of this tiny, miserable flat and catch the train back to Leeds, to my aunt and her big white house with its veranda and porch swing, in the midst of the green moors with their fresh vegetation, and the shrill calls of the barn owls in the cool, clear night.

"Just leave your stuff here for now," he said cheerfully in his deep British-accented voice. "I'll make us some tea and we can chat for a bit."

Recoiling at the thought of having to sip tasteless hot liquid while listening to him rant on about dark energy and gamma radiation, I followed him dutifully into the tiny kitchen.

It was bathed in a gloomy grey light filtering through the big glazed windows and looked as if a tornado had just blown around the room. The wooden kitchen units were dusty and covered in fingerprints and junk littered the surfaces, clusters of paper, waste and soda cans. It smelt strongly of burnt chips and I noticed steam arising from a dish covered in greasy silver-foil on the table.

"I was just making some food," Dad said casually, seemingly unaware of my undisguised expression of disgust as he pushed a sheaf of paper off one of the chairs and indicating me to sit down. "Sorry about the mess. I've just been ex-"

"-tremely busy, I know," I muttered as I sat down.

He looked down at me for a moment, making my cheeks heat. He was so tall that he towered over me like a giraffe towers over a rabbit and his head almost reached the ceiling. His hands were three times the size of mine, his fingers long and bony. Sometimes, I felt intimidated by his impressionable size and deep voice. After all, I didn't know him that well. I had lived with my aunt most my life after my mother's death in 2000, which was the year I was born, because he was a scientist and worked most of the time, frequently travelling out of the country. I only saw him once every two weeks when I stayed in his apartment for the weekend. But now that my aunt was moving to a new house in Sheffield, I was to stay with him for almost a month until she could get things under control and tolerate another responsibility.