Disclaimer: I do not own Thor, nor The Avengers.
Author's Note: I had previously updated Chapter Four, but after one of my readers pointed out, seemed very disjointed, and I was inclined to agree. I hope this is a smoother chapter. Be will be a very high rating of T.
Midgard
The candles flicker back and forth casting long, lean shadows that dance around the room. It makes for a comfortable atmosphere, but the atmosphere is far from that at the current point. A tensed silence pervades the room, shrouding its inhabitants under its heavy hand.
Thor stands up suddenly, reaching for his hammer, "I will search for Loki." He states with resignation.
"No." Odin declares, not raising from his seat, "I forbid it."
"This is no punishment father!" Thor's anger is inflected within his voice, "It is a death sentence!"
Frigga intervenes with gentle firmness, but with the intention to keep the peace, since she herself sides with Thor. "Thor.. You must trust your father in that-"
"Loki will die!" He whips back to his mother, hissing it with such harsh force that she is shocked into stupor and falters back a step.
Fury courses through Odin. Any sense of restraint dissipates between the two.
"To take away his magic is another, but to take away a gift of life! If he survives, the resentment will only further his descent-!" Thor unknowingly takes a step towards Odin, half pleading and half demanding at the same moment.
"He is also my son! Would you have him-"
"Into the darkness!" Thor gestures forcefully outward, "He is injured, powerless, and -"
"-become the monster he believes himself-"
"-Mute! Robbing him of his only defense! You know that to die in any way other than battle would be to chain one's soul to the realm of Hel! You-" Each man's voice increases in intervals.
"-to be! Vulnerability will remind him of his values. His way of thought is no greater than a beast!"
"-are condemning him to a fate worse than a beast!"
With a flourish of his cape, Thor stalks out of the room with the clank of his boots behind him. Odin lets a slow exhale escape as he hears muffled crashes and Thor's bellow vibrate the floor beneath him.
"Frigga.." Odin looks towards his wife beside him. The jewels nor the rich cloth that is draped around her can mask the fatigue she feels. Weariness marks the lines of her body, and his devoted wife slowly turns her gaze towards him.
"My faith in you will never waver." She says this carefully and evenly. Pausing to gauge for his reaction, and hearing none, she continues, "However, do not think me a soldier capable of witnessing my son endure this deranged brutality, as his own father carves out the scars that were born from his own blade." Her words each have a well-practiced containment about them, but only a fool would not hear the cold wind lurking within the undertones.
Odin stares blankly into the distance, his mouth forms a grim line and his eye is darkened like steel. It is quiet now, with only the occasional footstep outside the chamber.
Frigga searches for any notion of response upon her husband's face, and with heavy disappointment, she looks away.
They sit there motionlessly, allowing for the words unsaid to dominate and envelop.
A multitude of voices conjoin together in a sea of murky waters. Wavelike motions drift him up and down, forwards and backwards, as the darkness fluxes within itself, never fully touching. It was almost strange to say that he felt a warmth completely surround him, something he hadn't felt in a long time. Speckles of light burst on the insides of his eyelids, reminding him of the sparks that fizzled in midair as the Bifrost broke off from the bridge.
He was so close. So close to ruling Asgard after all these years.
It hits him when he realizes how old he sounded right now. Thousands of years have passed after all.
He chuckles sardonically to himself that the most important revelations of his life had taken place within the time span of less than a month. Funny how fitting in was always such a problem for a shape shifter.
It was a curse and blessing to eat Idunn's apples. The apples provided you with vitality and lifespan ranging upon the thousands. Unfortunately, that came with a powerful memory. Too powerful of a memory.
When he was a boy of a few hundred years, Loki remembers the spars with his brother, with him either pushing him down or pulling him up. He never took delight in the tussle, since contrary to popular opinion, his physical strength was not half bad, decent almost, since his prowess for technique and precision had no rival but to compare it to Thor's, which people did frequently, would be to compare an anteater and an ant.
So from there he earned a unspoken reputation of being a frail, weak, child.
They had assumed it so often, so naturally, that Loki thought it true himself, and retreated deeper within the arts of sorcery and magic, proving them all correct.
Everyone around him seemed to dislike the very air he breathed. In fact, there were times where it seemed more like distrust and fear. There was something hidden with the corner of their eyes or rise of their smiles that looked disconcerting to him.
Sometimes, he was sure they did not know why themselves.
If it was not for Thor, he would not have known any names other than of his immediate family. He was always behind, always the one needing to exert the most to be beside them. Always giving, never receiving. It wasn't as if he didn't take amusement in human contact, he simply found it irritating when people did it solely from obligation or ulterior purposes. It was as if an invisible line of separation had forged its way between him and the rest of the world.
Lie to him, lie to them. And thus his talent was born.
So in every sense, it was their fault.
Frigga's words vaguely flit across his mind as the venomous thoughts oozed out from the crevices of his psyche.
He was silently brooding the day after Thor returned from a recent conquest. Which creature's blood covered his dagger and colored Thor's hair, he paid no mind, but the internal burn Loki felt when he caught Odin's slight upward twitch of his mouth as he reprimanded Thor for his brashness, could not be cast off.
Loki did not stay for the celebration, choosing the solace of his chamber over the boisterous drunks he had already needed to endure on a daily basis.
He ran his fingers through his hair, and leaned gratuitously upon the foot of the bed in an effort to mollify the nagging thoughts that lay in the back corners of his sanity.
He felt a hush of air grace upon his cheek and knew that his mother had made her presence besides him.
"There is wine and ambrosia spilling to the floors to waste, when I am aware that you may devise a better use for them." She said softly, with a teasing tone.
He exhaled shakily, "My company is not wanted by most right now." Slowly he opened his eyes and threw a sidelong glance towards his mother. "I deem it best if you leave."
"Each mother has eyes that privy her to things that.." Frigga trailed off sadly, "..That even the wisest of beings cannot understand."
Loki furrowed his brow. "I am a fool."
Frigga grasped his hand.
"For following my brother to that accursed realm. For easing his path." His tone grew spiteful. "If I hadn't, he may have-"
"Perhaps gone directly into the healing chamber upon his return?" Loki looked at his mother in surprise, hastily turning away when he realized what he did.
"But at least, he would've learned that battle does not translate into victory." His voice still biting and mocking, but nevertheless, softer.
Frigga contemplated this thoughtfully for moment before speaking.
"A wise king sacrifices to give. A tyrant gives to sacrifice."
Loki scoffed bitterly.
Her hands brushed his disheveled hair from shrouding his eyes and gently guided his face toward her.
"These words may not be spoken often, but it does not make it any less the truth." She kisses his forehead and whispers something in Nordic, sounding almost like a prayer, but his mind is too distracted and the words too faint for him to understand.
The next day when he entered the sparring room, he met Volstagg and Hogun for the first time.
"Frigga's boy, was it?" Volstagg grinned, purposely holding the word Frigga a half-second longer, and exchanged glances with the silent Hogun. Tried to at least, if Hogun returned them.
Loki tipped his head in reply, and thinly smiled back, showing more teeth than usual.
From that day forward, he sealed off his chamber. Not a single soul was able to take a step within it, not because they couldn't, but because they did not dare to.
Not even his mother.
The memory fades and the comforting warmth begins to slip away from him. Loki feels the cool air nipping and prickling at his skin. The lights that danced underneath his eyelids die away, like a star within its last period of life. Loki tries to lift away the darkness when its presence ceases to be reassuring.
The god is perplexed when he finds his arms will not move as he would like them to. Confusion turns into mild alarm when his legs refuse to raise themselves up more than a few centimeters. After a few more seconds of struggle with his limbs, he concedes the fight to them.
Loki suddenly remembers that he has a face.
Gingerly, he begins to test his functions. He slowly starts to scrunch his nose and before he could even finish, spikes of pain flood the entire area.
Yes, he definitely had a face.
Taking another minute to mentally prepare himself, he decides to try his eyes... and discovers another brilliant revelation.
His eyeballs were bruised. Bruised.
Today, was not a good day. Were his eyelids always this heavy?
Forced to use more effort, he is finally able to crack one of his eyes open to see...
Gum.
Black, flattened, old- with what he thinks half of a cockroach was encrusted in-gum.
Disoriented and unable to move much without unleashing a wave of pain, his eyes follow the metal outline of what he thinks to be a dumpster, up towards the sky, only to be greeted by an onslaught of water that blur his vision even further.
Rain. Gallons upon gallons, of cold, wet rain.
His consciousness, although slow at the start, was beginning to quickly regain its footing, similar to a stone rolling down a hill. Loki in all his years, had never felt anything worse than this-never felt anything more than this. From his toes all the way to his fingers, he could only make out what felt to be intense soreness. Loki's head was throbbing profusely with dull pain, taking turns in each direction. The floor was rigid and rugged, digging into his flesh and open wounds with whatever trash had the misfortune of being blown that way.
A blast of frigid wind slaps him upon his bare back and instinctively he curls up further into the fetal position. Now fully conscious, but still a bit unbalanced, he notes with morbid fascination on the way his exposed body trembled with greater intensity each time it happened.
Summoning all of his willpower, he cranes his neck up towards the sky again, this time taking care to blink the rain from his eyes. His begrimed hair partially shrouds his vision, but it is enough for him to catch the dark overshadows of the buildings he was lying in between, along with the soggy wet flyer plastered to the wall that stated out-in the most obnoxious shade of yellow known to man-
'WELCOME TO NEW YORK FUCKING CITY...'
And as an afterthought,
'FUCKASS.'
Author's Note: To clear things up from the previous chapter: Yes, Loki is mute. Nada. Nothing. Zilch. Zero. With a capital M. As always, I appreciate and will reply to all reviews. They feed my soul. There have been so many story alerts, that I feel I must comment on them. I'm wondering if it's a feeling of indecision of what to make of my story-because I am aware I have not solidified the plot yet- or if it's a sign of interest. Hm. Oh well.