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This chapter really fought me. I would love to know what you think.
When the blaze of the Bifrost has finally left his vision, Thor blinks and looks around him. Eventually the black shadows form themselves into the same rocky landscape in which he had left Loki. He takes a step forward and scans the area for any movement. He sees and hears nothing.
"I am Thor, Prince of Asgard," he announces into the empty air. "I would speak with one who leads this realm." The sound of his voice seems strangely flat, as if the numerous cliffs and jagged corners were absorbing it rather than amplifying it as he would expect. No echo. The effect is strangely claustrophobic.
He hears no reply. Thor takes a few more steps without direction. The air seems to be cooling. He finds himself wishing for Hogun's acute senses or Sif's sharp eyes as he squints at the landscape, examining every crevasse for a sign of life.
"I grow impatient, Chitauri!" he calls out. "Reveal yourselves: I know you to be here. I come with respect, though I expect the same courtesy to be shown to me!"
Thor hears a crackling sound and turns to its source, but sees only a flat wall of rock. His grip on Mjölnir tightens.
"Chitauri, you—"
"We know what you're here for, son of Odin," a slow voice screeches.
Thor presses his mouth and waits. Slowly, one of the Chitauri emerges from a dark corner that Thor had sworn was empty. The creature's hideous smile is hardly the worst Thor has seen in all his travels, yet somehow the sight of it makes him angrier than he would have expected. He associates his brother with these monsters. His ever-regal, elegant brother. And to see this, such an ugly creature, as one of Loki's captors, Thor feels himself more and more convinced that Loki would never have made an alliance with the Chitauri willingly. Loki would trick them, he would use them. To declare an alliance, and to be bound by it, implies an equality that Thor knows Loki would never accept. The Chitauri seemed pathetic to Thor on Earth, impressive only in their numbers. There was none of the great intelligence that Loki would respect, and none of the brute strength that might over-power him. So what was it? What had his brother done to put himself in such a position?
Thor raises Mjölnir, though only slightly, in a gesture meant to be as threatening as possible without acting in a manner that could lead to an accusation of rudeness or hostility. The creature doesn't acknowledge it.
"If you know what I'm here for," Thor begins, "then give it to me. Let me see my brother. Loki, your prisoner."
The creature cackles and Thor gets the distinct feeling that there are more of them: watching and laughing along with him among the shadows. He begins to feel as if what he had dismissed as large rocks or other random features of the land were actually the Chitauri all along.
The laughing finally dies down, and suddenly the creature rushes up to Thor as if to attack. Thor detects the feint easily and doesn't budge, maintaining a hard stare. Just inches away from his face, the creature snickers. After a moment it retreats and begins a slow pacing.
"You speak as if you have the ability to fulfill your desires, should we refuse to accommodate you," it sneers. "Never overestimate, son of Odin, the power that we hold, the power of the one who guides us. The Trickster is our property. You couldn't possibly understand the bond that holds him here."
"Then explain," Thor growls. "There should be nothing that at least prevents me from seeing him in order to make sure he is treated fairly."
"Fairly?!" The creature screeches and again Thor feels as if there are more of them mimicking its words. How else would it's voice echo so profoundly while his dies mere inches from his mouth?
"There is no 'fair' in this contract, son of Odin," the creature continues. "There is only success and failure. The Jotun-runt failed. He suffers the consequences."
"You will address my brother by his proper name: Loki, son of Odin, and son of Asgard!"
"His lies have truly penetrated deep for even you to believe them so completely."
Thor closes his eyes briefly and growls. "Enough! If my brother is not presented to me, I will leave and return with the full might of Asgard behind me. I doubt, judging by the pitiful state of your realm, that you could survive the wrath of the House of Odin."
"What you see of the Chitauri Realm is what we wish you to see. However, because it amuses us, we will show you to your brother. But no matter your judgment, we will continue to treat him as we like. It would take powers unfathomable to break him from our bond."
Loki thinks he hears the sound of his brother. He does this often.
Once Thor appeared to him and offered his hand. Loki remembers staring hard at the hand. The same calloused, strong hand he's always associated with his brother. The hand that, as children, was always offered in kindness. As adults, always offered, it seemed, in a gesture of disapproval, mocking. Loki learned to disdain that hand.
But this time, Loki wanted nothing more than to take it and feel himself pulled up by strong, loving arms and into a safe embrace. He wanted it with such intensity that eventually tears obscured his vision and Thor morphed into a glowing blur surrounded by the black abyss he'd known for so long.
Loki began to lift his arm. Every torn muscle screamed, every bruise and chipped bone and frayed nerve called out in horrible agony. But still he reached. Up. Up. So close…
When finally he felt he could move his arm no higher, Thor's hand clasped his. It was cold. With sudden clarity Loki saw Thor's face twisted with anger and hatred.
"You have disgraced me, Loki! You have disgraced Asgard! You will never be worthy of my love. You were never even worthy of life. My father should have left you in that frozen wasteland to rot!"
Loki's hand was dwarfed in his brother's and he felt the grip tightening and tightening.
As the tension slowly increased, Loki clenched his eyes and opened his mouth, though he emitted no sound but a harsh dry whimper. He never meant for this—he never wanted it. It all started so simple. So simple it seemed. But there was something rotten in him, he'd realized. Something so terribly wrong. He spent his life learning and analyzing and assuming he was capable of the greatest feats of manipulation and control. He thought he could serve his kingdom justly. In the end, he only suffered. Every plan turned to pain. Every word disregarded.
The first finger snapped. Loki gasped and Thor laughed sadistically. Loki knew Thor's laugh. He knew it like he knew his own childhood, the sound drenched in memories. But this laughter, this Thor—was false. Suddenly Thor's image splintered before him, and he saw the Chitauri surrounding him, laughing and fighting over which of his nails they would eat once they were pulled from his shattered fingers.
That's right, he thought with a sudden numbness. Thor's hate would be a blessing. This is the curse.
The memory slips away, replacing one darkness with another. It's getting harder for Loki to tell the difference. He tries to remember his hatred. It's there, somewhere in what is left of him. Maybe the only thing left of him: some glistening drop of green-laced anger, left to slowly evaporate at the bottom of this pit, this Chitauri hell-hole.
Loki feels the barest hint of a laugh escape his bleeding lips. He doesn't know why it's there. He no longer has the energy for spite, can no longer find even a meager satisfaction in self-pity. And yet, there it is. More of a scoff, really. Maybe it's simply his body reacting to some pain his mind can no longer acknowledge. Though he thought he had abandoned that coping mechanism long ago.
He sees Thor again, suddenly. How odd for the Chitauri to repeat themselves so quickly.
The image approaches, this time assuming the appearance of Thor as if he were horrified. Loki thinks that now his mind is truly gone. Thor is incapable of being shocked like that. His face looks entirely wrong, ridiculous even.
Maybe that was why Loki laughed, Thor's face is stretching out into a wraith-like expression of horror. It looks so odd. Wait, no. He laughed before he saw Thor. No, because Thor was there first, breaking his hand. No—that was the Chitauri, that was days ago. Though perhaps it had only been a few minutes? Now the image is closer and there are words attached to it. Words like
"brother
"oh my dearest brother
"what have they done to you
"oh please, oh please, no
"Loki, Loki
"I'm so sorry
"I'll destroy them
"I will take you from here
"I didn't know please forgive me."
The hands do not reach out as before, but instead flutter like butterflies over his body. Loki knows he is not being touched and yet he burns, he shakes, and wants this one to go away because for some reason even though the Chitauri have Thor all wrong this time (hands far too gentle, unsteady, the voice cracking), it hurts more than the others. He didn't think he could hurt more.
It occurs to him that he might ask the apparition to stop. But why? Why ask? When he was first left in captivity he'd refused to speak except to comment on the futility of their endeavor, to mock their pathetic attempts at torturing him, a god. And then there was a period of time where he begged and pleaded and cried out and used every word, phrase, and trick of speech he knew to stop the pain. But their words were more potent. It wasn't long afterwards that he simply could not speak. He could scream, but he could not mold the shredded sound into language.
And now here is this "Thor," and Loki wishes to speak, the lesson quickly unlearned.
He opens his mouth, though only a dry whine escapes. Millions of worlds and lives away, he would surely be ashamed of the pathetic attempt. And yet here, he simply cannot spare the energy to be ashamed.
Go, go… if you must help then end me. Let me succeed where I failed before.
Just as that thought clarifies itself in Loki's mind, the apparition touches him, and suddenly Loki knows with absolute certainty that this Thor is real. The concrete nature of the revelation dizzies him even as it pulls him back from his mind's murky haze. His brother is truly here.
It is not love, nor some brotherly bond that tells Loki the truth. It is the white flash of agony, the most powerful magical barrier Loki has ever encountered that sears his body and launches Thor backwards. No one but Thor could activate it so strongly. Despite everything they'd gone through, Loki was never closer to anyone than he was to Thor. But Loki belongs to the Chitauri now, to that awful being. He swore an oath sealed with his soul. Once left with them, he could never be taken away again.
Thor didn't know. No one knew. Loki made sure his shame would remain forever buried. They would take him back to Asgard, he need never see the Chitauri again.
They would take him back to Asgard, he need never fear them again.
They would take him back to Asgard, and slowly, slowly he might redeem himself.
They would take him back to Asgard, and he could forget.
They would take him back to Asgard…
But they didn't.
Loki finds his words again. There is no hint of the gentle, calculating voice of his past self. In one horrifying burst, the scream rips through his throat.
"THOR!"
He watches his brother's face turn pale, where before it had been colored red with rage and worry. It satisfies him a little, reminds him of the power he used to wield over the emotions of others. But every emotion now to him feels dulled. He can identify them but somehow no longer empathize. He feels himself shaking and now screaming and crying and he knows that he must be angry or sad or something of that nature. But he can only make the diagnoses based off of the symptoms. He cannot palpate his own heart.
Thor is attempting to reach him again through the barrier. Loki can see that Mjölnir weighs heavy in his hands. He wishes to use it, but is too fearful of injuring Loki. Which may be for the best, Loki thinks. He doubts he'd survive any more pressure from the barrier. Thor might kill him by simply trying to force it open with his hands. Even now, as Thor presses against the white shield that separates them, Loki feels his hand as if it is reaching into him to tear him in two. He might tell Thor this, now that he can speak.
He doesn't.
Thor yells something like
"Loki
"brother I'm here for you
and to Loki's distant surprise, Thor is slowly managing to pierce the barrier. One by one, his finger tips push through, until his whole hand is there, just barely moving forward to touch Loki's chest. Loki can feel the vibrating pressure increasing. He can barely keep air in his lungs. He takes a gasping breath and manages a few more words.
"No, Thor, don't—"
When the contact is made, Loki has only a few moments to think that he is no longer in pain before darkness takes him.