Seizure
“I told you, I don’t have magic!” Loki wants to laugh. These people are insane, claiming he was a prince, that he was a powerful mage, that this blond fellow was his brother. They don’t even look anything alike. It’s madness.
“I know, we heard you the first thousand times,” Scrapper-142 says, rolling her eyes.
“Loki,” The brute says patiently.
“I don’t know how you know my name-“
“Would you just listen?” Anger explodes out of the blond warrior and Loki winces, flinching back as much as he can, bound in chains as he is. “The Grandmaster has done something to you-“
“He rescued me-“
“But I swear, this isn’t you! You’ll see-“
“Hold on, Thor,” Scrapper-142 lays a hand on the warrior - this Thor’s arm. “I have an idea.” She crouches before him. “Okay, Lackey, you don’t have magic. I believe you. I’ll even unbind you,” Thor makes a surprised noise. “And I’ll escort you back to the Grandmaster, if you’ll humor me for just a moment.”
“I don’t know…” Thor starts, but Scrapper-142 doesn’t look at him. She keeps her eyes locked to Loki’s.
“If you don’t have magic, you won’t be able to summon a light to your palm.”
“Of course not,” Loki scoffs.
“So prove it.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Hold out your hand.” Loki hesitates but the Scrapper rolls her eyes. “If you want me to release you, I told you, you’ll have to humor me. So hold our your hand.”
“Fine.” Loki takes his hands, bound together, and puts his palm face up between the two of them.
“Good. Now picture a flame. Your majesty,” She looks over her shoulder. “What color should the flame be?”
Thor looks decidedly unhappy about all this, and his eyes grow even more sad at the question. “Green. His seidr is green.”
“Okay, La-, Loki, picture a green flame.” He rolls his eyes, but does so. “A green flame in the center of your palm. It doesn’t hurt, but it feels warm and familiar. It is a part of you.” Scrapper-142’s voice is low and calm. “Now breathe with me, in,” Loki finds himself inhaling in time with the Scrapper without really thinking about it. “And out. In, yes that’s it, keep breathing. Good, just like that. Now picture there’s green light inside you, in your core. A tendril of that light, just a little, travels,” She places a finger on his chest, her other hand coming to cup the back of his outstretch hand. “From your chest, down your arm, and into your palm. It becomes the flame.” She traces the path she described, once, twice, three times as they continue to breathe together.
Loki feels strange. There’s something in his mind, blurring his thoughts together. Something in his chest burns.
“Take the light, take your seidr, and bring the flame into your palm.” His fingers of their own will, snap back, spasming. His breath stutters and he loses the rhythm but it doesn’t matter because there’s light, there’s light gathering in the center of his palm, growing brighter by the second. Then it starts to burn, spreading up his arm and to his chest.
“Valkyrie, his nose.” Blood, hot and salty, drips from his nose and onto his mouth.
“Thor, be ready to catch him, it’s going to happen fast now.” The pain was picking up. Pain shooting down all his veins, a fire worse that even the obedience disks, gathering in his chest and then traveling up his spine into the base of his skull and it hurts so badly, he’s going to burst, he’s going to die-
He collapses back onto a broad chest. An arm wraps around his shoulders and reality blinks out.
Thor was apprehensive about this method of freeing Loki from the Grandmaster from the start. And back then he didn’t know how dramatic it was all going to be. When he sees the surprise in Loki’s green eyes at the familiar glint of seidr in his hand, he almost has hope. But the surprise turns quickly to pain and when blood starts flowing from his nose, and the Valkyrie - seemingly knowing that this was going to happen - half turns and tells him, “be ready to catch him,” Thor becomes apprehensive again. He positions himself behind his gasping brother, just in time to catch Loki’s weight on his own body as his eyes roll back in his head and he tilts backwards.
Loki’s head falls on his shoulder. Thor wraps an arm around his brother’s waist, the other around his chest and shoulders and holds tight as his brother spasms violently.
“What the hell is happening here?”
“Don’t worry about it, Banner,” Thor says as he struggles to maintain his grip on Loki, whose spasms have not ceased. “We wanted this to happen…apparently.”
“Thor, he’s having a seizure, what the hell is going on?”
“He’s getting his magic back,” The Valkyrie says simply. “Hopefully his memories too, or else we’ll have a very angry, brainwashed sorcerer on our hands.”
“Jesus Christ, getting his magic back looks like that?” Thor moves his hand to Loki’s head, keeping it still on his shoulder. His brother is still seizing, the tremors wracking his body.
“Shhh, Loki, it’s alright, you’ll be alright,” He whispers, hoping Loki could hear him.
“What, you thought breaking magical bonds was going to look pretty?”
“How did you know this was going to work anyways?”
“I’ll be honest, I was guessing a little bit, combining two principles. There are some illnesses out there that, when they infect a mage, they kind of…stop up their magic. Part of the cure is for the mage to perform simple spells. The first few times, it looks like this, but as the mage recovers it’s not quite as dramatic. What the Grandmaster does is essentially an artificial version, blocking up that magic inside the mage so he can still feed off their power, but they can’t use it themselves.
“The other part is the first exercises natural born mages learn, conjuring the flame. At least, it was the first exercise taught to children when I was on Asgard, and among the Vanir too, so I had to figure things hadn’t changed too much since I left and that your mother would have used the flame to teach Loki to harness and focus his seidr. I thought following the familiar pattern of the exercise would trigger the spell by muscle memory and break through the blocks.” A memory was returning to Thor, of Loki sitting in his mothers lap, with his tiny palm in hers and her pointer finger on his chest. His eyes were closed and his breath even, as light steadily grew in his hand and his mother smiled proudly.
Loki makes a choking sound in his arms and Thor is snapped back to the present in an instant.
“Okay, well it seems like it’s working, but it’s not going to be much help if he asphyxiates before he comes out of the seizure. Shouldn’t we get him to a hospital or something, do they have hospitals on this…planet…?”
“Where he’ll be brought right back to the Grandmaster, and we’ll be executed for trying to take away his favorite toy. We just have to wait, and let his own seidr do the work.”
A minute later, the convulsions start to ease. Loki goes boneless against Thor and he finally gasps in a full breath.
“That’s it, brother, just breathe.”
The Valkyrie kneels before him again, taking his hands in hers. Loki’s eyes blink slowly open and he struggles to lift his head. “Loki, can you make the flame?”
Even though he looks exhausted, he nods weakly and extended his bound hand. Easily, the flame lights in the palm of his hand.
“I can do a great deal more than that,” He says, his words slurred but blissfully familiar. Loki sounds like Loki again and Thor could weep with relief.
“Loki, do you know me?” He asks, quietly.
Loki turns his face towards him. “Thor…brother…” Thor tangles his fingers in Loki’s dark curls and the tension bleeds out of him. Loki's brow furrows. “Sorry.”
“It’s alright, you’re alright now.”
“Unbind me? Please?” The Valkyrie unbinds the chains and Loki struggles out of his brother’s grip. “Bathroom-“
“There.” Loki, on trembling legs, bolts for the bathroom, Thor following close behind. He manages barely to keep Loki from slamming his knees into the ceramic tile floor as he collapses over the toilet, heaving. Thor gathers his hair, holding it back as Loki vomits up everything he’s consumed in the past few days.
“Shower,” He croaks when the heaves stop. He stumbles to his feet and Thor helps him stay standing, pushing him into the shower and turning the spray on. Loki shudders, and turns the tap as hot as it can go.
“Loki, be careful-“
“Shut up.” He’s gasping, turning his face towards the spray. After a minute, he turns the knob in the other direction, making it ice cold. “Help me…help me get out of these damn, filthy clothes.” His long, pale fingers tear at the fabric and Thor helps him to strip, tossing away the now sodden clothes. Thor waits patiently until Loki turns off the water, then hands him the only dry towel. Loki conjures himself his own clothes, calling them forth from the secret dimensional pocket he stores everything in. He flicks a hand and the towel folds itself and floats to the table. Thor wonders if he’s throwing around his magic just to prove to himself that he can.
Then he turns and looks Thor in the eye for the first time since coming out of the seizure.
“We have to get off this planet.”