two day challenge?

[tielan]

getyourwordsout is having a 'how much can you write in 48 hours'.

I'm going to try for 8K, from Wednesday midnight to Friday midnight. Yes, it might be cheating a little, because I only have a osteopath appointing on Thursday and nothing on Friday afternoon but...

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Princess?

“Considering he’s already tried to enslave Earth on behalf of the guy who turned us all into dust,” Nick was saying in answer to Silver Armor’s point that Loki was a butt-end but mostly harmless, “My vote tends ‘No’.”

Silver Armor gave Loki a disgusted look. “This is what Bruce and Thor were talking about?”

Jane, standing to one side, visibly started. “You know Thor?”

“Why else would I be hanging out with him?” She jerked a thumb at Loki.

“Here I thought it was my wonderful personality.” But Loki wasn’t fazed by the dismissal. Rather, he seemed almost gleeful. “But someone ought to ask just how she’s been hanging around Thor.”

He looked from Silver Armor to Jane. Jane looked from him to Silver Armor. Silver Armor looked from him to Jane. Strange winced and seemed to brace himself, like he was expecting a catfight.

Jane didn’t look stricken, but she tensed a little as she looked at Silver Armor. “I’m Jane Foster.”

Understanding flared in the dark eyes, but Silver Armor just nodded. “The Valkyrie.” She even managed to say it with a ring in her voice.

“Did my brother ever tell you that he always wanted to be a Valkyrie?” Loki said, a brightly malicious note to his voice. “They were his heroes when he was a kid, and now that he’s a grown man—mmph!” The collar of Strange’s cloak covered his mouth.

“I think that’s enough from you.” Strange said briskly.

“More than enough,” Nick said. “In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a battle happening out there, and it’s not stopping just because we’ve taken down the leader!”

They turned to look at Black Antlers. The Valkyrie lifted her sword menacingly, causing Strange’s hand to half-lift, but she didn’t move towards the prisoner. “Call off your dogs, Princess!”

Princess? Maria leaned towards Jane. “What did I miss?”

“Her name’s Hela and she’s Thor’s sister. His older half-sister.” Jane gives her a wry look. “First marriage. There was a lot of ‘firstborn of Odin’ and ‘ruler of Asgard’ stuff and demands to be set free.” She winced. “Actually, she sounded a lot like Thor when I first met him”

Hela was denying that she had any control over the zombie army so long as her hands remained tied by Wanda’s bindings. “Remove them and I’ll try to call them off.”

“Take those off and we’re all dead,” Valkyrie warned Strange.

“Yes, I think I worked that part out myself.” Strange stared at Hela for a long few moments.

“You wanna share with the class what she’s contributing to the saving of the universe?” Nick inquired in the tone that sounded mild as milk, but which portended serious snarkif he didn’t get a satisfying answer. “Or is that something else that you didn’t notice?”

Maria studied Hela. The woman presented like a goth escapee from the 90s, but there was a shrewd intelligence in the blue eyes as they darted back and forth. Maria wouldn’t have bet against Hela making note of exactly who was saying what and calculating precisely how she could turn it to her own advantage. And if this woman had once been the military leader of Asgard, she was no fool.

Which meant that Hela wanted something here on this planet.

“Why is she attacking us?” The others looked at her. “It’s not because of Loki and Valkyrie; they turned up after the attack began. So she wanted something that was already here, in the camp. What was it, and why?”