Philadelphia
My head throbbed, and I shook awake. I felt the motion of a car and heard the crunch of rocks under rubber wheels. I cracked one eye open, against the demands of my pounding head, and surveyed the situation. Above my head a dim dome light was on and a thick cage with circular holes in it separated me from the drivers of the car. My hands were shackled behind me and my feet were cuffed to thick loops on the floor of the vehicle.
Long, barely padded benches ran the length of the vehicle, with seats for probably fifteen or twenty prisoners on each side. I scanned the vacant length of them, and startled when I caught a familiar long body, dark hair, and glistening, red eyes.
“I thought I would let you sleep.” He mumbled, almost embarrassed, when he saw me scrutinizing him.
“Thanks.” I muttered.
“It looks like you put up a good fight.” He paused and then smiled at me. “I’m proud of you.”
The car rattled and shook us in the back of it. My arms hurt from being cuffed together behind my back. It took a surprising amount of abdominal strength to keep yourself up with no arms to help you with that and every muscle was still screaming from my mid air collision with the person who was in charge of capturing me in the tunnel.
“What was the point?” I asked Loki, frustrated, feeling like I was going to vomit from pain.
“The point of what?” he asked.
“All this, coming back for me, smuggling me out of Hel, trying desperately to keep me hidden in places you knew we couldn’t exist in. You’re in even bigger trouble than you were before all this.”
“What can they do to me?” He snarled.
“Nothing. And everything.”
“What do you even mean by that?”
“I’m going to tell you this as bluntly and honestly as I can.”
“I changed my mind. I don’t want to know it.”
“Yes, but you are going to hear it. Because if I’m going to cease to exist for buying you a set of clothing and taking you to Dotta’s house and fleeing to save my life you are going to hear everything I have to say from now until the time they snuff me out like a flame. They can’t get rid of you - that’s too hard for them, so they’re going to set you loose amongst the monsters and criminals of the realms, just like you told me when you first got here. But me, I’m fragile. They can get rid of me in a heartbeat. No more moving forward, no more laughter, no more sunrises or sunsets, or watching the ocean sparkle. No more delighting in work and reading, or reciting poetry. That’s it. I’m gone. You’re going to hear everything I have to say and need to say and even what I don’t need to say but just want to say.”
My eyes flashed, and the heat rose in my face. I was thirsty, and my throat was dry. Speaking was difficult, yelling was even worse, but I couldn’t help myself. I looked across to Loki and saw his head had fallen, his hair covering his face.
“Go on.” he mumbled. “I deserve it.”
“Tell me!” I demanded. “I want to know why you actually came back for me and Dotta. It wasn’t self preservation or pride. I know that. I know that because you built a room where there wasn’t one, you bought me the nicest dinner in Hel, you tried to sacrifice yourself for me when they were running after us below Hel. You don’t just do that because you have something to prove. There are easier ways to do that.”
“I did it,” he said, his head still down, speaking his truth quietly. “Because you love me.”
“How do you even know that!” I shouted, the driver of the car turning back to stare at me through the cage that separated us and him. “You have no proof of that. You don’t know whether or not I do. Just because I help people doesn’t mean I love people. We can’t even do that in Hel! You know that!”
“That’s what made you so beautiful, Autumn, and so dangerous. You figured it out, how to love, and how to give and sacrifice. You teach that to someone and they reciprocate and you’ve upset everything. You knew more than just time here, you understood love, and you love me.”
“I don’t love you! I don’t love anyone!” Hot, angry tears ran down my bright red face.
A minute passed and Loki spoke lowly, painfully, and brokenly. “I had a brother once, who loved me very much. You did for me as he did...would have. He would have given up everything to take care of me if I would have let him. You did give up everything.”
A hundred thousand thoughts flashed through my mind, tangled thoughts of love and sacrifice, and how you know love when you see it, but one thing stood out above the rest. The way I had treated Loki had been born of love. Sacrifice, I knew now, was the greatest indicator of it. All other parts of love dim and pale in comparison to those acts, and contrition before another is the deepest form of love. My anger diminished with the thought that he had once had a brother that loved him and that saving me would be a way to bridge the gap between him and his brother. I saw him, as he was in his failings. I saw his failure and shame the inability to keep me safe, in his inability to keep Dotta safe. I saw the bridge back home, the permission he needed to give himself to return, was crumbling quickly before him with my capture and his arrest.