This chapter made me tear up. And you all know that I've never cried when writing, but this one came reallllllly close.

~Music~ I listened to "Eavesdrop" by the Civil Wars for the latter part of the chapter, which probably contributed to some of the feels.

Anywho. On to the chapter. I'm sorry I'm boring.

Chapter Fifty-Five

~Thea's POV~

We spend the day in the loft. While Wairua flies around Detroit, our personal bodyguard, Angelique, Videl, and I stay and plan as much as we can, which isn't much. Around noon, while I sprawl out on the bed Videl decides to go get us some food, once Wairua returns.

"I'll take a bowl of soup, that's all I really need," says Angelique. She's leaning against the bedpost, ildly sorting through Videl's backpack, which is still extremely organized, "And crackers."

"Crackers?" asks Videl, turning to smile at her from where he's been standing at the window, looking out.

"Yeah," says Angelique, taking out a perfectly folded t-shirt and a lighter and placing them beside her, "You know, the dry bread things–"

"I know what crackers are," says Videl.

"Why are you smiling at me?"

He crosses the room, bends, and kisses her. "That's a question I can't answer. You always make me smile."

I snort.

Videl cocks his head and smirks, then stands up, leaning against the wall, "What do you want to eat, idiot?"

"Nothing," I say, "I'm not hungry."

"You need to eat, I don't feel like hearing you complain later."

"Who said I'd complain?" I ask, getting up off the bed and walking across the room, hoping to get my own backpack out and sort it to get my mind distracted.

Videl stops me by wrapping an arm around my shoulder. As I try to push him off me, he says lightly, "A little princess needs her strength."

"You shut up," I say, elbowing his chest.

"Perhaps I should start calling you m'lady."

I push his chest, successfully getting him to stumble away from me.

"Well that's not very ladylike, m'lady" he says with another smirk.

"You're a prince," I say, "So you're one to talk."

"Imagine it," says Angelique from the floor, zipping up the backpack, "In a medieval society, to bring peace to Asgard and Ardhigiza, the two of you would probably be married off to each other."

Videl and I look at each other in horror.

"Please don't ever ever mention that again," says Videl, running his fingers through his curls.

"Ew," I pronounce.

Angelique laughs.

"It's not funny!" I exclaim.

"It was worth it, I'm sorry," she says, pressing her fist to her mouth, her eyes lit up with mirth.

"That's your boyfriend you're talking about marrying me off to," I say, hoping this will make Angelique blush.

It doesn't. If anything, it makes her grin even more.

Videl raises his eyes to the ceiling, "I don't even know why I bother with you."

"Why do you bother with me?" asks Angelique, standing up and throwing the backpack on the bed. She pushes Videl's shoulder gently and walks away, making sure to sway her hips as she does so.

"I bother with you for reasons I can't say in front of a little girl," says Videl, watching her intently. I slide my hand to the side and a dusty bookend hits him at the back of the head.

"Damn it, Thea!"

"Both of you are ridiculous," I pronounce, "And whatever you have to say, you can say it however you want. I'm not a little girl."

"Oh that's right," says Videl, still rubbing the back of his head and grimacing as Angelique vanishes into the bathroom next to the loft, "You're all grown up at the ripe age of fourteen."

"I've had more than enough experience for a fourteen year old," I say, sitting down on the bed and running my hands over the sheets. I've been doing that the entire morning as a distraction, and by now, there aren't many crinkles left on the sheets to fix.

"Experience?" says Videl wickedly, "Really, do tell, Thea."

I throw a pillow at him, "Go away, you perverted worm."

"My, my," says Videl, still grinning madly, having dodged the pillow easily, "Touchy, aren't we m'lady?"

"That's not what I meant by experience, and you know it," I say firmly, holding my hand up and watching as the fallen pillow scoots across the floor and up into it, "I meant other things. Important things."

"Ah. Important things. And here I thought you were referring to your adorable relationship with little Jack." Videl leans forward out of the window, and as Wairua flies in, he says in a fake-scolding voice, "There you are, you took ages."

Wairua hoots and flutters on top of the footboard of the bed. From the looks of it, he's got a rat tail hanging from his sharp beak.

"Wairua," I say, "You're supposed to eat outside."

The owl rotates his head to me abruptly and then very slowly pulls the rat tail completely in his mouth. I glare at Wairua, and he narrows his amber eyes right back at me.

"Where were we?" asks Videl, pulling on his backpack, which Angelique has just sorted for no reason, "Ah yes. You and Jack." He pulls out his dagger which can elongate into a spear, considers the weapon, and then slides it in the sheath at his belt.

"First of all," I say, trying to stop my blushing, but I can feel my face heating up, and so can Videl because he has just winked at me, "Jack isn't little. He's probably almost as tall as you are."

"I doubt it," says Videl, "I haven't met a man taller than me."

"Loki is taller than you."

"And Loki is not a man."

I bristle, "If Loki's not a man, then I'm not a little girl."

Videl falls silent. Then, he says, "I suppose you're right. You're not a little girl."

I'm still busy folding out the crinkles on the sheets, but I hear his footsteps creaking on the wood. Glancing up, I see that he's walked past me and towards the door.

He looks back at me, and opens his mouth, then closes it.

I sit up straight. Videl is looking at me weirdly, a mix between sadness, hesitation, and curiosity, "What is it?"

He blinks, then says in his normal drawl, "What did you want to eat?"

I consider him, not because of what he said but because of what he didn't.

"Just a sandwich. Something hot to drink."

He nods and walks out of the room, closing the old door behind him with a click of the iron doorknob.

I look at Wairua, who is looking after Videl too.

"He's an awful liar," I say aloud.

Wairua hoots lowly.

"He's good at manipulating people, and he's smart," I say, "But whenever he's trying to hide what's happening in his heart, he doesn't stand a chance. Unlike Loki, he can't put up a curtain. He's not a wizard, only a circus magician."

Apparently though, the trip for food gives Videl enough time to shake off whatever he had been thinking about. When he comes back to the loft about an hour later, he's covered in snow, much to his annoyance, but he's acting like his normal smart ass self.

For the rest of the afternoon, Videl spends half of his time napping sideways on the bed and the later half sharpening his dagger until it reaches a wicked, glistening point. I spend my afternoon pacing, and Angelique spends hers doing basically the same thing, after organizing the two backpacks about five times each.

We hear a distant church strike four, and at the same time, we all look up at each other. Angelique takes a deep breath, and stretches. I get to my feet and fiddle with my dagger, that I would really like to turn back emerald. If I had Loki's powers, I could. But I need to get my father back alive first for any hopes of learning how to alter appearances of a weapon.

The backpacks are in the center of the floor, and I hoist my smaller one onto my shoulders, adjusting the straps. I hear Videl do the same. We're all silent.

I feel someone take my hand. Looking up, I see Angelique smiling at me, tightening her cold fingers around mine. I smile back at her as confidently as possible.

Angelique reaches out and takes Videl's hand. He smiles at her too, and then takes my other hand in his as Wairua steadies himself on his master's shoulder. His hand, unlike Angelique's, is warm.

"Well," says Videl, "I suppose it's time to go save the world."

"That's one way to put it," I say.

And then, we're encompassed in the black mist.

~Nobody's POV~

They land in the woods. By now used to Jaunting, Thea scrambles immediately to her feet and looks around. The trees are thin and spread-out, nearly completely leafless as if they have been subject to some terrible disease. The occasional bush lies around next to the trunks, and some small creature skitters at Thea's feet before vanishing.

It's also raining. Thea grimaces and pushes her hair out of her face. Her hair is now an odd conglomeration of black and blonde: black at the roots and spreading downward, although the wispy ends are as blonde as usual. It reaches her shoulders now, and is nearly as long as Videl's golden curls.

Thea looks around. Past the trees, over a steep embankment and towering above the forest to the north, she can just barely see the gothic spiral roof of Neidra's mansion, darkened by the overcast clouds.

You were right to fear the dark. But you are wrong to go looking for it.

Loki's words echo through her head. Thea remembers his eyes then, dark green and angry. It had been raining then too, and the lightning had illuminated her father's taut face as they had walked through the dark, haunted halls of Neidra's mansion that stormy night.

Thea pushes the thought aside and looks up and to the right. Up the embankment, over the ledge, there is a dirt road. Squinting through the rain, Thea can see that the path leads to the east. There are ruts in the mud, carriage ruts. This had been the same road she and Loki had been on in the dark carriage, when her toes had been broken and her spirit even more so.

She meets Videl's eyes. He raises an eyebrow, standing there drenching wet, Wairua flapping his feathers against the rain. She points back, farther into the trees. If she can see the road, then the road can see her.

The three of them trudge through the thickening wet mud without speaking. Thea is on edge. The rain may shield them, but Thea knows that Neidra is on the hunt for her and will take every precaution. She can only hope that Neidra won't guess that they will try to invade her own house.

Angelique has a watch, as the one Max had given to Thea is still lost in the Asgardian palace. Once they sit down on the wet ground to rest and wait, Angelique looks at it. "It's four thirty."

An hour and a half. An hour and a half to wait, while Wairua would ahead, and while they prepared themselves to go into Neidra's mansion with unknown circumstances. After Wairua flies off in the direction of the mansion, Thea sits there in the mud and uses a stick to try and draw in the mud; little spirals, a dog, an arrow, an eye, a tiger. She keeps drawing, letting the rain pour down on her without pulling on her hood. The wetness comforts her, and she takes a deep breath of the thick, moist air as the rain begins to pour down heavier on them.

"Thea," Videl's voice comes through the thundering rain, "I want to talk to you. Will you come here?"

Thea looks up. He's standing a few feet from her, but even still, she can't see him very clearly. She stands up, and he leads her away from the clearing, while Angelique shelters herself underneath a particularly leafy tree with low-hanging branches.

Videl leans against a trunk, crossing his arms and regarding Thea through drawn amber eyes, the water dripping off the ends of his curls, over his leather jacket, and onto the muddy ground.

"Yeah?" Thea asks, stepping on one foot first, then the other impatiently.

He closes his eyes briefly, opens his mouth, and then closes it, like he had in the apartment. The frowns. She's seen Videl annoyed, mischievous, infuriated, admiring, and ferocious, but never hesitant.

Finally, he clears his throat, and begins speaking. His voice is tight, like a rubber band about to pop. "There is a story told to Velah children when they are very young, when they scarcely know how to walk. It begins with a kovos, or a spirit of the night, coming across mivos, the spirit of the morning. They met at midnight at the last day of the year, the Dark Day to Velah, and both spirits claimed the time as their own. Kovos claimed that the midnight was dark, and so belonged to him. Mivos claimed that the midnight signaled the new day, and so it belonged to him. Kovos was power-hungry and ambitious, so he offered Mivos a deal. 'Find me a stone from the sky,and a stone from the ground, and a stone from the water, . But they must first be touched once by a Velah first. If you do these things by the next midnight, it is yours.'"

Thea tilts her head, listening carefully, but wondering what Videl is trying to say.

"But Kovos was clever. When Mivos helped a Velah walk to a cliff to find the stone from the sky, Kovos entered the unsuspecting victim, twisted his thoughts, and the Velah jumped. In doing so, Kovos became more powerful, and a bit of Mivos was destroyed.

"But Mivos never suspected. He just went dutifully to the next task, the stone from the ground. When this Velah reached under layers of ancient rock, Kovos sent an earthquake that destroyed the stone and the Velah. Mivos was crumbled too, just a little bit, the light fading away from it a little more. Kovos became even more insane.

"Desperate now, crawling on the remaining light of the day, Mivos traveled to a small brook near the mountains where a young Velah was splashing in the water and urged the child to go after a stone at the bottom of the shallow brook. But Kovos was waiting in the nook of the brook, where the light could not reach. Although both Mivos and Kovos struggled, Kovos had a far dangerous and far stronger mind now, and as darkness fell, the spirit of the dark easily overpowered the weakened spirit of light. And so the child drowned, minutes to midnight, Mivos realized that he had been tricked and instead of trying to find life and light in a fair match, Kovos had had him bring the three innocent Velah to their deaths. Mivos lost his mind and became decrepit. Kovos won the midnight, but more, he won that entire day, and so that is why in Ardhigiza, at the very last day of the year, the entire day is dark, with not a bit of sunlight to brighten the paths."

Videl stops talking. He had been speaking robotically, but looking at Thea the entire time. The rain is continuing to pour around them.

Thea looks down, silent.

"I told you that story for a reason," he says, "Because it echoes something else. It echos how a little boy who could have been something was driven mad by darkness until it consumed his entire soul."

Videl crouches so that he's looking directly up into Thea's green eyes, which are still cast to the ground. "What I'm trying to say...what I'm trying pitifully to say." He clears his throat. There are tears running down his cheeks.

"I'm trying to tell you that I'm sorry, Thea."

Her eyes snap towards his. His are full of anguish and wet with pleading.

"I was sucked into a world of hatred by my father. He tried to bring me into his clutches, and he succeeded. Perhaps he was bewitched by some force, but Thea, you should know that...he ordered it. He ordered the death of your sister. It wasn't my idea. But I did it. I did it anyway."

Thea bites her lip hard.

"Your sister had one thing that I did not. Innocence, and the chance to make her life something beautiful, something pure, something wholly happy. I was delighted to take away that innocence from someone, and in doing so, take it from another. You. I succeeded. In Asgard, I saw how...how much I could affect one person. The scars I have on my face from your fire, I wear them without complaint. I deserve it. I deserve to be dead."

Thea shakes her head. She's crying now too, silently.

"But I couldn't die, I made a promise to your mother, when I visited hers and your sister's memorials. I swore that I would protect you, to make up what I did to her youngest daughter. And I've tried. I've tried to hard. These last months, I've seen darkness try to overtake you, and I've tried to help you avoid it. But I've noticed something. Your father is...he has darkness in him right now, and he has tried to drag you down that path. But you have never, never for a second, done what I have done."

"I killed that woman," Thea whispers, tears running down her cheek, "I'm not any better than you."

He squeezes her shoulder, his tears, like her own, mixing with the rain that is continuing to pour over them, "Her death came by someone else, not by you. That woman's death was the fault of Neidra. Not yours. Just like your sister's death was the fault of mine, not yours. You still have innocence left in you."

There's silence. The rain is like a roar now, slamming them both, but neither of them move or try to cover themselves up.

"I hit you. I hit you after I took you from your father in the Asgardian palace. I'm sorry I did, but..." He sucks in a deep breath, reaching forward to touch the side of her face gently, "I saw my little sister kill herself. I couldn't watch it again."

Thea's lip trembles, trying to stop crying.

Videl closes his eyes. Then, he says, his voice shaking choking out his words, "I'm so s-sorry, Thea. I hurt you, over and over again. I killed your little sister. I t-tortured you for something that I never should have. Over and over I have hurt you, and over and over, it seems, I've become a m-monster that..."

He finally just dissolves into sobs, and Thea, stricken, still crying too, reaches forward hesitantly. She wraps her arms around his shoulders, and Videl embraces her too. He staggers back, running into the tree behind them, but he still holds her, squeezing her tightly as the storm rolls over them, as the anguish from both of them is blown away by the torrential rain.

And then, as the two of them hold each other tightly, the rain begins to calm, and the wind slows from a roar to a gentle whisper. Small rays of light from the setting sun shine on the two beings that have been thrown into a pit of hurt and darkness, and are trying to climb their way out.

"Videl," Thea says, "Videl, I–"

"First," says Videl, looking at her, his eyes more red than amber now, from the crying. "Say you f-forgive me. But only if you d-do, because I don't deserve it."

She wipes her face, "I d-do."

He takes a deep, staggering breath.

"V-Videl," she whispers.

"What?" he murmurs, pushing back her plastered hair from her face. Beads of rain glisten on her face, lit up by the beams of the setting sun, and her green eyes seem to shine.

"That story you told me..." She swallows, "It's only for a day. Darkness only won for one day. That leaves three hundred sixty four more days."

Videl opens his mouth, but no sound escapes from his lips. She smiles at him shakily. And then, he grabs her in his arms again, holding her like he does not intend to let her go.

*cries from happiness and sadness and a bunch of mix of sunffalufugus*

I will have you know that I was going to write in a very emotional scene that includes Loki and Neidra at the end of this chapter, but I finished writing this part, and I was like "Let's just end on a happy note for once, this can wait."

LOVE YOU :D

Sierraxx