Interlude: Loki
He watched her walk away, eyes hungrily following every one of his daughter's steps until she was out of sight. She disappeared into the shadows and the gathering dark of the shoreline, the sky overhead quickly becoming bright with stars.
It wasn't until she had vanished completely that he forced the breath he had been holding out through his rapidly closing throat. The burning in his eyes was back and he slowly lowered his head into his hands as he fought to regain control of his breathing.
She was beautiful.
They were beautiful.
When he first laid eyes on Viserys, it felt as if the breath had been punched out of him and he had been struggling for air ever since.
If Daenerys was Rhaella come again, then his son was the spitting image of himself. Despite the striking hair, he saw himself in the high cheekbones, the aquiline nose, the sharp jaw and thin lips. And then there were his eyes; as large and bright a green as his sister's, they seemed to glow in his face, shining with a light that might have betrayed his own seidr.
Or perhaps that was just his hate for Loki.
The vehemence of the emotion didn't surprise him, he was just as aware of his own ability to loathe others. It had been one of the few things he had felt over the last few years, and never more so than over the last few months.
It was the first thing that he had felt upon waking in that desert with the sun beating down on him and realizing that he hadn't died as he had intended.
But at that point, he barely had the strength to get to his feet much less attempt something so drastic again. So the desire was relegated to the back of his mind and he had focused on simply putting one foot in front of the other.
He had made his way to the human city, a dirty filthy hovel where he added disgust to his own self-loathing and found accommodations for the night. The inn keeper had been more than willing to lodge him when he saw Loki, claiming that a god had come to stay among them.
Loki had smiled bitterly and accepted his new chambers with acumen.
He hadn't left for two days, choosing to nourish and wash himself with the seidr that was slowly returning to him and had simply laid on the uncomfortable bed, working through everything that had happened and everything that he still had to do.
He did not think of Asgard.
He did not think of the All-Father.
He forcefully pulled his thoughts away from Thor.
If he thought about those things for even a moment, Loki was unsure if he would ever find the strength to rise from his bed again.
And then on the third day, a new thought had occurred to him.
He was free.
He had long since cloaked himself from Heimdall's gaze so the gatekeeper would never see him unless his seidr failed. The void had provided an adequate shield on the one occasion that it had.
He could do whatever he wanted. His life would be his own again and he could step out fully from the shadow in which he had lived for the last millennium. He didn't have to answer to anyone anymore, he didn't have to have all his decisions under constant scrutiny. He didn't have to fight for approval from a man who would never give it to him.
He was free.
Yes, free and empty and irrevocably alone.
For as many things as he had gained with his "death," he had given up nearly as much at the same time.
Not wanting to think too much about the darkness of his own thoughts, he had forced himself to rise from the bed and wander out into the streets, cloaking himself from the eyes of the mortals as he wandered aimlessly.
The city was one that he was unfamiliar with and for a moment, he wondered what part of Midgard that he had fallen into. He had been quite certain that for as uncivilized as humans were, there were none on earth that were this barbaric. The smells had nearly caused his stomach to revolt and he had to cast a spell to cleanse the air around him constantly so he was not in danger of purging himself at nearly all times.
He wandered into what was clearly the marketplace and saw the sights of whole animals cooking on spits over open flames, vendors displaying silk and lace in enormous quantities, wagons of fruits and vegetables and finally an auction block where naked humans with iron collars around their necks were paraded before a crowd of robed people who were calling out prices for the flesh wares.
He shook his head as he wandered past. Humans truly were strange creatures.
And that was when he had seen her.
Her hair had caused her to stick out like blood on white cloth, a drop of snow in a sea of sand. She was impossible not to notice and he had stared at her for a long moment before memory had seized him and he had nearly frozen with shock.
Rhaella?
He remembered suddenly the beautiful mortal queen from a few years earlier that he had visited more than once. She had been a welcome escape from the activities of Asgard, the unending scrutiny, the constant comparisons between him and Thor and the indifference of the king and queen.
He had come to a court event, curious about the humans who had lived in this strange realm and cloaked himself from their eyes so he could observe their behaviour.
Somehow she had seen through it.
She was awed by him, but not afraid and it was intriguing. For a mortal she was stunning, her hair and eyes beckoning to him from across the room.
He just couldn't help himself.
Their affair was brief but passionate and even after returning to Asgard, Loki found that he could not regret it. Rhaella had been fascinated by his magic, wanting him to show her all manner of his abilities, no matter how strange. She listened to him with rapt attention, asking intelligent questions and never satisfied with just one answer.
She had been a breath of fresh air.
He truly had meant to come back and see her; he hadn't intended to forget. She had pleased him immensely and it would be impossible to forget such a creature.
But once clarity had returned, he had had to remember that she was human. Her life would be decades and did he care for her enough to follow through completely on that affection?
The answer was that he didn't know.
And then a decade had passed, all talk on Asgard turned to Thor's coronation and he had gotten swept up in the activities and the worry that his not brother would lead the realm to ruin; he had been forced to take drastic measures.
And in the end it hadn't mattered. He had failed and still lost it all anyway.
The knowledge that Rhaella was now dead, killed by an insignificant human disease was simply one more bitter circumstance to add to his already sorrowful reality.
But she had left him a gift.
Two in fact.
Upon hearing the suffering that his children had gone through the last four years, an unholy rage had filled the god of mischief, far stronger and hotter than the one had felt upon learning the Truth.
And it was as if his pain had simply disappeared.
The twins were all that mattered.
It was shocking but it was also a relief. He had found something to care about that had nothing to do with his pain and history.
He sank back onto the sofa as the reality of his new situation overwhelmed him.
I am a father, the god thought to himself in a daze. I am a father. I have a daughter, I have a son.
His thoughts were wildly inarticulate and inelegant but he couldn't bring himself to care. Instead he allowed them to continue to follow a cyclical nature as he thought about his twins.
Norns, they're beautiful.
The longing he felt when his son walked away from him in anger was so acute he felt it almost as a wound.
He remembered his daughter's words and winced slightly as he paired them alongside her brother's expression.
I missed you like a wound that has never fully healed.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his soul. Norns, I have not even been a father for a day and I am already an abject failure.
For one wild moment he wanted to get to his feet and leave, forget that he had ever seen the twins and depart this realm for good. He could settle in a wild corner of one of the Nine and eke out a living for himself. He would turn into a hermit, content to be alone for the rest of his days and hide from all others.
Norns….
Is this what his existence had been reduced to? He was a prince for Norns' sake! Whatever lies he had been told by his not father, that at least was true; a prince of monsters perhaps but still a prince. It was knowledge that he could hold on to.
And as a prince, an existence spent alone, hiding in some remote corner of the universe with naught but his books for company sounded nearly sickening.
The faces of his children floated through his mind and the idea of leaving them caused bile to rise in his throat. He would be worse than his monster father were he to do such a thing and if there was one thing that truly galled Loki, it was the knowledge that anything he did could be compared to the late and thoroughly unlamented King Laufey.
It was that thought that drove him to his feet. He didn't know how he was going to proceed, but the one thing that he was certain of was that he was as capable of leaving his own children as he was of being a son of Odin.
Loki looked toward the terrace and the dark of the shore beyond where the waves were crashing on the sand. If he looked carefully enough, he could see two silhouettes lingering in the shadows.
Without needing any more time to think, Loki turned and followed his daughter.
WWW
I thought it would be kind of fun to have Loki's perspective on the situation every once in a while. The twins will always view him a certain way so it will be nice to get inside his head sometimes. Don't forget to review!