Chapter Text
Flame of the Forest
Chapter 6
Ash, ash—
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing here.
~ Sylvia Plath
6
Years passed, and now the daylight hours of Thor’s life became more steadily consumed by new roles, with their many attendant demands and challenges. The days turned fast; seasons turned faster still, and between couriers, wizened elders, and matters of large and small importance, Thor found himself bemusedly accomplished in areas well beyond the welding of sword and hammer, areas he never thought to understand so well. Thor’s ministers gave praise of his great prowess in politics and statecraft, and his people loved the grave bearing he grew into under the weight of a hundred inscrutable cares and duties, not knowing that the biggest of these was Loki –
Loki, the one burning flint he could not touch; neither to fan its red hot flame nor snuff it out. For all that his heart’s utmost desire resided in the same golden palace as him, it was as if they circled different planets.
Thor continued acting like he always did. Yet he knew something deep and vital was missing from his soul. He missed the years of innocence, the song and ale that spilled from the tankards when the hall was drunk. He missed the scent of stewed plums that Loki used to make to accompany the meat that Thor would bring back during the rambling, semi-solitary hunts of their younger days.
Most of all Thor missed the old naive assumptions of their youth: of days when he had been so certain of his understanding of Loki. He missed the time he had been capable of insisting on Loki’s presence – when it had been a thing assumed, rather than the temporary gift it turned out to be.
But if there was ever a lure that would work on his brother, Thor had never found it, for Loki only deigned to show up when surrounded by company, or at moments when formality forced Thor to temper his words and his actions at events. If on occasion, rare as the blue slip of the moon, Thor succeeded in his bid to draw close would Loki turn and snarl at his brother like a cornered animal, and with damming cries of requisition.
‘Will nothing keep you from stalking me like meat dragged upon a string for your hunting pleasure!’
Thor always would feel unmanned by these accusations, his hands falling helplessly to his side. ‘I simply desire your company, brother.’
And Loki would laugh, wild and mad, and grin at him with a knowing as sharp as blades.
‘And that is all you desire of course.’ Loki continued slyly. ‘Do you truly think yourself so great an actor, brother?’
And Thor would flinch, his despair and desire like twin snakes that wind their way around his windpipe in a crushing grip, yet he always managed to bite out: ‘you cannot avoid me forever,’ and reach out for his balm and his curse.
As for Loki, he would allow himself to be cosseted only for a time. Like a wild thing, for deceptive moments he could be distracted or petted into compliance. Then he would either struggle or spit, and Thor could no more hold on to him than he could a struggling fox, for Loki was just as devilish and changeable thing as such a creature.
And always, always would Loki slip away, and they began their game anew.
He could never find the means to articulate this, but Thor has come to realize that Loki had truly vanished all those years ago when they had entered the forest together, never to emerge. And so too then, had all color leached from Thor’s life, as if his heart’s lines had been drawn on parchment and held out under rainwater.
Whereare once Loki had followed him without question, so now it was Thor who trailed the boot marks of his brother’s footsteps left on the snow, haunting the empty corridors they once roamed together.
Seasons turn, and all of Thor’s striving to find moments where he might put aside his duties and be in Loki’s presence with neither escort nor advisors were of no avail, with his councilmen ever ready to seek him out with questions, and his companions ever haranguing for old reenactments of more idyllic times, even more so now that Odin had declared Thor acting regent in his name. Until he began to despair that Loki would never turn around, never willingly return to his affections.
Until suddenly one day, his brother did.
*
Like all things, it happened without Thor kenning any difference or premonition to it.
One moment, it is an ordinary day, indistinguishable from the day before and full of thankless councils and consultations; and the next, Loki appeared before him in broad daylight like a fae holding out a mirror of his dearest wish and most longed for fate. With one pale, ghostly hand his brother gestures for him to step into the shadows, and instantly Thor is cleaved into two.
‘Brother, council begin amain, and our governors soon grow impatient.’
'Do you truly care about that, brother,' his sibling says in his lazy, half insolent voice; 'or are these... stately governor's robes something you have carried too long and have been longing to cast off?'
Thor knows there is no human way he can give answer to Loki's insinuations so he swallows his words, the pounding of his heart that seems to grow more painful with each moment, and asks instead:
‘What do you want from me, Loki?’
He watches his brother wet his thin lips, and the more he devours with his starving eyes the harder it seems to suck in the air around them.
His sibling’s smile bordered on maniac, even as his words come out calm and airy. ‘Take a guess, Odinson.’
‘You know I have duties.’
His brother flashes him a crocked grin. ‘Well then, a king will have to choose.’
Thor does not understand what he means, yet he understands too much. The seconds tick away, red hot and unbearable.
‘Thor,’ Loki finally says, almost vibrating with tension as if his own games have become too much for him, until finally he pushes away from the corridor and stalks off. And Thor has no choice but to turn from the bright daylight and follow him into the shadows, damming himself.
He follows Loki along ancient corridors dusty with lack of use, and down staircases crusted with mold and cobwebs. He follows even when all he can see is Loki’s swift-moving shadow, cast against a magical glow, and he can no longer hear his own footsteps, so supernatural is the silence. He follows because he had never been given permission to follow, not even when they were children and Loki would disappear in the storms, whisked away by Frigga’s healers.
He follows because it is Loki, and not to have him was the worst of fates; worse than the anger of his council or the disappointment of his father king, far worse than the own self-loathing that was already as familiar as his own shadow.
*