Happy Summertime everyone! I hope you're enjoying the warm weather (or cool weather for my New Zealand pals out there), I know that I am. I've been to the dog beach twice now, the regular beach three or four times, and I've been working my butt off to try and pay rent. But also...
I've began using a prompt generator, which I'm using to write one-shots here!
I've found a fantastic one on tumblr (that can be found here: generator). I insist that anyone with writer's block please go and check it out!
Anyway, this one is going to be a Loki and Thor one-shot.
The Prompt: "If I ever gave you the inkling that I was anything other than dead inside, you imagined it".
The result…
In all of Asgard everything is beautiful. Golden. Perfect. The sunsets can bring a grown man to weep at the sight of them. Waterfalls cascade down mountains that contain precious jewels and creatures of fantasy. Trees, taller than the tallest building, wrap their ancient roots through the cracks and crevices of the planet, holding everything together like the great World Tree holds together the universe.
In all of Asgard everything is beautiful.
Loki sat alone on a cold, dungeon floor. It was immaculate. Beautiful, as everything else in Asgard was. Stone and tile, grey and shiny. Perfect. No bloodstains, no vomit in the corner. He suspected that he was the only one who'd ever stayed in this cell. Loki rubbed his fingers together and felt a small hush of magic emanate from them, but that was all. His cell was just oppressive enough to allow him to remember he had any magic, but not enough to use it. Probably Frigga's idea. Probably something she thought was helping her favorite son.
It wasn't.
He'd been in this dungeon before, he realized. Loki stared up at the tall, stone ceilings and blinked at the sun-like, floating lights that shone down upon him. Against the hard, cold wall he could picture the images buried in his mind.
Thor walked in front of him, always leading the way as though that was the order of things. They were young. Loki's dark black hair barely fell in front of his eyes. It was shorter than it had ever been, cleaner and shinier. His step still had spring in it, and Odin still had a sparkle in his good eye.
"Where are we going, Father?" Loki asked, tentatively. His hands traced the old stones that lined the shining hallways. Beneath the towers of Asgard, it was hard to imagine just how far down they had already gone, how much weight could come crashing down on them.
"I want you boys to see," said the Allfather, "where our enemies go."
Thor slammed his feet down on the rock floors to create an echo. "I thought our enemies preferred to die?"
Odin wasn't amused at the dark joke. "Most do, my sons, but there are some enemies that deserve to remain down here. Terrible creatures, frightening sorcerers… and traitors."
Loki looked around them again. He could make out the silhouettes of strong walls that looked like glass. When they'd entered it had been dark, but now small glowing lights like will-o-wisps floated before them. Blue and yellow light permeated the space. Defeated faces suddenly peered out from behind dark shadows, their faces lined with age, their eyes sunken with imprisonment. Loki didn't let his fear for these lost souls show.
"Forever?" Loki finally asked.
"What?" Odin frowned.
Loki gestured around them. "Do they live down here forever?"
"No," Odin shook his head gravely. "Only until death."
As an adult, the halls were less awe-inspiring and more crushing. Bleak.
Traitors...
"Hm," Loki thought aloud. Then: Will I die here as well?
He mulled over this thought until footsteps echoed down the hall. He knew those footsteps; forceful and purposeful. The kind that always had to lead. He stood smoothly up from where he sat and laid a hand on the instruments his mother had furnished his cell with. Mind games, ornate chairs and golden objects as shining as his castle. Well, the castle of the Allfather.
Thor finally strode into view. He took in the lavish surroundings of his brother's cell and smiled softly without humor.
"All the comforts I see."
Loki gazed over Thor's head as if he were not there, but brought himself up to his full height.
"Mother is too good to you, after all you've done…" he checked himself. "But I am not here to be angry with you."
Again, Loki remained silent.
"You look well, brother..." The word brother was spoken softly, and trailed off at the end as if it were an accidental curse word, spoken by a child. Or perhaps when you accidentally call someone the wrong name and realize it when it is too late.
Thor cleared his throat. "It has been but a few days since you were put here," he shifted on the stone. Loki finally looked at him then and frowned, as if he didn't know that already, as if Loki weren't going to be here for the rest of his very long life.
Thor's expression was different from all other moments in Loki's presence. It was easy to tell how much he'd deteriorated in his brother's eyes since attempting to take over Earth. Now, trapped behind the shining, magical walls of Asgard's dungeons, Loki couldn't bear the indignation of it all.
"So, why have you come to see me? Come to see the bildshnipe in his chains?" Loki's voice almost startled his brother, who had not expected him to speak.
Thor turned from the knife-sharp gaze of Loki and shook his head. "You are no bildshnipe, you are a fool. At least a bildshnipe doesn't know any better. You were my brother, a prince. An intelligent man, or at least that's what I thought."
"Oh, I'm a fool now, am I? Does that finally make you feel clever?" Loki laughed.
Thor bristled. "You've fallen so far, brother. You have disgraced your title, your namesake-"
"My namesake? Do not speak to me, Odinson."
"Laufeyson, then!" Thor roared. Loki did not flinch, but inside he knew that this surname was just as repulsive, if not more, than the last.
"Do. Not," Loki hissed. "come to this cell and berate me like a child, brave Avenger. If you'd had the strength to speak to me like this when I were free-"
"You will never be free! Don't you understand Loki, this isn't some temporary arrangement. You have betrayed me, betrayed Asgard! Betrayed father…" Thor bit on the inside of his cheek and then said, "Betrayed mother."
Loki frowned, his nostrils flaring. "Don't attempt to find sentiment in me, brother. That woman is just as much a liar as the man who played 'father' to me my whole life."
Thor was shocked at his words. Their mother had always been Loki's favorite, not that there was much competition between the two parents.
"You would speak of her this way, after all she's done-"
"If I ever gave you the inkling that I was anything other than dead inside, you imagined it. I no more care for Frigga or Odin than I do for you, brother."
As he said it, Loki became enraged at the doubtful look on his brother's face. Even now, at his lowest point, Thor couldn't prevent himself from seeing through Loki. It was hard, he admitted to himself, to speak badly of Frigga, the closest thing to a mother he'd ever had. But it would have been worth it if Thor had become so affronted that he left. Instead, Thor looked pityingly through the magical barrier at Loki, and Loki burned with an impassable shame.
"I see," Thor finally said. Tension in the Avenger's shoulders finally gave out, and he slumped as if he'd lived more than ten thousand years. "Yes, I see fully now."
"Do you?" Loki's question was barely more than a whisper.
The distance between them, only a few feet, felt like miles apart. A distance that has been growing since adolescence. Only one of them, Thor, attempting to bridge that gap for so long. Now, Loki could tell, that bridge had finally burned.
Maybe it wasn't the attack on New York that severed their thin bond.
No, Loki thought. He'd been in this cell for a very long time now, pondering that first week. He waited for Thor to return, like he always did. He didn't.
Loki waited for Odin to carry out a heavier sentence, to be brought again before the council and sentenced to die alone on a dark star somewhere. He didn't.
No, Loki thought once more. I severed this bridge, this link between us. One that may have been one-sided, but… he sighed. His small breath echoed around the destroyed cell. He felt the weight of Asgard now, coming down upon him. No books nor sets of strategic games could save him from the misery of a month down here, alone. No one to bother, no quips to make at others' expense.
He missed Frigga's name day.
Loki cleared his throat, rubbed his face and told himself he wasn't sad for his loss. That he wasn't pained to be down here, missing name days and his mother's smiling face. He thought maybe a book could tempt him when footsteps echoed down the hall.
He quickly put up a facade of the room and himself, but did not move.
"Thor. After all this time, you come to visit me…"