Moonlight cast itself through half-opened windows, cold, pale as an icy jewel laying itself over all the room: silent sheets, smooth silken and dark, deep purple as black as the eye's pupil in the night, slipped across only with the glint of some forgotten reflection, the last image of a dying man. Each breath that left Thor lingered softly before his lips, before slipping away, dissipating in the muted nocturnal heat of still summer. Sitting legs crossed upon the bed, he felt the softness under his calloused fingers almost rough, catching under his thumb and then falling away. Below him quiet patterns laid themselves upon the floor; strange shadow-shapes, distorted and twisting to fit the contours of the room; each silent book in its shelf, spines hard and closed, spoke in trembling whispers words he could not decipher. His breath caught in his throat, struggling; he wondered why he had seen fit to come here, what he had hoped to gain from this hollow place. It held only half-memories of Loki, tiny mirrored slivers caught behind every cracked corner. A shadow fell from a tall pitcher; curving, it took the form of a horned helmet, a tilting smile that lapped crazily over the edge of the wooden table and reformed into the image of a man, falling. The breath that had snagged within his throat was sucked in all at once, cold, sweat across his bare arms in the slow-moving heat. "I did it for you… for all of us." It had been months since that day.
First shock, the shock that lasted all throughout the funeral preparations, all the way through the last feast, whereupon the rich food turned to ashes in his mouth and he saw him: Loki, sitting in place of another, unknowing, smiling gaily as he ate the food of his final parting, the flesh of his hollowed face tight over bony skull, hair lank and falling, teeth yellowed, clothes unraveling from fingers withered and yet still bleeding. One blink and he was gone, but the image remained; he stood up making the barest of excuses and traveled out to the very edge; step upon step of rainbow captured in a single moment beneath his boots, and the waterfall pouring over the edge. A fall into the void was certain death, each atom scattered from its moorings.
"I am not your brother," Loki's voice whispered sadly in the space behind his ear, "I never was." He did not turn his head from the room before him, untouched, pristine, waiting for his brother's return. He was rumpling the bedspread. Loki would not have liked that. It did not matter anymore. The moon danced silver on the edge of each gleaming metal, sparks and shards rising and entwining. A Jotun? he had asked. What are you talking about, Loki wasn't (couldn't be, couldn't be). In the heavy, aching silence he could hear the echoed set of breathing beside him. The edges of the bed curved and rose up like the bones of a funeral ship; runes of life, prosperity and peace gouged into yellow metal. He reached for the edge, clasped it under his fingers, dully warm, and shivered at the temperature.
Months since that day. He had tried to grieve as he knew he must. Tried to move on. Had not entered the room at all. But the false presence followed him. He had thought it only a reaction, a step in the walk from horror, and then, as it grew instead of lessening, had been afraid to speak. Was he mad or was he haunted? There had been no body to cast off. Every atom torn from its assigned place. With every breath, some had trickled in, greedily filling up the spaces between air and air. Loki remaking himself in the veins of his heart. Insistent, insistent. In bright daylight fantasies seemed foolish; he could ignore the occasional whisper, or the fear of a rotting, desperate image, watching him, smiling at him, with no one the wiser. After all, it was only the mind playing tricks.
In dreams there were no such compunctions. In the still silent hours after midnight when he woke he could feel the brush of fingers over his hands, warm and heavy. "Brother, Brother, please: I am so cold." He would turn his back, close his eyes and ears to each ever-more desperate plea and clench his fists; slowing his breathing. But it was hard, so hard in the depth of night to remember why he should turn him away, not when he sounded so lost.
His hands smoothed over the edge of the bedframe and he rested his forehead upon it; marginally cooler than his sweat-drenched skin. He should not have come here. He was shaking, tears springing to his eyes as they had not since Loki's passing. He could smell some heady night-flower from the partly opened window; an inkwell sat stoppered and half-full upon a writing table, pen beside it waiting, fresh sheet of paper laid out. Why did it sit there so, knowing Loki was gone? What words did it pause for, what drops from his slender hands would stain its pages? It was a mausoleum, a shrine to a dead god, empty and worthless.
"Thor," Loki said, soft and desperate, "Please, I cannot reach anyone else," and Thor could feel the hands bunching into his thin night tunic, tugging tightly, trying to get his attention, trying to keep from being swept away. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the hot breath near his ear as he whispered frantically. "Answer me. Please, I know you can hear me. I know you can see me. Answer me, or I do not know how much longer I can remember who I am."
A fall into the void, atoms scattered to every point of the universe, to float untethered and lost. He could not speak. To speak would be to surrender himself to madness, to fitful delusions and wanton hopes.
"Thor," the phantom said again, "Brother. Help me."
He waited, shuddering and silent. He could hear each rasp of breath as it left his mouth; drawing itself across his lips like wire, as though it could make him bleed. Deepest night lingered, hour upon hour, but could not hold out; it faded to sullen dawn, the cries of his brother growing ever fainter, until at last they disappeared, hands slipping from his waist, insubstantial, unreal.
He lifted himself from the bed in the moments before dawn, weary and shaken, passing out of his brother's chambers with silent steps, almost wondering when next Loki's spirit would see fit to entreat him. And yet he knew, with a strange indefinable sense, that the presence would not return again. The lightness that filled his limbs was that of hollowness. For the first time since Loki's death, he felt his absence; an aching emptiness in the twin-halves of his soul. He closed his eyes, opened them, and strode forth, as the sun passed over the rim of the world.
.
.
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