Disclaimer: I don't own anything except my OCs, and most of them are heavily inspired by mythology.
"Grief is forever. It doesn't go away; it becomes a part of you, step for step, breath for breath."
The Sky Is Everywhere, Jandy Nelson
On the whole, it's hard to shock a thousand-year-old vampire. Eric isn't by any means the oldest vampire in the world (he's not even the oldest in his own Area) but for a long time he'd thought he'd seen everything the world had to offer him. Other vampires were the same. Humans began to blur together in his mind. Those he called close to him were familiar.
Then Sookie Stackhouse had blown into Shreveport like stray tumbleweed and suddenly he is confronted by a telepathic barmaid.
And Victoria, the woman who guards her secrets like a lioness guards her cubs, reveals herself to be a wielder of magic in defence of his maker – who, apparently, she knows intimately.
His maker who is determined to meet the sun.
If it were possible for vampires to suffer from panic attacks, Eric would say he was in the midst of one. However, as it is not, and because a trivial emotion such as fear is something he never wants to display in view of Bill Compton, he fixes his mask of nothing firmly in place.
'Ms Stackhouse, Mr Compton, Isabel,' he addresses the remaining occupants of the room, 'if you'll excuse me...'
'One moment, Eric.' Bill steps into the Viking's path unflinchingly. Eric has never been more tempted to rip the younger vampire's head from his neck. 'Did you know Ms Storm was a mage?'
'No.' He replies shortly. 'Get out of my way.'
'Bill,' the telepath's voice is a little exasperated as she tugs at her boyfriend's arm, 'now is not the time.'
'But, Sookie!' He protests with a furrowed brow. 'Mages are unimaginably dangerous – you felt her power...'
'Oh, hush,' Sookie interrupts with a scoff, 'Vick ain't dangerous just 'cos she's different.'
'But...'
'Bill. It's nearly dawn,' Sookie's eyes flick to Eric meaningfully, 'we should go to bed.'
Compton deflates, grudgingly allowing himself to be pulled away, and Eric spares a moment to nod shallowly in thanks to the telepath before he speeds towards the stairs. Really, he may have to keep the Stackhouse girl around if just for her ability to make Bill heel so obediently.
He'll think on it later, he supposes, when every cell in his body is no longer screaming "Godric" with all their might. The bond between maker and childe is almost impossible to describe in petty words – it goes beyond even the connection between blood family – and Eric has never been more aware of it than he is right now, facing the prospect of his maker's true death.
As he staggers out onto the roof of the hotel in the pre-dawn light, one thought rings through Eric's mind: not if I can help it.
xXx
Stood on the roof of the Hotel Camilla, cloaked in magic and completely undetectable, Loki stares out at the brightening horizon and tries to keep herself together as, behind her, maker and progeny say what could be their final goodbye.
Mostly, though, she tries to keep herself from bellowing refutes at every defeatist word that comes out of her old friend's mouth.
'Two thousand years is enough.' He says, benevolent, and Loki thinks does that mean I should have died before we even met, dear?
'I can't accept this, it's insanity.' Eric gasps out, eyes ringed with red.
'Our existence is insanity.' He corrects, looking away from the horizon to meet his childe's eyes. 'We don't belong here.'
'But we are here!' The Viking roars – Godric only shakes his head sadly.
'It's not right. We're not right.'
'You taught me there is no right or wrong, only survival or death.' Loki has to close her eyes to hear those words – their words – repeated by the Viking. It'd been the motto of a pair of old souls trapped in children's bodies, scrabbling for meaning in their immoral existences.
Godric must remember it too, because his eyes flicker with remembrance. 'I told a lie, as it turns out.'
The Viking stalks closer, stopping a foot away and jaw set stubbornly. 'I will keep you alive by force.'
'Even if you could,' his voice drops to a whisper, 'why would you be so cruel?'
And though Loki doesn't dare glance back, she hears a part of Eric's ill-kept heart shatter when he chokes out his words. 'Godric, don't do it.'
'There are centuries of faith and love between us.' Swedish flows as fluidly from his tongue as if he spoke it every day – that his words are beautiful is just a bonus.
'Please. Please.' Eric sobs, collapsing to his knees under the weight of his grief. 'Please, Godric.'
'Fader. Broder. Son.' The Pict vampire names him gently, sounding choked himself. 'It is nearly dawn.'
'I won't leave you alone.' The blonde gasps out stubbornly.
'Yes. You will.' Godric tells him gently. 'As your Maker I command it.'
Eric leaves very slowly and without taking his eyes off the shorter vampire, and Loki turns in time only catch a glimpse of the bloody tear tracks on the Viking's face before he disappears back inside the safety of the hotel. Only then does she dare walk to Godric's side.
But even the fact that he is perceptive to her power won't help him sense her presence through so many layers of spells – to him, he's as good as alone on the rooftop.
A big part of her wants to make herself known, offer some words of wisdom to help him. But theirs has never been a relationship made up of long, invasive talks. It's always been about the little things, the tiny gestures they make towards one another that had proven the depth of their friendship. Which is why Loki stands silently, invisible at her old friends side as the sun's first rays peak over the horizon, and readies herself for something risky.
Because if Godric wants to see the sun, that's fine – he never said anything about being averse to living afterwards, though.
The rays of dawn light touch his eternally young face for the first time in two-thousand years, and the Pict vampire draws a ragged breath of preparation. But her magic bursts out of her, cocooning him in layer upon layer of shields before the sun can do anything more than heat the skin of his cheeks, and Godric's next intake of breath is a sob, and Loki's heart soars in relief.
Once upon a time, people called Loki the god of fire (1) – a moniker born from the fact that millennia ago, when first coming into her power, the young princess of Asgard's first feat of magic was flame manipulation. It's a story all but forgotten to history, but it doesn't change the fact that Loki has an innate affinity for the element. Holding back the beams of heat that would usually reduce the undead to dust is something she has never attempted, something that – if it got out – could have dangerous implications, but as she stands beside Godric she really couldn't care about anything more than the fact that it's working.
And the Pict vampire is so beautiful in the light that a breath catches in her chest.
Her old friend staggers to the ground, red rivers carving their way down his porcelain face as he revels in the beauty of a fresh day and Loki watches on from his side like a centurion watching over her battalion.
'I don't know what to do.' He gasps between sobs. His breathing is ragged, his fists clenched in the material of his trousers and face soaked in blood – he looks like any scared creature praying for guidance.
Godric, darling, Loki thinks with a bemused shake of her head and a fond smile, get off the roof.
Almost as if he hears the thought, only a moment later Godric collects himself enough to stagger back into the building radiating the sun's warmth and a sense of absolution, and Loki lingers a moment in the open air.
And she smiles at the busy Dallas skyline, the colours painting the sky and the early birds who have begun their song – because, really, one should always take joy in the dawn of a new day.
'Thank you.' She whispers into the crisp air seconds before disappearing in a maelstrom of magic. Loki isn't sure who she's thanking, exactly, but she figures the right being will get the message eventually.
xXx
In Godric's hotel suite, Eric rages against the world.
He's seen his family ripped apart by wolves, and had his human life ended by a lucky sword strike. His revenge for his family isn't yet complete, and the end of his human life had meant the beginning of something better, the promise of a new world with Godric as his guide.
But Godric lied.
With a snarl, the Viking flips a sofa one-handed into a wall – its metal frame bends irreversibly on impact, and he is filled with dark satisfaction at the dent it leaves in the solid wood of the panel. Eric wants to reduce the whole hotel to nothing more than debris and take its occupants with it, he wants to tear the throats out of all that cross his path, he wants the world to burn while he sits back and watches and does nothing-
-because then maybe the world will know how he feels in this moment. The fight leaks from Eric's muscles, and he drops to his knees on the carpet clutching a hand to his chest and contemplating ripping out his own heart. Because this feeling? This overwhelming, gut-wrenching, all-consuming agony? Surely it's worth dying the true death just to get the pain to stop for just one second. Distantly, he is aware that his body is heaving with great sobs, tears he would one day deny shedding pooling in grim little crimson puddles below him.
'My childe.'
Eric freezes – his very soul stills. He must have gone mad, somewhere in the haze of grief and rage he must have lost himself but Godric is dead and hearing a dead man's voice isn't possible. An achingly familiar hand settles on the crown of his blonde head, and he thinks he might be dead, too, for his maker to touch him so solidly and maybe that isn't so bad (because Godric is with him, at least).
'Oh Eric.' His maker's voice is devastated. 'I'm so sorry.'
The Viking daren't glance up, doesn't want to look, but he has to, just to check, just to be sure...
...and Godric stares down at him, sadness written all across his face and still in the damn destroyed room, and the axis tilts, spins. Gravity shifts, and the sun eclipses the moon and stars wink down at him from the blue sky of midday because it's impossible.
But Godric is here.
Eric gapes up at his father (his brother, his son) and without a word the Pict vampire guides him to his feet and pulls him through the apocalyptic room and into the bedroom his maker had claimed as his own and settles him on the plush mattress. The Viking lets be laid down like a child, and unabashedly curls around Godric like the shorter vampire is a doll to be held to the chest through a nightmare.
His maker mutters meaningless nonsense in his ear to sooth him to sleep, and Eric clings desperately to the waking world just to reassure himself that this isn't some phantom conjured by his grieving mind to bring comfort, but the struggle is futile against the call of the sun.
The last thing Eric registers before losing himself for the day is a soft knocking on the door of the hotel room.
xXx
When Loki tentatively pushes open the door to the suite, she is expecting the worst – piles of drained corpses and gore on the ceiling and possibly some kicked puppies in a corner. In retrospect, the furniture massacre is positively restrained, but she still picks her way across the room carefully.
She may be, well, Loki, but even she isn't silly enough to crash recklessly into the path of a Viking's temper.
The gasp of surprise that escapes her throat at seeing Godric beside Eric's still form is a hundred percent fake – she even slaps a hand over her mouth for good measure – but the warmth that fills her eyes at the sight is not at all. A tiny part of the Æsir mage had worried that her old friend would change his mind about his continued existence and return to the roof, so it is a matter of great joy to see he has not.
(Also, it doesn't hurt that Eric is snuggled up against his maker like an overprotective momma-bear even in his daytime rest. It kind of makes Loki wish the atmosphere was right to request a photo.)
'Godric, are you okay?' She questions, scurrying around the bed to kneel at his side. With obvious reluctance, the Pict vampire pulls his gaze away from his progeny.
'I am well, Loki,' he assures her, eyes heavy with guilt, 'but my childe is not.'
Immediately, the Æsir mage stiffens. 'What? What's wrong? Is he hurt?'
'I broke him.' Godric tells her on a wavering breath. 'When he thought me dead... it ripped a hole in him that may never mend.'
'Oh.' Loki breathes, horror filling her at the realization that she'd given no consideration to Eric in the moments she'd allowed Godric to remain in the morning sunlight. 'I'm so sorry.'
The older vampire doesn't notice that the words are not meant for him.
'I've never lost a parent – and Odin and Frigg are immortal, so I likely won't for a long time.' She admits after a long, silent moment. 'But my son was taken from me.'
Fathomless blue eyes flick to her instantly. '...Son?'
'Fenrir (2). His grandparents called him "Little Wolf".' Loki gives what is probably a piss-poor imitation of a smile. 'The legends had to come from somewhere, right?'
'Your brother... murdered your son.' Godric half-questions, fitting the pieces of the puzzle together in his mind as he stares at her.
'Yes.' Is the simple answer, delivered calmly and without overt expression (even when Loki's soul still screams in griefafter a thousand years). 'And I was banished from the only home I ever had for taking my revenge.'
It had been the beginning of the 9th century when a much younger and wilder Loki had discovered she was pregnant. Her lover, a young Irish farmer named Eoin had fallen ill with smallpox and died before she had a chance to tell him of their child – theirs hadn't been a great, passionate love, but from the moment she'd noticed her magic cocooning her womb in the unmistakable sign of pregnancy, Loki had loved the child she and Eoin had made, and so the young farmer had secured a place in her heart for all of time.
Odin and Frigg, however, had not been pleased. In comparison to the humans of the time, Asgard was positively scandalous in its free-thinking ways, but for the Princess to have a child out of marriage? It was more than a little controversial, and a number of times Loki's mother had tried to persuade her not to keep that child, but she was determined.
(It had been years later that Loki discovered that Frigg had seen the fate of her son in her mirror – seen and done nothing to warn her more than gently attempt to discourage her keeping the baby. It is a truth that means Loki will never again love her Mother fully.)
Fenrir Lokason (not MacEoin – the royal family of Asgard would never acknowledge mortal paternity) had been born quietly in the healing rooms of the palace on Asgard, and young mother and son had been introduced to her family before being swept away to a cottage in hills of the Alps like a dirty little secret. Loki hadn't been concerned, too wrapped up in the beautiful new life she'd created and honestly glad that she was no longer considered "eligible" so to avoid marriage.
But she should have been.
Back then, there had been four children of Odin: Týr (3), the eldest by centuries and heir to the throne; Thor, the warrior (and eternally doomed to be Loki's favourite); Loki herself, the only daughter and mage; and Baldr – the baby (4).
Baldr had been doted on all his life, as was usually the case with the youngest child, despite him being only 500 years younger than Loki. In any case, the one thing that must be understood about the youngest prince was this: everybody adored him.
Týr – ever stoic and solemn – would take time from his busy lessons with Odin to sit and speak with him, Thor would spend hours sparring with him, the people of Asgard cooed over his white-gold hair and the court ladies swooned over his impeccable manners and charming smile. Even Loki had loved Baldr but those memories are too stained with blood to see clearly now. Where Týr had politics, Thor had fighting and Loki had sorcery, Baldr's area of expertise was charisma.
There's nothing wrong with being charming, but what everyone missed about the youngest prince of Asgard was that he was proud – too proud – and when such an all-consuming trait is paired with the ego of a prince and the mindset of a spoiled child, things become twisted.
So when Baldr's dear sister gave birth to the child of a no-name human, he saw it as an affront to his parents, saw it as a waste of the life of an Æsir. And while the scandal of Fenrir began to die down, and Odin and Frigg grew to know their first grandson and fell in love with his shining eyes and easy smile, Baldr nursed resentment deep in his chest.
To him, Fenrir was living proof that the Æsir were not so far above any other creature after all – and an easy fix, he thought, would be to kill him.
To this day, Loki still isn't sure what he had thought would happen after. Did he suppose she would let her son's death go, brush it off? Did Baldr truly think that, upon coming home to the cabin she and her son shared and finding Fenrir's mutilated corpse and the distinct signature of her youngest brother's aura, she would not act?
The sad truth that Loki can guess that he did – Baldr had never been punished for the wrongs he caused, let off the hook by all. But who would have guessed that such a little thing as a lenient upbringing would result in the murder of his nephew?
No-one, evidently, because when Loki had marched into the palace and ripped Baldr limb from limb, the general consensus had been that she had gone mad. While the realm had grieved over the death of their beloved prince, the mad princess had been bought before Odin, who had demanded an explanation. Loki had spat at his feet – truthfully a little insane in her grief – and told him that Baldr had deserved it.
Her hasty words has been the key to her downfall, as, after being banished to Midgard she had been followed, chased and hunted by those who saw her as nothing more than a kin-slayer. The legends of her evil were born from the whispers in the ears of mortals, of the ghost stories told around the campfires of men. It hadn't been until the 14th century that the truth behind the events of Baldr's death had been uncovered – but that is another story entirely.
But Godric gulps under the weight of realization, and the black-haired woman shifts to lay shamelessly beside him on the large bed. 'I am sorry for you, Loki.'
'I didn't tell you for your sympathy, Godric,' she rests her eyes on Eric, 'I told you because you may have given him that pain, but the feeling of losing someone only to find them still in sight?' Loki lights up at the thought (and ignores the stabbing jealously in her breast). 'I'm sure that pleasure is incomparable.'
'But I cannot stay with him.' The Pict vampire interjects, and her face falls immediately.
'Why not? Eric would show you the world ten times over. He'd take you in and build a home with you anywhere you asked him to.'
Godric sends her a pointed look. 'That is exactly why I can't go with him. I could not ask him to centre his world around me – not any longer.'
Well, Loki can see her old friends point. Eric would surrender everything if it meant keeping his maker happy, but she can't help but wonder...
'What about me?' She whispers excitedly. 'I could show you the way the wind shapes the ice on Niflheimr (5); we could dance with the Fae of Alfheim; the dwarves would teach you the answers to questions you haven't ever thought to ask:I could take you anywhere, bright star.'
For a moment, Godric's eyes glow with such heartfelt longing that she's sure he'll take her offer and they'll sweep away together to get lost in the branches of Yggdrasill for the next millennia. But then the spark dulls, and he throws a glance at his resting progeny and it's clear he's made his choice.
Loki's smile is sad around the edges.
'Our time together is over I think, Princess,' the Æsir mage beams at the long-unused nickname, 'but I would ask you one favour.'
'Oh?'
'You once told me tales of the dwarves, the Dvergar... do you think...?'
'I should hope so, considering I spent most of yesterday in the Dark Fields arranging your citizenship.' She rolls her green eyes when he throws her a startled glance. 'You know, sometimes I think you hardly know me at all.'
'...My mistake.' Loki titters warmly at her friend's deadpan tone. 'But when can I leave?'
'Well, as soon as you like, really, but...' She points at the Viking. '...write him a note of goodbye, or something?'
Godric wriggles free from the blonde's vice-like grip to do just that, and Loki takes a moment to wonder if she is doing the right thing in letting Godric go gallivanting about another realm. Certainly, the Dvergar had agreed to host him, and they had no overwhelming prejudice towards vampires (there'd even been a fair few dwarves willing to donate blood), but would an adventure elsewhere help her old friend renew his lust for life?
Well, Loki hopes so. After all, the sun on Svartalfheim will have no negative affect on a vampire.
(But she'll let Godric discover that for himself.)
In a flash, the Pict vampire is back in front of her with a neatly sealed envelope in one hand a small gym bag clutched in the other, and Loki favours him with a smile before conjuring a rock and presenting it to him grandly. He takes with a raised brow.
'A rock?'
'A rock from the Dvergar realm.' She corrects, rolling her eyes. 'It's charmed – just count down from three while holding it and it'll take you to where you need to be.'
'Ah.' Godric gives her a bemused look. 'Thank you, then.'
There is a moment where they simply stare at one another, unsure of how to proceed and then Loki thinks 'fuck it' and leaps forward to engulf him in a hug, burying her face in his neck. 'I'll miss you, old friend.'
'...I shall miss you as well, Loki.'
All too soon, she draws back and stares at his unchanged features, memorizing the slope of his nose and the angle of his cheekbones. 'Nervous?'
'A little.' The Pict vampire admits. 'But I have thought of leaving one way or another for nearly a hundred years, Loki. Why am I so afraid now?'
'Well that's obvious. Our lives are long and full of terror, Godric,' she informs him solemnly, words heavy with the knowledge of four millennia, 'but remember that life is beautiful just the same.'
His only response is the gift of another rare, true smile. Unable to resist, she presses her lips against his in a brief, meaningful show of affection, and when she pulls back she instructs him to "stay a little while longer" and gets comfortable on the bed, clutching one of his ice-cool hands to her chest like a child would a security blanket.
It's when she's half-way to sleep that he questions her again. 'Why did you save me from the sun, Loki?'
Sleepily ignorant of the importance of the question, she snuffles drowsily. 'Eric's your Fenrir, and vice versa.' Eyes still glued shut, Loki smiles. 'An' I always try to save Fen.'
The room is silent, and the half-asleep Æsir on the bed figures Godric must have left until cool lips press against her forehead.
"Take care of him" is the whisper that follows her into her dreams.
xXx
Eric awakes that night alone in his maker's bed save for who pieces of paper sat on the pillow beside his head, and his chest lurches uncomfortably at the realization that Godric is gone again.
But he grabs the top paper, a loose sheet of hotel-headed note paper – he doesn't recognise the neat looping calligraphy handwriting, but it is distinctly feminine.
"Read the letter" is all it says, and Eric takes a deep breath and forestalls the urge to panic and search for his maker, ripping open the sealed envelope with preamble. But he stills at the sight of a familiar cramped hand, and takes a deep breath before he reads.
xXx
The corridor is dark.
Always.
So dark that Loki can barely make out the hand in front of her face, so dark she should be taking baby steps – but she runs. Runs so fast her lungs burn, so hard her legs ache, so desperately one would think she is being chased by a creature from the darkest pit of Helheim.
The carpet at her feet is wet but she doesn't think to consider why.
But she is running towards something, not away, and there at last is the light at the end of the endless tunnel, the doorway that lights the path ahead. Suddenly, the need to reach it is more urgent, more immediate and the rush of feeling gives her a burst of speed and –
She slips – she always, always slips – and skids painfully down the dark floor of the corridor, plummeting directly towards the doorway, but she comes to a stop a metre away from it.
The light that comes from the room on the other side of the threshold spills into the darkness just enough for Loki to see her hand.
It's red.
WhysitredohOdinwhyisitred?!
And the metallic smell fills her lungs on her next inhale so swiftly that she gags – and Oh Odin, it's blood – and she looks to her feet and they're covered in it, and she looks at her red dress –
It used to be white, pure white, like the clouds on a summer day or the wool of a fresh spring lamb
- and Loki glances down the corridor (it's not dark anymore) and it's covered, blood gathering in sickly little pools here and there and splashing obscenely up the walls and the wail builds up in her throat before she can stop it.
'Where is he?!' Loki cries, but it is not her voice, she knows where he is, but still, 'WHERE IS HE?!'
And she scrambles to her feet, stumbles towards the doorway and Loki screams to herself that no, you don't want to see you dontwanttosee but she looks.
The world goes cold. Wind howls through the once cozy household. And Loki's heart breaks (for the first time all over again).
Because Loki has found him. Found her baby, found her darling Fen, found her Little Wolf.
But he is not there.
Loki wails. Loki sobs. Loki screams and cries and grieves so greatly she feels her heart may give out. And then, only when her son's blood begins to crust and flake on her skin does Loki's soul decide it may give out if it has to process any more sadness.
That's when Loki rages. And she kisses his head –
'OhFenI'mSoSorryILoveYouILoveYouFen'
- and closes his sightless eyes –
His father's eyes – this she knows from the moment he is born but keeps the secret to herself because the father is long dead by the time his son cries for the first time
- and Loki decides it is time to give Asgard (Baldr, Baldr, Baldr) a monster worth fearing.
But then, as always, the horrors disappear, and Loki is in a field of wheat so huge it stretches as far as the eye can see and then further still. And Loki feels a tiny warm hand grip her own, and she looks down into those eyes – no longer sightless but sparkling with love and mischief and life – and the little boy sweeps her away into the tall stalks, running faster and faster until they're both shrieking with laughter and crying with joy and she calls to him over the sound of wind rushing past:
'How much further?!'
And his response is light with his happiness and heavy with love –
It always is
- and sometime Loki lives for this moment, to hear his voice again.
'Only a little, Mother!'
'Hey, Vick?'
Loki jerks awake at the question, fighting to keep her from gasping for air. She's had that same dream consistently for the last thousand years, and for a time she'd wake from it and scream and throw-up and be bed-ridden for days. It's gotten easier – or at least easier to hide her reaction – and nowadays she only really has the dream after speaking of Fenrir. After thinking of just how much she misses her son.
And oh, she misses him so desperately it is hard to breathe.
The Æsir mage closes her eyes tight to fight of the burgeoning tears there, and it's only when the white noise of her grief fades that she realizes she realizes that she'd been woken by a question.
'Yeah?'
'...Could you turn me into a frog?'
'Why? Do you want to be a frog?' Sookie blanches, and Loki has to laugh despite the lingering shock of her nightmare. Ever since the black-haired woman had left Eric dead in bed and they'd met up again earlier in the day for the flight back to Louisiana, the telepath has been full of questions for her, and while she's careful to stick to the pretence that she's an average human mage – something of an oxymoron in itself – it's rather refreshing.
Sookie's insatiable curiosity is a much better reaction than fear or hate, after all. That the blonde has sworn to keep it a secret – "even from Jason!" – is just icing on the metaphorical cake as far as Loki is concerned.
'Oh, Vick,' the telepath digs around in her purse for a moment, 'you left your cell phone in my hotel room.'
'Thanks,' Loki had been wondering where her iPhone had got to – she hasn't had a chance to check messages since they went into the church. But the Asgardian frowns when, immediately after turning the device on, she's bombarded with voicemails and missed calls. 'What the...?'
'What's wrong?' Loki ignores the question, dialling the message service quickly.
'Call me!' Her blood runs cold at the sound of Lafayette's panic.
'Tori, bitch, you better call me as soon as you get this!'
'The town's gone fuckin' crazy, I could use some'a your mumbo jumbo shit.'
'Shit.' She curses. In the midst of all the drama in Dallas, she'd all but forgotten that she'd left a fucking maenad in Bon Temps – something that has clearly come back to bite her on the ass. Loki glances at a frowning Sookie. 'Have you checked your phone?'
The part-fae hurries to turn on her little Nokia, and gasps. 'Oh my stars, I have a thousand messages!'
Jason, snoozing in the back seat of the cab, jerks awake at his sister's exclamation. 'Whassup?'
'Missed calls from Tara, Sam, Jessica...' Sookie frets, bringing her phone up to her ear and pulling it away after a moment. 'And no-one's answering!'
'Calm down, sis,' Jason yawns, pointing out the windshield, 'we're nearly there.'
Sure enough, it's only five minutes before the cab meanders into Bon Temps – but it's not the town they left behind. The main road is desolate, full of trash and dotted with several cars that almost look like they've crashed. The buildings are covered in crude graffiti and toilet paper, and, somewhere off in the distance, a security alarm wails.
'Woah.' Loki comments. It's like a scene from a horror movie – or the aftermath of a serious party.
'What the hell?' Jason explains, frowning out the window at his right. 'Look at this guy!'
A beefy bald guy and a blonde woman with crimped hair stumble down the sidewalk, pulling and batting at each other. They giggle, and stumble in front onto the front of the car with a dull thump.
'T-They just ran in front of me!' The driver explains, shaky with disbelief, but Loki isn't listening as she hops straight out of the passenger door and rushing around to check on them. Sookie and Jason follow at her heels.
'Are you all right?' The telepath asks, but the group suck in sharp breathes when they look up to reveal pitch black eyes. It's eerie, Loki thinks, but she's more concerned with the stench of dark, chaotic power that clings to them.
'What the hell's wrong with your eyes?' Jason stammers, and the Asgardian reaches forward to touch the possessed woman's arm and attempt to analyse the source of the change.
It's an old, dark power, she can tell immediately, and it's altering to the mind of humans... no, it's releasing the mind of humans...? Her brows furrow in consternation, but the woman tugs out of her grasp.
'Get offa me! We gotta go.'
'Yeah.' The black-eyed man grunts, pulling her away and down the abandoned road. Loki and Sookie share a look, and Jason calls out to them.
'Wait, wait, where you going?'
'We gotta find Sam!' She calls back. 'It's almost time, man.'
Loki purses her lips, and turns to the Stackhouse sibling's. 'Shit.'
'We better get to Bill's.' The telepath says, glancing about the abandoned centre of her hometown worriedly. For once, Loki couldn't agree more – it's probably safer for Sookie to stay with her boyfriend, considering a maenad's propensity to slaughter supes. As for herself?
'Drop me at my house.' She instructs the shaken driver, and ignores the wide-eyed looks she is thrown.
She supposes that, at the very least, the ever-present drama in this little town keeps her mind of the darker secrets buried in her subconscious.
(1) In Mythology, Loki is, indeed, sometimes called the god of fire.
(2) The myths about Fenrir (sometimes called Fenrisúlfr, Hróðvitnir or Vánagandr) are really awful. According to the Prose Edda (a collection of seven manuscripts that detail Norse mythology), Fenrir was the child of Loki and a female frost giant, and a monstrous wolf. In mythology, when Odin discovered that Loki had had children (he had three), he summoned them and banished two of them. But Fenrir was bound to a rock, doomed to be chained until the end of the world. OFC!Loki's story is very different, obviously, but the fact that Fenrir's nickname is "little wolf" was inspired by the myths.
(3) Týr is the god associated with law and heroism in the Norse pantheon, and is sometimes referred to as Odin's son. In this fic, he is the eldest son of Odin and Frigg, and heir to the throne.
(4) Baldr (also called Balder or Baldur) is the second son of Odin according to the Prose Edda, and by all accounts the most loved – 'the wisest of the Æsir, and the fairest-spoken and most gracious'. His death (orchestrated by Loki even in mythology) is sometimes said to be the marker of the beginning of the end of the world. In this fic, Baldr is the youngest of Asgard's royal family, but equally as beloved.
(5) Niflheimr is the Old Norse name for Niflheim; the world of ice, and one of the Nine Realms.
