Chapter 26: Fahrenheit Father and Son
Darcy opened her eyes slowly and wondered if she had managed to enter the immortal's mind at all. She certainly didn't feel any different. Darkness surrounded her and she suddenly felt as though she was sitting in the center of a large freezer. It was cold wherever she was, colder than she had ever been before. To her surprise, the cold didn't seem to penetrate past her skin. It was the oddest sensation to know that the extreme temperature surrounded her, but she wasn't succumbing to it at all. As the cold became more clear, so did a few images. Darcy slowly stood as light began to filter in through the darkness until it seemed like she was standing in a well-lit hallway. Had it not been for the images around her, she might have been convinced it was a hallway. However, on either side of her, from the hard, white marble floor to the vast and extremely tall golden ceiling, were shelves and shelves of books. Darcy's brow furrowed and she took a few steps, suddenly aware, as Loki had been, that she could not see herself though she knew that she was there. She continued moving forward, watching the strange collection of tomes with interest, though not enough interest to pay attention to the titles.
"Is this how you would behave in a library?" a familiar voice announced from out of nowhere. Darcy smiled and folded her arms, turning around and trying to locate the trickster.
"Honestly, ever since I got my Kindle I haven't really been back to a library. And before that I mostly read PDF's so . . . yeah, I guess this would be how I'd behave in a library when a disembodied voice was trying to dictate to me from a distance," Darcy remarked with a smirk. "And provided that same library was bigger than Buckingham Palace and colder than the Arctic Circle."
"Hmph," Loki snorted indignantly, still not visible. "If I were you I might take a closer look at some of these chronicles being that they are the focus of your surroundings."
"I thought your mind was a limitless open book?" she chided. "Not a never-ending library freezer full of stuffy old antiques."
"Again, if I were you I might cease with your verbal redundancies and take a closer look at some of the titles at least," Loki corrected.
Darcy sighed heavily and turned around a few times, marveling for the briefest of moments at the fact she could see the steam from her own breath, but not her limbs, at least not clearly anyway. She folded her arms as one of the books began to glow. It was larger than the others around it and only a few yards away to her left on an eye-level shelf. She hurried towards it and stepped as close to the shelf as she could. Not sure about what the consequences would be, but still curious enough to experiment, Darcy placed both hands on the shelf and stretched her neck, pushing her head forward and then tilting it to the side as she read the title. The Rise and Fall of Loki: Rightful King of Asgard and Worthy Son of Odin, the title read in ornate gold letters. It reminded Darcy very much of some sort of special edition collection of Grimm's Fairy Tales or the entire compiled works of Shakespeare or Poe. She carefully reached out and put one hand on the top of it spine, pulling it towards her. To her relief it was behaving as normally as any other book and she smoothly lifted it from the shelf into both hands. She looked at the cover and felt an ache in her chest.
"Oh," she muttered sadly as she saw the image of Loki standing at the edge of a grand city, his head bowed sorrowfully facing away from what must have been a palace. Thor, alongside the four visitors that had joined him in New Mexico, and several other figures she didn't recognize but that she assumed were his parents and courtiers, all sat happily inside the palace seen through a window as having a great celebration. Meanwhile, the trickster stood outside at a great distance looking forlorn and dejected. Darcy frowned and stroked the cover gingerly. "You felt left out when they would, OW!"
Darcy shouted in pain as the book began to burn in her hands. She dropped it instinctively and stepped back, holding both hands in front of her entirely supine, blowing on them incessantly. She noticed the cold, but it hadn't bothered her; why did this sudden burst of heat create such pain? Curiosity continued to fill her and she knelt carefully in front of the book. A thought came to her and she placed both palms on the icy floor. She smiled and sighed with relief as the cold soothed all of the burning away. I get what you're saying with this, Darcy thought to herself. The memories are painful, but the cold isolation is soothing to you. Neat metaphor; kind of obvious and a little unfair to not warn me about it, but neat.
"I cannot anticipate your reactions to my memories, nitwit," Loki's voice corrected. Darcy huffed and shook her head as she lifted both palms from the floor, completely soothed from any signs of a burn. "Now take a closer look. See the betrayal to the one that was and should be king."
"How can I hold it open if it's going to . . ." Darcy began. She was still far too inquisitive for her own good or to realize that she was talking about not touching the book as she reached for it. It lay face down on the floor, spine facing upward and pages neatly spread out to either side under the covers like readied wings on a bird of prey preparing to take flight after a tasty target. She thoughtlessly grasped the book on its underside, quickly flipping it and shrinking back. The pages suddenly burst into flames. Darcy shrieked and leapt to her feet, backing into the shelf-wall nearest her and knocking several books off the shelves in the process. The books fell from the shelves but before they could all hit the floor near their respective positions, they all inexplicably floated towards the burning pile of pages and binding that had been the first book she'd handled. The flame grew more intense at the additions of the other books. Darcy gasped and then noticed that books from the other shelves were sliding off of their own resting places and joining the pyre. The flames were growing wider and leaping higher with smoke filling the chilled air just enough to trap its poison in the chill and hang menacingly around the growing incineration. Darcy gasped and coughed as a whisp of smoke caught in her throat. She turned and began to run as fast as she could in the other direction. Smoke seemed to be chasing her more than the fire itself and she found herself gasping for breath, trying to cover her mouth and nose with the cloth she was wearing, but unable to shield herself from the stinging cloud. Books now flew off the shelves past her, racing to their pyretic fate. Several of them slapped her in the face and a few caught her cheeks or her nose with their edges and pages leaving small cuts. Darcy grunted and now held both arms up over her face as she ran blindly. She ran headlong into the wall at the end of the hall of books and slammed into the hard surface. She fell backwards, the flames, books, and smoke, still only a few feet away. She quickly rose to her feet and suddenly noticed another hallway leading off in the other direction several feet away from where she stood. She drew in a deep breath and raced towards it, grasping the edge of the corner in order to make the turn more smoothly with the speed she had gathered in her panic. She continued to run down the hallway, this one just as cold albeit darker and not leading to anywhere in particular. Her heartbeat slowed and her mind began to center as she suddenly realized that the flames and smoke as well as the vicious flying books were no longer anywhere near her. She sighed heavily and slowed her movements as she made her way down this hallway towards what must have been another room. There was a brighter light coming from it, a combination of some magical source of bluish white light and the light of torches as well. She walked slowly forward, unsure of whether or not she should call out for the trickster as she reached the entranceway to the new room. This room was strange and appeared to be as lengthy as another shorter hallway, but definitely meant to store something significant judging by the staircase at one end and a large pedestal holding something that looked like the Tesseract. Darcy straightened her glasses and narrowed her gaze at the object. It wasn't cube shaped, it was larger and more rectangular than the Tesseract along with intricate carvings and what appeared to be metallic handles on either side. She quickly turned back to the hall behind her and wondered if the flames had ceased. She took a small step back towards the library halls.
"Stop!" a loud, masculine, and very authoritative voice shouted.
Darcy froze. This was not Loki and it was certainly not Thor, but this was clearly someone Loki was familiar with and held some reverence for given the sudden aura of natural fear with a tinge of affection she felt move through her at the sound. She slowly turned and gasped at noticing that at the top of the stairs now stood an old man. His white hair was shoulder length but of the same texture and possibly once the same colour as Thor's. His clothing was regal, golden and leather, and he wore a single patch over one eye with no strap connecting it to his head. His expression was wizened, but worried as well. Darcy turned to the other end of the room where the bluish oddment had been sitting on the pedestal. She recognized the height, hair, and posture of Loki in more simple green and leather attire, clearly his clothing when he had been at home. This other man must have been his father, Odin. Loki held the oddment up in both hands, grasping the handles and then slowly set it back down on the pedestal, breathing sharply and fearfully.
"Am I cursed?" Loki asked, not turning to face his father.
"No," Odin replied flatly, monosyllabically demanding that all fears of being a cursed creature or any creature that was possessed by this object be banished entirely and permanently. Darcy found herself drawn to stare at both of them in equal turns.
"Then what am I?" Loki asked in a trembling whisper filled with unprecedented contempt.
"You are my son," Odin replied proudly and firmly, wanting the conversation to end at that, but Darcy could tell by the somber expression on the man's face that he feared there was more to answer for as well as the fact that he was guilty of something, something terrible and long-lived.
Loki slowly turned to face the man. Darcy gasped and let out a small cry, but it went entirely unnoticed. She covered her mouth with her hand and stumbled back a pace at the sight of Loki not looking at all like himself. His skin was brilliant blue and strange markings not unlike the ones on the object he had held were etched into his cheeks and forehead. His eyes glowed a deep and fierce red that matched the anger forming in his features towards this man who was clearly hiding something from him, something significant. Darcy watched as the unnatural hues slowly faded and Loki's normal pallor returned, though something in her told her that the other colours hadn't been so unnatural to some degree. Loki glowered at the old man and hurled his next few words as harshly as he could. "What more than that?" Loki slowly moved to the base of the stairs, holding a harsh stare with the old man who was, for the moment, his father. "The casket wasn't the only thing you took from Jotunheim that day, was it?"
Darcy frowned. Thor had been banished, he had said, for going into Jotunheim against his father's wishes and breaking a truce with them. Was the possession of this object, this casket, part of the truce?
"No," Odin replied sadly, still holding his son's gaze but with a softer, more saddened expression. "In the aftermath of the battle I went into the temple and I found a baby." Darcy's eyes widened. A war had led to the truce? Of course, the ice giants, or frost giants, had been enemies and the truce that had ended it was what Thor had broken. She moved a fraction of an inch closer and watched as Odin continued recanting the tale. "It was small for a giant's offspring. Abandoned, suffering, simply left to die," he explained sadly. "Laufey's son."
"Laufey's son," Loki repeated, choking on the words as if he had just spoken the most foul name possible. Darcy glanced from one man to another, realizing what this all meant. Loki had been adopted and not just adopted, but taken from the stronghold of an enemy after a horrible war. His own father, obviously a frost giant of some importance for them to know his name, had abandoned him and left him to die and then this king of the enemy's forces had found him and taken him. Odin replied 'yes' as Loki's breathing began to grow more labored and his expression desperate with sorrow while he trembled. Darcy furrowed her brow, thinking to herself what Loki then spoke aloud. "Why? You were knee-deep in Jotun blood, why would you take me?"
"You were an innocent child," Odin explained gently.
Loki's expression hardened at this and he panted as anger raged through him much like the fire that had consumed the books. He did not believe this, not for a moment and apparently had good reason to do so. "No," he said nearly gasping for breath in this shock. "You took me for a purpose; what was it?" Odin remained silent and Darcy moved a step forward and to the side, better able to see the trickster's face and in doing so felt the ache in her chest for this terrible revelation grow more painful. Loki waited only a few beats, more than he could bear in longing for the truth to be given to him. The anger and heartache overwhelmed him, raising his voice into a desperate shout. "TELL MEEEEEE!"
"I thought we could unite our kingdoms one day; bring about an alliance, a permanent peace through you," Odin admitted. Darcy let out an indignant scoff and turned to the older man in disgust. The decent thing to have done would hav at least been to assert that the first thing he had said was true and then add this revelation as an afterthought when Loki had been older. He had been taken as a pawn, as a piece of political power?! That wasn't kindness, that wasn't tenderness, it wasn't even adoption . . . Loki had been a prisoner of war from infancy on. Odin frowned and looked down at the younger with disheartened resolution. "But those plans no longer matter."
"So I am no more than another stolen relic locked up here until you might have use of me," Loki reasoned aloud painfully.
"Why do you twist my words?" Odin retorted angrily.
"He's not twisting them; you just admitted you were using him all along!" Darcy shouted angrily. Neither seemed to notice her outburst. "You're a kidnapper!"
"You could have told me what I was from the beginning, why didn't you?"
"You are my son," Odin replied as soothingly as possible. "I wanted only to protect you from the truth."
"You don't 'protect' anyone you love from the truth, you jerk!" Darcy shouted once more. "There shouldn't be any secrets in a family . . . EVER!"
"Why? Because I-I-I-I'm the monster that parents tell their children about at night?!" Loki exclaimed, his entire musculature emotionally twisted in anger, sadness, and disgust . . . disgust for himself. Darcy looked back and forth between the two, watching as Odin tried to refute the notion, but suddenly looked terribly weak. She frowned as he reeled forward a little. Darcy's heart began to race as Odin shrank to the ground. He seemed to be having a heart attack or a stroke or both. She found herself frozen, unable to move or speak, but desperately wanting to beg Loki to call for help. She wasn't sure these creatures were vulnerable to the same ailments with age that humans were, but she was sure this man was overcome with something. "You know it all makes sense now, why you favored Thor all these years! Because no matter how much you claimed to love me," Loki shouted, moving forward up the stairs as his father knelt, trying to beg for forgiveness Loki assumed, glaring down at the old man. "You could never have a frost giant sitting on the throne of Asgard!"
When Loki had finished shouting Odin reached out one last desperate time for his son's hand, but then collapsed entirely. Loki stared down at him in horror and silence. He knelt, holding both hands over him, unsure of what to do and his expression changed entirely from that of hatred to complete distress. No, oh Sentry of Asgard no! Please don't take his life, not on my account! Please don't take my father, he thought.
Darcy could hear his thoughts as clearly as if they had been lamented as vibrantly as his ranting a few moments before. Loki reached down and softly grasped his father's wrist, feeling for the life-pulse as healers had taught him to do. He also then noticed the soft breathing, the rise and fall of the old man's chest as he lay unconscious on the steps. Darcy's heart wrenched terribly at the sight of Loki staring down at his father so helplessly. He looked like a child faced with the body of their first dead companion animal, distraught and without any means to undo what had happened or what would surely happen next. Tears had swollen the trickster's eyes yet again though this time not out of the sorrow and anger of his heritage revealed, this bore the burden of his present shattered to pieces and he blamed his outburst entirely for it. "Guards!" he suddenly shouted, withdrawing his hand from his father and trembling all the more. "Guards, please, help!"
In a flash, the doors behind the stairs opened and a team of no less than four royal guards, in grand golden armor and ornate helmets, came racing in. They set down their mandatory weaponry and began to lift their king into their arms carefully shouting for someone to go and retrieve the queen. Just as quickly as Loki had called for them, the guards left, the king in tow and the queen on her way to join him wherever they were taking him. The doors closed loudly behind them and Loki simply stood on the stairs, left behind by the immediate response and with no one to see to him at all. Darcy scowled for a beat at the door. Why hadn't any of the guards told him to follow them? He was the prince; he should have been called to be at his father's side at once. Loki could have easily followed, but he was clearly overcome and needed to be told to follow. Why had no one thought to tell him what to do to aid his king, his father?
After a few moments of simply standing and breathing heavily, Loki turned and headed back to the pedestal holding what the two had referred to as 'the casket'. Darcy watched as his face twisted in more than rage. He gathered speed and, as he made it to the pedestal, balled one hand into a fist and then hurled his forearm into the side of the casket, sending it to the floor with a loud 'crash' as he screamed in rage. The scream lasted for what could have easily been ten minutes as Loki slowly knelt and leaned against the pedestal. The scream gave way to a loud, howling wail. He pulled both hands to his face and wept bitterly, uncontrollably. His entire body shuddered with the sobs and moans.
Darcy suddenly felt overcome as well. She hurried forward, not caring a bit if he could hear and see her or not. She knelt behind him and wrapped her arms tightly around what she could of him, pressing her head into him and allowing tears of her own to fall. This might not have excused in any right what he had done on earth, but it proved one thing more; there were others that had to answer for his actions as well. "I'm sorry," she whispered, pulling him to her more tightly despite the trembling and violent shuddering. "I'm so sorry." As she held tightly onto his back, arms wrapped around his chest beneath her arms, she suddenly felt one of his hands reach down and, still trembling and stained with tears, grasp hers. A small measure of relief filled her at realizing at least in this vision he could feel the comfort she offered. He had been alone, utterly alone when it had happened to begin with, but for now he was not. She leaned her cheek against his shoulder-blade and sighed. "I don't know who's got you captive right now, who had you trying to get that cube and who was threatening you, but you're not just a prisoner now. You've been a prisoner of war all your life. I'm sorry," she said softly. "I'm so sorry."
As the two knelt on the floor, the room shifted and Darcy felt the cold return. They were kneeling in one of the halls of the library again and there was an open book in front of them. Darcy scooted more beside him and watched as the pages began to turn themselves hurriedly in one direction and then the other. In the haze of turning paper, visions started to play as if the pages turning formed some sort of cosmic television. Darcy watched as Loki saw to his father and mother. His father had fallen into a deeper and uncertain form of 'Odinsleep' or a restorative form of hibernation that his magic and strength required. In the meantime, Loki's mother had given him kingship, asserting that with Thor banished that the line of succession fell to him. She saw the four warriors that had arrived in New Mexico come and demand that Thor's banishment be ended. Loki had denied it, reminding them that the All-Father had given the command and that it would not be right, for the good of Asgard, to undo it. He was right of course and, although it didn't seem fair, it was the law. She saw the false alliance with Laufey, the betrayal made by Heimdall in allowing the four warriors to leave and try to retrieve Thor, five more acts of treason. They clearly thought they were doing something noble, but from what Darcy had seen, Loki was not a tyrannical king and he had planned to destroy the king of the frost giants, not make any attack on his own kingdom. She saw him slay the frost giant Laufey, his biological father and attempted murderer, in the king's bedchamber as Thor returned. She saw the battle and the breaking of the bridge. As the bridge shattered, so did Loki's life on Asgard and she watched in dread as he slipped from the end of the king's staff in Thor's hand and fell into the abyss below him. She gasped and pulled one of his arms closer to her.
"That was, you were, all of you . . ." she muttered, trying not to simply fly into an outburst from this volatile cocktail mixing in her heart and mind. "All of that betrayal, the lies, all of you hurt each other but they . . . they didn't have to come after Thor. He wasn't in any danger and your father was going to wake up eventually . . ." she realized aloud. "But you killed your own father."
"I had to," Loki whispered. "Odin would have loved me, he would have finally seen me as a worthy child if Thor hadn't returned and ruined everything," he snarled. "I did nothing wrong. I broke no law, I repaid that race of monsters for what they did to Asgard, to me!"
"But if you hadn't sent that thing . . ." she continued.
"I was king! They committed high treason, they wanted me DEAD!" he shouted. "And my brother, their precious Prince of Thunder, he wanted no less as well."
"Hold on, those other guys, and that messed up excuse for a father for either of you might have wanted that, but Thor never said anything bad about you while he was with us," Darcy corrected. "He might be angry now, but he never hated you, he never wanted you dead!"
"You cannot possibly see his intentions, not from without," Loki corrected. "I know his heart, I know his desires, I was raised alongside him as his plaything."
Darcy realized she wasn't going to win this argument, not here, not while he had the upperhand. This was his mind and he was vastly more influential, powerful, and, as was the case in waking hours, he could not possibly be wrong. She knew she could discover something else, though. She knew she could uncover the truth about the real enemy. She frowned and looked up at him solemnly. "They're not the only ones that want you dead, are they?" she said softly. He looked at her in confusion. "You lost your war, you don't have the cube. Whoever was threatening you is going to come after you aren't they?"
A look of pure terror crossed Loki's features. Darcy felt the floor beneath them begin to shift and tremble more violently than any earthquake. She shrieked and reached out, taking hold of the trickster who tightly wrapped his arms about her as well. The floor began to crumble, enormous chunks of frozen marble falling away and leaving behind starry be speckled sky instead. The shelves of books collapsed and fell into space, the version of space that they now stood in. There were massive rocks, not quite moons, planets, or meteors, but simply chunks of rocks hovering in a cluster where the trickster's athenaeum had once stood. He seemed frozen in fear now as he clung to her. She had reminded him of something he had hoped to not face again, not ever even in victory.
"Failure!" a loud, thunderous voice shouted. Darcy was sure she felt Loki shrink several inches at the sound and she herself felt as though she had been struck by lightning at the exclamation. After a moment, Darcy noted that Loki ceased trembling and slowly stood more uprightly, more proudly, and willed his grand golden armor, horned helmet and flowing green cape included, to form around him. He turned to Darcy and stared at her emotionlessly.
"You wish to see who offered me the Chitauri, who truly sought the Tesseract?" he asked. She nodded, but a feeling of dread moved through her that was precisely reminiscent of looking at the very edge of her own 'dark place'. Was this his? He reached a hand out towards her. "This is my mind, remember that and do not be afraid of what might befall you in his presence no matter what pain he inflicts."
"What?!" Darcy exclaimed. She tried to pull her hand away, but found his grip too tight at the moment and her body oddly compelled to continue moving forward. She groaned and her stomach lurched anxiously. "Oh no," she muttered unhappily. "What have I gotten myself into this time?"