Chapter Eight - In which amends are made.
Loki jumped at the sound of the door slamming and raised his eyebrows. If his lips were free, he would have immediately exclaimed to the furniture to take notice of how ridiculous Henrietta Knott was being. She was overly sensitive. Why on earth was she taking any notice of him, of his insults? Was she being serious?
As his lips were closed, he was left to stew in one position with guilt brewing somewhere within him and flick his eyes away from the glowering sun.
His pride, however, left him on the bed and disabled him from seeking her out. He was weak, so he passed out a few hours later, his dreams uncomfortable and stinging.
They did not speak to one another for the rest of the week. Loki took to wandering the house one day, but as soon as he bumped into her going about her business he hid inside the spare bedroom, left to his own thoughts. After a few days he had become feverish and restless, jumping at small sounds, for he was left alone with himself for too long.
His mind worked, for he had nothing to do, and when that started to happen, he began to suffer, the sickness deep within him reaching out and gripping him with its clammy, webbed fingers once more.
He staggered off to the bathroom early one morning, passing by a huge mirror that he had not noticed thus far. He stopped, shocked, then peered into it, disbelieving his reflection.
This was not Loki of Asgard, the one that pulled in women with a single glance, the one who could win cold hearts back with a smile and erase his faults from the minds of others with a grin. It wasn't the being who was known for his enjoyable mannerisms and green sparks of mischief that flashed with each flick of his eyes.
This was a shattered man with a ravaged mind and conscience, snapping and stumbling at the slightest pressure. A weak and useless man without his magic.
His eyes were undefinable. One moment they were blank and stared straight ahead, lost, the next they flashed with madness and black, directed to ruin and wither. He doubted whether feeding his vanity was truly worth it, for he had no health to speak of. It was as though he was trying to dress a corpse.
He bent down and put a hand to his eyes, stretching the wrinkles, then ran his finger down to his ravaged lips, outlining the threads, the scars along his lips, the bars of his morbid prison…
Crash.
He stood panting, shaking with fury and gagging with bitterness, his knuckles bleeding, for he had put his fist through the mirror.
Loki staggered backwards. A whimper was drawn from his throat. He stared at his split knuckles with terror, afraid of himself, afraid of his shell, sick of his own being.
Something stirred upstairs. Henrietta had heard his outburst. He clutched at his bleeding hand and fled to his room, slamming the door, sliding down and curling, stiff, at the base of it.
Although he felt like weeping, he did not. His eyes stayed dry. He merely trembled, pressing his arms around himself, shutting his eyes tight and leaning his head against the cold, wooden surface. His breath became ragged and short.
The footsteps paused in the corridor and light trickled through the gap between the frame and the door, but she did not come in.
After a few minutes, he heard them tapping away and the room was plunged into darkness once more, leaving his mind to torture him freely.
Hattie did not reply to the message.
Hello, Andrew had written, I hope this works.
She stared down at the blue screen, biting at her thumb, dithering. Andrew was kind, he treated her like a lady.
But he was mortal. She was not. Her parents had been Asgardian, and…
And she had given her heart away to another, a long time ago.
Loki did not leave the bedroom. It was as though the house was empty, as she was used to it being, until one night, when she had given up for the day and retired to her chambers. She had not lain there for an hour, when a crash pierced the silence and set some birds in her attic fluttering through its window.
She got up, lighting a lamp, armed with a metal rod in case it was a burglar. She had put on the light to the landing when she saw what had happened - the grand mirror had been broken.
Her brows furrowed, but her analysis was broken by the sound of doors slamming shut. Hattie bit her lip and frowned, then decided to investigate further.
She could not bring herself to knock. His words and mockery still rang out in her mind and heart, setting her biting her tongue and her temper spiking. After a few minutes of dithering at his door, she tapped away, back to bed, but not before cleaning the mess up.
Perhaps they would have never spoken to each other again, if it had not been for an incident that changed the course of their future.
Hattie did not work. Her uncle had existed in this realm for over two hundred years and had wasted no time. She had so much money in her bank, she would not be able to spend it in her lifetime if she tried to, which was why she was not angry at the god of lies for borrowing any without asking. She was merely irritated he had done so flippantly, without consulting her first. In her mind, it was the man who lavished gifts on the fairer sex, not the other way around.
She treated herself to books, and so, after reluctantly calling Filip to check on his progress with the blade and the blacksmith (he had not yet returned) she settled on a couch with a book in her hand which was next on her reading list.
As Hattie turned to page thirty-two, there was an almighty crash upstairs, followed by tinkling as though someone had broken the window. She froze, the cup of tea in her hand slipping and smashing on the floorboards.
She dithered on whether to ignore it or not, when a second crash followed, then another, then thuds, as though the furniture had fallen over.
Shoving her book to one side, she flew from her chair, upstairs, then flung open the door and gasped, putting her hands over her mouth in horror.
"Odinson, what-?"
The window had been broken; shards of glass littered the floor. Books lay open with their pages creased, the chair was in pieces and Loki of Asgard was crouching barefoot in the corner, his face and fists bloody, crying out through his nose, tearing at his lips in a frenzy.
Hattie baulked as soon as she had reached for his mind, for the image was so deranged and so bitter that it sent a spike of pain through her head.
A blue being with a hundred red eyes was standing before him, displaying a thick, brass needle threaded with black thread with a twisted smile. She knew Loki could not move, that he was forced to watch and feel without fighting as it sewed his lips together, chuckling darkly to itself. To her horror, he was surrounded by people who watched without blinking, smirking: a beautiful woman next to a grand-looking ruler with silvery hair; a tall, blonde, muscular man in armour, holding a thick hammer; many other people, all who had hatred in their eyes and… Her.
A young Hattie Knott was looking at his hands in apprehension, glancing at him with huge grey eyes. She caught her words as she drew her mind back.
"Loki of Asgard… Your heart drips black-! Who are you, really…? What have you done?"
Hattie felt tears flooding her eyes. Small Hattie turned away.
"You are undeserving of love. Swallow your words, jotun runt. Rot in your silence."
Loki cried out, cowering, his eyes unfocused, distant. He scrambled backwards, panting, scratching at the walls.
"It's not real, Odinson!" She yelled, frozen. "It's all in your head, I'm here! I'm here!"
He covered his face and shook from side to side, blood gathering on his lips, his skin stretching, twisting - he was tearing his mouth.
She needed to wake him. She needed him to come back, or he would go mad completely, if he had not already.
Looking around wildly, she noticed an abandoned glass of water near the windowsill. She seized it, then turned and sloshed it all over him.
He gasped through his nose, covering his eyes as the water dripped down his face and down his neck, stunning him into stillness. Hattie reached out to his mind and hissed in pain.
Black, black, pits, prison, snakes! No hope, shatter, death, come, death, come, come…
She collapsed next to him, ignoring the glass and debris.
"Don't tug on them… Don't-!"
She took his hands and pulled them away from his mouth. His eyes flashed at her, accusing, afraid; ashamed.
Tears rolled down her cheeks. She wiped them away furiously, then clutched his shoulders.
"That wasn't real. I would never say that to you. Never."
She clutched him harder, feeling herself shake from emotion.
"Never! Understand me?! None of that was true!"
He looked into her. His eyes rolled. He slumped against the wall as she clutched at his hands.
"Loki Odinson. Loki Odinson!"
She slapped at his face. It was wet, but not with tears.
"Don't do that. Wake up. Wake!"
It took a few seconds. He blinked, taking her in, then the surroundings. His eyes slowly returned to cold indifference, then sharpened and stared at her.
"It's me. Knottie. Remember?"
He nodded, shutting his eyes tight.
She swept his hair away from his face. He winced, bringing his hand to his lips shakily.
"Don't move. No, get on the bed. Come."
They managed to get him on the bed with some effort. It was over now. He had regained some control, although he wouldn't meet her eyes. Hattie smoothed the covers over him with her lips pressed into a thin line.
"It's a wonder your feet aren't cut…" She muttered to herself to try and break the silence. "No, it's not a wonder, you're Aesir. It takes more than glass to cut you."
She sat down when she finished, looking at him in sorrow.
"Loki of Asgard." She sighed, then started patting his back. "Let me make one thing clear."
Loki watched her feet, for he couldn't meet her eyes. Her hand on his back was soothing and helped his own heart to adjust to the pace she was making.
"Young Hattie would never say such a thing. You were…"
She smiled. He felt it and looked up to catch it into his memory. A bouquet of two roses, blooming in warmth and happiness; her lips.
"You were everything for her. No matter what you did, you would never draw her love away. You gave a spark to her childhood that led her to believe that there was a point of creating her own."
Loki was sorry, so sorry - guilt clogged up his throat, although he wouldn't let his mind show it.
Still, she patted his back like a mother would a child's. There was some sort of routine, a steadiness to it that he lacked and unconsciously missed. He felt his eyelids drooping as she placed a cloth to his lips which made them sting.
Hattie watched his eyes relax, then start to close. A soft sigh left through his nose.
Knottie, Knottie.
And he fell asleep.
She kept smoothing the covers even so, watching the poor man sleep with his eyes half closed. She brushed them softly with her fingers, shutting them completely, then leaned on the bedside table and traced his outline with her eyes.
The golden shackle was still around his throat, like some sick choker, partially melted in places and stuck into his skin. She hoped Filip would hurry up and call the blacksmith to come back, for this could only have negative consequences.
She would have never thought she would ever see him like this, looking down at him with worry instead of admiration in her heart.
Oh, the admiration was still there, but from a different perspective.
How did it come to this? How was he broken so? She knew not what he had been through. He had destroyed New York, but what had happened for him to so suddenly do so, for greed and pride to stain his smile?
And still he managed to live, still managed to be smooth in his airs - it gave her hope that perhaps, perhaps that child could be recovered. Perhaps there was hope, it was only a matter of how long it would take to bring it back.
She felt a smile creep onto her face.
He had been jealous. He had denied it in a way most cruel, but he cared enough to do so. Hattie had learned to study people and she was not fooled by his nonchalance, not one bit.
She sighed.
"No, Odinson." She whispered, smoothing the wrinkles around his eyes. "Andrew is a nice boy, but I could never love him."
She traced the outlines of his cheekbones, then took her hand away.
"Perhaps one day I will tell you why that is."