~
No longer the lost
no longer the same
and I can see you
starting to break
I'll keep you alive
if you show me the way
~
Grief weighed heavy on his chest in a way he was no longer used to. He had learned not to let such an emotion burden him for this very reason. It required too much. More than he had left to give.
His mind flashed to Thor no matter how hard he fought against it.
His frustrating regard for the insolent fool had played a part in ruining his plans back on Midgard. He'd hesitated, plunging the small dagger between the thin scales of armor over his ribs instead of up under the thick plate over his chest. He easily could have done it – his hands held enough skill to quickly pierce vital organs. His magic was strong enough to finish the job.
One tiny shift upward and slightly to the left.
But his reflex was not to take his brother's life.
It never was.
So Thor lived. And with his aid, they had won the battle for Earth.
His jaw clenched painfully tight as he paced along the lip of the cave.
The disaster was still a fresh wound.
It had not been his idea to claim Midgard – no he had been a mere tool…He'd known that from the beginning. But if he had just successfully completed the task he'd been given, none of this would be happening. He would have been a ruler. His mother would be smiling down upon his achievements. And he certainly would not be trapped in this lowly cave in the middle of nowhere with more on his plate than he knew what to do with.
He'd never felt so disoriented in his long life.
A soft sound jolted him from his thoughts and he flinched to find it.
Jane's breathing had hitched.
She lay still, well beyond the fire, her small form casting a wavering shadow along the cave wall at her back.
The light just barely illuminated her peaceful face.
She had fallen asleep.
A burst of frustration weaved through the blanket of shame that lay over him.
Instead of trying to escape, or protest, or quiver with fear in his presence – she'd sprawled across the ground and drifted off.
He must really be losing his touch.
Loki nearly grew envious at her ease of such a convention, not being able to even come close to such reprieve in as long as he could remember. She'd completed the task as if her own bed lay beneath her.
Days – weeks – months, blurred together so easily when time didn't matter…
And truthfully, nothing did anymore.
He turned back to face the wasteland, placing his left hand against the cave wall when he so suddenly felt like he needed it for support. Something sharp twisted in his gut, nearly causing him to curl forward in agony. The landscaped blurred before his eyes. He grit his teeth at the burning, unshed tears and furiously dashed them away with the side of his hand.
This was pathetic. He was stronger than this.
Loki held his hand out before him, flexing and relaxing his fingers as he called to his magic, the moisture at his fingertips boiling blue in the hottest of conjured flame.
He sealed off the cave to prevent any unwanted magic from entering.
Then he tested it.
Normally he wouldn't have to, but he'd been struggling to hold faith in even his most perfected skills since she had nearly run a dagger through his chest. The nights on Svartalfheim held their tricks and he would not be blindsided. His mother had made sure of that years ago with her many frivolous lessons.
His mother…
Every time his thoughts turned to her, he could swear flesh tore away from muscle. He pressed his entire weight against stone, wrapped his right arm tight around his midsection, and fought back against the gnawing ache there.
He clenched down upon the unhindered grief within him, molding it and shaping it into a feeling he'd grown to recognize as well as his own reflection. It seeped through him like acid, the renewed surges of physical pain relieving him from the emotions that put it to shame.
Malekith had ended her life as if she were nothing – in the coldest of blood.
And his own demise would be just as chilling.
Jane
Consciousness came to her slowly, her mind struggling to become alert at the familiar sound of her name, though the accent that wrapped around it was still so strange.
Wake up
The dirt floor was scratchy against her cheek. Her left hip ached where it had pressed against the ground all night. Her eyes blinked open to find that she hadn't moved – which was strange because since she'd come to learn that the human race was not alone in the universe, she hadn't been able to manage a single good night's sleep.
A tall shape shifted in natural light. His shadow casted over her. She squinted up at him.
Loki still stood where she had last saw him, though it was much brighter outside beyond him. It left him featureless.
"We get water now or not at all."
Jane rubbed at her eyes, adjusted off of her sore hip, and rose slowly to sit up. Her weary mind tossed his words around for a moment – then sharpened.
"Okay," she agreed half-awake, pushing off the ground to stand. She brushed the dirt from her palms and realized that the pain there was gone completely.
He stepped out before her into the brightness of the morning. She blinked her eyes at the light and noticed that all signs of damage were clear of his face too, the dirt and blood absent and wounds healed, leaving nothing but smooth, pale skin behind.
He turned and she trailed along behind him for a while, watching as the dark train of his leather long coat would drag the ground each time he stepped higher along the rocky terrain of the winding trail.
The clouds above blanketed the sky in all directions but they were not as thick as before, allowing the early morning sunlight to penetrate and brightly illuminate the space around them.
Jane took a moment to appreciate the simple fact that she could see where she was going.
"It's much nicer out today," she voiced the observation as she turned to look out over the gently sloping sand beneath them. It laid still. "I bet we can see where we crashed from up here."
"Or we could keep moving," Loki's aggravated voice came from a short distance behind her. She turned back to find that he'd stopped and faced her direction, his eyes searching the horizon. "There's not much time left before the fresh snow melts and you're left with mud to quench your thirst."
The thought of cold slush melting on her tongue was enough to make her swallow dryly.
"How did you know about these mountains?" She asked, thinking back to how he'd found them with such ease. "…And the caves?"
He moved to continue walking and she fell in stride a few paces behind him.
"Mountains always mean refuge, young Jane," he tisked her as if he were reprimanding a child. "What skills are they teaching your kind on Midgard exactly?"
She scowled at his back.
"That's not what I meant and you know it."
He glanced over his shoulder at her tone. His eyes were firm, but there was amusement there too.
It irritated her even more.
"I meant, how did you know where to go? Have you been here before?"
She could just barely hear the sigh come from him at his distance.
"Not exactly," he spoke carefully. Jane moved closer. "But legend has it that these very mountains were the reason Asgard won the battle here long before our universe knew peace."
"The battle?" before Jane realized it, she was walking at his side. "What battle?"
Her overt interest pulled his attention toward her. His right brow rose – then fell.
"Let's just say that Malekith's current sins are not nearly his worst."
The name jolted her. It echoed through her mind in Odin's dejected voice.
Loki's eyes tightened, glistening with an unsettling amount of emotions. They turned to the ground ahead of him for a stretch of time and she thought he would say no more.
He surprised her.
"Eons ago, he obtained a weapon that would bring the entire universe back into darkness… return it to its state before creation, ending all forms of existence. The soldiers of Asgard journeyed here to see that Malekith would not succeed, but they were faced with an enemy so foreign that they very nearly lost to its overbearing power. There was a variety of dark magic here that no other realm had ever seen before…," Loki stopped to face her. She shadowed him. "And the Dark Elves were created by it… thrived on it… so much so that the Asgardian soldiers were driven deep into the shelter of the caves." His eyes left hers to look past her and she felt the relieving absence of their weight. "The protection and sustenance they provided won Asgard the war... Without it, Svartalfheim would have swallowed them whole."
Jane took a moment to breathe and process. Breathe and process.
"So that's why they were thought to be extinct..."
Loki nodded once at her.
She stifled a cringe, recalling the way the Dark Elves had mercilessly tore into the Asgardian defense.
"But why did Malekith wait till now to strike for revenge… Eons later?"
When his eyes fell to hers, they held a malicious gleam.
"Were my brother's words to you not clear enough? He wants his weapon back."
Jane's brow tensed – relaxed – lifted – then, it struck her all at once like a physical blow to the sternum.
"You heard everything…"
The tightening of his lips before he turned to continue walking showed he'd found something amusing about her reaction.
She'd caught it.
"I knew they came for me…" she murmured, both Thor's and Odin's similar expressions flashing through her mind as they'd discovered it for themselves. "Even before Thor confirmed it. I can feel how powerful the Aether is… but you're telling me that I hold enough energy to sustain an entire world…? And you bring me here?!" Her voice rose to question his sanity. "If Malekith gets his hands on it, we're all as good as dead... and I don't see how that's the least bit funny."
She watched on firmly as the curve of his left jawline flexed.
"Judging by your actions as of late, you fail to see a lot of things."
She felt a biting chill that edged through her jacket and sharpened the air around her. Though this time, it was from the thin sheet of snow that crunched softly beneath their boots.
Jane only stared down at the blanket of white in a moment of deliberation, her tongue absently sliding back and forth along the inside of her parched lips. She steeled herself.
"Why did you bring me here? You've explained nothing…"
Loki's quick turn cut her off.
"Do you really expect me to reveal my plan to you? Just like that." He snapped his fingers in show as artificially bewildered eyes scalded her; questioned her sanity. "Have you forgotten your place?"
She refused to meet them. She exhaled deliberately slow.
"No... I think you've forgotten yours. You are a prince, Loki," her eyes finally lifted with his name and the absent expression he wore nearly caused the words to tumble from her lips. "You're used to being told what to do and exactly which way to go about it… But this time you're on your own… Every decision you make from here on out is entirely yours and each one could mean life or death," her eyes widened on his. "Not just for me, but for the entire universe if what you say is true."
He was silent for a long moment and she held his gaze. He stood stark still, coiled like an agitated serpent, and she waited for him to strike – either with venomous words or the sharp bite of something unimaginably worse.
A rounded, steel canteen appeared in his right hand and he smoothly held it out to her.
She almost flinched.
"Jane Foster... are you attempting to lecture me?" His brow knotted and rose in a way that was almost comical though his voice remained deadly calm. "What, pray tell, leads you to believe that I care about the fate of our universe?" He bit out the words.
His posture slackened fractionally and Jane remembered to breathe.
She took the container from him carefully, making sure her fingers didn't come into contact with his. The steel was oddly warm to the touch.
His question pulled images of him pacing the floor to the front of her thoughts – the lost look he'd worn so openly upon his face in the dark.
"I never said you did." She crouched to the ground, scooped some slush into her hand and cupped it into her mouth. She let the deliciously cold water coat her scratchy throat before she swallowed it. "I just don't believe you have much of a plan to reveal." She pushed snow into the opening of the canteen, smiling to herself when its lingering warmth melted the crystals into water as fast as she could fill it.
She rose to her feet when it was filled completely, screwing the cap on tight before meeting his eyes.
He watched her every move.
She gently sloshed the water around the canteen, holding it up between them by its base.
"But that's alright, because now we have some time… and we have the caves."
Epigraph: Give Me A Sign - Breaking Benjamin