Making of Memories
“You did what six hundred years ago??”
Your excited but confused yell tore through the room you were currently residing in while you almost spilled your tea with your sudden laughter. The light shining through the windows from outside illuminated your surroundings, casting a bright and happy glow on the patterned wall beside you and the red carpet below your feet.
“He almost fell off of Asgard, yes!” Aldís cleared up, tears brimming her eyes with her own suppressed laugh. The silver embroidery on her blue gown lightly reflected some of the light, glistening in the sun.
“I was curious,” Ragnarr fought to defend himself with a smile, hands wildly gesticulating, “I had only ever seen it in books—I had wanted to see it for myself.”
The atmosphere surrounding the three of you was a joyous one, a relaxed one. Over the course of time, you had gotten to know each other a lot more than you would have thought possible at first, making you feel a lot less like a stranger on an unknown planet, making your forget about the lingering reason as to why you were even still tolerated at such a divine place.
That sweet, joyous atmosphere was interrupted by a sudden knock on the door. It caught you off guard, completely so, as you practically stumbled out of the chair to hastily reply with a ‘yes’.
There was a drop hovering in the air, abruptly pulling the happiness the three of you had felt down from the mirthful height and instead sending it spiraling down to a sudden darkness. With a creak, room having grown so quiet that it was all that filled the silence, the door opened and revealed a face you hadn’t expected to see in a while.
“...Thor,” you breathed, eyes wide and mouth agape as you saw Aldís and Ragnarr stand up out of the corner of your eyes, giving a quick curtsy to their returning Prince.
“Yes,” he replied, voice uncharacteristically tired as he gently closed the door behind him, “I have news regarding your inquiry.”
Your heart plummeted in your chest, sinking to the ground as the gravity of the situation sunk in almost immediately. The way things were at the moment you had indeed almost completely managed to forget the very reason you were still on Asgard—the memories residing within you which didn’t belong to you and which had been oddly still lately, now that you started pondering it.
With steps sounding too heavy he shuffled over to the three of you, pulling a free chair to sit down. It squeaked almost pathetically as the dark wood scraped across the floor, your own eyes cast on the ground still trying to process the sudden shift, sound but mere background noise. He dropped down onto it like a bag of flour would and began by clearing his throat, casting a glance at you as if to quietly ask whether you were alright with having it discussed openly and in front of everyone.
There was a lot he had missed while he was gone—not knowing about the friendship the three of you already shared. You gave a hesitant nod.
“My father, the King,” he began, shifting as he most likely felt your unease, “He has finally consented to your request. I am here to inform you that he has set the day for returning the memories to tomorrow at noon.”
Aldís, eyes still wide and still keeping her focus on the Prince, rose from her seat in a haze to fetch another cup from one of the cabinets nearby before offering tea to the Prince in an eerily stiff movement. His hands moved to hold the mug, warming them up as he gave a grateful nod.
“I will personally come to accompany you,” he continued on, radiating a certain sense of responsibility you struggled to place, “I hope that this is alright?”
You gave another jerky nod, cup perhaps clutched a bit too tightly in your hands as you felt the hot liquid running down your cold, clammy fingers.
It was exactly what you wanted though, wasn’t it? So what was that sudden string of nerves all about? The tension in the air still persisted as you took a hesitant sip to distract yourself from it, watching everyone doing the same as if thinking alike.
“How have you been?” you mumbled, sentence barely sounding like a question as you quieted at the end, focus drifting off.
There was silence before Thor gathered that you had addressed him.
“I have been fine,” he replied, trying to appear convincing and calm, but in the face of your not exactly well hidden, apparent panic he couldn’t help but worry indeed, “It has been stressful, but I am alright.”
His answers were without heart and oddly generic, a definite sign that everyone’s attention was elsewhere, most likely on you. Their gazes only aided in intensifying the burning sensation once more radiating from inside of you, eyes burning holes from all around you as you took a deep breath.
Yes, returning the memories to Loki was important to you—No, your priority even, as you had said a long while ago. Why was all of this a problem now? Why did all the panic within you decide to surge up now, burning and twisting your insides so much you felt yourself physically grow warmer, hot even?
[...]
There was something, weak and frail trying to break through the hazy fire of your mind, yet it seemed utterly futile as no words made it over to you. But the feeling getting carried along with it seemed frighteningly familiar, so much so that you knew it could have only been one person.
One person feeling your obvious distress even from afar and trying to contact you, talk to you.
[...Loki?]
There was no reply. There was only the same sensation continuing to flood your system and you felt yourself close your eyes and relax; quickened breathing slowing down, fastened heartbeat returning to a normal and steady one and your much too warm skin growing colder.
He was calming you, somehow.
Whatever he was doing was working and you tried to send him all the gratitude you could find within you, even though you didn’t know how, even though you didn’t know if that was how this connection even worked.
“Hey—“ Someone was shaking your shoulder, lightly but urgently and your name was being repeated without pause while you came to— “Is everything alright?”
All three of them looked at you with worry in their eyes while you began to finally come to understand what was going on. Ragnarr’s hands were placed firmly on your shoulders and you took in a huge breath, letting it slowly ease out of your nose while you calmed, very light smile finding its way back to your face as you got ahold of his wrists.
“Yes,” you mumbled back, “I’m okay.”
—————
After you had calmed significantly, slowly coming to terms with being confronted by something you had apparently tried to forget, the four of you had picked up light conversation. Albeit few information had been given, you now knew a bit more about the mission Thor’s father had sent him on while the King himself ‘pondered’ your request. A mission that had seemed to periodically bring him close to the brink of his patience—way too close for comfort. And in no time the four of you had been back to joking around, sharing parts of what the other had missed and laughing along with Ragnarr’s jokes.
Once Thor had left, taking Aldís and Ragnarr with him for preparations as you had thoroughly and continuously told them that you were good enough to stay alone, you let your body fall backwards into the bed, thoughts running in circles so much you seemed to grow dizzy. Your palms found their way to your eyes, rubbing relentlessly against them, all the way until everything grew blurry and littered with stars as you were too frustrated and to deep in thought to stop.
Every now and then, when you felt yourself growing more and more stressed, another light surge of pain would run through you, causing you to twist and twitch.
There was something pushing itself to the front of your mind, all the way from the very back of it to slowly but defiantly creep into your consciousness—despite your body obviously fighting to keep it under lock and key. You felt the strain as if you had been doing muscle workout nonstop for the past month.
Something was trying to show itself to you, though what you did not know.
Yet with each passing second it seemed to inch closer and closer to its goal and you could only try to distract yourself while trying to fight it. It felt like claws emanating from the very floor, reaching out to grasp you from below and you could sense yourself getting encased by it, moving like shadows through the darkness. It was starting to obstruct your field of vision, growing darker until the void was seeping like ink into your eyes. You felt it taking over your sight and filling it with visions of something else while your heartbeat sounded through your very throat with terrible intensity.
The little twinge of something else trying to get your attention was ignored as your mind was blackened; as you lost consciousness over your body, lost even the sensation of your hands tightly gripping onto the blanket in terror.
It was the last, unknown memory trying to break free.
Once the void of darkness subsided you found yourself in unknown territory, blackness still lingering in the sky speckled with stars, galaxies and nebula. The rock hard ground beneath you dug against your knees as you were pushed down from behind, coldness seeping into your bones from below only barely managing to cool your overheating system. Your arms burned where they were restrained behind your back, twisted just the slightest amount to elicit the constant feeling of them being milliseconds before being dislocated and you bit your lip to keep the scream from tearing out, bit your lip to stop it from trembling, from giving away the true panic you were feeling.
You gave a tug at your restraints, body feeling heavy like lead, as unresponsive as a marionette without its puppeteer and your tries at movements were promptly met with the restraints tightening, heavy and hot breath lingering in your ear.
“You still dare defy our master?” it spoke, voice but a rough, scratchy noise in your overtly sensitive ear and the fire surrounding your wrists grew so hot you could but hear white noise for a moment, body accustoming to the pain as you were too proud to scream, “You will have to learn.”
The heat on your hands spread, traveling up your arms as your body trembled despite your hardest attempts at keeping it from doing so, flames swallowing your arms and moving to your face. You twisted and turned your head, trying to move your face out of its grasp, but even so the fire reached its destination, scream finally tearing out of your throat in agonizing intensity. A scream filled with petrifying pain, terrible panic, but also incredible amounts of anger and rage shot through the cold air around you.
Your face switched to silent rage once the agony slightly subsided, eyebrows drawing together as you squinted your eyes with a smoldering and dangerous glare.
It evaporated once you heard the voice.
His voice.
“Oh my,” he spoke, low voice deeply sickening to your ringing ears as you raised your head recklessly despite the pain, looking him into the eyes as he approached. One of the hands encircling your wrist moved to your head, burying itself in your hair—long enough to easily be yanked—black strand falling in your face as the creature behind you forced your head down, towards the ground until your nose almost seemed to touch it.
Just because you couldn’t see the purplish titan approaching, didn’t mean you couldn’t feel it, couldn’t hear his steps strolling closer, almost leisurely so, almost disappointedly coming closer to where you kneeled on the floor.
“Master,” the being behind you squeaked as the steps came to a halt, grip momentarily tightening on your shivering, feverish body.
“Thanos,” you spoke, voice deep but horse and rough from the screaming. The tone in your voice was terribly sarcastic and you knew it was a bad idea—a deadly idiotic, dramatically overconfident idea to try and pretend you had any kind of control over the situation, any kind of say in the matter or were, for a fact, not trembling so much everyone was bound to hear your teeth chatter along with the tremble in your voice.
The man merely gave a chuckle.
“Have you still not learned your lesson?—“ He kneeled and you grit your teeth as he got ahold of your hair, raising your face to eye level, catching your gaze with burning intensity— “I had given you enough chances to prove your loyalty.”
You collected saliva and blood in your mouth, spitting it on the floor in front of him as a drop of crimson slid down your lips, dribbling down your chin and falling to the ground.
The man let go off your hair with a push, head hanging limp in exhaustion as if waiting for the executioner to free your shoulders from its burden.
“Still as defiant as ever,” he spoke, and you watched through your black hair falling in front of your eyes like a curtain as he reached behind himself, reached for a silvery, round object handed to him by one of his many loyal henchmen. Your blood froze deathly cold in your veins as he opened it, yellow shining light from within betraying its actual purpose, its capabilities.
You writhed in the creature’s grip as your thoughts ran wild, having deduced Thanos’ immediate following action just as he took the stone in his hand, power surging through his body not enough to overwhelm his sick and twisted mind.
The fire intensified and you could only scream in rage and fury, in terror and panic as Thanos stepped closer to end your strong and seemingly endless disobedience.
You couldn’t stop the single tear easing out of your eye, sliding down your charred cheek as you continued to defiantly stare at the titan, hatred burning hotter than the sun could ever dream to be, hatred overtaking your mind, killing and overriding all rational thoughts that had once resided within.
“Yes,” Thanos spoke, “This is the right thing to feel.”
With a satisfied smirk he pressed the yellow pulsating stone against your forehead, your scream dying out in mere seconds as your mouth simply hung open wide, white noise replacing your inner voice and turning into thoughts, into images, into memories.
Your consciousness faded as you felt yourself being eradicated, overwritten by negative, painful emotions, by hurt and anger and hatred, by loneliness and grief. It felt like being torn apart, something deep inside getting twisted and turned, destroyed, remolded, reshaped; over and over again and you could barely still feel the scream clogging your throat, suffocating you.
You couldn’t move, you couldn’t think.
You couldn’t be.
Your were being remade.