Disclaimer: I hereby declare that the Avengers do not belong to me.
Chapter 13
Piece Together
The world around him was plunged into muffled silence – his mind clouded with distant, and fleeting memories he could not grasp, his body light and seemingly shapeless as he stared narrow eyed in the vast darkness that shrouded him.
Pieces here and there were coming together slowly but surely. He was in Midgard where he sought for refuge from a villainous threat that endangered his existence. He remembered being in Asgard, a solitary room – grief. What was it the he was grieving about, did someone die? Try as he might, the memory seems to elude him, flowing from his grasp like water in clenched fists.
There were other things, names; he recalled names, extremely fond names that rolled off his tongue like sweet nectar, and he felt his chest fill with warmth, and dread. There was something amiss, those names; he knew whose they were. They were…
"My children," He breathed out, realization hitting him at rapid speed.
There was Sleipnir. Though the eight-legged horse was not technically his child, he shaped him from the dying forms of the newly born Svaðilfari and Hveðrungr, who were to be his and his brother's great steeds had they not been birthed with deformity. He was no more than a mere boy when he's done it, but his heart broke when he heard they were to be put down because of their weak and deformed bodies. They said they were dying anyway and that it was mercy to put them out of their misery sooner – but he didn't accept that; so he snuck in to the stables where they were kept, and let his magic transform them into one, majestic being. And he knew he did the right thing, he was very proud.
Then there were Váli and Narfi, two orphaned children he took under his wing and tutelage, and later on, gave his own name. They were wonderful children; he taught them magic and were quick to learn the ways. They stayed with him until one fateful day. An evil plot against him was set into motion by evil warlocks whom Loki brought into justice after having revealed their plot to overthrow the King; they turned Váli into a raging ferocious wolf and killed his brother Narfi. His enemies didn't stop there; they had desecrated his adopted son's remains by attacking and binding him in Narfi's entrails while in his vulnerable state of grieving after hearing the unfortunate news.
He could've sworn his heart stopped at the recollection. After the events of Narfi's death, a recovered Váli lost his mind and ran away from Asgard and was never to be heard of again.
And it was only one of his many painful memories.
His mind buzzed with the flurry of memories spinning before him, there were other names, he couldn't remember; names he knew long before his two other fallen sons.
Their semblance was familiar, if not hazy in his memories. There was a pang of pain that seared through his heart, his mind screaming – the three names, he couldn't utter them even if he tried, there was something about them that made him want to crouch and hold his head in his hands, scream to the vast nothingness he was caged in. It was a painful recollection that threatened to break out the back of his mind, but he couldn't, he didn't dare. He knew looking back would break him, grind him into the ground until he was no more and he'd still feel the pain.
Head throbbing now, he took two, three calming breaths and tried to clear his mind. One breath at a time, he counted, trying to seize his pants into a synchronized melody to ease his panicked state.
Loki closed his eyes and realized there was no difference with his eyes peeled or shut, there was nothing but darkness around him and the fogged illusions of his memories to haunt him.
He was to soon fall into another fit of deep sleep until a fizzle of energy pried his eyes open. There was a familiar scent lingering in the air, and he was filled once again with fond, yet painful memories.
Somewhere, he heard someone call for him – an affectionate voice echoing his surroundings, the sweet, cheerful voice lulling him in a sweet embrace of love.
Loki heard her loud and clear, a voice he knew so well in his memory. The same voice which saved him from the nightmares that plagued him, something along with other familiar voices. He was perfectly sure, he couldn't be mistaken.
He breathed a soothing breath, a resigned smile he knew and felt plastered on his lips, "My dear darling daughter. Hela…"
And everything was ruptured into darkness again, but this time, there was peace.
He woke up with a start, not knowing where he was. A presence, he wasn't alone. On impulse he got up and clawed the shrouded stranger away with seething fury – he didn't know who or what it was, but there was a tinge of satisfaction brewing within him that calmed him down and then he was asleep again.
The days and nights were a blur to him, he didn't know what time or day it was – the darkness was too thick around him to be certain; nevertheless he was certain he was at a safe place, he'd gotten himself there, did he not? Wherever he was, that he did not know, but knew to be a place where he can lie in wait for something, anything to happen that would save him.
"Save me?" He croaked out, the words unsure even to his ears. The time he spent in the darkness suddenly alarmed him. He remembered falling into the great abyss.
Jogging his memory for answers, he found himself looking up, holding for dear life at the end of a long, great golden staff. There he found a familiar blond man, desperately holding him aloft on the other end – and then he saw it.
Knowing that it was yet another painful recollection he's seeing, he tried to close his eyes but it was too late. The face, he knew that face; it was the face of his father – the face of Odin, and then he words he enunciated shattered him, 'No, Loki,' and he let go.
Then there was silence; deep, unnerving, silence that ringed his ears – not a sound, not even his ragged breath or beating heart.
He grew mad at the stillness that consumed him, but before he could utter another cry, words suddenly echoed around him, threatening.
"-ere will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevice where he cannot find you," It kept going on and on, the words swirling in his head, whispering over and over until he cried out again. Whose words were they? The sudden need to protect urging him to do its bidding, whatever it was that it needed from him.
And just as abruptly the words snared and attacked him, it was gone. Blinking his eyes before the nothingness that he sees, a threatening voice suddenly rang in his ears, "You think you know pain?"
He braced himself, knowing the worst was to come.
"He will make you long for something as sweet as pain!"
Panic rose from the pit of his stomach as a bright, blinding light suddenly flashed all around him.
The next thing he knew, he was standing in a land of vast darkness and mist, his surroundings lit by glowing gems embedded on the rocks mounted in the soil. The snow covered ground showed tampering of great struggle and battle. Bodies were littered everywhere he looked, the pristine whiteness of the ground leading all the way to the shiny, obsidian paths towards the great palace was muddied by the blood of the fallen. He wandered along the path that led uphill.
He had no idea why, but his legs felt compelled to run swiftly towards the edge, his heart racing madly.
And there, before his very eyes, he saw the lifeless form of Jörmungand limping off on the other edge, his invulnerable body unbelievably tattered and destroyed; his great golden eyes devoid of his light and he knew he was gone.
A single tear fell from his eye and the anguish that filled his heart had cried violently for his son. He tore his eyes away reluctantly, only to see Fenrir's severed head speared onto a pike over the gates, his tongue lolling off the side as various parts of his body where thrown haplessly in on the floor, and he knew that he too was gone.
Rushing over to reach his sons, he wasn't spared a moment to grieve for his boys when he found yet another grotesque scene to cut off another's life.
A hundred feet away from him, he saw Hela gripped by her assailant by the head as crimson streaks of her blood flowed from the neck down. He rush over, running as he'd never run before but no matter what he did or how fast he's gone, they were always a ways away from him.
Dropping his knees to the ground, the scream for mercy but his pleas reached no one. He heard her struggles, her rabid curses and insults at her assailant despite her already weakening voice. Loki watched with tear filled eyes as his daughter lost the energy to beat at her captor's arm, her hands falling to her sides helplessly.
A ray of hope shined for Loki when he saw the towering figure let loose his grip on her head, and he saw her once beautiful face marred, disfigured and covered with blood; it was when the shadowy figure move his hand to grab a fistful of her hair, Loki saw the end of it all.
Plunging his hand deep into Hela's chest, he heard her gurgling cries of pain and protest. And when the figure shrouded in shadows pulled his fist back, his bloody hand procuring his most coveted treasure and dropped Hela into a heap on the ground, a used rag doll he no longer had any use for.
His scream pierced the world around him, the darkness breaking as light filtered through the skies.
A bright golden light erupted in the lounge floor. It was past midnight and the Avengers, plus Bucky were alerted of the event by JARVIS.
Thor, who had been camping out in the living room with the cat was shot all the way across the built-in hangar on the patio. He was covered in burn marks all over, like how the entire lounge and kitchen was now singed and covered in soot.
Thor walked back inside just as the rest of the Avengers exited the elevator. As they walked towards the area where a dwindling ring of fire left its inner space unharmed, they saw a man with pale skin and dark hair crouched on the floor, sweat beading his forehead as his laboured breathing came in raspy, short gasps.
"I think we better call Hela," Natasha said.
The rest nodded as they prepared to get him to the medical bay.
Author's Note: I hope you guys like it! And for those who have recently fave'd and followed this story, thank you so much! I'm also sorry I couldn't personally PM my thanks 'coz my e-mail is acting like a mother (and I don't really want to accidentally PM someone I already messaged because, I'm prone to do something like that).
Anyway, this story was supposed to be short, 700+ words short. Then when I was about to upload the document, I started adding stuff and I got to write more. Heheh.
Welp, I hope you guys enjoy it! And don't forget to leave a review if you have time 'coz… I would really, absolutely, no doubt about it~ appreciate the effort.
Thanks guys!
