When she next awoke, it was to Loki's screaming. She jumped up, unsheathing her sword, prepared to attack whatever foe was in the cave. But there was none. Her eyes shot to Loki. He was drenched in sweat, his eyes moving under their lids with a dream.
His eyes flew open and he clutched at his wound, groaning in pain. His face was white and slick with yet more sweat. He was afraid.
Sif had never seen him like this. He was the rebellious Prince, proud and cocky. She watched as he writhed and then settled, staring up at the cave ceiling, breathing hard. Crying.
"What was that?" Sif asked, baffled.
Loki's eyes hazily floated towards hers. He chuckled but it turned into a cough. "A dream, dear Sif."
"A dream of what? What foul dreams could bring a Prince to tears?"
Loki looked away. "None that you would wish for."
He was different. There was something off about him. She knelt at his side, touching her hand to his forehead. She almost jumped back at how hot his forehead was. This was bad. He was Jotun. He was supposed to be cool, not boiling hot. She searched for anything in her knowledge that could help him, but she only ever killed Jotuns, not kept them alive.
She did know she had to keep him awake. The symptoms he was showing could only mean poison. She had to keep him talking. That wouldn't be hard to do.
He was already nodding off.
"Hey!" She snapped her fingers. "You have to stay awake. Talk about something that will keep you awake for the next six hours."
Loki attempted a chuckle. "I do not think you would want to talk to me right now. I would think you would be happy that I am dying."
Sif sat back down in her spot across from him. She watched the ground. "I can't disobey Thor's wish. He wants you to live. Besides, even if you are a treacherous rat, we were friends once. Good friends."
Loki winced, trying to sit himself up against the wall. "More than just friends."
Sif fought the heat spreading up her neck. At least it was dark out. Dark. How long had they been asleep? "I do not want to talk about that." She snapped.
Loki grinned weakly. "Of course not."
It was quiet. He was falling asleep again.
She had to think of something that would keep him awake. "What was your dream about?"
This snapped him awake, his hard gaze locking on her. "That is for me and me only. You do not need to know about it."
Sif's brows raised. This was a good topic. "Yes, I do. You woke me up screaming."
Loki's head lolled back onto the cave wall. It was quiet. She thought he had gone asleep again when his head came back up and he looked at her. His pupils were dilated, everything off about him. He started talking, his words slow. She wondered if he even knew he was talking to her. "The void. The monsters that found me in the Void. They did things to me…" He trailed off.
"What things?" Sif's curiosity piqued.
Loki was stuttering for words. Then, he just looked at her. And he started to take off his bloodied tunic. Sif knew what he looked like without it. He was shrimpy with almost no muscles. His skin was pale and smooth and perfect. But when he lifted the tunic off of his back and dropped in on the floor next to him, her eyes widened, her mouth falling open.
His chest was disfigured. It looked as though someone had torn his skin to pieces and stitched it back together. Thick bands of scars crossed his chest, this way and that. Small scars littered his skin. There was no place where there wasn't a scar.
"They had to convince me somehow." Loki began, folding his arms over his chest, more scars on his arms. He made another bandage and tied it tightly around his wound to keep it from oozing more blood.
"Who's 'they'?" Sif asked quietly, reserved.
"My allies, of course!" Loki laughed. "Battle scars are glorious. The scars earned from torture are shameful. That means that you survived, that you gave in. Well, I did give in. After months of darkness and beatings, cuttings and hopelessness. After a while, I realized I had nothing to lose from joining them."
Sif's natural thoughts bubbled out of her mouth. "Why didn't you take your own life?"
Loki laughed again. "I tried. They caught me before I died, stitched me back up, and sent a white hot iron through my middle as punishment, leaving it there until it cooled."
Sif was quiet, studying each scar. They were too real, too ridged, too pale. If it weren't for the scars, he would have had a body better than Thor's. His chest had broadened, but his figure was still lean. But now he was muscular, tested in battle. "Why haven't you told Thor?"
Loki stared down at his wrists. "I am a cowardly snake as it is. Why should I tell him? It would just make him pity me, worry about me. I don't deserve his attention any more than anyone else's. I'd rather be despised. You might as well kill me now and save Thor the chore of doing it later."
Sif could only stare at him. He was so different than before his fall. He looked worn and tired now that she looked closely at him. It was as if he was hollow inside. He used to be young and spritely. Happy. "No! If you are going to die, it will be at the hand of an enemy, not mine. Thor would never forgive me."
Loki barked out a laugh, delirious and uncontrolled. "Forgive you for what? Letting his younger brother die?" Loki was mocking her. "I am a burden to him. A constant reminder of how I ruined his life. It would have been better if I had died the first time I tried to kill myself!" Loki coughed blood into his hand. "Or better yet, if dear father Odin hadn't even bothered to take in a little Frost Giant runt for political gain. He should have left me on that frozen rock to die. He's said so himself."
Sif had grown up with a family. Two younger sisters, an older brother, a loving mother, a protective but encouraging father. She had never been told by any of her family that they wished her dead. She thought of Loki's family. A dead mother, possibly the only person he had loved. A father who had completely disowned him and ignored his very presence. And a brother who didn't care if he fell in battle, even when taking an arrow for a childhood friend. And when she really thought about it, she couldn't remember the last time Thor had even talked to Loki.
Her eyes roamed Loki's chest once more. She had seen the scars of torture victims before. And he put all of them combined to shame. It looked as though he had been put through a meat grinder. "Well, I did give in. After months of darkness and beatings, cuttings and hopelessness. After a while, I realized I had nothing to lose from joining them." Loki's words from just a moment ago.
She didn't want to feel pity towards him. She hated the aching feeling in her chest at the thought of what they could have possibly done to him to make him look like this. A word in his earlier statement began to fill her mind with questions. Darkness? After months of darkness… what could he possibly mean by that? "What did you mean by darkness? You said after a few months of darkness you gave in."
Loki's eyes were clouding over, but it cleared at her words. He was quiet, hesitating even in his delirious state. "Darkness." Loki whispered, a sharp fear in his voice. "Falling. I fell. I let go. I thought I would die in the void… but I didn't die. I fell for months through absolute darkness. Couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, couldn't move. Only remembering what Father had said to me to make me let go. I thought about it over and over and there was darkness everywhere. No light. I didn't know if I was floating up or down or side to side."
He coughed up more blood into his hand. His voice was getting scratchy and high-pitched. "Darkness. Months of darkness. Nobody there to pull me out. Until They showed up."
"How did they show up?" Sif swallowed the lump in her throat.
Loki groaned in pain, clutching his head. "Ships. They found me somehow… Pulled me in and threw me in a cage until I reminded myself how to talk. Then they brought me before… Th… Him." Loki was curling into a fetal position.
Sif resisted the urge to go to him and comfort him as she would Thor after he lost his Jane. "Who's Him?"
Loki gasped, his eyes screwed shut, his hands curling into fists at the side of his head. "Stop… asking… questions!"
Sif's face contorted into anger. She leaned over and slapped him hard across the face. "You'll answer any questions I ask!" Then, she hurriedly pulled back, wondering why she had done that. She'd hit Loki many times before, purposefully knocking into him to take out her anger on him, trying to beat him up or stomp on his foot or accidentally cut him with her sword. But this was different. She felt guilty this time.
Loki blinked several times, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks. "Of course." He mumbled. And the look on his face was guarded, ready to flinch back if hit again. His body gone into protective mode, like a prisoner would do to their interrogator. His breathing was shaky. "Thanos. Mad Titan. One who can warp time and minds. Prolong your torture session to feel like a year instead of a few minutes. Mess with your memories, make you think you were thrown off the Bifrost instead of intentionally letting go to kill yourself. Make you believe it is your divine purpose to serve Him. Lead his armies, kill mortals, lie and betray and kill without mercy."
Sif clamped her mouth shut. She couldn't take this anymore. These were all lies. He was making it up. The scars were probably an illusion, the wound too. There hadn't even been an arrow head. She leaned forward and splayed her hand across his chest. He flinched, but she ignored it. She focused on his scars. They couldn't be real. But they were. They were thick and thin and tough to the feel, ridges that rose up out of his skin.
She jerked her hand back and sat against the wall of the cave, opposite of Loki. And they were both quiet for hours. When Loki's coughing started to get infinitely worse, she knew he was going to die if she didn't get help. He could barely form words now.
She stood up and began walking to the cave entrance. She had to find Thor, see if the battle was done. It had to be by now. "Wait!" Loki choked out.
He was completely out of it now. He was panicking. "Where… going?"
"I'm going to find Thor. Stay here."
Loki slumped to the floor once more, seemingly dead, but still breathing.
Sif hurriedly sprinted through the woods.
She didn't want him to die anymore.
She wanted him to live.
To tell Thor what had happened to him.
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