Lucy and Loki: A New York Christmas Part 1

Lucy and Loki: A New York Christmas Story

Chapter 1

Lucy sat in her bedroom, flipping through her old, brown leather bound photo album with memories from her early days on Midgard with her blue blanket draped over her shoulders. ‘Six years,’ she thought. ‘It’s been six years since I lost Dad.’ She traced the edge of an older photo, one of her adoptive Midgardian Mom and Dad, who held a mini Lucy. They all looked so happy, even though she could see the worry in her Dad’s eyes and Mom was wearing a wig. This was right around the time before Elizabeth died, leaving Lucy and her dad to go it alone. Then her real father had ruined everything.

Well, not everything. Though Lucy wished that the terrible events in her past hadn’t happened, she now had a new family, and was the daughter of a king. Odin and Frigga loved her as if she was really their child, and her brothers Thor and Loki made her feel part of the family. Especially Loki. She grinned as she looked as a little sketch that she had added to the back of the photo album of the two of them that she had done when she was supposed to have been doing her lessons.

It was December 23rd, her birthday, and she was now a thirteen year old. She felt much older now. Thirteen sounded much older than twelve. Usually, it wasn’t her birthday at Lucy really missed about Midgard; it was Christmas. Christmas was one of the things that she remembered about her dad: putting up the tree, trying to figure out what was in the colorfully wrapped boxes, eating cookies and snuggling up with storybooks. The year that Massnordore showed up was the year that Robert was going to take Lucy to New York for Christmas, so that she could finally see snow. She still had never seen it.

There was a knock at her door. “Come in!” Lucy said, shutting the photo album. Loki slipped in the room, looking like he was in a good mood.

“Happy Birthday,” Loki said, smiling and coming further into the room.

“You remembered!” Asgardians didn’t celebrate birthdays too often. When you reach 1,000, you really stop caring. But, since Lucy was still a child, everyone tried to remember.

“Of course I remembered. Thirteen was an interesting year,” he said, apparently remembering something, then shook his head, as if to get rid of it. “Now, what do you want to do? Name it.”

Lucy laughed a little. “Well, we can’t really do what I want to do.”

Loki raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Well, it’s a silly thing.” Loki sat down on her bed and gave her his ‘You can’t hide things from me so just spill it look,’ and she sighed. “Alright. I want to go visit Midgard and spend Christmas there. We don’t celebrate it here, but it’s still sort of special for me. It’s one of the things that I remember most from living there.”

“Hmmm, I’ve read about it a little. It sounds quite joyous.”

“Oh yes!” Lucy said. “Giving presents, lights everywhere, singing, beautiful trees and if you’re lucky: snow. Though, I’ve never really seen it. Where I lived we never had snow. Dad was going to take me to New York City, a place that has snow and is really big and has a bunch of stuff to do.” Lucy watched Loki’s face as he thought, going over what she had said in her mind, and she could tell that he was planning something. He stood up and walked towards the door. He looked back at her.

“Well, aren’t you coming?”

“Loki, we’ll get in trouble with Father if we go to Midgard! It’s just a silly dream.”

“It is not. Come on, Father won’t miss us. He’s too busy with getting ready for that celebration that’s happening to worry about us.” He grinned. “And besides, what stopped us from going to Midgard before?”

“Alright,” Lucy said smiling. Slipping on her shoes, she and Loki headed for the Bifrost, and arrived to see Heimdall, at his post as always. “How are you gonna get past him?” she whispered to Loki.

“Stop fretting,” he answered, strolling up to him. “Gatekeeper…” he started, but was cut off.

“You did not ask permission from your Father to leave Asgard,” Heimdall said flatly.

Lucy gave Loki a look. He still hadn’t perfected the art of getting past the gatekeeper yet. “Heimdall please,” Lucy said. “We’re not going to start a war or anything. I just want to see Christmas on Midgard again.”

The golden eyed gatekeeper looked at both of them for a long moment, and then sighed. “It’s on your heads when your father finds out.” Though his voice was stern Lucy could have sworn at she saw the tiniest of smiles on his face. Heimdall was a bit of a push over with Lucy, not too much, but he was fond of her. He prepared to open the gate, gripping his huge sword. “I shall be waiting for your return.”

Loki gave him a nod, and Lucy smiled at him as he placed the sword into the key hole and the two were sucked into space. When they landed, Lucy was proud when she didn’t stumble around or fall on her face. Bifrost travel was much easier now, and she had mastered the art of landing on her feet. They both looked around at their surroundings: there were in a wooded area, standing on a bridge over a small creek. Lucy shivered as a cold breeze blew against her, though Loki didn’t seem to notice the cold. Luckily, there had been no people around to see them arrive but now a group of teenagers came running around the corner and pushed past the two. She noticed that she got a funny look from one of the girls, and concentrating very hard, Lucy changed her Asgardian clothes into Midgardian clothes. Instead of what she had been wearing back home, she was now wearing a blue shirt and jeans, with a short, brown trench coat over it and blue converse on her feet.

Turning to Loki, she saw that he had already changed his appearance: he was now wearing a long black coat and dark pants, and she could see a tiny be of a green shirt under his coat. While she was somewhat annoyed that he had changed before she had, Lucy grinned when she saw the green converse. “Good choice,” Lucy said. “Very Midgardian.”

“Thank you, I try. These shoes are very… interesting,” he said looking down at his feet, not sure what he thought about them yet. “Now, where are we?”

Lucy racked her brain. She never forgot anything, and she recalled reading all about New York City when she was seven. “I think this is Central Park.” Looking around, she saw an information booth and ran over to it. “Ha! I was right!” She pulled out one of the information pamphlets. “There’s a map in here.”

Loki studied the map for a moment. “A chess and checkers house? What’s checkers?”

“A game I might actually beat you at. It’s sort of like chess, only a lot easier in my opinion. But the house is closed today.”

“Well, let’s just start walking. We might want to get out of these woods if we want to see the rest of the city.” So, that’s what they did. They walked through the beautiful woods, sometimes running off the trail and hurdling huge logs and Lucy flew through tight spots between trees, only to have to run back onto the trail when they heard people coming, and walk as if they were just enjoying the nature.

After a long time of exploring, the two came out of the woods and into the open space of the massive park. Coming out of the park and crossing the street, having to avoid very fast taxies, Lucy and Loki strolled down the streets of New York. Lucy couldn’t believe that she was here. So many people, all different and very interesting; so many sights and sounds, and so much that you wanted to absorb all at once.

They walked together on the side walk, avoiding busy people and sometimes stopping to look in shop windows. A few times Lucy dragged Loki over to look at the clothing displays or arrangements of musical instruments or art supplies that caught her eye. There was a point when Lucy caught Loki eyeing a scarf himself in a nice re-sale shop window. It had a circle pattern printed on the fabric, and a stripe coming down the middle, and fringe at the end. When she caught him, he denied it of course, which just made her giggle. All of the stores were crowded with tons of people who were finishing up the last of their holiday shopping, some even shouting at one another and looking quite grouchy.

“I don’t remember people being this rude to each other,” Lucy said, watching two women fight over what she thought was the ugliest pink sweater she had ever seen.

“Yes, mortals can be quite,” he searched for the right word, “petty,” Loki said, raising an eyebrow as a store clerk had to come break them up.

“Everyone isn’t like that though, just you wait,” Lucy replied, pulling herself and Loki away from the window and down the sidewalk, walking with a bit of a skip in her step with Loki trying to keep up with his energetic sister. ‘At least, I hope it will be.’