Asleif Thorsdottir

The games we play

Wed, 20 Nov 2013 01:04:27 GMT

For some reason or another, there were mortals from the other teams at their home. Asleif wasn't entirely certain why. It had probably been brought up, likely by Sydney, but when mortals spoke, Asleif tended not to pay very much attention. They did not often have anything very important to say.

She poked idly at the fruit on her plate, and resisted the urge to glare or turn some of the more annoying ones into things. Like the Olympian, for example, who was loudly retelling (or possibly fabricating) some adventure of his in an attempt to chat up one of the women.

Not exactly here idea of a good time.

Part Three

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:06:05 GMT

A week had passed and Dawn, fortunately, had had no more outbursts at work. But she was still having the dreams. Every night, a dream involving that strange woman she’d seen in the mirror. A great battle fought from the tower of some castle. A roguishly handsome young man. A gigantic snake monster. A bridge of rainbows. An old, bearded man, hard and stern, but with a twinkling of kindness. A pair of beautiful women and a golden haired man. A barely clothed red-haired man with an axe. Each night something different, but each night something strange and otherworldly. Each night, something she did not understand at all.

And thought it all, a voice, cold and cruel and haughty, screaming at her. Calling for release. Glimpses of the woman came the most often, she figured prominently no matter what else filled the dream. Who was she? Why did she seem almost... familiar? Dawn had no idea. No idea at all. But she wanted it to stop. She’d barely had a decent night’s sleep since her attack.

Her friends were worried about her, to be sure. They were noticing her exhaustion, and her exhaustion was making her snappish and irritable. She was not, to put it bluntly, enjoying life.

She’d couldn’t afford a psychologist, her insurance wouldn’t pay for anything like that. But she had managed to squeeze together an eye examination at least. They couldn’t explain her sudden change in eye color, though the doctor had claimed that great stress could sometimes cause strange effects.

She sighed and sipped her coffee, trying to prop herself up better on her couch. Dawn had been actively avoiding trying to sleep as much as possible. It was easier that way. But her eyes were so droopy…

It was hot. Hotter than she had ever felt in her entire life. She was burning, burning up! She was on fire! She had to move, had to get away, but she couldn’t! Why couldn’t she?! It was hot, so hot! It felt like it was burning her down to her soul!

Her eyes were open now, she could feel they were open, but she couldn’t see anything. Everything hurt. Everything hurt so much. She was certain she was dying. What did she do to deserve this? She didn’t want to die! She’d never been in love, never seen Paris, never wrote the great American novel…

She couldn’t see, but she could just barely make out light and darkness. There was a dark patch near her, and her ears, equally burned and stripped away, could not hear a thing at all. But somehow, she could tell the dark patch was speaking. Oh God, why did it hurt?

A life hath been wrongly taken, by pride and arrogance. There must be amends! Doth thou wish to live?

What?

Doth thou wish to live? Answer!

She did! She wanted to live! More than anything! She did not want to die!

Then fight for thine life! Take it back! Live!

Something, somehow, gave her the strength to move. She felt her ruined, burned arm reach out and grab something and not let it go…

~Let me go!~

Dawn awoke with a scream, before realizing she was just in her apartment. She’d fallen asleep, dammit. Only, where had the woman been? The woman was always in her dreams. Had that been her voice? The first voice hadn’t been for certain. It had been male, but she couldn’t tell more than that. The second voice had been female, but she could hear so little in the dream this time she couldn’t tell whether or not it matched the voice she had heard in the other dreams.

But both voices had had that strange, archaic cadence to them, that unusual, almost old fashioned, almost Shakespearean way of speaking. It had to mean something. Something other than just her going crazy. Because she really didn’t want to be crazy. She’d had an aunt who’d gone crazy. It hadn’t been pretty.

She needed help. But she had no idea where to turn.

Dawn tried hard to stay awake, but it was not long before sleep took her again…

***

When she awoke, Dawn quickly realized that she did not know where she was. No, she realized, looking around, on second thought, she did know where she was. She’d seen it on the news a few times. But why was she here? How had she even gotten here? Sleepwalking? Awfully damn far to sleepwalk, but if her aching feet and the rising sun were any indication…

Here being the Defenders’ Compound.

A Further Turn of Events

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:22:14 GMT

The doctors at the emergency room had been unable to find anything wrong with Dawn. In point of fact, she had been the picture of perfect health. In fact, she was healthier than she’d even been. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt this good.

The police had spoken to her too, but she’d been unable to give them any information. She’d left her job at the library, gotten knocked out from behind, and the next thing she knew, she was waking up in a room full of unconscious cultists and one unnerving pile of ash. Still, she had promised to talk to them if she remembered anything else. Dawn just counted herself fortunate that they’d found her purse.

She’d managed to get her keys in the door of her tiny apartment and collapse into bed before pure exhaustion took her.

***

Who art thou?! What hath thou done to me?!

The voice was cold, almost cruel, and deadly accusing. Through the mists of her dream, Dawn was a tall, dark-haired woman, glad in what was either black or deep, dark green. She was angry, enraged, her anger devoted solely at her…

RELEASE ME!

***

Dawn awoke with a jolt, the morning sun streaming in from her window. Reluctantly, she dragged herself into her bathroom, running cold water to splash on her face. She studied her reflection intently, looking for signs of… she didn’t know what. Something. Anything. Anything that would tell her about the strange sense of unease she felt. Her hair was a mess from sleep, there were dark rings under her eyes from too many nights of not enough sleep, her eyes…

Her eyes were gray.

She blinked and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Gray. Definitely gray. Which was wrong. Very wrong. Her eyes were green. Eyes did not just change color like that. It wasn’t natural.

“This is impossible,” she said to herself. “Really impossible. What the heck happened to me?”

She studied her face further, looking for any other changes, but could find none. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath, but she opened them she gasped in shock.

Her entire reflection was not her own. Instead it was of a much taller woman, with sharp, refined features, dark hair, and cold, gray eyes. “Let me out!” the woman screamed and reached through the mirror to grab her…

Dawn screamed and fell backwards, landing hard on her backside. But when she looked again in the mirror, the woman was gone. Dawn briefly looked around the bathroom to see if there were any other signs of the woman, but there was none.

“That’s it,” Dawn said. “I’m losing my mind. Gone stark raving bonkers. I’m too young to be going crazy.”

She took deep breaths, steadying herself with the sink.

“There, see?” she said to herself, as she looked in the mirror again. “No psycho woman trying to kill you from mirror land. Now pull yourself together, because you’ve got to be to work in…”

She checked the clock. “Twenty minutes ago.”

***

She was shelving books, and paused as she picked up one on Norse Mythology. Idly, she flipped through it for a moment, skimming over various passages. She flipped faster and faster, reading faster and faster, her expression growing all the more sour while she did so.

“Wrong,” she whispered. “It’s all wrong. How could they get all of it wrong?

“IT’S WRONG!”

She realized she had yelled that last part, and glanced around. Fortunately, no one had been around to notice. Nevertheless, she felt her cheeks turn red hot with embarrassment.

Dawn took a deep breath, steadying herself with the book cart. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to come in after such a traumatic experience. But she needed the money. But did she need it at the cost of her own sanity? Because it was clear she was losing her mind. How could a book of mythology be wrong? What had prompted her to think that way? Sure, there were people like Thor and some of those Defenders people that were in the city these days who claimed to be Norse Gods, but no one really believed that. It was impossible.

And even if it wasn’t, what did that have to do with her?

A Turn of Events

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 21:16:46 GMT

Asleif rarely ventured outside of the Defenders’ compound unless it was to either engage in some sort of heroic behavior, appease the small mortal in some fashion, or to visit Vincent. She was not, in fact, certain what had prompted her to venture out today, save that it had simply been a feeling she had had. A mage of her caliber learned to trust her instincts in such things and so out she had gone, an illusion making her appear to be garbed as a mortal.

She had wandered, rather aimlessly, for some time, before her mystic senses had finally detected the presence of foul magic. A simple scrying spell had given her further information, provided her with the location of the magic and another spell, for teleportation, had crossed the distance easily.

It had been a warehouse once, but appeared to have largely been long since abandoned. Abandoned, that is, by all but those who now filled it. Occult symbols had been painted on the floor, boundaries marked by dribbling, foul candles. In the center, upon an altar of a black marble that seemed to hurt the eyes to look upon it, an unconscious woman was strapped. Around her, men in robes of crimson watched, while another, dressed similarly, but with a crown made from curved horns in place of a hood, stood over the woman with a curved knife drawn.

Blood magic. Sacrificial magic. Asleif understood it well, in theory if not largely in practice. It was a foul thing. And though she made no secret of her distaste for Midgard, this particular piece of it was part of her protection, a protection now more important with her sister having entrusted the welfare of their siblings to her. That was a trust she would not fail.

“I command thee stop,” she declared, letting her illusion drop. “Or else suffer mine divine wrath.”

“I don’t know who you are,” the apparent leader said, “but you have made a grave mistake. Acolytes! Kill her!”

The others, and there were a half dozen of them, began their attack. One made a small mystic gesture in the air, releasing a spell she had come to recognize from her increased studies of mortal magic as the Bolts of Bedevilment. But his mystic power was weak, and her own quickly summoned shielding spell blocked the bolt easily, deflecting it back upon another of them, who went down quickly.

Their spells were weak, easily deflected things. They were barely trained adepts and she was one of the most powerful sorceresses of Asgard, heir to the lines of Thor and Loki, empowered in ways in which they could not even begin to comprehend. She stopped the next one with a power bolt of her own.

A spell struck her, briefly stunning her. She had been careless, over confident, and not maintaining her guard. She felt arms around her, trying to restrain her. More carelessness. But she was a daughter of Asgard, not some frail mortal woman! She grabbed on to her attacker, hurling him away from her easily.

Power crackled in her hands and from her eyes, magical lightning that sizzled and popped. Winds, unearthly winds of the storm, began to whip up around her. “Thou darest to lay hands upon a Princess of Asgard? For this effrontery, thou shalt pay!”

The mystic storm swept through the warehouse, magic born lightning striking each of her remaining assailants, setting them aflame for a moment, before she calmed the storm. Her eyes widened in surprise and her jaw nearly went slack. The leader of this sacrifice and the woman had remained entirely untouched by the storm. Untouched by the lightning, yes, that had not surprised her, for she had carefully directed that. But untouched by the winds? By the other aspects of the storm? Perhaps he was more powerful than she had first thought.

“Impressive,” he said stepping around the altar, “but my own power is not to be trifled with either. I see now, I should not have wasted my acolytes on you. No, you are worthy of my full attention.”

She would suffer no more of his prattling tongue and unleashed a potent bolt of mystic power. He wove a shield of his own, deflecting her bolt, then responded with a bolt of his own, which she likewise deflected.

“Not bad,” he taunted. “But hardly a worthy foe with the power my masters have given me. Weak, like all the rest.”

He was powerful, yes, but unnaturally so. As she opened her mystical perceptions further, to try and grasp an edge here, Asleif could see the blackness of his aura, a mystic might fueled by sacrifice, but like a mortal battery, capable of being depleted much more quickly, and not capable of restoring itself. She was a goddess. He was a mortal. Her own reserves were far greater, her power greater. She would not falter here. She would defeat this foul, murderous black magician.

She parried another bolt, then responded with mystically summoned flames. Asleif poured more and more mystical might into her assault. It washed over his mystic shield, but she saw it cracking now, breaking under her attack. She made the flames stronger, hotter, more powerful, until at last, in an explosion of mystical power, his shields broke and the magically conjured fire overtook him, engulfing his body in flames until naught but a charred pile of ash and a few blackened bones remained.

There. It was done. She had defeated the foul magician and accomplished a great deed tonight. She had…

Hold. There was something else that should have concerned her, beyond her victory in a mystical duel. There was… there was…

There had been a mortal. A prisoner. The evening’s sacrifice. Asleif’s eyes went instantly to the altar. It bore signs of burns, evident even on the black material, burns suffered in the wash of mystical energy that had been unleashed. She approached it cautiously, feeling her throat tighten as she did. She cared little for almost all mortals, but she did not wish any of them specific ill or outright harm. And while she would fully admit to casting “harmless” spells on those that had displeased her, small bits of mesmerism or brief transformations, never, never would she wish this upon one who did not deserve it…

The mortal woman was dead or dying, a victim of carelessly tossed magical power. Her carelessly tossed magical power. She had done this. Her fault, her responsibility. No magics here would help her. She could not turn back death. “I art sorry,” she said aloud. “Empty words, to thee, I know, but I art sorry all the same.”

She reached out a hand, briefly, and did truly gasp in shock as the woman’s arm shot forth, her hand grasping firmly around Asleif’s wrist. She struggled in vain to pull away, but found she could not…

****

“Miss? Miss? Can you hear me?”

Dawn Roberts opened her eyes slowly, looking into the eyes of a paramedic. “What…?”

“She’s awake! She’s awake!” the paramedic called out to the cops and others on the scene. “Miss? Can you tell me you name?”

He helped her into a sitting position. Her name…? Her name was… “Dawn. Dawn Rogers.” Strange. The name felt like a lie on her lips. But why would it? It was hers, wasn’t it? It all seemed like a blur.

“We think these men kidnapped you, Miss Roberts. Do you know what happened to them?”

A dark haired woman casting fire, the screams of the dying, pain beyond imagining…

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I was heading home from work when… I think someone attacked me. And the next thing I know, I’m here. I don’t have any idea what they wanted with me.”

“We’d like to take you to the hospital for an examination, Miss. Make sure you’re all right.”

She nodded and winced as it sent her head swimming. “Yeah…”

And yet, Dawn Roberts had the distinct feeling that she was anything but all right…

Letter to Santa

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:28:47 GMT

Dear Saint Nicholas,

Mine only wish be that the small mortal doth receive that which she asks for.

Aslief Thorsdottir.