Author's Note: If you haven't worked it out yet, each chapter will have a Loki meme that I screenshotted off the Internet. All rights to the makers of said memes etc. etc. etc. I thought this one would cheer you up after this chapter :) Because I'm a nice author like that.

Nice author. Ha. Authors live off the tears of their readers. It is a fact, ladies and gentlemen.

Aaaaaaaaanyway, let's get to the chapter.

Ystella was halfway through getting up when she remembered that the man who had fallen from the sky was asleep on her sofa.

  She hurried to get dressed in jeans, t-shirt and a jumper - it wasn't particularly cold but she couldn't let anyone see her arms. Unfortunately, she had only put on jeans and was about to slip on the t-shirt over her bra when she was interrupted.

  "What the Hel have you done to yourself, mortal?"

  She span around, automatically crossing her arms over her upper chest. "What the hell are you doing in here?!"

  But he barely seemed to hear the words. He was looking at your back. "How did - I mean - what is this?"

  The blood drained from her face. He'd seen it. For the first time in three years, someone had seen it. The bruises. The scars. "Loki, get out." It was a miracle she wasn't screaming.

  But he wouldn't leave.  His eyes were wide, his pale complexion paler, as he ran his fingers lightly over the marks and the disfigurements, black and red and blue against the warm colour of her skin. "Who did this to you?" His voice was quiet, almost malicious, but for once she was certain it wasn't directed at her.

  "I don't want to talk about it!" She grabbed the t-shirt and pulled it on, fleeing the room.

  It didn't take long to find her. She was in a spare bedroom, crouched under the bed in the foetal position, shaking.

  He crouched down beside the bed. In a gentler voice than he'd ever used in his life, "Ystella?"

  "Go away," she mumbled.

  "Fine." There was a sudden sharpness, a bitter edge to his voice. "The petty troubles of mortal girls concern me not."

  She shot out from under the bed, suddenly in his face, not yelling but deadly quiet. "Petty. Do you call it petty, then, when if you must know, it was my father? Do you call it petty when it was just because I looked like my mother? Do you call it petty when it went on for eighteen years? Do you call it PETTY-" She burst into tears, leaning into Loki because there was nothing else to support her.

  He hesitated, unsure, before wrapping his arms around her. He didn't know what to say, speechless. What did you say to that?

  "Hey," she whispered through her tears. "You called me Ystella."

  His eyebrows furrowed. "What? No, I didn't."

  "Yes, you did," she laughed softly, pulling away slightly. But the movement made Loki see her wrists. She hadn't put on the jumper.

  "And he did this to you too?" He seemed so astonished, and she wondered what kind of a place he came from. If it was a place where this never happened, she wanted to go there.

  "No, not - not exactly," she said hesitantly. "I did it to myself."

  He tilted her head up gently to look her in the eye. "Why? Why would you do that?"

  "I - I don't know really."

  He seemed confused, but didn't look as though he wanted to press her further. Not when she looked so fragile, like stained glass windows, fragile but beautiful. "Come on. We can watch more of the man who travels in time and space."

  She smiled gently, sadly. Timidly beginning to trust the strange man in weird clothes, the man who fell from the sky, the man who could use magic, her angel without wings. "Okay."

*

I have to do it tonight.

  How could he? He had thought it simple, thought it right, until Ystella. Until a mortal that could be sweet and kind and broken had changed his mind. How could mortals be beneath him when she seemed so far above him, like the stars above her home?

  But he had to do this. There is no other choice. He needed the revenge; he craved it. He needed to make Midgard his. There could be no other option.

  Yes, maybe, he could forgive himself. But would she ever forgive him for what he was about to do?

  "My name is Loki of Asgard, and I have a... proposition for you, if you will."

Agh this was terrible I'm so sorry. Forgive meh. It should get better (I hope!).