Chapter 14

"How can I say this without breaking

How can I say this without taking over

How can I put it down into words

When it's almost too much for my soul alone,

I loved and I loved and I lost you"

"Hurts Like Hell" Fluerie

Loki woke up warm. His eyelids were heavy and the sunlight filtering through the curtains gently stroked them shut again quietly. He felt weak. And tired. But there was a weight in his chest that was comfortable and he gave a contented sigh. He could stay here forever.

"What was that?" A full, warm voice murmured sleepily next to him. "Was that an awake sigh, or a dream sigh?"

"Mmmmm." he murmured. His brain wasn't awake enough to form sentences.

She chuckled and nuzzled her unbelievable soft face between his shoulder blades. A pair of full lips pressed a kiss to his spine. He smiled and rolled over to wrap his arms around her so he could hold onto her. He didn't ever want to let go.

She fit to him perfectly, like a puzzle piece. He was tall and thin, she was short and curvy. He was dark and she was light. She was warm and he was cold. He was living and she was…

"Is it time yet?" He murmured into her hair that smelled like honey.

Sigyn sighed against his chest and then pushed herself up to look down at him.

"Why are you always trying to leave before it's your time?" She ran a gentle hand, calloused by her bow and pencils, down his cheek and he felt heat burn behind his eyes. Salt water blurred her face.

"I'm not the one who left first." He whispered, and his voice cracked in two.

Sigyn frowned and set her arm down on the other side of him so he was trapped beneath her. He could stay here forever.

"Why would you say that?" She murmured, her hip length hair falling around them like a curtain of golden sunlight. "I didn't want to leave you."

Loki tilted his head to the side and his gaze traced the thick scars that tattooed her wrists. His tears soaked the pillow as he whispered,

"But you did…" he shut his eyes against it, like he could block the world out if only he couldn't see it. Why did the pain have to follow him here? Couldn't he just have this moment with her? He was only trapped between worlds so often. "I understand…" he finally sighed, forcing his heavy lidded eyes open again. "I- I… I understand that… that you lost Nari-"

"I should have been there." Sigyn's eyes blazed in an immortal sapphire fury and she clenched her fists.

"I know." Loki sighed. "I should have been there too… for both of you… I… I failed you both… but...no… I understand why you left; you lost Nari… and she was our everything." he shuddered.

"Loki." Sigyn's hand cupped his jaw and turned his face to look at her. "Nari was part of my everything… but so where you. You know I would never leave you."

But she did.

"Why can't I stay with you?" he changed the subject, feeling his soul crumbling within the cavity of his chest. "Why can't I come home?"

Sigyn sighed and slid down to rest her head on his chest and listen to his heart beat. He wondered it he touched her throat, or lay his head on her breast, or touched the scars on her wrists if she would have one as well. He couldn't bear the thought of not finding one, so he didn't try any of them. Instead he caged her against him and pressed his lips the top of her gold crowned head. He could stay here forever.

"You will." she promised. "You will come home. Just not yet. It's not your time. You still have a role to play in all of this."

"What if I don't want it?" He choked. "What if I only want you."

"Then stay." she tightened her own grip around him. "Stay there and find him."

"Find who?" he didn't want to find anyone but her.

"The man who killed my baby," he felt her warm tears slip onto his bare chest and he held her as tightly as he dared without crushing her.

They had already found the assassin. The man who had come to kill the outcome of the treaty between their realms. An Asgardian fanatic who hated elves and the treaty that their marriage made between the peoples. Loki had hunted him down and killed him, himself. It still tore him apart in a suffocating numbness; his precious little girl, his treasure, was murdered for a political opinion.

"And the man who killed me." She was shaking.

"What do you mean?" he frowned as his heart paused in his chest.

"I would never leave you of my own free will, Loki." he could feel her glaring. "Listen to what he said."

"What he said?" Loki asked. "I don't understand… who? What who said?"

"I love you. You are my everything." she leaned up kissed him on the forehead.

Suddenly the sunlight felt away into torchlight and the bed hardened into unforgiving stone, and their chambers crumbled away leaving him curled up in the hallway. Sigyn was gone. He choked in the pool of his own blood on the tiled floor and shuddered as he remembered the blood Sigyn had drowned in, her own and the blood of their child. He could feel his bones fracturing and splintering but none of them could break quite like a heart did.

"Alright! Alright!" A distant voice was shouting. "Stop! We weren't given any orders to kill him! Back off now!"

Footsteps receded. Darkness approached. Pain continued.

A hand touched his shoulder and he heard something whine. Oh, that was him.

"Loki?" the voice was shaking. "Fates, how long was I out for?" Ilium? Hadn't he hit him over the head with a fruit basket? "Can you hear me? Listen, can you hear me? Tell me if you can hear me."

Loki pushed a moan from his throat, raw from screaming.

"Listen. It was an order, alright? Look, it wasn't personal… It wasn't… it wasn't supposed to go this far…" Illium sighed and said, "I don't know if you'll remember this when you wake up… but you should know… I can't repeat this again… but…" There was a hesitation and Loki noticed that silence was loud like a hive of bees.

"Odin killed them." Three words. Whispered. Conspired. Forgotten. "I'm… I'm really sorry."

Footsteps receded.

Odin killed them. Who? Blackness was lapping at the shore of his mind. The sirens were luring him in...they sounded like Sigyn. He didn't mind. He wanted to go. He'd follow them willingly. Can I go home?

"Not yet… it's not your time yet…"

"Stay there and find him."

"The man who killed my baby…

"And the man who killed me."

Who? What? How?

Three words.

Odin.

Killed.

Them.

Loki woke up cold.