Large amounts of love to everyone reading, reviewing, alerting and favouriting this!
Yay! Another really quick update! We're getting to the first of the big emotional turning points now so it's coming thick and fast, hope you enjoy!
o
Chapter Nine:
Questions of a Habitual Liar
Loki froze. What did he do? He had little knowledge of human anatomy or medicine but he was fairly sure that bleeding from the head was never a good sign. Was she dying? Should he save her? If so, how? He had not the knowledge and who was there whom he could ask?
He vaguely recalled some mention of calling something called an ambulance when something similar had happened on the television, but even if he figured out how, that would mean bringing official attention upon himself and that was something he desperately wanted to avoid. What if the mortals who arrived suspected him of causing such an injury? How widely was his face known after his attempted invasion? Could alerting such people in order to save Efanna result in S.H.E.I.L.D. finding him? He knew from the minds of those he had controlled during his attack that they paid a particularly close watch on the emergency services of the world.
But if he did not obtain help, what would happen to Efanna? If she died, he would be responsible. Why did that thought somehow sit so ill at ease within his mind? He had killed countless others without a second thought, revelled in the deaths of her kind; why should he regret the death of one mortal girl whom he had not even killed himself?
Answers came unbidden from the back of his mind; answers that he was not comfortable with at all.
Because she showed you kindness.
But what need did he have for the kindness of one so beneath him?
Because she would save your life, were it in her hands.
Somehow he knew this to be true, but that was how it should be, after all he was a god and she a mere mortal!
Because you care about her.
This thought stopped him in his tracks.
No.
He could not care about so pathetic a creature. He would not stoop so low as to feel anything but contempt for one of such pitiful a race. Whilst it was true that he found her more interesting than he had expected, more commendable than any other of her species, he most certainly did not care for her. Such a thing was unthinkable. Impossible.
No, he was merely reluctant for her to die as without her he was trapped in this remote, isolated, damp, miserable place, miles from any city or place of power where he might be able to improve his fortunes. She had made it clear that there was little hope of him escaping this accursed valley without her assistance. Plus, even though she had little contact with the outside world, someone was likely to notice her disappearance, which would then most likely lead to problems for him. Being the suspect in a murder trial, even if he was innocent, was not the best way to avoid S.H.E.I.L.D.'s attention.
He would not let her die. It would be too much of an inconvenience.
o
Images, sounds, emotions; all rush past so quickly they are almost illegible.
Fireworks; fields covered in snow and ice; Clint Barton shooting a fire-tipped arrow; Loki standing in frost giant blue; Bruce Banner and Tony Stark working in a laboratory; Natasha Romanoff aiming a gun, her face streaked with blood; a bonfire reaching towards the sky; Steve Rodgers holding his hand out to Efanna, a determined look on his face; Thor raising Mjölnir to the heavens with an almighty cry; freezing mist encircling Efanna, obscuring everything from her sight, forcing its way into her lungs…
Efanna's eyes shot open as she gasped for breath, to find Loki's hand hovering above her face. Instinctively she jerked away and in doing so caught a glimpse of his expression, which looked as though someone had just slapped him.
"Efanna?" he whispered as though she had just returned from the dead. Which, she supposed, it might have looked like. Shit.
"Um, yeah?" she stammered.
She backed away from him slightly, pushing herself into a half sitting position. Her head was still reeling from the mad rush of her Vision and there was a certain look in Loki's eye that made her just a little apprehensive. There was almost a vulnerability there, a slight glint of madness, of crazed determination and anger. He stared at her for a moment, emotions flickering across his face. Efa had never seen him look so open. It didn't last for long though, and after mere seconds his mask once again settled.
"Are you alright?" he asked, his voice low and controlled.
"Um, yeah, I'm fine, why?"
She didn't really think playing innocent would work, but she wasn't going to let go until she knew she had no other choice. As she expected, Loki arched his eyebrow.
"You were unconscious," he told her, his tone carefully measured, "It appears as though you fell down the stairs."
Efanna waved her hand in what she hoped was a flippant way.
"Don't worry, I only tripped on the last step. It was just a small knock on the head, I'm fine. Really."
Loki didn't look convinced.
"You're bleeding."
Oh. Shit. Efa lifted her hand to her head, and sure enough when she brought it back down her fingers were red and sticky. She investigated her scalp, it was tender, and she could feel a slight bump, but there was no sign of a cut or gash, not any more.
"It's just a scratch," she said, trying to keep her tone light, "It's already closed. Nothing to worry about. Head wounds just bleed a lot."
Loki's eyes bored into hers. Now it was obvious she was actually alive anger was steadily growing behind them.
"You're lying," he accused her darkly.
"No," she protested, "I'm not lying."
"But you're not telling me the whole truth."
Efanna hesitated. "… No," she admitted.
Loki's eyes flashed and behind her Pip let out a low growl. She wondered what she'd done to make him so angry, surely just falling down the stairs wouldn't provoke such a response, would it?
"Efanna," he started, his voice threatening. Efa didn't need a Vision to tell her what was going to happen next.
"Loki," she pleaded, "Please. I will tell you. I promise. I will. Just give me a little more time, okay? I- I'm not ready yet."
o
Loki let out a low growl. How dare she refuse him again? And yet her voice sounded so frail, so vulnerable he could feel himself relenting. He stared at her for a long moment, wanting her to feel as uncomfortable as possible, wanting her to know where the real power lay between them. The relief he had felt when she had opened her eyes had shocked him, and quickly faded into anger. How dare such a mortal elicit such a response from him?
When he judged she had suffered enough he grunted and got to his feet. He stepped over her and climbed the stairs, purposefully not looking back, even when he heard her small sigh of relief.
"I guess we're not going for a walk anymore then," her heard her mutter just before he reached the landing.
He felt the corner of his mouth involuntarily curl upwards. After all that, she still worried about something so simple as missing a walk. Once he realised though, he scowled. She was a mere insignificant mortal and he was angry with her. How was it she could manipulate his emotions like this?
Over the next couple of days Efanna was particularly careful around him. Her careless abandon seemed to have disappeared and she watched him constantly with curious, but guarded eyes. After a couple of hours by himself, Loki once again trusted himself in her presence, and their usual relationship continued. Efanna still teased him and was still as lively as ever in their various discussions, but she spent more time watching and thinking and seemed to carefully consider everything he said or did.
Whilst he might have expected to find this irritating, Loki more often found himself intrigued. Every day his mortal companion proved herself more interesting and deep a character and as much as he wanted to be angry with her, he instead found his curiosity growing. Her actions confused him. Whilst he had expected her to be timid, perhaps even afraid of him after his rebuttal of her, she seemed to treat him even more kindly than she had before.
It was two days after he had found her at the foot of the stairs when he entered the kitchen to find her crouched at the door of the fridge, pen in hand.
"Efanna, what are you doing?" he asked, for this seemed strange behaviour even for her.
"Oh, Loki!" she said with a wide smile, "You look sad so I thought I'd draw smiley faces on all the bottle lids to cheer you up. Mam always used to do it when I was little."
Loki was baffled by this answer. He didn't know whether to laugh at the sheer irrationality of her answer or rebuke her for being so patronising.
"I'm not little, Efanna," he reminded her patronisingly, settling for the mid-ground between the two.
"I know," she replied cheerfully, "But it can't hurt can it?
Loki shook his head as she stood up and closed the fridge. He had thought mortals were easy to understand.
"Do you want to try that walk again?" she asked carefully.
Loki got the impression that she was actually asking him this time, and wouldn't nag him to death if he refused. Surprisingly though, he found himself agreeing and Efanna's face lit up.
"Let's go then, shall we?" she said, "My cloak's already downstairs, so, well…" Her voice trailed off and she shrugged.
An hour later the two were perched on rocks looking over the valley. They had walked mostly in silence; Efanna had still bleated to every sheep they passed, but had not babbled as she had previously done. Loki noticed however, that she seemed to relax as the wind whipped her hair about her face, often closing her eyes and spreading her arms as though attempting to embrace it.
"Loki?"
Loki turned his head to find her staring at him curiously.
"What?"
"When was the last time you told someone you loved them?" she asked.
The question threw Loki, so much so that he answered without really thinking about it.
"… Over a year ago now, possibly two. It was the day Thor was to be crowned king, as we waited for the ceremony to start."
"And when was the last time someone told you that they loved you?"
Her words hit Loki like dead weights, even though she had said them so gently.
"I… I don't know."
Efanna looked at him for a long while, a small, sad smile on her face.
"I think that's your problem, Loki," she said, her voice soft, "You think you are unloved. It's what everything was for wasn't it? Asgard, and then even New York. You thought the ones you loved did not love you in return and so sought to force the people of this world to love you by controlling their minds."
Loki could do nothing but stare at her. His anger and incredulity that she was saying such things were overwhelmed by the stronger emotions her words brought about.
"It doesn't work like that you know," she continued sadly, "You can't force someone to love you; you have to love them too."
"That never seemed to work for me in the past," Loki growled, the pain he had kept at bay for so long resurfacing.
"You're wrong. You are loved, Loki. You always have been."
"And how do you know that?" he shouted, standing up and spinning to face her, the pain overcoming him. "You think you know my past? You think you understand my life? The wrongs that have been done to me?"
"I will say nothing now of the past or others, Loki," she answered quite calmly, looking up at him with earnest eyes, "But I can say for certain that you are loved, here and now."
"What makes you think you could possibly know that?" he spat.
"Because I love you, Loki."
This admission stopped Loki in his tracks. He froze and his brow rose. Did she just say…?
"You're in love with me?" he asked, his voice betraying his confusion.
"Not in love," she corrected gently, "But I do love you, Loki. There are many more ways to love someone than simply being in love with them."
The emotions coursing though his veins, Loki could not describe. Her words had caused him to feel more conflicted, more vulnerable than he had felt since he had found out the true, monstrous nature of his parentage.
"Even after everything I have done to you? After the number of your people I have killed?" he asked harshly, resorting to anger in this helpless state.
"I can't say I'm happy with everything that you've done," she sighed, her brow creasing. She stood up and walked until she stood just before him, looking up into his eyes.
"But I know, Loki, that everything you've done, you've done because of love, or the lack of it."
Her voice was intense with an emotion Loki hadn't heard addressed to him before.
"You are a good person, Loki, even if that person has been lost in pain. In here-" she placed her gloved hand on his chest "- in the depths of your heart, your soul, you are good. Almost too good. If you hadn't loved so strongly and craved love so much in return, you would never have been driven to do those awful things. And because of that, I love you."
Loki stared at her, his mouth slightly agape. He couldn't understand what he was hearing, let alone how he felt about it. She thought him, good? After all he had done, all the pain he had caused? It seemed as though a dreadful hope was swelling though his chest, and a part of him hated himself for it.
"And you think your love is enough to redeem me?" he asked, his voice caught between scorn and the tiniest hope that it might be.
"I don't know. But it's all I can give."
She stepped back, removing her hand and giving him a gentle smile. His chest seemed to burn where she'd touched him, even through the fabric. Her eyes were clear, compassionate and understanding, though how could she possibly understand? Slowly she turned and walked away, as if giving him space for his emotions to unravel.
Loki stood there for some time, watching Efa walk back down the hill with her dog at her heels. He was stunned. For the first time in his life, almost speechless.
"Because I love you, Loki."
The words surged through his veins like poison, reverberating through his head like the blast of an explosion. They were words that, if he was completely, brutally honest with himself, he had longed to hear for years. Centuries even. And now he heard them from such a creature as he had always despised, held in contempt. Yet he could not deny that a part of his soul yearned towards them regardless of their source. Longed to know that some small creature, no matter how worthless, truly did love him.
Such thoughts worried him. He could not allow himself such weakness. And besides, how could she love him? Him. He whom she had not even known two weeks; he who had attempted to enslave her world; he who had attacked her, insulted her, rejected her. Such a creature as he could not be loved. Not by one such as her. She had to have been lying, but for what purpose he could not tell.
But what haunted him was that he knew her words had not been a lie. He was Loki Silver-Tongue, the Liesmith. He knew when the truth was being held from him. It would take far more advanced a creature than she to ever deceive him.
But why? Why tell him that she loved him? Why even love him at all?
So, poor Loki's been through the emotional mill in this one! But he needs to work though his problems somehow. How do you think I'm doing with him? I didn't think he could really start caring (or at least knowingly caring) about someone after so short a space of time. His problems are so deep rooted that they're going to take an awful lot of unravelling and going through major emotional upheaval tends to make people act like dicks (hence why he is to Efa). I'm determined to stay true to his character as I really push it to the limits, but equally determined (like Efa) that there is a good person in there somewhere. Please let me know how you think I'm doing!
