Hmmmm...what was this story about again? Something about memories...

The Memory Casket

Chapter Twenty-Six: Memories of Memories

Frigga sat reeling. Madness. Only the knowledge that she was protecting both Thor and Asgard by concealing her reactions prevented her from demanding the problem be fixed immediately if this little weasel didn't want to face the full wrath of Asgard. She looked over at Odin, who was looking at her. She gave him a slight nod to show him she would be all right.

"Madness?" Odin echoed. "Explain."

"I'm afraid so. Pardit, retrieve the viewing of Patient Eleven in the Memory Psychosis file."

Memory psychosis, Frigga thought, the horror of it still not quite sinking in, though the words sent a shiver up her spine.

"Patient Eleven was one half of a rare set of twins," Landis said. "Her sister was dying of an even rarer illness she'd been exposed to, for which there was no cure at that time. The sisters decided that when the sick one came to her end, the healthy one would take her memories and retain both sets, and thus in some small sense they would both live on and the one twin would not fully lose the other. Pardit?" he prompted, now that the woman had returned to the table.

"Patient Eleven was warned of the risks, but she was insistent. And when the problems began, she consented to these viewings so that we could track and review her status." Pardit squeezed the ends of the clear tube she'd placed in the middle of the table, and above it appeared a three-dimensional image of a young woman, an elf with dark skin and darker hair, sitting on a beige leather chair. Her whole body vibrated with the rapid tapping of her right heel against the floor. Periodically she shook her head like a beast coming up from a drink of water at a river, then clutched at her long curly hair, then looked up at someone speaking to her and started tapping her heel again.

Frigga watched, transfixed. It reminded her eerily of Thor's struggles, how plain they were on him despite his strength, how he fixated on the new healer whom neither he nor Loki had met before.

"Her condition steadily worsened," Landis said. "Show them the last viewing."

Pardit turned to Landis. "Perhaps the next-to-last."

Landis glanced among the three Aesir with a raised eyebrow. "Yes, that's probably best."

She reached down and ran her fingertip over the tube, which made an image-and-text menu appear in a horizontal scroll. When the captured image returned, the woman was hunched on the floor in a corner, long black hair matted, banging her head into the wall. A man Frigga didn't recognize stepped up to the woman on the floor and tried to pull her away; she got a glimpse of a bloody forehead and a bloody and dented wall before the woman shoved the man away and slammed her head back into the wall.

"That's enough," Odin said.

"What is the time frame of these images?" Eir asked as Pardit squeezed the ends of the tube again and the projection disappeared.

"The first one is from three days after the memory transfer. The one you just saw is from 44 days after the transfer," Pardit answered.

"She killed herself two days after that," Landis said.

Frigga drew in a quick breath, but otherwise did not react. Thor was no young elf. He was probably the strongest person in all of Asgard, and he was strong not just in body, but in mind and spirit. He'd only grown stronger in the handful of years since that fateful trip to Jotunheim. The woman in those images was obviously weak, used to drive home a point. "You said this woman was 'Patient Eleven.' Why did you show us her, specifically? What of the ten before her? And those after?"

"One suffered a complete neural overload and died less than a day after receiving the other person's memories. Three others committed suicide. The rest remain alive but require constant care and have varying levels of competency to handle basic tasks. There were two others after Eleven; they too still live, and reside in a mental care facility," Landis told them.

"None of them recovered? None of them were successfully treated?" Frigga asked. It was an utterly appalling thought, and one she was trying very hard not to think of in terms of Thor.

"If by 'recovered' you mean able to live a normal life on their own, no. There's no cure for Memory Psychosis."

"But what about simply removing the other person's memories? And giving them back to that person."

"I'm sorry," Landis said, "it isn't nearly that simple. And even it were simple, I must remind you that we cannot return someone's memories without consent."

"Simple or difficult, can it be done? Can the additional memories be removed?" Odin asked.

"We could remove all of the memories, both people's, that would be no different from any other memory removal procedure. But to separate them…I don't think you appreciate the problem. Let me ask you this. What is a memory?"

"Something you remember. Something that happened in the past and is encoded in the brain," Frigga said impatiently. "Please do not waste our time with this pedantic nonsense."

"Forgive me, Your Majesty, I do not mean to be pedantic, or condescending in the slightest. It's important that you understand this. Memories are inordinately complex things. The viewings we watched of Patient Eleven, those were also things that happened in the past, things that were encoded into viewing tubes, but they aren't even remotely the same thing as a memory. Indulge me a moment, I beg you. Tell me about a strong memory you have. Perhaps…the first time you held Loki."

Frigga's gaze turned immediately to Odin, but his expression was carefully blank. Do they know? Did Loki tell them? She turned back to Landis, having quickly answered her own question. No. He would not have told them, not if he could have possibly avoided it. Loki may not now feel shame over his birth, without his memories, but he's refused to talk about it since he was imprisoned. She hesitated a moment longer, still thinking of this as a waste of precious time, but then looked inward and remembered taking Loki from Odin's arms. "I remember thinking how small he was, how light, because I'd grown used to Thor and still thought of him as small. I remember being…nervous…that I had two children now." And that one of them was Jotun. "I remember realizing how much he needed me, and how right it felt to hold him to me." It was only the broadest strokes of the turmoil she'd gone through that day, which she remembered very well, but she was hardly going to open her heart fully to the two seated across from her and Odin and Eir.

"And what about memories connected to that one? Perhaps when you learned you were expecting a second son? Or memories of any sickness you experienced, or discomfort as the pregnancy progressed?"

"I don't see the relevance," Frigga snapped. She wished she had those memories of Loki, for her sake and for his. If only she had carried him as she had Thor, he could have been spared so much pain.

"Perhaps you could come to the point," Odin said, in that voice of his that sounded calm and reasonable and yet let the listener know that disagreement would not be acceptable.

"Or memories afterward. His first steps. Or his first word."

"Mama," she whispered, on the cusp of tears. This was becoming too much, and still there was no point, despite Odin's insistence.

Odin reached for her hand briefly, before letting it go again. "Closely followed by 'Come here, whore,'" he added.

Frigga looked over at him and smiled, grateful for something to lighten the mood, while Landis said, with a particularly strained smile, "I beg your pardon?"

It was a family jest, one that had not been told in a very long time, but at least in better times it had never failed to produce a laugh or at least a groan. "He couldn't pronounce Thor's name properly at first," she explained.

"I see," Landis said with a nod and that smile that still seemed false, while Pardit's smile and silent chuckle seemed genuine. As much as Frigga detested both of them, she couldn't help a momentary softening toward Pardit then; perhaps she at least had a heart beating in her chest. "Well. With those memories in mind, please, consider a few things with me. What would happen to your memory of Loki's first words, without your memory of giving birth to him?"

She shook her head. She had no memory of giving birth to him of course; it did not affect her other memories of him, and it did not affect her unconditional love for him. "It wouldn't matter. I would love him the same," she said easily, since she already knew it to be true.

"Of course you would. But would it not seem strange and frustrating that you could not remember his birth? And what of the memories before? Would it not be maddening to recall learning you were with child, but not recall anything of labor and birth?"

"It would be odd," Frigga conceded cautiously, still not seeing a point, and thinking more of Thor, since with him she did have all those memories.

"Each of your memories is related to other memories. Piecemeal memory removal is problematic at best, and even if the procedure itself is successful, when it was attempted in the past it also often led to madness. And what about just now? You've been reminiscing about the first time you held your son. Do you remember remembering it?"

"Of course I do."

"Have you thought about it at other times over the years? Those first moments, and how you felt in them?"

"Yes, of course I have. As I have of Thor. As has every mother in the history of existence. Please come to the point!"

"When you recall a memory, when you actively think back on something you have experienced, you create a new memory – a memory of a memory. A copy, in essence. Let us say you have recalled those moments a hundred times in your lifetime. Would that be fair?"

"I don't know. I suppose." A hundred times over Loki's thousand-plus years? Yes, easily, she thought upon further consideration.

"What were you wearing?"

Frigga stared back at Landis in silence, stunned. What was I wearing? Over a thousand years ago? She thought back, but couldn't picture it. There were many things she remembered vividly from that momentous day. Which long-gone gown she'd worn was not one of them. Probably something red, for Odin, but that was just a guess, not a memory.

"What did you have for breakfast?"

"I have no idea."

"So when you remember it now, those earliest moments with your son…is it the original event that you remember? As though you're watching a viewing, every detail there for perusal? Of course not. When I asked you about that memory, you created a copy of it – the memory of a memory. When I asked you to think about remembering it today, you made another copy. And as I explain this and you remember remembering it again, you are making yet another one. Each copy is imperfect, not an objective recreation of the original event. That original event is not even consciously accessible to you, not in the sense of an objective viewing. And that leaves gaps. You cannot recall what you were wearing, or what you had for breakfast. What about the color of the sheets that were on your bed? What scent of perfume, if any, you wore that day? There are details you simply no longer recall.

"There are also details that you recall, but inaccurately. Your opinions and biases are intertwined in them, as are those connected memories I spoke of earlier. You described a precious moment of closeness with your newborn son to me. Had he grown to detest you, and you him, would your memory have the same feel to it? Or might you attach bitterness to it? Might you remember it with a sense of foreboding, or perhaps a desire to cling to him as a baby and never let him grow up?"

Frigga squeezed her eyes closed for a moment. Her head was spinning. Memories of memories of memories, copies of copies of copies…and the subjectiveness of memory…these things all made sense to her as she thought about it. On Asgard one could not be convicted of a crime solely on the memory of a witness, because it had been proven that witnesses' memories were often inaccurate, no matter how certain they were of what they'd seen, no matter how good their vision or keen their mind. "All right. Yes. I understand all that. But what does this have to do with…with Loki and the Aesir who now has his memories?"

Landis nodded. "Now imagine some event that Loki and the other Aesir experienced together. Loki will have copies of that memory, and so will the other man. But now that man has both sets of memories, and both sets of copies. Because the memories are not fully accurate to the original, they don't match. It isn't the same as watching two projections of a viewing side by side. Each set of memories will be influenced by the thoughts and feelings, the reactions and beliefs of the individual, and by the continual process of remembering and creating new copies. And when the other Aesir remembers those events now, he is himself creating new copies, of his own memories, and Loki's, and perhaps some hybrid version of the two combined. With every passing day, with every passing hour, the two sets of memories become more entangled, and it will not take long at all before they are infinitely entangled. You can see how this leads to mental instability.

"But consider this. Even if there were some way to identify Loki's memories as distinct from the other person's – and if there is, I have never heard of it – what is to be done with all of the copies created since then? The copies now belong to the other person; they are his memories. What of the intermingled memories? How are they to be teased apart? And what is to be done with the memory of experiencing Loki's memories? If Loki's memory is removed, the other person would still remember remembering it, but would no longer remember the original event, thus damaging all related memories.

"I know this is a great deal to take in, and that is difficult to hear. I understand that you wish to take care of your citizens. That you wish to regain your son. But I simply do not see any means of removing Loki's memories in the first place, much less doing so and leaving the mind of the other man even remotely intact."

"What you're telling us, then, is that the Aesir with Loki's memories is doomed to madness either way," Odin said quietly.

Landis turned to him. "I'm afraid so, All-Father."

Odin drew in an audible breath and stood. "It's time for us to go."

Frigga looked up at him, stunned. She didn't trust these people, and she didn't trust their absolutes. And she couldn't believe Odin was giving up. "I don't think we-"

"My queen," Odin said as though she hadn't spoken at all, and held out a hand to her.

She considered defying him. Refusing to go with him. Telling him he could give up on their sons and go home if he wanted to but she was staying until some form of hope was given to her. But she had never defied Odin in front of others, and she would not begin now. In private was another matter. And she could return here any time she liked, including right away. She glanced over to Eir, on the edge of her seat and looking stiff and uncomfortable. Eir was her friend, inclined to follow her lead, but she was also exceedingly proper and obedient and inclined to follow her king. "Yes," she said, smoothly rising and watching out of the corner of her eye as Eir immediately followed suit, "we have much to discuss." Odin would notice her tone and be under no illusion that she was acquiescing in anything beyond appearance.

/

/

Odin took extra care with his steps as they made their way through the clinic and back out to its gravelly front yard on the quiet street. He lifted his feet deliberately high to ensure they did not shuffle or scrape along the ground, for every step felt as though shackled to each foot was a great column from the throne room. Shackles, he thought. Not an inappropriate metaphor.

He had had time to think, after his initial anger upon Loki's return to Asgard in actual shackles. Loki was a grown man. His decisions were his own. But his decisions hadn't been made in a vacuum. If he could have been a better father…if perhaps he'd known how to be a better father…if he'd told Loki the truth when he was young…if he'd known how to talk to Loki…all these and a thousand other "if's." But he'd never known how to do any of those things, not any better than he'd done them, and now his family was left in tatters, torn apart by Loki's rage and hatred. Even Frigga, who always had known how to talk to Loki, had been unable to get through to him.

At least they were out of that clinic, out of the presence of those two elves who had ripped open Loki's mind and enabled him to ruin Thor's in the process. Odin did not put his emotions on display; they were private things, to be shared only with Frigga, and not always even then. But his control had been reaching its end, and he didn't think he could have borne any more from Landis Vale.

He glanced around him; Frigga was at his right, and Eir at hers, with just four others visible from where they stood, two of them staring and trying to act as though they weren't. When they'd arrived, it was so early that no one else had been around, and really that was preferable. Discretion was called for, both for Thor's sake and his own; it would do no one any good for tongues to begin wagging over the All-Father visiting an obscure practitioner of barely-legal memory removal. At the moment, though, Odin couldn't be bothered to care. They're already staring; let them stare. "Heimdall," he said in his normal voice. There was no need to shout – Heimdall would hear even a whisper. Or "see," as Heimdall described it.

The blaze of light pounded the gravel yard, kicking up dust and whisking the three of them back to the observatory.

"Heimdall, Eir, I would like a moment with my husband," Frigga said even before they came to a full stop on the gleaming floor of the new structure.

Odin gave no reaction – he wasn't surprised, Frigga's displeasure had been obvious to him – and merely watched as Heimdall bowed and Eir nodded and both made their way out of the observatory and onto the bridge. If he had nothing else, he thought, he had good, faithful people around him, people he could trust and rely on.

"What exactly did you think you were doing? 'It's time for us to go?' Before we'd gotten any answers from them?"

And he had Frigga. He reached for her hands, but she pulled them away. "They gave us a multitude of answers. You simply didn't want to hear them."

"Yes. You're right. I didn't. And I don't. Their answer was to tell us to give up. Odin, so help me, I am the queen of Asgard and I do not accept that. They didn't seem to think that memory transference could happen as it did, through magic alone. What else might be possible that they think impossible? That Landis…he speaks in riddles and stories and 'imagine this' and 'remember that' and he answers nothing. He's explained nothing of how any of this works. We brought Eir with us so they could explain all of that and Eir could learn it and figure out how to heal Thor. And we got nothing but 'intermingled memories' and-"

"You're right. We got nothing. And we would have continued to get nothing. Especially if I lost my temper," he added, deliberately not mentioning how tenuous Frigga's control over her own emotions was. She was perfectly aware of it herself, and there was no need to draw further attention to it. "We'll send Eir back on her own. If she has ever lost her temper I've yet to see it. Asgard could be crumbling apart at its foundations and she would simply go about her work. And we'll send her to speak only with Pardit. Surely you noticed that her manner was less disingenuous?"

"You think Landis was lying?"

"No, I don't. But he was very guarded, and frankly had the look of a swindler about him. Pardit says little but her mind is active and her face more open. Eir may learn more from her."

Frigga nodded, and her body language became less aggressive and more relaxed. Perhaps more weary than relaxed. "Yes. We'll send Eir to speak with Pardit."

"You tell her. I need to get back."

"All right, go," she said, and this time allowed him to take her hand; he squeezed it and pulled her toward him in something that was not quite an embrace. Still he had Frigga. For centuries and centuries he'd had her, and if life were kind, he would have her for more centuries to come.

/

/

Frigga related to Eir what Odin had said – and what she knew to be true as well, once she calmed down – and Eir readily agreed to return on her own.

"With your permission, my queen, I'll ask Heimdall to watch Pardit while I wait, and I'll go as soon as she's alone."

"Yes, but…why don't you have Heimdall send a message? Shouldn't you be with Thor?"

Eir gave a stoic smile. "Thor is physically healthy. There's very little I can do for him at the moment – he's in capable hands that I trust completely. The best thing I can do for him right now is to learn everything I can about his affliction and what might be done for it."

"So you haven't given up hope? Landis didn't make you think it's an impossible situation?"

"I've seen many things in my lifetime that were once thought impossible. Certainly I never expected to see the bifrost broken off at its end," Eir said, pointing down at her feet.

Frigga looked down; they were standing right on top of the faint line of discoloration marking where the original bridge ended and the new continuation began.

"The situation is dire, there's no use pretending otherwise. But your son has managed the impossible before. Both of them, in fact. It's too early to give up."

Managing a small but grateful smile, Frigga motioned to the servant who stood further down the bridge with her ride; the woman began leading the horse toward her. "Find out everything you can, Eir. For both of them. I'm going to go check on Thor now."

"Your Majesty, if I might suggest…take some time for yourself. Relax. Rest. Let go of your anxiety as best you can. Then go see Thor. And it's not an easy thing to say as a mother, to a mother, but try to temper your desire to be with him, and his desire to take comfort from you, with the knowledge that much as he does desire to take that comfort from you, your presence sometimes agitates him because of the shared memories. When you go to him…perhaps try to speak to him of things that only the two of you know of, things in which Loki was not included."

"All right," Frigga said with a reluctant nod. "I see the wisdom in what you say. I'll do my best. I wish you every success when you see Pardit again, and if you need me for anything, ask Heimdall to relay it to me. I'll come immediately."

They parted, and Frigga rode slowly back to the palace. She did not want to relax. She did not want to rest. She wanted to act. But it was Eir's role to act now, and Frigga trusted her to do what was needed.

In her mind's eye, in the quiet, she could not stop seeing Patient Eleven, banging her bleeding head into a wall. It will not come to that with Thor. It simply will not.

And as awful as that image was, there was a question that made it even worse, a question that had taken root in the back of her mind and made her skin crawl. Did Loki know the fate he was meting out to Thor?

/

So, long time no see, eh? I hope you didn't think it was abandoned! Not at all. I just had a major (as in to another continent) move in October which sucked up lots of my spare time, and since then I haven't been able to make as much time for writing for various reasons. But my commitment to any story I post here remains the same. And, hey, the fact that Ch. 26 is up means Ch. 27 is done...in the next chapter we'll check back in with Thor, for one.

Extra thanks to everyone who's taken the time to review; I appreciate it! And I'll see you next time!