His lips were firm and cool, and in no way unpleasant–those impressions were all Taryn had time to note.
Because before she could summon outrage at being kissed against her will, her mind exploded.
Falling despair anger betrayal unwanted watching his father and brother vanish into the distance as the void collapsed around him, ripping him from Asgard home not-home and casting him into Chaos.
Stars exploding, coalescing, burning around him, uncaring if they incinerated him as he passed. He fell, and he flew, and he plummeted and tumbled for an eternity. Hopeless regret rage helpless A nebula rose before him, swirling poison green and gold and the black of starless space, and it swallowed him whole.
And every particle within it was a life. His lives, all of them.
He screamed as they bludgeoned him with their agonies and ecstasies, a billion billion Ragnaroks and rebirths and every moment of life between them. Every indignity, every betrayal, every mocking comment and cutting word pelted him pain make it stop enough merciless in their cruelty. Every life, every punishment, every secret torment, every public humiliation.
He saw himself held down by Thor not-brother tormentor idol as twisted dwarves sewed his screaming mouth closed, a fine repayment for the priceless gifts he'd brought to Asgard.
He was a fire god, one of the three who created all the worlds–Loki, Odin, and Hoenir friend companion –until Odin banished Hoenir as a hostage of peace, Loki's one friend loss betrayal mourning, bringing Ragnarok in pain and anger.
He watched himself become herself and give birth to monsters, watched her beastly children swallow the sun and moon and devour gods and mortals and tree satisfaction horror vengeance while she battled Heimdall voyeur jealousy resentment and died upon his sword even as she thrust her own through his heart and thought his death a fair trade for her own.
He watched Odin One-Eye harsh one unloving one never enough, not his father now, pledge himself Loki's blood-brother and swear never to sup at a table where he was not also welcome, only to pull away, begin to distrust, to suspect why frustration disappointment anger where no harm had yet been done. He saw himself follow the gods to a feast to which he had not been invited and be turned away at the door by a servant, rage betrayal humiliation, the servant's body hitting the ground before him violence satisfaction. Entering the feast and spewing poison in every word, striking to wound as deeply as he'd been wounded, earning the vengeance that ended with him bound beneath the earth with the entrails of his sons, his words answered with their brutality.
Ragnarok, so many Ragnaroks, blood and death and fire and destruction, the bones of billions of skeletal hands pointing their accusing fingers at him. No choice never my will The great relief of his own death again and again, only to be dragged unwilling back into life, rebirth, forced to play his fatal part again and again.
He saw Baldur die a million times–Loki tricking Hod into firing a fatal dart, tricking a servant into delivering mistletoe-poisoned mead, tricking Frigga into drinking a potion that terminated him before he ever drew breath, a trick for every star in the sky–his death always at Loki's jealous instigation and never by his own hand. Always someone else to take the blame, yet the blame always found Loki in the end.
Until–
A holmgang, Baldur and Loki meeting within–Loki once again she, but now standing tall before all of Asgard proud unashamed righteous. Whip and blades coated with powdered mistletoe this time, killing for vengeance, for justice now, no trick delivered by another's hand, no jealousy, no envy. She gutted Baldur, mocking him, glorying in his pain no more than you deserve. And all of Asgard watched and did not take Baldur's side.
Asgard called Loki Queen and did not mock her.
Such confusion, to find this life amid all the others, one tiny grain of acceptance hope in the whirling vortex of pain and humiliation and rage! Chasing this one mote, this single life, catching the miniscule speck and diving into it hunger desperation need to understand–
–a thousand scenes, at first too fast to comprehend, and then slowing to show–
–a harmless trick in a book-filled space boredom restlessness and a woman's unexpected recognition–
–a fireside, the taste of wine, her laughter, and peace contentment friendship–
–a lecture hall where she taught, mischief laughter asking questions designed to discomfit but without malice–
–dancing with her desire softness beside that fireplace again–
–kisses in a kitchen determination real this is real and dreading Thor's arrival–
–making love to her for the first time wonder joy disbelief ecstasy–
–in Asgard now, sneaking through his own halls laughter heat urgency and stealing kisses and caresses like youths–
–standing before all of Asgard, Odin One-Eye proclaiming him King beside Thor, equal, confusion nervousness belonging and the entire kingdom cheering–
–reclaiming a soul from Hel grief desperation fury who was no longer a monstrous half-dead thing happiness reconciliation–
–once more standing before the Great Assembly, pledging himself to his lover surety hope love joy and hearing her pledge herself in return–
–standing before a brightly lit and oddly decorated evergreen happiness adoration mischief surprise and holding his pregnant wife–
A thousand others, too many to process, images and emotion buffeting him, finally leaving him with just one more–sitting on the throne of Asgard, his wife beside him tired but radiant, and a small bundle in his arms joy fierce love devotion MINE, presenting his son to his kingdom as Thor brother acceptance loyalty trust joined the entire kingdom in cheering to welcome this child that was no monster.
In all his lives, in an eternity of birth and death and Ragnarok and suffering, it was the only life of its kind, the only one with acceptance and joy and love and trust and hope. What would he do to have a life like this? Terrible, desperate things–anything, everything. Never, never given a choice, compelled to be only a force of destruction, the harbinger of the end, a bringer of death–but in that incarnation finally knowing how it felt to live. Searching all the other lives, drowning in despair and agony and rage and betrayal, searching hungrily for what made this one life so different.
And finding the face of the woman, his friend and lover and wife and queen, the mother of his perfect beautiful child, and searing it in his mind–the most beautiful face imaginable, the most desirable woman in any world in the cosmos, because she knew him, understood him, and still had chosen him.
Determination–he would find her. He would recreate that life.
Taryn came back to herself, shaking so hard she would have fallen had Loki not still held her, her own face branded in her mind and all his emotions still a jagged weight on her heart. She couldn't speak–it felt like a massive effort just to breathe.
"Do you understand now?" Loki whispered, his breath tickling her ear.
She couldn't answer. All she could do was cling to him and try not to faint from the shock of such an unexpected and total sensory overload.
Loki kissed the top of her head and scooped her up in his arms. "Rest, Taryn," he murmured, placing her gently down on the cot and tucking the blankets around her. "You are safe here. I will allow nothing to harm you." He stroked her hair back from her forehead and smiled down at her, and she felt the first touch of fear at the look in his eyes. But he said nothing else, just left and closed the door quietly behind him.
Taryn lay there, trying to assimilate the vision he'd given her–and oh, she had no further doubts that he was who he said he was. All the pain he'd experienced, torments of the body and the soul, still echoed through her bones. He'd suffered so much, but it was that look in his eyes that haunted her now. Loki had looked at her like a man looking at his last hope, like she was the one thing that could possibly grant him peace.
And as she remembered all the agonies of his other lives, she tried not to wonder what would become of her if she didn't deliver.
.
I hope this answers the questions y'all had about how he knew about her! This scene was so vivid in my head and I'm not sure I succeeded in getting it across-hard to fully describe the visceral emotions and images he was pushing into her mind. Let me know if I did okay, please? Mwah!
