Author's Note: I'm not sure how promptly the chapters for this story will be posted, because life is currently being cranky and overstuffed. But the craving for Fanfiction-writing broke through eventually (inevitably?), so I'll be updating this just whenever, though as often as I can. I hope you'll stay tuned xx

He could hear them.

A Dark Elf's expressionless white mask met him wherever he turned, and his knives were a blur even to him as he took ancient lives one after another. But Loki could hear the Kursed and Thor fighting amongst black rocks in the distance as if he were spectating a mere footstep away. He knew that Thor would die soon. He wondered if his brother ever knew how it felt to lose an unfair fight.

He felt his mouth twist into a snarl as he wrenched the neck of the last Elf.

The wind flogged and stung every bare surface of his strained eyes, but he stared through it to find the two struggling figures across the black valley. The Kursed's hulking mass dwarfed the surrounding fallen Dark Elf bodies, and was pummeling its mallet-like fists into the shape beneath it. Loki could see Thor's blond head against the ground. Thor's red cloak pooled around him, and Loki shook away thoughts of blood.

Bodies of Dark Elves littered the hard ground like puppets with strings he had cut. Their swords did not even gleam. Loki already knew what to do.

Moments later, he was sprinting faster than he ever had across the gloomy wasteland, clutching a heavy Elf blade and one of their discarded grenades. The Kursed would no doubt be unimpressed by the sword, but Loki would like to see how well it contested against the grenade it had nearly killed he and Jane Foster with merely minutes earlier.

Then he saw the tiny dot of Jane running wildly towards the Kursed. Unlike him, she held nothing, and was clearly thinking nothing as she charged towards the battle between two unearthly beings that could both crush her without ever realising.

No plan at all, Loki thought. Idiots. She and Thor were made for each other then, and would be the death of him.

Or perhaps she was only seeing Thor as she ran. If love made people blunder on without any solid rescue plan, Loki was glad he did not love his brother.

He did not love him as he made himself nearly fly past Jane. He did not love him as he drove the spike through the Kursed's massive back with all his rage, feeling a rush of satisfaction when he felt the blade burst through its chest –

He did not love him as the creature turned around slowly with intent in its empty eyes.

"Thor!"

In the periphery of Loki's vision, Jane was scrambling towards his brother's side, her brown hair whipping across her horrified face. The Kursed suddenly turned its head around to her as she dropped heedlessly to her knees, her back towards the monstrous creature with the sword through its frame.

"Jane!"

She did not even glance behind her at Loki as he shouted, too absorbed in helping Thor raise himself off the rough ground. Both Loki and the Kursed moved towards them, but his knife nor his magic could find no purchase through the thick armour, nor did the Kursed heed him as he desperately twisted the blade buried into its back –

"No – "

Again, there was the sound of something sharp entering someone's body.

Jane's eyes were huge as she stared at the thick spike protruding from her stomach. Blood blossomed through her dress like eager flowers, already wilting and dripping to the ground as she watched. Now two bodies were skewered by the same sword.

"NO!"

Thor's roar cut the air more deeply than his thunder could. Loki saw his face contort with horror, and his own heart twisted.

The Kursed merely stood behind her, expressionless and clutching her shoulders. Something like shock threatened to immobilise Loki's limbs, but he remembered the grenade, now blinking in anticipation on the Kursed's waist. He lunged forward, and, wincing, pulled Jane off the blade. His brother's fresh howls behind him shook his ribs. Jane choked a cry into his ear, and her blood was suddenly trickling warmly down the back of his neck.

He and Thor shielded her as best as they could as they listened to the Dark Elf grenade detonate, turning the Kursed inside out as it screamed and screamed. Loki blinked away the red light lancing the edges of his vision.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no – "

Loki let Thor grab Jane from him, watching his brother crumble into anguish as Jane shuddered and gasped violently in his arms. Kneeling over her, Thor was trying to speak through sobs that tore his mouth, cradling her tenderly against him as she bled onto his already-red cape. Loki stood wordlessly at Thor's back, suddenly with no idea what to do. They could not save her now. Death would have swooped in mere minutes even if he or Thor had been the one lanced by the Dark Elf weapon. He wondered if this is what Thor had been like when their mother had died, and abruptly it felt like his chest was achingly full.

Jane's face was white, with red streaks staining her chin from retching blood. She whimpered softly, and her eyes were having difficulty focusing on the weeping face above hers. "Thor – I – Thor – "

"It's ok- kay, Jane, shh, it's alr- right." Loki had never heard his older brother's voice so stumbling and tender before.

"It hurts," She whispered. Loki heard Thor sob as he placed a shaking palm on her cheek.

"But it's okay – " she managed to choke out, almost mutedly.

"I love you," she also managed. "I love you, Thor."

"I love you, Jane." Thor stroked her hair from her sweat-stained forehead. The cold gusts thrashed the dust around them more vehemently than ever, but Thor paid no heed to anything but the dying woman in his arms.

Loki should not be there. Should not being witnessing this moment, too private for even the sky to see. Their quiet crying was too much for the wind to drown out. He felt like he should be part of the dirt or the cliffs, a simple prop in this awful play, not just spectating without any help to offer. How much it must hurt, to still lose the one you were trying to save to the force you were trying to save her from.

She is only mortal. Thor had told him on the stolen ship to Svartalfheim that Odin had said this.

But she has more life in her than many immortals that I have ever known. She has brought more into my life than anyone I have ever known.

After all this time, Loki, surely you see why I can love a mortal.

Can't you?

The two figures before him soon stilled, Jane with death and Thor with simple grief. The wind rose even further. But Thor could have been a marble statue in the sand for all the effect the rest of the realm was having on him. Just eroding, eroding, eroding – tearing away pieces of him until Thor himself would depart.

"Thor"

The statue did not give any sign that it had heard him. Loki did not want to be the one to break the pained wordlessness. But the dark torrents of black dust in the distance were swirling closer, and there were still many more worlds to save from an ancient enemy.

"Thor," Loki tried again, still gently. He stepped closer to his brother's kneeling figure, and crouched next to him. He did not want to see the way death closed Jane's eyes, nor how this must be crushing Thor from the inside out. So Loki stared at a trivial stone by the toe of his scuffed boot as he spoke.

"I'm sorry, Thor," his voice faltered, so he tried again. "I'm so sorry."

Thor finally turned to him. The look in his blue eyes made Loki's heart stop and begin sinking towards Helheim.

"You – " Thor's voice sounded like he had not spoken in centuries. "You brought that sword over."

Loki forced himself to meet his eyes. Trepidation was starting to freeze his insides. "To kill the Kursed," he tried to say, but the storm's breath stole his words, and Thor did not stop giving him that look.

"You – " Thor said again. He did not finish. He did not have to. A horribly familiar shadow was settled in Thor's raw expression as it bore into Loki.

He blames me?

But unexpectedly, Thor said, "We need to leave. Malekith is still on his way to Midgard."

After a moment, Loki nodded silently.

Wind-tossed dirt began glancing off their bare skin as they rose, Thor carefully scooping up Jane's body and sheltering her with his hunched shoulders and cape.

"But first, that cave over there." Thor said gruffly. A cavern yawned in the bleak side of the very cliff they had approached Malekith from. "You cannot expect me to leave her here in the open." Loki heard his voice break as he spoke. Loki just nodded again. His thoughts whirled faster than the oncoming tempest.

He blames me?

Thor was wordless as they sprinted across the dusky plains, shrouded in howling gales and misery. The sharp stones and grit pelting Loki's face and hands were nothing compared to the thick silence between he and his brother.

As they made their way to lay Jane's body to rest, the storm shrieked its glee.