"I need to return to Myrkviðr."

"My son." Frigga lowered the book she was reading to her lap, silently willing her suddenly-racing heart to calm itself. She had not heard him coming, nor enter her sitting room - the boy was so startlingly quiet. He now stood before her with that same wide-eyed and desperate expression he had borne since his return the day previous. She cleared her throat and turned from him briefly, dabbing at her eyes with a slight sniff. "I did not hear you approaching."

"Mother." His voice shook from behind from her as she set the book down. "Mother, please. I cannot be here. I need to return to the woods, to assist." There was a slight pause as she turned back towards him. "Please." Oftentimes, with his serious nature, quick wit, and frighteningly sharp tongue, she forgot how young he still truly was. Pangs of familiar hurt struck her heart as she studied him for a moment: the dark circles beneath his swollen eyes, the rigidity of his stance, his split lip and various other minor injuries that remained from his tussle with the creature in the forest. She swallowed the lump that had suddenly appeared in her throat and stood, making her way towards him.

"Loki, my dear child. You must know that we intend to keep you here. It is simply too dangerous to allow your return to the woods. We should not have even let you go in the first place." She expected some sort of retort as his eyes scanned her face, looking even greener against the stark contrast of his black hair. What he said instead stole the breath from her lungs.

"Have you..." he whispered. "Have you been crying, mother?" She paused briefly.

Oh, this child. Always so perceptive...

"It is my fault," he said, eyes darting back and forth as he studied her face. "My...my fault entire. I am sorry. Oh gods..." He ducked his head and took a step away from her, burying his fingers into his hair. She could see he was trembling and inhaled sharply at the sight of tears pouring down his cheeks; she had not seen him cry since he was yet very young and now he had done so twice in her company within only the last day. "I did not...did not do it on purpose, mother please, you must believe me..."

"My son," she breathed, rushing towards him. A frown marred her features as she went to embrace him and he stiffened in her arms. "Do not speak thus. No one believes you meant your brother any harm." He relaxed minutely, wrapping his arms around her back.

"Father does," he whispered.

"Loki, no." She pulled back and took his face in her hands, wiping away his tears with her thumbs. "I assure you he does not. Your father -"

"He would not even speak to me." The queen startled slightly at the venom in his voice; she had never heard him speak that way, especially not about his father. "He would not even...would not even deign to say anything to me..."

"Your father is distraught," she said softly. If only he knew how the king had responded when Heimdall had sent word of Thor's disappearance; the first words from his mouth were an inquiry towards Loki's safety, terrified in that moment that Thor's brash tendencies had somehow endangered both their sons' lives. So much confusion, so much awful terror at the magnitude of the unknown events in those first hours. The recollection of it sent a sharp pain through her insides; to calm herself, she gently brushed the hair back from his scalp. The gesture had always served to calm him when he was a babe. His eyes closed at her touch, but tears still poured sadly from behind them. "Oh Loki, you must know how worried he is. When we received word from Heimdall about what had happened, he immediately ordered your return home. He was worried for you, my son. Just as he worries for Thor." She paused a moment, suddenly overcome. "Just as you and I do."

"So he is angry with me then?" Loki's voice had changed yet again, and he now sounded frightened.

"Of course he isn't angry. Loki. Look at me." Startling green eyes studied her intently and she did her best to give a reassuring smile. "He does not blame you, my child. He knows you did not do this on purpose. I will keep saying this until you believe my words true." Yet there was still so much they did not know! She longed to question him incessantly but knew it would only serve to terrorize him; the moment she'd laid eyes on him yesterday, his absolute fear of facing them had been palpable. His eyes shut and he turned his head away from her, as if he knew her thoughts.

"If we had just stayed with the guards..." He whimpered. Frigga's face fell.

"Loki -"

"Mother, I must go back to the woods." He stepped out of her grasp and turned away from her, arms crossing over his chest. "I cannot stay here and wait for the guards to return. If I...if I do not receive your blessing I will need to go without it."

"You will do no such thing." Her son stiffened and she instantly regretted the harshness of her tone. "Please, Loki. I would be...I would be unable to bear it if some ill misfortune found you as well. Knowing you are here, and that you are safe..." She reached out, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. "My son, will you not look at me?" His body shuddered beneath her touch.

"So I am to do nothing?" he whispered. "I am to sit idly by as the hours stretch into days, hoping that the guards who found naught in the woods in the first place will somehow stumble upon my brother and bring him home unharmed?" He whipped towards her, his eyes piercing and desperate, near to shining in their intensity. "I cannot bear it, mother. I cannot." His hand slammed against his chest and he spat the next words out with a frantic viciousness that strayed far from his usual reservedness. "This was my doing. I lured him out, I ensured the guards did not see us, and I alone failed to protect him. I should never have returned here, to the safety of these grounds, when Thor's fate is yet unknown in the twisted backwood of that wretched forest!"

"Loki!" she exclaimed. So distressed was he, he did not seem to notice the sparks of his magic currently twirling about his fingers, nor the trace of his seidr wafting through the air like a scented breeze. She had known of his innate magic since infancy, and recognized its power as it swirled gently around her, smelling of snow and pine needles. The boy had yet to learn to fully control his ability, and it appeared he had let his guard down in the midst of his outburst.

And if that alone had not been enough to startle her, the sight of his eyes - suddenly glowing some unnatural, lustrous green - snapped her motherly instincts to attention as she raised her hands, nearly placating. "Loki, please. Calm yourself. Breathe a moment." Whatever self-imposed daze he'd trapped himself in, the sound of her quiet voice seemed to snap him out of it and his face crumpled as he stared at his hands as if they had suddenly grown scales.

"What...what did I..." he stuttered. His horrified eyes found hers and his expression was wracked with such profound guilt that her own heart sank at the sight. "Oh gods, mother." She did not get a chance to say another word as the sound of a throat clearing cut between them.

"Forgive me, my queen," a voice spoke and only her eyes shifted towards a guardsman standing behind her son in the doorway. "The All-father has sent for Prince Loki to attend to his private chambers at once." Even from this distance she could see the wary gaze he directed at Loki, obviously uneasy. Distantly she wondered how much he had seen before announcing his presence.

Though it depended on when he had entered, she also wondered if he thought her son had been about to attack her.

"Thank you, sentry," she said, strengthening her voice. Loki remained frozen where he stood, seemingly deaf to the man's message. "He will be along shortly, if you would but give us a moment."

"Yes, my queen." He bowed promptly and left, but she paid him no further mind as she eyed her son. He stared blankly at the wall behind her, his breaths erratic and shaky.

"Swift and unyielding punishment," he suddenly said. She paused, having only taken a step towards him.

"I'm sorry?"

"That is what he said would be the result if I lied to him again," Loki mumbled. "Oh, but that I had heeded his previous warning I would not have to face him now..."

"My son." She made the rest of the way towards him, a frown pulling at her features. He wasn't making any sense. When she placed a hand on his shoulder once more, the static of his magic tickled her palm and tingled up to her elbow before it dissipated entirely. She tilted her head, studying him, the sudden feel of unspecified wrongness tugging at the edges of her mind without actually showing itself. He looked up at her, looking all the more like a frightened little boy and her heart broke. "What happened in the woods?" she asked softly. He huffed out a breath and swallowed, placing his own slender hand over her own and giving it a squeeze.

"I failed him, mother." He tucked his hand beneath hers and placed a soft kiss atop it before moving away from her, towards the room's exit. He paused then, turning back towards her, his mouth pulled into a tearful grimace. With a simple wave of his hands, something materialized there and he held it out to her, almost fearfully, ducking his head in shame. She frowned a moment as she took it, confused, until the deep red color, marred so by the ugly rust of dried blood, brought recognition into her eyes. She gasped in horror, her gaze finding her youngest son's, even as more tears slipped angrily down his face. "Or perhaps I killed him. That is what happened in the woods." And with another choked sob, he tore from the room in a panicked run, leaving her horrified and stunned, clutching the remaining piece of Thor's cape in her fingers. Wondering why he spoke thus. Wondering why, if for only the briefest of moments, she had felt true fear in his company.

Wondering why she could smell the faint traces of lilac, mingled so with the perfume of pine needles still lingering in the space.

His heart was pounding so hard against his ribs he wondered how they did not shatter against the pressure.

Thrice now he had raised his hand to knock on the entry to his father's private chambers, and thrice now his fist had faltered, ceasing to obey his brain's command to knock it against the polished wood. He could remember this feeling well, having been on the receiving end of many a punishment as a child because of a spell gone awry or a harmless prank turning out to be not so harmless after all. He could never bear his mother's disappointment - it rent the foundation of his very soul - but his father's anger always served to strike the fear of the gods into him, rendering his speech a stuttering mess and his limbs feeling like jelly.

Given the unprecedented nature of this meeting, however, he was barely managing to stand tall upon his own two feet as it was.

Hastily, he wiped away the remaining tears on his cheeks and forced himself to inhale deeply. He knew not what waited for him on the other side of the door, but the anticipation of it was making it even worse. He had not slept at all the night before, nor had he slept soundly since Thor's disappearance, and he felt positively mad with guilt, exhaustion, and tension.

Eight days.

It had already been eight days.

A gasp escaped his lips when the door opened of its own accord and the familiar drone of his father's voice found his ears. "Enter." His stomach erupted with what felt like a million butterflies and he forced himself inside, startling as the door slammed shut behind him. It was unusually dark inside and tears blurred his vision as he gazed upon the spot where he and Thor had stood well over a week previous, awaiting the All-father's decision to allow them passage to Myrkviðr.

If he could but turn back time...

"Come closer, boy." Loki swallowed thickly and obeyed, more terrified of the alternative to his remaining standing still than facing his father and king.

His father used the term 'boy' when truly angry, as opposed to a softened 'my son' under usual circumstances.

He knew better than to say anything until his father addressed him first. But the silence stretched on until he thought he would collapse under its weight and he began picking nervously at his fingernails behind his back. His father was not even looking at him; his gaze was turned down towards his desk, as if in disgust.

He could not blame him, honestly.

"The last we spoke, I made mention of how your antics confuse me, boy." His voice was remarkably quiet, but it sent shivers down his spine. "My hope today is that you might shed some light on that which still baffles me, given what I have heard about your exploits in Myrkviðr."

"Anything, father," Loki said softly. He tried keeping his gaze upon him but it proved to be too much as the king continued to stare at his desk, so he slipped his eyes to the floor. "I will tell you anything you wish to know."

"And rightly so." From the corners of his vision he could see his father stand, placing his palms flat against the desk in front of him. "Heimdall turned his gaze upon you in Myrkviðr after you left the camp, but you were hidden from his sight. The last he saw was you giving chase in the forest, pursuing your brother after he had made a jest that seemed to anger you." Loki raised his gaze from the floor and found Odin now staring him down, his one eye twinkling with displeasure. "Do tell me if this sounds unfamiliar to you."

"It was a jest, father," he croaked out. One fingernail slipped too far beneath his cuticle and he hissed quietly in pain as the skin tore. "Just a...just a joke."

"And was your cloaking spell a joke as well?" His father now sounded accusatory and a confused defensiveness rose like bile in his throat.

"The cloaking spell was used only to get us out of camp. The incident you just mentioned came after we -"

"I am not talking about the trickery you used at the camp, boy!" The king's voice rose as he slammed a hand on the desk. "I am asking you what you did when you cast both you and your brother in invisibility after you rode after him in the forest. Why did you disappear from Heimdall's sight?" For several, agonizing seconds, Loki could do nothing but stare at his father in muted shock as his words began to sink in but failed to make actual sense. When finally he managed to speak, his father's face had turned a furious shade of purple.

"Spell?" he said dumbly. Odin inhaled sharply, as if to calm himself, as Loki frantically tried to piece together what in Hel his father was talking about. "Father, I do not...do not understand what -"

"I will have you flogged in the public square if you dare lie to me again on this matter." Odin moved quickly around the only barrier that separated them, and it took everything within him to keep his feet rooted to the spot as his father stormed towards him. "I know not what tricks you played boy, but it may have been at the expense of your brother's life. I will not give you another warning." Loki began to shake, eyes blown wide in fear as his father stared down at him with a veritable rage. "My patience wears thin. What happened after you cloaked yourself in invisibility?"

"But I...I did not..."

"You were not seen again until you stumbled back upon the camp! Tell me what happened!"

"I do not know what you are talking about!" Loki cried.

"Loki Odinson, do you mean to tell me that despite attempting that very spell not two weeks ago, you were not responsible for Heimdall being unable to see you in the woods?" Odin stood tall and fierce, his one eye still boring into his soul. "Every moment that passes is another wasted, precious time that could be spent finding your brother. You already bear the weight of Thor's disappearance upon your shoulders. Do not continue it by digging his grave, boy!"

"I cast no spell!" Loki blurted, suddenly desperate for him to understand. "Father, you must believe me, I cast no spell in that moment! I swear on my life!"

"I received reports that when you came back to the camp, there was no injury on your person, save what appeared to a misplaced limp." Odin ignored entirely what he had just said. "I was told you were merely filthy, but no worse for wear than you had been upon the last sighting of you the night previous. And that last sighting was of you and Thor trading insults, you hollering after him as he stormed from your tent." The king bent down them, his lips curled into a sneer. "There is a picture forming here that makes me feel rather ill, Loki. You have precisely one minute to begin detailing what occurred outside the Gatekeeper's site, or I will chain you to the flogging post myself within the hour. Am I understood?"

And suddenly, horrifyingly, his father's words sifted through the paralyzing fog in his brain and he understood what he was saying.

He understood the vague implication of the reports his father had received, and the accusatory nature of this confrontation.

He was being asked what part he had played in Thor's disappearance.

And no, not his indirect meddling that had lead to their escape from the camp, not that. Rather, what devious role he had taken on, what harm he himself had caused his brother by his own hand.

What he had done to Thor in the invisibility of the forest.

"Oh gods, father no," he whimpered. He stumbled backward as the realization crashed fiercely against his heart and he suddenly couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't see. "No...how could you...you think I..." His gaze found his father's and the looming man before him was nothing but a blurred mass of power and anger in the haze of fresh tears. "You think I killed him." He could not find the strength to pose it as a question. Odin stiffened.

"You are doing a remarkable job of avoiding my questions." His voice was softer now, but Loki held no illusions that his fury had dissipated. "It serves you not, Loki."

"I cast no spell in the forest," he said softly, staring blankly at the floor. Tears poured down his cheeks despite himself, but nothing else on his body moved save his lips as he spoke. "We found the beast and were attacked. Upon a particularly vicious blow, I found myself unconscious by a riverbed. The last I saw of Thor he was overcome by the monster." He forced his eyes to Odin again, shaking minutely now. "Twas there I...twas there I healed myself. My leg was bleeding out, my nose crushed, and the beast had torn the flesh across my back. Had I not healed myself, and so appeared largely unscathed by the ordeal, I would never have been able to return to camp. I would have died in the woods." He had no idea why those last few words escaped his lips; perhaps a part of him had been hoping for a flicker of emotion in his father's eye, an indication that he wasn't accusing him of foul affairs. Instead he found nothing.

Nothing at all.

"And what of Thor." It was not a question, nor an insistent demand; his father sounded resigned, as if he knew already what he was about to say. For the briefest of moments, Loki heard once more Thor's terrified howl, could see the piercing glow of the beast's hellish eyes. His throat dried up and his hands began to shake. Despondently he croaked out,

"I do not know." It hurt to say as much. The returning flash of fury in his father's gaze made it even worse, but looking away would be cowardice.

"Are you lying to me?" It felt suddenly as if the breath had been punched out of his lungs - this was far from an unfamiliar accusation, but the introduced notion that it was well-deserved sent a wave of nausea through his pounding skull.

"No," he whispered. "I swear it, father." Desperate defenses, angry retorts, wild and frantic explanations; all sifted through his mind and begged for release, but the unrelenting stare of the king stilled his tongue. He said not a word and his face never changed, but the unspoken result was obvious.

He did not believe him.

"You are not permitted to leave these grounds," his father said unceremoniously. He turned from him, waving a dismissive hand. "From this day forward, you will be confined to your private chambers until I deem otherwise. There is something you are not telling me, Loki, and your dishonesty both disgusts and riles me." He paused a moment, back still turned as he faced the window, arms folded behind his back. Something cold bled slowly into the hollow of his chest and the study blurred for a moment."Mind your mother, and stay within the palace. I will leave for Myrkviðr in the morning."

"Then I should like to accompany you." Loki stopped breathing, startled by his own forthrightness.

"You will not." Odin did not move.

"Father -"

"You will not." Now he turned, his singular eye pulsing fury, shining an electric blue. "Do you know no limits, boy? Have you not wrought enough pain upon this house?"

"I'm sorry." The words fell out of his mouth in a whimpered rush and he collapsed to his knees, slamming his hands against the floor, one, twice, three times. "Father, I'm sorry I'm sorry, please -"

"No apology will hasten your brother's return." Loki could not stop trembling as his father walked around him, heading towards the door. "If I hear you have disobeyed me again, believe me when I say you will regret it." And with the finality of a death blow, the door slammed shut behind him. The rush of air blew the light from the candles and the remaining breath from Loki's lungs. Curling into himself, he bowed forward until his head was touching the floor and wept.

/

Quite a difference between the parents' reactions there, eh? Ouch.

More to come. You all rock.