Resting in luxury, and not like anything she had expected, she took a few days to fully recuperate and when she was ready, she told Thor that she was ready to go to Loki and talk with him. She just really needed the time to get over her anger for him so that she didn't kill him while he was weak and confused. She also needed to know what to do with the egg. She didn't think she was strong enough to raise it on her own. She didn't even know if she could raise a Fire Giant baby, let alone anything the hatched out of that egg. Thor waited for her to get dressed and when the door to her room opened, he turned and looked at her. As a guest slash prisoner, she had to wear white. She had been given a white wrap around dress that left both her shoulders and arms exposed. She was not allowed to wear any jewellery, and was told to leave her mothers necklace in the room. The long skirt of the dress flapped gently in the breeze as she walked up to him.
"Thank you for this, Thor. I need to confront him, I need him to know how I feel about him leaving me on that rock." She said to Thor, brushing a lock of her long black hair out of her vision.
"I caution you again, Loki is not as you recall. He has slipped from humanity, and let the beast inside take over." Thor warned her on the state of her lover.
"I know. You've already said so." She said, walking up to him.
"I guess now the outside matches the inside." She added, looking up into Thor's blue eyes.
Thor nodded, understanding her anger.
"Besides, he might know what's in that egg." She said, looking back over at the egg, lying in the incubator at the window in the sun. The golden light hitting it and reflecting blue onto the walls was magnificent.
"Vara, I fear for the life of that little creature. I fear…" Thor said, stopping and hanging his head in shame. Vara frowned and wondered what as wrong now.
"Go on." She asked him.
"I fear that, removing it from the warm comforts of your flesh may have killed it." He said softly to her. She nodded to him. It was not as if the thought had crossed her mind. But she had to have faith. This was the only part of her Loki left, and she would never give up on it. Never. For as long as she drew breathe, she would hold it for the birth of her child.
"I understand. But I have hope. And time. I have nothing if not time to wait for it." She smiled at Thor, lifting his spirits a little.
"So, how do I look?" she asked him, holding out her arms for him to see the dress.
"Good. That will change his mind, if he still has it." he smiled at her.
"It will be fitting test." He said, gesturing to the huge arch in front of them, leading down to two mirror image stair cases.
"After you." He said to her.
She nodded to him, acknowledging his manners and walked past him, towards the arch and the then stairs. She walked as she would in Muspelheim. With dignity and care, finesse and sweeping movements, her dress flowing as she walked down the right hand staircase with Thor following shortly after.
It was clear to the guards at the foot of the stairs that she was no ordinary prisoner, carrying herself with grace as she walked down the stairs. They bowed to her and Thor was they walked past them. She inclined her head to them, acknowledging their show of respect. She walked to the middle area below the two staircases and Thor walked up next to her, gesturing to the doorway in the wall under the stairs. It was locked with four massive padlock type locks.
"He's in there." He said to her.
She looked to the door and wondered how he got out the first time.
"How did he manage to escape in the first place?" she asked Thor, looking to him.
"We never got as far as the door. He got away from me for just a second and before I could stop him, he was gone." Thor explained.
"Loki and his tricks will be the death of me." he added, walking toward the doors.
She walked after him. She watched how he opened the locks, just in case she would need the info later on in her life. He held his hammer up to the each lock, and banged softly on each one, creating vibrations that rang out in the room in different tunes. The four locks combined created a tune that then unlocked the four locks, the pins springing away from the walls with a loud metallic thud, adding to the ringing locks.
Thor looked to her, with a serious look on his face.
"This is your final opportunity to amend your resolve." He warned her.
She looked down into darkness, barely able to see the outlines of the steps.
"No." she said, shaking her head.
"I'm ready." She said, looking to Thor.
He nodded and stepping into the doorway, walking down the dark passage. She tried to follow him, but she couldn't see much. She held out her hand and made a small flame, and stepped into the darkness, only having the flame die out in her palm the second she did. She tried to make another, but it died as well.
"THOR!" she called out to him.
"Just walk, the stairs will not let you fall." He said from the darkness.
She sighed and took in a deep breath. She had learned that there were several things that were enchanted in the main palace. The stairs were only one of the many. She took a step and her foot landed on a step. She took another, landing on yet another step. She sighed in relief. She walked down, after Thor. Not being able to see anything, she bumped into him near the end of the stairs.
"Why can't I make a flame?" she asked him, placing her hands on his shoulders, so he could guide her.
"It's enchanted as well. Prisoners may not use magic in the cells. And seeing as you have a sentence to live out, you're a prisoner." He said to her, stepping out onto the landing at the bottom of the stairs. She sighed and looked at the cell to her right. It was dark and dingy, and she was barely able to make out a figure in the cell. It was clearly not human. Suddenly and without any provocation, it launched at the bars, and into the subdued light, and Vara saw that it was a massive black wolf, with sharp fangs, glinting in the dimness, wanting to rip into her. She jumped back, surprised by it unprovoked ferocity.
"What the hell!" she shouted at it and this only provoked it further, and it forced one of its paws through bars, clawing towards her. Thor held his hammer up to the monster and shot out a bolt of lightning, hitting it on its torso. It yelped and ran back to its dark corner. Vara tip toed backward, now paranoid, to the next cell, wanting to avoid a replay.
"What was that?" she asked Thor, gasping for breathe.
"Fenrir. One of Loki's children." He said to her, turning to see the terror on her face.
"My child could be like that monster?" she asked him pointing to the whimpering wolf.
"I pray not." Thor said, walking on through the darkness.
Vara kept close to him. Not being able to use her magic, he was her protection from any other monsters hiding in the dark cell.
They reached the end of the dungeon passage. The only one with a window close by, with the light barely trickling through. Thor stopped just short of the cell, at the nearest wall and gestured to her to carry on walking.
She looked to him, and with a little hesitation, she took a few more steps, to the middle of the gate of the cell that imprisoned him. She looked at Thor, to afraid to look into the cell. Afraid that Loki might have reverted to the kind of father that belonged to that thing in the first cell.
"Loki." he said, looking into the cell.
"You have a visitor." Thor added.
They heard rustling at the back of the cell, where Loki was normally. Vara finally brought herself to look into the cell, hearing the noises. But then there was nothing but darkness to see, even with the light. He was clearly in there, but he either didn't want to see her, or he didn't know her. Thor had said that he lost his mind. She looked back to Thor, who then held up his right hand and snapped his fingers.
Inside the cell, something metal fell to the floor, clanging nosily in the dark stones. They listened as the ringing slowly faded into nothingness, being replaced by silence. Thor looked to her and nodded, before heading back to the entrance.
"My dear brother, aren't' you staying for tea?" Loki tried to provoke Thor was he walked away, before laughing manically at his own humour.
He sounded bitter, and angry, but at the same time, suppressed and scared. Vara stepped up to the bars and lifted her hands up to them before wrapping her fingers around them, looking into the darkness. She could only just make out his shape in the corner of the cell, crouching like a beaten animal away from light and the reach of his brother. He was in there. He was different, but it was him.
"Loki…" she said softly and kindly to him.
No doubt he hadn't heard kindness in months. She could see him turn his head and look at her. He now knew she was there, but did he now who she was. He stood up from the floor, pushing himself up weakly using the wall for support before limping over to her slowly, making his way into the light. She met his eyes as he entered the little light there was and if his eyes looked dead on earth, looking at her just before he ran, they were now nothing but skeletons, staring out into the space that she occupied. He blinked a few times. She wasn't sure if his eyesight was going, or if he didn't believe what he was seeing. Either way, it was disheartening to see him in such a state. Her lovely, charming, intelligent, cool tempered Loki locked up and caged like a wild animal.
"You." He said softly, still not realising she wasn't a mirage and that she was really there.
"Do you recognise me, Loki?" she asked him, wanting see some kind of sparkle in his eyes like he had when he was with her.
He looked to the floor and slunk back into the shadows of the cell.
"You shouldn't have come to see me." he said softly.
She knew they had broken him, but how, and why. Yes, he had committed a crime, but to break him so thoroughly was just cruel.
"I wanted to come see you." She said urgently, trying to get him to come back to the bars.
"There are some things we need to talk about." She said, realising that Thor might be right.
He might have been too wrecked to make sense.
"Like, what happened back on Midgard, for starters." She said, looking at him through the veil of darkness.
"Isn't it obvious," he said, looking slightly over his shoulder her before looking away again. She noticed he was hunched over slightly, no longer the proud prince of Asgard and king of Jötunheim, he now carried himself as a slave, as a prisoner.
"I only needed a distraction to get the Tesseract." He said, not turning and looking at her as he began to break her heart all over again.
"And you were the most beneficial distraction I could take to Midgard." He said, as a small smile playing over his skinny and gaunt face.
She looked down at the ground and sighed, before sitting down on the ground at the bars. This was going to be a long conversation.
"That couldn't have been the only reason." She said, looking into the cells, and looking up at him as he stood in the darkness. He still had not made a move to come back to her.
"I know you felt something for me. Nights like we had can't be faked." She said, trying to get him back to her and out of his abyss.
"It's easy to act with a willing partner." He countered, still trying to convince her that he felt nothing for her.
She wasn't falling for it. She shook her heard quickly and looked down at the ground.
"I'm not willing to accept what you are saying." She said to him, still convinced that her Loki was in there somewhere.
"Is it true that you have other children?" she asked him, looking back up at him.
He turned to her quickly, the rage overwhelming him, but not enough to come into the light again.
"Leave my children out of this." He hissed, warning her, taking a single step forward.
She looked up at him and rolled her eyes, ignoring his threat, whatever it was and continued. Talk of his children had made him mad enough to face her, so she had no choice but to continue. She had to get him to come back to the bars.
"What do they look like?" she asked him. She had to know what her child was likely to look like and if it was just better to destroy the egg now while she control over it.
Suddenly he leapt at the bars, stooping to be eye level with her, scaring her so much that she leaned away from the bars, far enough to feel safe. He reached through the bar with his one good hand and clawed at her, just like that other creature had.
"Forget about me and my children." He said; his madness showing from his wild and animalistic actions.
He was gnawing at his lips, as if he could taste her flesh that he would have ripped from her if she had been in reach.
"And anything else Thor has told you." He said, smiling slightly, seeing her back up against the opposite wall, scared for her life.
He wanted to scare her, so she would never come back here.
She was his only torture. The snakes, the bolts of lightning, all of that was nothing compared to having done what he did to her. Instead of just reaching out and taking her with him, he ran. She tortured him everyday, her pleading playing out in his head every moment of everyday for the past year. The look on her face broke him even more than he had anticipated.
"WHAT DO YOUR CHILDREN LOOK LIKE!" she shouted at him this time.
She had to know, even though he was so mad, she barely knew if he knew he had children. He smiled; glad to see that her fire hadn't been killed.
"They are monsters…" he said, leaning into the bars, as far as his head would allow him, trying to get at her. His bottom jaw was jutting out from the cell, baring his teeth at her.
"Like me." he said to her, slithering back behind the bars.
"Only one is good, and he is Odin's eight legged horse." He said, looking at her, knowing she would wonder how he did that.
She sighed and looked at the maniac sitting in front of her. Just feet away, was the man she loved. But he was in that thing.
"Why do you insist on treating me like this?" she whispered to him, in a soft comforting voice.
"After what we had. What we can have again." she asked him, moving slightly closer to him.
"It's what's expected of me." he said, moving back slightly away from her advancements, back into the darkness. Away from her.
"I'm a heartless monster and I feel nothing for you." He said, seeing her stop.
Had he done it, had he convinced her to leave him for good? He hoped so.
She shook her head. She still didn't believe him.
"I don't believe that." She said, standing up off the floor and looking to the exit.
"GUARD!" she called out down the hall and soon a guard come down to where she was.
"My lady." He bowed to her.
Loki looked at her, standing up tall and proud, just like he knew her. He just sat there on the cold floor and looked up at her and the guard. He knew that look on her face, she was about to do something stupid to prove she was right.
"What… what are you doing…" he said softly, pulling himself along the floor, backing away from the gate and into the wintry comfort of his cold corner.
"Open this gate." She said, pointing to the locked gate that was the entrance to Loki's cell.
"I want to go in and talk to him." she told the guard, looking at Loki, backing away from her, sliding backwards along the floor.
"But my lady, he will hurt you. He's mad." The guard tried to talk her down from her ledge.
"He will not hurt me. I trust him." she said, looking down at Loki as he disappeared into the back of the cell, right up against the wall.
The guard sighed and held up the key to the lock.
"Very well my lady." He said, putting the key in the lock and turning it.
The door swung open as if having a life of its own and Vara walked in, before hearing the guard lock the door behind her.
"Call me when you're ready to leave." The guard said to her before walking off.
Vara turned and looked back at Loki sitting in his corner.
"That was a bad idea." He said resentfully to her.
"Oh drop it, I know you can't use your magic in here." she said, looking at him.
"Why don't you come out of the shadows and talk to me a little more." She asked him, not wanting to scare him.
"No." he said to her.
"You come into the darkness. It's where you belong." He said to her.
She tilted her head and agreed with him slightly. It where she was born and where she came from. It was where she belonged. She took in a deep breath and stepped into the darkness, towards him.
