Loki's Song

Katelyn Tarver; You don't know what it's like

"Fools that you all be! Damned fools that you believe this will all be a venture to save an end! For all things end!"

Odin stood squaring his shoulders as he frowned heavily. "You are here only for the love of a brother who asked for you, or I would have cast you out already! Not even your own children stand with you!"

Loki growled as he dipped his head, nine tails lashing around behind him as he clenched his fists. "My children are dead! You took them from me and I believe you took her! She could not have just disappeared!"

The lion roared as Idun dipped her head sobbing. "WELP! Leave our presence. You do nothing but upset the siblings you have left and your mother is sick with worry and grief over the loss of all our children and your mate!"

"A LOSS YOU CAUSED!" Loki spat as Heimdall pulled him back again.

"I caused this!? I caused it?! It was you who brought your damned treasures back to Asgard against my wishes. It was you who ran and mated with that foul lizard from the world! The wars here began because of them! Because of you! I set to destroy the darkness in the world and you brought it here! Now we die because we starve, and it may not have happened had those treasures you refused to leave were not here!"

Heimdall whispered lowly as the red fox sobbed. "Loki, this is futile. There is no point hurling insult upon anyone when it will do no good and make no change in deaf ears."

"All my children, all of them are nothing but fodder to all of you! You changed my sons to wolves and we watched as one tore the other apart! You threw him to the world to be alone! The Valkyries were treasures and if you cannot see it - that every child is a treasure, I hope there is a hell where you find yourselves after what you did to all of them! All children are treasures, no matter what they look like or how they come to be and I lost my mate- My Sigyn- because her heart broke watching it!"

"Treasures! Abominations! Those things you birthed were not of any species known to this world or any other and even cutting off their tails only split them into two more species! They brought lust and greed into Asgard!"

"THEY DID WHAT WAS ASKED OF THEM- SET BY YOUR LAW- THEY GAVE BACK WHAT WAS GIVEN TO THEM!"

Odin growled. "Your sons and daughters were never meant to be. A wolf larger than any creature known to Asgard, a serpent so massive he took up the waters of the world, and a daughter who breathed hells fires and disease! The Valkyries were no better, not even being able to be classified as one of my original nine or a subspecies of them! You allowed that thing to change you! Their birth was unnatural and they did not belong here, no more than the creatures that birthed or fathered them! "

Loki face sank as his father's words settled in his chest. "Unnatural?" He growled as he leaned closer to his father curling his lips over his teeth. "Tell them what the fairy dust is and then speak of unnatural again."

Odin looked around watching their ears perk and roared. "NEVER SPEAK OF IT AGAIN! IT IS THE NATURAL WAY OF ALL THINGS!"

Loki snarled as his fur puffed out. "WHAT IS NATURAL ABOUT HOW YOU LIVE! HOW WE ALL CAME TO BE?! WE EXIST OUTSIDE OF WHAT IS! YOU LIVE BY FEEDING FROM THOSE WHO ARE LOST! I DO NOT! I WILL NOT TAKE PARTS OF THOSE WHO HAVE LOST THEIR WAY AND USE IT AS IF IT WERE MEANT TO MAKE ME LIVE FOREVER! NO LIFE IS MEANT TO LIVE FOREVER! HOW ARE YOU ANY BETTER WHEN DOING THIS?! YOU CHANGED OUR SONS, LET THEM FIGHT TO THE DEATH AND MADE ME AND MY MATE WATCH! YOU ARE A HYPOCRITE AND NO POWER YOU HAVE WILL EVER CHANGE IT!"

Odin stood growling as his fists clenched and roared loud enough that Asgard shook. Loki stood letting his nine tails whip angrily behind him as Heimdall tried to pull at him again. "Brother, please."

Loki threw his brother away as fiery tears stained his face and the fur on his chest, hissing at the hare. "Why did you bring me back here, Heimdall? Why did you not just let him kill me? That is all he knows! Death is all he knows!" He growled before he stormed from the dining room where his remaining siblings and parents sat.

Odin sat back at his seat and looked at Freya scowling. The she wolf dipped her ears as she looked at Heimdall. The hare took a seat watching the door before looking back to his mother as she raised both worried brows. "No magic I have can heal what ails him."

Odin growled lowly as he looked around at all the solemn faces in the room. "You all have pity for him? After all he has done? After the insults he has hurled on us, at this dinner that we are meant to gather as the last of a family in hopes to come together again?"

"He is not the only one in the wrong, love." Freya frowned as she looked at him.

The lion curled his lip as he looked around the table. Idun sat with her trunk curled into her chin, Tyr had a lowered brow and clenched Jaw, Baldur's eyes were damp, Heimdall cast his eyes to the side, Thor lifted his head as his face relaxed while Vale and Frigg both kept their heads dipped low. "What would you have me do? I would not allow the damnable creatures back even if I could. They are mortal now. I cannot change what has been done, nor what he has done. I cannot change the past!"

"You know who can." Freya stated as she sat straighter. The lion curled his lip as he looked around and watched all his children turn their eyes from him as he stood.

"FATHER TIME!" Odin bellowed as he stood and straightened his back. The doors blew open as a thick gust of wind ruffled all their fur and a shadow swooped in, landing in a darkened corner before it shifted. The lion curled his lip as he shook his head. He ticked his eyes to Heimdall and the hare looked away as he frowned heavily. "You have changed your form. Why?"

The figure billowed above the table before a thick robe fell and he curled his lip as a red vixen appeared in front of him, lifting her head in a regal fashion. She wore a dark robe made of deep space, sparkling with the stars that swirled around in it. On her nose a pair of glasses rested, made from an hourglass, half filled with sand in each section. A small bubble rested in the center where another small area raised above her nose also held sand. On her shoulder sat a clock with the hands of time, one red, one black and one gray, each indicating the hour, minute, and seconds. Her eyes were filled with the cosmos and planets. A pendulum swung at her chest that held the moon, rocking back and forth as the sun sat on her shoulder. The vixen curled her lip and narrowed her eyes. "I changed my form an eon ago and you have just now seen it. The great Odin pays no attention to the things that surround him? I am not bound by any conformities you have set, God."

Odin stood with pursed lips and narrowed his eyes at the belittling tone of her voice. "Where is Sigyn?" he growled as she let her feet hit the table.

The vixen tipped an angry brow at him as she bore her teeth. "Death comes to all. I am merely the collector of it. I am Grace."

The large cat looked back watching Freya turn her head as she bit her lip. "Bring her back."

The vixen tipped her head to Odin frowning, and growled. "Not even a God can bring one back from death. Your request is fruitless if you believe I have such power. You should consider where my power comes from. I cannot change death, I cannot change the past unless the one I speak to would listen, and you would not." She tipped her ears as Idun sobbed and let her lips vibrate as Odin screamed.

"I WILL ASK THAT CREATURE FOR NOTHING!"

"And I shall see to it you have nothing in return. I have seen your path, Odin. It will end with death no matter what you believe you overcome if you do not change your mind on this course of action." She swirled above the table, becoming a waft of dark air before it rushed back through the doors it had come through.

"FATHER TIME! GRACE!" he slammed his fists to the table as the doors slammed, and roared again as he fell back to his chair. "I will not die to that damn creature!" Freya tipped her ears as Heimdall dipped his head lower and turned the other way. The lion sat rigid in his chair, growling before the buck looked back at him frowning. "You are his tenth tail. Why do you not speak!"

Heimdall looked at his mother grinding his teeth. "It is your curse that keeps me from speaking father. Your curse that I watched the one I loved the most die without being able to interfere. The agreement I made to obtain the knowledge from the waters of knowledge under the tree of life keeps me silent with all the truth I have swallowed held in your own eye."

"SPEAK OR BE DAMNED!"

Heimdall looked at his mother and clenched his jaw as she nodded. "Loki has gone mad. He claims to hear Sigyn's voice weeping constantly, yet I hear nothing and I hear all. I see no path because I cannot see his."

The lion growled as he leaned towards the hare who glared at him. "No riddles. Speak or you will wish the curse I placed on you is what I place upon you again. I will damn you to Eternity!"

The hare grimaced in a deep angry face as he kept his teeth clenched. "If he dies, there is no future. All I see is darkness and nothing more. I can tell you nothing else without him letting me see his path and nothing you could do would be so cruel as what you have already gifted me, Father. I am already damned." He stood from the table, shoving his chair back before he stormed from the room, throwing the door open angrily and let it slam into the wall as his siblings stared in shock.

Odin fell back to his chair shaking his head as he looked around growling. "I wish to save life and all I get in return from my family is…. This…...?"

Heimdall rushed back to Loki's Den and looked around wondering where he'd gotten to again. Instead of finding the red fox stumbling around and searching for an unheard voice, he found nothing. He walked through Asgard listening and couldn't catch the sound of his brother anywhere before he stopped at a stream and sat on the bank, sticking his toes in the water. "You never were good at hide and seek, Loki." A large fish in the stream slapped its fin against the water, sending a wave over his head. He threw his paws up and looked back to the fish grinning before his face fell as his eyes trained on it. "This isn't good for you Brother, being alone like this all the time." The fish stayed in the water, staring blankly as its fins backed it away from Heimdall. The buck blinked and sighed. "I asked for you, you know." The hare squinted as the fish squirt a jet of water in his face shook his head chuckling.

"I thought you would drive me crazy for a long time. I wish there was something I could do to help. I don't hear it, Loki. I have tried. You have to let her go, Brother." The fish did a quick turn and swam away as the hare let his ears drop. "I know you think I don't know what it's like, that I don't know how you feel, but, I loved her too." He whispered as his head dropped. "I can't lose both of you." The buck jerked his head up as something brushed his foot and snickered as the fish nibbled on his toes. Heimdall shook his head as he smiled. "Love you too, Brother." He jolted as a wave of water flew over his head after the fish jumped out of the water and slammed into it again. The hare deadpanned the water as several large bubbles came from the fish before it turned again. "Still finding a way to create some happiness? Always the trickster, Loki?" he asked as he shook his head. "Even in these dark days you have a way to make light. You will be alright."

The hare shot from the ground as the fish rose from the water and shifted into a wolf, his red eyes filled with sorrow as Heimdall fought his own tears. The wolf shifted to a serpent, the serpent to a giant, the giant to a fox. Heimdall let his lips tremble as his brother shifted to a shape that had the red eyes the fox God bore pouring into the water she stood in. Loki stumbled forward and fell out of the shape of his lost mate before dark wings shot from his arms. His fur disappeared from the wings and leathery skin covered the surface. His face returned to that of his own before he slammed them down and shot into the air, howling in a sorrowful tone that would leave even a wolf in agony. Heimdall could only bite back the pain in his chest as he watched his brother shift to the form of a raven, before his silhouette disappeared into the sky. The hare closed his eyes letting go of his own flooding emotions as he fell back to the ground and covered his eyes.

"Time heals all wounds, Heimdall."

His ears shot up as Grace stood beside him and the hare looked up at her shaking his head. "Not even you can heal this, Grace. This will never change if there is nothing you can do. Even he knows this if he took your shape. I believe he hates you."

"Time is not always a friend when it is all you have and reminds you of what has been lost. Keep your head up little one, and be patient."

"PATIENT?!" Heimdall screamed as she tipped her head in understanding. "What lesson can we learn from this?! There is nothing I can say to him, nothing I can do for him. You don't know what this is like for either of us! What will ever change this? What will ever make it better? He has stopped trying! He wants for nothing! The kind of nothing that created all of us! He has stopped fighting! Our father is so proud he cannot see Loki is dying, or simply does not care and Loki is not alright! He will never be alright!"

She nodded as he grit his teeth through bleary eyes and staggered breaths. "Perhaps the Gods do give more than some can handle. I have no power over free will, Heimdall. I am only a whisper on the wind and am a choice to be made. I can offer nothing but that to him, or you."

The hare let his ears drop as he looked back to the sky. "Then keep your whispers for him, Grace. He already has another voice in his head and ears. Your words will do me no good when I can hear everything and he will not even listen to a voice in front of him. I cannot hear what it is that tortures him. As much as I hurt, as much as I ache for my heart, for his, I have not lost nearly as much. But I know this may be the death of both of us if it kills him, because I am not strong enough to lose anymore."

"As you wish." The vixen bowed her head slightly and he watched as the solid state she'd taken faded into a wistful shadow and fled into the wind shifting to the shape of black wings. Heimdall sat for thousands of years, looking beyond the rainbow bridge and listening to his brother searching through the realms for a voice no one heard. Until the day he heard no more and sought to find his brother again….

Notes; Christmas is a time for family to gather- it's not always a great thing when old wounds can cause everyone to be on edge or start fighting or people are missing from the celebration. (Don't worry still a happy ending) There is a dinner in the Prose Edda that tells of Loki going to the banquet and insulting all the other Gods. This is the story Rose spoke of when she tried to explain to Nick why his father was sick and had a broken heart. Heimdall was said to be the Guardian of Asgard's Gates and protected everything within it from threats. Again, Loki had a way of sneaking in and out without Heimdall being able to figure out how he kept doing it. The part of him changing into a fish is a reference to the story of Baldur, his brother who he tricked another God into killing with a mistletoe thorn. When Loki ran from the Gods after they realized he was the cause of Baldur's death he transformed himself into a fish and hid in a stream.