AN:I wrote this for my friend, who demanded to have a feely, but happy ending (unfortunately). Anyway, I just dug this out of my files and thought some of you might enjoy it. Don't forget to leave a review!
The door of the cell clanged heavily behind him, footsteps fading away into the deep silence that tormented his mind. He had lost everything. What was left for him now but a life of shadow: the bitterness of exile surrounded by heavy chains and pitying faces. He grimaced in the dim light. He didn't want their pity. All he had wanted was vengeance for the wrongs done against him, the lies he had endured, the pain and sorrow he had suffered at their hands. But now... he thought. Now his only desire was for darkness and solitude.
Suddenly he stiffened as the scrape of iron bolts came from behind. The heavy door swung open once more, golden light pouring into the dim room. Refusing to turn, he listened as soft footsteps entered the cell.
"Leave us," spoke a voice soft and clear.
His heart froze, filling with dread as well as recognition. Not her. Anyone but her. How could he face her again, after what he had become. Old memories filled with warmth and light stirred from deep inside, stabbing him with pain like a vicious blade. With a wince, he shut them out, standing in numbness as the door shut and shadows filled the cell once more.
"Loki." She spoke his name softly, without a trace of emotion.
"They told me that you fell." He shut his eyes, answering her with silence.
"They said you would never return. That you were dead."
He lifted his head, coldly studying the etched weathering in the stonework above his head. "Sigyn." He said at last. "Why have you come?"
"Do you not know?" She hovered in the center of the room.
"There is nothing left for you here. Did the All-father send you to force me into repentance?" He laughed resentfully. "What is there left to confront? I am a monster. Odin knew that long ago."
"Your father—"
"He is NOT my father. All those years of selfish lies— leading me to believe that I was something important, more than a stolen tool. What did he hope to accomplish?" He tried to withhold the deep anger now flooding into his voice. "He should have left me, all those years ago, in the ice. He should have ended it then! Instead he let me linger, unloved and unwanted with hopes of a purpose I never could fulfill!"
"Why do you say such things?" Her calm tone was overthrown by the hurt beneath her words. "You had a life here, Loki, a family, people who loved you— who still love you. You returned that love once, long ago, before you let your mind be consumed by this twisted malice. Your heritage means nothing to us! You are of Asgard, not Jotenheim. This is your home!"
He laughed once—a dark, grimacing sound that was swallowed by bitterness. "I have never belonged here." Still staring into the shadows, he half turned, his eyes alight with pained resentment. "In Midgard I could have forged a new destiny. I could have been more than a prize of war, a misfit monster, the weaker son! I had a chance to rise beyond my past! To fulfill the purpose that had been taken from me!"
"You care nothing for the pain and grief of others!" Her voice shocked him with its sudden angry fervor. He caught a glimpse of the hot, threatening tears that flashed in the corners of her eyes. "You call your father selfish, and yet you never consider the agony you have caused him by leaving us to mourn your death!
"I waited for you. For months I sat at the edge of Bifrost, refusing to believe what I had been told. I looked out across the stars, hoping, dreaming of the day when you would return. We never scorned you, Loki, only grieved. You have suffered, I know. But I sense beneath your deep hatred the anguish you have long sealed away: the torment and distress you have concealed underneath your malice. Somewhere beneath all this hostility is the man I once knew, the man I remember from before these times of pain and hardship."
"The person I once was is lost. I have changed, Sigyn, in my long years of exile. It is too late for me now."
"It is never too late. You have already been forgiven by me for all you have done."
"I do not need forgiveness. All I ever wanted was a chance to prove my worth, to become great!" He turned to face her, his voice breaking with defiance.
"This was not the way!" She defended.
"I could have been a king!"
"You don't NEED to be a king!" She shouted at him, her voice filled with pain.
"No matter who you are, or what you do, I will always love you."
Her kiss lingered on his cold lips like a spark of warmth, coursing through his icy veins like the sun's touch. A sharp pain wrenched his heart as the numbness fled, the ice around it melting as the bitterness and anger washed away. He stood in brokeness, all the memories and emotions he had shut out for so long now flooding back in a wave of remorse. For the first time in years, he touched his cheek and felt the warmth of tears. He let them silently fall: tears of sadness, and of joy.