Lucy and Loki: Christmas in New York Part 3

Chapter 3

Lucy woke up the next morning laying on her bed, wrapped up in her coat with a pillow on top of her head. Rubbing her eyes and sitting up, she saw Loki sleeping on the couch with “Chamber of Secrets” resting on his chest. They had been exploring the hotel last night and found a ton of books that looked interesting. The ones that really caught Loki’s eye were a children’s book series called Harry Potter, and there were six books all sitting together on a shelf, each bigger than the last. Loki had grabbed the first two and apparently had finished the first one and had fallen asleep reading the second. Feeling mischievous, Lucy grabbed her pillow and crept over to her sleeping brother. Just before she was about to whack him though, Loki’s eyes pooped open, he grabbed the pillow and whacked her with it.

“Goodness, how long have you been awake?” Lucy said, trying to grab the pillow back but getting whacked again.

“Long enough to hear you creeping out of bed. When are you going to realize that you can’t sneak up on me?”

“Just you wait, I’ll prove you wrong someday,” she said, picking up his book. “Were these any good?”

Loki grinned. “Very. This Snape fellow seems very interesting, and the story overall is well written. We ought to try and find a whole set and take it back home. We’ll have to come back and visit in a few years to get the last one.”

“So you really got through the first book?” Lucy said, moving Loki’s legs over and sitting on the couch. He nodded.

“What’s your plan for the day?” Loki asked. “Other than getting your hair from sticking straight up?” Lucy smoothed down some of her already wild hair that was sticking up in the back.

“I’m not sure. It’s Christmas Eve, so I’m expecting that it’s going to be crazy outside.” Her stomach growled. “Why don’t we take care of the food situation first.”

“Sounds like a plan.”
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Frigga watched her husband as he paced the room, deep in thought. “So they went to Midgard. There’s no harm in it.”

“The harm is is that they went behind my back,” Odin replied, still pacing.

“Oh, they didn’t go behind your back. Somehow you always know,” Frigga said, standing up and placing her hands on his shoulders. He paused for a moment, then turned to her.

“Yes, I did. And Heimdall did too.” He cracked the tiniest of smiles. “At least time they’re not in trouble. Or causing it.” He let out a small chuckle, remembering some of the ‘adventures’ his two children had created over the past years. His two adopted children. Sighing, and turned away from his wife. “I guess I ought to go fetch them.”

“No, there’s too much to be done here and there’s no need for you to go all the way there to fetch them. There is someone who’s been somewhat lost without his siblings though who could go,” she said with a smile.

Odin nodded. “Let’s just hope Thor doesn’t get himself lost on Midgard looking for those siblings.”
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“It really shouldn’t have taken us that long to figure out how to order room service,” Lucy said, holding her plate and scarfing down the eggs and bacon.

“Yes, an hour is a bit ridiculous,” Loki added. Lucy grabbed the remote from the coffee table and switched on the TV. That was one thing that she remembered doing on Midgard. All the channels were playing something involving Christmas, and after flipping through some of the channels, she found an older movie called ‘A Christmas Story’. It was on the scene were the boy had a bar of soap in his mouth.

“Why does he have that red bar in his mouth?” Loki asked, trying to figure out the movie.

“I think that he’s in trouble.” They continued watching the movie until a commercial came up, which made them both irritated. Flipping through the channels again, they found an old Christmas cartoon with a bunch of kids dancing around and upbeat music playing. Lucy lit up with joy. “Oh my goodness! This is Charlie Brown! I remember this from when I was little!”

“What is it about?”

“Oh, it’s about a boy who is always having a hard time and these kids are putting on a Christmas show and there’s a funny dog and it’s really really good,” Lucy said all at once, which just made Loki chuckle and roll his eyes.

“You know, it’s amazing how much you remember from being on Midgard.”

“Well, maybe I’m just smarter than you,” she teased, knocking on his head.

“Highly unlikely.” Lucy laughed and they finished off the Christmas special, and Loki seemed to actually enjoy it. By this time though, Lucy was done watching TV and was itching to do something, and then an idea hit her. Grabbing the coat from her bed and pulling on her shoes, she headed towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Loki asked.

“Out,” she said vaguely, buttoning up her coat. “Don’t even think about following me, it’s a surprise.”

“Fine fine, leave me with my book!” he said, waving his book in the air. She rolled her eyes and shut the door behind her. Running down the hall and out the front doors, she raced down the streets, dodging last minute shoppers and sight seers bustling around on the sidewalks. Remembering where she wanted to go was the easy part, it was getting around the other people that was hard.

Looking around and making sure that no one was watching, Lucy ducked into an alley, then shot herself up into the air, gliding above the building and people, the chill of the winter wind hitting her face. This was much better than having to squeeze past people on the ground. Turning a few corners, she touched down on a ledge then jumped back down into the crowd. A little boy gave her an amazed look, and she winked at him, knowing that he must have seen her flying. He lit up and pulled on his mother’s sleeve, but before he could look over at Lucy again, she had ducked into the resale shop.

The shop wasn’t as crowded as she thought it would have been. There were just a handful of shoppers looking through clothes and one clerk at the front counter. To Lucy’s dismay though, the display in the front window had been changed, and the scarf that Loki had been admiring was gone and it was now replaced with trendy new winter outfits.

“Excuse me,” she asked the clerk at the front desk, “There was a scarf in the front window yesterday. Was it bought by someone?”

“Oh no!” the perky, red haired lady said. Her name badge read ‘Avery’. “It’s all in the back corner over there. I was just getting my store ready for the new season, but that scarf you’re looking for should still be back there!,” she said, pointing in the direction that she was talking about.

“Thank you.” Lucy headed to the back, but stopped in her tracks when she saw familiar boys standing down a shoe display whispering to each other; the same boys that she and Loki had run into the day before. Luckily, they hadn’t noticed her yet. Ducking behind into a clothes rack, Lucy peaked out between two coats that the two boys, and to her shock, saw stuff a pair of nice looking shoes into a backpack. ‘They’re stealing from this lady!’ Lucy thought to herself. She watched as they both joked with each other, and then the shorter boy snatched the scarf that Lucy wanted and stuffed it into the bag too. Avery wasn’t seeing any of this, but Lucy knew that these guys were trouble.

The boys started whispering to each other again, and Lucy strained to hear them, but only caught a few words. She retreated into the rack as they walked by and went up to the front counter. Lucy peaked out again, and saw that two other customers that had been in the store were gone, and that it was just the four of them now. Just then, Avery let out a scream and Lucy whipped her head around to see the taller of the boy boys pointing a black object at her and yelling. ‘A gun,’ Lucy thought.

“Just give us all the money!” The boy shouted, and the other one grinning beside him.

“Alright, alright!” Avery exclaimed, fumbling at the cash register. She started to scoop out bills and coins, throwing them on the counter.

“Is this it?” the shorter boy asked, seeming disappointed.

“It really is!” Avery seemed really scared, and Lucy wasn’t going to let these two jerks get away with this. Flying out of the clothes rack, Lucy tackled the boy holding the gun, knocking him to the ground. She wrestled the gun out of his hand, and it felt surprisingly light, though she ignored that and threw it across the room. Suddenly, Lucy was pulled off of the bigger boy and had her arms pinned behind her by the shorter boy.

“Hey, I remember you!” the taller boy said, picking himself up. “You’re that brat from the rink yesterday!” Her arms were being twisted behind her, and it wasn’t the most comfortable feeling in the world. So she did what was a natural reflex. She flipped the guy over onto his back and rubbed the feeling back into her wrists. The look of shock on the boy’s faces was priceless. But it didn’t last long.

The taller boy charged at her, but Lucy just leaped over him, causing him to run into a clothes rack, but the shorter boy was able to knock her legs up from under her. Rolling away before they could catch her, she got to her feet again and moved towards the front door, trying to get the boys to follow her. Her plan sort of worked. The boys ran after her, but this time one was able to scratch her face with they’re over grown nails. For a spilt second her felt blood trickling on her face, but the next second it was healed, with just a few specks of dried blood on her cheek.

“You really ought  to fix those,” she said, and not holding anything back, she grabbed both boys by the collars, dragged them out the front door, and tossed them both on top of a parked taxi as if they were just bags of trash. Dusting of her hands, she went back into the store, picked up the gun on the floor and handed it to Avery. “Here.”

Avery looked over the gun, then chuckled to herself. “It’s a toy. A very real looking toy, but a toy all the same. Stupid kids, trying to pull a prank in here. They didn’t even hide their faces.”

Lucy grabbed the backpack on the ground and fished out the scarf. “How much for this?” she asked the shocked sales woman.

Avery blinked a few times, then smiled. “Take it, it’s yours.”

“But…”

“Look, I don’t know who you are, but you just saved me from losing a bunch of money and possibly from getting hurt. The least I can do is let you take this scarf. It isn’t even worth that much!”

Lucy grinned. “Well, thank you very much.”

“No, thank you! Have a Merry Christmas!”

“And you as well!” Lucy said, heading out the door with her treasure. She passed by the two boys, who were both staggering up from the hood of the taxi. They both gave her the dirtiest of looks, but they took off down the sidewalk when they heard police sirens. Apparently Avery had still called the police, and the boys had decided that it was better to run than to go after Lucy again. She laughed to herself under her breath. “Merry Christmas boys.”
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“Welcome back,” Loki said  as Lucy ducked into the hotel suite. “What are you hiding there?” he asked, as he saw her holding a bundle that she was trying to conceal in her coat.

“A surprise,” Lucy said with a grin. “And you won’t believe  what I had to go through to get it.”

“Sounds interesting.”

“And you’ll have to wait until tomorrow,” she said, putting it under her bed. “How’s your book?”

“I’m on Book Three now. We will defiantly had to take these back to Asgard.”

“Well, maybe I should have gotten you something different for Christmas,” she said teasingly, plopping down on the couch once again.

“Did you get scratched?” Loki asked, looking at her cheek. There was the faintest of lines on her cheek that hadn’t totally healed yet.

“Yes.”

“What exactly were you doing?” Loki asked with a raised eyebrow.

Lucy sighed. “I ran into those two boys from yesterday, and let’s just say, they weren’t very friendly.”

“Are you alright?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Don’t worry about them, they’re just the kind of boys that are always looking for trouble.”

“Like Thor?”

Lucy laughed. “In a way.”

“You know, as much as I love our brother, it’s been quite peaceful without him. Well, almost peaceful, considering our teenage friends.”

“Yes, you can always be certain that peace does not follow Thor.” She picked up the first Harry Potter book, which had been hidden under the second one. “I guess I ought to give these a go now.”

Loki gave her an amused look. “There’s nothing else that you want to do on this Christmas Eve?”

“I’m with my brother and best friend, who took me all the way to Midgard because I wanted to see Christmas again. I think this lazy night will be just perfect.” She curled up in her corner of the couch and began to read.

Loki grinned to himself. ‘I couldn’t have said it better myself.’ With a flick of his hand, he made a cup of tea for himself and a mug of hot chocolate, a Midgardian drink that they had discovered the night before, for Lucy appear from thin air, and then curled up with his own book, feeling a true sense of happiness.
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Thor’s landing in Midgard hadn’t been very…smooth. No, not smooth at all, seeings how it took him a good amount of time to get his cape unstuck from a tree branch. A few mortals walked past him and gave him strange looks, and he decided to change his appearance slightly, by getting rid of the cape and armor and getting a coat and sweater. At least, that’s what they thought they were called. Midgardians had strange fashion choices. “Now, to find my brother and sister!” He started walking through the park. And walked. And walked. And walked.

When he finally found his way out of the park, it was getting dark outside and the streets were lighting up. But what got Thor was that the city was quite large, and quite confusing. “This isn’t going to be as easy as I thought.”