Wednesday
Morning came, and Thor took it as an insult. How dare the world move on as if nothing had happened when he’d lost his entire family yesterday? Mother gone without so much as goodbye, Loki dead in his arms by his own hand, Fa- no, Odin, never having been the hero Thor had worshipped him as.
And yet, the heavenly bodies played out their usual roles with no regard for the lives lost or shattered beyond repair with each rotation. No wonder some thought them to be gods.
The Midgardians once worshipped the Aesir as gods, or at least the royal family, but that was almost laughably wrong. Thor himself had been taught to ask the All-Fathers for help when needed. Never again. He knew only that he himself was alive. All else was suspect.
Something had to be done with Loki. Thor had laid him in the stasis field that had protected Odin during his Sleeps, praying to anyone listening that somehow, it would bring his little brother back. Never mind that Loki had wanted to die, at that specific moment. Thor had to hope that his own willingness to raise the dead would restore his brother’s will to live. If, of course, he managed to restore the spark of life. No sign of that, thus far.
Most of Asgard’s people had already gone back to their lives like nothing ever happened, which for all they knew, it hadn’t. What difference did it make to the average person who sat on the throne? The laws rarely changed, wars were more common but less dependent on the whims of any particular regent, the speeches sounded much the same out of any mouth.
“King of Asgard” was a polite way of saying “someone to blame for every problem in the Nine Realms”. Blame, fault, scapegoat, sacrifice. Less of the glorious reign he’d dreamt of for as long as he could remember.
Certainly not without Loki beside him. If that was his lot, he didn’t want it, except there was no one else to take over. But what good was he, too distraught over one death to even handle a funeral? Life had to go on.
Tomorrow night, that would have to be it. He couldn’t stay in this room forever.
X
His dreams were of prayer, the oldest one in the universe: To anyone listening- Help!
X
Loki hit the ground hard, but couldn’t recall having fallen. No pain, no scrapes, no bruises. There couldn’t be.
He’d gone beyond all harm, but also beyond anything good. Never again to hunt with Thor, to watch a sunset, a sunrise, a flower bloom. Never to have a family of his own.
He rolled over onto his back and sat up, only to flinch in shock at the two faces inches from his own.
Mother, he tried to say, but his voice still would not come.
Frigga wrapped her arms around him, but he felt nothing save a shred of warmth which may have been nothing but a prayer. The other woman looked so much like him that first he thought she was his reflection, then realized she must be his real mother. No, not his real mother, not with Frigga so near. His other mother. Of the four people whom he could have called his parents, only his mothers deserved it. He wished he knew her name.
No one spoke a single word. The nameless woman laid her hands on his chest, and it throbbed with the first pain in what felt like a lifetime. Heat washed through him, but he only realized what she was doing when she gasped and crimson blossomed on her own chest.
No, he tried to say, tried to shake his head, but he couldn’t move. Let me stay here. I can’t go back to a world that hates me and a “father” that wanted me dead every single day of my life.
Other Mother smirked at him -so familiar, that look, absent the blood now streaming down her cheek- and pointed to a shadowy figure passing by, one he would know anywhere. Dead, then, ingloriously. Judging by the gait, it had been painful. Good.
Warmth returned in a rush, and Hel -what else- faded around him, to be replaced by brilliant gold.
X
Thor awoke to Loki thrashing about violently beside him, and had to pinch himself.
“Loki? Can you hear me?”
“No.”
At that, he burst into tears.
“Welcome back, little brother.”
X
The brothers -Thor knew he would never think of Loki as anything else- watched the suns set in a blaze of fiery golden red. Loki hadn’t spoken more than a handful of words, and only when Thor prompted him. He sat in silence, sipping at wine with his usual air of wanting to get drunk, yet disliking the drink itself.
Thor tried broaching a few subjects such as Sif asking after him, or Odin Not-Father’s death, but to little result. Mother had gone without a goodbye, or a chance to fight back, or even so much as one last look. There was no fixing that.
Darkness wrapped around Asgard like a blanket, and Loki fell asleep on Thor’s shoulder. As gently as he could, he lifted Loki into his arms and carried him back to the palace. Despite Thor’s best efforts, Loki stirred fitfully a few times and muttered something Thor guessed was “Where are we going?” He responded with a “To your room. Now shush.”
Loki’s bedroom was absolutely dark, the black curtains blotting out even the stars and distant torches. Relying purely on memory to navigate, Thor “gently” dumped Loki on the bed, with the satisfying result of a muffled, expletive-laden string of insults, and left in search of light.
He returned mere seconds later with a torch, only to drop it in shock at a bloodstained Loki standing in the middle of the room. Thor let out a flamboyant curse, snatched the torch from the floor, and stomped out the smouldering rug. Only then did he realize that Loki was still sitting on the bed, with the female doppelganger of his whose identity Thor was beginning to suspect grinning eerily in the middle of the room.
“Uh, hello. I’m Thor. That’s Loki, probably who you’re looking for, or Loking for...” That earned him an eye roll from Loki and a silent nod from the woman. “Wait- can you speak?” She shook her head. “Okay, well. I take it you’re my sister, then? Loki’s mother?”
He tried putting a hand on her shoulder, but it went straight through. “Oh, sorry. Wait- is that what you say when you go through someone? I don’t know, I’ve never met someone like that before-”
“Thor.”
At Loki’s usual admonishment, Thor, unusually, silenced. The woman turned towards Loki and spoke to him, or so Thor assumed. He could hear none of her words, only Loki’s responses.
“Yes.” “Fine, sort of.” “I’ll work on it, I promise.” “Well, I love her.” “Good. He deserves everything they can give him.” “Can you stay?” “I know, but I have so many questions.” “Well, perhaps not.” “Likewise.”
The woman vanished in a burst of gold and Loki lay back on the bed, tears still visible in the flickering torchlight. Thor lit a few of the torches around the room, illuminating it in a soft yellow. Task completed, Thor lay next to Loki and placed an arm over him like they were children fighting nightmares again.
In a flash, the second half of the exchange between mother and son came to him, or else he imagined it near enough to be true.
“Can you hear me?” “Are you well?” “You shouldn’t want to die, you know.” “Frigga’s safe with me. She sends her love.” “The other one is being sufficiently punished. You don’t need to worry about him.” “I’ll return when I can.” “This needs to heal. I can draw energy from Helheim’s core.” “Would any answers actually help you?” “Stay safe.”
Loki’s sobs shook them both. Neither slept or spoke for the rest of that night.
X
“Odin.”
The face before him looked like no one so much as Bor, but that couldn’t be. Bor had made it into Valhalla; he’d checked. The face of authority, then, worn by whomever it was dared to pass judgement.
“You have sinned.”
There was no arguing with that.
“Well. What’s it to be, then?”
“For countless centuries, your daughter, who did nothing wrong but what you asked of her, has felt the pain of every wrongful death the Nine Realms have experienced. You will now take that pain from her.”
Was that- he hadn’t meant to condemn her to anything of the sort, only to be rid of a troubled and dangerous soul. And yet, he hand’t made any effort to seek a good outcome for her, even dead. Perhaps he deserved no better. How bad could it be?
Moments later, writhing in the agony of a child beaten to death by her own father, he regretted asking. In fact, he regretted every single day of his ill-lived life.
X
Wednesday is the day of Odin in the role of the psychopomp, guiding the dead to their final rest. There will always be more, every moment of every hour. He will never find his own rest, until such time as the powers that forgive the sinners of the universe see fit to allow him to do so. But that is beyond our story. Little wonder that Wednesday’s child is full of woe.