A/N: And Thor 2 feels. Need I go on? I am sure that movie killed everyone for the next hundred years and beyond.
Slightly AU because Loki is actually dead here, sorry :( I didn't like that part of the movie. As much as I love that Loki is still alive and up to his tricks, I think that his death and supposed redemption was a fitting end and would've made so much more of an impact, especially because Tom isn't even sure if Loki is even going to return to the Marvel Universe after Thor 2. So now we'll all just be trolling around FF with nothing to go off on for the rest of our lives except some stupid, jarring cliff hanger :p I was not pleased. But the rest of the movie receives all my love.
Off of my soap box. I don't own the fan art for my cover by the way; all props belong to the wonderful WantsToBelieve. Look her up on tumblr and have fun marveling at her immense talent!
Enjoy the angst here too :) Reviews are lovely creatures.
Lining Up
They had all wanted to kill him.
Sif, Fandral, all of them. They wanted to kill him so badly from the moment he showed his true traitorous colors two years ago. They threatened him with fists and blades and searing comments, saying that if he even thought about betraying Thor that they would not hesitate to separate his head from his shoulders. He had even laughed about it. "There'd be a line," he told Volstagg out front of the Elves's ship, like it was all a joke.
And oh how they wanted him to betray his brother, how they wanted him to give into his insanity so they could bash his head in until his blood flowed across the throne room floors! After all, it would only serve him right. The murder of hundreds finally put to rest. Asgard and all the realms would finally be able to catch a breath.
But oh, how their minds changed after that battle; how they wanted Thor to be so very wrong when he finally returned home without his brother or Jane, covered in blood that could not be his alone.
Alone. He was so alone and so very broken – shaken to the core.
And how desperately they found themselves longing for the silver-tongue to shoot up from where he laid and break his magic trick just like he had done for them when they were children. But how far from children they had come to be in such a short time.
They prayed for an illusion. They longed for simpler days – days spent running amok beside a young boy with a devilish smirk and a penchant for mischief. They longed for the friend that would always mend their scabbed knees with secret words or steal them cookies from the kitchens behind a flash of smoke and mirrors. They longed for the naïve boy who held an unfailing hope for acceptance, the boy that they finally realized had died the day they dragged him into Jotunheim. But more than anything they longed to forget that child altogether to save themselves the pain of guilt. Because that young boy they had tried so hard to block out was the one who was lying on the altar, cold, still, and the furthest thing from the maniac he wanted everyone to believe he was.
There'd be a line.
Well, there was a line now, but not in the same sense that there had been before. Swords were swapped for tears and vicious words traded for painful silences. There was little anger, the flame of hatred all but drowned out in exhaustion and anguish. They'd sacrificed so much, and all that remained of their supposed victory was the overwhelming weight of loss.
All that remained was a single body atop a funeral pyre made out of half-hearted, empty promises.