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It’s sleeting. Still. Hasn’t stopped since Loki brought Thor here. The air is sharp with ice. Loki stands at the opening of the cave and looks out at the sodden, grey landscape of rocks and dirt plains. There’s not one indication of civilisation in sight.
Back inside, it’s somewhat warmer, though not significantly. Thor has regained consciousness and is tugging at where his wrist is manacled to the rough stone wall. At Loki’s return, Thor shoots him a furiously indignant look.
“What manner of enchantment have you laid on this metal to keep me prisoner in this way?” he demands. His hair is mussed and his face flushed from exertion.
“No enchantment,” Loki says blithely. “You’re just not strong enough.”
Thor’s struggling slows, and he gives Loki another look, more speculative this time. The fur blanket with which Loki covered him has slid down over his bare chest, exposing black bruises from his last battle, and a strip of white bandaging where his mortal comrades tended a wound.
He glances around the dim interior of the cave. His gaze settles on the fire Loki has lit, and he seems unsettled by its ghostly green flames.
Loki waits, and eventually Thor’s attention returns to him.
“What have you done to me?” he says. He sounds surprisingly levelheaded. It must have occurred to Thor that Loki might be the reason for his sudden, mysterious sickness, but there’s none of the rage Loki expected.
Loki flicks out the tails of his green leather coat and sits on a stool on the other side of the fire from Thor. In the magical firelight, the bones of Thor’s face seem pronounced to the point of gauntness and the golden tones are bleached from his skin.
“A short while ago, I was attacked by an enemy who possessed an artefact capable of robbing me of my magic.”
Thor’s brow furrows. “What enemy?” he says.
Loki rolls his eyes at the interruption but otherwise ignores him. “To save my magic, I had no choice but to send it elsewhere.” His smile flickers like a snake’s tongue. ”I sent it to you.”
Thor recoils in horror. He stares down at himself, as if expecting to see some physical sign of Loki’s pollution. He can’t, of course. Loki, however, can feel the pulse of his magic within Thor, knotted tight around the thread of Thor’s life-force.
He can feel the laboured throb of Thor’s heart.
“Take it back,” Thor says, through gritted teeth.
Loki smiles again, more broadly. “I can’t. My magic returns to me at its own pace. I could try to force it, but I think the attempt would kill you.”
Thor cocks his head, eyes narrowed. “Do not play with me, Loki. Why should I believe that my death matters to you now?”
He sounds older, Loki thinks abruptly. The change in Thor strikes an elegiac note within him, and then he is irritated with himself for missing anything about his sham life.
He passes his hand through the fire, aware of Thor’s eyes still on him, and, with a flourish, he separates one flame from the burning heat and holds it in his palm.
“I don’t want you to die until I have my magic back,” he tells Thor. “So long as you are its vessel, I can still use my magic. But if you die before my magic returns, it will be lost to me. Therefore, until my magic is mine once more, there is nothing in the universe more precious to me than you, brother dear.”
And he smiles again, because such a grotesque joke deserves to be acknowledged.
:::
Thor sulks. Rather, his mood appears to be sulky, though Loki suspects his erstwhile brother is also somewhat in shock at the revelation that he’s playing host to frost giant magic against his will. Thor sits on his bed, his back propped up against the rough stone wall, and his mouth set in a grim line. His blond hair, smooth once more and still radiant, spills over his bare shoulders.
There is a dot of fresh blood on the bandage on his chest that wasn’t there when Loki kidnapped him from the SHIELD medical facility. Loki continues to read his book, but he frequently – and surreptitiously – looks up in order to check that a second spot of blood hasn’t joined the first. Although Thor’s welfare is of paramount importance to him currently, he doesn’t want to confuse the situation by allowing Thor to backslide into believing he still cares. Few things grate on him as much as Thor’s earnest pleading for him to repent his crimes.
The green fire continues to burn in silence. Everything is quiet, continually hushed by the sleet outside.
“Am I prisoner then?” Thor says at last.
Loki waves a hand without looking up from his book, and the manacle about Thor’s wrist falls open. He listens to the scuffle of Thor rising unsteadily to his feet. He hears the pained catch in Thor’s breath. And he smiles to himself when Thor topples back onto the bed.
He finally glances up and sees Thor is flexing his fists, clearly straining to hold his temper.
“What of Asgard?” Thor says with forced patience. “They could cure-“
“Their cure would not necessarily be to my liking,” Loki cuts in. “And there are some who might believe that to permanently rob me of my magic is well worth the price of your life.” He goes back to his reading, though he knows Thor has not yet surrendered.
“And what of my friends on Midgard, do they know where I am?”
Loki casts Thor a long-suffering look as he turns a page. “Your meddlesome little mortals? Do you truly think they would have the wisdom to leave you to my care if they knew where you were?”
Thor doesn’t respond to the gibe. He doesn’t speak at all for a long moment. Loki watches him out of the corner of his eye, while maintaining a façade of reading. Thor shifts on his pallet of blankets, hunching forward against his raised knees. He’s still as huge as ever, but the pose is uncharacteristically boyish.
It hits Loki, not for the first time, how helpless and human Thor is now.
“How long before your magic returns to you?” Thor asks at last.
Loki shrugs.
“And the sickness?” Thor asks. He wets his lips and lowers his gaze. “Will it get worse?” The question is grudging, and Loki knows it hurts Thor even worse to admit weakness.
“You’re carrying my magic, and I am very powerful, and also a frost giant. It’s poison to you in its purest form. Of course it will get worse.” Thor makes a noise, somewhere between a groan and a sigh, and Loki looks at him sharply.
He lowers his book and leans forward in his chair, though Thor still will not raise his eyes to meet his.
“Whatever pain or sickness you feel, well, it’s a small price to pay for helping your own brother, isn’t it?”
An ugly red suffuses Thor’s pale cheeks. His smile is bitter. “You recognise the bonds of brotherhood only in order to abuse them.” At last he raises his head, tossing his blond mane back haughtily. “Very well, I will carry your magic. But after that, you and I are done. I will owe you nothing.”
The announcement is grave, and delivered in a suitably princely manner.
Loki blinks at him, incredulous, then laughs in his face. “Thor. Dear, stupid Thor. I didn’t need your consent to send my magic to you. And I don’t need your consent for it to remain there. The only part you have to play in it returning to me is not dying.”
Something dangerous flashes in Thor’s eyes at that. The line of his jaw tightens. Loki recognises the unspoken threat.
He chuckles again. “Don’t make promises you don’t intend to keep.”
:::
Loki judges how unwell Thor is feeling by his willingness to sit and do nothing. For his own part, Loki is bored. He tires of his book and lays it aside. He paces to the mouth of the cave once more, but the landscape, and the frozen rain, is constant. He whistles an old Asgardian marching tune to himself, and returns to his seat. His gaze falls on Thor.
Thor is lying on his side on his bed, the fur blanket tucked up around his chin. His eyes are closed.
Loki frowns and crouches down at his side, to better examine him.
“Your concern warms my heart,” says Thor, without opening his eyes, “but have no fear. I’m not dead yet. Your magic survives.”
“So glad to hear it,” says Loki, straightening up at once. He takes his seat once more, but continues to watch Thor.
“I wonder how Earth’s Mightiest Heroes are managing without the god on their team. No doubt the Hulk will survive, he’s like an extremely large cockroach, but the others are so breakable, so very mortal. What if you return to Earth to find only their graves?” Loki tries to sound concerned but cannot keep the glee from his voice.
“Loki.” Thor’s tone is a warning. “Find something other than me to distract yourself with.”
“Such as?”
Thor rolls over onto his other side. “I’m sure you can think of something.”
Loki thinks he’s fallen asleep at last, then Thor speaks again.
“Why don’t you weave?” he says. His tone is oddly wistful. “Mother used to weave to while away the hours. Do you remember?”
“She wasn’t my mother,” says Loki, but he does. He remembers.
Frigga used to weave such beautiful things. Weaving was considered primarily a female art in Asgard, but then of course, so was the magic she taught Loki to work. He remembers sitting at her feet, listening to the rattling journey of the shuttle across the loom, and imagining his mother was weaving the fabric of the star-studded skies and the foaming silver seas.
“There’s no space for a loom,” Loki says, doubtfully.
“Then think of something else,” Thor murmurs, just at the edge of wakefulness.
:::
Loki uses knitting needles from Midgard, which are brittle and plastic, and not at all like the polished bone needles from Asgard. The yarn is also from Midgard, and is scratchier than that of Asgard. It is, however, a pleasingly vibrant green.
He’s been knitting for a pleasurable few hours when he feels the need to stretch his legs. He sets his work aside and goes to the cave mouth. The sleet is thinning to rain and the chill has left the air. It is still a bleak and miserable sight.
Inside, Thor has pushed himself up on his elbows. He seems relieved to see Loki return but says nothing, only lays himself back down on his bed.
Loki sits back down on his stool and takes his knitting up once more. His needles resume their click-clacking. He’s aware that Thor is watching him.
“Are you hungry?” says Loki.
“Cold,” says Thor. He continues watching Loki, then says, “What are you making?”
It’s not the slur on his masculinity Loki was expecting. He finds he’s disappointed not to have cause to quarrel. Part of him even wonders if he chose to knit because it was likely to provoke Thor’s disdain. It frustrates him to think Thor should still have any bearing on his decisions.
He smiles thinly. “Let’s not trouble ourselves with unnecessary conversation.”
That has the desired effect of nettling Thor. He glowers at Loki, only part of his face visible above his fur blanket but his hostility still obvious. “Can’t you make your accursed fire burn harder? I’ll freeze before I starve.”
“Try to avoid either until I have my magic back,” says Loki. “Then you are free to die in whatever way you choose.”
He ignores Thor easily enough, and knits row after green row. It’s many years since he last knitted, but the muscle memory remains. His fingers go through the motions and he finds his mind wandering.
Thor has fallen asleep once more, but he’s trembling beneath his blanket. Loki, being a frost giant, feels no discomfort at all. He has never minded the cold. The heat, on the other hand, he minds. The same sun that tans Thor to glorious radiance, burns away the breath in Loki’s body.
Loki remembers a night spent away from Asgard, while he and Thor and the Warriors Three were questing.
Hogun slept propped up against the thick trunk of a tree, one hand still resting on his mace. Fandral used Volkstagg’s belly as his pillow, and his head rose and fell with each gigantic store.
And Thor slept on a bedroll beside Loki on the green forest floor.
Loki wanted to sleep, but the heat smothered him, left him gasping like a fish plucked from the river. He felt close to brain-boiled delirium.
Thor slept on his belly, with his blanket pushed down to the dip at the base of his spine. The spill of his hair obscured most of his face, but Loki could just make out his slightly parted lips, the occasional flutter of his eyelashes as he dreamt of riding to blood-soaked glory. He was gone so far away in his dreams.
Loki was struck by the sudden horror of separation, never more isolated than when peaceful oblivion took his brother and he was left alone in the burning night. His chest shuddered as he struggled for breath.
Then Thor sighed, as though Loki’s panic had reached out and shook him.
“Go to sleep,” Thor murmured, dozily irritated.
“It’s too hot,” Loki said.
Thor gave another sleepy sigh. His hand crawled blindly down his body to where Mjolnir was tucked against him. His fingers flexed tight, and the shadowy sky rumbled in answer.
A light rain began to fall.
Hogun and the others woke in the darkness with startled cries, dashing for blankets and cloaks with which to cover themselves.
Loki turned his face up to the sky and breathed in fresh air while his skin cooled.
He looked to Thor, maybe to thank him, but Thor had disappeared beneath his blanket, only a few strands of his golden hair left visible.
The memory is an uncomfortable one, and it causes him unease to watch Thor shiver on his bed. He considers a moment, then, sure that Thor is unconscious, he crosses to the bed and swiftly tucks the blanket more tightly under Thor’s chin.
Thor murmurs something unintelligible and burrows deeper. Perhaps he is too sick to be alert to the possible threat of someone by his bed. Either that, or he knows it is Loki.
Loki watches him for a long moment, unsettled by the old familiar fondness that stirs within him, like the movement of a phantom limb.
He retreats to his own stool, passing a hand over the fire as he does so, and making the flames leap higher between them.
:::
There is a strange thudding in Loki’s ears, and it carries with it such a sense of urgency he is jolted awake. He can’t place the cause of his alarm. Everything in the cave is as it was when he went to sleep. The fire still burns, Thor is still on his pallet, and the rain continues to fall outside.
Still, the thudding continues, and it slowly comes to Loki that what he is hearing emanates from inside himself. It’s the pulse of his magic rushing back to him; it’s the slowing beat of Thor’s heart.
Thor is weakening.
Aware of the danger, Loki crosses to Thor’s bedside swiftly and shakes his shoulder. But Thor doesn’t even stir. His skin is cool to the touch.
“Thor,” Loki says harshly. “Wake up, open your eyes. Thor.”
He shakes him again, and, when Thor doesn’t respond, slaps his cheek. Thor groans and Loki strikes him once more, harder.
“Thor, open your eyes.”
Loki is about to hit him again when Thor’s hand shoots out and catches Loki by the wrist.
“I’m awake. Stop hitting me.” Thor draws a juddering breath and then pushes himself up into a sitting position, his back resting against the cave wall. He looks drawn and grey. Wintry white strands have appeared in his hair. His colourless complexion makes the red mark of Loki’s handprint on his cheek stand out like it glows.
Loki gets back on his feet and retreats a few steps. His own heart is beating hard. Irritation reflexively takes the place of concern.
“You promised me you would live long enough to return my magic to me. Can’t you even do that?”
Thor makes a rumbling noise of indignation, deep in his chest. “Had I not already given you my word, I would die simply to spite you.”
Loki continues to eye him, dissatisfied with his condition. Thor’s slumped position against the wall, blankets up around his chin once more, does not inspire confidence.
“You should eat something,” Loki says.
“I’m not hungry.” Thor catches a tangle of his white-gold hair and pulls it forward, twirling the length of it between his finger and thumb. His hair is unkempt and it falls in his eyes as it never used to. Thor customarily kept the front section of his hair in braids, in order to keep his vision unobscured during battle.
“I didn’t ask about your appetite,” Loki says waspishly. His smile is not pleasant. “You are very nearly mortal now, you remember.”
That last comment gets Thor to look at him.
One eyebrow raised, Thor waves his hand around. “And where do you propose I find food, brother? Would you have me hunt, when you have seen to it that I can barely stand?”
Loki snorts. “Entertaining as it would to be to watch you trip over your own spear, that won’t be necessary.”
From his pack, Loki takes a metal pot and a small pouch. He fills the pot with rainwater gathered from outside and sets it to heat over the fire. When its surface begins to bubble, he pours the contents of the pouch in. It’s a mixture of dried berries and herbs, and it turns the water a dark pinkish-red. After a few moments, a fragrant steam, sweet and sharp at once, quickly fills the cave.
Loki decants the potion to a mug and he holds it out to Thor, saying, “Here, all the sustenance a sickly mortal requires.”
Thor has stubbornly ignored the entire process. He ignores the mug too. He would probably quite happily waste away to nothing, if Loki would allow it.
In Thor’s weakened condition, Loki knows he could easily overpower him. He could pin Thor down beneath him and force him to drink. And Thor could fight, he would fight, but his struggles would be as much of a bother to Loki as would a child’s. He could hold Thor down and force him.
Of all things that Loki has done, Thor would never forgive him that.
Besides, Loki reasons to himself, he is subtler than that. Thrilling as it would be to physically demonstrate to Thor how powerless he is, Loki can bend Thor to his will without touching him.
He gives Thor a soft, wry smile and offers him the mug once more. “When have I ever made you a meal before, Thor? Would you truly reject it now?”
And Thor – stupid, beloved, pliable Thor – hesitates.
He takes the mug and drinks.
While Loki knits in the companionable silence, Thor drinks until he has drained the mug.
:::
Over the next few days, Loki’s knitted handiwork grows longer and longer, until its green length passes his ankles and twists across the cave floor.
His magic returns to him with each thump of Thor’s heart, and each time the beat begins to falter, Loki brews another mugful and wakes Thor from his fitful rest to drink it. For an hour or so after, Thor watches Loki knit with glazed eyes, until he drifts into sleep once more.
At the back of his mind, Loki knows that Thor’s condition is deteriorating. He tries to calculate how much longer he has to keep Thor alive, but the reckoning makes him drop his stitches, and he abandons the attempt in order to concentrate on his knitting.
Outside, the rainfall slows, stops for a day, then begins again in the night.
Thor is ill tempered and distracted the next time Loki wakes him to drink, and when he falls asleep after, his rest is uneasy. Thrashing on his pallet, he groans and cries out. The wound on Thor’s chest, which Loki judged to be healing and removed the bandaging from, splits open, and a smear of blood dries tacky and dark on Thor’s skin.
Loki sets his knitting aside and keeps watch over Thor. He doesn’t know what else he can do.
Over the hour, Thor’s madness deepens, until the point that he sits up in his bed and begins pushing himself to his feet. His eyes are open but they shine with an unhinged fervour that Loki has only seen before in the rare and horrible times that his brother has touched berserker rage.
“Stop,” says Loki. “Lie back down.”
He lays a hand on Thor’s bicep, intending to force him back, but he’s shocked by the deathly coldness of Thor’s skin. Thor’s feverish manner led Loki to expect him to be burning up, despite all his complaints of freezing, but he’s colder than Loki’s own blood.
Thor pushes him aside and staggers towards the entrance of the cave. He is a huge, hulking figure, wearing nothing but his breeches. He looks like something wild with his shambling gait and his long, increasingly white hair in disarray.
“I will not die in bed,” Thor cries out, as much to the world itself as to Loki. “Give me battle. Let me die a warrior’s death.”
Loki curses himself for not addressing this issue earlier. In truth, he did not realise Thor would ever believe he was facing death. And perhaps he himself did not realise Thor would slip so far.
He darts after Thor and grabs his elbow to steer him back around. “You’re not dying, Thor. Come back.”
Thor tries to tug free but he’s too weak. He leans towards the outside, yearning for it like he sees the shining, vaulted halls of Valhalla open before him, but Loki will not let him go.
Loki strokes his cold arm and says, “Brother, no. It’s not your time.” He reaches up and catches Thor’s chin and forces him to look back at him, holding his gaze intently. Thor’s breath smells of the herbs he’s been drinking. “You’re not going to die. I promise you.”
A frown creases Thor’s brow. The grim set of his face that Loki is used to seeing, which replaced his easy smiles of youth, has been in turn replaced by the gaunt, aging lines of sickness.
Seeing as he has Thor’s attention at last, Loki smiles and tangles his fingers in Thor’s wild hair, tugging lightly. “I promise you, Thor. I’m not going to let you die.”
“But you’re a liar,” Thor says, without heat or bitterness.
“Yes,” Loki says, never once letting Thor look away from him. “I am. But I’m not lying to you now.”
:::
He cajoles Thor back to his bed, and wraps the fur blanket around his shoulders, and prepares another hot drink for him. Thor lets it happen, docile as a child.
His gaze falls on Thor’s strange, snow-white hair. He considers casting a glamour on it, and returning the colour to the gold it should be. But that brightness would sit oddly with the wasted state of Thor’s face and body. It would be perverse.
Instead, he settles himself behind Thor, gathers the plentiful fall of Thor’s hair in his hands and begins to plait. He combs his fingers through the snarls, and Thor’s massive shoulders rise and fall as he takes a deep breath.
When Loki is done, he ties the end of the plait with a piece of green yarn. He finds a few white strands have come loose, and he wraps them around his finger thoughtfully, tight enough that he can feel their constriction.
“Rest now,” says Loki, and Thor makes a small, relieved noise and sags against the cave wall, all but disappearing beneath his fur blanket. Loki watches him a moment, flexes his finger to feel the strands of white hair bite into his skin.
He has no words to say: none to mock Thor and none to comfort him.
He fetches his knitting and sits back beside Thor on the bed, and begins to knit the strands of Thor’s hair into his ever-growing, evergreen work.
Resting against Loki’s shoulder seems to allow Thor to sleep more easily, so Loki tolerates it – even though the weight of Thor’s body is cold and corpse-like. Thor’s breath is a fragile, trembling thing and is Loki’s only assurance that Thor still lives, aside from the continual swell of his own magic growing within him.
He knits without any purpose except to pass the time, and he wonders if this is how mortals feel: to be conscious of an end, approaching like a stranger on the horizon. Sometimes, he’s aware of Thor’s eyes on his work, hypnotized by the fluidity of movement. At those times, he reminds Thor of stories of their mother – her wisdom and her kindness, her tempering influence on Odin. Those stories roll into other memories, and Loki speaks of the lands of Asgard, and the friends they knew as children, the weapons-masters and the tutors.
He reminds Thor of the first time he bested Tyr in battle, and of the sweet apple pudding at Loki’s coming of age feast, and how, when Loki wished to learn how to play dice, Thor accompanied him out afterdark, to the taverns, until Loki had learned enough that he knew how best to cheat.
And as he goes through the retelling, he finds, at last, space beyond his rage to grieve for the brother he never truly had. And he knits and he mourns the loss of that brother, while Thor fades away beside him.
Loki talks himself out of things to say, talks himself down to hoarse loneliness, and still he knits.
It rains outside, though the air is warm and still. The fire sinks down to a few, low flames, its heart is black.
“I’m glad,” says Thor, into the silence. “I’m glad you took me from Earth. I would not have had my friends see me this way.” Thor sighs heavily, like the last breath is leaving his body.
Loki’s lips twitch into a colourless smile. “You’re welcome.”
“Did you ever think that you and I would-?” Thor breaks off. Then, moving so slowly Loki expects him to creak, he raises his head.
Loki waits for the rest of the question, and he’s ready as ever to disavow Thor, even through his sorrow-numbed lips.
Faraway in the distance, thunder rumbles.
:::
Loki doesn’t try to convince Thor not to leave the cave. He wraps the fur blanket around Thor’s shoulders, and puts his arm around him to keep him steady as they walk. Thor has shrunk; his muscle has withered on the bone.
Outside, the sky is heavy and grey, swollen with storm clouds yet to break. Preternatural shadows bury the land. There’s a thin line of light just above the horizon. The air is static. Rainwater has turned the earth to slick and treacherous mud.
Thunder rolls again.
Thor tilts his face up to the sky. His eyes are like glass. There’s no blue left in them. Loki would almost swear he could see right through them.
He lets his arm drop from around Thor’s shoulders and they wait for the storm together. The moment holds a dreadful serenity.
Even now, Loki’s magic is returning to him from Thor, as blood leaks from a mortal wound. Loki could choke on it. He gazes at that bright horizon with grim determination, until the light blinds him.
It begins to rain once more, slowly at first, then with gathering strength. Drops fall on Loki’s cheeks and catch in his eyelashes, until his vision swims to a brilliant blur. A second of lightning strips the landscape ruthlessly bare. Thunder sounds, louder than before.
The breath caught in Loki’s chest escapes in a chuckle.
“You loved me better than all the others, but I am poison to you,” he says, his voice oddly light. “Doesn’t that make you laugh?”
Thor’s gaze remains on the black clouds crawling across the sky as he answers. His empty eyes reflect the flash of lightning. “I’m not much in the mood for laughing of late, brother.”
The rain falls harder, beating on the gleaming mud. It soaks Loki’s hair to his head, plasters his leathers to his skin. An animal smell begins to emanate from the fur blanket. Thor’s bones shine beneath his wet, white skin.
Thunder rumbles right over their heads, and Loki has to raise his voice to be heard. “I’m not your brother!”
“Does it matter now?” says Thor. He’s quiet a moment, before he turns to study Loki’s face with fierce intensity. “You are my brother,” he says. “No brother born of flesh could be truer.”
Loki cocks his head and smiles, opens his mouth to dispute it, but Thor firms his jaw and says, “I will brook no argument.”
In that moment, he is clothed in lightning and attended by thunder, and Thor is as he was. As he should be.
Loki knows he must deny what Thor’s said, because it does still matter now, it matters more. If he doesn’t deny it now, it may stand as the final word between them. But even as the storm shakes the sky above them, Thor holds Loki’s gaze and he will not look away, and Loki loses the words of his argument.
He chokes out another laugh instead. “You’re too ill to argue with,” is all he says.
He waits for lightning, for the thunder to roll again. But the sky is emptying. The rain thins then stops. Weak light appears between the clouds as they disperse. There is silence.
Loki becomes conscious of the chill in the air; Thor is shivering. Loki shakes the rainwater from his green leathers and looks to Thor.
“We should go back in,” he says. “The storm is over.”
“Yes,” says Thor. “I need to rest.”
As Loki helps him back into the cave, Thor looks to the sky once last time.
:::
Thor doesn’t wake again.
The fire falters and dies.
Loki lays his knitting down, and sits alone in the frozen silence.
Thor’s body grows colder.
:::
Heimdall is not surprised to see Loki. His gaze is measuring and guarded, and his hand is ready on his sword. Within the polished golden walls of Asgard’s watchtower, Loki feels like something half-feral.
He swipes his unkempt hair back out of his face and summons up a somewhat manic smile. “Greetings. You know what’s happened, I assume?”
“Though you have kept yourself and Thor well hidden from my eyes, I know enough.”
Heimdall does not move, but continues to watch him as Loki paces.
“He still lives,” says Heimdall after a moment, and Loki hears it first as a question before understanding that it’s a statement. “I would know if he had died.” His amber eyes glitter at whatever reaction shows on Loki’s face. “He holds onto life long after most would have given in.”
“Yes,” says Loki, because Thor has always been stubborn.
Beyond the iridescent stretch of the bridge are Asgard’s slender golden towers. Their radiance hurts his eyes, much as Thor’s radiance once did.
“Will you at last bring him home?” Heimdall asks.
“So he that he may die among friends and family?” says Loki. “I know I count as neither.”
Heimdall does not respond to the jibe. He waits, with the eternal patience of his role. Time ticks on.
The crooked smirk slips from Loki’s face. “Can you save him?” he asks.
Heimdall’s gaze slips right through Loki, to something beyond him. He is seeing something less tangible than Loki’s bones and body, even less tangible than Loki’s soul.
“And what if it costs your magic?” Heimdall asks. His voice is low and ponderous, coming from the oldest roots of Yggdrasil. His gaze is fixed on the otherworlds that are visible only to him.
Loki wets his lips and spares no time to consider. He raises his chin defiantly. “Can you save him?” he says again.
Heimdall’s gaze returns to Loki with the abruptness of a slap. “No,” he says.
A muscle in Loki’s throat clenches.
In that moment, he hates Heimdall more viciously than he has ever hated anything. He is filled with a near uncontrollable urge to do violence; his hands shake with it.
Instead, he bares his teeth in a wild smile, and executes a mocking bow. “Many thanks for your time, oh mighty Heimdall.”
As Loki turns to leave, Heimdall calls after him. “It was indeed a powerful spell you worked, to make Thor the vessel for your magic. Even the Allfather acknowledges it.” A strange note, uncharacteristically savage, enters his voice. “He might even have been proud of you for it, had it not cost Thor his life.”
He wants to slice Heimdall’s tongue from his head, because Thor’s not dead yet. But he has no time to waste, because Thor’s not dead yet.
:::
Heimdall doesn’t understand, of course. Nor does Thor. Loki would certainly never have explained it to him.
Loki never intended Thor to hold his magic. When Loki was attacked, when he realised his magic was at risk, instinct took hold of him, and he hid his magic away in the safest, strongest chamber of his heart.
It was only later, when Thor fell from the sky in the midst of battle on Midgard, that Loki realised where that was.
:::
Heimdall knew better after all.
While Loki was in Asgard, Thor died.
The cave already feels abandoned, as if Loki has been gone a lifetime instead of mere hours. Not even dust moves within. The silence is profound. It might as well always have been this way, could be this way for the rest of time. In a decade or so, a rockslide might seal the mouth of this cave, and Thor will be buried, cold and forgotten in the darkness forever.
Thor’s corpse is unmoved from his pallet. Loki crouches by his side, uselessly smoothes the white strands of Thor’s hair from his cheek. There are still traces of Loki’s magic within Thor, though not many.
Equally abandoned is the unfinished length of Loki’s knitting. Loki picks up the end of it nearest to him and gathers it into his hands. He tucks it awkwardly around Thor’s neck. His fingers are numb, but not from cold, even though touching Thor’s skin is like touching snow packed beneath cotton.
A blank moment passes.
The thin line of Loki’s lips twists.
He falls to his knees and hauls Thor’s shoulders into his lap, Thor’s arms falling slack, and he heaves him into something like a sitting position. He has to take Thor’s weight, has to hold him upright. Thor slumps against him, his face pressed into Loki’s shoulder.
“When you died,” Loki tells him bitterly, “it was supposed to be because I meant you to.”
He rocks Thor’s ice-corpse backwards and forwards, and smothers his face in the mass of Thor’s hair, each white strand as dry and odourless as ashes. He breathes in in messy, parched sobs. His fingers turn to claws as he tightens his grip on Thor’s body.
“I didn’t mean this,” he says.
The awareness that Thor is dead – that it is Thor’s corpse sagging against him - is as unreal as any of Loki’s illusions. It’s hard to distinguish the moment from the oh-so many dreams Loki has had of killing him.
And how typical of Thor, thinks Loki, to die at Loki’s hand the one time he didn’t intend it. How typical of Thor to die and make a liar of Loki the one time he made a promise he meant to keep.
Loki has not been able to keep Thor from death. He has failed.
Painful shivers prick his arms and his spine. The strength to hold Thor against him leaves him, and Thor slides back onto the pallet. Loki rolls him awkwardly onto his back, because he can’t leave Thor’s body in that graceless, boneless sprawl. With both hands, he strokes Thor’s hair from his face. He wraps the scarf once more around Thor’s neck and tugs the blanket up over him.
Asgardian tradition demands he burn Thor.
How much better though, if Loki simply leaves him sleeping?
He casts his hand over Thor’s sunken chest, and, almost at once, Thor’s lips part, and his chest rises and falls in a deep, answering breath. It sounds restful. Although Loki recognises his own glamour spells, he finds he can’t take his eyes off his work.
He can make Thor’s hair gold again, he thinks, with sudden fervour. He can leave Thor with fair skin and red lips and the flicker of pleasant dreams moving beneath his eyelids.
His magic sinks into Thor’s corpse, penetrates the cage of marble bones and slow-decaying flesh. A muzzy green glow emanates from him as the illusion settles. Loki is not fooled by his own magic, but he far prefers the image of Thor he’s created. He gazes at the transformation with such unblinking intensity that his eyes grow hot and wet.
He’s so entranced by what he’s seeing, that he doesn’t immediately feel that something has taken hold of his spell.
It’s something within Thor. It’s Thor.
Some last glowing ember of Thor’s life has taken hold of Loki's spell, and it’s caught hold of the thread of the illusion, and is pulling and tugging and dragging Loki’s magic away from him.
He gasps and staggers on his feet. It hurts deep inside, like his bones are being dug out of his flesh, like his breath’s being sucked away before he can catch it.
He knows if he wants to rein in his power he should act now. The glamour he’s cast is only feeding that stubborn part of Thor that has somehow survived. If Loki wants to take his magic back before Thor’s last spark of life can devour it all, he has to lift the illusion now.
He should take the illusion away, save his magic, and let Thor die.
The glamour he’s laid on Thor shimmers and grows brighter in greens and golds. Its brilliance is painful, and it burns Loki’s eyes, until, at last, mercifully, his vision hazes and fails.
Thunder rumbles inside his head, deep and earth-moving, and Loki is devoured in the fire of his own magic.
:::
The fire is not magical, but is burning cheerfully nonetheless, crackling and spitting and setting shadows dancing on the cave walls. Cooking on a makeshift spit above the flames is a skinned rabbit. It smells good.
Loki realises he’s lying on the pallet Thor died on. He starts in alarm and tries to sit up.
“Easy,” says Thor.
Thor is sitting in the chair that was Loki’s while he watched Thor die. Thor’s silver armour shines in the firelight. His golden-blond hair is drawn back in a sleek plait. Mjolnir rests on the ground by his feet.
Thor’s eyes are dark and unreadable.
“What happened?” says Loki. His throat is dry.
Thor rises to his feet, his black leathers creaking as he moves, and crosses to Loki’s side. He kneels beside him and raises a cup of water to his lips. His hand on Loki’s shoulder supports him while he drinks greedily.
When Loki’s done, Thor takes the cup away and returns to his chair.
“You used me to save your magic. I used your magic to save my life,” says Thor.
Loki’s eyes go wide. His magic. How much has he lost? Frantic, he reaches inside himself for his magic.
It’s still there. Aching and dark, his magic feels like a bruise on his very heart – but it’s still there. Whatever Thor took, it wasn’t all of it.
But it could have been.
Loki struggles to a sitting position. He flicks a sharp smile at Thor, and, his voice still a little hoarse, he says, “You’re welcome.”
Thor doesn’t smile. Thor only watches him.
Loki wonders if he realises. He wonders if Thor knows that he is indeed only alive because, in a moment of grief-addled love, Loki allowed him to use his magic. He allowed Thor to take as much as he needed to drag himself back from death.
Despite the fire, Loki feels a cold thrill of fear at what he was willing to sacrifice.
“Your magic is powerful indeed, brother,” says Thor. He addresses the stone ground when he next speaks, because the warning in his dark gaze would prove difficult for Loki to resist. “Keep it away from me in future.”
Even this mild threat, so carefully delivered, is too much for Loki.
“Or what?” he taunts Thor, somewhere between amusement and malice. “You’ll go ahead and die next time? That will indeed punish me.”
He died this time. Thor died.
Thor remains unsettlingly composed. He simply removes the rabbit from the fire and, taking a small knife from his belt, begins to pare the meat from the bone. He sets the meat on a scrap of leather and puts it by Loki’s side.
“You should eat before you try to travel,” says Thor.
They’ve each prepared a meal for the other now, thinks Loki, staring at the small pile of meat. Deliberately or otherwise, Thor is balancing the scale between them.
Thor takes Mjolnir in hand and rises to his feet. He seems taller than before; maybe it’s only a trick of perspective. Loki wants to stand, to match his height, but the hurt of his wounded magic inside his chest won’t allow him. Instead, he can only prop himself up on his pallet.
“I shall return to my friends on Midgard,” Thor announces, facing the mouth of the cave. A slight breeze ripples his red cloak. He has been returned, thanks to Loki’s magic, to the very archetype of majesty. “It will be a long while before we see each other again.”
Loki’s smile is wicked. “Why, Thor, have you discovered hitherto unknown talents for seeing the future?”
Thor glances back over his shoulder. The haughty line of his raised eyebrow is warning in itself, and Loki laughs and lets himself drop onto his back once more. The impact, slight as it is, knocks the breath out of him, cutting his laughter off into a pained huff.
“Perhaps you’re right,” he says. He shrugs to himself. “I do need time to heal, after all.”
Thor nods and makes to leave, but something catches his eye. He bends down and picks up Loki’s long green scarf from the cave floor. He rubs the pad of his thumb over the knitted lines, and a frown tightens his brow. Loki watches him with narrowed eyes.
At last, Thor looks back up at Loki.
“I’m taking this,” Thor tells him. The flinty look in his eyes dares Loki to challenge him.
Loki doesn’t challenge him. He doesn’t say: I hope it strangles you. Nor does he tell Thor that he knitted it for him and how it kept Thor warm while he was ill.
Thor leaves, and, a few seconds later, lightning fills the cave, stark white and ominous. Thunder roars. Thor is gone.
Loki lies on his back and explores the severity of his injuries. His magic is damaged and depleted, but it will recover, in time. The outcome is far from as dire as it could have been. His magic is his own, and is strong enough to kill Thor. And it’s strong enough to bring him back.
No doubt Thor would take it very ill indeed if Loki followed him back to Midgard. But equally, it was Thor who cared for him, hunted and cooked for him. It was Thor who tied Loki’s hair back from his face with a strip of leather while he slept.
He idly pops a piece of rabbit in his mouth then sucks his fingertips clean.
Loki decides that maybe it won’t be all that long before he sees Thor again.
~end