'Tis a long one...
Beneath
Chapter Two Hundred One – Blame
The sun had long since set, and Loki stuck to the shadows. He lacked his helmet, and other than a few diagonal bands of silk over his chest – none of his public finery was without it entirely – his attire lacked green. Still, he was clothed more elaborately than the typical Asgardian, and he'd done nothing to obscure his black hair and pale beardless face. Occasionally, he was recognized.
The streets he now strolled were far from empty. Free of restrictions on being outdoors, free of the threat of further attack, citizens milled about, talking, laughing, shouting, drinking. He was passed by a trio of girls engaged in a random footrace, and in the distance a few people danced to the faint sounds of music.
Once he'd reached this area, north of the palace, dotted with popular entertainment venues, his pace had slowed and his roiling manic thoughts had grown more focused. Eyes that fell in his direction lingered, or else looked away and returned in a classic double-take. Sometimes, when they thought he didn't notice, a whispered exchange followed. He wondered what they were saying about him. What they were thinking. A few, perhaps, credited him with ending the war while not simultaneously condemning him for treasonously returning the Ice Casket to the Frost Giants. Most, though, he was certain harbored suspicions about his loyalty. His trustworthiness, at a minimum.
Centuries had passed since he'd given such things a second thought, or even a first.
"If anyone says anything to you, I'll beat him until he can't say anything else."
How fickle Thor had been. Full of rage with no one to direct it against. So, sometimes, Thor had directed it against him. Or someone who'd possibly looked at one of them the wrong way. Sometimes even someone who had actually said something.
Thunder clapped overhead – centered above the palace behind him, if Loki had to guess. At least rain didn't follow.
He used to hate being out in public, to dread it with all he was. He was no obscure peasant; everyone on Asgard recognized him. He hadn't yet learned to change his appearance through magic, and when he wanted to do so in the more mundane ways, Thor wouldn't let him. He hadn't understood it at the time, hadn't really understood it until now, with the passage of so many years and fresh, strangely dispassionate eyes: Thor had wanted everyone to recognize him. Thor had wanted someone to say something. To say anything he could take as a challenge or insult. It wasn't by accident; Thor had sought it out. Used him as bait to reel in something Thor could release that rage on. Because Loki, imprisoned and under guard, tied up on the ground, weak as an infant upon his release, wasn't an honorable target for Thor's fists. And Thor always handled things with his fists.
Thor probably hadn't been aware of what he was doing or why any more than Loki had, at the time, and Loki found, perhaps also strangely, that he didn't look back on it with anger. He didn't really look back on it with anything.
Another look, another whisper.
"You were forgiven, restored in full, protected by edict." Odin had indeed issued edicts, more than one. Meant to protect him, yes, he supposed, although he could also think of more cynical reasons now, with hindsight. But meant to help relegate his guilt in Baldur's murder to the past, and aid his reentry into Asgardian society.
And although Loki had thought in the beginning that it couldn't possibly work…it had. Baldur had not lived long, after all; the biggest mark his life had left on Asgard was in fact his death, a prince dying in a scandalous family drama. With time, memories of Baldur and even his death faded. Loki himself was no exception. When The Other had dug out his grievances and pain, rooted around in his memories, Baldur had never even come up. Finding out he'd been born a Frost Giant had easily crowded out any stray thoughts of a thousand-year-old fratricide.
Faded, however, was not the same as gone. Certain topics had been barred from public speech. Thoughts were not as easily controlled, especially not those subtle, hidden thoughts that lay beneath the conscious ones.
Loki paused in shadow, across the street from a small lamp-lit park. An older man lay there on his back in the grass, head resting on his hands. Someone who had certainly been alive at the time of Baldur's death. Someone who had probably cast a suspicious eye Loki's way at some point since, because he had never truly forgotten. Someone whose wagon axle Loki might have snapped in response. Someone whose ire Loki had thus earned, not connected to Baldur. Not directly.
No one had ever truly forgotten. Maeva's brothers hadn't. He closed his eyes briefly and behind his eyelids flashed a nasty fight he'd gotten into with them, after Modulfur brought it up, obliquely. They'd never liked him, never trusted him with Maeva. Might things have gone differently, if they hadn't thought their sister was involved with a man who had murdered his own brother? It was more complicated than that, of course; other issues had caused tension between him and Maeva's brothers, other issues between him and Maeva herself.
It was impossible to know the extent to which something that happened when Loki was thirty-four years old had affected the next thousand years, and would affect the thousands after that.
What it didn't affect at all was what had come before it. He was still a Frost Giant, a son of the illustrious dead Laufey and conniving living – unfortunately – Farbauti. His life was still built on a foundation of lies. He shook his head at himself and cast an unseeing gaze into the distance, back the way he'd come. He had enough to deal with at the moment without drowning himself in that bottomless miasma.
His eyes regained focus and he was about to set off again when he saw two figures approaching, looking in his direction, one tall and dark, the other short and pale. He was surprised they'd left him alone this long. They'd probably conferred and decided Jane was the safest bet. And, considering she was indeed the only person whose presence he would be able to bear right now, they were right. If they thought she would succeed in swaying him from his course, though, they were wrong.
/
/
"Are you sure you'll be all right? I can remain nearby if you wish."
"I'll be fine. Worst that happens, he's rude to me, as code for he doesn't want to talk to me. But I'd be surprised if he even goes that far. And I can find my way back, if it comes to that. The palace is hard to miss."
"Very well. If you need me, call my name. I'll see you."
"You won't, um…already be watching?"
"Contrary to what Loki may have told you, I don't normally watch him, or any other individual. Recent times have been…an exception. As for now, I won't be watching. Privacy is the very least he deserves at the moment."
Jane nodded. "I was really hoping to have some time to talk with you tonight, by the way. Maybe…some other time?"
"I'll be here. I'm curious to hear of your studies, and I shall be glad to share with you what I can of the bifrost and the Nine Realms."
Once she and Heimdall parted ways, Jane hurried over to Loki, who'd remained where he was, waiting for her.
"That was a lengthy farewell," Loki said.
"Heimdall was assuring me he's not listening in on you."
"And you believed him?"
"I barely know him," Jane said with a shrug. "But he seems like the kind of guy who would just tell you if he was going to be watching."
"You're probably right. After all, I'm the liar, aren't I?"
Jane wasn't sure whether Loki was being angry or ironic or sarcastic, serious or joking, and in turn wasn't sure how to respond. She didn't have to wait long for Loki to continue.
"If they sent you here to try to convince me to show mercy, then—"
"They didn't. Nobody said anything about that. No agenda. I think they're just worried about you."
Loki gave a dark laugh. "Worried I'll try to blow up another realm, perhaps. Or conquer one."
"Have any in mind?"
He drew in a slow breath, then exhaled and felt some of the darkness dissipate. "I don't know. Vanaheim might be in the mood for new leadership."
"I hear it's nice there this time of year."
Loki's shoulders shook twice; he even managed a smile. "You never cease to amaze me, Jane."
"What, with the power of my lame jokes?"
"No…well, yes," he corrected with surprise. "That you can joke about such things. About Earth. When there was obviously nothing funny about it for you."
"Maybe it's crass. But it wasn't funny for you, either, was it? Sometimes you just have to laugh, though. Sometimes that's all you can do, right?"
"There are other things. Though laughing is probably better than those other things."
"Probably," Jane said with a nod that set her dangling sapphire earrings back into motion. When they hung at rest again, Loki still hadn't responded. The silence was only a little awkward, not enough for Jane to feel the need to break it. The walk out here with Heimdall hadn't afforded her any insights into what she should say or do – particularly with the distraction of the thunder Heimdall said was Thor's – so she figured she was better off waiting and taking her cues from Loki. She was a little surprised at how calm he seemed, but Loki was pretty good at hiding his feelings behind a mask if he wanted to, so there was no way to be sure how he was really feeling.
"Are those my mother's?"
"What?"
"The jewelry."
"Oh! Yeah," Jane said, fingering one of the earrings. "I don't own anything like this. Aren't they beautiful?"
Loki nodded. "Almost as beautiful as the woman who wears them."
"Oh, stop, I—"
"I'm sorry. I didn't—"
"No, I don't mean—"
"About tonight, I mean. I'm sorry about tonight. I wanted you to enjoy yourself. Experience a true Asgardian feast, and everything that entails. The evening had barely begun. You didn't even get to try out those dance steps my mother and Jolgeir taught you."
"Oh. That's okay. From what I hear, feasts are a dime a dozen around here, anyway."
"A what?"
"A dime a dozen. Ten cents? Just means there's a lot of them. And you don't even have to have some special feast to dance. You can do that any time. Look at them."
Loki looked. Three couples, two younger, one quite aged. Music came from one of the taverns, not specifically for them, not the typical style used for dancing. They looked, on the surface, as though they had not a single care. "No one has been untouched by this," Eir had told him. The Aesir were a people of resilient spirits, though, able to raise a tankard, a voice, a foot, and cast aside their burdens for a time. "They're celebrating," Loki said, feeling as disconnected from Asgard and Asgard's people as he ever had, an outsider peering through the windows into the only home he'd ever known. A longing stirred in him, though, something foolish, pure fantasy. To be a part of them. To be unburdened.
"It's nice to see people enjoying themselves," Jane said, watching the couples make their slow turns.
"Yes," Loki said softly. When he looked down at Jane, now standing at his side, it was just like that first moment before the feast all over again, but much, much closer. Her hair was as beautiful as he'd ever seen it. Her features were deceptively delicate, her face open, her eyes shining and ever curious. The long earrings emphasized the length of her bare neck; the necklace drew his eyes down to the top of her breasts as his heart thudded so heavily he thought he could feel its pumping. Moonlight glinted off the jewelry and made the skirt of her gown appear to contain glimpses of the cosmos. The need to touch, to be even closer than he was, was overwhelming. "Would you like to?" he asked, voice uncharacteristically raspy.
"Sorry, what?" Jane asked, thinking Loki must have said something else that she'd missed while she'd been distracted.
"Dance," he said in the same rough voice before managing to feign a lighter tone. "Try out the steps you learned." Say yes, Jane. Say yes. With all he had he resisted giving in to the powerful instinct to say more, to manipulate her more than he already had into granting him what he wanted, to keep the raw need from his face.
Jane glanced around; no one seemed to be paying them any attention. "Okay, if you want to. Why not?" It was a little strange, maybe, under the circumstances, but Jane could relate to the desire to take a break, to pretend for a moment that the world around you hadn't turned upside down.
"Which dances did you learn?"
"'Learn' might be overestimating it. But it was the Sole Chain and the Ring Rest. Jolgeir said those were two of the simplest."
"The first is frequently an introductory dance, best done in a group. Let's try the second. You know the starting position?"
In answer, Jane held up her hand, palm facing Loki.
Loki pressed his palm to hers. He delayed a moment to allow himself to feel, from the base of their palms to the tips of their fingers. It was all he was allowed.
His other hand went behind his back, and Jane followed suit, with her other hand behind her back. "Ready?" he asked. At Jane's nod, he pushed lightly against her hand and she stepped back. The dance played out in nines, nine steps guided by the man in a simple pattern that became more elaborate over the course of the dance, a shifting of hands, a turn to switch hands, a bow, nine steps guided by the woman, with the pattern repeating from there. Palm-to-palm, constant light pressure, gentle pushing to guide without words.
Loki remembered his brief dance with Macy. The physical attraction he'd felt then hadn't been so much due to Macy as to the moment, to his own self-destructive mood and a surrender to baser instincts; it had meant nothing, no matter how much of her body had been molded to his. He longed for such a dance now, with Jane, though he knew it was impossible. Jane was never going to dance with him like that.
It wasn't fair.
But nothing in his life had ever been fair. And some things simply had to be accepted. He could accept this. He had to, because the only other option was saying goodbye to Jane tomorrow, forever. He knew now that he couldn't do that. He wasn't sure how he was going to maintain their friendship, since he remained unwilling to be a third party appended to Jane's relationship with Thor; he would simply have to find a way. He needed Jane in his life, and if that could only be as a friend, so be it.
Jane stepped on Loki's foot and swore. "Sorry."
"Not your fault," he said, voice husky. He swallowed. "I should have better anticipated."
"I made the wrong step. It was totally my fault."
"All right," Loki said with a laugh. "It was totally your fault."
Jane laughed, too, and her hand slipped around his to grasp it as her feet gave up trying to remember where to go.
"Ah, you prefer that I guide, of course."
"I do better when you guide, only because I barely know the steps. But you, you're amazing at this. You move like…I was going to say like a dancer," she said with another laugh. "So precise, but so smooth, too."
"It's not so dissimilar from sword training. Some of the dances even incorporate swords. And I admit that a millennium of practice helps."
"A millennium of practice. It does give you a slight advantage over my grand total of an hour, tops."
"You did very well for a grand total of an hour, tops."
"Flatterer. Probably better to do it here than at the feast, actually."
"Why is that?" Loki asked, though he already knew he agreed.
"Nobody there to see when I step on a foot."
Loki shared Jane's smile, but his reasoning was different, of course. Had the feast continued uninterrupted, he never would have danced with her. He would not have done so for anyone else's entertainment; he probably would have left once the dancing started, rather than be forced to stand there watching her dance with Thor. But these were dangerous thoughts, and he was allowing them much too free a rein.
He was using Jane, and feelings he had no business indulging, as a means of escape. And that made little sense, now that he thought about it. He had no need of escape. He was the aggrieved party, erroneously judged guilty of intentional murder, and all of Asgard would soon know it. He had gladly avoided all this for a millennium, but now…
"Would you like to see where it happened?" he asked abruptly.
"Where…?"
"Where he died."
"Oh," Jane said, then mentally kicked herself for the awkward response, and for having failed to understand what was in retrospect obvious. "Okay. If you want to show me."
"It's not far. I think…I think I was headed there before but…"
"Let's go then," Jane said. Loki, she thought, looked grateful. He's in shock, she realized as they set off, back in the direction she'd come from. It hasn't really hit him yet. She steeled herself for it, because it would, and visiting the site of Baldur's murder might just open the floodgates.
One block back and two blocks over, Loki brought them to a stop on a narrow road, more of a walkway, where they turned to face one of the many green areas that dotted the city. A stream trickled along a narrow terraced stone aqueduct that emerged from around the corner of the building behind it, and steadily descended in front of a row of fir trees and into a thick patch of waist-high bushes with dark green leaves. The faint noises of the informal celebrations a few streets over were almost entirely drowned out by the steady chirping of crickets and a dozen miniature waterfalls. A bird camouflaged for nighttime flitted away from its perch on one of the aqueduct segments at their approach.
"This is where it happened?"
Loki nodded. "It looked different then. More open. None of this was here. It was a grassy area. A couple of birch trees were over on the left. A small decorative fountain and a white bench on the other end. A bed of lavender bushes here, in the center, toward the back. I…"
Jane waited; Loki stayed silent for so long she thought he wouldn't continue. Then everything in front of her shimmered and changed. She could still hear the trickling of the water but the little aqueduct was gone. Now there was a clearer view of the side of the building beyond, and in between, the lavender bushes, the fountain, the bench, the birch trees. Down to the tiniest detail her eye registered, it all looked real. Just as three-dimensional and alive as it had looked when they first arrived. As amazing as Loki's recreations of Asgard and Alfheim had been in their preparation to see Niskit, what she was gaping at now left that in the dust. But then she shifted awkwardly, feeling a flare of guilt for focusing on the magic of what she was looking at instead of the significance of it. This was where Baldur had been struck by an arrow and died. She looked up at Loki, who seemed to be waiting for her to do so.
"I stood over there," he said, pointing to the right, the area where he'd first joined the throng of people entertaining themselves by throwing things at Baldur. "I knew what I was about to do. So I wanted to establish my presence elsewhere in the group. They said it was so I could deny the arrow came from me, but that wasn't true, not exactly. I wanted to keep the focus on Baldur. He was supposed to have a cut. A mark, to show he wasn't as invulnerable as he thought. I wanted him and everyone else there focused on that, not puffing up with outrage that I was the one who'd done it. I thought I would tell them it was me, later. In private. Yes, I was hiding what I was doing but even back then, when I was such a fool, I could have found a way to make that arrow without anyone seeing me. I could have made it inside my own chambers. I could have—"
"You could have…?"
Loki looked down at the grass that began a couple of inches from his feet and the illusion fell away. It wasn't even the same variety of grass it had been then. He'd lost track of where and when he was again. Who he was with. He'd reflexively fallen back on the way he used to tell this story, back then. Trying to convince the one person he'd never needed to, for some reason, and when it was even more of a wasted effort than it had ever been. They knew now that he'd never meant for Baldur to die. But he'd never needed to prove it to Jane.
"Where was I?" he asked, voice steady.
"Right here," Jane said, pointing to where Loki had pointed earlier, though a bush again grew there instead of the open grass of Loki's illusion.
He nodded. "I spoke to a couple of people, made it known where I was. And then I moved over to here," he said, pointing again, this time a spot just a few feet away from where they stood. He easily pictured it happening, having seen it all again so recently. "I slipped out the arrow and I gave it to Hodur. He was blind. Lost his sight in the Ice War. I'd hoped he would be there. He was still a good shot, took aim based on hearing so he wasn't likely to miss, but he wouldn't know who'd given him the arrow. I thought it was clever. I was hurrying back to where I'd been before when people started screaming. I smiled. It was the most impressive act of mischief I'd ever pulled off. It was…euphoric. The sweetest of victories."
Loki paused to reflect on the irony of that statement before continuing. "After that," he said with a shrug, "it's a blur. There was a moment…this strange moment when I sensed something wasn't right. I was at the back of the crowd, I didn't have a good view. And then…I remember there were calls for a healer, for a stone, and even though I knew something didn't feel right, I was…he gets a little cut, a few drops of blood, and everyone panics and calls for a healer? Little wonder he's so spoiled and arrogant."
He drew in a deep steadying breath, to cleanse himself of callous thoughts he hadn't allowed himself to entertain for centuries. "But then I realized people were fleeing. I remember a woman running away with a small child in her arms, and she was covering his eyes with her hand. I looked again and the crowd had thinned enough. No more than a few seconds could have passed but it all seemed much longer. From euphoria to… He had staggered backwards and fallen. Into the lavender bushes. The next thing I remember, I was at his side, I was breaking a healing stone over his wound. But it was…it was too late. A healing stone doesn't make a heart start beating again. It's a…a form of shorthand, you know, usually. When we say someone was stabbed in the heart. The ribcage is in the way. It takes a favorable position, the right angle, and skill to hit the heart itself. But sometimes even an unskilled shot can be…lucky," he said with a macabre bitter smile. "His aorta was torn. Right next to the heart. Two years later, possibly even a year later, that simple little arrow wouldn't have killed him no matter where it struck. As it was…he died quickly."
Loki took a moment to collect himself. At least the memory of Baldur's vacant eyes was still a millennium old. "I always assumed something had gone wrong. That I misjudged. There was an element of risk in it. But I took such care to minimize it that I thought the more likely risk was that the arrow wouldn't do even the damage I wanted. That Hodur would be distracted and miss entirely. The possibility that someone else could have been involved never occurred to me. And after…when I went back to try to save him, I thought it all must be simply inevitable."
"That's when you saw him, isn't it? Geirmund, I mean. You saw him when you went back."
"In the stables, yes. There were two other people in the stables that day, and I didn't notice either of them, not then. A boy had been playing in the rafters…he told the magistrates he saw me shaping the arrow. His statement was damning. The only direct evidence that the arrow that killed Baldur came from me. But someone else was there, too. He must have been hiding behind something up at the front of the stables as I came out. I think…I must have heard something, or caught a glimpse of something, because I turned…I watched myself turn…but I don't remember turning, not the first time. Obviously I didn't see anything out of the ordinary when I turned, and it didn't even register in my memory. But when I went back…I suppose I turned faster. I was more on edge, more aware of my surroundings. Geirmund must have stuck his head out to make sure I was gone," Loki said, lips curling over the name.
"I saw the back of a head of hair. I thought…I thought all sorts of things about that trip. Strange ripple effects of what I was doing, or what some future me was doing. Fate preventing me from altering my course… Obviously I couldn't stop it from happening. It was meant to happen, and it was meant to happen at my hands. But the other person, the head of hair I saw…I thought perhaps it was simply another witness, one who feared reprisal if he came forward, without the privacy protections afforded a child. I never imagined…it was Baldur's true murderer."
"How could you have?"
"And back then, I wasn't thinking clearly. I was so confident that I had everything figured out, that I knew exactly what would happen. But I was wrong, and I panicked, and…it all fell apart."
"Your brother had just died right in front of you. And from an arrow you made. Of course you weren't thinking clearly."
"It made me look guilty."
"You weren't guilty."
"I wasn't guilty," Loki said, and it was only now that it began to sink down, past the initial shock, past the rage, down to his core. To feel real. "I wasn't guilty," he said again. "Baldur didn't die because of what I did."
"No."
"I created the circumstances, though," he said, brow furrowing, gaze losing focus. An immeasurable chasm lay between guilty and innocent. "I found out about the mistletoe. I made the arrow."
"Lots of things created the circumstances, Loki. But it was Geirmund who took a flimsy arrow and made it sturdy enough to be deadly. An arrow he knew was going to hit Baldur."
"My arrow couldn't have killed him."
"Geirmund agreed."
"He did. He said he could tell my arrow was too light. So he fixed it." Loki looked aside for a second, then back at Jane with a laugh that verged on hysterics. "Baldur died because he gave a girl a few pretty baubles. Can you believe that? I wonder what he gave her. He wouldn't have had much money. We didn't begin receiving keep until we were twenty. My guess would be he gave her something of his own. Second-hand goods. He died for giving another youth his leftovers. Eighteen years old. It wasn't love. It's never love at eighteen, even if you think it is. It's a kiss, a fumble, a grope in the dark, and that only if you don't have guards following you everywhere you go. He must have thought she was pretty, appreciated her attention. He was arrogant, he had all the girls' attention. They would have grown up, and apart. Nanna? I never heard of her again. If you hadn't mentioned her name that time, I wouldn't have recalled it at all. She didn't join us at family dinners. She couldn't have been more than a passing infatuation. She was nothing. And he died because of her. Because some peasant couldn't stand that…." He paused to catch his breath, suddenly aware he'd descended into near incoherence, and blaming Nanna of all people, Nanna who for all he knew never even realized that Geirmund considered her more than a neighbor and friend. It wasn't Nanna's fault. "And that peasant escaped without so much as a reprimand and inveigled his way right into the palace to gain the ear of the throne. My brother's murderer was advising the king!"
Loki abruptly turned and walked a few paces away. He'd been shouting at the end. Jane didn't seem to be bothered by it, but she didn't deserve to have him yelling in her face.
"At least now you know the truth."
Loki nodded. It was cold comfort – no comfort, really – but it was better than continuing to believe he'd killed Baldur himself.
"And as awful as that trip you made back to that day was…something good came of it, in the end."
He turned back around, closed the distance between them again. "It did, didn't it? I thought nothing came of it. Of any of it. All that effort, for no more than scaring Selby Higgins into trying to kill me. But if I hadn't gone back to that day…if I hadn't been so convinced that I could change things, prevent his death…I never would have seen him there. I never would have known. Over a thousand years I believed his blood was on my hands."
"It wasn't."
"It wasn't."
Jane smiled; Loki smiled back.
No minor stretch of muscles had ever felt stranger.
"All those years, everything I went through…"
"I'm so sorry you had to endure that, Loki. I can't imagine it. I don't care what you call it here, we call that torture. You were tortured for no reason."
Loki shook his head. "That was nothing. A little bit of discomfort for a short while, over and done with long, long ago. The boredom was as bad as anything else."
"I seriously doubt that."
He laughed lightly. "No matter how severe pain is, it fades in memory once it ends. I thought I killed my brother. He wasn't my brother but…I believed he was then. I—"
"He was your brother, Loki. It doesn't matter if it was by blood or not."
"By blood…I thought the blood, the blame, was all mine. That took much longer to fade. And when it faded…it never disappeared."
"Of course not."
"It's as though it…sank into me. Into my bones. Into who I am. It's always been a part of me."
"And now you have to let go of it somehow. It's going to be hard."
"I think you're right. That guilt has been there for so long…I don't know if it's even possible to truly be free of it. We argued constantly. Things had grown so contentious between us. And I thought…I used to think…perhaps some part of me…perhaps…." He paused, swallowed, ran a hand over his face. This he hadn't spoken aloud in over a millennium. Hadn't let himself consider it, for the sheer horror of it. For fear, because this was what he'd confessed, with conviction instead of doubt. "Perhaps I did want him to die."
Jane grabbed Loki's hands and squeezed hard. "No. I've heard you tell this story more than once, different ways, before the time travel and after, and I know that's not true. You're only doubting yourself because for all those years everyone else did. It wasn't your fault. And no matter how mad you were at him, no matter how much you argued, him not being there the next day for you to argue with some more was never what you wanted. I know you, I know what you wanted."
"You do, do you?" Loki asked, blinking over the sheen of gathering tears.
"Are you kidding me? Of course I do. You wanted to win that argument. You wanted him to know you'd won it. And you needed him to be there for that. Alive and well."
Gasping, wheezing laughter bubbled up. Tears crested his lower eyelids. Jane's arms circled around him. The laughter transformed into shaking sobs. His arms wrapped around her as well and he shook them both with his hitched breaths. "You're right," he said, head ducked down beside hers, almost in line with it. "All these years and I never thought of it like that, but you're right. It was between me and him and I wanted him to realize how colossally stupid he was being. He was acting like he knew better than everyone else. Better than me." The heavy pulsing of his chest, now slightly aching, slowed back to its normal rhythms. He sniffed and the tears stopped. He looked back – really looked back – on that day, and the days and weeks preceding it. "I didn't like that. But I didn't want him dead. I wanted to win. There was no winning if he wasn't alive to admit he was wrong."
Jane smiled into Loki's shoulder, looking up and blinking, trying to keep her own tears at bay to avoid black streaks running down her face.
He drew back enough that her arms fell away, while his still remained loosely around her. "How do you know me so well? You knew me as Lucas Cane for almost as long as you've known me as Loki…whoever I am. I don't even know me anymore. How do you?"
"I don't claim to know everything about you. But if I know one thing it's how much you like to win an argument," she said, smile growing. "I know that look of satisfaction, that little sparkle in your eye you get when you win one, or at least think you've won. And I know how mad you get when you think you're losing. I couldn't count how many arguments we got into."
Loki disentangled himself the rest of the way and tugged at the edge of his sleeve to take a quick swipe underneath his eyes. He gave another sniff, then worked up a smile. "And I won them all."
"You like to think you did."
"Come now, Dr. Foster. I admit it's been a while now and perhaps my memories are already fading, but what did we end up calling that device we modified? Was it…the Arc Launcher?"
"Okay, so you won that one. Though only by pure obstinance."
"Call it what you will. I won."
"And you wanted to win the one with Baldur, too."
"I did," a hint of the surprise he still felt remaining in his voice.
"You know…you told me once that you'd never really grieved for him. Maybe it's not too late. Maybe it's time to do that now."
"A thousand years later? I wouldn't even know how, Jane."
Jane shrugged. "Me either. Maybe you just let yourself feel it. Whatever you feel. You've always guarded how you felt about the whole thing, right? Now that you know the truth, the whole truth, and everyone else does, too, or soon will, you don't have to do that anymore. You just…give yourself permission to not pretend anymore."
"Now I think," Loki said, laughing lightly, "that you don't know me as well as I first thought."
"Because you can't stop pretending? Uh-huh, right."
"Pretending comes more naturally to me than not. It's been woven into me since infancy, you know."
"You haven't been pretending tonight, have you?"
Loki looked back at the terraced aqueduct and the bushes surrounding it, the whole area pretending as though nothing important had ever happened there. "I suppose not."
"Why don't you tell me about him? What he was like. I know more about his death than anything else."
"That's why we don't talk about it. One of the reasons."
"We're talking about it now, right? Tell me about his life."
Loki considered it. They'd talked a little about this before; he knew Jane hadn't forgotten, either. He'd told her about The Journey and Challenges of the Valiant Odinsons. He hadn't really wanted to discuss Baldur then, but the Challenges song was an easy one since she already knew the basic story from the variation on it that existed in Midgardian mythology. That was all he'd ever told her. "Not here," he said, decision made. "Shall we walk?"
"Sure."
"Are you warm enough?"
"I'm fine."
"All right then," Loki said, and they set off at a stroll, leaving the site of Baldur's death behind them. "He had blond hair. Not like Thor's or Mother's. His was almost white, what some call platinum blond. Everyone always said it would darken as he got older, but it never did, not even a bit."
"Any other family with hair like that?"
"None. Well, Mother said that one of her grandfathers was platinum. I suppose it's a small part of why I never particularly questioned the oddity of my own hair. But he at least was without question born of Frigga. I remember the pregnancy. I was waiting outside the door during his birth."
"Really? How did you feel about it? Not being the youngest anymore."
"I was excited. Thor and I…." He cast a furtive glance downward, briefly meeting Jane's eyes, and decided to forge ahead and ignore the complication of her relationship with Thor. No pretending. "We were very close then. But I think that even then I recognized somehow that I was in his shadow. There was no question of who led and who followed, usually. I think I had this idea that it would be the same with me and Baldur, except I would lead and he would follow. I was fifteen when he was born, I wouldn't have framed it in such terms at the time. I just wanted to be the older brother for a change."
"Not that I can speak from personal experience, but I'm guessing you're not the first middle child in history to have felt that way."
"Probably not," Loki said, tossing Jane a smile as they rounded a bend. "It was never going to be that way, of course. Not quite as I'd imagined. Thor and I were a year apart. We did everything together in those days. Baldur was fifteen years younger. Still, he…he meant a great deal to me. I tried very hard to be a good older brother to him. Thor, too – we did that together, too, be Baldur's older brothers. But it was more important to me, I think. I took it more seriously. Like a duty."
"That's sweet. I can picture it. You trying so hard to be the best big brother ever."
"I tried. Until I failed."
"You didn't fail. Somebody else intervened. It wasn't your fault."
Loki came to a stop with Jane's words. It was so ingrained in him that mere minutes after discussing precisely that, he'd forgotten. It was still true that he'd failed. Just not in the way he always thought he had. Not in a way that made him guilty of Baldur's death. It wasn't my fault. He nodded and started walking again, Jane matching his pace at his side.
/
/
"How may I assist you, my king?"
"Thank you for coming so quickly," Thor said, leading Bragi to another meeting space, grateful that being king meant he didn't have to explain why his own was full of destroyed desk. "The first thing you can do is have a seat."
Without another word Bragi sat down at the table; Thor joined him.
"You must be curious about why the feast came to such an abrupt end."
"Nigh unto dying of it, Your Majesty. But it wouldn't do to ask."
"I shall cure you of the curiosity, but I cannot swear the cure won't be just as lethal. There's no easy way to broach this, so here it is. Loki didn't kill our brother, Baldur. Geirmund did." He would have to fill in the rest of it, but as the words tumbled out, he realized he needed to see Bragi's reaction. His own, as best he recalled, was an inability to grasp what he was hearing.
For what felt like a long while, his diplomatic advisor – the man who had long been his father's closest advisor and friend – didn't react at all, and when Bragi finally spoke, Thor still couldn't discern any sign of whether Bragi believed or rejected his declaration.
"If your brother had just told me something so unexpected, I would think it some kind of odd jest."
"It is no jest."
"I can see that. May I ask…upon what evidence you tell me this?"
"Upon Geirmund's confession."
At that Bragi's brow lifted. "I see why you've sent for me. Will there be a trial?"
"Geirmund declined a trial. He declined representation. He stands by his confession."
"Was it recorded?"
Thor hadn't thought about that. A flash of worry struck him, but it quickly passed. "No. But it was spoken before me, my father, my mother, Loki, as well as Finnulfur, Heimdall, and Jolgeir. And Jane Foster. Our collective word would bury his should he change his mind and recant…but I don't believe he will."
"Still, best to ensure it's recorded. There should be no room for question. What's our timeline? When will it be made public? When will punishment be decided?"
"It may already be public. He was paraded outdoors before being taken back to his chambers to inform his wife. The pronouncement will take place tomorrow evening."
"Tomorrow," Bragi echoed in surprise, the first strong response he'd shown thus far. "In all my years I've never known an Asgardian magistrate to move so fast, even with a confession. Especially not Finnulfur. The man takes a week to decide what he wants on his breakfast plate."
"Not Finnulfur. Not a magistrate. Loki."
"Lo—. Ah. Yes, of course. You've granted the right to recompense and retribution. Valhalla's cups."
"May they be bottomless."
"Indeed. How he suffered…." Bragi then straightened up from the slump he'd fallen into. "Will there be an execution?"
"Almost certainly. With extensive flogging beforehand. Unless Loki comes up with something more inventive."
And here, perhaps with the dam cracked, Thor saw a shadow of sorrow fall over Bragi's face, whether for Geirmund or perhaps for his family. He understood it. Thor could not think of Geirmund without seething with anger, but his newborn daughter was innocent, and his wife, too.
"How do you do it, Bragi? Remain so composed. Accept all this so easily, without even hearing the whole story. And after so many years forbidden to even speak Baldur's name. I feel like taking Mjolnir and crushing mountains."
"If I gave the impression it's easy, I assure you it isn't," Bragi said with a smile. "It's my duty to project calm when my blood boils and my mind races, and I've borne that duty many centuries now. Very little shocks me enough for me to break form."
Thor couldn't help briefly wondering whether Bragi would manage to mask his shock upon learning that Loki was by birth Jotun. It was merely a passing thought, though, nothing he would ever act on. "You were good to Loki, you and Lady Edny, when he was recovering."
"Hmm," Bragi murmured, falling back into silence for a moment. "My wife more than I, I believe. I—"
"Please. Tell me," Thor said with an encouraging nod.
"It was a difficult time for all of Asgard. I don't mean to compare it to what your family endured but…there was no precedent for it. To commit a murder against the king's family, so it was believed at the time, and return to freedom? And eventually to the public eye, to a public role? In proximity to the throne again? He wasn't even meant to be alive, had the normally required punishment been applied."
"Valhalla's cups."
"May they be bottomless."
Unable to sit any longer, Thor walked around the table and leaned against the far wall. Loki would have been dead without the loophole the magistrates found. Executed, a thousand years ago, never to see Geirmund, never to have the truth come out. Remembered only as the man who'd murdered his brother, third son of the King of Asgard. No one would ever have known. If Geirmund stood before him now, Thor wasn't sure if he could have stopped himself from bashing the man's head in.
"I spent sleepless nights thinking about the nature of punishment," Bragi continued. "The purpose of it. The morality of it. Things I have no qualifications for, really. It's all so long ago now…but I did come to the same conclusion that Edny did, that his punishment had been fulfilled, and that it was in everyone's best interest if Loki's path back from it was eased rather than hindered."
Thor closed his eyes, ancient guilt washing over him. He had, at times, hindered more than helped.
"Well," Bragi said as he, too, stood, "if I'm to assist you in managing this, knowing the whole story that you mentioned would help."
"Of course," Thor said, swiftly recounting what Geirmund had told them, and filling in some background details that Bragi had either forgotten or never known in the first place, not having been directly involved in the trial.
"Did you ever see anything in him?" Thor asked when he'd told all he knew. "Anything that made you look on him with suspicion? Anything that made you think he could have done something like this?"
"Nothing comes to mind. He worked well with everyone. Showed no signs of strain despite all the pressure—"
"I remember walking in on meetings with an atmosphere more suited to a tavern after the women and children have left for the night."
"That was the War Council, not the Assembly. Though we had our moments, too. He showed no signs of succumbing to the pressure. He was diligent, responsible, reliable…. If you ever got him to relax long enough, he had a good sense of humor. He was personable. I can't believe I'm already speaking of him in the past tense. We all liked him. We praised Krusa for selecting him."
"He murdered my brother."
Bragi nodded. "While your other brother bore the blame."
It struck Thor then that that was what made him angriest. Baldur had died long ago, and he was still dead, still murdered by an arrow during a stupid game, for reasons that made no sense to him. Nothing there had changed. What had changed was Loki's role in it. Loki had suffered so horribly not as the cold-blooded murderer of his own brother, a youth no less, but as an innocent man less than two decades out of his own official youth. An innocent man who'd seen his younger brother struck a fatal blow by a flimsy arrow, who'd held Baldur as his heart stopped beating from lack of blood.
Thor drew in a shaky breath. "Loki didn't kill him. Loki lost Baldur, too, and…and he was arrested for it." Powerful emotions welled up and threatened to overcome him. Mourning Baldur's death had been a messy affair for all of them. But Loki had been too busy trying to avoid the ax to mourn. And everyone – every single one of them, all of Asgard – had turned their backs on him. "I swear, Bragi, I'll volunteer to swing the ax myself."
"Thor. Don't say, or do, something you might feel differently about later. A king does not swing the ax."
"I'm not just a king."
"Nor does an aggrieved brother. If blood is to be spilled, affix your seal to approve it, as king and aggrieved brother, and let it proceed according to the law."
Thor's blood cooled, just slightly, under Bragi's relentlessly calm words. That he should not serve as executioner sounded vaguely reasonable. He shook his head then, recalling the brief conversation he'd had with his father tonight. "How is it that you have so much more advice for me than my own father does?"
Bragi broke into surprised laughter, which calmed Thor further, since he'd realized only after speaking that he'd possibly committed an offense, for his father was also not just his father, and not just a king, but Bragi's dear friend. "As your senior advisor, I'm an abject failure if I can't dispense sound advice, and in a manner that aids you in hearing it. Your father has long been a king, never an advisor. And…if I may be so bold…be gracious toward him. I guarantee you, he is every bit as angry as you, and profoundly more guilt-ridden. Your father may have gained great skill at staying atop the waves of emotion, but even he can still be tossed about."
Thor considered it; Bragi was right, his reasonable tone almost insisted on consideration. His father hadn't seemed guilt-ridden, or tossed about, and Thor found he could hardly imagine him in either condition. He also found, though, that he had little capacity for trying to figure out anyone's state of mind beyond his own.
"In the meantime, if you're ready for some advice on how to manage reaction to this revelation and its consequences…"
"I am," Thor said with a resolute nod, ready to set aside even his own turmoil for the moment to ensure that everything was handled as it should be, and Loki faced no recrimination for whatever was to become of Geirmund.
"Then I suggest you call an emergency Assembly to begin in an hour. Geirmund has a— had a handful of clerks. Five, I think. They should be notified because his office's work must continue tomorrow morning. And…because they deserve to know. I'll take care of it after the Assembly. Krusa should be informed before everyone else. I'll take care of that, too, unless you'd rather."
"No. It'll be better coming from you."
"All right. We need to summon a communicator scribe. This should be slated to the register as soon as possible, and you'll need to decide how much you want the public to know."
"All of it. I want every citizen of Asgard to know the truth. Every citizen throughout the realms."
"We should discuss this in more detail before you say 'all of it.' This is your family. You may find that you, or they, wish for some details to remain private."
Thor winced. "You're right. Have the scribe present at Assembly and we'll discuss it afterward. And Loki should have a chance to look it over for final approval before it's released."
"A good idea. In order to avoid delay, then, I suggest slating something in general terms even tonight. 'Supplies Advisor Geirmund Faldarson has been removed from his post pending an appearance before the throne concerning his confession to a past criminal act.' Something along those lines. What do you think?"
"That sounds appropriate," Thor said, nodding, although in truth Bragi was now moving faster than he could keep up. It was disconcerting, but Bragi knew what he was doing, and Thor did not.
"All right. I'll go take care of the call to Assembly, the scribe order, and informing Krusa, and then we should take a few minutes to discuss how you'd like to handle the Assembly. If this pleases Your Majesty."
"Yes. Thank you, Bragi. I'm grateful."
Bragi dropped to one knee – not a feat without effort for the aged advisor – saluted, and departed after Thor's nod.
Bragi would keep things on track. Bragi would keep him on track. And maybe he would make it through these twenty-four hours without losing control of himself after all.
/
If you haven't heard back from me on your PM, sorry, you will, I just got waylaid with move-prep-related stuff.
Guest review responses: Guest (May 14) - Thanks! And ha, believe me I'd love to write a whole chapter of Jolgeir's thoughts. All of their thoughts. (I won't, but, you know, I'd like to.) Odin and Frigga coming in the next chapter though. Or the one after that. I forget! / Guest (also May 14) - Thanks! Complex characterization for the win. :-) I don't see Frigga entirely the same way; I'd say she's a peacemaker, or, tries to be. A kind of "connective tissue" between in particular Odin and Loki, and with Thor and Loki, in her view that relationship is not for her to intervene in, once they're grown, though also she wasn't privy to a lot of what happened between Thor and Loki. But yes, she's certainly flawed as well. I'm not sure there were any perfect decisions available to her in all this, but the ones she made were not always necessarily the best. I think you're right, that there's a certain avoidance of dealing with the conflict in her family, she knows it's there (though not necessarily the extent of it) but most of the time it's almost as though she papers over it, with her own love and will, as a way to keep the family intact. Some of this will be touched on, in a way, but necessarily to the extent you're looking for. / Guest (ch. 72/3) - Hope you continue to enjoy it! It's not objectively "gross," but Jane grew up a city girl, so milking animals wasn't ever a part of her life; I'd say her reaction comes from that plus the idea of drinking mead straight from a goat. (She wouldn't react the same to the idea of milking a goat for actual milk.) / "Curious" - Thanks! Sorry, no, such theories won't be incorporated; I don't agree with them. To me at least, it's clear that the movie intended to convey that Loki *did* want to take Earth. Take for example the deleted scene when Loki says, mostly to himself but in the presence of mind-controlled minion Clint, "I mean to rule this world. Not burrow in it." That's not a grandiose statement for an audience. That's a reflection of reality. (A very recent reality, egged on and promoted through manipulation by Thanos/The Other? Very possible, IMO very probable. But still reality.) The real reason, I strongly believe, that Loki did what he did in terms of the arguments you laid out, was because that's what was necessary to make a good story for a movie. Why attack Stark Tower? Because Tony Stark is the star of the movie and Stark Tower is a key Marvel location (not because it's objectively the wisest move Loki could make, though I give props for them wrapping it in logic, Loki trying to make a "diva" statement by targeting Stark Tower). Why unite all the Avengers? I think the movie means to convey that he brought them together in a specific way so that he could pit them *against* each other and drive them apart, but, ultimately they are united because that's the way it has to go, to make a movie titled Avengers. Basically this kind of theory has to assume things the movie doesn't show us, and that I don't think the movie intended to convey. That's not to say you can't build a good fanfic around it, I just don't see it as canon, so this particular fic doesn't go that route. Besides, to me this kind of interpretation turns Loki into almost purely a good guy...and I think he's way less interesting that way. I'm just speaking for myself of course, no disrespect intended toward those who disagree. Still, even though Loki did what he did in Thor-1 and Avengers, I don't think he's a horrid person (which should be clear from this story). I see him as a troubled person who made some uncharacteristically horrid decisions after some particularly traumatic events - not a saint to begin with, but definitely "uncharacteristically" horrid decisions. And I, too, *love* to see others realize that he's *not* an intrinsically horrid person. That's gold. Anyway, that's where I come from on all this.
Annnnnd some previews for Ch. 202: A long night lies ahead: what has the family been up to? Expect some awkward moments, some tension, maybe even some arguments, as the first word of Geirmund's confession gets out, and everyone tries to deal with what they've learned.
Excerpt:
Finnulfur sighed and settled back in his chair, shoulders slumped. "I don't know. I've pulled all of the records into notebooks to refresh my memory. The initial investigation, evidence analysis, medical examination, the trial itself. It isn't something one forgets, but the details were hazy. Loki's confession," he said, sliding over the notebook that had been open before him.
Odin rotated the book and read the transcript. Audio and visual were available as well, but the words were enough. "I'm sorry," leapt off the page. Again and again. "I envied him." "I hated him." "I wanted him dead."