They trudged through the snowy land for what felt like hours, must have been hours or years or centuries perhaps he had lost all sense of time in the void measured by only his own thoughts which were now slow as ice and so time moved slow. And he put one foot against the other as the snow kept falling onto his hair and into his eyes and didn't melt. They pushed him when he staggered, and when he fell they dragged him upward, unspeaking, and he would not plead did not had nothing to say to them but his mind seemed to have shattered or melted in the cold warmth. For it was uncomprehending and barren. And dawn never came.
He watched his hands shaking with tension and some sort of tiredness that he did not feel, tight as a bowstring, and so thin he could make out the bones beneath but still, you could always do so with hands even if they looked skeletal that was no indication of anything and he was fine.
He told himself he was, and it wasn't the cold that went into his bones because it did not affect him, it was the wet, and the sludging trudging falling and being dragged up and moving after so long only drifting yet he was still drifting in the sea of his mind.
The momentary clarity he had found when he hit the earth had slipped away and everything was harder to think and so he didn't. even so he could feel the tight place where he magic was, and the rest of him felt so empty where his magic should be and wasn't and part of him wondered if this was contributing to his lightheadedness at all because since they had bound him he found it hard even to put one thought in front of the other foot and so to go on but that was of no matter.
He tried to be thankful for small mercies. At least he wasn't cold.
He cursed Thor, in his mind, for pushing him off the bifrost into the abyss and wondered what would have happened if he had not, and why he had done it. and wondered why he had decided to kill Thor in the first place because he didn't remember why it had been so important that he not be a monster.
He hoped Frigga would not grieve too much for him.
Then at once he found that they had stopped and became aware of his surroundings when he fell and they did not drag him up again. And he stared around at a huge something built there, like stairs, like stairs made for a giant. And it was very beautiful, lights shining in the darkness, and the strong curves reminded him of Asgard, only Asgard in shadow.
And then they were up again and in, and now it was marginally warmer again, and more of them were walking about without their head armour on and nodded and they did not look so monstrous after all. There were far worse. The heat was marginal, so he knew from observation, because the snow they brought in with them took its time in melting and yet it felt hot to him, as if he were being bathed in a furnace and he checked his hands once more just in case and when they were not blue he told himself he had been foolish. And clenched his hands and imagined punching their smug faces in and making them kneel.
But they kept on through winding corridors and then opened something and he walked into a small room, the walls smooth and tall, and they closed the door and all at once there were no lights because there were no windows and he was alone again.
He stood, for one moment, as the complete darkness impressed upon him his situation. And then he felt something rising up inside his throat, some sort of fire and it tore his mouth and he screamed, and beat upon the door with his fists, and kicked it, and it did not yield, and he slipped down, sobbing, fingers curled around the metal ring and trying to pry it off his neck, rubbing it raw until his fingers were slick with sweat.
Then he sat down in the middle of the room, and calmed himself. He closed his eyes, and listened to the slow breathing in the darkness, and made himself notice how hungry he was, and how tired. How his feet ached as though they were logs and not feet at all, how his arms trembled and twitched, how his head seemed to spin, how the world seemed to spin under his closed eyelids and he only wanted sleep.
Death, or sleep—it was of no difference to him. He lay down and there, in the darkness, he listened as he drifted away upon the paths of dream, as he had not done in so long.
.
.
.