Loki watches Thor turn around with a heavy heart that grows heavier with each step his brother takes away from the throne, his home, his old life. Loki watches until Thor is out of sight and, undoubtedly, on his way to the Bifröst that will transport him back to Midgard and the people he has grown to love more than Asgard and anyone that dwells in the Eternal Realm.
Loki wonders, briefly, if Thor had stayed had he known that it was his brother's heart beating beneath Odin's chest but he doubts it. Thor is no longer his brother, not in the way he was. There are so many words unspoken between them that a part of Loki is glad that he will not return. All the anger, the betrayal, the treachery, the resentment … And yet he said that Loki fought with honor and there was love in his voice when he said it. Slightly guarded love, broken and hesitant, but love nonetheless. There was love in his eyes too when Loki's life slipped from the grasp of his strong hands on the volcanic fields of Svartalfheim and he cried out, his face twisting into a frown of pain.
The pain of loss.
Loki feels tears clawing at the back of his throat. He knows he should be delighted at his own brilliance, celebrating his mastery of sorcery and deception, but the pain of loss feels like glass shards stabbing into his heart and, suddenly, he finds himself unable to draw a deep breath. Well, any breath really. He straightens on the throne he would have killed and did kill for, and swallows as he stares at the golden debris in the Hall of Hlidskjalf.
The Royal Palace needs to be rebuilt and once it is, it will be his. The Realm Eternal will be his to rule and there is no one who will doubt him this time. Well, except for the good Lady Sif perhaps but he will take care of her later. Loki knows he should be thrilled. He is king and here on Asgard he is safe from the hungry, vengeful eyes of the Mad Titan and his promise of something sweeter than the horrors of pain.
But he is also entirely alone and Loki is astonished at how much this realization pains him. He has felt alone for a long time. After Odin's revelation that he was Jötunn by birth, Loki has suspected that he would never feel not alone ever again. And his suspicions were confirmed after the Fall, when he was lost and in pain, and no one came to save him. His suspicions were confirmed even more when Odin gave the order to lock him away in the dungeons, deep beneath the vault in the cold belly of Asgard. When he said that he would never see his mother again.
Loki brushes a tear away with the back of the Allfather's wrinkled hand. He cannot afford to think of her. Not now. Not ever.
And he does not. Not at first. He rebuilds the palace, its halls brighter and bigger than before, and he commands the dwarves to build a statue of himself and to use the finest gold that catches the light of the sun during the day and shines bright through the dark of each night to remind the people of Asgard that even the most somber of souls can begin to sparkle, and he cackles when the Asgardians fall for a speech such as this.
But in the small hours of the night, when Loki's mind is unguarded and vulnerable in sleep, the thoughts and the pain creep into his dreams and he sees her die in gruesome ways. He sees her eyes, gaping open, face frozen with the horrors of death. He hears her panicked gasps for life, her screams, her sobs. He feels her glamour burning out and then the signature of her magic is gone and with it, all the warmth in the Nine Realms and Loki is alone and he shivers.
You will never see her again.
I had her trust. What help were you in your cell?
Then am I not your mother?
You are not.
You are not.
You are not.
Loki startles awake. His breath comes in sharp gasps. A bead of sweat rolls down his cheek. A half-cry escapes his mouth and he bites into his fist to stifle the many more cries that want to come out. He bites until he draws blood but the pain does not go away. And Loki knows that he must see.
He flicks his fingers and Odin's guise sparkles into life on his skin in bright greens. He leaves his chambers and walks through the palace until he has reached the vault. He swallows when he enters and he remembers how, two years ago, his fingers have curled around the Casket of Ancient Winters. When he remembers the cold inside his veins and inside his heart and in his father's words.
Your birthright was to die, cast out onto a frozen rock.
Loki pushes the thought away and strides toward the cube that sees into past and future and contains unspeakable knowledge. It glows treacherously and Loki feels the ancient force of infinite magic pulsate beneath the gleaming blue. So dangerous, thinks Loki and reaches for it. The Tesseract stirs awake in his hand and the magic locked within feels like a heartbeat against Loki's palm.
Show me, he commands the cube. Show me what my brother had no heart to tell me.
After a few hisses of protest, the Tesseract obeys, and Loki sees Frigga standing in the royal chambers, facing Malekith, her face one of grim determination.
"Stand down, creature," she says, a gleaming blade in her hand, "and you may still survive this."
"Mother," Loki whispers when he hears her voice and the word he has not spoken in over two years claws through his heart. There she stands, the Queen of Asgard, beautiful and strong and firm, facing the enemy to protect those she loves.
"I have survived worse, woman," Malekith spits.
"Who are you?" Frigga demands and Loki wonders why she asked him this even though she knew.
"I am Malekith and I would have what is mine."
The Aether. The Infinity Stone that has sought refuge inside the fragile mortal body of Jane Foster, who hurries away to hide behind a pillar of stone as Frigga fights the Dark Elf. She gasps and he gasps and swords clatter and she holds a knife to his throat but then the Kurse, whom Loki himself has told where to find them, appears and grabs Frigga by the throat, yanking her off her feet.
She moans and Loki's chest tightens.
"Witch!" Malekith bellows when he realizes that Frigga has deceived him and that Jane was just an illusion. Frigga smiles proudly, even in the face of death.
"Where is the Aether?" demands Malekith.
"I will never tell you," says Frigga and Malekith says that he believes her and the Kurse drives his dagger into her side and she crumbles to the floor with a moan of pain and Thor's grief-stricken cry booms through the air and echoes off the walls and something inside of Loki shatters.
He sinks to his knees, tears blinding his vision.
Frigga is dead.
She is dead.
The only person who never truly turned away from him despite his crimes against Asgard and the human world, the only person who loved him, is dead because she gave her life for the woman her dearest son loves. The woman who stood by his brother's side when they buried her when Loki could not.
Loki slams his hand on the cold, hard stone beneath his legs, again and again and again until his bones break and he cries out in pain both physical and emotional.
Yes, he is alone, and alone he will remain now that his mother dwells in Valhalla, where he will never be granted passage.
You will never see her again.
Loki will never tell her that he was wrong and that she was his mother and always would be and that he loved her and that certainty is his punishment and it is so much worse than the four thousand years he would have spent in the solitude of the dungeons.