A.N.: if any of my readers are out protesting, please be safe as possible!
Content warning: this chapter contains character death/suicide. Only a retelling of what is already portrayed in the Thor movie, nothing graphic or overly descriptive, but better safe than sorry!
The events in this chapter are synced with the movie Thor.
He knew it. He knew they were up to something traitorous. Their loyalty to Thor held steadfast despite all the danger he'd put them in, and apparently their loyalty to him had been thin and fragile. They were all supposed to have been friends. They had all fought together, grown together...
Apparently he hadn't inspired the same levels of love and loyalty that his damnable brother had, and he distantly wondered why.
He'd they known as well? Had he been the only simpleton not let in on the nifty little secret of his true heritage? Had all of Asgard been laughing at him his whole life?
Well, after his next little stunt he'd certainly earn their affection and loyalty for life.
Who could resist the savior of Asgard's most beloved king? Even his little wife would have no reason to doubt him any longer.
A niggling little voice in the back of his head tried to remind him that she'd never doubted him, but he silenced it again. It was pointless. Obviously he wasn't very remarkable if no one had thought him worthy of devotion so far, why should she be any different?
He led the King of the Frost Giants further into the palace, absently feeling relieved that he'd sent Kagome to their rooms to rest. Even if his feelings about her trust in him were as shaky as everything else right now, he wanted her safe and out of the way.
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She could hear her heart racing in her ears, like a bird caught in her skull, beating its wings frantically to escape. The resulting sound of blood rushing loudly through her body drowned out everything else, and Kagome dug her nails deep into her palms, anchoring herself with the sharp pain.
Things had reached a fever pitch and she could feel it. She was out of time. She wasn't sure how she knew, but she did, and she swallowed down the urge to vomit. She closed her eyes, and took a deep breath, drawing in air until her chest could hold no more, and then she held it until her lungs burned. She released it in a slow trickle through her nose and let every single scrap of information she knew coalesce into something she could work with. Standing to pace, the pieces in her mind attempted to click together into some sort of workable puzzle.
As her mind worked and her stress mounted, her reiki responded, skittering along her skin in a tickling caress. It was want to do that now since she'd married Loki and had been granted a certain amount of divinity. She had already mastered it beyond any level any miko had reached before, her Demi-goddess status, loath as she was to accept it, had pushed her even further, and she'd found herself capable of things she hadn't even imagined possible even with Frigga's training.
A spare, throwaway memory floated up from the recesses of her mind and played out behind her closed eyelids. She was preparing to write a letter to Dalla in the library. Her beloved friend and maid had retired some years before, now pregnant with her second child. She'd moved out of the palace and into a smaller home with her husband to raise their children, but she and Kagome wrote letters in between what friendly visits they could manage. This time, in all her historic clumsiness, she'd managed to slice her palm with the letter opener she used to open Dalla's letter. She'd gasped at the pain and the blood quickly welling in her palm, but then her reiki had ignited, glowed around the wound, and sealed her skin shut. She'd shrugged and determined to explore this new development later, after she'd read and responded to her letter, now she felt foolish for pushing something so momentous aside.
And that's when the light clicked on. If her reiki was healing, then maybe... maybe she could be the one to truly help Loki.
She hurried to one of the dressers, opening the third drawer and fishing around for the small dagger she knew was kept there. She unsheathed it and swiftly ran it across her palm. She stared intently at the fresh wound, pleased when her powers swelled enough to work at healing her shallow cut, and then cursed that she hadn't used the time since first discovering this new ability to train and master it like the rest of her miko ability.
Another light clicked on.
She wasn't a miko anymore.
She was a goddess, sort of.
But more than that... she was the jewel.
She could- and would- force this power to bend to her will. And she would save Loki.
Heimdalls's words returned, his warning that things that were meant to happen would happen, and that she had to let them, so she could later be useful in what sounded like another war.
How her destiny was sealed.
A huge swell of power grew somewhere behind her and she turned rapidly, running to her window that overlooked the bifrost.
What she found froze her solid. Her alarm clock had just sounded- and her time had run out.
The gate at the end of the bifrost was on and left open, pouring out a dangerous amount of power, and two auras she knew better than anyone else's crashed together in a bitter battle.
Loki... and Thor.
Very, very briefly she felt a flicker of relief that Thor had returned, but then the bleak, ragged state of Loki's aura choked her with horror.
She suspected she knew what destiny wanted her to allow, but allow it she would not.
She turned from her window and ran out her door and down the hall, looking for stairs or any way to get down to the lower levels of the palace, and out onto the bifrost.
Destiny could fuck itself, she was keeping her husband.
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Loki stared with mounting confusion as Thor beat relentlessly against the glittering surface of the rainbow bridge with his hammer, cracks splintering out from the point of contact. His mind raced and swirled, desperate to make sense of this, to fit it into his plans, to understand what this meant for him and his quest to shine for once in his life.
If Thor had finally turned a new leaf, this would spell disaster.
"What are you doing? If you destroy the bridge you'll never see her again!"
A cheap ploy to throw Thor's new little lady love in his face, but he couldn't think clearly, couldn't push passed the thick haze that had grown inside him. Things had spiraled so far out of control, he almost couldn't see his original intent anymore. Without really thinking, acting on the basest of instincts, he dashed forward, raising his spear and leaping up, aiming at his brother's back, ready to strike, desperate to stop him.
A blinding explosion grabbed him up and stole his breath as Mjølnir finally succeeded in cracking through the bifrost's surface, causing a backlash of power to rip through them. A cacophony of sound and color muted his thoughts and deafened his ears, and he was left powerless to do anything but let his body fall where it would, hoping uselessly for solid ground.
When had he last felt solid?
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Kagome's side ached and her lungs felt full of scorching fire as she pumped her leg muscles harder than she ever had, forcing them to carry her down the dizzying length of the bifrost after already running madly through most of the massive height of the palace. A gruesome shockwave of raw, ancient power struck her, pushing her back and igniting a maelstrom of panic.
'No. No no no. It can't be too late, I can't be too late.'
When the fire behind her eyelids died she shook her head to clear the ringing in her ears and pushed on, pouring more speed into her steps, shocked she had anymore to utilize.
She was finally close. She could see them now, as more than just glowing dots, and what her eyes could finally make out shattered what was left of her hope, stretching her resolve until it snapped and gave her one last mighty push toward her last, desperate goal.
For the cold, icy, desolate state of her beloved's aura as he dangled helplessly over the angry churn of the bifrost's dissipating power did not bode well.
Not for him.
Not for her.
"Loki! No!"
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When he could see and hear and think again, he was dangling on the end of his scepter over the void of space torn through with the swirling energies of the bifrost. His only saving grace was Thor, holding desperately to the other end of the scepter, and his father, holding on to Thor.
Seeing him awake again and keeping both he and his brother from plummeting to certain death had shocked him into a moment of crystalline awareness, something that he only now noticed he'd been lacking since this whole gruesome affair had started.
His heart faltered; he felt like a child as his father's one eyed stare held him captive.
"I could have done it father! I could have done it! For you! For all of us!"
He pleaded again, needing to make him see, needing to feel that ever elusive pride and respect that he'd been chasing since he was a child.
"No, Loki."
All of his thoughts quieted, settling down from their tireless swirling and falling through him like sharp shards of glass. His thundering heart slowed until the beat of it reverberated in his ears once with every deep, steady breath of his lungs. And when it was done, it shattered.
Despair throttled him and tears blurred his vision, Thor called to him as he let his grip on the scepter slip and he began to fall backwards toward the distant rumbling of the bifrost's energies.
His last sound and sight of his home was a shrill, feminine scream, and beautiful face painted with horror as it shouted his name.
'I'm sorry,' he thought numbly as he felt himself slip into the comfort of nothingness, hoping with the last shards of his heart that things would be better now.
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She stared endlessly at the spot she'd watched Loki's falling body disappear, and time slowed to an aching crawl. She could feel herself moving, but it was slow, forced, like she was pushing through a gelatin mold to get back to the fresh air. A thick fuzz of shock and awe has curled in her ears and her lungs began to burn, squeezing out every last molecule of air and desperate for more.
But she couldn't breath.
She began to careen forward into that same starry blackness that had stolen her heart away, but a pair of strong arms locked around her, jolting her enough to clear away some of the agony, and she heard a piercing, startling cry.
She was screaming.
A feral, guttural sound that threatened to crack the rest of the rainbow bridge right out from under them.
She should probably stop.
But how could she? How could she ever stop? She'd just watched... she'd just seen...
She would never stop screaming.
"Kagome. Kagome listen to me, I'm so sorry, I tried to stop him."
Still she screamed, heedless of the words trying to soothe her, get through to her, calm her down.
She didn't want to calm down.
With a blast of reiki she pushed him away and scrambled to the edge of the bridge, ready to throw herself over it, intent on saving him and bringing him back.
Or just joining him.
But those arms clamped around her waist and yanked her away. She hissed, scratching and scrabbling, frantic to get away, to get away from this new enemy, to get back to-
"Loki! I have to- LET ME GO!"
"No! He would not want this. You must stop!"
"No, please! You have to let me go! I have to save him! SAVE HIM!"
In a desperate bid to stop her from hurling herself to her own death, thor wrapped his whole body around hers, crushing her to him, squeezing his eyes shut against her surprisingly strong attempts to get away.
But she would NOT get away.
He'd just lost his brother, AND the woman he loved. He would NOT lose his sister... his best friend.
"No! I won't lose you too!"
"Please!" She sobbed, breaking apart in his arms, smaller and weaker than he'd ever seen her. His own tears came and trailed through her hair, her fists beating weakly against his shoulders. Her words were broken as she pleaded with him, begged for his brother, begged for her own end, but he held her fast, and soon she stilled, falling unconscious, slumping bonelessly into him. He broke down, knowing his father was there, not caring in the slightest. Sobs wracked his body now, the hurts and losses of this day speeding up and ambushing him all at once. After several moments, he stood, cradling the exhausted body of the sister of his heart and carrying her slowly back inside, far away from the place that had destroyed both their hearts.