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The pale light of Svartalfheim’s dark sun wasn’t strong enough to cast shadows. And yet, Thor mused, Loki appears like a wraith, a shadow out of time, both too similar and too dissimilar to his former self. A fallen prince, and a beloved younger brother at the same time. How will the inevitable betrayal hurt.
At the bottom of the small valley, standing upon scorched soil, Malekith faced almost absentmindedly at their direction, as if he could sense the Aether even without prior knowledge of its presence.
Thor glanced worriedly at Jane. She was so brave, soldiering on the burden of the Aether without complain in spite of the perils facing them, and standing beside Loki, in spite of his wicked deeds on Midgard. Then -it was a centuries old habit, that even the last treacherous years had yet to fully erase- his gaze landed at Loki. He was pale, ostensibly carved out of dead bone rather than live flesh, like the small figurines they used to play with in their long lost childhoods. An unwelcome but very familiar sentiment arose; concern laden with grief, and a terrible hope that could kill.
Loki turned to face him, a wolfish smirk on his lips, and the moment shattered into a million shrapnel, like an exploding skiff.
“You still don’t trust me, brother,” Loki said, dead eyes staring at him as if they could see through him deep into his core. He raised his arms, and Thor swallowed his hesitation before taking the shackles off.
“Would you?”
“No, I wouldn’t.” Loki slipped out a dagger, and Niflheim broke loose.
“Thor! No!” Jane screamed and Thor felt a pang of despair at the fear in her voice, even though he understood the necessity of their performance.
Loki stabbed him in a brutal fashion, and though the false blade was painless, Thor went down immediately. Rolling down the hill was more unpleasant, but he bore it. To lend an air of believability to this scheme, Thor made a show of attempting to summon Mjolnir, that was thwarted soundly by Loki, necessitating the illusion of a cut hand.
The controlled chaos that usually resulted from their plans was invigorating. As Thor laid in the ground, writhing in mock pain and cradling his ostensibly harmed hand in his chest, Loki made his speech.
“Malekith, I am Loki of Jotunheim and I bring you a gift. I ask only one thing in return, a good seat from which to watch Asgard burn.” The venom dripping from his words, was it real or false? It didn’t matter Thor supposed, and yet the very thought Loki may believe every word he uttered hurt Thor, like a dagger buried in his side.
Loki threw Jane at Malekith’s feet and Thor would have preferred a gentler treatment than that, for all he understood its purpose.
“Look at me,” Malekith said, his foot digging into Thor’s side as he turned Thor forcefully on his back.
Ancient seiðr stirring, carrying whispers and promises, secrets and curses, caressing his skin in an unpleasant tingle and making the hair of the neck stand. Thor shuddered, the sensation visceral, unsettling. Loki must’ve felt the same if not more, and yet it didn’t show on his face.
Jane was lifted into the air, levitating, as red bled out of her. Not blood, Thor reminded himself, but the Aether. Formless as a cloud, its tendrils slithering around, permeating the very air of Svartalfheim.
Readying to strike first, Thor pushed himself up.
Loki moved faster.
Arms outstretched, fingers slightly curled stiffly in the air, tongue curling around ancient, painful words. In the literal sense; Thor’s eardrums hurt as though they would pierce. An unwilling scream was dragged out of his throat, eyes clenching closed before he forcibly pried them open, turning his gaze upward.
What are you doing, he wanted to shout.
Fingers grasping around red threads, shimmering with eldritch energies, Loki strained against Malekith’s pull. The Aether crackled, flaring up and Thor could not put into words what followed in the explosion.
Strange worlds, born of dreams and dust, malleable as sand, flickered into being and died premature deaths in agony. The entirety of this existence appeared like naught but an elusive dream itself, as if this mayfly world was little more than a brief flicker of light conjured to life only to die in darkness. With a grim certainty, he knew that nary a glimmer of ken of these worlds would be preserved, nor of the peoples that lived their vain existence in them.
Thor was thrown onto the rocks, and for but the flicker of a candle, the world dissolved into insanity. He screwed his eyes shut against the onslaught. Loki’s rage-filled scream roused him, and when he blinked, still struggling to breathe from the forceful impact, Malekith was nowhere to be seen, and his brother’s eyes were glowing red. Not at all unlike the crimson beneath the pale green, Aesir colouring which Loki had worn his entire life, but in truth was nothing but the deep vermillion of the Aether.
Thor strained to climb to his feet as fast as possible. Loki had the Aether, and for all that meant that Malekith and the Dark Elves were no more, it made Thor unaccountably nervous. His brother was -in and of himself- a very different kind of threat.
Loki panted heavily, staring straight ahead with empty eyes. Thor could not guess what was on his mind. He approached warily, braced for an attack, gesturing for Jane to hide, to stay away. Loki’s head turned abruptly, tilted slightly to the side, as if curious. Dead, dead eyes stared through him, and Thor swallowed hard.
“Brother,” he said, uncertain, but Loki appeared almost possessed, in a way that Jane hadn’t.
“I don’t wanna do this, Amma,” Loki said pleadingly, and Thor could not believe in his ears. He took a step forward, as Loki swayed on his feet, letting out an inarticulate cry before collapsing.
The Aether’s presence was chaos incarnate, buzzing energetically beneath his skin, its frantic power tenfold the one Loki had imagined it initially.
With a word, Malekith and all his forsaken kin and kith were no more. Just like that, the one who dared breach Asgard’s walls and take from Loki the only person who had ever loved him was dead.
The Aether sang in his veins, and red seeped into his vision. For the first time in his life he felt a dizzying sort of freedom. With barely a glance he could darken suns, with a flick of his wrist he could fell the Mad Titan himself. All this power, his to command.
“Loki,” Frigga said from somewhere behind him, and he froze, not daring to move, not daring to breathe, lest the vision shatter, and he was left alone again.
He swore that the wind carried the fragrance of her perfume, the one which she had wore when he was but a small child. Half-forgotten memories stirred, of running in flowery gardens and rolling green hills, and of her smile, sweet as the perfume she favoured. The softness of her hands as she caressed his cheeks, wiping away tears and hurts, the playful tenor of her voice when she spun bedtime stories, the sense of her seiðr as she wove her threads, healing bruises and cuts, soothing away all pain like balsam.
A brush of her fingers on his jaw, and he shuddered, letting out a small sound. “Mother?” he queried, not daring deny this simple truth.
Her eyes were a deep vermillion red, as she came to stand before him. “My son.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I was wrong, so so wrong-” he gasped. “I didn’t mean what I said, you will be always my mother.”
“It is all right,” she said, pausing briefly. Lips curling upward in a half-smile, she spoke airily. “Perhaps I can find it in me to forgive you.” That last sentence was spoken playfully, or so he thought.
Something about her grin felt eerily empty, without the liveliness that had been so characteristic to her prior... prior to her death. Loki ignored the nagging sense of wrongness in his gut, as a single tear ran down his cheek.
She knew. Or did she?
Another tear rolled down his cheekbone, and then an other. “I’m the reason you died,” he said, voice shrill and frantic. “I told him-”
She raised her hand, and he fell silent. Her soft expression had become blank, and he couldn’t continue, he couldn’t see her love turning into hate.
“Only I always stood by you. All these months of isolation... the rest of your family gave you up for lost, everyone except me...” her whisper carried away with the wind, rising and rising. “This is how you’ve repaid my love?”
Loki made to interrupt, as if that would make his greater fears go unrealised. “Please, don’t-” His voice died in his throat, the taste of his own new-born words putrid in his mouth, as her elegant features twisted with disgust.
“Perhaps this was ever your nature, and my love had simply blinded me. You were born to our sworn enemies after all, it is their foul blood that runs through your veins.”
Don’t hate me, please, please...
“What can I do?” he pleaded, “How can I help?” How can I show you I didn’t mean for things to get out of hand, for you to be hurt, I never would, I love you, for all my anger and fear I still do-
Her red eyes sparkled, as if that was what she hoped to hear. “All I seek is unity, that sense of wholeness. All I miss is my siblings. You’ll help me find them, won’t you?”
Her hand had found its way to his cheek again, and he sighed, eyes drifting close despite his wishes. He felt himself weakening, even as her hands tilted his head forward, planting a soft kiss on his forehead. Her lips were cold like death against his skin.
Eyelids flying open in alarm, Loki found himself in the smoking ruins of a grand city, burned to ashes. In the space of a breath, he realised that this was Asgard. Drawing a hissing breath, he stumbled back. The blackened ruins surrounding him seemed to accuse, and with a start he realised his own hands were stained red.
This is your destiny, Frigga murmured, her breath cold and humid in his ear, little prince, and Loki shuddered, something of the Other and of Thanos in her voice.
“I don’t want this,” he yelled, voice rising into a scream above the howling of the wind, of the Void swallowing him whole, “I don’t want to do this, Amma,” he begged, eyes screwing shut, hoping this false, nightmarish vision would simply fade, for anger and hatred flowed into his veins like venom, but Asgard was a sanctuary and a prison all at once, a home in which he had never truly belonged but would ever remain a part of himself-
“Mother,” he repeated, pleading, but she was gone again, and he had already fallen, tumbling down the hungry abyss, his slowly rotting carcass floating in a sea of endless red, red as his blood should have been, red as the Aether was. An inexplicable sense of loss followed at his heels, as consciousness faded.
Thor let out a sigh of relief when the small, portable mirror placed in front of Loki’s nose fogged. His breathing was shallow and slow, chest rising and falling imperceptibly.
“I never imagined that this would be useful, and -honestly- I’d rather not carry one with me, I dislike make-up, but Darcy always insists, and she was the one to gift it to me-” Jane babbled anxiously.
It was her idea. When Thor hadn’t been able to find a pulse and his brother had appeared cold as a cooling corpse, dread had filled his mind and blurred his thoughts, a repeated mantra of this can’t be happening, and not again had spilled from his lips like so many prayers.
Loki laid still and unresponsive, but alive, and that was enough for the moment.
Jane withdrew the mirror and sought Loki’s pulse. “There,” she said two fingers pressing into his neck, then guided Thor’s hand into the same position as hers.
In his panic, he must have missed it. It was a thready pulse, but it meant that his brother’s heart was still beating, even if far quicker than it should, labouring on.
The thing that concerned him more was Loki’s reaction to the Aether. Jane had not deteriorated so swiftly. Or had she? It was difficult to say.
“We must return to Asgard,” he said. He gathered Loki in his arms, standing up. “Malekith is vanquished, and Loki...” Loki needs urgent help. Though what healing he will find in Asgard, I know not.
“That’s okay. Um... how will we go there?”
“The Bifrost. Hopefully.”
Jane’s eyebrows rose adorably, in an expression of disbelief. “Your father was pissed. I’m not certain he will-”
Thor smiled tightly, and Jane’s expression shifted to regret. “As displeased as he may be, and I know that he is, he won’t forsake us.” Or the Aether.
Mother’s death had made Odin more rigidly firm in his ways, and that could have severe consequences moving forward. He could only hope Odin would not abandon them in these dire time, that he would eventually be forgiven for his recklessness, for it was a necessary measure to save the Nine.
Her gaze softened. “You know him best.”
Do I? Throwing back his head, he bellowed, “Heimdall!”
A few seconds passed, and his heart clenched in his chest.
Then a colourful pillar of light descended, lending a smudge of life to this dead land. A swirl of colour and the golden dome of the Rainbow Bridge came into view.
Loki did not so much as stir during the ride to the healers. When Thor laid him on the soul-forge, Eir immediately pursed her lips.
“I cannot mend what ails him,” she announced, shaking her head as her shrewd eyes focused on the runes floating above.
“I know,” Thor said. “Is there nothing you can do to-”
The door swung open with a bang.
Thor’s gaze snapped at the entrance, on Odin, who stood tall and imposing, still dressed in his armour, every inch a warrior King. The one Mother said he had been, a long time ago, before his sons came along. The one Thor had thought gone, turned into a peacemaker. Maybe the transformation had never been a complete one. Even a glimpse of that past though, made Thor uneasy, wary.
The healers scurried away, with the lone exception of Eir. The healing halls were her domain, and she would not cower, even from the Allfather himself. Jane held herself composed as well, never moving from the corner, in which she had nestled to allow the healers to work unimpeded. Her brilliant eyes followed the proceedings carefully.
“Father,” Thor said calmly.
Odin’s expression was stony, his eye focusing on Loki. “I felt the Aether’s wretched presence the moment you set foot on Asgard. What have you done, Thor?”
He squared his shoulders, as if entering a fight. “I saved Asgard, without spilling a single drop of Aesir blood.”
Odin scoffed, but did not reply verbally. With a few brisk strides, he was beside Loki’s sickbed. There was something in his eye; whether sorrow or fear Thor could not tell. Then -lighting-quick- he put his hands on Loki’s temples. Before Thor could have formed a query or an objection, Loki began to seize.
Rich red seeped from Loki’s eyes, his nose, his ears, as if he were bleeding and Thor cried out in alarm. He had half a mind to stop Odin, before his mind caught up with his body.
The Aether dripped onto the floor like heavy mist, then -as if it had a will of its own- it floated towards the ceiling. There over their heads, a vermillion cloud was slowly forming.
Thor stared wide-eyed at that formless red mass swirling indecisively, as if trying to figure out where to strike first. A low moan of pain, and then a choked whimper, brought his gaze back to Loki.
Tears were rolling down his cheeks, eyes screwed tight in pain. Thor would have moved, if not for a tight grip on his arm.
“You should know better than to interrupt such a volatile procedure,” Eir said in his ear, taking the place that Loki had do often in his life occupied, the voice of reason in the tempest of his emotions.
He clenched his teeth, balled his fists until the nails dug into flesh, and forced himself to stay put.
The Aether didn’t lash out, merely spiralling in a vortex near the chamber’s ceiling, until it was extracted completely. Odin snapped his fingers, and the Aether disappeared, as if rendered utterly invisible.
Thor’s eyes did not leave Loki’s form, which was still racked with nearly imperceptible spasms. The small sounds of pain gradually died down, face relaxing once more.
“You gave an artefact of immense power to a traitor,” Odin said, eye boring into Thor’s, his voice firm and ostensibly uncaring.
A hint of guilt coloured Thor’s face with shame; he hadn’t thought his plan would turn out this way. Anger prevailed. “Is that all?” he said flatly.
Odin raised an eyebrow, in such a Loki-like fashion that Thor’s temper rose like the tide. “What did you do to him?”
“I saved his life,” Odin replied, a spark of anger in his voice.
“You hurt him!” Thor shouted.
Odin faltered, eye lost somewhere at the distance. “It is an ungentle means of extraction, that much is true, but it was the only way.”
“You always know what is best for everyone,” Thor accused bitterly, chancing a glance at his brother. He laid still now, breathing calmer. “What would Mother say?”
Odin breathed in sharply, a wounded sound. “She would commend my efforts saving her son.”
Thor took a deep breath, turning away. Maybe this was the only way indeed, and yet it did not feel right. “The Aether?”
“Safely contained. For now.”
Thor nodded, approaching Loki, who had remained blessedly unconscious during the argument with Odin.
At that moment, face peacefully slack in his senselessness, Loki appeared as the brother he had once thought he knew better than anyone else. Thor laid a palm on his feverish forehead, tucking a stray curl behind his ear. Loki had saved them, but was that his intent? Or was it only his need for vengeance? Thor felt oddly numb.
“Leave us,” Thor said, as if he could order the Allfather of Asgard himself.
In the ensuing silence, Thor thought Odin would disagree. He was both pleased and annoyed by this notion. Instead, there was only the sound of receding footsteps. The doors closed behind him silently.
Jane cleared her throat, a gentle remainder of her existence amidst the tumultuous seas of his family bonds, the trust that they should have shared, which appeared irrevocably damaged, if not utterly broken. When he turned to face her, she appeared thoroughly uncomfortable.
“Would you prefer to return to Midgard?” Thor asked reluctantly, brow furrowed in consternation.
Jane narrowed her eyes. “I won’t simply pass the Aether on and then leave you to deal with the consequences. I want to help,” she hissed, sounding mildly offended.
Thor nodded in affirmation, even though he had no idea how she could help.
For all her good intentions, she probably did not know either.
Loki remained unbound to decrease the probability of a relapse, and Thor stayed by his brother’s side in spite for Eir’s assurances of a swift recovery. Or maybe because of it. He couldn’t trust that Loki wouldn’t disappear if left alone.
Thor was never good at waiting. Most of his time was spent pacing across the healing chamber like a bilgesnipe in the confines of its enclosure.
Jane spoke to him softly of a myriad different subjects; it seemed to him they were related with her work, but Midgard’s seiðr was ever beyond him, as much as Loki’s or Frigga’s was. Mother never spoke much of her weavings – but Loki did, especially so when he was younger.
He missed Frigga so much; her absence was like a jagged, blade that cut painfully into flesh, and did more damage if one attempted to removed it without proper consideration. Attempting to push past the sorrow he focused to Jane’s soothing murmur. It lulled him into a sense of calmness in spite the disquieting events of those past few days.
She slipped into discussing the fates of faraway suns seamlessly. Thor had never thought much on the matters of heavenly bodies before; for all his brother had attempted to drill into his head various facts about them at a young age. Therefore, it was with both interest and a sense of foreboding that he learnt that the largest, brightest stars burned the fastest, dying quicker than the smaller, dimmer ones. More ominous was that the stars in the skies -even those that appeared as if they burned bright- could as well be dead and gone; haunting the heavens still, like half-forgotten ghosts pleading to remain in the memories of the living.
His thoughts wandered to his brother; his once brilliant mind twisted by the darkness of madness. How pieces of the Loki he once knew immerged at times from beneath the tumultuous waves of emotions produced by his insanity.
The night had fallen, and Thor had convinced Jane to retire not long ago, when Loki stirred. Thor immediately stopped fiddling with Loki’s dagger -the one he had furnished Loki not a day prior- setting it away with a clang.
Loki flinched away from the sound.
A slim sliver of moonlight fell on his face. “Loki?”
His brother opened his eyes to slits, face pulling into a grimace. With a trembling hand he rubbed at his forehead.
Thor yearned to touch, to offer comfort. Instead, he crossed his arms, staring at him intently in the semidarkness. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been trampled by a herd of bilgesnipes,” Loki rasped. “It’s gone. The Aether.”
Thor’s expression was stony, like it was frozen upon his face. “When did you decide?”
Loki blinked. “What?” he said conversationally.
“That you would try and steal the Aether for yourself.”
Loki’s smile cut as a blade. “Ah.”
“What did you plan to do with it?” Thor asked flatly, a storm brimming somewhere beneath the skin.
Loki’s chuckle held little mirth. “As if you would understand.”
That insult – familiar yet annoying, made his blood simmer on the precipice of boiling. He should’ve known, he had known, and yet he had hoped-
“She is gone, isn’t she?” Loki said in a small voice, interrupting the wild currents of Thor’s thoughts.
He frowned, bewildered. “Mother? Did you think we’d lie to you about something like that?”
“I saw...” he trailed off, shaking his head slightly.
Frown deepening, Thor leaned forward. “Did you see her?” he said evenly.
Loki turned on his side, locking eyes with Thor. “I saw Frigga.”
Thor cast his mind back on the words that had left Loki’s mouth when he was possessed by the Aether. “How... did you have a vision?”
Loki’s exhale was shaky. “I- I don’t think so, it wasn’t her, not truly.” His head turned slightly up, and the moonlight made the tear tracks on his cheeks glisten.
Thor sighed audibly, even as his heart clenched unpleasantly into his chest.
“It wouldn’t have worked. Your plan,” Loki insisted in the ensuing silence, eyes lost somewhere at the distance.
“Am I to believe that you merely took the Aether to aid us?” Thor asked incredulously, his voice tinged with a hint of his earlier anger.
Loki’s smirk did not reach his eyes. “Naturally. You ever believe in me, brother.”
The strong urge to grab Loki by the shoulders and shake him came as naturally as breathing. The only thing that stopped Thor was how stiffly Loki held himself, as though he was still in pain. Instead, he merely clenched his fists, and glared. “I’m not the fool you always thought me to be. Not anymore.”
Soft footfalls echoed from the corridor, and not a moment later Jane appeared on the door. Loki heaved a soft sigh, reclining back into the cot, a brittle grin splitting his face in two. His cheeks were still damp, and Thor wondered if he knew. “Lady Jane, what a pleasant surprise.”
She tilted her head to the side, considering them. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said in lieu of response.
“Jane,” Thor said worriedly, “mayhap it would be-”
“My, Thor. You needn’t be rude.” The grin widened into an ugly smirk, showing two rows of perfectly white teeth. “You are welcome to my humble abode, Lady Jane.”
Her brow furrowed, and Thor glanced nastily at Loki, even as he knew that this would end poorly. “Loki,” he growled in warning.
Jane’s quiet voice made his break off. “I’m sorry about your mother.”
That is the wrong thing to say. Tension coiled into his muscles, and Thor readier for a fight, be that with words or actions.
Loki scowled. “I care naught of your-”
“When I held the Aether, I had... I wouldn’t call them hallucinations, but I saw some very odd things,” Jane forged on.
Shoulder’s raised defensively, Loki sneered. “And?”
“What did you see?” she asked.
Loki’s lips curled in disgust. “Even if I were inclined to share anything with you,” he began.
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t think so, but you called out for her when under the Aether’s influence-”
Loki’s face contorted in rage. “Get out,” he said coldly. “You’ve overstayed your welcome.”
“Loki,” Thor said in warning, then, “Jane, please.”
“It’s alright,” she said, a half-smile on her too-pale face. “I’ll take my leave.”
When the door closed behind her, Thor spoke. “Brother-”
“Pray tell, why do you believe I have need of your sentimental drivel-”
Frustration welled up, sudden and fierce. “What have I ever done for you to hate me so?”
Loki’s face was wreathed in shadows. “More than you could imagine,” he said, eerily calm.
“Did you ever love me?”
Loki closed his eyes. “Yes. I never ceased, but you did.”
Thor’s eyes widened a hair. “How can you say so? When I sought every opportunity to mend the wounds that lay between us!” His voice had risen to a shout.
“How can I?” Loki yelled back. “You surely must know what I am, you refused me the last opportunity to say Mother farewell, you never once visited me on my cell-”
“Your heritage matters not to me!”
Loki laughed hysterically. “That is our way. What means the world to me, matters not to you.”
“Brother,” Thor pleaded. “Cease this madness.”
“You might as well beg the sun to cease shining, or the moon to cease causing the tides.”
“Change isn’t impossible. The moon changes phases, after all.”
“Sometimes I wonder.” Loki sounded immensely tired. “I miss her.” His voice wavered at that last word.
The lump in his throat made swallowing hard. “Me too. I’m sorry.”
Loki sighed, hand threading through his mussed hair, struggling to tame his curls. “It doesn’t matter. It’s too late,” he said dully.
“I won’t ever accept that.”
Loki’s smile was a small, wretched thing. “You never knew when to cease fighting, nor how to recognise that something is a lost cause.”
Thor stared at him imploringly. “No matter how far you stray from the path of righteousness, you can always steer your horse back onto the correct route.”
“Flowery speeches do not become you,” Loki huffed.
Thor gave him a weak smile.
Loki sobered quickly. “Will you send me back?” he asked softly.
Thor grimaced. “I don’t want to.”
“But you have to.”
“I will speak to Father,” he promised.
His brother nodded once. “Very well.”
The dead silence of the night filled the chamber, suffocating any words that would have left from their mouths. It may have been that silence, or Loki’s seiðr, that lulled Thor into a pleasant slumber.
The fact remained, that when he opened his eyes the dawn was breaking, and he was completely and utterly alone. The only memory that surfaced to mind was of a kiss planted to his temple, and Loki’s voice saying gently, until we meet again.
For a scant few weeks, Loki had been free, roaming Asgard’s halls in the guise of servants and guards alike. Watching carefully Odin and Thor through strangers’ eyes, visiting his mother’s chambers daily as if to summon her essence to the land of the living. He skulked through shadowed corridors, never daring to wear his own form for fear of discovery. He had never felt more like a ghost, haunting the lives of the people he’d once loved. The people he’d once been certain had loved him as well.
Naught of this certainty existed anymore.
Loki would not be found, should he not want to. So why was he so fearful?
So long as he remained in Asgard he should be safe. So why risk it?
Why wear dark hair or green eyes and twist his features to familiar expressions when he was near Thor? Why every time he faced Thor he allowed more and more of himself to show? Before Loki had sunk to desperation, he had convinced himself that it was merely a taunt. A way to strike then slip back into the shadows.
How long could he play at being a shade, an apparition before he drove himself to insanity?
The day Thor petitioned to depart for Midgard, the Court was brimming with whispers and speculations. It was the last drop of water into a brimming cup; with emotions he could barely even name -much less understand- Loki took flight.
His magpie form was light and agile– he was breezing through the window, climbing higher and higher, as though he would reach the ascendant sun himself and burn in his glory. The impulse lasted nary a moment; he landed gracelessly upon Thor’s windowsill, jumping inside with nary a movement of his wings.
For the first time in months, he adopted his own form. Not the real one, no, that one he suspected he would never find the courage to don. Loki spent the rest of the day there, pacing, vibrating with an urgency and fury he could not quite put to words.
As the sun was setting, Thor came.
Thor didn’t appear very surprised to find Loki lounging in his loveseat, a bored expression etched on his face. His pillow had become a pincushion for Loki’s daggers, but not even that seemed to phase him.
“Running to Midgard, are you?” Loki said flatly.
“If anyone ran, it was you.”
Loki did not lose his composure, for all he wished to scream and rage. “You are supposed to be better than me.”
Thor’s face set, eyes shutting wearily. “What do you want, Loki?”
I want you to stay. I’ve nothing left but you. “For you to not abandon your duties.”
Thor raised a brow. “Since when did you care for obligations?”
“I always cared, far more than you ever did, it seems,” Loki accused coldly, keeping his voice low and poisonous.
“Don’t you dare!” Thor growled. “Do not dare taint the truth with your filthy lies. I’ve loved my brother for a thousand years. I wasn’t the one who ran, who let go when I had the chance to hold on!”
Loki’s lip twitched. Anger and sorrow fought for dominance but none won. Then, he did the unthinkable. He closed his eyes, reaching somewhere deep into his core, and tagged, pulled with all his might, as if he were a creature possessed.
When his eyes blinked open, tribal marks marred his blue flesh, and bile rose in his throat. He very nearly heaved.
Loki didn’t dare look into Thor’s eyes, too afraid of what he may see there. Eyes fixed on the window, he spoke. “You asked me what I saw on that vision. I am to be your ruin, Asgard’s ruin. Wherever I go, there’s destruction left in my wake. This is what I am. What I always was.”
“It is not. You are Loki. Nothing else matters.” Thor’s voice was soft, gentle even.
Loki couldn’t reply, he could barely even think. He stared at his hands -an icy, sickening hue of blue- in muted despair. “You will leave me. Like Mother. Like everyone else has.”
“Brother,” Thor said, hand stretched out like an olive branch. “We determine who we are. No one else.”
Loki shook his head. “I can’t go back in that cell. I can’t. Please, don’t make me.”
“I won’t.” Thor regarded him calmly. “Loki, brother... Why are you still here?”
He shrugged helplessly. “I have nowhere else to go. Asgard is a prison and a sanctuary, both at once.”
“Why? Why can’t you leave?”
His chest tightened, every breath harder and harder. “I- do you wish me to go?” Loki chocked out. If he wasn’t wanted here, where would he go?
Thor stayed silent for a few breaths. “No, I don’t want you to go. I thought you did.”
Loki laughed shrilly. “Be that I could. He’ll know, he’ll find me, and there is nowhere, nowhere I could hide from him. Not in the furthest reaches of the cosmos will I ever be safe.”
“What do you mean?” Thor’s incredulity stung. “Father wouldn’t hunt you down. So long as you didn’t cause trouble.”
“I’m not talking about him.” His voice was high-pitched and hysterical even to his own ears.
“Who then?”
Loki opened his mouth, but the words wouldn’t come out. How many times had he imagined saying it? Too many to count. He wouldn’t, no couldn’t. He shook his head mutely.
“Who?” Thor paused. “Was it the one who gave you the sceptre?” he asked slowly.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does, very much so.”
A chill ran down Loki’s spine. How could he even be cold in this form? “You know not what you speak of, what horrors the Void held, and holds still.”
“What is it that I should know?”
“Save that I am a monster?”
“Loki.”
“I mean it, in more ways than you may understand. The bargain I struck. To whom I sold the Nine, and the many worlds beyond.”
“What do you mean?” Thor said, his voice holding a surprisingly little amount of ire. His face could be made of stone, so expressionless it was.
“Thanos,” he said, the name tasting of death and nightmares.
“It can’t be,” and there was horror in Thor’s voice. “You are lying.”
“Oh, I always do, but not about that.”
Red eyes met blue. A storm was brewing in them, and the air smelled of ozone. Thor’s fists clenched, and Loki could swear he saw sparks, and heard the sound of distant thunder.
“What have you done, Loki?” Thor hissed lowly.
His face was burning hot, with shame or anger. He grinned nastily. “Do you realise now that there is only one way, brother? One way to be rid the monster.”
“No, Loki.”
Loki shivered, closing his eyes. He didn’t want to see Thor’s face. To do so, would be to render himself unable to finish the tale. “The Void... when I fell, I yearned for oblivion. It wasn’t granted to me. I fell, until I landed. Then, I only wished for the pain to stop.” Breaths coming faster and faster, until they sounded more like gasps than anything else. “It was then that I -unable to bear it anymore- surrendered. I was so weak, that even knowing what was at stake, I accepted.”
“What? The bargain? With Thanos?”
“Midgard for the Tesseract. I never fulfilled my end of the bargain, as you well know.”
“Loki...”
“He looks for me even now. To bring back his wayward cur.”
Heavy footfalls and -all at once- Thor’s hands were on his shoulders, turning Loki to face him, shaking him hard. “You could have said something! Anything!”
Loki struggled to free himself. There was ice in his veins, hissing and thrumming and begging to be used. He pushed down that beastly urge. “What could I say that you didn’t already know? What would you have believed?”
“I...” Thor gave a small thoughtful pause. “I do not know. I was angry, but I would’ve latched onto any hope.”
“Would you?” Loki’s voice was soft.
“I would’ve.”
Loki licked his lips. “How about now?”
Thor’s hands squeezed gently. “It is not too late. It never is.”
Loki surged forward, wrapping his arms around Thor with all his might. He allowed the hideous blue shade to fade away, back to the false white skin. Thor made a startled sound, but returned the embrace without complain.
“I’ll always be here,” Thor promised.
“Liar,” whispered Loki, but somewhere inside he longed to believe, with the certainty he had when he were but a small child, that miracles were an everyday occurance.