Hello my dear readers :3

This is the first chapter of an extended story which I've written in German first and now try to translate into English. I hope you understand everything and that you like what you read ;)

Now have fun with Reading :3

Missing
Chapter 1 : Death

The first thing which caught Thor's attention as he saw the blood was its colour.

Not the pieces of broken glass in which it dipped.

Not the ground that was decorated generously with it.
Not the body which was bathed in it.

No, solely the colour.

For it shouldn't have been red, but blue. Ice blue. Iceblood.

„He wished for tiger lilies¨, Thor heard his mother whisper while she stood on his side studying the horrible scenario with her own eyes.
Her lugubrious voice wavered between disbelief and plain pain.
¨Red tiger lilies. His favourite flowers, you still know that? He told me once they would remind him of you with their ferocious bloom. For you'd be a kind of tiger as well. A gorgeous, powerful carnivore in combat. He loved them only because of you.¨

She bit her lips as a reflex on her strict education eons ago, so she could control the cry, which dared to come up her throat. She bit with such severity that a burgundian rill trickled down her chin falling down and staining her velvet nightdress. Her long fingernails clawed in the flesh of her naked upper arms penetrating the embraced skin with scarlet dents. she did not care. It was hard to tell if she even observed the ache.
"Of course i made the guards bring him some instantly", Frigga went on, a bit of confusion lingering in her voice, speaking like she was in trance. "A hole bundle in the most beautiful crystal vase, which i could find. If only I had known that he - i would never have - !"

Letting a radiant teardrop roll over her left cheek she gave up her resistance, bowed down and cried.
¨He just wanted some flowers...¨ she repeated softly, helpless. Eventually she broke of in mid-sentence. A single, rattling breath escaped her lips. Then she stood still and and succumbed to her own grief.

Sie went not until Thor demanded it.

Several hours passed after.

Since then the Thunderer mutely surveyed the body which lay as stiff as ever. The view saddened him.

The collar of Loki's shirt was loosened with force, so that a streak of bare throat presented itself sardonically. The seen flesh was hazy blue and oddly fragile in its nature. Unveiled skin shimmered in the flickering blaze of semi-burned out candles like fresh fallen snow but at the same time it seemed to be pure and clear as young morning dew.
It was spookily beautiful.
Shadows danced in tangled roundels on the gaunt walls. Thor sporadically payed attention to them. He did not know how long he already abided in the ravaged cell without stirring from the spot. No one could have told him that - when he entered the prison he had all guards commanded to leave their position.
For precaution. To avoid witnesses, if needed.

His heart throbbed in a tireless rhythm against his chest and he did not understand it.
Did not understand why it continued pounding, as if there would have nothing happened though he felt this terrible stitch inside him.

He understood little at this moment anyway. Very, very little. And yet more than he could stand.

After what seemed like ages he ultimately forced himself to take a step forward. Another one followed. And another one.

Mechanically he headed to the approximate center of the room where the dead god huddled. Slender legs draped in dim fabric entwined themselves in a strangely twisted posture, an arm pressing on his waist in a straight line while the other was outstretched in an abstruse right angle. A sallow, delicate hand held a fist-sized clutched with stony fingers. Dried, brownish flaps of blood were stuck on it. Thor's gaze inevitably attached to them.

¨He just wanted some flowers...¨

Secretly he asked himself how a piece of splinted glass could perform such a gruesome action. To be honest it appeared quite harmless by looking at it from a distance.
'In capable hands every object can become a weapon.' he answered his own question and suddenly he cursed his mother with all might and intensity he could afford in this second. For she had not thought of this simplicity when endowing Loki the lovely vase with its florid bouquet. For she had been blind for the obvious danger such favor entailed. But this anger, this rage abated quickly and was replaced with exuberant shame and nausea.
Slowly the Thunder god went to his knees, hovering with his hands just a few inches above the breathless chest until he bowed down and wrapped his arms around it. Carefully, as he would touch delicate porcelain, he lifted the narrow torso holding it in a gently inclined slope.
With one hand supporting the back, he ran his fingers over the bloodless face in feverish concentration like a blind man who tried to retrace the contours of the clear-cut profile.
The skin he wandered over felt smooth and tough. And cold. Cold as glacial ice.

His impassable route led from the high forehead to chin, extended beyond the throat and unmoving chest where his fingertips glided over the place, under which the heart beat normally.

He poised. Quavery he pressed his bare hand on the flesh, pushing gently against it to capture even the most tender impulse.

The slightest movement would have been enough. Anything that could have been valued as tentative sign of life so that he was able to discover an alleged swindle. Another lie of his little brother to torture him.

But there was none. Everything what greeted him was an universal, soundless nothing. The body underneath him stayed motionless as the body of a puppet. Thor clenched his teeth.

No illusions this time. No lies. Real, real, the supposed descendent was real.

All of a sudden his throat felt arid, swallowing all the pain he tried to hide oh so badly.

Probably he should have screamed by now to declare his monstrous pain and sorrowful heart.
At least some tears he should have shed over the corpse which once kept his brother's mischievous soul.

But it seemed as if Loki was gone and had taken all of Thor's words with him. What a beautiful thief…

The Asgardian was not even able to create a simple cry of agony. Every muscle in his beefy body felt unbearably numb. Just slow, very slow the Thunderer did the only thing which he thought was right in this second.

Bending over double he hid the ghastly head close to his chest, stroking the midnight black hair with his fingers... and soon he began to rock the corpse in his arms establishing a placid rhythm. Back and forth, back and forth. Like a mother, rocking her newborn child to sleep, quenching its disturbance with protection and warmth.

This gesture showed a kind of ghoulish fondness, the miracle of birth merged into the realization of death.

And while Thor acted this way, his lips musingly lying on a frigid temple scrawny, wet streams of salt and sorrow poured over his bearded cheeks little by little, dripping on cinereous flesh. The only sound, which escaped from the Thunderer's mouth was a suffocated whimper lonesomely echoing from the cell walls.

¨You can't do this!" Frigga screamed at him, grabbed Thor's arm desperately, willing to let tie him up, if it was needed, ¨Nobody ever entered Helheim and returned alive! I don't want to lose both of my sons today!¨

Flippantly the crown-prince got rid of his mother's grasp without looking up.
¨Loki didn't die on battlefield, therefore he's not welcomed in Vallhalla.¨, he replied with rare calmness, his eyes bound forward, ¨You know, there is only one place left where he can be. I have to go there! ¨

He could not stand his mother's portrait at this time. Watching her heart break for the second time on this day could have possibly changed his decision.
But he was not allowed to be swayed. He already knew well enough that it was a suicide mission he intended but what other choices were left? It was the only option to save Loki so that they could tie a new fate. A new, better, stronger bond of love and trust.

It had been three hours after he left the dead's cell, put on his armour and ordered Sleipnir, the fastest horse of all nine worlds as his mount. While Frigga went on with her repeated reminders, the blood swooshed in his ears. Fleetingly licking over is lips he could still taste the flavor of familar, cooled skin.
His hands clenched into fists. No, he mustn't give up. He should never have given up. No matter which pleading afflicted him, which threats and horror stories he once heard about the lower realms of Hel – He had to try at least. If he did not, he would never be able to forgive himself.

Finally, the Queen parted from her eldest son, as she felt his grim determination wafting in the atmosphere. Her posture was grief-stricken and at her eyelashes teardrops shone like little diamonds. However, her voice was firm and clear when she put her delicate hand on Thor's cheek, looking at him searchingly.

„If you're already willing to go this disastrous path, promise me that you'll come back as the healthy, vivid man I use to know.¨, she begged with mellow strictness. Thor nodded in silence, acted obedient. He enjoyed the heat of her fingers on his skin for a brief moment before he finally broke free and started walking.

¨Thor.¨

It was no order, but mere the empathic intonation his mother used urged him to stay. The Thunder god stayed like a statue, without turning around.
He waited.

¨Bring him home.¨

The words slid softly from her lips and yet they drilled like blistering pins in his muscles, driving themselves to his widely beating heart. Then he bestirred fitfully, went across the hallways till he got outside and vanished under the sinister garment of the night.

Though Helheim was indivisibly connected with all other eight worlds, it couldn't be travelled by the bifrost as usual.

Only the dead gained unrestricted access to subterranean realm. The ones who were still blessed with a vital spark smouldering their bodies and souls, had to make shifts otherwise. But to be honest you could have confidently said that the entrance to the withered kingdom almost was almost impossible to reach. Well, unless you possessed the most flexible and most vigorous mount in the whole universe. THEN a vague hope of success was given.
As he would be out of his mind (maybe he was) Thor pressed his thighs into Sleipnir's flanks making him hurry up. Sleipnir whickered angrily, but the Thunderer forgot to chuck the stallion's neck to apologize. His whole being was oriented on their aim, his thoughts still lingered by the corpse of his beloved brother. He could almost hear Loki's mocking voice roaring in the wind.

¨You fool¨, he whispered in his ear, ¨You're too late. Too late¨.

Abruptly the Asgardian took a hand from the reins, lay it on his chest where a dreadful twinge found its way in. As there would be tiny daggers dotting his lungs.

¨You have failed. Anew.¨

They flew over the bifrost like cometary tails, went across the star-covered milky ways, till they sank deeper to the ground again.
For a short time Thor closed his eyes as they broke through the pale blue sea level of Midgard, wilfully immersed into gloomy abysses. His muscles burned like flames due to the high pressure awaiting him, his lungs almost collapsed, but he not dared to struggle for breath before Sleipnir reached the place which was religiously called 'Gap of Worlds'. Fervent veins of thick magma pulsed on its borders, tossed grayish trails of smoke into the air which dispersed into a frosty flood of fractional particles. They split in fluid distance.

The Asgardian led Sleipnir directly into the bubbling brew at the foot of the ravine, knowing that not even a nordic god would withstand such combustions harmlessly.
The horse from which he awaited more physical resistance but to his surprise it bristled no second at all. Sleipnir rushed into the devil's hole and did not care about safety or prudence. As if the horse knew, who would probably wait on the other side. As if Sleipnir would yearn after the man who rather preferred to be dead than trapped.

It had once been Loki, the Sleipnir once found in the forest of Utgard, left behind by the herd of foals. Despite protests from the other companions he secretly smuggled the Little horse home, right into the royal stables.

He had given Sleipnir his name, brought him up on the bottle patiently and broke him in so the bribed equerry could not accuse the horse to be rabid or ferocious. He also had Thor expressly noted if there should escape only one single word from his lips about the uninvited guest at the gathering of the all-father, he would personally nail him on the ceiling together with his loose tongue.
For Thor clinged to his tongue very much and was highly aware of the sternness his brother's threat contained, he remained silent till the sickish colt had grown into an impressive stallion. And when the time had come Loki arranged it that Sleipnir was given as a birthday present to Odin to save him from a potential slaughterhouse for all eternity.
Beyond that the god of lies had done more things and risked otherwise to keep his horse safe and well. Sleipnir now seemed to remember what he owed Loki, because he ran as if he were haunted by delusions and his hooves were littered with spines. But perhaps this relationship was just because of the threatening presence of the approaching Helheim's, who knew. Thor did not, complained already in spirit for having placed such horrendous theories in his mind. After all - it was just a horse, for which he interpreted love, everlasting affection and respect AND... almost motherly ambitions for the Jotun.

If he thought it right, this was more than laughable.

Utterly ridiculous. A puerility. He had no time to spend for such childish pranks of his mind.

Nonetheless he tightened the reins in an irony grip to not be thrown from his horse.
'I'm coming, brother.' he thought and had to control himself not to emit a battlecry in the steaming air while they dived in this ocean of fire and indescribable heat gnawed on his skin.

'I'm coming to bring you back home!'

TBC...

Hey :)

Any feedback yet? I'd appreciate it very much 3

Love,

Nathaira