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"Never trust an oracle." ~The Gospel of Loki
“Why are you doing this to me?” he pleads. He hates that he is on his knees, afraid even to move lest one of them peck out his eyes.
One of the ravens cackles and he shudders at the sound. “Look to memory and you will find the answer.”
“But you’re taking them from me!”
“Crawk! Seven days you will not know your past. And then you will die.”
The skin on his neck burns and he screams. And then there is nothing.
Monday
Loki wakes all at once and then wishes he’d taken his time; Mjolnir is clearly trying to break free from inside his skull. If Thor has succeeded in getting him that drunk he’ll need to plot a suitable revenge. Preferably something involving a bildeshnipe.
He opens his eyes and freezes – This is not Asgard – but his fear subsides when he sees Thor lying on the floor, his head pillowed on his arm.
Silently he rolls out of bed and goes to stand at the window, staring out at a sparkling snow-covered landscape dotted with trees of emerald green. This pristine whiteness is so clean and fresh it thrills the ice in his blood and he touches the window, letting frost spread from his fingertips to cover the glass in loops and whorls and starbursts.
“Oh my god.” It’s a woman’s voice.
He turns and sees her standing in the door, small and fierce and lovely as the stars. His breath catches in his throat. “At your service,” he answers at last, bowing from the waist, his eyes never leaving her face. “I am Loki Odinson.”
From the expression on her face, he can’t tell if she’s about to laugh or about to hit him. He thinks he’d enjoy both. “I’m Jane. Jane Foster,” she says at last. “Do you remember me?”
A chill creeps down his spine. “No,” he replies. “Should I?”
She rubs a hand across her eyes. “Thor?”
Loki twists his head and sees his brother sitting up, one arm resting on his knee, watching him carefully. “He was unconscious when I found him,” he says.
What?
“I know.” She huffs and flops into a cushioned chair. “I hate Mondays.”
~*~
He tells himself that she’s a mere mortal and isn’t worth his time. Or Thor’s. He’ll be the bloody king of Asgard and he’s consorting with a Midgardian – what in Hel is he thinking?
“I’m going to find Huginn and Muninn,” Thor says at last, nodding at the mark burned onto Loki’s neck. “I’ll find out what they’ve done and get them to reverse it.”
Loki raises an eyebrow. “Do try and remember, brother, that hitting doesn’t solve everything.”
Thor grins and it’s so completely unguarded that it takes Loki by surprise – But why? – though it fades almost at once. “I’ll try to remember that.” He looks at Jane. “Will you be alright?”
Jane’s eyes are on him and he turns to find her measuring, weighing him. She tilts her head in a perversely intelligent manner and nods. “I’ll be fine.”
“Very well.” Thor rises and puts a hand on Loki’s shoulder. “Stay here and behave.”
Loki grins. “Trust me.”
Thor’s face turns ashen.
“Thor?” Suddenly he is afraid. And then angry. “Dammit, Thor – what don’t I remember? Why are you not telling me?”
“Because I can’t trust you.” Thor looks as though he regrets speaking the words, but it’s too late now.
A chill creeps into his heart. What have I done to you? “Very well. Then leave me with your Midgardian consort and return when you have answers. But you’d be better off asking Mother—” He breaks off at the look Jane and Thor exchange. And he knows. Oh Hel, he knows. “Mother is dead?” he whispers, the anger draining out of him.
“Loki—”
He doesn’t answer. Rising from his seat he walks back into the bedroom and closes the door. Mother is dead.,/i> He curls up on the bed and stares at nothing.
He no longer wants to remember.
~*~
“Here,” says Jane, setting a mug on the table by the bed. She sinks into the cushioned chair by the window and takes a sip from her own.
He sniffs at it; it smells sweet and comforting. “What is it?” he asks.
“Hot chocolate.”
He rises and reaches for it, tasting it experimentally. It tastes as good as it smells. “Thank you.”
Her eyebrows lift in surprise. “You’re welcome.”
He leans back against the headboard. “Thor?” he asks, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
“Gone.” Then, very softly. “I’m sorry.”
He does not want pity from Thor’s woman. He wants—
“I would like to be alone.”
“Oh. Sure.” She hops out of the chair, wincing as she spills some of her drink onto her shirt. “I’ll be working outside if you need me.”
He almost laughs at the idea, but something stops him – whether the ache in his heart or the earnestness in her eyes – and he nods. After she leaves he sits in the dark and watches the stars come out.
Tuesday
He wakes the next morning to a warm and wheaty smell that quickly changes to the scent of something burning. There’s a yelp and a clatter from beyond the bedroom door and he groans, closing his eyes again. His head is still pounding. He doesn’t remember what Huginn and Muninn did to him, but whatever it was it bloody well still hurts.
With an effort he drags himself out of bed and opens the door cautiously, half expecting to see the room in flames. Nothing so dramatic awaits him and he continues on, past the strange humming machines and around the corner into what appears to be a kitchen.
Jane is rummaging around inside a large white box, and on the table there is a stack of round and golden flatcakes. A large pan sits in the sink with a smoking black mess inside. “Jane Foster, are you trying to set the house on fire?” he asks, lips curling in amusement.
She starts and the door to the white box slams shut. “Oh. Good morning,” she says, and sets a round metal container on the table. “I made pancakes. It’s about the only think I can make.”
He glances at the sink and raises an eyebrow. “Really?”
She glares at him. “It was an accident, smart-ass. I got distracted – one of my models beeped…”
He finds himself curious. “Models?”
She lights up and it’s breathtaking. “Yeah. I’m studying this really weird hybrid star – see there was this theory back in 1975 that a large dying star could swallow its neutron star binary partner and become a stellar hybrid. They nicknamed it the Thorne-Zytkow object after the guys who came up with the theory.” She grabs the metal can and an empty plate. “So the plate is the red supergiant’s core and the maple-syrup can is the neutron star, and it spirals into the core interrupting the normal fusion processes.” The can in her hand spirals dramatically into the center of the plate.
“And they’ve found one?”
She nods, practically bouncing in excitement. “Well, they think they have at any rate. I got a grant so I came up here to study it – it’s the best place to see it. Of course, we’re not in the U.S. but the Canadian Space Agency is working with us, so—”
She breaks off and spears a pancake, drizzling it with maple syrup from the can. “Come on, I’ll show you my model.”
She’s already wandering out and he stares after her, bemused, then looks at the stack of golden pancakes and the can of maple syrup. They don’t look like they will poison him. He takes three and pours the syrup on top then follows her. He finds her in front of a large screen, her pancake forgotten after two bites.
“Ok, so this is the Small Magellanic Cloud…”
And against his better judgement, he listens. And when she shows him the map of their galaxy – the Milky Way – he stares at the stars, trying to find some hint of the constellations he knows but there is always nothing.
Strangely he understands her science, though they have different words, and he finds himself pulled along, losing himself in the work and the words and her excitement as they pore over charts and models. Does she share this with Thor? Not for the first time he wonders why it should matter.
Darkness falls at last and he steps outside, into the cold that never troubled him, and gazes up at the sky, wishing he could see the stars above Asgard, wishing he knew which one was his mother, and that she was indeed in Valhalla.
“Loki?” Jane’s voice. Who else would it be? No one else is here with him. No one else seems to care that he remembers nothing.
He is not in the mood for pity or charity or hand-me-downs from his brother, but the words come out anyway: “I don’t know these stars.”
“Oh. Well.” She comes over and stands next to him, pointing up with a mittened hand. “That one is Ursa Minor, the Little Bear, and Polaris – that really bright star at the end of the tale – is the North Star and it’s a yellow-white supergiant…” On and on she goes, through science and myth, twisting and jumping and motioning with her hands, her eyes alight, and he loses himself in the sound of her voice.
“Jane,” he says.
She stops mid-sentence and looks at him, suddenly wary. “Yes?”
He hesitates. He is hollow inside, a shell of emotions he cannot explain: burning rage and desire and sorrow. “Jane, do you trust me?”
She huffs, her breath forming a cloud of steam. “I don’t know,” she says finally. “You’ve done some really bad things. But—”
His heart sinks. He wants to tell himself that her opinion doesn’t matter, but it does, and it makes no sense because he’s only just met her and she’s Midgardian and she is, dammit, Thor’s. “But?”
She smiles a strange smile. “But you saved my life when you didn’t have to. And I know what’s like to—to feel like an outsider.” She gestures wildly and shakes her head so that her hair swirls around her, as though she’s searching for words in the air. “Maybe this is your second chance. Maybe—oh, damn. That was not—”
But he’s laughing, he cannot help himself, and she’s staring at him as though she’s not sure what to think and—
And he kisses her. The briefest of touches, but it sets his body on fire and he suddenly knows that if he remembers nothing, if he knows nothing, this, this is right.
Her eyes are wide, her cheeks flushed, and he cannot read her expression. Before she can say anything and tell him that she is Thor’s he bows from the waist and returns to his room. He doesn’t hear her come in.
Wednesday
“How much do you remember?” Jane asks.
“About last night?” he replies, raising an eyebrow.
She blushes and mutters something he can’t hear. “Yes. No. About—about your memories.”
“Ah.” He leans back, tilting the chair on its legs. “I remember…I remember Father’s private announcement to us that Thor would be crowned. And then I remember that Thor and I – with Sif and the Warriors Three – went out to celebrate. When I first woke up here, I thought I was suffering the after-effects of too much…celebration.” He hesitates over the last word. It doesn’t sit right on his tongue.
She notices. “What did you think about Odin’s announcement?”
The chair crashes back down on all fours. “I thought he was a fool. Thor is – was – not ready to be king. He would plunge all of Asgard into war before the day was out.”
“But?”
He jumps up from the chair. “But he’s not the same now, is he?” he spits. “I can tell. Is that why you love him, Jane Foster? Because of his—his goodness? Or is it because you want to be a queen?”
She’s on her feet, glaring him, fists clenched at her sides. “If that’s all you think of me, then why the hell did you kiss me last night?”
He grows hot, then icy cold, caught in his own lie. He stretches out a hand and takes hold of her chin; she’s so small, so fine, he could crush her if he squeezed hard enough. Yet no matter what he does to her body, he will never reach her heart, her soul. And that is what he wants. “You should be mine,” he whispers.
“I’m not a thing, thank you,” Jane snaps, stepping back. “I’m a person and I have a mind of my own.”
“Of course. What is the second son when there is a crown to be had? Not that I would want my brother’s cast-off.”
She hits him. Hard. He stumbles back, and a slow smile spreads across his lips. “I like you,” he says.
Jane is not amused. Her eyes are narrowed and she is seething. “Asshole. And to think for a minute I thought you might actually have a chance.” She turns on her heel and stalks off, grabbing her coat. Half way out the door, she looks at him over her shoulder, her face white, eyes too bright. “And for what it’s worth, Thor and I aren’t together. We haven’t been for over a year.”
Then she’s gone. He stares at the spot where she stood and slowly sinks into the chair, wondering what in Hel he’s done.
Thursday
She’s already hunched over at the computer when he wakes the next morning; her face is pale and there are shadows under her eyes. She doesn’t look up as he passes through to the kitchen.
He stands at the window, staring out at the forest and snow-covered land, seeing the hills rising in the distance, and suddenly the small house feels like a prison. Without a word to Jane, he opens the kitchen door and steps out into the sun and the cold. The heat of the sun and the ice in the wind sink into his bones, and he breathes deeply.
He wanders for hours, creating whirlwinds of snow that chase each other, and making frost patterns on the frozen lake. The forest is silent and his thoughts are loud, making them harder to ignore.
“And to think for a minute I thought you might actually have a chance.”
“For what it’s worth, Thor and I aren’t together.”
“Asshole.”
But what haunts him most is her face as she spoke the words. She was disappointed. In him.
He wishes he didn’t care. About her. About Thor. About what they think of him. Damn. Damn. Damn. He grabs a stone and hurls it into the trees. There is a splintering crash from somewhere within the forest, and he feels perversely satisfied.
“Hitting doesn’t solve everything.”
“Shut up,” he growls, and breaks into a run.
Night is falling by the time he reaches the house again. A light shines in the kitchen window but he makes no move to enter. Not yet. Instead, he follows the footprints that lead from the kitchen door to a shed in the middle of the yard.
The door groans as he opens it, hinges stiff with cold, and he steps inside. “Ljos,” he whispers, and a glowing ball of light appears to hover above his hand.
Standing before him is a massive telescope, one such as he has never seen. How beautiful. He steps forward to look at it, throwing the light into the air so it floats above him. Peering through the lens, he sees, as though he were standing before them, the constellations Jane had named for him.
It seems so long ago.
He steps away from the instrument, suddenly tired. His head is throbbing again, though whether from lack of sleep or from the bloody ravens, he doesn’t know. For the first time in his life he has broken something he has no idea how to fix.
“Silvertongue turned to lead?”
The flash of memory – but from where? – only increases the pain in his skull.
“Myrkr,” he says, and the light goes out.
Without a backward glance, he leaves the shed and closes the door behind him. As he makes his way towards the house, he sees two small shapes, black against the snow. He draws closer and they move, wings twitching, hopping from one foot to the other.
“Crawk!”
Searing pain stabs his head and he screams, collapsing into the snow.
“Crawk! Seven days you will not know your past. And then you will die.”
“No!”
The mark on his neck is burning, burning, and he screams again, clawing at the snow.
“Loki!”
The pain in his head, the burning on his skin, cease abruptly. Someone – Jane – is holding him, her arms wrapped around his chest, her head next to his. “Jane…” His gaze darts to the ravens, but they are gone.
“Loki, what the hell—”
“I remember,” he whispers, terror rising in his throat. “I remember what they said to me.”
And then the darkness takes him.
~*~
He looks in the direction of the cushioned chair. By the light of the stars streaming through the window, he sees Jane, curled up and covered in a blanket.
A sigh escapes his lips and he closes his eyes. And sleeps.
Friday
Jane watches him over the rim of her mug. They’re sitting at the kitchen table with the morning light streaming through the windows, making dust motes sparkle and turning Jane’s hair a deep gold.
“Seven days you shall not know your past. And then you will die.”
The mark on his neck throbs painfully beneath the bandage. Seven days and he’s already wasted two of them by baiting her with his own jealousy and resentment. It’s not fair.
“So are you going to tell me what happened last night?” she asks.
She still hasn’t forgiven him. That much is clear from her voice. And what did you expect? He looks out the window. “Will you walk with me?”
She hesitates. At last she sets down her mug. “Fine. Let me get my coat.”
The arctic wind has swept away all their tracks from the night before so he cannot tell if he imagined Huginn and Muninn or if they were truly there. Bastards.
They walk in silence until they reach the lake. Jane’s impatience overflows and she grabs his arm, tugging him around so he’s looking at her. “So. Talk.”
A smile pulls at his mouth. “You have fire in you, Jane Foster.”
“Yeah, thanks. Answers. Now.”
He looks at her, wondering if she’ll believe him. “I saw Huginn and Muninn last night,” he says. “I don’t know if they were real or a vision but—I remembered their words to me.”
Her forehead creases in a frown. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
He laughs and it grates in his throat. “They told me that for seven days I would have no memory of my past. And then I would die.”
She drops his arm. “You manipulative bastard. You expect me to believe that? After everything you said the other night?” Tears are streaming down her face. “You’re the same as you’ve always been.”
She’s even further beyond his reach than before. He cannot see straight. He wants to shake her until she believes him. “Am I? Jane Foster, I don’t know who it was you knew. But this—” His fingers fumble with the bandage on his neck and he rips it off; the wound is still oozing. “This is no lie.”
Jane turns away and he closes his eyes.
“Why?” she asks, still avoiding his gaze.
“Why what?”
“Why did you kiss me?”
The memory of that moment – her laughter, the touch of her lips – crashes down upon him and he falls to one knee, suddenly unable to stand. Truth has never come easy to his lips. “Because you are right. If we come from the stars, then we are from the same one. Because—”
He never finishes. Her mouth is on his and she is kissing him so deeply he doesn’t know whose air he’s breathing. He tastes her tears, the lingering sweetness of maple syrup. The constellation of her soul pours into his and he wraps his arms around, her pulling her down with him as he falls back into the snow.
Saturday
A strange and insistent beeping penetrates the deep of sleep and the mattress shifts as Jane bounds out of bed and runs from the room. The beeping falls blessedly silent, but then—
“Loki! Oh my god, you have to see this!”
He smiles and rolls out from under the covers. Grabbing a housecoat from the closet, he follows the sound of her voice into the main room. She is waving a piece of paper in the air and staring hard at the computer screen. He plucks the paper from her hands and kisses the base of her neck. She shivers at his touch, despite the data on the screen, and he grins.
“Now what must I see?” he asks, reading over the paper.
She squeaks and points at the shifting colours of the model before her. “Look at the readings! They’re off the chart. Oh my god, this is incredible…”
They spend the next hour checking and re-checking the data, and when Jane is positive she hasn’t made any errors she allows Loki to pull her into the kitchen. “I’ve been told that mortals need to eat,” he says dryly. “And you do not.”
She glances over her shoulder at the computer screen. “Only sometimes…”
He laughs.
~*~
“Mmm?”
They’re sitting on a fallen log by the lake, waiting for calculations to finish running. “Why do you hate Thor?”
Hate. He’s about to deny it, but something stops him. The word doesn’t sit right, but it doesn’t ring false either. “Why do I hate Thor?” he repeats slowly. “Does the man I’ve been hate him?”
Jane makes a face. “It’s complicated. Thor didn’t tell me everything – I don’t think he could – but, well. You hurt him.”
He hunches his shoulders. He doesn’t want to talk about Thor. But she’s looking at him with that look. “I don’t think I hate him,” he says at last. “But…I have always been in his great shadow. All I ever wanted was to be his equal. To be first with someone.” The words taste sour. He isn’t even first with Jane.
“He loves you, you know. I’ve never seen anyone more messed up than he was over you.”
“And yet he does not trust me.”
She snorts. “I’m not going to lie, Loki. You haven’t given him much reason.”
“And you, Jane Foster? Do you trust me?”
She hesitates and a band tightens around his heart. “I think so, yes,” she says at last. “And I don’t know why. But I do. Because I couldn’t love you if I didn’t trust you.”
“Loving Thor must have been so much easier.”
She huffs in exasperation and moves so she is sitting on his lap, straddling him. She takes his face in her hands and he feels himself disappearing into the depths of her eyes.
“Easier has nothing to do with it. Do you know the difference between the life of your life and a soul mate?” she asks, brushing her lips against his.
“No,” he answers, shivering.
“One is a choice. The other is not.”
“And which one am I?”
“If you haven’t figured that one out yet, then you’re not as smart as I thought.”
Sunday
Thor returns.
He takes one look at the two of them, how Loki orbits Jane as though he is the Earth and she is the Sun, how she lights up in his presence, and smiles. Then he remembers the reason for all this and the smile disappears.
“You found them?” Loki asks.
Thor nods. “Yes.” He hesitates. “Loki—”
“We know,” Jane says, her face tight. “He remembered what they said. They wouldn’t reverse it?”
“No.” Thor sighs and sinks down onto one of the chairs. It creaks ominously beneath him, apparently never designed for anything other than spindly academics. “From what I could understand – they speak in riddles, brother – they claim it was an oracle. They can’t undo it.”
“Oracles are to be trusted less than I,” Loki says dryly. He’s perversely amused to see that Thor has no idea how to react.
“Outside,” Jane says, standing up. “Now. I’m not spending my last day with you sitting in front of a computer. Thor, change your clothes so you blend in. There’s some stuff in Loki’s room.” Then she marches to the closet, grabs her coat, and heads out the door. It slams shut behind her.
Loki and Thor stare at each other. Loki grins. It’s either that or scream. “My lady awaits us.”
~*~
“Jane?” Loki calls.
A snowball hits him square in the face. Beside him Thor roars with laughter. “She’s bested you, broth—”
A mouthful of snow stops the sentence for him. “She’s bested you as well, it seems,” Loki says, and grins. “You will pay for this, Jane Foster.”
He hears her laughter, but he can’t see her. “Only if you can catch me!”
He whirls. She’s just disappearing around the corner. “Is that a challenge?”
“Damn right it is.”
His grin widens and he glances at Thor, who is already holding a handful of perfectly shaped snowballs. “Brother, shall we go to war?”
“With pleasure.”
~*~
I’m not ready.
Slowly, Loki rises. “Brother, I don’t know what I was or what I am. But never doubt I love you.”
Thor’s face is ashen and he grabs Loki in a hug that almost breaks his ribs. He pulls away, his face streaked with tears, and walks away, leaving Jane and Loki alone.
“Jane, will you join me on the roof? I do not wish to spend my last hours in here.”
She nods wordlessly and they climb the staircase, hand in hand. A moment later they emerge onto the roof. He sits down, his back against the ledge, and pulls Jane into his arms, resting his chin on her head.
“I don’t want to go,” he whispers.
“I don’t you to go either,” she answers, her voice hoarse
He tightens his grip on her, as though that will keep him anchored to life. You bastards. “What time is it?”
She looks down at her watch. “Eleven o’clock.”
One hour. “Tell me of your stars, Jane.”
She sniffles. “Well, the one that looks like a big W is Cassiopeia…”
He loses himself in the sound of her voice and time slips by. At length her voice cracks and she falls silent.
“Jane?”
“It’s eleven fifty-nine. Oh dammit.” She turns and wraps her arms around his neck. “Don’t leave,” she whispers.
He kisses her throat, where the pulse beats. I do not go gently. “You’re part of my star, Jane Foster. I can never leave you.” He buries his face in her hair, afraid to let her go.
It is then that he realizes he is cold. He has never been cold.
He breaks away from Jane, shivering, a wild hope suddenly blazing in his chest. “Jane, what time is it?”
She rubs her hand across her eyes and looks at her watch. “It’s just past midnight. It’s…Monday. And you’re—”
Carefully he disengages himself from her. “Let me try something.” He holds out his hand. “Ljos.”
Nothing happens.
He tries again, just to be sure. “Ljos.”
“Loki?” There is both hope and a warning in her voice. Warning that if he has lied, there will be hell to pay.
“Bloody ravens,” he mutters, but he can’t stop the smile spreading across his face. “Damned, bloody, ravens.”
She’s on her feet. “You. Answers. Now.”
He laughs. “I died. Jane, I died. Look.” He holds out his hand again, shouts the word aloud: “Ljos!” Nothing happens. “Don’t you see? I’m human.”
“Oh.” She claps her hands over her mouth. Then she launches herself at him and he brings his mouth to hers. The galaxies within them collide and explode, scattering new constellations across the geography of their souls.
~*~
~finis~