"Where are we going, Mother?" a small girl with h/c hair, red eyes and blue skin asked an almost identical, but older woman.

"Somewhere safe," she whispered to the child, tugging her along. "I will keep you safe, Y/N, and I will do it to my last breath."

"Okay, Mother," Y/N smiles up at the terrified woman. She trusts her with the blindness of innocence.

"Rei!" the furious voice of Laufey cut through the cold Jotunheim air, screaming the child's mother's name. "I have slaughtered your husband, and I will slaughter you, Rei!"

"He did what to Father?" Y/N looked afraid now too.

"Nothing," Rei soothed her daughter with lies, picking her up and running even faster. "It should be around here- there!"

Mother and daughter ran for a crumbling stone obelisk. Rellah pressed her fingers to one of the symbols, and Y/N clung tight to her as a flashing light Rei them.

When the light faded, Rei stood amongst snowy trees.

"You must run, Y/N," Rei turned to her daughter. "Run, and don't look back."

"No, Mother, I'm not leaving you!" Y/N cried, tears spilling from her red eyes.

Just then, the flashing lights appeared again, ripping a portal in midair. A blue arm appeared, clutching a deadly sharp frost spike. That spike was smeared in blue blood as it tore through Rei's chest.

"No!" Y/N screamed in agony, as though she were the one being stabbed.

"Run!" the mother cried weakly, and this time the Jotun girl listened, sprinting from her mother's body as fast as she can. She ran until she was far beyond the reach of the snowy trees, stopping under a wrought iron sign reading 'Central Park'.

Y/N collapsed to her knees, sobbing and screaming for her mother. The last touches of Rei's magic swirled around her, turning her blue skin s/c and her eyes e/c.

She was completely alone on the streets of New York City.

- - - 10 years later - - -

You must run, Y/N. Run and don't look back. You remembered your mother's last words to you before she was stabbed.

"I don't think this is what she meant," you mumbled quietly to yourself as you snuck down the stairs of the godforsaken orphanage you'd landed in when a well-meaning woman had found you crying outside Central Park. "But I'm running from here. I'm running and never looking back."

You silently opened the back door, checking that no one was around. The coast was clear as you slipped from the door, closing it and sprinting out down the street.

Finally free of that awful place, you thought. You didn't have anywhere to stay, but that doesn't matter to you as you trotted down the street.

Because I am free, and I can do what I want, now.

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