'I Can't Walk'
Thor waits as long as he can, hoping the visions go away. When three weeks go by, each night another odd dream, he cracks and seeks out Loki.
He finds his brother on his knees in the hydroponic gardens, using his magic to strengthen the chances the crops will survive. Thor waits patiently, watching as Loki’s magic spreads.
“If you’re not here to summon a storm to save me from watering,” Loki says eventually. “You should leave me alone.”
“Give me one good reason why.”
“Because you’re obviously here to bother me about something, or else scold me for something, and I’m not in the mood for either.”
“Have you done something that I should scold you for?”
Loki opens his eyes with a sigh. “Not that I can recall at the moment. So? Why are you here?”
“I have something to ask you.” Thor offers a hand and pulls him up.
“Oh?”
“I heard what you did to the Valkyrie.”
Loki steps back, out of his grip. “So you are here to scold me.”
“No.” Loki sits on a bench. “I’m here to ask you to do that to me.”
“What?”
“In a more controlled manner, of course. I know you can do it, enter people’s thoughts and memories. Show them visions of the past.”
“What would I be showing you?” Loki asks warily.
Thor runs a hand over his cropped hair. “I’ve been having these dreams. They feel so real. It’s…we’re back on Asgard. I just get these flashes, of things that I remember happening. But Hela is there.” Loki’s brow furrows. “Do you remember the time I nearly drowned?”
“When we were climbing trees?”
“Yes. Tell me how you remember it.”
Loki thinks for a moment. “You’d climbed higher than me, faster. I was annoyed and trying to catch up when there was a crack and the branch gave way and you fell into the lake below. It was an accident.”
“That’s how I remembered it too. But then…I dreamed of that day. And instead of the branch breaking, I dreamed that I turned and I saw her face. Hela. And she grabbed me and pushed.”
Loki stands, pacing with his hands twisting together. “How do you know it wasn’t just a dream? A nightmare?”
“I feels different. Loki, you know I can tell the difference.”
“You haven’t always,” Loki scoffs. “What then, brother? Do you think Hela escaped?”
“Yes. I think she escaped her prison over the years, or the walls were weakened. All the other dreams are the same. Times when misfortune or accident befell one or both of us, and she’s there. That cave-in that separated us from the Warrior’s Three? When you ‘fainted’ and fell down the tower steps? The mysterious assassin who tried to kill us in our beds when I was ten, the wolf that clawed your back…it goes on and on, every night I see these memories.”
“All her? Trying to kill us?”
“It was the first thing she tried to do when she escaped the last time.”
“But we didn’t have any knowledge-”
“I think Father altered our memories, to keep us in the dark. Keep her a blank spot in our heads.”
“Thor, this is madness-”
“Do you not believe he would do such a thing? Or that she would not be capable of it?”
“And you want me to go into your head, into the past, and find the truth?”
“I need to know. She was our sister-”
“Your sister,” Loki interrupts, holding up a finger. Thor shoots him a scathing look. “What? If I was forced to disavow my relationship to Frigga, at least I can rejoice in rejecting the bonds to Hela, especially if she has been trying to murder me my whole life.”
Thor stops him in his pacing tracks, grabbing his shoulders. “Reject the bonds to Hela all you wish, Loki. But don’t do that to Mother. You know it is her magic that you possess. Her magic and her love and her trust. And you can use it to help me find the truth of what happened to our family.” Loki still hesitates, glances away. “What is it? Do you fear the truth?”
“I fear Hela.”
Thor’s hands tighten on his shoulders. “She is dead.”
“She is the goddess of death. She likely reigns now in Hel. If we disturb her, if what you’re saying is true and she has been able to escape before…”
“If death is her prison now, it will be stronger than the one Father constructed for her. Please, Loki. I need to know.”
“Okay. I’ll do it. But what you’re asking is more complicated than what I did to the Valkyrie. I need time and materials.”
“We reach the market in another week’s time.”
“That should be sufficient. I’ll rest and at the market purchase what I need and when we leave, we’ll do it. We’ll find the truth.” Loki pulls away. He touches one of the vines. “We should do it here. The plants can be our anchor.”
“Thank you, brother. Truly.”
Seven nights, another seven nights of dreams. In each repetition of the dreams, Hela’s face is clearer.
In a meeting to discuss the materials they'll need, the day before they land, Thor’s head suddenly throbs in pain. To cries of his name, he presses a hand to the side of his skull and shuts his eye.
When he opens it, he is back on Asgard. It is night, and the room is lit by moonlight. It’s his childhood bedroom, the one he and Loki had shared before they were old enough to each have their own. Their small forms, covered in blankets, breathing even and peaceful in sleep. In his memories, the assassin is a black shape. He had assumed he was too young to clearly remember. When he had first dreamed this, the assassin had still been a shadow, unmasked as Hela only at the end.
This time, he sees his sister clearly. She stands in the center of the room, dressed in black rags, her hair hanging over her face. She smiles and a long black blade appears in her hand. She goes to his bed first, and raises the blade high above her head. She meets Thor’s eyes and brings down the blade with an unearthly shriek.
He’s back on the Ark. The Valkyrie grips his shoulders, shaking him. Heimdall’s hands are on his back.
“Thor! Thor!”
He blinks. “Sorry, sorry! I’m back.”
“What the fuck?”
“It’s nothing.” He rubs his eye and stands, out of their grips. “Really, I’m fine.” Heimdall looks very knowing, the Valkyrie just confused and horrified. “It’s fine, I’m handling it.”
Bruce and Loki had hung back. Thor makes eye contact with his brother, who keeps his expression schooled. But there is fear in his eyes.
“Do you want me to go with you?” Thor asks. “I could leave the negotiations up to the Valkyrie.”
“No, I should go alone.” Loki wraps his cloak tighter around himself and shivers. This planet is damp and cold, though Thor suspects Loki shivers with unease rather than cold.
“Be back before dark.” He claps his shoulder and watches as he disappears into the market crowd.
It’s a hard two days, loading new supplies onto the ship. Thor is too tired at night to dream, or perhaps it’s the anticipation of finally solving this mystery that stops the visions.
They depart from that cold planet and their first night in space, Loki presses close to him at dinner. “Tonight. After we finish the meal, I’ll gather the supplies. Meet me in the gardens. I’ve already told the caretakers I’ll be taking their shift tonight.”
“Is there anything else I should do to prepare?”
“Eat well. You’ll need your strength.”
The gardens are softly lit when Thor arrives.
“I know we’re supposed to turn off the lights,” Loki says with a hesitant smile. “To trick the plants into thinking they’re in nature. But I could not bear the thought of facing Hela in the dark.” Thor agrees. “Are you sure about this?”
“You saw what happened the other day. These visions are coming when I’m awake now. There is something I need to see.”
Loki nods. “Okay. We’ll kneel here.” He has constructed a circle of alternating candles and jars of water. Each of the jars has something floating in it. Thor tries not to look too closely. He sees bone and plant, and decides to leave well enough alone. The circle is large enough for both of them to kneel facing each other. In the center, there is a basin, empty. Loki fills it with sweet-smelling water from a jug. He takes out a knife.
“What-”
“I need blood. Your blood especially, since I share none with either you or Hela.” Thor hesitates. Loki rolls his eyes. “If you’re nervous about a little blood, I’ll go first.” He draws the blade across his palm without even a wince. The blood runs over his fingers and drips into the basin. “Now you. Same hand.” He offers Thor the blade, handle first. Thor cuts his left palm, and lets it drip into the water. Their bloods mingle in the basin. “This will help keep us together in the vision. We should not be separated.” Loki holds out his hand and Thor clasps it, the wound stinging as it’s pressed to Loki’s. “Don’t let go.” His voice is insistent.
“I won’t.”
“Are you ready?” Thor nods. “Close your eyes.” He does so and he feels Loki’s cold magic sweep over him.
He thinks they might collapse. He feels grass on his face and Loki’s hand in his and then they’re falling through the darkness.
The visions come quickly now as they fall.
He sees the night in the cave, Hela’s snarling face bringing down stones over their heads. They press together, gasping in the claustrophobic closeness of the little bubble of air allowed them, as they wait for the Warriors Three to get them out.
He sees a teenage Loki, bounding uncaringly up the tower stairs above the library. He reaches the top and gasps as Hela steps from the shadows and grabs his throat. She smiles as she pushes him backwards over the stairs until he’s arched past the point of no return and then lets go, watching as he tumbles down.
The lake, Hela appearing suddenly in the tree as he climbed higher, grasping his arms and casting him into the water below.
Loki walking in the woods, turning at the sound of a snapped branch. Hela, there with a knife, slashing it across his back.
The assassin, Hela raising the blade over their beds.
Thor is six now, Loki a toddler and they’re playing on a blanket by the fire. Hela stands in the shadows and with a twist of her hand a stream of fire reaches out and catches the corner of their blanket.
They finally land, hard. Loki collapses next to him, falling to his knees.
“You were right,” He cries. “You were right, Norns.” He covers his face with his hand, the other shaking uncontrollably in Thor’s. “She’s been trying to kill us since we were children.”
“Where are we? Why have we stopped?”
“This is whatever your visions want you to see. Whatever reason they’ve been coming to you in the dreams, this is what you seek.”
Thor feels a pull on him, an urge to move from the hall they’re in, towards the nursery. He tugs on Loki’s hand. “Come on. This way. Loki, come on.”
Loki doesn’t rise. “I can’t walk.”
“What?”
“I can’t get up. I can’t feel my legs.”
Thor feels a sharp spike of fear. “Is that…what could…”
“I wouldn’t worry too much. It may just be because I have to concentrate on keeping us in the vision. You’ll have to face this alone.”
Thor tightens his grip on Loki’s hand. “I thought you said not to separate, to keep holding hands.”
“In the physical realm, back in our bodies on the Ark. As long as we’re touching on the Ark, we won’t be in danger of being split apart into different visions. It’s not ideal, but I cannot move, and you must. Leave me here, its okay.”
“You’re sure?”
Loki nods. “Go. Whatever you’re meant to see, you have to follow it. It’s clear I’m not meant to go any farther with you.”
Thor lets go of Loki’s hand. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Good luck, brother.”
He walks into the nursery.
There’s a bed and a crib. He’s perhaps three or four, curled on his side with his thumb in his mouth. Loki is a baby, awake and cooing in his crib. Thor goes over to him. His green eyes blink up at Thor and he can almost believe the baby sees his spectral self.
“Hello, Loki,” He says quietly. The baby giggles, putting his fist in his mouth.
The door to the nursery opens and Hela enters. She looks right through him as she approaches the crib. She’s dressed in her black armor, her black and green cape covering her shoulders, none of it yet torn as it had been when they faced her in Norway. Her hair is long and loose. She leans over the crib.
“Hello, little monster. You’re going to help me with something very important tonight.” Loki looks up at her and his expression crumples and he starts to cry.
“Hela?” Thor glances at his younger self, now sitting up in bed and rubbing his eyes.
“Go back to sleep, Thor. I’ll take care of the baby.” Loki’s really wailing now, arching away from Hela’s hands. The sound of his little sobs stirs a deep protective instinct inside Thor. He longs to snatch Loki from the crib and cradle him to his chest, keeping him away from Hela. But he’s nothing but a ghost here.
“Where’s Mama?” The real version of himself asks.
“Your mother needs her rest. She asked me to take care of you two for a while. Now go back to sleep.” She picks up the baby, balancing him on her hip. She bounces him a little, but Loki’s cries do not cease. “I’m just going to take care of little baby Loki, and I’ll be back for you. You trust your big sister, don’t you? Lie down and go back to sleep.” He obeys, and Hela leaves with the baby.
Thor follows her, increasingly apprehensive about what she was going to do with Loki. She starts towards the vaults. Just before she starts to descend the stairs, a voice rings out.
“Hela, stop!” With a pang, Thor recognizes the voice of his mother. Frigga is young, hair piled in braids atop her head. She is dressed in armor, holding a sword. “Give me the baby.”
“Oh dearest stepmother,” she says. “No.”
“Hela, stop this.” Loki wails and reaches for Frigga. He writhes in Hela’s grip, trying to get to his mother, but Hela holds him too tightly.
“You stop this,” Hela snarls. “The throne is mine.”
“If you give me the baby-”
“It’s not a baby, it’s a monster. Father is casting me off and replacing me with this thing.”
“Your father is not casting you off, Hela. He is merely-”
“What? Stopping me? We’ve been ruling together for five hundred years, slaughtering our way across the galaxy and he just decides to stop at Nine? He meets you and has his little peace-loving wife, and his little golden son, and the animal he brought home from the war. No. I will not stop at Nine.”
Frigga remains unnervingly calm, keeping her eyes focused on Hela’s face. Just once Thor sees her glance at the baby, crying and reaching out for her, but then her jaw tightens and she looks Hela straight in the eye. “What became of the Valkyries, Hela? They set out to escort you home.”
“Escort me back to my prison you mean? They’re dead. All of them. Do you want to hear what I’m going to do to them? I’m going to go to the altar in the vaults, and sacrifice the little monster and raise them and I will have my army of the dead. But first I guess I have to kill you.” She lets go of Loki and lunges, the black blade coming to her hand in an instant. Frigga is torn between catching the baby and blocking the blow. Hela’s sword comes soaring at her-
“No!” Thor shouts. Frigga is forced to parry, defending herself from being impaled, and has to let Loki hit the stone floor hard. Loki shrieks, high and piercing, and Thor’s heart breaks. He crouches by the wailing infant, reaching out with ghostly hands as the two women struggle.
Finally, Frigga overpowers Hela for just long enough to thrust her against a wall, using magic to collapse the stone. She sheathes her sword and rushes to the baby, grabbing him to her chest.
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry baby, shhhh, it’s okay.” She keeps him pressed to her, beginning to cry herself. “It’s okay, I’m so sorry.” Thor has never heard a baby cry so hard in his life, and never heard his mother so frightened. Her hand glows, cupping Loki’s small head. “Okay, you’re alright, dear one.” Then she runs, Thor trailing, back to the nursery. She bursts in, startling the younger version of himself awake.
“Mama!” He cries in surprise as Frigga scoops him up. “Mama, what’s wrong?”
“It’s okay, dear one, come with me.”
“Mama, what’s wrong with Loki? Mama?”
“Hush. I don’t have much time.” She carries them up the library tower to the small room at the top, used as a guest room for visiting students. It is a simple scholar’s cell, with a small bed and a basin for water. She sets Thor down first, then puts Loki in his lap. He wraps his small arms very carefully around the baby as Loki wails. “Thor, I’m going to lock you both in here, okay? I’m going to send guards to watch over the entrance to the tower stairs. Do not open the door for anyone, anyone, until I return. Especially your sister.”
“‘Specially Hela?”
“Yes. It is incredibly important that she not get either of you. You won’t understand until you’re older. But she’s been very, very mean. She’s been hurting you and your brother, and if she gets her hands on you, she’s going to hurt you both very badly.”
“Did she hurt Loki? Is that why he’s crying?”
Frigga’s breath hitches. “Yes, she hurt him, but he’s okay now, just scared. Can you be very brave for both of you, now? Can you be brave and protect your baby brother?” Thor’s lip quivers but he nods firmly, holding the baby closer. Loki grasps at his clothing with his little baby fingers. “My sweet boys.” She kisses their heads. “I will return as soon as I can.” She slams the door shut and locks it, sealing off the room with magic.
Loki keeps crying.
“It’s okay, Loki,” Four-year-old Thor says. “Please stop crying.”
“I don’t remember any of this,” The older Thor says. “Nothing. I didn’t remember Hela at all but she…” His younger self pats the baby on the back and Loki lets out a piercing shriek of pain. He freezes, laying Loki down on the mattress. Carefully, he unbuttons his pajamas and peels them back from his tiny form, rolling Loki onto his stomach.
The child’s eyes widen in horror as he sees the mottled black and blue bruising all over the baby’s back from where he hit the floor. “Loki-” He gasps. Thor longs to reach out for them, for both of them, but before he can, the floor drops out from underneath him and he’s falling through the darkness again.
“Loki!” He shouts, but he is alone this time.
He sees it all again. Hela overpowered by Odin and imprisoned in a pocket dimension. Her slipping through, appearing as a nightmare throughout their childhoods, a ghost haunting them. A curse.
They’re on the cliff in Norway and she is advancing.
They’re on the bifrost and he sees Loki knocked out before he feels a sharp pain and is falling further.
His eye aches.
He sees things that are not real, that are nothing more than Hela’s dark fantasies. Sees her gutting the baby, bathing in his blood. Sees all her attempts succeed, sees them consumed by flames on their blanket, spitted by black blades in their beds, Loki bleeding out from long wounds carved in his back, his own lifeless corpse floating in the water, Loki at the bottom of the stairs, neck at an impossible angle, them gasping for their last breaths while buried alive in the cave in. He sees them bruised and beaten, their blood splattered across the Norwegian grass. Their corpses, bound hand and foot, hanged and swinging above the entrance to Hela’s throne room, guarded by the reanimated dead-
“Stop,” Thor finally shouts, clapping his hands over his head. “Stop!”
And then he wakes up, still on his side in the garden, grass tickling his cheek. He hears several sounds, but it takes a moment to process any of it.
The first sensation to break the fog is the feeling of Loki’s hand in his, squeezing so tight his bones ache.
The second is the sound of Loki crying.
He’s sobbing harder than Thor has ever heard him cry before, except for in the vision. Thor’s throat and mouth are very dry and no words come out when he tries to comfort him.
The third thing, is a loud, furious, stream of curses.
“Fucking magic, what the fuck am I supposed to do? Thor! Listen to me, you have to break the circle, I can’t help you if you don’t break the circle.” The Valkyrie. She sounds like she’s pounding her hand on something hard. The circle? The circle of candles and water, of course. Thor manages to kick out and knock over one of the candles. The feeling of enclosure breaks and cool air flows over them. The Valkyrie is suddenly crouching next to Loki.
“No!” Thor cries, in a sudden panic by the sight of her reaching out to touch him. The sudden fear obliterates reason. He pulls Loki into his chest. “No, don’t touch him!” Thor’s still half in the vision, doesn’t know where he is. The Valkyrie backs off, holding her hands up in surrender. “I’m not supposed to let anyone…let anyone in…”
“Thor, I don’t know what magics you two were playing at, but I need you to snap the fuck out of it.”
“Stay away from us, don’t touch us,” He growls. He clutches Loki protectively as his younger brother sobs. “Don’t touch us.”
“Okay, okay, fine, I won’t.” The Valkyrie waits patiently, as reason slowly returns to him.
He blinks. “Oh. Oh.”
“Majesty?”
“Val?” She relaxes, letting out a big breath of air.
“Fuck. What the hell were you two doing? I went looking for you when you never came to bed. I found you here, completely catatonic, dead to the world, and I couldn’t cross the circle. And then Loki just started crying and couldn’t hear me and you didn’t even blink.” She’s trembling a little bit. “What the fuck.”
“I had to see.”
“See what?”
“I’ll explain…I’ll explain later.” Thor carefully sits up, dragging Loki, still senseless and sobbing, with him. He pulls them into an echo of the position they’d been in in the small scholar’s cell on Asgard, Loki in his lap, grasping desperately at his shirt. “It’s okay,” Thor says, rubbing his back. “It’s okay, we’re back. I’m so sorry I made you do this, I’m so sorry.”
It takes a while, but Loki’s rough sobs slow and he calms, though his eyes remain unfocused and he doesn’t respond when questioned.
“Help me get him up,” Thor asks the Valkyrie. Together they guide him to a bench. Thor sits beside him, with a hand on his back.
“I’ll get you some water,” The Valkyrie says, and leaves them. After a minute or so, Loki’s eyes focus and he blinks rapidly. He touches his cheek, looking surprised at the wetness on his fingertips.
“Loki?”
“Hm?”
“Are you back?”
“Yes.” He wipes away the tear tracks on his cheeks. The Valkyrie returns with water, forcing them to drink.
“Are you two going to explain to me what the fuck you were doing?” She asks. Loki shudders.
“I’m so sorry, brother, if I had known…I’m so sorry. Is this because we separated in the vision?”
Loki shakes his head. “It was my fault. When we reached the last vision and I couldn’t walk, I knew it was because I wasn’t strong enough to keep us both there. I should have just stayed in the hallway and waited for you to find what you were looking for. But I was curious too. I couldn’t move, but I could anchor myself to something. Someone, rather.”
“So you anchored yourself…to yourself, didn’t you?” Loki nods. “You did see me, in the crib.” He nods again.
“You were watching. I was…experiencing.”
“Norns.”
“Experiencing what? Highnesses, you’ve got to give me something here,” The Valkyrie implores. “What were you doing?”
“And you…you knew I was old enough to remember,” Thor says. “Heimdall would have too…”
“Thor, I need you to focus, remember what?”
“Remember Hela. I was…I was old enough to remember her and I didn’t because Odin just took her from our heads.”
She rocks back on her heels with a sigh. “Odin altered the memories of everyone who stayed on Asgard. I thought it was thorough enough that you wouldn’t remember, but I guess it’s wearing off, or you’re getting too powerful. So you remembered something about Hela, and you had Loki dive back into the past and conjure a vision for you?”
Thor nods. “Of the night she was imprisoned. After she came back from slaughtering the Valkyries. I wanted to know.” She looks away.
“She tried to kill me, apparently,” Loki says after he’s drained the glass of water she brought him. “She was going to use me as a blood sacrifice to resurrect the Valkyries under her thrall. Then she was going to kill mother and Thor and Odin and seize the throne for herself.” Loki winces, placing a hand on his back. Thor pulls up his shirt. His back is purple and mottled with bruises, the phantom injuries of his infancy. “And when that failed, when mother stopped her, she spent the rest of her time in prison reaching out and trying to kill us. And Odin erased her, every time.” Thor takes a shaky breath and presses his nose to the side of Loki’s head to hide the look on his face.
“That bastard, that sounds like him.” The Valkyrie puts her hands on their shoulders. “Hela is dead. You killed her. You survived everything she threw at you and you survived all of Odin’s lies, and you’re safe. Now. I’m going to go drink an entire bottle of whatever the strongest thing is that we currently have on this, because that’s how I respond to talking about or even thinking about Hela. You’re welcome to join me.”
They take her up on her invitation and get wildly intoxicated. Much later, Loki is laying on the couch next to Thor, head pillowed in his arms with his eyes closed. His back still aches too much to put pressure on it, so he lays on his stomach. The Valkyrie’s passed out in the corner.
“Thor?” Thor pets back the hair from his forehead. “Next time you have one of your visions, please leave me out of it,” He murmurs. “The worst damned seer in all the Nine, I swear…”