Queen of Asgard (NaNoWriMo2018, Completed!)

43: The Second Trial (Part Two)

I had just finished reading the case file when Thor woke up and flashed me a crooked grin. "Morning," he said happily but he recognized my expression soon enough. "Are you okay?"

I opened my mouth to speak. "The second trial."

"What?"

My throat was too dry, no volume. I tried again, wetting my lips. "Sif gave me my case for the second trial."

Understanding dawned on Thor's face and he sighed as he approached. I knew the haunted look on his face well: he knew exactly what I was walking into. "I'm sorry," he said softly as he reached across the island to place his hand over mine.

"How could you ask me to take this case?" I asked, a slight crack in my voice as I tried to control my labored breathing and the frown that was pulling at my mouth.

"You know why."

"No, I don't," I stood up, biting my lip to stop it from trembling as tears rolled down my cheeks. "I don't know how you could ask me to do this."

"Because ruling a country will have plenty of difficult choices involved." His tone was calm, diplomatic even but it turned my vision red.

"'Difficult choices?'" I repeated, my voice thin and bordering on shrill. "That's what you're calling this?"

"We have to know if you can be objective during difficult situations," Thor said, still using that calm tone as he slowly approached me.

I scoffed. "So I have to prove I'm objective to get the job and you get it despite the fact that every time you see Loki you're ready to hit him with one billion volts."

Thor stopped walking towards me and his hands balled into fists. His eyes were no longer blue. "That's beside the point."

"That's exactly the point!" I shouted, loosing my cool completely at his denial. "You're asking me to do something that you aren't capable of yourself! This man," I slammed my hand down on the file, the sound like a bullet in the tiny apartment. "Murdered a public official in cold blood and you're asking me to let him go! You're asking me to put another family through what mine went through when my father was killed!"

"I'm not asking you to let him go," Thor shot back, his eyes a dark shade of grey. "I'm asking you to be a just with the power you're being given. I never said that would be easy."

"Get out!" I snapped, seething with rage and disgust.

"Suzume-." Thor tried but I wasn't hearing it.

"Get out! Now!" I knew myself well enough to know that if he stayed, I'd say things I'd regret later.

"Fine," Thor said, stomping towards the door and I saw a flash of bright blue sparks as his hand touched the knob. With a pained look at me, Thor was gone and I heard a boom that sounded like thunder as he slammed the door behind him.

I was alone now, but instead of relief, I felt drained as I looked at the folder.  I flicked open with a heavy heart, intending to read it again but the print was blurry now. Shaking, I got to my feet and walked back to my room and shut the door behind me before sinking down onto the edge of my bed. It was still warm from Thor and the thought that had brought me joy this morning left me feeling empty now.

I tried to breath, but my chest was tight, like I'd gotten a stitch in my side after running. My vision clouded again as I looked around the white room, my eyes settling on the only pop of color in the space: my photographs on the nightstand. Yuki and her bright blue hair and my family portrait, the last one we had before Dad had been shot.

Normally, it was Yuki's face that ripped my heart out, but today that wasn't the case. Today, my father's gap-toothed smile tore open a wound that had been inside me for years and most of the time, it was closed but not today. Today it was torn open and released all the old feelings his death had brought me. The anger, disbelief and sorrow when I knew my life had shattered all came roaring back, just like I was eleven again. The emotions pulled me under like the riptide at the ocean and I broke down, my chest on fire as I tried to breathe between sobs while memories swirled like a whirlpool in my head.

The red and blue sirens that flashed on my quiet street that flooded my room with color on the dark night. The way I had woken up briefly, only to fall back asleep as I assumed Dad had just taken a squad car home. The way I'd come down the stairs the next morning and heard the impossible words 'Dad died last night'. The way I'd sunk down onto the closet door, numb with shock because it couldn't be true, even though I knew neither Mom nor Enemi would make jokes like that. The way it had slowly hit and I began to cry as Yuki came downstairs. Those memories were so clear to me, even over a decade later. The funeral was more faded but I could still hear the bagpipes whine as they lowered the coffin into the ground as clearly now as I did then.  Sad, that I could recall that, but not the way my father's laugh sounded. Nor could I remember him allowing me to paint his toenails as a young child, though pictures taken told me it was true.

So many good memories faded or gone entirely while the painful ones were clear as day. How long would it be before the same thing happened to Eira's family? How long would it be before her parent's forgot the exact shade of her eyes? Or before her children, if she had any, what would it be like for them? Would they react how I did, with explosive anger? Or would they fall into a depression? Be numb and then cry their hearts out at moments when the permanence of their loss hit? How would they react when they realized planning their future without them became natural, rather than something they had to consciously think about? I didn't know but I did know one thing: I had no idea how I could pass this trial. No  matter what choice I made, I'd hate myself for it. No matter what choice I made, I risked disgracing the memory of my father and my best friend and loosing everything I'd built since coming to Asgard.

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New chapter! Hope my fellow Americans had a wonderful Independence Day!

Write on! :)