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….
Yuriko walked behind her master, exerting great effort to maintain an impassive expression.
Yes, despite the fact that he called himself by the name of a Norse God, despite her assurances that she believed him, saying it was one thing, feeling the truth of those words and shifting perception was another.
Until this moment, in her soul, she had considered Loki simply an eccentric mutant. Yes, powerful, but still human, whatever he claimed about it himself.
However, this didn't stop her from wishing to follow him, much as a samurai follows their lord.
Even if she wasn't strongly attached to the traditions of her ancestors, there was something in them.
Besides, she couldn't find any other way to repay him for salvation and protection.
Yes, that was before, but now? Could she treat him the same way?
Because he actually turned out to be a God. One who lived a thousand years ago and will live for thousands of years from today. How can she be useful to a being from this place?
Her brown eyes involuntarily slid from the back of the… being walking ahead, hidden by a green cloak, and darted over the opened panorama.
They had just exited a huge spherical building, as if cast from a single piece of bronze, and were now standing on a wide bridge stretching into the distance for more than a mile, seemingly composed of glass stones shimmering with all colors of the rainbow.
The colossal engineering structure stretched in a perfectly even strip over the water of a huge bay, only occasionally resting on rare supports rising from the water.
And there, in the distance, where the bridge led, shone a veritable golden city.
Spires of palaces and galleries, tall as natural skyscrapers, burning with gold and bronze in the rays of the morning sun.
Incomprehensible rectangular structures shimmering with silver and complex geometric patterns, simply hanging in the air.
Thirty-meter statues of warriors in armor and with huge weapons in their hands, clearly distinguishable even from such a distance.
But even this was minor compared to what opened to the gaze if one just looked back from the bridge, behind the round building.
A waterfall. Huge, Niagara had nothing on it, wide and straight, as if cut by someone, a cliff into which the sea lying under the bridge poured.
Every second it sent hundreds and thousands of cubic meters of water down, but didn't become shallower for a moment, although it was completely unclear where the water came from, since there was land on the other side.
The abyss encircling the sea simply was, contradicting all laws of physics. And if only that… Above it, stars shone from all sides, constellations unlike anything else, of all colors, entire nebulae and seemingly even galaxies, as they are drawn in movies trying to imagine their view from the side.
They were so close, so genuinely real, that it took one's breath away.
The spectacle was magnificent, mesmerizing, but completely unreal. An illusion, of which her master was a master? Unlikely, that would be pointless, but believing that all this was real didn't work either.
Meanwhile, her savior waved his hand imperiously, and, mentally scolding herself, Yuriko only now noticed that a boat shimmering with gold was descending to them from the sky.
It was decorated with fine carving and precious stones, as well as two perpendicularly placed sheets of metal stylized as wings on the sides closer to the stern.
And it floated through the air.
The phantasmagoria of the picture kept growing.
The brunet with slicked-back hair, however, saw nothing strange in this.
Waiting until the vehicle hovered over the rainbow surface of the bridge, he gestured for the two soldiers sitting inside in bizarre horned helmets to get out.
They also wore medieval armor and weapons, as did Loki and that tall black man with a broad two-handed sword who met them after the transfer.
And just like Loki, their movements betrayed immense combat experience.
"Welcome aboard," her savior called them, politely, like some doorman, standing by the side of the boat.
And although in context this should have looked amusing, here and now Loki's pose didn't allow thoughts to suspect a joke or childishness, of which he was a master in everyday life, even for a moment.
Yuriko, like the other guests of Asgard, silently followed the offer. The floor underfoot didn't even sway when entering the hovering vehicle, and a few seconds later, they were already gaining altitude.
"Am I really seeing this?" Sarah called out in a trembling voice, staring wide-eyed downward. "Is that, beyond the cliff, the void of space?"
Yuriko swallowed unnoticed, shifting her gaze to Loki. She saw it too, the higher they rose, the clearer it became that there was no ground below, under the waterfall. There were stars there too. And space.
"Asgard is a classic 'Flat World,' only without elephants and whales," the brunet answered, steering the boat while holding a real tiller, like on wooden vessels, only here it was metal and somehow allowed controlling the entire movement of the craft, including upward.
"It hangs in the cosmic void at the edge of the galaxy, or more precisely, at the top of a globular cluster around the galactic center, if you lay its disk on its side."
"But that's impossible," Dr. Kinney objected dumbfoundedly. "From a physical point of view…"
"Why is that? However, if it's easier for you, you can perceive Asgard as a huge spaceship; that's not correct, but close enough to the truth."
The scientist gulped and looked at the sky anew, with stars so close and unrealistically colorful.
Yuriko looked at them too, feeling again the abyss that separated her from the being who saved her.
Capable of moving between stars in a few seconds, an immortal to whom Gods living at the top of the galaxy submit… he had no reason to bother with her. Even to pay attention.
A human in his place would have simply killed a useless witness, just as he killed Stryker.
Or exactly like Stryker. Would have used her for his purpose, for greater credibility of the performance.
No troubles in the family could serve as an excuse for his help, the former prisoner of her own body knew human nature too well: problems, mental anguish, disappointment in loved ones, none of this makes people kinder, only harder.
Forces them to discard the not-so-strong veneer of humanism and releases all the rot that hides inside under the pressure of society.
But he helped…
The girl shifted her gaze to the thin face of the man in the green cloak and armor sparkling with the silver of adamantium.
Thin lips, perfectly smooth chin without any traces of shaving, high forehead now hidden by a bizarre horned helmet, azure-green eyes in the sunlight.
At first glance, there was nothing remarkable about him, his face wasn't fantastically beautiful, as if stepped off the cover of a glossy magazine; in dim lighting, his eyes always faded, becoming an indeterminate pale shade; his figure also didn't differ in stature and breadth of shoulders that would compel one to look at him.
He would be an ordinary and unremarkable passerby if he simply changed clothes to something youthful and sporty.
But he wasn't ordinary. Never.
….
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