Chapter Eight: Leave This Place

"Why did you bring us back?"

Thor's voice booms through the observatory, the others wince at the anger in his voice, but that is nothing compared to the quiet fury bubbling in the words of Odin. The All-Father glares at his eldest son. Loki is cradling her to him still, though she is in pain, blinking up at him as tears seep from her eyes, even Iðunn knows not to make a sound over the King.

"Do you realise what you've done? What you have started?" Odin hisses. Everyone but Thor flinches.

"I was protecting my home!"

"You cannot even protect you friends." Odin gestures towards Iðunn, briefly catching Loki's eye, a flash of anger and pity in his own, and then towards Fandral, who had been injured in battle, but not to the same scale as Iðunn. "Get them to the healing room!" Thor's friends turn to carry Fandral, and Loki follows with her, but Odin stops him. "You can stay here. Volstagg, take the girl." He snaps, and Loki draws her back in to himself, unwilling to release her, Volstagg reaching for her apologetically.

"I must take her Loki, she is... in pain." He thinks over his words carefully, but Loki knew.

He knew she was dying.

He looks to Odin pleadingly, who sighs.

"Give her to him, my son. You may see her later." Hesitantly, Loki hands her trembling body to Volstagg, who takes off down the hall after the others. Odin turns back to a furious Thor. "How do you expect to protect your Kingdom?"

"There won't be a Kingdom if you are afraid to act!" Thor stands inches from his Father's face. "Whatever the cost, the world must know that the new King of Asgard will not be held in contempt."

"That's pride and vanity talking, not leadership!" Odin gasps, exasperated. "Have you forgotten everything I have taught you? What of a warrior's patience, of cunning?"

"While you wait and be patient, the Nine Realms laugh at us!" Thor roared. "The old ways are done. You'd stand giving speeches while Asgard falls!"

"You are a vain, greedy, cruel boy!" Odin countered just as loudly.

"And you are an old man and a fool!"

Loki sucked in a breath at Thor's words, his worries over Iðunn's well-being overshadowed by the sheer horror of what had tumbled from Thor's mouth. Odin glowered at Thor, the disappointment in him rolling off him in waves.

"Yes, I was a fool. A fool to think that you were ready." Loki, suddenly frightened by the tension between them and his own fears for his love, who would eb alone and afraid without him to comfort her, and only wishing this to end, stepped towards Odin to plead with him.

"Father-"

"Silence." Odin growled, and he stepped back looking to Heimdall in discomfort. Ever solemn, the Gatekeeper remained stoic, but Loki could see it in the centuries' old protector that he was just as perturbed as Loki was. Odin advances on Thor, who remains sure-footed. The sinking feeling in Loki's stomach turns to dread as Odin opens the Bi-Frost behind Thor and he realises what is happening. "Thor Odinson... You have disobeyed the express command of your King. Through your arrogance and stupidity, you have opened these peaceful Realms and innocent lives to the horrors of war." He watches in horror as Odin begins to strip Thor of all his power and ability, even Mjolnir leaving it's master's side in favour of Odin. And then Thor is gone, evaporated through the Bi-Frost in the blink of an eye. Odin places his spell on Mjolnir, and then sends the hammer hurtling through space and time. Loki mortified, turns to his Father.

"Father, please-"

"I will not bring back your brother until he has learned his lesson."

"I understand and I won't ask you to but-" His voice chokes and Odin suddenly realises the pain in his son, and eyes him wearily. "-she is dying, Father." Odin, solemn, nods once.

"Go to her."

Loki finds himself flying, his feet pounding along the floors as he runs towards the healers, hoping and praying for a miracle, but not believing he will find one. Many leap out of his way in shock, servants, guards, all in fear of the sudden movements of the second Prince, and Thor nowhere to be seen. He bursts into the healers rooms, where Sif and the Warriors Three are laughing and joking, Fandral grinning as his wounds heal. They stop smiling, startled at his sudden appearance.

"Where is she?" Loki bellows, panicked. They look to another door and then exchange looks and Volstagg approaches him.

"Loki-" He can hear the sorrow in the larger man's voice and his fear rises, moving to push passed him, but Volstagg holds fast.

"Let me see her! Let me go to her, damn it!" He struggles and Volstagg finally releases him, sighing.

As he rushes into the room, Eir, the goddess of whom Iðunn took one of her names, looks up from the young woman in surprise.

"You can't be in here, even though you are a Prince."

"You cannot stop me!" He snaps.

"She is unwell-"

"I know she is unwell. I must be here for her." His voice cracks and the goddess is flawed when he breaks down, tears falling from his eyes. "I can't leave her, she mustn't die." Eir presses her lips in a thin line and steps aside, and he approaches the slab on which she is laid. Her breathing is shallow and escaping her in rasps, and her eyes can barely open. The wound has left a gaping hole in her stomach, and he realises there is little hope for her. Sorrowfully, he takes her hand in both of his. "Iðunn?" It even hurts to say her name. "Iðunn, my love, look at me." She blinks once, her eyes opening just a crack before closing again, a tiny smile gracing her lips.

"Loki." She coughs and he cradles her instinctively, her blood spattering his clothes.

"Hush, love, it's alright, I'm here." He strokes her hair and presses a kiss to her forehead that is boiling like a furnace.

"Am I-" She coughs again. "I... I am dying?" He blinks again as more tears fall and he chokes out a sob. She squeezes one of his hands. "Don't cry, Loki. Please."

"I can't lose you." He whispers.

"You haven't. You will always have my heart. I love you." She sighs.

"And you have mine, my love." He cries silently over her for what feels like an eternity, whispering that he loves her over and over, until finally the rasping stops, and her grip on his hand loosens, her arm slackening and sliding out of his grasp, her final sound the noise of her hand smacking against stone.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

He felt little victory as he sat atop the throne. After she had died, he had marched away, his tears drying rapidly as he made his way to the weapon's vault, the Casket of Ancient Winters beckoning him.

In one day his worst fears were confirmed. The only woman he had ever loved was dead, and he was no different than the monster that killed her.

Odin had fallen into the Odinson sleep after his vicious confrontation with his supposed Father. His words had bitten into the old King's soul and Loki's own sorrow overflowed, drowning all the love he ever felt for the family he once knew, now only liars and traitors.

The next month passed in a blur. In his grief, Loki bedded many a maidservant, their bodies nothing but a vessel to fill and use for his own pleasure before sending them away again, and none compared to her. As another mouth claimed his seed or another cry called from the lips of a quivering girl, so more did his soul darken. Never to love, never to care.

Only to use.

And at the root of it all, one image played over in his head.

Mjolnir, shattering a glass-like creature, only to slaughter the one he once loved.

The only one Loki could blame was his brother.

Banished and powerless, Loki's hatred formulated a plan in his mind, and the only way his brokenheartedness would subside would be upon the death of the first-born.

For Loki to live again, Thor had to die.