Chapter 15
Thor shakes his head to rid it of the usual mild disorientation that comes with using the Bifrost, and sees Sif's still bound and gagged in Hogun's grip. Heimdall says "Good, you've arrived. No time for small talk, you need to get to the palace and tell your brother of Sif's involvement in Amora's disappearance."
Thor nods, and says "I shall. Heimdall, may I leave Sif in your company for the time being? I don't believe Sif would last very long if I brought her with to the palace." Point of fact, the believes Loki will be taking his knives to her on sight.
Heimdall purses his lips, a rare thing considering the man shows almost no emotion whatsoever, and says "Indeed she would not. Attempted Regicide is not taken lightly, especially when one ruler is so devoted to the other as Loki and Amora are." He knows they're Soulmates, of course he does, but it wasn't his place or even inclination to report such a thing to Odin. He's Asgard's gatekeeper, he watches the Nine Realms for threats to Asgard - and Amora Sigyn, contrary to Sif's bigotry and Odin's disapproval of her, is no threat to Asgard.
On the contrary, he knows firsthand she's its biggest defender - so long as Loki is on Asgard and wishes to stay there, that is. He watched her life as Hari Potter, only refraining from interfering due to Hela's warning that changing the past would have irreversible consequences of a very ugly kind, and saw everything she went through - the Dursleys, being tested at Hogwarts, being turned on time and again there, having to fight for her life at every possible opportunity - and he knows full-well that her loyalty to Loki is well and truly unbreakable…and Stars have mercy on whoever is dumb enough to actually hurt the younger prince, because nobody else will be able to.
He knows every single uprising she's put down, every threat to Loki's safety she's ended, and he's seen her nigh-on encyclopedic knowledge of magic - he also knows that, if she were going to attack Asgard, the place would be a crumbling ruin within twenty minutes and there's nothing even Odin would be able to do about it.
Loki's pacing frantically in Odin's chambers, trying desperately to think of some way to find Amora - the locator spells he knows of home in on her magic, but all of the twenty spells he used failed miserably. It's been almost a full day since her disappearance, and he's quite literally at his wit's end.
Heimdall can't see anything right now, an unintended side-effect of Amora's Warding, so they've been searching the palace high and low for Amora with zero results so far. It's somehow going even slower than Warding each individual room did, at least Amora could Apparate once she was done - it feels like it's been a month to Loki, when he knows it's getting close to just twenty-four hours since Amora vanished without more than a trace of the scuffle that took place.
Thor bursts into the room, and gets a shocked expression at the sight of his brother. His normally immaculate hair is a disheveled mess, his armor looks like he slept in it despite the detail that the dark circles under his eyes say he hasn't slept at all the past few days, and there's a wild look in his eyes that says he might just snap and attack something.
Frigga rushes over and hugs him, wrapping her arms around his neck and murmuring into his ear "Thor, if you have any idea what's happened to Amora, for the love of the Stars say something now."
Thor swallows nervously, glancing at Loki's pacing form - he's literally never seen Loki like this in the thousand years he's been alive, Loki makes sure to never look anything less than pristine...to the point that Thor's never seen so much as a wrinkle on his cape unless they've just come from a battle. So, either being King of Asgard did this to his normally put-together brother...or Amora's disappearance did.
After a moment, Thor quietly asks "What happened?! I wasn't gone that long!"
Frigga glances at Loki worriedly, and says "Soulmates can't be separated for too long once they've found one another, Thor. Amora's vanished, we can't find any trace of her magic in the palace bar the corridor she was attacked in. There's a small dent in the wall, some blood and a dart near it, but nothing else." She hasn't told Loki just yet the results of the spell she cast on it, the dart had an extremely potent toxin in it, strong enough to kill a Bilgesnipe in three hours - she did, however, stock up on the antidote and sent word to the Healers.
Whoever attacked Amora meant to kill, either not believing in her immortality or wanting her out of the way for an extended period of time. And that news will without question send Loki over the edge.
Before Thor can say or do anything, though, Amora suddenly appears in a heap on the floor. Loki's at her side in an instant, rolling her over and picking her up to put her on the nearby sofa he conjures. Thor takes a few steps forward, then blanches when he sees the missing piece of her thigh easily the size of Mjolnir's head - she also can't seem to stop shaking, she's gone paler than normal, and she can't seem to grip Loki's shoulders.
Loki immediately sets to work healing her leg, which takes maybe a minute with the solid stream of green and gold pouring from Loki's hand. Once the very immediate problem of her bleeding out is solved, Loki shifts to kneel next to Amora's torso, cupping her face with both hands as he says "Amora, look at me. What happened, who did this to you?" He switches to Parseltongue as Amora's hands try to grip at his armor but keep slipping, and she brokenly hisses back as Loki eases her up.
Frigga casts a spell with a wave of her hand, then disappears for a minute and returns with a glass bottle. She kneels down next to Loki, murmuring "She's been poisoned, Loki. This will help purge her system."
Loki nods shakily, cradling Amora's head with one hand and coaxing her into swallowing the contents of the bottle with the other. He hates it when she dies - it's happened a few times over the past millennia, probably more than he actually knows about given her habit of throwing herself into danger to keep it from him - every time it happens since they realized they're Soulmates it feels like bereavement. He goes cold and empty, like he's been hollowed out by her death, and it suddenly feels like all the colors have been leeched from the world…like it's not even worth living in anymore. No matter how brief it is, it never gets any easier and he never fails to hold Amora close for at least a good few hours after she comes back. He's not stupid enough to think that it won't break him altogether in his current state.
Frigga puts a hand on Loki's shoulder once she's put the bottle away for safekeeping, and murmurs "Take her to your quarters, Loki. I'll send Eir." Loki all but shoves Gungir into Frigga's waiting hands before gathering Amora to himself and disappearing.
Thor can only sink into the blood-stained couch Loki made, feeling a headache coming on, and asks "What now?" That was not the Loki he's known for so many centuries, that was a broken mess of his brother - the very sight is like a slap to the face about just what the relationship between Amora and Loki is, leaving him reeling and questioning how he never noticed the detail that they're so obviously close. If Amora's disappearance for a mere day was enough to reduce his normally-levelheaded brother to that...Stars, he doesn't want to see what would happen if the tables were reversed.
Frigga sighs, running a hand across her face for a moment, then says "First, Thor, do you have any idea what happened to Amora?" Thor opens his mouth, and Frigga holds up a hand saying "Before you start denying everything, I know you had no involvement in the attack on her because you were off Asgard at the time and the weeks leading up to now were spent getting you ready for your Coronation."
Thor runs a hand through his hair, then says "Well, a blonde girl showed up, said a statue of secrecy was going to be electrocuted, Sif and the Warriors Three arrived, the Destroyer showed up, I got my powers back, Hela and I destroyed the Destroyer, the blonde girl yelled at Sif and tied her up, screamed all the way up to here that Sif knew where Amora was, and I found my Soulmate in Jane Foster…" And he's honestly still confused about the build-up to the Destroyer arriving. Who was that blonde girl?!
Frigga looks delighted for all of five seconds, before her serious expression comes back and she says "The Destroyer was on Midgard…there could only be two reasons for that. Was it targeting anyone in particular?"
Thor nods, saying "Sif. Mother, it was trying to completely obliterate her, what happened?!"
Frigga scowls for a moment, then says "Loki was in a meeting with Odin's advisors when suddenly Amora vanished. She'd been on a diplomatic mission with the Frost Giants to avert the war that had been declared, delivering a peace treaty and returning an artifact Odin had no right to take. She made it back to Asgard, Loki and I both felt her arrival…and then she vanished. Loki knew it immediately and sent the guards to search the entire palace. The Wards Amora had erected to keep the Frost Giants from opening a portal into the palace again also prevented Heimdall from seeing where she was, you see, so we were left with no choice but to search room by room."
Thor groans, then says "Fandral said Sif had the key to the Bifrost…she must've used the ensuing chaos to steal it and get to the bridge with the others."
Frigga nods, then says "He reported to Loki about halfway through the day that the key to the Bridge had gone missing. The only real question remaining is if she had an accomplice or if she planned it all herself." The only reason Loki didn't go after them was because Heimdall said Amora wasn't with them, had she been taken to Midgard then nothing would've been able to keep Loki from intercepting them and wiping the four of them from existence.
Thor frowns, then says "It's only been…what, two, three days?! How could Sif have planned and organized an attack on a woman that can disappear in an instant in that amount of time?" He'd also like to know why she'd plan this, but that's another matter at the moment.
Frigga's gaze turns icy, and she says "That's what I'm going to find out. She'd better count herself lucky it's not Loki that will interrogate her, in his current state he'd leave her brain-dead." She'd be a drooling, unresponsive vegetable in the Healing Room for the rest of her few days if Loki were the one to interrogate her.
Of that, Thor has absolutely no doubt - Amora's disappearance of…a few hours, he thinks, drove his brother to a disheveled mess, looking like he was on the verge of losing his sanity. He can't imagine Loki being gentle with Sif right then, with anyone other than Amora or their mother.
He should probably stay far away until Amora's recovered, then, because he doesn't trust his ability not to put his foot so deep in his mouth it hits his stomach if he tries to say anything to either of them.