The Battle of the Right Hand

first off, sorry about the lack of capitalization in this intro. my computer's shift key is broken.

i found this piece from my sophomore year and reread it, and it held up surprisingly well, so i thought i'd share. the assignment was to write about why a villain became evil. i chose captain hook, because if you read the original peter pan novel, peter pan himself is one creepy little demon. some of the piece also references another book, capt. hook by j.v. hart, which chronicles james 'jas.' hook's teenage years and time at eton. that's where jolly roger comes from. it's a pretty good book, if a bit of a tough read at times, and it gave me a lasting literature crush on jas. hook (which, oddly enough, didn't really diminish when i read peter pan shortly after) so there's that. (it didn't hurt that capt. hook is illustrated by brett helquist and jas. is really hot. and that stupid overconfidence and sexy, sexy honor code. mmm.)

anyway. here's the story. hope you enjoy.

***

I lean forward into the cracked mirror in my cabin and inspect my moustache.

            Hmm. Not too bad. It is not yet long enough for the look I intend it to have, but it will get there soon. I believe it quite complements my face. My long, pale face, framed by the scraggly black curls that have plagued me since childhood, will never be handsome, but a moustache will give it ferocity, which as a pirate captain I shall certainly need more of.

            “You would look good with a moustache, Jolly. Or a beard. Perhaps you should cultivate one.”

            “What, me? Absolutely not. I haven’t got the guts for it.”

            “It could hardly make you look worse.”

            “Ha ha. Why don’t you grow one? Every captain needs a trademark.”

            “I’ve got one already. A trademark, I mean, not a beard.”

            “True enough, Jas. Hook.”

            Something thuds against the deck. I look up. Is it?

            “Captain! It’s the boy!”

            It is the voice of my trusty bo’sun, Smee. In an instant my sword is in my right hand, my left clenched into a fist as I run from my cabin and dash straight up the stairs.

            Starkey is fighting the boy, clever, clever Starkey, exiled from England for the murder of eleven schoolchildren. This is one child he cannot kill.

            “Stop,” I cry. “He is mine.”

            Mine indeed, after all that this child has done.

            The boy lands lightly on the deck, a smile baring his pearly teeth. I consider myself a brave man; I have not flinched from brutality and bloodshed, but something about this youth unnerves me. It is strange that such a demon inhabits a body that, to the eye, seems so innocent and pure.

            Innocent? Hardly. This little boy has vandalized my ship, murdered my crew, and taken my island and my freedom.

            “Pan.” My boots clack against the deck.

            “Hook.” He bows. One of the things I most hate is that he thinks he has grace; he thinks he is the center of the world. 

            I step forward, my sword darting to him. He parries easily. Our swords flash crimson in the light of the sunset. The one affirmative thing that can be said about this beast is that he has good form in swordplay.

            “Why, Pan?” I demand a reason. There must be a reason.

            “Why what?” Pan smiles that terrible cocky smile and for an instant

            “Jas! Land ho!” Jolly smiled that charming cocky smile and I ran to his side. He was right. Shimmering in the mist of the sea was—what was it? An island, yes, but it was more than an island; its green shores were somehow enchanted. I knew this as surely as I knew that I was Captain Jas. Hook and that Jolly Roger, standing beside me, was the best friend any man could possibly have.

            Pan’s sword flashes by my ear and I jerk away, spinning to parry his next blow. The duel has become more intense now; we are past the preliminary courtesies. I am forced to leap up onto the poop deck. Pan simply flies after me. How can this inhuman monster fly so easily? What gives him the right?

            The island was so beautiful and rich that we proclaimed it our home. My crew was happy there, nearly as happy as they were when they wallowed in the bloodlust of battle, sword to sword with England’s finest admirals. It became our hideaway, the place to rest and recuperate that we might go out and wreak havoc on England once again. Jolly called it Neverland, because we would never be found there.

            I swivel under Pan’s blade, rolling across the planks of the ships. I misjudge, falling hard onto the main deck. Pan’s crow of triumph leaves me with time to reclaim my blade, and I slash at him as he soars over my head.

            Jolly was my one true friend, the one person I trusted implicitly. He had not shied from me at Eton, where my yellow blood, long curls and frightening temperament had made me a pariah. When I left England, he signed on with me and when I mutinied and took the Lady Anna he became the first mate. He had good—no, excellent—form. He was the one person I was terrified of losing.

            “Why do you come here?” I yell to his small silhouette in the sky. “Why do you kill my men? Why this island?”

            “It is mine. My Neverland, and you are an evil person, and your men are mine to kill.” Pan has descended to the deck and we battle directly once again.

            The sheer wrongness of this answer is intolerable. I found Neverland before Pan; Jolly Roger named it. I am not an evil person—am I? I do not think it is evil to go against an empire that never cared for you, that threw you away for the crime of defending the basic rights of men.

            Pan slashes and a yellow fleck appears on my wrist. I have odd yellow cells in my blood, an “unexplained mutation,” and the term mutant was often used at Eton. The sight of my own blood is one more factor adding to my fury at Pan, Pan the demon, Pan the monster, Pan the devil with a child’s face.

            Neverland was our Eden for a time, until one day Smee caught sight of a flying boy. I told the crew to leave him alone. He was of no interest to us.

            Until he killed Jack Havok.

            After that, we were wary. Jack had underestimated the little bastard, and I was determined not to lose another man through the same mistake.

            We never attacked Pan. We left him alone, as we had left the savages who shared the island with us to their own doings, but Pan was not like the natives. He would attack, slyly, for no purpose other than his own amusement.

            Pan leaps into the air and swoops over my head. I duck. A black curl drops to the deck like ash from a burning house.

            I was going to leave. Pan had made Neverland intolerable for us; I had lost too many men to risk staying. Jolly advised me to set sail and not look back. “It’s not ours any more, Jas,” he said, “it’s his. Let him have it. We can find another island, a better one, where he’ll never follow.”

            Then, on the night before our departure, Pan broke in and scuttled the ship. We were officially scuppered.

            Pan chooses to remain in the air. No. I must kill him. Now. Tonight.

            I leap for the mainmast and climb, sword between my teeth. Sweat slicks my curls to my neck. The demon must die.

            Pan perches on the end of the mast now, his feet hovering a few inches above the sail. I take my sword in hand and balance as if I were on a high-wire, advancing towards him. It would be bad form for him to back away now, where I cannot follow.

            So we stayed on Neverland because Pan had forced us to. We fought him back and we tried to hunt him down, but he was just too damn fast.

            “Pan!”

            It was dusk, the sun searing the heavens with its final breath, when suddenly Starkey gave a cry. The boy swooped over the deck, killing Roberts with a blow to the neck. He landed atop the mast and crowed his triumph as his minions climbed over the railings and we raced to our positions below.

            “Pan! Do you remember him!” I am almost there now, only a foot or two from Pan, and I must keep him where he is.

            Jolly ran to my side, tossing me my saber. I caught it. He grinned at me, fierce and confidant. “Someday our foes may win, Jas…”

            “…But not today!” I finished our old war cry and heard a call. We spun to fight back-to-back against the small horde of children.

            “Remember who?”

            We had become separated. I saw that three of my men and two of Pan’s lay dead. Pan was still overhead, engaging occasionally but flitting from battle to battle in his fickleness. I spun to face the nearest Lost Boy and knocked him aside, for it is bad form to kill a child unless it is unavoidable.

            That said, Pan is not a child. He is the devil incarnate.

            “Jolly! Jolly Roger!”

            I glimpsed Pan again, and my heart lurched. He was the most formidable of them all, and he was fighting Jolly.

            The deck is so very far below, and I am acutely aware of how little support air offers me…

            I leapt onto the rail of the ship and ran to them, desperate to reach them before my friend was hurt. Seeing me, Pan became fickle once more and glided upwards.

            “You killed him!”

            Jolly turned, his face glowing with the flush of battle…

            I swing my sword. Pan parries. My balance is precarious. “You killed him, Pan.”

            Blood spilling across the white of his shirt, red blood veiling the tip of Pan’s thrown sword protruding from his chest…

             “I forget them after I kill them,” he says carelessly.

            I held my truest friend, the best man in the world, as he died.

            I glimpse something green or gray in the water far, far below but I cannot let it distract me. Our swords cross and cross again, Pan light as light itself and me swaying like a drunkard.

            That battle was a draw, but it never felt like one. We buried Jolly Roger on the shores of Neverland and re-christened the Lady Anna so that it would echo his name. It felt that day like some part of me intrinsically linked to my very center had been ripped away, something more important than even a limb. More important that a heart.

            There are tears blurring my vision, from both the memory of Jolly’s murder and the sharp wind that has sprung up. No! Bad form! But no matter how bad the form, I cannot stop them, and they are the reason that I am not quick enough to block Pan’s swipe, the swipe that severs my right hand and sends it spinning like a broken kite with a yellow tail.

            For a moment, I feel nothing besides the impact, which sends me reeling. But there is nowhere to reel to, and now I am falling as well.

            Something breaks my fall, and my leg too. This does hurt, and I cry out as I spin across the sky. A coil of rope has caught my leg. I am hanging upside down, with no weapon and yellow blood dripping from where my arm should be.

            In the haze of red sky and yellow blood and white pain, the strangest thought occurs to me:

            I took the name Hook after the weapon with which I killed my first man. Now it seems that this name will mean something even greater to me.

            Pan is hovering by me, laughing demonically. I feel the blood rush to my head. “How can you not remember?” I scream.

            “Not remember what?”

            I may be a pirate, perhaps I am even evil, but at least I have the common courtesy to remember those I kill.

            Pan swoops away, leaving me in this position of pure humiliation. Peripherally I see several men swarming up the mast to disentangle me, but my attention is focused on Pan. He drops to the deck and kicks my hand overboard before flying away.

            The nerve of this boy is unbelievable. He has no respect for anything. Anything.

            As the rope is unwound from my leg, as I am lowered to the deck, as the stump of my wrist is bandaged and a hook is fetched at my command, I vow that I will hunt Pan down. I will kill him. I will avenge Jolly Roger and the other members of my crew, and I will take Neverland back from the insanity of this demon-child.

            Whatever it takes.

           

           

           

            

Take Back the World

This is a long one and I'm not too sure how the footnotes worked out, but I hope you enjoy.


             Tristan Loke put his thin, manicured fingers together and smiled. “Now, what can I do for you, Mr. Reese?”

            A. Reese, a heavyset biker in leathers and shades, cracked his knuckles menacingly. He looked extremely out of place in the nondescript office belonging to his financial representative. “You can tell me where the hell my money is!” he snarled.

            “Ah.” Loke nodded reassuringly. “The fact is, it’s on its way to your account as we speak. There was some difficulty with the bank, as your previous assets were frozen because of a computer gaffe. The modem crashed and some financial records had to be reassessed, so that took quite a while to complete. And then there was the matter of the periphrastic in the checking account…”

            Reese’s expression was blank. Loke sighed.

            “To put it in your terms,” he explained, “a computer went no-worky and our bookkeeper mismana—fouled up, but it’s all sorted now.”

            “It better be,” snarled Reese. He was back in his element now. “Cause if it isn’t, then I’m gonna take you to the cleaner’s, pretty-boy.”

            Loke pressed his fingertips against his eyes. “Threatening your financial agent is not an effective or efficient method of operation, Mr. Reese.”

            “Yeah, well, am I gonna get my money or not? I made a hell of a lot on that last stunt gig and I wanna blow it all in one place.” His eyes glazed over. “I got my eye on a nice little Harley. She’s a beauty. You should see her! Five cylinder engine, red chrome, shiniest gal you ever laid eyes on. Beautiful. She’s got a high-tech speedometer and shiny exhaust pipes and—”

            “I get the picture,” Loke said, rolling his eyes. “Now, is there anything else you wanted help with?”

            “Yeah, there is.” Reese dug a handful of rumpled papers out from the pocket of his motorcycle jacket. “I need ya to look over these before I sign ‘em. It’s my contract for More Rapider and Enrageder 8. I’m playin’ the main dude with the wicked shades an the jacket an the cool bike.”

            Loke took the papers and flattened them. “You know,” he said, exasperated, “you shouldn’t carry important legal documents crumpled in your pockets. It makes for inaccuracy and unreliability later. Also, I’m not actually a legal consultant. I just handle your money.”

            “So handle the money in the contract an tell me if it’s legit!” yelled Reese, snapping from content to irate with alarming speed. Loke could almost hear the gears crunching.

            He raised an eyebrow without looking away from the papers. “You remind me of one of my nephews.” (He neglected to mention that that particular nephew was in jail.)

            Reese, unsure of whether he was being complimented or not (he wasn’t), crossed his arms and looked menacing. It was something he did rather well. “Look, wise guy, you handle the papers and I handle the awesomeness, okay?”

            “Norns help us all,” murmured Loke, shaking his head. He passed the battered papers back across the desk. “Your contract looks fine. Your money should be in your account by tomorrow. Anything else?”

            Reese thought about it for a good long minute before shaking his head. “Nope, that’s it.”

            “Excellent. Val will show you out. Val!”

            A blond woman poked her head around the door. Her name was actually Maggie, but Loke tended to call all of his blond, female employees Val. It was a private joke.

            “Show Mr. Reese to the lobby, would you, Val?”

            “Yes, sir. Oh, and there’s a woman to see you. A new client, I think.”

            “Excellent. Send her up at once.” He rose and shook hands with Reese. “Great dealing with you, Al. I hope to see you again soon.”

            “Ya know,” said A. Reese, crushing Loke’s hand in his own, “you Northerners ain’t too bad. I always liked you guys. Thanks fer all yer help.” He left the office and immediately started hitting on Maggie-Val.

            The funny thing was that Tristan Loke looked just as out of place in his own office as A. Reese did, but in a completely different way. Where Reese was heavyset and powerful, Loke was slim and delicate, with a pointed chin, nose and ears. His chin-length red hair caught whatever light was available and glimmered with hints of gold and crimson, and his golden-green eyes sometimes unnerved his clients when he narrowed them in a certain way.

            Loke took out his iPad and tapped the screen, pulling up A. Reese’s financial account. He transferred just enough money to keep Reese happy to the bank account before diverting the substantial remainder into his own account in the Cayman Islands.

            Then he leaned back, studied the device, and wondered if he should drop Reese from his clientele.

            Sure, Reese was easy to rip off, and he provided Loke with lots of money—he’d bought Loke a rather nice villa on a small Caribbean island without knowing it. But where was the fun in swindling an idiot like Reese? The moron was so disorganized in his financial affairs that without his bank manager he wouldn’t have noticed anything wrong until he was evicted from his eight-million-dollar mansion. It was, simply put, much too easy. And it wasn’t like Loke desperately needed the money—he enjoyed having it, but he also enjoyed having to work to get it.

            He pulled up a list of his appointments and smiled. One o’clock: Minerva Thena. Now there was someone Loke could be proud of ripping off. Her keen intelligence and perspicacity made it very hard to trick her, but so far Loke was managing it. A delightful challenge.

            The office door opened and Loke hastily cleared the iPad screen, slipping the device back into his briefcase. He looked up with a smile.

            “Good day. Now what can I…”

            His smile flickered.

            The woman before him had appeared on many billboards and would appear on many more. She was shapely, voluptuous, with pouting lips and blue mascara-lined eyes; she was wearing the latest fashion in the form of a little black dress, but it was her hair that truly attracted attention. It fell in golden waves to her waist, thick and long and shining. Every strand had an ethereal luminescence. It glowed from within. It was what made her such a successful model, that incandescent quality that no amount of conditioner could achieve.

            Loke frowned, offended. “Sif, you cut your hair. It used to be to the floor!”

            Sif tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Hello to you too, Loki. Times change. Was that Ares I saw leaving your office?”

            “Indeed it was. He’s one of my most valued customers. But I made you that hair!”[1]

            “You didn’t make it. You just had it made, and that was only because you cut the original off.”            

            “Still. Cost me an arm and a leg, that hair. Cost me a mouth, too.”

            Sif rolled her eyes. “No, the mouth was because you lost a bet.”

            “Still. It was because of the hair.” Loki crossed to the door, opened it, and stuck his head through. “Val, don’t let anyone in. I am not to be disturbed.”

            He closed the door and motioned for Sif to sit down. She took the chair in front of the desk and pulled a compact mirror out of her glittery purse.

            “So,” said Loki, sitting opposite her, “how’s your husband?”

            “Ex-husband, as of nearly twenty years ago.” Sif reached for her lipstick. “As I’m sure you very well know, Loki.”

            “Ah yes, Thor always was rather troublesome, wasn’t he? When does he get out of prison?”

            “I have no idea. Hopefully not for a while.” Sif rolled her eyes. “He never did adapt well to the times.”

            “Of course he didn’t. He’s been depressed since Odin’s Jotun[2] Treaty of 1815. Speaking of which, have you heard from Odin?”

            “Oh, you know him. Still up in Asgard liaising between the Pantheons, silent as ever, enigmatic as hell. Oh yes, how’s your daughter doing?”

            “Hel’s doing great[3],” said Loki, leaning back. “Got engaged a few months ago. It’ll be an…interesting wedding.”

            “Really?” Sif crossed her legs. “Who’s the lucky groom?”

            “One of those Grecian-Roman fellows, Hades. They met through their work.”

            “Oh my. That will be an interesting wedding. Isn’t Hades divorced?”

            “Eh, Persephone was never right for him. They split up the moment divorce became an institution. How are your kids doing?”

            “Ugh, don’t ask.” Sif began to reapply her still potent lipstick. “Thrud just graduated from the police academy, Ull’s still off being a mountain guide, Modi’s still in court-ordered anger-management therapy and Magni’s a stormchaser.[4] You know, flying into hurricanes and such.”

            “Really? Good for him! Hey, I heard Forseti[5] made it onto the Supreme Court.”

            “Well, we always knew he’d go far, despite his father’s untimely death.” Sif fixed Loki with a look which clearly communicated that eight hundred years had in no way been enough time to forgive him for killing Forseti’s father. Everyone had loved Baldur.[6]

            Loki spread his hands. “Hey, I know what you’re thinking, but I’ve changed. Honest! Do you see anything criminal about this office?”

            “Besides the fact that well over half of your clients’ money goes straight into the Cayman Islands?” Sif glanced at Loki from the corner of her eye.

            “Besides that.” He seemed unperturbed.

            “Well, there’s the appalling coffee.”

            “They just don’t make it right anymore.”

            “And the fact that you’ve been hiding from the Aesir since the First World War.”

            “Ah.” Loki nodded. “How long have you known that I was alive?”

            “About two years. I suspected a decade ago. Things started to look…fishy with some of the Grecian-Romans. Those who had taken up careers in acting didn’t seem as wealthy as they should be. When there’s a hint of trickery about, I always look for you.”

            “How touching.”

            Sif uncrossed her legs and leaned across the desk. “More importantly, how are you alive? I know for a fact that you haven’t touched one of Idunn’s apples[7] for nearly a hundred years.”

            Loki shrugged. “I have my means.”

            “Which are…?”

            “Why should I tell you?”

            “An interesting question.” Sif sat back and re-crossed her legs. “Do you want to hear another interesting question?”

            “Sure.”

            “What is there to stop me from going to Odin and having you thrown back into Niflheim for treachery, murder, genocide and embezzlement?”

            Loki nodded, and then said, “It’s amazing what a little nectar and ambrosia every now and then will do for a body.”

            Sif’s perfectly plucked eyebrows furrowed. “You aren’t that kind of god, Loki.”

            He shrugged. “You have to build up a tolerance, of course, but given time it’s quite effective.”

            Sif threw her head back and laughed. Her hair swished around her head in a motion that had been patented by an expensive shampoo company. “Oh, Loki, you’re always full of surprises!”

            “Unlike Thor, I know how to adapt.” He shifted in his seat, leaning forward with his chin resting atop his laced fingers. “Now that we’ve caught up on the small talk, Sif, what do you want?”

             “Hmm.” Sif sat back and tapped her lips with her compact mirror. “How to phrase this? I want you to help me take back the world.”

            There was a pause.

            Loki blinked. “I…never saw you as the ‘world-domination’ type, Sif.”

            “Have you seen the movies they made about Thor?”

            “You mean the ones in which he’s a superhero? Of course! They were hilarious.”

            “They were blasphemous!” Sif leapt to her feet and paced the office. “Those idiot mortals got just about every single detail wrong!”

            “Well, yes.” Loki smirked. “Thor isn’t nearly that intelligent in real life.”

            “I mean it! How can you take this so calmly?!” She whirled and pointed at him. “You were in them too! You were a dark-haired megalomaniac who was also Thor’s brother!”

            Loki winced at the memory. “That was a bit embarrassing, now that I think of it.”

            “You and Thor are not brothers! You and Odin are brothers!” Sif turned again, her hair swishing perfectly. “The whole reason that the Aesir cannot kill you is that you have Odin’s blood in you veins! You’re more like Thor’s adopted uncle than his brother!” [8]

            “To be fair, they got the adopted part right,” Loki pointed out. “And I think Thor and I had more of a brotherly relationship back in the old days. We were closer to each other in…well, not age, but maturity.” He snickered. “Besides, he was so much fun to tease. Remember the time he had to wear that wedding dress?” [9]

            Sif couldn’t help smiling at the memory. “That wasn’t one of your pranks, though.”

            “It was still hilarious.” Loki chuckled at the memory, then grew more serious. “But what was that about taking back the world?”

            “My point about the movies was that our stories have been—perverted,” snapped Sif. “No one remembers us, not the way we’re supposed to be. People worshipped us, Loki. They prayed to us. Do you see anyone doing that now? Don’t you miss it? Don’t you miss being loved?”

            “They loved you,” Loki replied. “And Baldur, and Freya, and maybe a few others. But Odin and Thor and me?” He smiled wickedly. “We were feared, not loved.”

            “So you miss being feared, then!”

            Loki stood up and walked to the window of his office. Sif watched him carefully as he folded his hands behind his back and looked out. The morning light outlined the profile of his slim features and set fire to his red hair.

            “Perhaps.”

            Sif smiled. “So you’ll help me?” She walked to him, stood close enough that he could smell her perfume. Her hand crept up to his shoulder and her pale fingers slid under his collar.

            Loki carefully kept himself from shivering.

            “We could rule this world together,” Sif whispered into his ear. “We could make the mortals fear us. You could be a king.”

            Loki smiled slowly. “Mm-hmm. And you would be queen, then?”

            “Of course.”

            A car’s horn honked far below.

            He nodded. “Thanks. But I’d rather not.”

            Sif smiled triumphantly. Then Loki’s words sank in fully and she jerked away, glaring at him. “What?!”

            Loki turned and walked back to the desk. He picked up a framed photo and looked at it.

            “I’m a trickster, Sif. I let other people make the rules, and then I break them.” He looked up, his golden eyes meeting Sif’s blue ones. “I may have wanted to rule once, but not anymore.”

            Sif stared at him, her hands curled into fists at her sides. “Why not?”

            “Honestly?” He shrugged. “I’d get bored.”

            “What?” She blinked. “But…but you’d have power!”

            “Well, ye-es, but that was more fun in the old days when it was a monarchy.” Loki tossed the photo aside and leaned against the desk. “These days it would be all cabinet meetings and bureaucracy and delegating and never getting a break for tea. I get enough of that here. It’s not worth my time.

            “Besides,” he continued, “do you really think this would get very far? Odin loves humans! Most of the Greek-Romans are pretty fond of them too! I don’t want to get their bad side. I mean, have you seen Ares? He’s three times my size and he has a gigantic sword!”

            “You got on Thor’s bad side plenty of times, and you’re still here!” snapped Sif. “I daresay Mjolnir’s[10] worse than any Greek sword!”

            “Ah, but Thor can’t kill me. I’m Odin’s blood brother,” Loki reminded her. “The Greeks wouldn’t have any problem chopping me into itty-bitty pieces. And they’ve always been of the stabby persuasion.”

             “You’re a trickster,” said Sif. “You could talk your way out of it.”

            “Yeah, maybe…” Loki raised an eyebrow. “Tell me, Sif, do you actually have a plan of how you’re doing this?”

            “What?” Sif hesitated. “Of—of course I do!”

            Loki smirked. “Do tell.”            

            She hesitated again, searching for words. Then she looked away. “My plan,” she snarled, “was to get you to make a plan. You’re the bloody trickster.”

            Loki nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

            Sif stared at him. She narrowed her eyes. “These are excuses, Loki. What’s your other reason?”

            He smiled.

            “Mortals fascinate me. I mean, look at them, Sif. Yes, they’re changing the stories, but that just shows how amazing they are. The old ways can’t last forever, so they change the stories, make up new ones about us.

            “My point is that we haven’t been forgotten.”

            “Some of us have.” Sif’s voice dripped resentment.

            “Not true.” Loki shook his head. “Anyone who looks can find us quite easily on the internet. But the way that they’ve changed us—it’s a testament to their ingenuity. Making Thor a superhero, me a supervillain—I think it’s quite amusing. The humans underestimate each other. The screenwriters and the people who make comics, they want to keep us alive, but they’re desperately afraid of rejection. They think their readers won’t be able to understand us. They’re so scared of making unsuccessful art that they just use whatever’s popular and insert us into it—in this case, comic books. You can’t take it personally, Sif—it really says much more about their abysmal attention spans than it does about you or me.”

            The clock on the wall ticked. The sound of screeching tires floated up from the pavement.

            “Just to be clear,” Sif said through gritted teeth, “you are saying that you don’t mind being known as a ranting supervillain.”

            “Well, some of the fan art is truly disturbing,” Loki mused, “but yes, that’s what I’m saying.”

            Sif bent her head in a carefully controlled gesture. “Then I have no more to say to you.”

            “Apparently not.”

            Sif turned, her hair whipping behind her, and walked to the door. She opened it and then paused.

            “You realize, of course, that I cannot conceal your whereabouts from the Council of Pantheons. You’re a wanted criminal, after all.”

            Loki smirked. “Of course.”

            She turned and looked at him. Her beautiful face was ugly with hatred.

            “Look at you,” Loki said quietly. “You didn’t used to be this resentful. I feel sorry for you, Sif. Thor’s not the only one who can’t adapt to the times.”

            The door slammed so hard that the framed forged certificates on the walls shook.

            Loki sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Then he walked to one of the walls and ran his fingers across its surface. He pressed down and a rune glowed under his hand. A doorway appeared, revealing a secret closet.

            Loki had been planning his exit from the Tristan Loke Representation Company since the company’s inception. In the closet were stashed a suitcase full of money, well over a million dollars in various currencies and jewelry, as well as a stringed pouch with three sets of passports and drivers’ licenses. Each set had a different name on them, but all of the photos were of Loki.

            Loki slung the pouch around his neck and tucked it under his shirt. Then he hauled the suitcase out into his office, shut the door to the secret closet, and took a piece of chalk out of his desk drawer. He painstakingly drew a rune onto the suitcase.

            He tapped the rune and it glowed. There was a soft pop and then the suitcase was the size of a Barbie’s purse. Loki picked it up and tucked it into his breast pocket.

            He walked out of the office and strolled through the lobby.

            “Are you going for an early lunch, Mr. Loke?” asked Maggie-Val,[11] glancing up from her desk as he passed.           

            “Yep. Then I’m taking a walk. I won’t be back for a few hours.” A few hours would be plenty of time for him to escape.

            He knew there would a massive imbroglio when his embezzlement was discovered. It didn’t bother him. It wasn’t his mess to clean up. That was the way Loki worked these days: He had his fun and left the nasty bits for someone else to take care of. It was quite an agreeable way to live.

            Loki walked out of his office. He immediately noticed the two stern-looking gentlemen across the street. Sif certainly hadn’t wasted any time alerting the Pantheon Police about his whereabouts. He strolled casually down the street, stepping into the first dark alley he came to.

            Once he was alone, Loki smoothly shifted shape, going from man to rat in less than ten seconds.

            It took skill to keep his clothes within the shift, but Loki had mastered it long ago. When he took on human form, his clothes—and the suitcase in his pocket—would be with him, as well as the new identities.

            A common Rattus norvegicus skittered down the street and slipped into the nearest sewer grate, indistinguishable from any other rat.

---

[1] Sif is (or was) Thor’s wife. She used to have long, beautiful golden hair, but then Loki cut it off as a prank. Thor got extremely angry and to save his own skin Loki went to some dwarves called the Sons of Ivaldi and had them make hair out of real gold for Sif, as well as some other shiny things to apologize to the gods. Loki then made a rather stupid bet with some other dwarves, saying that the Sons of Ivaldi were the best smiths in the world. This eventually resulted in Loki’s mouth being sewn shut (because he lost the bet), but the upside was that the dwarves made Thor’s hammer to prove Loki wrong.

[2] Jotuns=Frost giants. They had a rocky relationship with the Aesir. (Aesir=Norse gods.)

[3] Loki has three children: the Fenris Wolf, the Midgard Serpent, and Hel. Hel runs the underworld.

[4] Thrud is Sif and Thor’s daughter, and Magni and Modi are Thor’s sons and Sif’s stepsons. Ull is Sif’s son and Thor’s stepson.

[5] Forseti is Baldur’s son. In Asgard, he was the one who judged disputes among the gods.

[6] Baldur was the god of light and a very nice guy. Everyone loved him. Except for Loki, apparently, who was responsible for his death. Long story. “The Death of Baldur” is one of the better-known myths; you can Google it if you like.

[7] Idunn was the caretaker of the Golden Apples of Immortality. These were what kept the gods alive, since Norse gods are not immortal and can be killed (like Baldur was).

[8] Odin and Loki met before Odin lost his eye and became wise (‘nother story). Loki was (and still is) a very weird Jotun (or possibly ½ Jotun—there are different versions) in that he’s not huge and ugly. He and Odin got along well enough that they cut their wrists and let their blood flow together, making them blood brothers. That’s why none of the Aesir can kill Loki—he’s their chief’s brother.

[9] True story. For once, it wasn’t Loki’s fault. The story is usually called The Theft of Thor’s Hammer.

[10] Mjolnir=Thor’s hammer. Pronounced mule-neer.

[11] As in Valkyrie. Valkyries=Norse warrior women who accompany Odin into battle. 

The Ursine Incident

I wrote this in eighth grade and rewrote it in tenth. I think it still holds up decently. I'll probably come back to these characters eventually.

The Ursine Incident

The first time I saw Stephen, he painted a hex sign on my arm, and I couldn’t move my fingers for three hours. It was a rather impressive hex, for an eight-year-old boy. I don’t know where he’d learned it.

     The second time I saw him he broke my broom in half. I had just got it and I had been showing it off. It was in the corner and he tripped over it.

            As you may have been able to tell, we didn’t like each other very much. Stephen thought I was an annoying know-it-all, and I considered him incredibly spoiled.

            Being the children of best friends did not help us avoid each other. Every month or so our parents would have a dinner party (usually at his house) and we would be forced into the same room for several hours. We generally pretended to get along while the adults were watching and ignored each other for the rest of the time.

            Until the Ursine Incident, that is.

            Before I tell you about this, I just want to say that it was entirely Stephen’s idea.

            This particular Incident took place when I was eleven and Stephen, being two weeks younger, was ten. It was at the monthly-or-so dinner party. We had set up the Monopoly board and were now reading different books in opposite corners when Stephen spoke.

            “Hey, Candace,” he said, “there’s a very good spell in this book I’m reading. Want to try it out in the Dungeon?”

            Stephen had never asked me to do anything before (I don’t count requests to shut up) and I was immediately suspicious. “Stephen Parker, what are you up to? Let me see that!” I marched over and wrestled the book from him. After finding the page he’d been on, I scanned it and snapped, “Nice try, Stephen, but there is no way you’re turning me into a tree toad.”

            “Who said anything about turning you into a tree toad? I was thinking of…erm…Libby,” said Stephen unconvincingly.

            Libby was Stephen’s eight-year-old sister, and I happened to know two things about her: firstly, she and Stephen got along remarkably well, much better than most siblings; and secondly, she preferred to spend the night at a friend’s house whenever my sister and I came over. (Smart girl.)

            “Yeah, right,” I said, rolling my eyes, but then a thought stuck me. “Stephen…what about Marcia?”

            Marcia, then seven, was my aforementioned sister. She really was a brat. Stephen, Libby and I all hated her. She was whiny, selfish, and very, very annoying.

            “Say, that’s not bad! Where is she?” exclaimed Stephen, his eyes lighting up.

            “Last time I saw her she was in your playroom,” I said.

             We got up and crept down to the Parkers’ playroom.

            Another thing I should probably mention about the Parkers: They’re rich. They used to live in England, so they all have accents, but now they live in this big house on Walker Hill. Stephen has a playroom and a computer and more toys than he and Libby can keep track of. It’s part of what makes him so annoying. I live in a decent middle-class house on Allen Avenue, but whenever I come to the Parkers, I feel very poor indeed.

            Marcia was indeed in the playroom. She was kneeling on the floor giving one of Libby’s Barbie dolls a tattoo with a black Sharpie.

            The playroom had two doors, one at either end. I stayed at one and Stephen went to the other. From across the room I saw him hold up three fingers. He lowered one, then two, and then we pounced. Marcia didn’t even have time to shriek before she was bundled up with thick yarn from the playroom wound around her ankles and my sweater over her head like a burlap sack. I threw her over my shoulder and, ignoring her muffled cries, we headed down to the Dungeon.

            The Dungeon isn’t actually as scary as it sounds. Rather than being a place where one tortures and eventually kills poor hopeless prisoners, with rats scurrying across the floor and twittering in the corners, it is simply the space where Stephen’s father makes potions and experiments with various combinations of magical substances. He has a job in the research department of the Catalyst University. The Dungeon is basically his home office, nicknamed as it is because it is located beneath the house and has stone walls.

            I hoped we weren’t disturbing anything in progress. The floor had some smudged chalk on it and high on the walls were shelves with books, bottles and vials. “Put her down here,” said Stephen, indicating the middle of a large pentacle that had been painted on the floor. I unceremoniously dumped my sister to the ground.

            “Candace Winsley, I hate you!” Marcia shrieked, thrashing until she dislodged the sweater from her face. “Let me out of here RIGHT NOW!”

            I tied my sweater across her mouth and turned back to Stephen.

            “Okay, so now…?”

            “Now we encircle her with butterfly dust and read the incantation. Then we throw in some salamander blood and stand well back,” said Stephen, scanning the page.

            “I’ll do the dust, you do the incantation.” I grabbed a vial labeled Butterfly Dust off of one of the shelves.

            “No good, they have to be done by the same person,” said Stephen, holding out the book.

            “And that person can’t be you because…?”

            “She’s your sister.”

            I sighed, but I really did want to try doing magic. We’re not supposed to at home.

            I took the book and flipped through the pages for a few moments until Stephen irritably said, “Will you get on with it?” Then I glared at him and started circling Marcia, letting the dust pour out of the vial in a circle around her and saying,

            “Salamander blood and butterfly’s rot,

            Change this boy/girl (delete where applic—wait a minute, that can’t be right.”

            “Don’t say that part!” said Stephen, far too late to stop me. I made a move to start over, but he cried, “No! Keep going! We can’t mess it up any more or I don’t know what will happen!”

            I was having some serious doubts, but I picked up:

            “Change this girl to what she’s not.”

            I repeated it three times, this time omitting the words “boy” and “delete where applicable.”

            I now know that if we had stopped there, the magic would have hung around for a few hours before turning into sludge. Stephen’s father would have found it the next day and cleaned it up before giving Stephen a lecture, and Marcia would have ratted me out to my parents, but that would have been preferable to what actually happened.

            Maybe it was the misread incantation and the interruption. Maybe it was the smudged symbols on the floor. It was probably all of the above. But whatever it was, when we threw the salamander blood into the pentacle, we didn’t wind up with a tree toad.

            We wound up with an extremely irate bear cub.

            My first thought: Oops.

            Stephen let out a very high-pitched scream and bolted for the door. I took a few nervous steps back. “Nice bear cub,” I said tentatively. “Niiiice Marcia…”

            The bear cub growled.

            I rapidly assessed the situation and ran for it.

            I had never run so fast before, although I think I have since. Marcia, being on four legs, had the advantage on the stairs. I burst out into the house a few steps ahead of her and tore down the hall, the bear cub that was my sister lolloping after me. With a crash, she knocked down a small table with an expensive-looking vase on it.

            Stephen’s father ran out into the hall, with Father and Mother close behind him. Stephen was clinging to his mother’s skirt. “There she is!” he yelled. I wondered if he meant the bear cub or me.

            Stephen’s father made a quick, complicated gesture with his left hand. “Rapio rationis restorant,” he said calmly.

            There was a soft explosion and a cloud of grey smoke, which cleared to reveal human Marcia running after me. She stopped and stamped her foot. “Darn it! That was so much fun!” She burst into tears. “Why’d you have to do that!” she shrieked.

            Mother hurried over and gathered Marcia into her arms, shooting me an evil look. I heard Stephen’s father rebuking him: “What on earth were you thinking? You know you’re not allowed in the Dungeon! And why a bear?”

            “I told you, Dad! We were trying for a tree toad!” Stephen said, exasperated.

            Mother was trying to soothe Marcia with little success. “We’d better go,” she said. “I think Marcia’s had a long night.” She shot me with another evil look, one that promised Death and Disembowelment and No Dessert. “I’m so sorry about this.”

            Stephen’s mother reassured her that it was all right, no harm no foul (she hadn’t noticed the vase), and she’d call later.

            As we headed for the door, Stephen caught my eye. He grinned and winked at me. I raised an eyebrow, and then we left.