Beauty and the Beast

Chapter 44

Frigga read over the letter with wide eyes, her skin paled as she read it. Loki's heart nearly dropped out of his chest. The letter was from Thor, who was currently on Midgard. The only reason Loki could think that Thor would be sending Frigga a letter was that something had happened to Morgan. He couldn't bear the thought that something had happened to Morgan because he hadn't been there to protect and save her.

He should have been there for her.

He never should have left her.

He only hoped he wasn't too late.

The necklace he kept in his pocket from her seemed to burn. A reminder that he'd failed her. He'd taken her protections away in a misguided effort to save her.

"Mother, what is it?" Loki as Frigga stood, dropping the letter. She was so pale and Loki was beyond worried.

She rushed from her bedroom to her sitting room and her scrying mirror to try to help Thor. There was a desperation in her movements and she hadn't even acknowledged Loki's question. She was too pale and worried for even that, too determined and quick to rush into action.

Loki rushed after her, terror in his eyes and every inch of him. It wasn't like his mother to ignore him. "Mother? Please?" He asked with terror seeping into his voice. He didn't deserve anything from her except her contempt, but if Morgan was in danger, he was desperate to help her. "Thor sent you a message, I would recognize his handwriting anywhere. Please tell me what's wrong. Maybe I can help," he begged.

Frigga finally looked up at him, sitting in front of her scrying mirror. "Morgana has been missing for a couple of days again and Thor and his friends cannot find her," Frigga finally told him. Morgan had been missing when she went to Jotunheim to find Loki, but she wouldn't do that again after he sent her away. He knew she wouldn't. Besides, Breya would get word to him if Morgan showed up there.

"How could that be?" He asked, trying to keep his voice calm so his mother would keep talking to him, would give him the answers he needed to find his Morgan.

"Thor said her bodyguard was injured," Frigga replied. Loki knew he and his mother were both thinking about the other vision Morgan had had. The one where she was kidnapped and dying, trapped where she couldn't find the exit to the room when she couldn't see. She'd died alone starving to death in that vision. The trigger had been Happy being injured.

The necklace in Loki's pocket burned while his cheeks burned with shame. He had taken Morgan's protection from her for his own selfish desires.

Frigga turned her attention back to her scrying mirror to try to locate Morgan, to offer some help, even from Asgard. Loki knelt and took his mother's hand in his. "Let me help. You're already low on magic," he told her gently. She'd strained herself trying to find him and bring him home. Another strike against him when Morgan needed them.

Frigga squeezed Loki's hand in her and pressed her other hand to the scrying mirror. She drew on her magic, using Loki's to flow through her and power her spells. The mirror glowed gold for a moment before the image solidified. They both watched a very disheveled injured Morgan searching blindly for the exit to the basement she was in. Her kidnappers dead at her feet. It was just as she had described it.

"Can you pinpoint a location, Mother?" Loki's voice was soft to not break the spell, but there was pain there and other emotions. He hated seeing Morgan like this and knowing it was his fault.

Frigga shook her head. "I cannot, especially with her locket currently residing in your pocket, but..." she pondered, trying to find a solution. There had to be a way.

"I might have an idea. You taught her how to use her magic. You should be connected to her on a psychic level. You and I can locate her," Loki tried. He could contact his mother across the realms. Surely they could find Morgan by her magic.

"I taught you magic for centuries and you're my son, that's how I can reach you across the realms," and that was only when he let her find him. "I don't have a strong enough connection to her to reach her across the realms. Were she on Asgard, maybe, and maybe if I was on Midgard..." Frigga told him, her eyes on the mirror.

Frigga cursed, actually cursed with such a horrible word that Loki would have had his mouth washed out with soap for weeks for even thinking it in her presence.

The clearly weak Morgan had realized that she couldn't find the exit on her own, not when there was no obvious door or stairs. The exit was above her head, a dropdown staircase and blind, she didn't know to search for it there. So she had to take matters into her own hands. Had to change this vision, had to change her fate. Had to keep from dying there when help wasn't coming.

She started gathering her magic. Frigga watched it swirl around her and cursed again at the mirror. "No, let us find you!" She pleaded, though the girl couldn't hear her through the mirror.

All the queen could do was watch, knowing the girl was going to do something stupid in a desperate bid to try to survive.