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The heat was oppressive, dust rising from the ground and dancing in the air with every stomping step they took. Thor parried then struck a blow with his sword. Steel met steel, before Thor swerved to the right avoiding Sif’s spear.
Channelling his anger and hurt in the weapon training had been a familiar tactic since childhood. After Loki’s fall, rest had been hard to find, whether in his own bed or in the private, quiet moments of his life. Everything that used to give him joy felt meaningless and empty. He still tried to be there for his remaining family, to perform his duties as diligently as possible. He was Odin’s only heir, Asgard’s future King, and that was a heavy burden to bear. Only when driven to the point of exhaustion could he finally sleep, his weighed conscience allowing him a few hours of rest.
Parry Hogun’s mace, strike Volstagg shield, lurch backward as Fandral’s sword swung.
Thor kept moving, because if he ceased, he knew not if he could find within him enough strength to continue. Perhaps that was why rest was so hard to come by. It was a pause, a small cessation of movement, one that could cost anything, if he sat still enough to contemplate.
To truly think how and why things had gotten this way, that made him feel like those first sorrowful days after the fall, when everything appeared like a lie, and reality was seemingly woven with that sense of wrongness, a deep ache that felt almost physical, in a way that his minor flesh wounds could not account for. Loki’s absence felt like a missing limb, and all knew well that whatever potions or healing stones Asgard might possess, growing back an appendage from nothing at all or bringing back the dead were impossible tasks.
The caw of Huginn -one of Odin’s raven familiars- brought Thor back to the present. He panted, small rivulets of sweat running down his forehead. Putting down his sword, he wiped his brow.
Huginn cawed again, insistently.
“What does he want?” Fandral asked, eyes narrowed and staring at the raven.
“Father summons me,” Thor groaned, fists clenching. He was unwilling to leave the sparring grounds, this one sacred place in which he could be himself. Father usually didn’t summon him like that, unless it was of outmost importance, and that alone was telling.
“To hold the court?” Sif suggested, eyebrows raised.
Sighing deeply, Thor nodded, threading his hand through his hair, even as he suspected something grimmer. “I’m afraid I have to bid you farewell, my friends.”
Following Huginn through the palace’s hallways was not an entirely foreign experience. Thor’s heart pounded in his chest, so much so that he scarcely realised that Huginn had brought him through that corridor. Passing by Loki’s chambers was something to be avoided, bringing many bittersweet memories in his mind. Perhaps there would come a day that only the sweetness would remain, or even worse, a day in which they would fade away, and he would lose his brother anew.
Huginn eventually led him to the healing chambers. There, familiar voices greeted him. His parents were arguing, albeit quietly. Thor squared his shoulders preparing himself for anything, and entered.
Mother’s eyes immediately locked in to his, and she fell silent. Odin’s head turned to acknowledge his presence.
“What happened?” Thor queried, dread coiling in his guts.
“Loki,” Odin said and Thor’s heart wrenched. Had they found his brother’s remains? “We’ve found him.” There was a weariness in his voice, and something underneath that he could not quite recognise.
Thor’s vision blurred from the tears, and Frigga added hastily, “alive, we found him alive.”
Thor didn’t wait. He barged through the doors, unheeding of his parents’ cries.
Face a deep cobalt blue, crimson eyes staring up at him a touch too wide. Loki was laying on his side huddled beneath the chiffon blankets. The sheets of his sickbed contrasted starkly to the colour of his skin. Thor pushed down the urge to recoil. He knew what Loki was, of course he knew, but seeing was different than knowing.
“Brother,” he said louder than he meant to, hoping for an affirmation, that whatever had passed between them, they were still kin. Loki only flinched, lowering his gaze to the ground.
Even in this form, Loki appeared haggard, his skin paler than it should have been, his face thinner than Thor remembered it in those last, fateful moments.
Slowly –to avoid startling his brother further– Thor made his way to the chair, the one settled beside the cot. Sitting heavily upon it, he made to grasp Loki’s arm; blue, so blue, with ridges running across it and he couldn’t help but wonder what purpose –if any at all– they served.
Loki pulled away lighting fast, curling into himself more, cradling his limb in his chest as if injured. Thor would have almost preferred Loki’s frost touch than the obvious fear that swept across his features.
“Loki,” he said gentler this time, “you live yet. How?”
His brother raised an eyebrow, and Thor could almost hear him say, that’s rather obvious, don’t you think?
“I know not,” Loki rasped, voice hoarse from the disuse. His gaze had a distant quality to it.
“We thought it impossible, we’ve mourned you for lost-”
Loki snorted. “I can hardly believe that.” The fingers of his right hand dag cruelly at the bandages on the left arms.
Thor’s fingers wrapped around his wrist, stilling Loki. “No matter what has passed between us-”
“Would you rather I didn’t?” he asked, voice small, hunching in on himself.
Thor raised his hand, gently taking hold of Loki’s chin. Alarmed red eyes met his.
“No, never,” he said earnestly. “Why would you think that?”
“Why would I not, when I’m the very incarnation of the monsters that haunted our nightmares?”
“You are not a mon–”
“Am I not? Are my deeds not monstrous?” his voice wavered at the very end.
“Some of them,” Thor admitted carefully, quietly, “those borne out of hurt and anger, but they do not define you. You are more than your mistakes.”
Loki stared for a few heartbeats, eyes piercing Thor’s, as if searching for some hidden truth. “Sometimes I wish I had your heart. You forgive far too easily, even your would be murderer.”
Your mind was far afield. “I forgive my brother. When you fell, I thought you dead by your own hand. I’ve missed you, your absence tearing my heart asunder.”
His eyes widened a hair at Thor’s confession. “Why, I wonder. The sun is essential to life. The moon merely serves as night lantern.”
“The tides give the land life as well.”
Loki sighed. “I wish I could believe you.”
A crooked smile graced Thor’s lips. “Then do.”
With care, he rested his hand on the crook of Loki’s neck, thumb slowly rubbing circles into cool skin. Loki bend his head forward, resting the forehead on his brother’s shoulder.
“I shall try,” Loki replied –barely audible– and Thor’s grin widened. Whatever the Norns’ designs for them, they would persevere.