Chapter 8
Loki's plan made Thor nervous. More than nervous. It scared him. They would have to come so close to delivering the Aether right to Malekith and put Jane in a frighteningly vulnerable position. The Aether had been protecting her but once it was gone she would possess no more than her usual mortal strength, possibly even less if the artifact was still weakening her. Loki gave his oath he would not allow her to be harmed and Thor had no doubt his brother would keep his word if it was in his power to do so. But even with his skill and cunning, Loki could not anticipate everything, and Malekith's power was not to be underestimated. It was a dangerous game Loki was playing, and through it all, the only thing Thor could do was watch.
Remaining on the sidelines while Loki acted out his charade was one of the hardest things he ever had to do. He knew if he gave away his presence too soon, it would ruin everything and probably get them all killed. That knowledge made it no easier to watch Loki walk straight up to Malekith and his soldiers—including one of the famed Kursed, the same beast who nearly killed their mother—without so much as a dagger in his hand or a sword on his hip. The gut clenching fear set his heart pounding a hard rhythm against his ribs. Staying back grew even more difficult when Jane started to cry. Hiding the truth from her was an unfortunate necessity lest Malekith sense their deception before it was time. At least, he agreed that it was necessary when Loki explained that part of the plan. Watching her tremble at Malekith's feet and hearing the quaking terror in her voice, however, Thor couldn't escape the thought that he was every bit as cruel as Malekith for putting her through it.
By the time Loki called for the attack, Thor was gripping Mjolnir so tight he felt the wooden handle groaning under the pressure. His lightning found Malekith sure enough and a wave of relief swept over him. The most dangerous part was over. Now for the rest.
The rest of the dark elves were stunned by his sudden assault, giving him ample opportunity to close the short distance and start dispatching them. Sparing just a quick glance in Loki's direction to make sure Jane had fled the fray, Thor set about destroying the elves. Images of the attack on Asgard flowed through his mind, with Thor making no effort to push them away. Each strike against the elves felt like retribution for the destruction they wrought on his home, his family. Thor was on the verge of losing himself in the fight, giving free rein to his less merciful instincts, until a sharp high sound reached his ears through the clash of weapons. A scream.
Jane!
With one sweep, Thor knocked the closest elves aside and spun on his heel, ready to defend the object of his affection. Only, Jane was in no danger from their foes. She was still a good distance away. If she was safe, then why...
No. That was wrong. He shouldn't be able to see her beneath Loki's cloak.
An icy feeling of dread wrapped itself around Thor's chest as he followed Jane's line of sight to where Loki stood. When last he saw, his brother was alone. That was no longer true.
A lone elf had broken off from the main group without either of them noticing. Somehow, it sneaked behind his brother and was even now pulling out the sword he drove through Loki's body. Loki fell to the ground writhing in agony. Then he went still.
Thor screamed his brother's name and was about to go to him but in those few moments of inattention, the remaining elves surrounded him. He dropped to his knees and drove Mjolnir into the ground. The resulting shockwave knocked them off their feet, buying Thor a few precious seconds. Taking full advantage of it, he hurled the hammer with all his might at the elf who attacked Loki. His aim was true. The elf fell and would not rise again. By the time the hammer returned to Thor's grasp, the rest of the elves had recovered. That, however, was not the worst problem.
The Aether, which had remained in the air above them, was now flowing toward Malekith.
How had he recovered so fast?
For a moment, fear and indecision paralyzed Thor. Loki was hurt, might even be dying. He needed help. But Thor also knew going to him would leave Malekith free to take the Aether. Trillions would die.
"I'm sorry, brother," he murmured.
Wasting no more time, Thor spun his hammer and took off, aiming to slam straight into Malekith. He was completely unprepared for the strength of Malekith's protector, the Kursed. With just one hand, it knocked him aside as easily as Thor might swat away an insect. The world spun in a dizzying circle around Thor for a few seconds before he crashed into the ground at great speed. The impact forced all the air from his lungs and made his vision go dark for a pair of heartbeats. It even shook Mjolnir loose from his grasp.
Head still reeling, Thor got to his feet with just enough time to watch the last of the Aether disappear into Malekith's body. Without waiting for the rest of his men, he headed back to his ship. Thor took to the air again but even as he did, he knew the distance was too great. Malekith and his Kursed disappeared behind a closing door before Thor could reach them. Moments later the ship was in the air. They had lost.
A brilliant flash of light caught Thor's eye. The bifrost touched down and deposited Odin, Sif and the Warriors, as well as a squadron of Einherjar. Knowing they would sort out the elves Malekith left behind, Thor headed straight for his brother.
Jane was at Loki's side already, trying to staunch his bleeding wound with a piece of material that looked to be torn from her own dress. Loki, always pale, was an ashen grey. His eyes were open but vacant. The cold dread that had previously wrapped around Thor's chest clenched even tighter.
"He needs help. And fast," Jane told him, her voice tight. Her shaking fingers were stained red.
Thor knelt down. "Let me take him."
"No," Odin said from above him.
"We must get him to the healing room," Thor insisted. "He-"
"I know," his father interrupted. "But he needs this first." He reached into a small satchel tied at his waist and withdrew a healing stone. "I prepare before going into battle."
Without needing to be told, Thor pulled Loki's breastplate off and ripped open the tunic underneath it, noting absently that there wasn't as much blood as he expected to find. Beside him, Odin crushed the stone in his hands and rubbed the dust into the wound.
"Turn him over," Odin said.
Thor rolled Loki onto his side and their father held him there while Thor tore away the rest of the tunic and leathers. There was the blood he was expecting. Loki's entire back was stained red. Odin rubbed more stone dust into the wound. Thor held his breath. If the blade that caused this was enchanted against healing as well...
It wasn't. Though it felt as if it took entirely too long to begin working, the bleeding slowed to a sluggish flow and the edges of the wound began a slow knitting back together.
By the time they turned him face up again, Loki's sporadic shallow breaths were deepening. He was not yet aware, having slipped fully into unconsciousness while they tended to him, but neither did he still appear to have one foot already through Valhalla's doors. Thor tried again to pick him up and again, Odin stopped him.
"I'll take him. You finish what you started."
Thor started to object—surely the Einherjar could handle the rest of Malekith's forces without him—but Odin silenced him with a steely glare. His father said nothing else as he gathered Loki into his arms and walked to a more open space where the bifrost could touch down. Jane looked back and forth between Thor and his father.
"Should I..."
"Go," Thor said. "You'll be safer there."
She hesitated for a moment, looking as if she was deciding something. When her mind was made up, she joined Odin. Just before the bifrost opened though, she gave Thor a look that made his heart sink. There were so many emotions swirling in her eyes, all of them unpleasant. Most prominent among them, though, was anger. As the bifrost snatched the three of them away, Thor couldn't help wondering what other damage their plan had wrought.
~~~|~~~
Awareness came gradually, like sun slowly burning through a thick morning fog. The first thing Loki felt as he began the long climb back into consciousness was a gentle stroking along his scalp. He wondered who it was that was petting him as if he were a cat. He thought about asking but the sensation was so surprisingly pleasant that he decided against it, just in case it made whoever it was stop. It was so soothing it began to lull him back to sleep as he sighed with pleasure.
"Ah, ah," said a warm voice that was very familiar but that Loki's muzzy brain couldn't quite place. "You've slept long enough, my darling."
But I'm so tired, his protested in his sleepy mind. He was so tired and the bed was so soft. The pillow was all but whispering his name.
Wait. The voice. He knew that voice.
Loki worked his eyes open, which was no easy task when his eyelids seemed to want nothing more than to do the opposite. A face hovered above him, blurry in the dim fire light. After a few more laborious blinks, his sight cleared.
"Mother?"
Frigga was sitting in front of him on the bed, leaning forward to run her fingers through his hair. She grinned. "Who were you expecting?"
"I...you..." Try as he might, Loki could not form a coherent thought. Abandoning the idea, he reached up, took her hand from the top of his head and pressed the back of her fingers to his lips. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"You should be," she said. "That mad scheme of yours nearly got you killed."
"I... that's not... I mean, I am, but..."
She covered his hand with her other one. "What is it, dear?"
Loki swallowed thickly, shame clogging his throat. "I wasn't here. I should have been here."
"Here for what?"
The loving concern in her eyes was too much for him to bear when he knew he was responsible for her too-close brush with death. He closed his eyes and turned away. "I wasn't here when the attack happened. I thought the noise of battle was Thor and I ignored it. Had I not ventured out, I wouldn't have seen it at all. And you... I was almost too late."
At the sound of his mother's soft laugh, Loki cracked his eyes open again. She was shaking her head with a somewhat bemused smile on her lips. "And you feel guilty for that, do you? For something you almost did."
Put that way it did sound silly but it didn't lessen what Loki felt. Not when the image of her being held at the mercy of two monsters while a sword drove into her back was still such a vivid one in his mind.
"Loki," Frigga sighed. "I knew the risk I was taking."
"You shouldn't have had to take it alone."
"Perhaps not, but it benefits no one to dwell on a past that cannot be changed. I certainly don't care to do so. Do you want to know what I have been thinking about?"
The question was probably rhetorical but Loki nodded anyway.
"I didn't know about the enchantment on the blade," she said. "It's not the sort of weapon the dark elves were known to use. From what Eir told me, had the wound been any deeper I would not have survived even to the healing room. You saved me, my son."
"But I-"
"You saved me," she repeated, carefully emphasizing each word.
Loki didn't notice the tears falling from his eyes until his mother wiped them away. For the first time since the dark elves' attack, he felt the full weight of all that happened truly sink in. He'd come so close to losing her. That awful prospect had hung like a thick black cloud over his thoughts, blocking out all light until the only thing he saw was darkness. But now the clouds were breaking. The relief of having her there and well again overwhelmed him until he couldn't stop the tears from flowing. Frigga used one of her hands to squeeze his while the other cradled his cheek.
"You shoulder too much of the burden, Loki," she told him. "You always have. It's time you learn to let go of that which is not yours to carry."
Loki didn't reply to her, not trusting his own voice. He didn't have any time to gather himself to give an answer either, because there came the sound of approaching footsteps. Loki looked up and saw his father at the entrance of the room.
"Are you well, my son?" Odin asked while he walked to the bed.
"I will be soon, I expect," he said, cringing at the trembling in his voice. Mercifully, neither of his parents drew attention to it.
"I take it you've finished speaking with Thor," Frigga said to Odin.
"I have."
She rose from the bed, smoothing her skirts as she did. "Then I suppose it is my turn."
With both of them standing over him now, Loki was suddenly very aware of his position below them. He felt far too much like a child again, staring up at his much larger parents. He made to rise, or at least sit upright, but only got as far as lifting his head before a sharp pain lanced through his gut. He stifled a whimper into a quiet gasp but it was no use. They still heard it.
"What are you doing, you foolish boy?" Frigga chided him. "It's only been a few hours since your father brought you back. You must stay abed a few hours more."
"I only-"
"I will sit on you if I must."
"I don't see how that would improve my healing," Loki grumbled to himself, letting his head fall back on the pillow.
"What was that?"
"Nothing, Mother."
She gave him a stern look which only lasted a few moments before it dissolved into a smile. Leaning over him, she pressed a kiss to his forehead and ran her fingers through his hair one more time.
"I'll be back," she said. "And I expect to find you resting."
Loki nodded in reluctant agreement. Satisfied with that, Frigga left. He waited until he heard the door close behind her before looking at his father to say, "Help me up."
Odin raised an eyebrow. "If you think I'm foolish enough to defy your mother, you are sorely mistaken."
"I only wish to sit up. I have no intention of defying her either."
His father relented, much to Loki's relief. He suspected he knew what Odin was there to say and it wasn't to merely inquire after his health. If he could at least sit up, enduring what was to come would be easier. Well, perhaps not easier, but a little less intimidating.
By the time Odin finished propping up the pillows behind him, Loki was doubting the wisdom of his own plan. Just that small change in position left his entire upper body feeling as if it was on fire. While he sat with closed eyes and willed the pain to recede, he heard his father drag a chair over to the side of the bed and sit down. Then they both sat in silence until Odin finally broke it.
"Loki, when you first told me what you learned about the Aether, I reminded you that Asgard's safety was not your sole responsibility to bear."
The pause that followed lingered on until Loki realized his father was waiting for a response. "I remember, Father."
"You said you understood that."
"I did—do. I do."
"You also promised me you would not chase after another infinity stone on your own."
Loki remembered that conversation well and felt his face begin to warm as he realized he'd broken his word on both counts. He said nothing, but his father didn't wait this time.
"You have always had a talent for deception, my son, and so I cannot help but wonder if you were lying to me or to yourself."
"I don't know," Loki heard himself say. And he really didn't.
A year ago, he felt certain he knew what he needed to do. He had to find the Aether and see it put away somewhere no one would ever look for it, thus keeping Asgard and the rest of Yggdrasil safe. Malekith's attack only made his course clearer. He had to stop the elf and take control of the Aether at any cost. Yet now he felt none of that certainty. The once stark picture he saw had become muddled to a point where even he didn't know why his actions had made sense to him at the time.
His father looked down at his own hands folded in his lap. "And I must also wonder how much of what led you to do what you did today was my own doing."
Caught completely by surprise by the admission, Loki's gaze snapped up to regard Odin but his father was looking down at his hands folded in his lap.
"There was a time when you were unsure of yourself and our love for you. That was due in no small part to my carelessness. It seems I have been careless again."
A bit bewildered, Loki repeated "Careless?"
"Yes. I watched you conquer your doubts when you were young but there were times I thought I saw them surface again. The lapses were always so brief that I believed those feelings could not be so strong. But if one mistake on my part was enough to send you plunging headlong down a path of self-destruction, perhaps I was wrong."
It was Loki who had to look away now, even though doing so didn't halt the hot rush of shame that came from feeling so utterly exposed. Even he wasn't sure it was the truth when he said, "I was not seeking death."
"You weren't trying hard to avoid it, either," his father returned. "You could have taken an entire legion of warriors with you, yet you confronted Malekith alone."
"Malekith is a seiðman. He would sense the illusion if I tried to conceal a force that size."
"Then have them assemble on the bifrost and await a signal for Heimdall to send them to you."
"I had Thor," Loki offered weakly, aware of how feeble an excuse it was.
"Loki," Odin sighed. "This must stop. You have no need to prove yourself or prove that you deserve our love."
"I know." The words came out in an almost panicked rush.
His father wasn't convinced. "Yes, but do you believe it? Your actions, and not just those of today, would suggest otherwise. I was unreasonable with you today, I know. It was inexcusable. But in turn, your reaction was to rush off into a confrontation more likely to get you killed than anything as though saving us single-handedly even if it be by your death was the only way to set things right."
Loki opened his mouth to deny it but he couldn't, not honestly. Not when he spent an entire year in an increasingly frantic search for the Aether as though the fate of all nine realms rested on his shoulders alone. Not when he had been completely willing to surrender his life in order to capture the Aether after his unsuccessful quest had culminated with the dark elf attack. Of course the galaxy would be safer with the Aether secure but it wasn't only the fear of it landing in Malekith's hands that drove him.
"I thought I failed you all," he said softly, eyes fixed on his own fingers clenching the bed cover between them.
From the corner of his eye, he saw his father nod. "I guessed as much. But tell me, my son, just what did you think would happen if you failed?"
"I don't know."
"I think you do"
Memories from Loki's youth surfaced in his mind. Memories of watching Thor and their friends gleefully departing for another adventure without him; of a father who seemed cold and distant; of wanting desperately to confide in his mother but holding back for fear of alienating her too; of feeling utterly alone in the world.
"I don't know," Loki said again, but he knew the lie was a poor one. He swiped at a tear that escaped from the corner of his eye with an angry jerk of his hand. His father caught his hand on the way down and held it firmly until Loki looked at him.
"Loki, you are my son. That is all you ever need be, and the only reason I will ever need to love you. No failure, no mistake, no disappointment could ever change that."
More tears slid down Loki's cheeks, too fast for him to wipe them away before they fell.
"I'm sorry I struck you," his father went on. "All the more so now that I see the damage I caused. And I'm sorry I haven't done more in the past to reassure you when you needed it."
"I'm sorry as well," Loki said. "I was a fool."
"We are all fools in matters of the heart, my son. You would do well to remember that when your heart makes you doubt."
Loki managed a brief nod. "I'll try."
"Good." With one last squeeze of his hand, Odin let go. "Now for mercy's sake, lie back down before your mother sees you up and thrashes both of us."
A wobbly laugh burst from Loki's mouth and for once, he did as he was told.