17. Interlude, part 1
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The desert was a vast, dark emptiness and he found himself drawn to gaze into it in search of comfort. The way the land rolled away was like the churning waves of the Asgardian sea as it poured over the edge of the world. Great needles of rock rose from the scrub like islands; a ridge on the horizon might be the mainland shrouded in mist. A wraith of the familiar seemed to hang suspended over this place of exile. In the moment that he was struck by the cruel contrast of these fancies with reality, it leached all beauty from the landscape. He had tried to shake off those well-remembered vistas, to see only what was there, but he could not cease to want and the imagined oceans lingered.
There was no real water for many days ride in any direction. He felt displaced by its absence- the silence where there should be lapping and trickling and the roar of distant falls- in a way he would never have anticipated. Water noise was something he'd taken for granted from his cradle, as axiomatic as his heartbeat. Now it was gone. Here, far from any mortal settlements, all he could hear was the wind singing over the dunes and hollows; an eerie, desolate sound unlike anything he had ever heard before.
'Water is the blood of Asgard,' his father lectured, looking past both of his sons to one of the ubiquitous reflecting pools which rose from the palace floor.
The labyrinthine network of canals and artificial springs that ran beneath and behind all surfaces of his home had been a source of some anxiety to him then, a small child who had recently learned that there were many places where it was possible to fall in. He'd had a nightmare of tumbling through the current, drowning in darkness, no one knowing what became of him.
'It gives us life, power, and magic. It conveys us on our journeys, into this world in the birthing chamber and out of it to our ancestors in the funeral barge,' Odin went on. 'The sea is not to be trifled with.'
Thor pouted in thought, as if calculating how to challenge this thing which he'd been told was unchallengeable. At times the brothers were more alike than different.
The memory drifted away as quickly as it came.
Loki turned to stare up at the clear, cold stars and wondered what to tell Jane he was looking for there. He knew her curiosity was too tenacious, her spirit too incautious for her to ever stop pursuing an answer with the taste of palpable truth until he gave one to her.
The humour of it was that he didn't have one, not even for himself, not even a lie.
A bitterly cold wind whipped the long ends of his hair across his face. He considered sawing it off. It would not, after all, be the first time, and no one on Midgard would upbraid him for flouting Asgardian royal fashion. Would that he could so easily alter its awful blackness, but he could not; a part of his own person, it repelled harmful magic he cast at it. No sorcerer unmakes himself. A concealing glamour was the best he could do, and that was precarious when he couldn't guess how long he may need to maintain it or what rogue energies he may encounter. His idle thoughts of coming to call on Thor's little mortal looking like almost the twin of his brother- golden-haired and oafish, armed with that gormless expression which had always seemed to get Thor whatever he wanted- seemed terribly ill considered in retrospect.
He was pathetically glad he had not done it, for more reasons than he wished to examine. That Jane saw his real face when she looked at him, as he was beginning to fear she sometimes saw his real thoughts in his eyes.
She was not a woman whose favour was to be won by comely looks, he now knew. She was not so frivolous and foolish as she had appeared when he gazed upon her from the throne of Asgard. She had not tossed her heart on his brother's mercy and followed at his heels in devotion like so many before her. Instead, she had been curious. She was interminably curious.
He had come to her in the first place because there was nothing left to him to live for and he had, unfortunately, lived on. It was a source of some bitter amusement for him that he had told her that, the truth, and she had mulled it over variously before eventually deciding she would not believe him. An irony. It did perhaps lack the ring of complete honesty because it was hardly the only answer he could give, even if it was the only answer he could give to her.
To himself he could admit that he cared enough for the world, even at the moment when he let go of his brother in more ways than one, even as he was gratefully reaching out to embrace his death, that some small part of him still wished to unravel the infuriating, baffling, excruciating enigma which was Thor's sudden decision to grow up just as Loki finally despaired of him ever doing so. Thor who never looked beyond his own nose, Thor who could be so brutish: pleading for the insignificant lives of a handful of mortals and laying his pride at the feet of Jane Foster. What was she that she was worth so much to someone who valued so little?
(And how dare she, how dare she change his brother, just a mortal, so fragile and temporary, so quickly overturning a life centuries longer than she could ever hope to exist)
Perhaps these thoughts as he fell had drawn him to this realm.
He was also not certain whether he would use Jane's bridge- when it was finished- to make contact with Asgard. Or to call Thor back to Midgard, or to return himself, or simply to send her there and unleash that searching brain on the unprepared stagnation of the Aesir. Loki had imagined her there, amidst the splendour of the court and the vastness of knowledge that the Elder Races had gathered. She would turn and turn and never be satisfied, drunk with wonders. She would disorder all Asgard, thrust her delightfully voracious mind into every aspect of its life until she had disassembled the whole world, and he would laugh until he ached watching it. He might even help her put it back together. He would teach her the workings of the enormous floating towers and tiny magical trifles alike.
He remembered the sheen of the high arches reflecting the dancing light of flames from the great braziers, warmth rising through the floor from the core of the palace, the subtle smells of sunshine and flower gardens which hung in her robes, and his mother's hand smoothing the curls out of his hair.
"Don't be frightened, darling. Magic is will and knowledge, you have so much that I fear you need more teaching than a Queen has time enough to give you. It is a very powerful gift, even your father wasn't so advanced at your age. Here is not the best place for you to learn. And you'll be home soon." Her eyes, so kind, so beautiful, brimmed with tears. They did not fall, and her voice did not tremble. "You shall be home very soon."
Loki stared around the antechamber, at its familiar smooth walls with their comforting golden glow, and swallowed around the rising lump in his throat.
"Mother..." This was his final leave-taking. Thor and Sif he bid goodbye that morning before their lessons, and his father had offered parting words at supper the night before. After this he would be gone. A servant stood by outside the door with his pony and an escort of royal guards to accompany him to the Bifrost and through it to his elven tutors. "Mother, must I go?"
Frigga smiled and the tears spilled, but she was nodding. She always silently nodded 'yes' when he most wished she would speak and say 'no'.
It seemed to Loki that the best place for him was never where he found himself. (Dissatisfaction and hunger were his lot. He was lean and self-consuming.)
If he truly wanted to return, he could slip through the untrodden paths and do so noticed or unnoticed as it suited him. It would not be easy, he had not been to Midgard before and did not know his way back without the bridge. It could, however, be done and done alone.
He was so tired of being alone.
'No, Loki.'
He would never show Jane the shining magnificence of the palace or the colour of the gardens or the rudiments of magic. (Never see Asgard reflected in eyes that looked like his did.) Loki of Asgard was dead and could not go home. He was only the last echo of a song which had ended. He'd been a shadow even when he was alive.
'You were an innocent child...'
How could he be a child, an innocent child, if he were a monster? Oh, Father, Father, why did you make me this lost thing that I am. I should have died an infant on my own wretched world, I should never have been permitted to become this half and neither, powerful and mad mistake.
I belong to no one and no where, homesick for a home that was never mine to love. Oh Father, forgive me. Oh Father, I cannot forgive you.
Thor, his elder brother. Mighty Thor, Slayer of Giants.
Thor, not his brother, not his kinsman, or his blood, or his race. Thor, Slayer of Giants.
Honourable ancestors preserve me, by Bor's bloody beard- but they're not my ancestors to swear by are they. They're not my ancestors to call on or to honour. Would you have killed me with your own hands, brother, when you knew what I was? Of course you would. I have no ancestors to protect me, no family to demand blood price; I am no man. It would be no murder. Do giants even go to Hel? Do giants have souls?
Of course they don't. You cut a swathe through the monsters and would have brought glory to Asgard like your father before you.
But they must, they must- they are the eldest race, and if I am... and I...
No no no no no no no no no no!
Jane. What would he say to Jane when she inevitably managed to build a working prototype? When she wanted to open a Bifrost and by so doing show Heimdall and Thor and Father that little Loki, nuisance and failure, with all his shames and sins, had not been destroyed. He was hidden now, he could remain hidden for the rest of his long life. He could find enemies of Asgard and throw his fate on their mercy, he could amass strength and make vassal worlds to offer to his father in proof of his capacity as a prince and a son of Odin, he could throw storms from his fingertips and astonish a young race into his service- live in mindless comfort in some primitive Realm. Be worshipped and convince himself that he was therefore worth something.
He did not want the lives which were still open for him to live, but that life he did want was closed to him forever.
They will never forgive you.
Did they ever? Could anyone forgive such a birth? (Of course not, of course not, obviously they didn't. It all makes sense now.)
He still wanted to die (he would never be brave enough to do it). I don't want to know what I am, what I've done, what I haven't done, what I'm not and never will be.
But Jane Foster, mortal pragmatist, who was honest as swords, stubborn as stone, beloved of Thor, had kissed him.
"Because I wanted to."
Loki had never heard a more inexplicable sentence in his life. He'd stared at her, utterly speechless.
"I was hoping you'd say that," she said to his silence, an enormous smile overtaking her full mouth. She glittered with energy and the fine lines of her delicate features occurred to his senses with such a sudden increase of vivid precision, it was like he had never appreciated them fully before this instant. So petite and elfin was she, her brown-gold eyes like mead in firelight and ringed with soft, full lashes, the curve of her chin begging to be touched, and her lips...
She kissed him again and his pulse thundered in his ears, his skin hot where she touched him and radiating strange warmth outward from the point of contact. He tasted her lip with the tip of his tongue and felt a shock like that of magic leaping from his finger.
Jane pulled reluctantly away, her smile returning at double strength. "I gotta go or I am going to stay up all night trying to get that wormhole open right this minute and doing my best to bully more information out of you. I don't feel tired, but I know I was exhausted half an hour ago." She was lying, lying, lying. Was the kiss the lie or were the words? She wanted things from him. Even her bluntness must be hiding something.
"Jane," he found himself stalling, his constantly whirling thoughts and treacherously over active imagination uncharacteristically still and blank. He had not the first inkling how to proceed, how he wanted to proceed. She was standing up and he could think of nothing to say.
"Crash on the couch if you want. Good night, Luke." Her fingers brushed his cheek and she leaned down to kiss him for a third time on the mouth.
He shivered and clutched briefly at her outer shirt, the loose fabric at her side fisted in his left hand. It slid through his fingers as she turned away. He did not want her to go. He watched her as she left.
She had to be lying. Some part of her was lying. He had learned that humans were much the same as any other creature, they were only less subtle. Their lives were short, there wasn't time for subtlety. Their lies were brash, spontaneous, never playing for the long game.
Jane was an especially terrible liar. She was too impatient, too cocksure and sanguine.
He watched her as she left and wanted her to stay and wanted to tear her apart and wanted to frighten her and wanted to speak with her and wanted her.
He had lied to her with the truth because it was simplest, because it would work, because it was all he felt capable to muster. The tiny flicker of his once-boundless curiosity and the remains of his pride were the only thing which compelled him to seek her out at all. There was nothing else. She was his last link in the universe to the life which had just ended. It was peerlessly important to wriggle into her affections (and yet he hardly cared, what did it matter, what did anything matter).
It had never been beyond him to use his own genuine emotions as tools of manipulation.
"Sometimes I'm envious, but never doubt I love you."
Thor's earnest face, his bright blue eyes and the softened edge of his smile. He was comforted.
Loki felt splintered, separated. His words were true and honest, his love for his brother above any question. Still, he would go on with his plan. He must do whatever was in his power to protect Realm and brother both, particularly from each other. No one else could look past their love long enough to see that Thor was damned to be a disastrous king. No one else could make Father see that his favoured first born son was not ready to follow in his father's footsteps. It was a service, not just to Thor or to Odin, but to the whole Nine Realms. Whatever it cost, it was worth more.
But Thor's smile pierced his heart. Thor's hand clasped his throat with unfeigned affection, and he ached.
I'm envious. I'm envious...
It was for the good of the Realm. Loki smiled back, forcing a quip and a laugh.
I'm envious.
And then I was afraid. So afraid of you, Brother Not-Brother, enough to show myself on Midgard and face you again. To tell you true lies: You could not return and ignite a civil war (discover the truth and slay the viper in the nest), provoke the giants further (expose that it was I who started all), Father might never wake up (I all but murdered him), Mother gave me the throne to bear (how could she how could she how could she). It was all your fault (it was my fault). Damn your (my) arrogance.
"I am so sorry," he'd said. And meant it, meant it, meant it. And yet the ugly satisfaction oozed into his heart to see Thor humbled, even as he was thinking, 'Look what you've wrought in your selfishness, you child,' and whether it was Thor or himself he was addressing made no difference.
No, never.
And Jane was so impetuous. She had tremendous trust in her gut, she had only infinitesimal control over her impulses. She responded very well indeed to the truth of his lies. Such a clever woman, thinking and rethinking and over-thinking every slightest aspect of the stars, she had no attention to spare for second guessing her instincts about anything that her heart could understand alone. The heart was not a duplicitous organ. Her heart believed his, because his heart did not lie; he provided her with sparing sips of his sincere pain. Her mind ignored its misgivings because he sated it with offerings of knowledge far beyond its furthest grasp, promises of coming wonders which would unmake the world it knew.
It had taken him time to perceive this beauty of hers. He exploited it long before he consciously observed it.
But her mind was so prodigious, her heart was so strong, and she was beautiful. A tiny mortal pet, that was what he had thought of her, but she was vast. Vast and fleeting. She'll burn out before she discovers aught of interest. Her flame will be extinguished, that kinship you think you've found at last will be gone again, and then what will your unlife be lived for?
I'll take her to Asgard, damn them all. What is left to lose? No throne, no love, no home. (It is gone already.)
I want to take her. (She will be gone soon enough and she is all that remains.)
Loki had never been good at denying himself what he wanted.