Ensoulment
by Valerie Vancollie
valeriev84 at hotmail dot com
Notes: And, as promised, the next part of the scene on Rhea!
Rhea, 2018 A.D.
Thor blinked as he looked at the ceiling, mind scrambling to catch up with what had just transpired. He had not been flattened so easily since that time Loki had lost all control as an adolescent and depleted his magical reserves in one massive outburst. It had nearly killed his little brother and put Loki in the healing halls for over a month, though it had been considerably longer before the pest had been able to use his seiðr once more.
With a groan, he forced himself upright, eyes seeking out Thanos first and foremost, pleased to find him down too and hardly even stirring. Therefore he turned his attention towards the other potential threat in the chamber. Rather than finding the Infinity Stones as they had been earlier, Thor discovered a being there instead.
The figure was crouched down on one knee with his hands planted on the floor on either side with his long dark hair spilled all around him.
Loki.
He might not be able to see the figure's face and both the hair and clothes were different from any which Thor had seen before, but he instantly recognized his little brother. Intense relief swept through him and the hope he had hardly dared nourish with first Dr. Strange's and then Princess Shuri's resurrections blossomed. Loki was alive! His brother had done it, just as he had said he would.
Thor had never been so happy about his brother's seiðr use as he was now. Never again would he disparage Loki for it no matter what others said of it being ergi or unbecoming a prince of Ásgarðr. Not when it had saved his brother's life and could now help them save the universe from what Thanos had dared to do.
Then Loki looked up and Thor's breath caught in his throat.
Instead of green, his brother's eyes were a solid glowing orange and there were three Infinity Stones embedded into Loki's forehead. Mind, Time and Reality if Thor remembered the colors correctly. Aside from the shock of seeing them there, marring the face he was so familiar with, it was even stranger seeing the Aether in his brother. After all they had done seeking to prevent the destruction of the universe, to see it thus turned Thor's stomach unpleasantly.
It would appear Rogers would not have a say in whether his brother obtained the Infinity Stones as the captain had desired.
Before he could react any further, Loki raised a hand and Thor caught a quick glimpse of another Stone imbedded into his brother's palm before purple seiðr shot out. He whipped around just in time to watch Thanos flying through the wall of his home and out beyond.
"Are those the Stones?" Stark demanded.
"What just happened?" General Okoye questioned.
"Impossible," Nebula breathed, eyes locked onto Loki's form as his brother rose elegantly to his feet.
"My thanks for distracting Thanos," Loki said even as he strode towards where he had thrown the Mad Titan. "I will deal with him now."
"Now just wait a minute!" Rogers began, but Loki ignored him and leapt out of the primitive house, but not before Thor caught sight of the Space Stone imbedded into his left hand.
"I do not think he will listen to you," Princess Shuri stated, stalking towards the hole even as Thor did the same.
He only glanced outside long enough to locate Thanos before he too jumped out. The Mad Titan lay surprisingly far from his home and still appeared dazed, making Thor realize precisely how much power his brother had used to blast him away. Loki now strode across the distance, hands aglow with purple and blue seiðr, indicating the Power Stone was the one embedded into his right hand, much as the Space Stone was in his left.
"What the hell is going on here, Buddy?" Stark asked, flying through the hole to hover beside him.
"I do not know," Thor admitted. "I have never heard of anything like this."
"It should not be possible," Nebula stated.
Thor smiled. "My brother's specialty."
"Where is the Soul Stone?" Strange questioned. "I can see all of the others, but I've yet to see the Soul Stone."
"His eyes are orange," Princess Shuri replied. "Is that not the color of the Soul Stone?"
Fear thrilled through Thor at the words. The princess was correct, orange was the color of the Space Stone, but what did it mean that it was now the color of his brother's eyes? He may not know much of seiðr, but even he knew that was not a good sign. It reeked of possession or enslavement, much as the Mind Stone had turned the irises of those it enslaved blue or the Aether had changed Jane's eyes. Yet there were differences as neither of those caused their victims' eyes to glow or become a solid color as Loki's now were.
"That could merely be the effect of his current magic use," Strange countered. "Many protective spells are orange."
Thor frowned at the words. His brother's seiðr had always been a green-gold, much as Mother's had always been blue. Did mortal seiðr not shine with the color of their wielder? Or was it not their own seiðr they harnessed? He could vaguely recall Loki dismissing human seiðmenn once with such a comment. At the time he has assumed it to be merely his brother's arrogance rather than a true difference in use or power.
Then Thanos was on his feet with a shout of rage. Too late Thor remembered pocket dimensions were not just a specialty of his brother's and so now Thanos was armed with a sword nearly as large as Stormbreaker had been.
"Of course he can pull weapons from nowhere," Machine of War grumbled. "Shall we?"
"Nay, do not interfere in my brother's battle," Thor warned.
Before any of them could protest, Loki sent a blast of blue seiðr at the Mad Titan, flattening him once more. Thanos flickered out of existence suddenly and Thor swung his gaze back to his brother just in time to witness the Titan's sword move to impale Loki as Thanos reappeared behind him.
"Nay!" Thor screamed, flashes of Svartálfaheimr rushing back to him, before he noticed the sword had not actually struck true.
Instead it had collapsed inwards like the toy spears they used to have, to play at battle when they were young.
Loki turned and looked up at his opponent with a raised eyebrow. "You who have wielded the Stones yourself should know better."
Then there was another flash of purple and Thanos took down the first few rows of crops as he was flung into them.
With a roar, the Hulk suddenly returned, batting aside the trees in his way. Thor called forth his lightning, prepared to fight his shield-brother should he try to interfere, but Loki glanced over before the Mind Stone flared and yellow seiðr ran down his brother's arm into his palm. A glowing yellow sphere resulted which Loki threw towards the Hulk even as he was already turning back to face Thanos, left hand raised with a shield to ward off the Titan's next attack. Thor kept his attention focused a little longer on his green friend, to ensure he was not harmed, but the sphere of seiðr was merely circling Banner's berserker and distracting him rather than causing any harm.
"What is Loki doing?" General Okoye asked. "He possesses the power to end the fight now."
"He's toying with him," Stark replied. "Like a cat with a mouse."
Thor frowned as he realized the Man of Iron was correct. Loki was being lazy and indolent, allowing Thanos far closer than he had to given his brother's preference had always been to strike from afar. The only reason could be because it amused Loki to watch Thanos try again and again, knowing he could never hurt him.
It was his brother's vengeance for what had been done to him.
Thanos screamed with rage once more as yet another attempt was thwarted and he was cast down.
A cry was the only warning they had before Rocket exploded back onto the scene, bursting from the undergrowth, his stolen repulsor shooting a beam of power at the felled Titan. Strangely enough, Loki paused in his own attack, allowing the intrusion and Thor frowned. It was not like his brother to concede ground in battle to another. The way Loki's lips curled up into a half smile, though, was familiar even with his strange eyes. It was the look his brother had when he was indulging another who amused him. It would have worried Thor had Loki not raised a finger to knock Thanos back when it seemed the Titan would respond to the rabbit's attack.
"Feel better?" Loki inquired when Rocket's cries of rage died down.
"He killed Groot!" Thor's newest friend replied.
"Groot will return, as will the others."
"No!" Thanos protested, pushing himself into a seated position.
"You still think you can defeat me?" Loki demanded with a raised eyebrow. "I hold all of the Stones."
"I see only five. You are missing the Soul Stone, the hardest of them all to control. As you said before, it returns to whence it came when lost by the one who sacrificed to claim it."
"Aye, before it always did. But as I said, you are not the only one who had a plan and my mother too succeeded in hers."
"Mother?" Thor repeated in shock.
What did she have anything to do with this?
"Mine, not yours," Loki answered, glancing over at him briefly before returning his attention to his fallen foe. "And she wrought a fundamental change to the Soul Stone, altering its very fabric."
"Impossible," Thanos dismissed.
"Improbable, unlikely, difficult but not impossible."
Stark snorted. "Sounds like your specialty."
Amusement flooded his brother's face and it caused Thor to realize how calm and emotionless Loki had been this entire time. Gone were all of the wild and almost mad fluctuations of his brother's mood and power, almost as if they had never been. Yet Loki was not as he had once been, before his botched coronation. Nay, this was an entirely new and different version of his brother, one which Thor had never seen before. This Loki was calm and collected, as if certain of himself and his power in a way his brother had never been before.
It made Thor feel wretched inside, wondering how he had never noticed before how Loki had seemingly chaffed at the restraints of being both a prince and his brother. In his heart he had always known there was something inherently chaotic and wild about Loki, but he had never paused to consider whether those aspects of his brother needed nourishing in some manner rather being constantly constrained and admonished as Father had so often tried to do.
"Alas, I can claim only partial credit for this," Loki stated. "The rest belongs to my mother, she who realized the possibility and ensured all of the elements were there for it to transpire. I merely actualized her visions."
"You will find the Soul Stone difficult to wield," Thanos proclaimed. "It resists manipulation."
"Nay, it resisted you, as Mother knew it would. As it should given you tortured and killed it."
"What?" Romanov demanded, echoing Thor's own sentiments and those of the others given the startled and confused sounds they made.
"One can't kill a Stone," Thanos argued, trying to rise only to be knocked back down by a lazy flick of Loki's wrist and a snap of purple seiðr from the Power Stone.
"You can if it has been rendered flesh," Loki said simply. "If it has been given life. If it has been ensouled."
Thanos went deathly still, eyes locked onto Loki's face and Thor frowned. What was his brother implying?
Then Thanos' eyes opened wide in horror and realization. "She placed it in you when she sacrificed you to the Soul Stone. You were the Stone."
"Was, am, always will be."
Thor collapsed back onto the ground at those words. Nay, they could not mean what he thought they did!
It was impossible. They spoke of sacrifice and Loki had not been. His brother had been slaughtered at Thanos' hand for attempting to kill the Titan.
"One cannot be a Stone," Strange stated. "They are not alive."
"Not until now," Loki replied easily.
Then his brother's form wavered and became transparent and Thor could suddenly see the missing Soul Stone. It was deep within Loki's core, at the heart of who he was, its orange power diffusing through his brother's very being, blending with the native green-gold. It... wonder, awe and terror welled up within Thor at the sight. That Loki did indeed possess all of the Stones meant their plan may yet work, but he was terrified for what it meant for his brother.
What did it mean to be an Infinity Stone?
Was Loki still the brother he had known and grown up beside? Given all of the changes he had already observed in the half hour since Loki's resurrection, Thor was not sure he still was and that filled him with a horror unlike any he had ever felt before. Even after Ásgarðr's destruction and both Heimdallr and Loki's subsequent deaths. To have his brother back only to find him irrevocably changed...
Another flash of light, blue this time, startled Thor back to the present only to find Thanos sprawled across the ground once more.
"You have lost and all you wrought will be undone," Loki stated as the Time Stone glowed a bright green in the center of his forehead, the seiðr pooling in his right hand. "Observe."
With those words, Thor watched as Loki threw the seiðr at Thanos whom it enveloped in a green haze. The Mad Titan's head snapped from side to side, eyes wild as they saw things no one else could and clearly not liking what he witnessed. It did not take long, but it did not need to. The Time Stone could easily ensnare Thanos for days in the space of seconds. Only Loki could know how long it was to the Titan, but knowing his brother as Thor did, he would not be surprised if it was weeks or months.
Thanos screamed in a very familiar rage as he was released from the Time Stone's influence and Thor could not help but smile. How often had he himself expressed such emotion after falling afoul of one of his brother's tricks?
"Thanos, son of A'Lars, survivor of Titan and devotee of Death," Loki intoned, orange and red seiðr building in his palms. "For centuries you have tormented the universe, blighting it in a mad quest to achieve your demented goals and deluding yourself in the righteousness of your actions. You slaughtered trillions and delighted Death whom has claimed you as Her favorite and protected you until now, but even She cannot stand against the combined power of the Infinity Stones.
For your crimes and the impossibility of your rehabilitation, you will lose not only your life, but also your soul. Both shall be disintegrated as you disintegrated half of all life in the universe, but your conscious shall remain. Trapped forevermore between life and death, unwelcome in either and alone for eternity to ponder your powerlessness and ultimate failure."
As Thor had known would happen, Thanos surged forwards in a last mad rush at Loki, but he never stood a chance. With a mere thought, his brother cast the red and orange seiðr at his former tormentor and Thanos screamed as it hit, lifting him off the ground entirely. Uselessly Thanos fought, flashes of his own seiðr hardly appearing before they were overcome as the orange Soul Stone seiðr attacked, sinking into the Mad Titan until only his mouth and eyes glowed with it. The red seiðr meanwhile struck at Thanos' body, unraveling it at the molecular level, causing it to start disintegrating much as it had for the Titan's own victims, but far less painlessly.
Thor what watched with no little satisfaction as that large purple body crumbled away, revealing a translucent double of Thanos underneath which was similarly being unspun by the orange seiðr. It blew away in a shower of iridescent sparks until there was nothing left of their greatest foe.
The feel of intense raw seiðr hung in the air for a few minutes more, raising the hairs on Thor's arms and causing Loki's new waist length hair to swirl around him much as Strange had described two weeks ago upon his resurrection. The action revealed a large stitching of the Yggdrasill across the back of his brother's coat in silver-white thread, similar to the smaller one Thor had noticed at his brother's breast earlier. It fit with Strange's visions, but he could not help but wonder why Loki chose to bear that symbol now. His brother always had a purpose for everything he did.
Then the raw seiðr slowly faded and died away entirely as Loki lowered his arms, letting them fall by his side. Satisfaction and relief crossed his brother's face as he looked at where Thanos had once been.
"Holy shit!" the Man of Iron finally exclaimed, coming to stand on the ground and flipping his face mask up. "That was..."
"More mercy than he deserved!" Nebula hissed.
"There is no place for torture among the just," General Okoye countered. "It would make us no better than him."
"She is right," Captain America said when it seemed Nebula would argue.
"Bruce, are you okay?" Romanov asked, drawing Thor's attention back to the Hulk as he rose to his feet.
Only he was the Hulk no longer, instead Banner sat on the ground where the Hulk had last been, now holding the dissipating sphere of yellow seiðr in his hand.
"Yeah," Banner replied, dazed before he shook his head and held up his hand. "What is this thing?"
"A meditation sphere," Loki replied, turning to face them. "It is used to teach students how to relax and clear their minds in order to focus their thoughts properly."
"Huh, that would calm the Hulk."
"Naturally."
Thor laughed. There was the brother he knew.
"Loki," he said, walking up to his brother. "I am very glad to see you once more."
Not allowing Loki time to react, Thor pulled him into a tight embrace, fists clenching in the back of his brother's leather coat. All of the fear, rage and grief he had felt on watching helplessly as Thanos killed Loki returned to him and he buried his face in his brother's neck and hair. He would deal with any potential alterations later, for now he was simply relieved he had not completely lost the last of his family.
"You oaf," Loki replied, voice strangely soft. "I did tell you the sun would shine on us again."
"You say much you do not mean," Thor retorted, forcing one of his hands to let go so he could raise it to clasp the back of his brother's neck. "And Thanos said there would be no resurrections this time."
"What would he know of it? He was not a god."
Thor laughed at the words, inordinately pleased when he felt his brother's arms curl around him in return. Never again would he allow Loki to pull away from him, not given how often he had lost the pest as a result. Nay, he would keep his brother close from now on, regardless of what Loki may do to make him try to doubt him once more. Stark and Loki himself had proven that he had underestimated his brother often in the past and he was resolved not to do so again in the future.
Have I mentioned that in the comics the Soul Stone is green? I only learned that while researching it for this fic, but it seemed fitting and almost prophetic in a way :)
Old Norse:
seiðr - witchcraft, sorcery / a type of sorcery practiced in Norse society during the Late Scandinavian Iron Age - i.e. magic
ergi - "unmanliness"
seiðmenn - male practitioners of seiðr - i.e. wizards/sorcerers/mages