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The fox was dead.
Thor wished he could have said he did not know how it happened, but it would not have been the truth. It happened so quickly, though, too quickly to stop it. And that was always the problem.
But this was worse.
The animal was still in his lap, lifeless. Thor had seen dead animals before, carried to the palace after hunting. He had watched them roast over spits, eaten them without a thought. It was natural to kill and to eat, was it not? It had always seemed so.
This was different. Minutes ago, the fox had been alive -- not just alive, but life itself. It could not have been much older than a pup, with legs that appeared to be made of springs as it leapt with such excitement, while Thor, in the last throes of childlike wonder, chased it through the gardens. It did not belong so close to the palace, it must had gotten separated from its mother. It seemed so happy to have found a playmate. It was too young to realize the creature playing with it might be dangerous.
The fur had been such a handsome color, too, an auburn so deep it was tinged with purple. Now, it stood on end, awash with gray like soot. Was it actual soot? It was stiff, but not the slumberous stiffness that follows all death. The fox’s limbs were splayed outward in fear, forever frozen in shock. It had not the time to go limp before it died.
At first, Thor had also been in shock. It had happened so quickly. Minutes ago, the creature had been curled on Thor's lap, alive, purring softly as he stroked his beautiful fur. There was the nip, the drawn blood, and the next thing Thor knew there was a blinding light that surrounded the entire Grotto. And when the light cleared, like smoke, the fox was dead, and Thor knew what he had done.
They told him that as he grew, he would undergo changes, but it never sounded like a warning. No one could have foreseen just how swiftly he would leave childhood behind, that he would have such power and be so poorly equipped to master it. This was deadly force, not the stirrings of desire brought on by the eyes of pretty maiden. Thor looked at the sweet, dead thing stretched across his knees; he was on the verge of becoming a monster, not a man.
The tears streaming down his face were the tears of one hardly more than a pup himself. Before, it had been lighting strikes on furniture and the occasional tree, but this time, he had taken a life. It had never been his intention, or even his wildest dream, but what did that matter? What was stop it from happening again? What if was not an animal the next time it happened?
He scrubbed his face, trying to grow into a man on the spot, but the tears continued to roll down his cheeks. It start to make him angry all over again. First rage, now crying. Was there nothing he could control? Fury turned back to fear, and at last Thor’s body began to shiver as if he was as cold as the fox in his lap.
He heard footsteps. Panic gripped his heart, ratcheting his pulse with the speed of the wind. The sounds seemed heavy in the distance. Who could it be? Who was about to discover him and the terrible thing he had done. Thor the Killer. But the steps became lighter the nearer they drew, like someone on tiptoe, tentative and curious.
“Thor? Why did you run away like that? Why... Are you crying?”
And then, Thor heard the small gasp of horror and he squeezed his eyes shut. All of the sounds belonged to his brother, his little brother, though Loki’s youth had never mattered until now. This would scandalize him, Thor was certain. They had always been an equals in his eyes, but now he was certain Loki would never look at him the same way again.
Thor could not bring himself to turn around, but Loki pushed into his field of vision all the same. His round eyes were wide.
“You killed it, didn't you? By accident. The lightning, again.”
Once more, Thor scrubbed at his cheeks, as if wiping away the tears might also wash away his guilt. And then he gave up and nodded. “I don’t know how it happened.”
Loki stretched out one of his small hands and brushed the fox’s static-fluffed tail.
Thor swallowed, hard. There was an enormous lump in his throat. “I guess I got upset. It bit my finger. Brother, I never meant for it to happen.”
“I know,” Loki assured him, softly. He sounded like their mother. It only made Thor squeeze his eyes shut again.
For a moment, there were no sounds between them. Thor realized that Loki was holding his breath and that he was, too.
Giving him a start, Loki dropped a firm hand on his shoulder, so strong for someone his age. Thor opened his eyes. Loki tightened his fist around the fabric of Thor’s shirt.
His brother looked very serious, with his brows drawn and his chin jutting forward. “I want to try something,” he said, in a harsh whisper, “But you can’t tell anyone if it works.”
Thor blinked at his brother. “Try what?”
“Give me the fox, quickly,” ordered Loki, skirting the question. “If I fail, I won’t make matters any worse.”
Thor felt a chill race up his arms before he laid a hand on the stiff creature, but he forced himself to do as Loki said. His mind swam. The look on his brother’s face was like an animal itself, pointed and intense, on the hunt. Viper-like. Yet, he sat extraordinarily still. All that moved were his hands.
He pushed his fingers past layers of fur against the fox’s chest and, shaking his head, drew them back again. “No heartbeat…” he said, moving his hands back toward the animal’s tail. He found the hip bones and then the spine, tracing meticulously up the animal’s back, pausing at eat knob of the vertebrae, toward the skull. And then, Loki smiled in that profoundly mischievous way of his “Here we are…”
“W-What?” stammered Thor.
“Shh,” hissed Loki, as he closed his eyes. From his hands came a glimmer of light, different than anything Thor had witnessed when he accidentally called down lightning. It was warm in color, shimming. Loki wrapped both hands over the fox’s skull. The light grew, and with astonishing precision that far exceeded his years, he guided a thread of golden magic back down the animal’s spine.
The fox opened his eyes.
As did Loki, leaping to his feet as the fox sprang away, running at full speed out of the garden by any direction possible. Thor did not feel as though he could move.
“Ha HA!” hooted Loki, slapping his knees. At once, he was a child again. He ran in circles, throwing his hands in the air.
Thor forced himself off the ground. As Loki swooped by, he grabbed his brother by the shoulders. “How? How did you know you could do that?”
Loki’s eyes flashed with one final burst of glee and he took a breath to calm himself. “I didn’t. I just… Well, I had never tried on something that large until now, but it worked on a spider I stepped on last week.
Thor gave him a shake. “A spider? Loki, that fox was dead!” he exclaimed, very much struggling keep the news silent. Tears threatened him once more. He was not relieved, he was terrified. “You have the ability bring things back from the dead?”
“Of course not,” said Loki, shrugging Thor’s hands from his shoulders. He was slowly returning to being serious. “The fox did not have heartbeat, but his nerves were still firing. That was all I needed.”
“But who taught you how to do this?”
Loki frowned and shook his head. “No one.”
“B-But you were so… so confident, like you have been doing it for ages.”
“Just a talent I guess,” said Loki. He looked at Thor squarely and gave a sad sigh. “You really have to learn how to control your temper. You cannot go around calling lightning down on helpless animals.”
Thor frowned, talking a sharp step back. He bristled for a moment before allowing the words to sink past his skin. He kept himself still and Loki smiled.
“Or me,” he said, the smile transforming into a familiar smirk.
Thor clenched his teeth. He looked away.
“See, you can do it,” said Loki. He walked past Thor and took him by the hand. “If you can hold back for a second, then you can hold back for a minute, and then eventually you can just hold back.”
Thor looked down at his brother, so calmly holding the hand of someone who had just caused another being’s death, accident or none. He was either very innocent or more brave than Thor had ever realized.
He looked over his shoulder, in the direction where the fox had run. “It still looked burnt. Will it always look that way?”
Loki nodded. “I would have been able to cast an illusion, but he ran off too fast.”
“An illusion?” repeated Thor. “Like Mother can do?”
“Yes. I have been watching her. And I practice a lot.”
“Are you going to ask her to train you?” asked Thor.
“Possibly,” Loki replied. “Innate talent can only get you so far.”
Thor lapsed into silence, his turned skyward as he allowed Loki to guide his path through the gardens. A pair of birds raced one another between the trees. Squirrels skittered across the grass. Everything seemed so alive, and life itself seemed so frenetic, like they were in the gardens of Valhalla.
They were nearing the palace and guards were visible by the gates. Talk about the fox would soon have to end, for now, but Thor had so many more questions.
“You have always been good at guarding your temper,” he said to Loki, as they passed the garden sculpted hedges.
Loki nodded. He pulled a stiff breath through his nose. “I practice that a lot, too,” he said, looking up at Thor with another one of his impish smiles. He had not been scandalized in the slightest.
Thor almost chuckled. “Perhaps you could teach me.”
“It wouldn’t be impossible, even for you,” said Loki. “You just… Try to keep in mind that you care about whoever has hurt you. And then you chose not to harm it in return.”
“And that keeps you calm?”
Loki nodded again. “It certainly hasn’t killed anyone, yet.”
Thor snorted in astonishment at his brother’s candor, but he took no offence this time.
They walked a few paces in relative silence. The guards set their eyes upon them and straightened to attention. Loki released an abrupt sigh and tightened the grip of his hand. “I can't always be around to bring things back to life, obviously. It's better that you learn how to prevent things from dying in first place.”
Thor felt his chest tightened against a breath he tried to pull into his lungs. “I admit, I’m frightened, Loki. What if… the next time…”
“Asgardians are made of tougher stuff than foxes,” said Loki. “Just keep trying, Brother. You’ll get it. I have complete faith in you.”
“Do you?”
Loki gave Thor’s hand a final squeeze before letting it go. With a leap, he started running toward the palace, a child once more.
“Oh, yes,” he said, as Thor started after him. “I mean, I’m fairly certain I would trust you with my life.”