RATING: T
GENRE: Altnerate Universe, Angst, Romance
SUMMARY: Loki has returned home from many years spent studying magic under the Light Elves, and he finds much has changed during his absence—none of it to his liking.
SEEING RED
We were raised together. We played together. We fought together. Do you remember none of that?
How had he lost the thread of this story?
Her laughter fluttered across the banquet table like a vibrant butterfly—a thing of beauty meant not for him, but his brother. She looked down shyly, her cheeks were the color of apple blossoms as her slender fingers brushed against his brother's arm, and Loki cursed the wide smile Thor gave her in return. When had this happened? This burgeoning affection between them? Hadn't Thor always viewed Jane as an annoying little sister?
Had Loki been truly gone so long? Long enough for Jane to have grown from gangly girl to woman. Long enough for Thor to notice the transformation.
Loki stood up, ignoring his mother's surprised exclamation as he exited the hall with a swift, determined step. Betrayal entwined around his heart like a noxious vine, suffocating him. Blood pounded hot in his veins and he didn't know how to quell this inexplicable rage. He had no claim on her, no flimsy promises born of puerile romance. She'd been a friend—a dear one. She was the orphan taken from Midgard because of her gift—a ward of the royal family and apprentice to Heimdall. She had never belonged to Loki. And yet…
And yet as he laid eyes on her for the first time in years, his every sinew, every bone said otherwise.
He recalled the twin braids framing her young face when the guards escorted her to the throne room. He recalled the tracks her tears made on her grimy cheeks as she glared defiantly up at the Allfather and demanded to be returned to her home. He recalled years of chasing her delighted squeals in the gardens, the untold number of secrets they shared beneath Idun's tree, and the way she clung to him before he left for Alfheim. She was woven into the fabric of the man he had become as inextricably as his brother, his mother, his father.
But apparently his mark on her life had not been quite so indelible.
"Loki!"
He had been so close to escaping her, mere footsteps from his chambers where he could lock out the way she smiled at his brother. He wanted to ignore her, but the supplication in her voice was a fisherman's hook, tearing at his heart. When had she become his weakness?
Hands clenched into fists, he turned to her, adorning a pleasant demeanor like a master artisan's mask. He forced an air of disinterest as his gaze traveled from her flushed cheeks to her diminutive hands picking at the fabric of her gown—a habit she evidently had not grown out of.
"Yes?" he asked, raising a brow.
She bit her lip and shook her head. "You rushed out in the middle of the celebration."
"I'm afraid I'm still tired from the journey home." The lie fell from his lips without thought, and he was unsettled by the ease of it. He had never deceived her before. There had never been a need.
She nodded with a sympathetic smile. "Makes sense, I suppose. But you left before we had a chance to talk."
Talk? With her? Not when his only desire was to impale Thor with one of his daggers and lash out at her with angry invectives. He looked over her head in the unconscious hope that someone or something would interrupt this uncomfortable encounter. "We can speak another time, perhaps." Perhaps never.
"Right. Of course. You're tired." She sighed, stepping closer. "It's just I've missed you so much, and I wanted to hear all about…" She trailed off with a weak laugh. "You've gotten so tall."
"Yes," he agreed, the word leaving the cool tang of bitterness on his tongue. "It would seem much has changed during my absence."
Her eyes narrowed briefly, as though she saw the prickly burr beneath his words and chose to ignore it. "You were gone a long time."
"I was."
Silence fell like winter snow between them, beautiful and cold, as he held her gaze. He dared her to speak what lay unspoken between them. To admit that she had chosen the brother who had never known her, never loved her as he had.
Her chin dropped, and his challenge remained unmet. "I should let you rest," she said, her voice above a whisper.
"Then I bid you good evening, Jane." He gave her stiff bow, an icy smile frozen on his lips as she made her retreat.
I'm not your brother. I never was.
Hours became days became weeks as the blackened pinprick of hatred festered in his chest, though he kept it hidden well under the veneer of pleasant formalities. He was never unkind—not overtly. But if Thor's sword inexplicably broke in the practice yards, allowing Sif's weapon to hit its mark too hard? Well, Loki did not mourn. Neither did he feel any pity for the trouble which seemed to befall the golden prince of Asgard at every turn. The fool never suspected that the same beloved brother who consoled him in his woes was the very one creating them.
And Jane. Oh, dear, sweet Jane received a very special brand of Loki's vengeance. And nothing so pithy as the mischief he met against Thor.
Her, he erased entirely from his life—more deftly than she had him. He returned each of her hopeful greetings with indifference, as if she were some simple serving girl whose name he never bothered to remember. At the banquet tables, when she would entreat him to join the others in nostalgic recounting of childhood exploits, he recalled only those capers which she had no part in. He was terribly attentive to the buxom brunette who poured his wine—or any beautiful woman within Jane's purview who was desperate for the prestige of sharing the black prince's bed.
He wore her disappointments, her pain like favors bestowed from a fair maiden—though her suffering would never equal his.
"Stop this foolishness, Loki."
Frigga came to his rooms one evening, dismissing his latest conquest with an imperial glare. She closed the door behind the harried girl, and turned to her son, veiled anger shining in her eyes. Eyes he once believed he had inherited from her. He knew better now.
"Foolishness?" came his stolid reply as he leaned against the wall, arms folded over his bare chest.
"Do not pretend to be ignorant," she returned in cool tones. "You play a dangerous game, son."
He raised a brow, measuring his reply to match the frost in her warning. "No more dangerous than stealing a Jötunn babe and raising him to believe he is a true Aesir—a prince, even."
Shock flared across her features before she donned her regal façade. "You are a prince."
His smile was dour as he agreed. "Oh, yes. But not a prince of Asgard." He straightened, disdain coiling through his body. "Did you believe I could spend so many years deep in my studies of sorcery and not discover my true nature? When I did, everything made sense. Why Thor was always so favored. Why Odin kept me at arm's length all these years."
He took a step toward her, using his greater height to drive the point home. "And then I remembered how often Odin told us that Thor and I were both born to be kings. It occurred to me that I was not the offspring of some common Frost Giant clan. Perhaps my birth was royal, after all."
"Loki—"
"Tell me, Mother," he spoke over her. "How long did you intend to keep up the ruse? Another decade? Millennia? What was the plan? To rear the Jötunn child in the Aesir ways, and then send him back to that bleak realm to overthrow his own father? To become a puppet king, bending to the great Allfather's whims?" He advanced on her, forcing her to step back from him. "Or has the ax been ever at my neck? The threat to keep Laufey and his barbaric minions tamed?"
"You were abandoned," Frigga whispered. Tears glittered on her lashes. "Left for dead when the battle was over. And your father took pity on you—"
"Lies!" hissed Loki, brushing her assertions away with a violent wave of his hand. "I know the man who calls himself my father, and he never does anything without a purpose." Emotion cracked at the edges his voice, but he swallowed it back. He had imagined this confrontation a thousand times, and he would not let her see how thoroughly their deception had fractured him.
"Believe what you will," she said, "but from the first moment I held you in my arms, you have been my son."
Her frank confession stole the air from the room, and it was a hundredfold worse than the horror of watching his arm change from the pale flesh of an Asgardian to an unnatural azure. Stratagems, he understood—for that was the way of the crown. He might even be able to forgive being made part of Odin's machinations one day.
But she claimed to love the monster he was raised to hate, and an appropriate response failed him.
"So you say." The words were thick in his mouth as he opened the door. "I will take your most graciously offered counsel under advisement."
Anguish contorted her lovely features, and she pressed her fingers against his cheek. "Hate your father and I if you must, but Thor and Jane are innocents in this." She searched his face with pleading eyes. "I know you love her. I've always known. Don't let your resentment destroy any hope you have with her."
"We're finished," he said in a throaty growl. "Leave."
She offered him a solemn nod before gliding out of his chambers.
Enough. No more illusions.
Jane found him in the gardens they used to play in as children. He sat across a stone bench, an ancient tome propped against his knees as he perused the angular runes on its sepia pages. The snap of a twig marked her approach, and he remained where he was; the feint of his indifference had begun to wear thin.
"Jane." He acknowledged her presence in a toneless voice without looking up.
She settled on the far end of the bench, crossing her petite legs beneath her skirts like she had as a girl. "Do you remember when we made butterflies out of parchment, and you made them all fly?"
The memory involuntarily drifted to the surface and refused to be discarded. He recalled with painful clarity the way her copper eyes had widened with unabashed awe. The whisper of fluttering paper wings echoed in his ears with the bells of her youthful laughter. She had never belittled his gift—never teased him as Thor and his insipid friends had, never made him feel weak because he was not as physically imposing as his brother—and he had once loved her for it.
"What of it?" he said, turning a page in his book though he had stopped reading from the moment of her arrival.
"Sometimes…" she began, but fell silent for several heartbeats. "Sometimes, I wish we could go back to those simpler days."
He looked up at her and saw regret and wistfulness in her beautiful face. He hated the ache constricting his heart in response. Her cruelty would be everlasting, wouldn't it?
"Why?" he asked.
"Because," she said, bringing her doleful gaze to meet his, "you were my friend then."
The rage he kept perpetually suppressed sparked to life like dry tinder. "And what need have you of my friendship, Jane, when you have my brother's?"
Hurt parted her lips, drew her brows together. "You're being unfair."
"Am I?" He stared at her with cold, flat eyes.
"Yes!" She twisted her body to face him fully, and he saw the ghost of the defiant little girl standing before a powerful king, demanding her freedom. "You were my only friend and you abandoned me!"
"Not by choice!" he yelled, unable to stay the violent tide of anger, bitterness, and hostility. The book dropped unseen to the ground as he rose from the bench. "How long before you turned to my brother for comfort? How long have you been warming his bed?" Each question was a poisoned dagger meant to slice her, to eviscerate her heart as she had his.
She stood, cheeks flushed with answering fury. "How dare you! For months I had no one to talk to, and he finally had compassion on—"
"Enough!"
He couldn't bear to hear another word. Not of his ever heroic, shining brother—the only true son of Odin—coming to the rescue of poor little lonely Jane. She wanted sympathy for her plight? What of the young man who, far from the only home he'd ever known, discovered his entire existence had been crafted from duplicity? Where was his savior then? And when he was finally allowed to return to the only person he trusted, he discovered how little he meant to her. He had nothing.
No, he would not offer her any pity.
He retreated behind his mental barricades, giving her a malicious smile. "Don't be greedy, Jane. You cannot have both Thor and myself. One prince is catch enough for any woman, and far more than an orphan from Midgard could ever hope for."
Her hands curled into fists, and he welcomed whatever feeble blow she might attempt to mete against him. None came. No flying hand, no kick, no screaming insults.
Instead, she shook her head. "You fool. You mad fool." She pinned him with glassy eyes. "I would have chosen you over Thor a thousand times. I lived for every letter you sent and read each one until the ink faded beneath my fingertips. I wanted so desperately to run to you at the reception and fling my arms around you because my world had become right again."
He opened his mouth, but his tongue refused to shape words. Anything to stop this cutting indictment against him.
"You left the banquet without saying a single word to me," she continued, tears falling in thick rivulets down her face. "I wanted to believe you when you said you were tired, when you promised to speak with me another time. But that time never came. Instead, you flaunted your trysts for all to see, and you treated me like some stranger you had no desire to know."
She took a step back, shaking her head again. "Thor has only ever been a friend. And now, you aren't even that to me."
She left him in the gardens alone with the dying embers of his misplaced ire.
Always so perceptive about everyone but yourself.
He stopped taking his meals in the banquet hall, unable to face the raw accusation in Jane's eyes. He shrugged off the salacious advances from scheming courtiers, the hungry looks from serving girls, until he was as invisible to them as they were to him. He no longer tormented Thor with spiteful pranks, but instead wandered the gilded palace, directionless without the canker of his hatred.
Odin had stolen his life. But he had crushed the shattered vestiges with the heel of his own boot.
Like Jane, he wished he could reverse time, to return to that moment when he mistook the smile Thor gave her as something more than kindness. To remove the tint of the Allfather's betrayal from his eyes as he looked on his dearest friend.
But there was no going back and untangling the barbed knot he had made of things.
He thought of leaving, of returning to Alfheim or exploring the nine realms, but fear kept him in Asgard. Fear that she would find another to love, forever barring him from earning back her affections—despite disconsolate knowledge that he had no hope of redemption.
He was hers, even if she would never be his.
Frigga crossed the threshold into his rooms once more with a mouth slashed in steely determination, glaring at his listless form in a cushioned armchair.
"Is this the son I raised?" she queried. "One who becomes a deserter at the first hint of a formidable foe?"
"I'm not your son," he muttered, unable to put the required venom into his words just as he was unable to rise to meet her trenchant questions head on.
"You are my son," she said, her tone as unbending as a broadsword. "And my son has never fled from a challenge—no matter how great."
He made a derisive noise and looked up, lips curled in a caustic grin. "And how am I to conquer this impossible task?"
She stared him down, undaunted by his acrimony. "By being relentless."
Her words rang through his mind like a deafening gong. He could not escape them, not in the vast palace library, not while riding along the seashore, not in the bawdy tavern where he drank himself unconscious. Relentless. Relentless. Relentless. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to scream. He thought he was going mad.
He found himself in the banquet hall once more, only half aware of the companionable slap his brother gave him as he took his seat. Frigga gave him a nod with the barest hint of approval, and he was bothered by how much it moved him. He didn't recall the conversations throughout the meal, nor did he notice the well-endowed servant who poured his wine.
There was only Jane and the furtive, scarred glances she cast in his direction. Perhaps he viewed her from the colored vantage of his desperation, but her wide eyes seemed to beg him to set right again what he had upended.
It was the impetus he needed.
The next morning she stepped tentatively into the gardens, clutching a slip of crinkled parchment in her hand. He watched her from the shadow of Idun's tree, seeing both the beauty she had become and the little girl with straw braids who snuck tarts from the kitchen with him.
"Loki?" There was a tremor in her voice as though she feared some malevolent trickery from him. "You asked me to come and I am here."
He didn't answer her, but flicked his wrists, sending an imperceptible tendril of magic throughout the garden. Thousands upon thousands of paper butterflies shot up around her, looping through the air in gentle spirals. Choked laughter escaped from her just before her hands flew to her mouth. She spun in a languid circle and captured one with agile fingers.
He took measured, ambling steps toward her, the butterflies moving out of his path like parting drapes. She watched his approach with an expression full of awe and hope so acute, it took his breath away. He stopped just within arm's reach of her, his heart galloping in his chest as he smoothed a thumb across her cheek, brushing away the tear which had fallen there.
"Don't weep, Jane," he murmured.
She let out another half-sob, half-laugh as if his request was ridiculous, and he smiled.
"What I've done has been unforgiveable," he said, "but I promise, from now to the end of time, that every day with me will be as simple as those of our childhood—if you'll but love me again."
His words were met with raspy flutter of wings and trepidation began to churn in his stomach. His instinct was to back away, to hide in his chamber and lick his wounds, but Frigga's admonition rooted him to the ground.
Relentless.
He cradled Jane's face with his long fingers and pressed his forehead to hers. "Please," he whispered, allowing despair to seep into his tone. "I know I'm undeserving, but please choose me, Jane."
She sucked in a shuddering breath and exhaled a single word. "Yes."
Elation swelled in his chest as he pulled her into his arms—where the curve of her fit against the angles of him, where she belonged. He pressed his lips against hers, tasting her as he had wanted to months before. The butterflies swarmed around them, veiling them as Jane returned his hungry kiss with fervor.
I only wanted to protect you from the truth.
Frigga stood beside her husband as they witnessed the scene below.
"Just as I foretold when he was a babe," she murmured when Loki enveloped Jane in a crushing embrace. "We would make an enemy of our son, and the girl would make him our ally once more."
Odin nodded. "You are as wise as ever, my wife."
He offered her an arm, and they walked back inside together.
~FIN~
A/N: Thank you so much for reading! I would love to hear your thoughts if you're willing to share them with me!