So I've comleted my SeSa 2013 for the NCIS fandom and have found some time to get back to Thor, or rather Loki. :) I know I still have another fiction which needs my attention...pronto, but after seeing Thor: The Dark World, I just had to write this one.
Don't forget to leave a wee word after reading: everyone loves to get some feedback and I'm no different.
Thanks in advance and love ya!
Chapter 1: Frigga…Mother
"Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal."
~ from an Irish headstone ~
The devastating news had made his head spin with an amalgam of emotions of which intense pain, horror, rage, grief had been battling for supremacy.
The instant the young Einherjar broke the tragic news to him, all the blood had drained from his already pale face. His heart was racing, skipping a few beats as if it were still debating whether to continue the pumping…or simply stop.
As he stood rooted on the spot, he desperately tried to keep his countenance in check as he dismissed the guard with a curt and regal nod. He was not going to give the man the satisfaction of watching him break down.
This just couldn't be true. It wasn't right. It was impossible!
Somebody was playing some cruel trick on him.
Yes! That's what it was.
And perhaps this was his own undoing; Thor's payback for having been told his father his father was never going to wake up again from his Odin sleep. In hindsight, that had been such a sick joke; a vile thing to do. After all, he'd earned fame as the Trickster or the Liesmith and the stupid Norns knew what other epithets!
Granted, he knew better than anyone that Thor seldom lied to him. So, he must've sent someone else to tell him.
Yes. That must be it.
Mother wasn't really dead.
And yet, he knew in his heart it wasn't true. This was not a trick; it was the stark and oh so cruel reality!
So he'd been through the denial stage but his mind was quick to deny him even this small comfort. He wanted to disbelieve what had happened by telling himself it was but a horrible nightmare; one of the many he'd been having.
Now, hours later, as he lay spent on the floor, half leaning against the wall, he was somewhat over the shock of Frigga's valiant and tragic death.
And yet, he still couldn't fathom the depth of his grief.
Yes. True grief. There truly was no lying about that. No casual dismissing such a blatantly true feeling.
"Mother…" he whispered brokenly to the deathly silence which surrounded him in this cell which now looked like a bomb had been dropped right in the middle.
His blood red eyes had no tears left in them.
His vocal chords were abused to a sore hoarseness.
His mind was shattered like a thousand shards of a broken mirror.
Every fiber of him - his very core - was reduced to a total wreck.
His life in tatters like it had never been before.
He swallowed through a swollen throat, his adam's apple painfully bobbing.
Gone.
She was no more.
With mother gone, he'd lost an important and vulnerable part of himself.
And with her, his last shreds of hope for a future.
Love lost.
He couldn't imagine one other being in the whole universe who still had a sliver of love and hope left for him, the God of Chaos.
He, the most powerful being next to the Allfather, had finally been brought down to his knees. No, further down, to his absolute lowest.
His throat constricted again.
When had the mere act of thinking become too painful?
Old memories drowned all reason.
His mind took him back to when he last saw her. Right here, in this cell.
Closing his eyes, he saw her lovely face and the disappointment in her eyes when she had looked at him not so long ago. Mere hours ago. And now, he would never see her eyes again.
"Am I then not your mother?"
"You're not."
His last words to her…
Hurting her…
The Lie of lies coming from the God of Lies.
He found it increasingly hard to reconcile himself with having uttered such harsh last words to her. Devastating words spoken in desperation. Final words delivered with the sole intention to help kill the pain he still experienced at the painful truth he hadn't been born from her womb. That he didn't have her blood coursing in his veins. That he had nothing in common with her. Nothing at all.
This was not how he truly felt about her at all!
He clung with his whole being to the images of his mother. Not his mother… And yet… Yes. His Mother! She had given him her breast despite the fact she was all too aware of what he truly was. She willingly held an albeit tiny monster to her breast. A much hated Jötunn, sired by the ruler of Jötunnheimr.
She had sung him lullabies and told him bedtime stories. She had chased away his demons when in the throes of a particularly bad nightmare. She had kissed his hurts away when he'd scraped his knees when still a very young boy. She had comforted him when he'd lost his favourite pony. She had cheered him on when he was perfectioning his spells. She was his closest and only confidante.
After finding out about his true lineage, she had reassured him he would always be her son… Unconditionally. He assumed she'd coveted the hope he'd learn from his mistakes. For all he knew, she might even have prophesied there still might be light ahead of him, at the end of the dark and foreboding tunnel, even when he'd long given up such idle hope for a future that wouldn't be as bleak as his life had been lately. That hope, like a tallow candle, had dwindled till there was none left.
My beloved mother…
No one had ever been more close to him than she had. Not even Thor whom he'd loved like a true brother.
His heart sped up again when grief threatened to spill from his eyes once more and he desperately choked them back, unwilling to let others see them; to witness such weakness.
Then, it had all become too much for him to bear.
He'd snapped.
At first he'd frozen, numb with shock. Then, incensed, he'd vented with one furious explosion of boiling and uncontrollable magic, unable to contain the surge any longer. What magic he had been left with, after being put in this clinically clean and dazzling white cell, had tossed furniture with such an intensity had he possessed all his magic, he would've
smashed the unbreakable walls and windows.
He'd pulled at his hair, wailing, crying, pouring out his anguish not even caring whether anyone witnessed it or not. Yet, his uncontrollable discharges of magic had backfired on him, leaving him drained and smarting…and broken.
No, he didn't want to fall into that deep pit of black despair like he had earlier today from which he still hadn't fully recovered.
Another sob escaped his throat as it had got past the enormous lump which still sat firmly lodged there. He gagged, fearing he was about to spill his insides.
Sentiment.
Sentiment was now severely threatening to suffocate him. He couldn't allow this to happen. Not to him.
Another...sentiment was grabbing a firm hold on him. He felt an overwhelming want to seek vengeance but he knew it couldn't be. However, for as long as he was locked up in this cell, there was nothing he could do and again he fell prey to this undesirable state of being abjectly powerless.
Like all other emotions, vulnerability was a feeling he'd always kept to himself.
Come to think of it: he'd always been guarded when it came to his feelings and he'd become quite adept in arming himself against them by wearing an impenetrable mask, no matter how overwhelming they were. Or he simply avoided any contact, preferring to hide in his rooms or the library or whatever place in the Nine Realms he could claim as a temporary sanctuary.
There was, however, one person he ever would feel safe to confide his feelings to, but that person, who held a special place in his heart, had now been taken away from him.
Curse Kurse for taking the only person away who had meant so much and more to him.
And curse himself for having given Kurse those infernal directions!
He was sure she would've put up a good fight. Alas, Kurse had proved invincible.
The Allmother – his mother – had been defeated by dark seiđr of which there was no equal in all the Nine Realms.
He uttered one last animalistic exclamation bursting with self-loathing and impuissance, his hands contracting into claws, his stomach knotting in a crippling cramp making him double over, causing his legs to spasm. After this outburst, he slumped back utterly spent and stared into nothingness.
He looked around his cell and a sudden and intense sense of shame filled him at the sight of the broken pieces of what little furniture he had.
His feet - where had his boots gone? or those soft indoor slip-ons? - were bloody from stepping upon the broken shards of the pitcher of water.
He'd lost his soul forever.
His madness knew no bounds. Not anymore.
Love is dead...