So it goes with saying that only things I own with any connection to MARVEL I bought on Ebay or Etsy. MARVEL COMICS & MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE are their own creatures and I have nothing to do with either of them aside from the fact I enjoy reading or watching them, and am grateful for the ability to play in their world. I claim nothing, and I receive nothing for this, expect the pleasure of putting something out into the world.
You can also find this story on ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN under the same title and pen name along with a place to post suggestions.
Don't forget to check out the Photobucket album listed on my profile page too.
DAY THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY ONE
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
0824 HOURS
SUBTERRANEAN BUNKER
LOCATION UNKNOWN
NORA
Banished. A word, why is it always just 'a' word? Banished. I was banished? I was sent away from my home, and my family, my friends, my world, by force and threat. I was that kind of person.
I didn't even realize I was reacting until I felt the dull pressure of pain in my fingernails. I was practically trying to force them through the grove were the metal met leather, I was clinging to his chest piece that hard. This wasn't what I wanted to know, this was never what I wanted.
"No..." The first utterance of that word has his hand against small of my back pulling me tighter to him in anticipation of a retreat, whether its physical or mental. "...No, take it back." His first sentence tells me I'm not going to get my wish in either way, but that doesn't upset me as much as it should because I already knew that.
"More then once, more then ever, I wish I had a truth that would bring you a smile, not this sadness." At the word smile his left hand frees itself to lightly hook my chin and lift it up, before he releases it on the faith I won't let it drop back down, so he can thumb away the tears. "But you need to remember this, even if it hurts. I will be with you through it, I swear it is alright."
"No its not! " There is no mantra to keep it trapped. I'm not just weeping on the outside, I'm weeping inside too, and I'm screaming. I'm scared and confused. It feels like I'm standing in front of a mirror in a dark room, and I can see my silhouette in that mirror even though its dark, but I don't want to believe that reflection is me, I want it to be a lie dressed up in my skin. All Nora ever wanted was a simple, innocent life. There is no innocence in that shadow, I'm not sure there ever was. "You said I wasn't a bad person!I don't want to be a bad person!"
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
0826 HOURS
SUBTERRANEAN BUNKER
LOCATION UNKNOWN
LOKI
I held her tighter, but even my strength could not stop her shaking, so I held her longer. Taking a distorted sort of pleasure that she held me back in her distress, but even my joy at that progress stopped being joy once it was filter through guilt and sadness.
She reminds me of a time when I was a kinder person, because that is when I knew her, before my heart grew so callous. That version of me would never be doing this to her, that version of me went out of his way to stop her tears if they ran, and if they did not he made sure they would not start. That version of me would kill the me I became for what I have planned. If in my youth I had the gift of foresight, something I lack even now, and I saw this future, I might have sealed away my magick all those centuries ago to stop myself from ever hurting her.
She is like the last light of a star that burned out ages ago, an echo of a glorious past and that makes me truly a monster because I will never let anything separate us again, no one shall have her before me, unless its death. She is mine.
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
0827 HOURS
SUBTERRANEAN BUNKER
LOCATION UNKNOWN
NORA
"You are not." I can hear the smile in his tone, but its not delivered in mockery. I get the impression its meant to be gentle and reassuring but it's also there because to him, someone who remembers 'me' the notion that I was a bad person is ridiculous. But to me its still pretty strong.
"I was banished Loki! Good people don't get banished!" I'm barely louder than a whisper when I say that, but it conveys the intensity clear enough. One of his hands still stays wrapped around my back, the palm resting against the opposite hip of his elbow, while the other hand moves up to the back of my head, where it meets my neck. His fingers are usually warm as they slide through my hair and encourage me to rest my cheek against him again so he can whisper in my ear.
"They do if they live under the rule of a bad king."
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
0828 HOURS
SUBTERRANEAN BUNKER
LOCATION UNKNOWN
LOKI
The way her breath hitched tells me all I need to know. She truly had not considered that. She was fixated on the idea that her banishment reflected some wickedness in her, and never even thought it could be the other way around.
"You are not a villain in this story my love, you were the victim." My very clever victim. My smile is genuine despite that it is a very loathsome name that rolls off her tongue in question, because she put it together so quickly. "Yes, it was Odin who banished you from Asgard. It is always Odin who wrongs us."
I do not need to hear her ask out loud what she did to know she will want to hear it, feeling her nod against my chest in acceptance of that fact as enough. Not telling her now would only be me acting against my own plans, and we have not yet reached the barrier of what must remain a secret.
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
0829 HOURS
SUBTERRANEAN BUNKER
LOCATION UNKNOWN
NORA
"You tried to do something forbidden." He starts with the obvious, but I don't mind because my attention is also on the warmth. Its not just his hands, I can feel it seeping through the leather of his arms and his armor. It confirms for me my suspicions, he is using magick, and its got to be just for my benefit. He is trying to drive out a chill that has nothing to do with the cold. He is probably doing this because he doesn't know what else to do.
"But there were no purer reasons than yours to try. You did it out of love." I don't question that detail like I have others because I know its true without question. Even if I don't know what kind of person I was before, I know the person Nora was. It was the only reason she ever did anything. Everything she did for others was because she loved them, even the things that seemed like she was doing for herself was for them too. If she was happy then they were happy with her. Nora was like a selfless child, I wonder if I was before too, when I was Arnora.
"I tried to make Odin see, we all did," The aggressive edge enters his tone, either at the name or the memory, but then a different kind of warmth seems to melt it back as he continues. "Even Frigga, my mother, the Queen pleaded your case." I had the the support of the queen? That's actually a huge relief, because how terrible could my crime have been if she was on my side. Maybe I was a good person after all.
"He gave you the 'choice' of renouncing that love forever, admitting what your heart drove you to was wrong, and swearing to never try again in exchange for staying in Asgard. He thought that was reasonable, but he did not know you at all. You made the choice I feared you would, and spat at his feet. You chose banishment over forsaking your heart." The silence settles, and grows, and with each passing second I can feel the tension in him grow too. It continues so long I lift my head in concerned curiosity. The movement makes a drop of water slide down a strand of my hair so it can caress my cheek. A tear from his eyes, one he isn't proud about shedding given the tick in his already clenched jaw.
I did it out of love, I chose to follow my heart, then forsake my love. I offended Odin, the king, with what this drove me to do, but I had the support of the queen, both she and Loki begged the king on my behalf, because I was acting out of love. An angry father, a compassionate mother, a prince, and me, a young woman. I have a theory in my head, and a load of evidence large enough to give me a migraine. Its straight out of a Shakespearean tragedy.
"It was you." We were in love, but we weren't supposed to be. Maybe I wasn't royalty, Loki hasn't said I was. Maybe he was supposed to marry someone else, a political marriage is not unheard of for a prince. If I was give the choice of forsaking the one I loved, and never seeing them again in exchange for staying in the place I called home. Would I have done it? Would the woman I was have done it? I don't know. But Nora wouldn't have, Nora would have fought for that love, Nora would have made them banish her.
I would have made them banish me. I did make them. I choose to be separated from him by a galaxy and a couple centuries rather then pretend for a second that he wasn't who I wanted to spend my life with. The guilt hits me like a truck. It was my choice that separated us, made him think I was dead, made it possible for me to lose my memory, made him spend centuries alone mourning me.
Maybe I am a monster after all, but maybe I can make it up to him. This time the contrast in our temperatures has me being the colder of the two, but as my hands slide higher between the inner and outer collar of his clothes I know he doesn't care, in fact the sight of his head tilting to the side and his eyes closing says he likes it. So does the shiver I feel through his lips when I touch them with mine.