The Memory Casket

Chapter 3: Reunion

When they emerged in the new observatory Loki immediately began to struggle again, but Thor merely pulled tighter on the chain and his struggling did him little good. Heimdall withdrew his sword from the controls, then turned his attention on Loki, fixing the younger man with a stare that almost dared him to try to escape. Loki yanked hard on his chain and wound up spinning around and fighting to stay on his feet; Thor caught a flash of wild-eyed panic on his face.

Where is his smugness? His smirk? His arrogance? His condescension? Thor didn't know, but there was nothing he could do about it at the moment, either. Loki was injured, and with his magic separated from him, he would need a healer to ensure the fastest and most effective recovery. He would need Eir. Thor was struck by a sense of déjà vu, for it wasn't that long since the last time he'd brought Loki home in chains, looking well but in need of treatment.

"The king and queen await you just outside. And Eir has been notified."

"Thank you, Heimdall," Thor said, then turned to Loki, who had calmed down somewhat. "You remember your two options."

"You're making a terrible mistake. You don't-"

"Do not speak again or I will ask Father for the gag as well. No one wants to hear more of your lies. Now move," Thor said, reaching behind Loki and giving him a firm push to the back.

Loki stumbled forward a step, then swung his head around and narrowed his eyes, and there was that cold look of hatred and barely controlled fury that Thor had come to know so well. Still, Loki clearly knew better than to resist at this stage and did what he was told.

"Mother, don't," Thor said when they reached Odin and Frigga, and Frigga instinctively stepped forward to embrace Loki as though the younger prince were coming back from a heroic quest rather than standing before her in fetters. "He's injured," he explained. "He drew a knife, and I used Mjolnir."

She nodded and stayed back. "He used a knife," she said after her eyes made a quick examination of them both.

Thor looked down, saw the hilt and a portion of the blade still protruding from his leg. He'd been aware of the sting but forgotten the knife was still there.

"I'll come see you in the Healing Room," she said to Loki. "I realize you don't want to be here, but…but I'm glad you're back. I…I…"

"Frigga," Odin murmured, and Thor saw the shifting of the fabric of his mother's cloak and knew that his father's hand had surreptitiously sought his mother's.

Thor started to spin Mjolnir, ready to grab Loki and fly them both over to the Healing Room, when he instead fell still at the sight of Loki's mouth agape, his eyes darting from person to person.

"Frigga," Loki repeated softly, the syllables sounding strange on his lips in place of Mother, the only one of them he hadn't denied as family, though even from her he had remained distant. His demeanor changed again, his expression more confident, his eyebrows going up with the rest of his head, as though he'd at last comprehended one of life's great truths. "I'd wondered when you would come," he said, still glancing among each of them. "I certainly didn't expect it to happen like this," he added, his eyes then dropping down to the manacles and chain, Thor's burly hand wrapped around it.

"How exactly did you expect it to happen, then, Brother?" Thor asked, even though he knew he shouldn't engage Loki like this. It never went well.

Loki furrowed his brow and glanced down at his bound hands again, making Thor tense beside him. He gave a short, dry laugh. "I really haven't a clue, I suppose." He paused for a brief moment. "Thor?"

"What?"

Loki nodded and turned to his father. "And that makes you Odin."

/


/

He watched as looks of confusion mixed with suspicion passed over Thor's and Odin's faces, while in Frigga's narrowed eyes he thought he also detected concern. Were he not shackled and helpless –he might be able to do some damage if he could get his hands on that knife still protruding from his captor's lower thigh, if his "brother" would just loosen his grip on that chain a bit – he thought he might find the whole thing entertaining.

"I am many things, Loki," Odin finally said. "To you, I am both king and father, no matter how much you seek to deny both. And you have defied me yet again as both subject and son. You know that you must be punished for that, and not lightly."

He took a deep breath and swallowed. There was indeed a certain dramatic value in the scene playing out before him, that made some strange part of him smile on the inside – and maybe just a bit on the outside, too – but talk of punished-and-not-lightly quickly rid him of any and all smiles. This wasn't a drama, it was his life. He wished to avoid punished-and-not-lightly. Somehow, from this stern-looking one-eyed man, his "father," his "king" no less, he expected punishment would be rather enthusiastic.

"Wait," he said, quickly glancing between his captor and his king. "Does that mean I'm a prince?"

Thor made some sort of growling sound deep in his throat and he felt the wind pick up and the next thing he knew Thor's arm was hooked around his back and pulling him close and he was flying over the long bridge he'd just been standing on and thinking he probably shouldn't have said that. His "brother," he knew, was also perfectly capable of doling out punished-and-not-lightly. He felt it every time he breathed.

/


/

"He's dressed so strangely," Frigga murmured, hovering just inside the private chamber of the Healing Room Loki had been taken to. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen his bare arms, or feet in shoes other than boots or, on rare occasion, leather sandals. But she knew she hadn't seen him wear red, certainly not that shade of it, since it had been designated Thor's color upon his tenth birthday.

Thor merely nodded, his eyes fixed on Loki. Frigga doubted he'd even heard her. It was simpler for her, in a way. She'd always known the truth of Loki's heritage by birth; she hadn't had to come to terms with it as Thor had. And she was a mother. She loved Loki unconditionally, and free of the jealousies and rivalries that had come to mark her sons' relationship as brothers; she suspected she was the only person in all the Nine Realms that Loki still had any trust in at all. Still, simpler did not mean less painful. Loki kissed her cheek while planning an escape that had injured three Einherjar, one of them just barely surviving a particularly nasty stabbing.

Eir was tending to Loki, as she had so many times before. Thor had insisted the shackles suppressing Loki's ability to use magic not be removed, so Eir had just been lifting a pair of scissors to Loki's tunic when she and Odin had arrived.

"This is my favorite shirt," Loki had protested from his bed, drawing his arms up from his sides to protect his chest and the shirt covering it.

Eir had put the scissors away and, once he moved his arms again, simply rolled up his shirt and bunched it up high under his arms. A nasty bruise was forming on his left side, about the length of Mjolnir's head.

"Would you take that from me as well, Brother?" Thor had asked quietly beside Frigga, more of a statement than a question. Frigga didn't think Thor really cared if Loki wore red or not; it was simply not done, and coming from Loki, with Loki's current attitude, Thor would see it as a deliberate insult. An intentional provocation.

Loki had looked up at him strangely. "The shirt? I'm fairly certain it doesn't belong to you, since the fabric isn't all warped out of shape. But if you want it, it's all yours, Brother." Frigga had watched as Loki then visually inspected Thor from head to toe and back again. "Are you sure we're brothers?" he'd asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes," Thor had forced out as his jaw tightened.

Frigga had circled her arm around his then. She knew it was getting harder for him to continue to claim Loki as his brother in the face of Loki's betrayals and unwavering rejecting. When Loki's sentence was over – assuming it would ever be over given what had just happened – she would still have two sons…but she wasn't sure either of them would have a brother.

Eir had quickly proclaimed Loki to be in no danger – his ribs were only cracked, not broken – and Odin had promptly left. There were others who needed to know Loki had been recaptured. There was punishment to be decided on. Again.

Loki suddenly gave a shout. "That's enough," he said, pushing himself further up the bed.

"I'm not done, my prince."

"If I'm your prince, then I say you are done."

Thor was moving forward before Loki finished speaking, just as Loki was shifting to swing his legs over the edge of the bed. "Show some respect, Loki. If Eir says she isn't done, then she isn't done. You remain a prince, but you also remain a prisoner."

Frigga couldn't see Loki well with Thor standing between her and him, so she didn't see exactly what else passed between them, but Thor's hands went to Loki's shoulders and Loki was soon settling back into place on the bed. Eir went back to work, and although a few grunts came from Loki he didn't try to get up again, one hand still on his shoulder to encourage him to stay put. Frigga removed her cloak and draped it over a chair, too anxious to sit.

"Now I'm done," Eir said a few minutes later, lowering Loki's tunic. "The area may be tender for a day or two, but I've healed the cracks and reduced the bruising and you can move about normally."

"The only place you're going to be moving is back to your cell," Thor said, his voice low and rumbling, as Eir gave a polite bow and left.

"Thor," Frigga said, coming up alongside her eldest and placing a gently restraining hand on the arm that had reached out to clamp down on Loki's. She hadn't embraced her youngest yet, and she wanted to do so here, where for a moment she could pretend he'd been injured during training with Thor and the other warriors, that he was an honored Prince of Asgard and not an escaped convict guilty of crimes against three realms.

She took Loki's hands and gave them a gentle tug, urging him off the raised bed so she could more easily reach him. He stood and stretched a little to the side, testing his repaired ribs, and her arms reached out for him as they had for over a thousand years, her neck angling upward to press her cheek to his, to kiss him.

She never got that far. As soon as her arms made it around his sides he recoiled from her, and Thor, no doubt anxious over another potential escape attempt, was there in a flash behind Loki, big hands firmly over bare forearms. Loki struggled in his grasp for a moment before falling still.

Frigga stared, trying to keep her face neutral. Never – never! – had Loki reacted to her in such a manner. Even when he'd been dragged back from Midgard full of nothing but contempt and spite, even then he'd allowed her embrace. He hadn't returned it, but she'd felt his cheek press lightly against hers and she knew he still loved her. Now he looked, if anything, nervous.

"I'm sorry. You startled me," he said then, his face breaking into a big smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"It's all right," Frigga said, leaning forward and tentatively kissing his cheek. He didn't flinch, but neither did he press his cheek to hers. When she stepped away again, Thor released his arms.

"Well," Loki said, giving his arms a shake then walking over to retrieve the large green cloth bag he'd arrived with, that had been on the floor next to the bed. He tossed it over his shoulder. "This has been such an interesting reunion, but if it's all the same to you, I'll be…" He'd lifted his hands to chin level and run them down in front of him. "I'll just be…" He repeated the motion. He did it a third time, looking down at himself with a pained expression. "This usually works…"

"You'll be going?" Thor supplied. "Was that what you wanted to say? It's been little more than two years since you last wore them, Loki, have you truly forgotten what those shackles do? You can't cloak yourself, and if you did somehow make it past me, the Einherjar have sealed off this wing. You won't escape again."

Frigga watched carefully as Loki glanced between the metal surrounding his wrists and Thor with growing horror. He started pulling at them, trying to tug them off, and Thor made no move to stop him. He knew Loki had no chance of getting them off himself.

After a moment Frigga stilled Loki's hands with her own; he would rub his fingers and wrists raw at this rate. "Thor, give us a moment alone," she said, her eyes still on Loki.

"Mother…"

"Just a moment. I wish to speak with him in private. And you need to get a healing stone and take care of your leg."

Her eldest hesitated a few seconds more, then turned and left them.

"How are you feeling now, my little one? Really. Do you have any other injuries?" she asked as soon as they were alone.

"No, I'm fine. The healer treated me very well. Thank you," he said with a smile and a nod that sent his dark hair falling forward into his face.

"Good. In that case, you'll want to see your sister. She's been worried," Frigga said, taking a deep breath that turned into a yawn. She arched her back into a stretch, and rested her hands on her hips.

Loki's eyes widened, but only briefly, and then he was nodding. "Yes, I'd like that."

"I thought you might," Frigga responded, then rushed at Loki, her left hand pressing hard into his chest, her right hand whipping around to the small dagger that was sheathed at the small of her back and hidden by pale blue cloth. By the time Loki could react with anything more than a startled gasp she had pushed him all the way back against the wall and the tip of the blade was pressed against his throat.

He started to say something, but the movement of his throat made the blade prick his skin.

"Who are you and what have you done with my son?" Frigga demanded, her voice as hard and unyielding as her grip on the dagger.


/

You know I couldn't help myself with the Avengers quote...

Another quick update, but seriously, it will almost certainly not stay this quick. Chalk this up to a head-start at the beginning and, um, a boring meeting at work. Shhh. Don't tell.

Next up, Ch. 4 "Of Moles and Men": Differences of opinion arise over who exactly Thor has brought home.