Self-Sacrifice
The ship shudders mightily as it picks up speed, driving through the planet’s atmosphere. Hallbera folds the clothes for which she had bartered some of her apple jam. She is proud of her negotiations. The clothes are far from Asgardian styles, but the fabric is soft and lightly colored, and she found a new cloak for her son.
“That old one was so full of holes,” She remarks, running her fingers over the wool. “Olvir will be warm. I heard a rumor that the next planet we’re going to stop at has beautiful lakes in the mountains. Beautiful, but cold. But if we dress warmly enough…” Her husband remains silent. Perhaps he is distracted. “Kveldulf? Is something the matter?” Nothing. She keeps puttering.
They are one of the fortunate few, full families that made it off Asgard and onto their new voyaging home. They had their losses; Hallbera had lost two sisters and their husbands and children, Kveldulf, his parents and cousins. But they were together, their small family. Ready to start anew. Hallbera was even thinking of growing their family. Asgard would need new sons and daughters; there had already been several young lovers to get pregnant since their departure, though Hallbera didn’t know if she wanted to until they reached their destination. She was still uncertain about Earth. The king assured them that they would be welcomed, that they would be safe there, and she wanted to trust in her king, but...she had never been off Asgard before Ragnarok. She fears, and thinks carefully about each step in their journey, though she is growing more used to traveling. She finds she likes it, exploring new planets, watching her son run under foreign skies and pick up new languages and mannerisms. It’s exciting, in a way that the safety of Asgard could never be.
“I wonder what the climate is like on Earth?” She muses aloud. “Some of the others were discussing this while we were harvesting yesterday, perhaps we should ask the King more about what it’s like-”
“Will you never be silent, woman!” She stops short, whirling around. Her husband is standing, trembling with rage, in the doorway.
“You will not speak to me that way.” Her voice is low and dangerous. “I will not tolerate it.”
“I care not,” He spits. “What you tolerate.”
She draws herself up. “Kveldulf-”
He strikes her across the face.
Loki wakes late the day after their departure. He had been up late into the night cataloguing their haul, particularly pleased with what they had managed to retrieve on this trip. He’d managed to find a book on the growing of healing herbs and some seeds, finally leaning into the role of healer that his status as the only fully grown mage on board had granted him. He stayed up even later reading by dim witchlight while the others snored around him. He wakes alone.
He dresses and goes to find the others. Thor and the Valkyrie are still in the mess, sitting and talking with grim expressions on their faces.
“Have I missed something?” He says as he sits.
Thor manages a smile for him. “Yes, breakfast.”
“You could have woken me.”
“We know how late you were up last night. Besides, I saved you a pear.” The Valkyrie tosses it to him.
“Thank you, lady. Now,” He bites into the pear. “What’s got the two of you sporting such long faces?” They exchange a look. “Come on, out with it.”
“The Hulk has returned.”
Loki sits up straighter. “Oh.” It feels like a loss. Aside from his general feelings about the Hulk, he’s become used to Bruce Banner’s presence and assistance in the day to day operation of the Ark. He’s sort of going to miss him. “What triggered the transformation?”
“That’s the weird thing,” the Valkyrie says. “We don’t know. I just woke up and Bruce was gone. Found the Big Guy wandering around.”
“I would think that something large enough to draw out the Hulk would have aroused someone’s interest.”
“I put out a general call for information,” Thor says. “Haven’t heard anything back. Some reports of an argument, but further investigation revealed it was a domestic affair, Banner was nowhere near it. We have no idea what caused the change.”
“That’s concerning.”
Thor nods in agreement but claps him on the shoulder as reassurance anyways. “We’ll figure it out.”
Loki eats the pear slowly. Dread has settled over him. Something is coming.
Later that night, they’re drinking more than usual. The Valkyrie had scored something almost like mead from an acquaintance at their last stop and they shared with the soldiers she’d started training as a defense force. They have this sort of evening on occasion, especially after departing from a decent market planet. It was awkward at first. Loki bristles at these sorts of social events more than he used to. Even on Sakaar, he was good at mingling in the parties, but now they just drain him and he finds himself wanting to go back to the room and sleep soon after they begin. Thor is even quiet that night, watching the conversation rather than participating.
The alcohol helps, and the Valkyrie, who commands awe and attention and takes the focus off of the princes. The alcohol especially helps tonight, the booze the Valkyrie brought was especially good and especially strong. Loki nearly forgets the feeling of doom that had dogged him all day.
He knows, he knows he’s being annoying, but when the young soldier starts grandstanding he can’t help but sneer and pokes holes in his stories.
“Bodvar, you wouldn’t know a wyvern on sight, let alone have defeated one single-handedly,” Loki drawls.
The young soldier flushes angrily. “Like you would be able-”
“I would at least be intelligent enough not to blatantly lie-”
“I am not lying-”
“Well you’re certainly not telling the truth and wouldn’t I know-”
“ENOUGH!” Thor’s voice cut across theirs, ringing with such authority that all are instantly silenced.
Loki looks to his brother in shock. “...Thor, I-” Thor’s hand closes on his wrist. “Let me go,” He cries, indignant.
“I’ve had enough out of you, witch!”
Loki gasps at the insult, reeling back. Or trying to. Thor’s grip is too tight on his arm. And getting tighter.
“Thor!” He looks at his brother’s face and sees nothing. Nothing but rage. “Let me go.”
“Majesty,” The Valkyrie sounds suddenly sober. “I think you should take a minute…” Thor’s hand tightens further and it really starts to hurt.
“Brother, stop!” But still Thor’s face does not change. There is nothing of his brother there.
The bones in his forearm give way with a sharp crack and a sudden shock of pain, followed by a tingling numbness in his hand. Loki barely makes a sound, nothing but a soft, shocked inhale. Thor’s expression still does not soften, growing even more furious. The Valkyrie gets to her feet.
“Okay, Thor,” She says. “You’ve made your point, now let him go and we can talk about this.” Thor stands and grabs Loki’s other hand. Loki is in too much shock, frozen in surprise at Thor’s sudden violence, to move.
When the first bone snaps, the smallest, he starts to struggle.
“Let me go, let me go,” He cries, trying to wrench out of Thor’s grip even as it makes the pain spike. The second bone breaks and he yelps. A third, and he realizes something awful. This isn’t Thor grabbing him and hurting him inadvertently in anger, this is deliberate. This is calculated. “Brother, please, stop!” He tries to pull out of Thor’s hands, fully knowing he’s probably injuring himself further. He can’t feel his left hand below the break and the bones in his right grind together.
“Thor, let him go, right now,” The Valkyrie says. “I said, enough!”
The expression on Thor’s face clears in an instant and he releases Loki. He stumbles back at his sudden freedom, cradling his arms to his chest. The room is dead silent for a moment. Then Thor tries to speak. “Loki-”
“Don’t touch me!” He snarls, curling in on himself. His world reduces to white panic.
The Valkyrie tries to approach him, slowly, with her hands cautious and soothing. Like she was calming a wild animal. “Loki, let me-”
“No! Don’t fucking touch me!” She stops, but doesn’t back off.
He can’t take it. The panic is overtaking him, dragging him under and he does the only thing he can think of and teleports away.
He lands hard in the storeroom, rolling, then curls up in a ball and waits for his hands to heal.
And panics, of course. It takes a while for him to come to, to that nauseous, weak feeling he always gets after one of these.
“Damn,” He breathes, dropping his head to the floor. He hears footsteps. Apparently, he was not as transparent in his intended destination as he thought.
It’s the Valkyrie. She looks haunted, suddenly sober, as she crouches down next to him. “It wasn’t him,” She says. “He says he doesn’t remember doing it.”
Loki looks at her. “The one who held me, after I fell,” He says. “Once broke every bone in my hands. Every one. And when they healed he did it again. And again.”
“No one’s torturing you here. That’s not what’s happening,” She says softly. She reaches out and rests her hand on his arm when he doesn’t flinch away. “Something...came over him. He says he doesn’t remember anything.”
“Isn’t that worse?”
“No. It means he’s not going to do it again, and well…we don’t know what it was yet, but we can fix this. We need your help to figure it out.” She helps him sit up. “And it means you don’t have to heal alone, in the dark, in this dusty storeroom. Let’s go back to our room, and we’ll figure it out together.” Loki nods.
They return to their room, where Thor is pacing.
He looks ravaged, drawn. Loki takes one look at him and knows he is telling the truth. Would have probably known it right away, had the panic not clouded his senses.
“I didn’t, I wasn’t-” Thor stammers. “I’m so sorry.” Loki leans minutely closer, an invitation, and Thor takes it, taking him so gently in his arms. Loki returns the embrace and wraps his aching arms around Thor’s waist, resting his head on his shoulder. Thor is shaking, breath coming hard and Loki lets him hold him, and whisper desperate apologies. Loki gradually unwinds, relaxing into Thor’s chest.
Out of the corner of his eye he sees the Valkyrie watching with sharp eyes. It makes him feel better.
“Did you hear about the fight last night?”
“The king and his brother always fight, they’ll have made up by breakfast.”
“I heard it wasn’t a normal fight, I heard the prince was truly hurt.”
“Do you really think the king could truly hurt him, he’s his only family, I mean-”
“I wasn’t talking about that fight.”
“Oh?”
“Gunnhild and her cousin. They were shrieking at each other all night.”
“No, not that one.”
“There was that other one…”
“That one. Hallbera.”
“Has anyone talked to her?”
“We should check in, it’s what we should do for each other, in times like these.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll stop by after lunch.”
The automatic lights click on in the morning and Loki sits straight up in bed. Overnight, the ache in his bones had dulled and the remaining confused panic had cleared from his head.
“We have to talk about last night,” He says. Thor blinks his eyes open, face instantly guilty when he processes Loki’s words. The Valkyrie groans on his other side. The three of them had collapsed into bed together soon after his return.
“Shut up, lackey. It’s still early.”
“But we need to-”
“There will be time, later. After more sleep.”
“But-”
The Valkyrie drags him back down. “Sleep.”
He tolerates the manhandling, until he’s pinned back between them. “We really should-”
“Hush, Loki,” Thor murmurs.
“Are you alright?” Loki asks.
“What? Am I alright? Are you alright?”
“Of course, my bones healed hours ago. But to have magic touch your mind like that...”
“You didn’t seem so sure it was magic last night.”
“Well, I was…also not quite myself.” He shivers. “It reminded me…it doesn’t matter. But I know you brother, you are not one for sadism.” Thor frowns. “It should have been obvious, when you were breaking my hand. You’ve been known to forgot your own strength, and hurt me without meaning - stop looking at me like that, I usually deserved it. Whenever you’ve done that, it was to stop me, to contain me, never to cause pain for the pleasure of it.” That was for others, he thinks, and suppresses another shiver. “It was clearly something…else. And I have to figure out what.”
“Later,” Thor says. “Let us rest a little longer.” Loki tolerates Thor toying with his hair. He would complain, but he can feel how Thor’s hand shakes, so he lets him.
Loki does a thorough examination of his brother with magic, listens carefully to the Valkyrie’s report of what she found among the people, and pronounces his verdict.
“It’s a curse.”
“A curse? Are you sure?”
“Positive. Something dark, targeted. Whether or not it was cast over the whole ship, or was meant for just one person and got loose, it’s a curse.”
“What will it do?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” At their blank stares, he continues. “It’s meant to turn us against each other. Turn loved one against loved one. If it was cast over the whole ship, it’s very clever. People would just think it was restlessness at being confined in close quarters, making people argue. I think if it hadn’t been for us, it might have torn the ship apart. But,” Loki smiles. “It chose the wrong victims.”
“Can you break it?” Thor asks. Unspoken, the second half of his question: before I hurt you again.
“I should. In time. For now, we should have people patrol the quarters, make sure none of the fights get too violent.”
“Your majesty,” The woman bows low. “I don’t mean to complain but…”
Thor waves off her deference. “Nonsense, I’m here for your concerns. What is it?”
She hesitates. “There’s a very foul smell. Coming from the gardens. Now, I don’t know if you picked up a new fertilizer at that last market but it’s really making quite a few of us ill…”
Thor’s smile is strained. “I assure you, we will look into it.”
The three of them descend to the artificial greenhouses. At once, the Valkyrie claps her hand over her nose and mouth.
“You know what that smell is.”
Thor nods. “Unfortunately, though I don’t ever believe I’ve smelt it this bad.”
“Sometimes someone would die, falling through the wormholes on Sakaar. They’d get buried in the trash and not found for days. That was the worst smell.”
“That’s disgusting,” Loki says, wrinkling his nose. “We’re fortunate Asgard prefers a swift burning, along with plenty of flowers.”
“Burning? We never burned-”
“Over here,” Thor says. He’s followed the stench and stops short. “I think it’s coming from those.”
“Prepare yourselves,” The Valkyrie says. “Have you ever seen something so fowl as a body that’s been in water a few days?”
Loki, looking a little green, walks over to the tanks of water used to hydrate the plants. He gasps. “It’s that one.” He points.
“Stand back.” She opens the tank and a rush of brownish water flows from the tank. The smell immediately increases tenfold and Thor swallows down a gag.
“Definitely Asgardian,” The Valkyrie says, examining the body. What was once a body. “Probably a woman.”
“I’m going to be sick,” Loki says. There’s a rustle in the stalks behind them. They whirl, Loki summoning a dagger, but the sound turns out to be a child, peering out with a tear streaked face.
“That’s my mommy!” The child cries. “Daddy put her in there, I waited but she didn’t come out.”
“Get him out of here,” The Valkyrie says. “Get him out of here now.” Loki banishes the dagger and rushes forward, grabbing the child in his arms.
“No, no, I don’t want to leave my mommy!”
“Close your eyes,” Loki says. “You do not wish to see.”
From the child, they get his name and his quarters. From the neighbors, they get the story. There’d been fights, for days. No one wanted to intrude. No one had seen the woman - Hallbera - for a few days. Nor the husband.
They order a full search of the ship for the murderer, but it’s too late.
The body is found in one of the airlocks, eyes and tongue bulging out of its face. Security camera footage shows that Kveldulf had walked there calmly from the gardens, sealed the airlock, and depressurized it.
“I must amend my assessment of the curse’s aims,” Loki says quietly when the footage stops. The others say nothing.
The next day, Thor seeks him out for advice. They talk for some time, going over and over the details of their predicament. Loki laments his lack of reference books and Thor worries over what to tell the people about the murder.
“The Valkyrie said that a family had volunteered to foster the child,” Loki says. “We still have to figure out what to do with the remains, it seems our funeral customs will need some amending...Thor?” A chill descends on the room.
Thor grabs his arm and the way he grips him tells Loki the curse is back. Loki stuffs down the panic, keeps his voice even.
“Brother,” He says without looking at him. “Brother, you have to fight it.”
Thor suddenly shoves him, pinning him up against the wall and forcing him to look at him. Just like the first night, Thor’s face is empty of recognition, just fury. “Fight what?” He snarls. He slams Loki back into the wall once. “The only monster I see here to fight is you.”
“This isn’t you,” Loki cries. “Fight it.” But Thor strikes him across the face in lieu of response. Loki tastes blood.
He summons a knife, plunging it into Thor’s side, and instantly Thor drops him with a grunt. He runs.
There’s a closet, and he slips inside, tracked by Thor’s pounding footsteps and angry shouting. He slams the door shut just in time and wraps his magic around the doorknob, pinning the door shut with his seidr.
“Open this door, wretch,” Thor screams, the metal bowing under his fists. Heart pounding, Loki kneels at the door, holding fast to the magic and shutting his eyes. He tries to reach out, investigate the curse as it consumes his brother, but even the momentary distraction almost makes him slip. The door opens a crack and Loki sees a spark of lightning through the gap. Loki jolts in terror and focuses on holding the door shut.
Thor reigns down abuses on his head. He squeezes his eyes closed and tries not to listen. The curse pulls from Thor’s memories, and the screamed insults get horrifyingly personal.
“It’s not him, it’s not him, it’s not him,” He whispers over and over again.
He doesn’t know when it stops. Only that he realizes through his whispered mantra that there is silence now. No oppressive presence on the other side of the door.
He should get up. He should go, but what if this is just to lull him into a false sense of security? Lure him out of the closet and into Thor’s clutches. So he stays, crouched in front of the door until his legs cramp, keeping the door tightly shut.
A knock startles him. “It’s me,” The Valkyrie says. “It’s over. You can open the door.” Reluctantly, he releases the magic and steps back. She slips inside. “Are you okay?” Loki nods.
“Is Thor alright? I stabbed him. Again.”
“He’s fine. Well. As fine as can be expected. Doesn’t remember any of it again, and the wound’s already closed. He thinks that…” She trails off.
“What?”
“He thinks he should give you some space.”
“Space.”
“He’s afraid of himself around you. He sent me here to tell you that until we can figure out how to break this curse, he won’t see you.”
“Oh.” It makes sense, but something very small inside Loki rebels against it.
“You and I are going to keep investigating. And I’m not to let you out of my sight.”
“Okay. Well then, lady,” Loki summons a smile, though it takes effort. “I suppose we best get back to work.”
Two days pass, with no progress. Loki could scream in frustration. He knows he’s read about something like this before, but without Asgard’s library he’s completely lost.
He doesn’t know where Thor is. He sleeps with the Valkyrie in their quarters, and barely gets any rest.
There’s another murder. A weaver holds her sister’s head under the bathwater until her struggles stop. Then she hangs herself from the rafters.
The people are starting to get restless and Heimdall advises they make for a port. Thor agrees and they start towards the nearest inhabited planet, the emergency landing request already queued for when they’re in range.
“I’m going to go talk to the Big Guy again,” The Valkyrie announces while Loki is bent over one of his only magic books.
“He’s not going to remember anything.”
She lets out a short breath. “He might let Bruce out, and he might remember. It’s at least doing something, not just rereading the same damned book for the thousandth time.”
“Have it your way,” Loki responds, not looking up.
“Do not leave this room.”
“I won’t.” She leaves and he breathes a sigh of relief. She’d dogged him for days, and it feels blissfully peaceful to just be alone.
He keeps reading, vision blurring from tiredness. There’s a quiet noise behind him.
“Well? Did the beast cede to the scientist yet?”
The blow knocks him out of his chair and onto the floor.
He hits hard, stunned. Blood flows from his split temple onto his face, stinging in his eyes and dripping salty into his mouth. A booted foot, connecting with his ribcage. The air is knocked from his lungs and he can’t draw another breath. A hand fists in his hair, dragging him up.
“Thor,” He gasps. “Nnnn-”
“Silence!” Loki reaches out tentatively with his magic and is choked by the suffocating blackness. The deaths this curse had already claimed strengthened it. There is no budging Thor’s hand in his hair, even as he strikes out at his arm with his hands.
Thor drags him through the halls, saying nothing this time, not even insults. Loki’s head clears a bit, enough for him to talk.
“Thor, what are you doing?”
“It is time to end this. It is time for me to do what Father could not.”
“What are you talking - ”
“You will meet the sentence for treason, witch. I will have your head as price for your crimes.”
“Thor, you fool,” Loki cries, tightening his hands on Thor’s forearm. “Let me go.” He drags him into the central hall, throwing Loki down. He lands hard on his stomach and doesn’t try to rise.
“On your knees.” Blinking the blood from his eyes, he sees that Thor has one of the big swords from Sakaar gripped tightly in his fist. “ON. YOUR KNEES.” Loki does get to his knees.
And then he lunges, the knife coming to his hand in a breath. He sinks it into Thor’s side, but his brother has no reaction this time. He wrenches it out but then Thor swings the sword and Loki has to fall back. He leaves an illusion in place and aims for the nerves in Thor’s sword arm. The curse sees around the trick, or maybe that part’s just Thor, finally wise to his tactics. He catches Loki’s forearm and twists until he drops the knife.
“You will face your execution with dignity, Laufeyson.” Thor strikes him across the head with the pommel, making his ears ring, then his knee meets Loki’s groin and he goes down with a cry of pain.
Thor crosses behind him and shoves the back of his head until he’s parallel to the ground.
“Have any last words?”
“Thor, please, this isn’t you.”
“Oh, it is. And this should have been done a long, long time ago. Finally we will be free of you.” Thor raises the sword high over his head. Loki desperately tries to grasp his magic around the smothering curse.
The blow doesn’t come. Instead, there’s the sound of ringing metal.
“Thought I told you not to leave the room,” The Valkyrie says. “Now, Thor, I know I’m supposed to protect the throne and all, and I really don’t want to hurt you, but I think you’d best back off.”
“You are equally the traitor-”
“Guess that’s not going to work,” And she attacks. They clash, the Valkyrie managing to drive Thor farther away from Loki. But the curse is too strong. It makes Thor impervious to the blows she strikes and seeps away her strength. On a normal day, they might be evenly matched, but Thor is gaining on her fast and Loki can hear the screaming of the curse in his head.
He has to think. He has to break it, and fast. With a prayer to the Norns, he takes up the knife he had summoned to stab Thor and starts carving into the ground.
He has no idea if it will work. It’s a simple curse-breaker, but he whispers the words with a desperation that fuels it.
There’s one more thing, one thing that can make it powerful enough to maybe, maybe stop this thing.
Magic likes sacrifice. It likes to be worshiped and it likes its offerings and it likes it even better when the offering is a body, the dwelling place of a soul full of desperation and life and pain and hope.
Loki stands in the center of the sigil and without hesitation, draws two lines the long way down his left forearm. The cuts on his right are less clean. He must have severed a nerve with the first cuts, the way half the fingers on his left hand are numb and unresponsive. He’s shaking too, but manages to make two jagged cuts on the right.
With final binding words and blood flowing freely out of him, dripping to the floor, the curse breaks.
The darkness snaps, clearing in an instant. The sounds of the fight cease, leaving only gasping breaths.
Loki doesn’t remember falling, or lying down, but he’s suddenly flat on his back and freezing cold. “It worked,” He mumbles. “Can’t believe…it worked.”
“Loki!” A voice calls from far off. He opens his mouth to answer but there’s nothing left.
He dreams of being left on the rock. It’s so cold, the wind whipping around him. All he can see is snow and ice and darkness. But Odin will come. That’s what happened, isn’t it? He was left as an offering, a sacrifice, to the Jotun gods, because he had been born small and a shapeshifter and they thought his cursed birth was a sign that they had displeased the divine. If they ridded themselves of the shapeshifting runt, they could stand a chance in this war against Asgard. If they sacrificed this cursed infant, they could win.
But it didn’t work. Asgard defeated them anyways and Odin came and picked up the baby, which changed its skin to match this new person, equally out of inquisitiveness as survival. Odin took the baby to his family, lied to it, hurt it, but also loved it, held it, called it son, even at the end.
Odin doesn’t come in his dream and Loki is left on the cold rock, clothed only in a ragged grey cloth, as the cold seeps into him, devours him.
He wakes with a start, still ice cold, but in a soft bed.
“Did it work?” He says through chattering teeth. “Did it work?”
“It worked.” Thor’s voice is laden with guilt.
“Get some rest, highness,” The Valkyrie says. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”
“Cold, it’s so cold.” He can’t stop shivering.
“Can we get him another blanket?”
“I’ll go get the ones from our room.”
When the Valkyrie’s gone, Loki gropes for Thor’s hand. He hears Thor’s sharp intake of breath, but can only feel relief at the warmth. He grasps it as tight as he can, though his grip is still weak. “You’re warm.”
“I know.”
“Please, I…I just want to be warm.” Thor still hesitates. Loki tugs on his hand. “Lie down?” He finally gives in, shifting Loki until he has enough room to lay next to him. Loki rolls into his arms, pressing into his chest like he could crawl inside. “Better.”
Thor strokes his hair. “Why did you do that? Why would you do that?”
“C-couldn’t think of another way. M-maybe if I could’ve figured out…but it was too late. It was growing s-so strong. It needed…sacrifice.”
“All that blood.” Thor presses his face to the top of his head. “You have to stop doing this to me.”
“S-sorry.”
“Don’t.” Slowly, Loki stops shivering. He drifts off, only stirring a bit when the Valkyrie returns and piles more blankets on top of them, sealing in the body heat Thor generates.
He dreams no more of the rock. Instead, he dreams of a fireplace on Asgard and the sound of someone humming while they weaved.
“Ouch, oh man, I’m starving. What happened? I don’t even remember what set the Other Guy off.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Val, this is serious.”
“You won’t like it. It was magic.”
“Oh perfect. Jesus, Loki looks like a ghost. Well, more than usual.”
“Yeah, I think losing like 80% of your blood volume will do that to a guy.”
“…Magic or no, I think I’m going to need this story.”