eswareinmal

Entry tags:

Log

Characters: Thor and Loki
Where: The castle
When: RD8
What: After days of avoidance, Thor finally corners Loki. Loki isn't happy, but when is he ever?

At first, Thor had made himself a nuisance -- although the word he would use is concerned brother. He'd tried to talk to Loki again and again, first as a wolf, and then again when he was spotted as a human. Loki was having none of it, and either rebuffed or ignored every attempt.

Oddly, their mother's arrival had made it easier for Thor to back away. She had always understood Loki best in their family; they had always been closest. If anyone could reach him, it was she, not Thor, who might do it. So he'd stopped hunting Loki's shadow quite so voraciously, agreed to let him have his peace for now. Yet after his latest conversations with Sif, he knew he finally had a reason to corner Loki again. Something he would not want to hear at all, according to Sif, but would be better heard from his brother than from the orb.

Which made it a little vexing when Thor got up early specifically to track Loki down, only to find no trace of him in the room Sif had called his. He waited for a time, wondering if Loki had gone and come back... but when nothing changed, he returned to the castle, grumbling. Perhaps the orb would have to find him, after a--

"Loki." He stopped in the castle hallway, blinking. Well, that hadn't been so hard, after all. "Brother. You're here." He hesitated, then steeled himself. "It is long past time we spoke."

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And then there is Thor. Suddenly, Thor, just after the maids have shouted and ran away. The remnants of blue are still fading from his fingertips, and Loki is struggling unusually hard to keep the illusion up. His magic feels distant, as insubstantial as a cloud.

"So says Sif, at the least," he murmurs. His eyes fixed on his fingertips where the color has faded away. He recovers himself, praying Thor has not noticed -- or that Loki can step past his momentary reverie. Perhaps more difficult than it would have been, when Thor was ignorant, when he was arrogant, when he was to be king. He seems to have changed. Thor, changing, and leaving Loki behind.

His fingers curl into a fist. "Come, then," he says. "Walk with me, and speak as you will." He brushes past Thor, and begins navigating the quarters.

He catches the flash of blue, eyes darting, but chooses to say nothing of it. He's been told the truth now, about Loki, about his heritage... but he told him it mattered not on the mountaintop, and if he is to mean that, he cannot flinch away now. He chooses to bring his eyes back to Loki's face, and chooses to keep back the questions he could, and wants, to ask.

Besides, he came here with something to say. He turns to walk alongside his brother, eyeing him carefully. "I have found Mjolnir," he begins neutrally. The tesseract is still nowhere to be seen in Schwanheim, but it seems best not to mention it at all. "In the forest, behind the thorns."

"Congratulations," says Loki, dryly. Nothing more. He does not want to be the first to bring up any sensitive topics -- Mother? Loki's fall? His heritage? How, in Loki's reckoning, less than a month prior he'd goaded Thor into fighting him, to the death. Sometimes he still feels the weight of Mjolnir on his chest. "I trust you have no plans to pin me to any nearby bridges."

And I hope you have no hidden knives, Thor thinks, but chooses to keep that back, as well: he is reminded again and again that this is not that Loki, in a hundred different small ways. Even the hair is different, and the face younger, more like the one he remembers. The eyes are missing that something he hadn't liked to see at all.

"When I took it back," he goes on, bypassing the jab entirely, "the thorns attempted to stop me." Does Loki see where he's going with this? He glances at him out of the corner of his eye.

Knives, he has. Five, on his person, at the moment. Sleeves, boots. A special pocket on his breast. But he has no intention of using them here.

Loki's steps falter. He turns to face Thor, fully. "And yet you are here." His voice is tense. An invitation for more explanation.

Ah. "Yes." Exactly. He's both tense and relieved that Loki has arrived at the message. He nods slowly, coming to a stop. "Mjolnir -- well, the lightning -- shattered them. Completely."

"I did not know it was unusual until Sif told me," he adds, a mite sheepishly. "And then she recommended I speak with you, before any others." Save Sir Alanna, at least.

And was that Sif's effort to make Loki feel important? Involved? He seethes, because it is obvious to him that Thor has taken this from him too. If Mjolnir can halt the thorns, then Loki's efforts have been for naught, and he is once again a footnote to Thor's greatness.

"Then we should ride," he says, his voice controlled. "We should go to the thorns overwhelming the kingdom, and help the soldiers there."

"That is what I plan to propose to the others," Thor agrees, still keeping his voice cautiously neutral and his eyes on his brother. "Although I have found that it is not the only threat we face here. I do not know if you know of the witch of the forest, but she, too, has much power in her."

"I haven't met her."

He wonders how it will feel, riding out with Thor. If it will be anything like before -- resentment, and layers of enjoyment and distaste. He imagines it will not be as innocent. He imagines that he won't fit with Thor the way he used to.

"But there are creatures here of great power. Of a higher order than ours, if only because we have been crippled and weakened by passage here." At least he assumes Thor is similarly crippled.

Crippled? Weakened? If he has been, he has not felt it, especially not with Mjolnir in hand again... But then, that does explain some things about Loki, both seen and heard.

"She has more power than I," he agrees guardedly. "At strength or no. She is dangerous, brother, and Sif and Sir Alanna say she harms the children of this realm, although the hag tries to deny it."

"Which children?" A testy tone to his voice. Some of these children he has claimed as his, loyal to him, disciples and servants.

Oddly, he does not feel so weakened, right now. There is some slow, cold sap in his veins, and he feels... he feels...

When Loki looks up to Thor, he catches the reflection of sun in his eyes and flinches away, in pain. Sensitive eyes too accustomed to darkness and snow. Before he turns away, Thor can catch a glimpse of red.

It changes nothing, Thor reminds himself, fighting to keep his face still. Nothing. But it's easier not to think of Loki's parentage when he looks so Asgardian -- harder when he bears the eyes of an old enemy.

But why should Loki show those eyes now? It could, he has to admit reluctantly, be a trick... but to what end, he does not know. "Has something happened, brother?" he asks, putting aside the witch for the moment.

His illusion-magic is faltering, and his shapeshifting. He has tried to use each to patch up the other, to no avail. So Loki calls the other specialty he has discovered here, ice-magic, and frost shivers along his skin. The power of it startles him, heady and pure -- as though the ice leaps to his command, eager as a puppy.

"Something has changed," says Loki, shortly. The mirror. He must find the mirror, and call forth that creature of chaos. She will have an explanation, nonsensical though it may be. He needs his concentration and his energy for that, so he allows the illusion to lapse entirely.

"Forgive me," says Loki, with a mock-bow, "for appearing as a monster. But you, you who know my blood and still call me brother -- you cannot possibly mind, can you?"

It is impossible for him not to react. He's never seen Loki like this before, looking like one of them, and try as he might, his eyes widen, his jaw tightens.

But still, he says: "No."

"Liar."

But Loki turns away, and he keeps walking. Quicker, now. "You have spent time seeking me," he says. "Have you been to my rooms? Did you open the trunk at the foot of the bed?" That is where the chaos woman's mirror lies.

"No, Loki," he says again, cursing mentally. They had, for the briefest moment, been so close to a normal conversation again, and now-- He grits his teeth and follows, keeping pace.

"I am not spying on you!" his voice raises sharply in frustration. "I have simply been trying to find you. I have wanted to speak with you since I came, you know this." Although now he's beginning to accept that civilized discussion might have been a pipe dream. Whatever rage gripped Loki so on Asgard, to make him do the things he had done, it hasn't ebbed the way Thor has been hoping.

This is another of Loki's traps, he realizes, gritting his teeth. He changes into this in front of Thor's eyes, knowing it would provoke a reaction, and then gets angry when he reacts? It's just like the eels in the goblet, only not a joke, now.

For once, Loki hadn't even been accusing him. He'd just wanted the mirror, wanted to make sure no one had taken it. But Thor's response was still his fault. He always set situations up like that, so that no matter Thor's response, Loki would win. No matter Thor's consideration, it would never be enough. Better to be disappointed in little ways, again and again, than to build one's hopes and have it all crash down. Loki now had the experience to take that truly to heart.

"I didn't accuse you of spying," he says, quiet and precise. "There is an artifact there, and I would use it to find an explanation for the change in my prowess."

Perhaps he has been fitted to a different Role. Perhaps the townspeople have accepted that he is not a hero. He burns in rage at the very thought.

He fixes cool, red eyes on Thor. "Do you think, my brother, that I want to be this way? Even in despair, I kept my borrowed skin. The skin I never knew wasn't mine. I did not choose to be a wolf, and I did not choose to be a monster."

Thor can control what he says, but not what he thinks, and in his eyes there are a thousand thoughts unsaid. You will, comes bitter and unbidden; in one future, eighty people will die in two days at his hand. And the words he should, perhaps, say -- you are no monster -- die before they reach his lips.

Instead, he tries to reach for Loki's arm... albeit a part of it that's clothed. "I do not know what you want anymore, Loki," he admits, and this too has its share of bitterness. "Perhaps I cannot. But you are my brother. Do not use those words to mock me."

He sighs, and whether Loki let him touch or no, he pulls away. "And I know nothing of your artifact." Though it reminds him that finding the tesseract should still be a priority.

He allows it, stiff as he is. As though Thor's touch causes some terrible agony that he refuses to properly show, properly feel.

"I cannot reconcile the brother you knew with the creature you see now," he says, numbly. "So, Thor, if you want to know what I want, perhaps you should ask. Or -- no, that would be a pity, wouldn't it? After all, you are so talented at assumption."

And again; indeed, there is no way to win this battle. "Then tell me!" he snaps, frustrated. But then he grits his teeth, pressing a hand to his forehead, trying to will the surge of ire and confusion away. This is the true Loki: not only the blue-and-red, but slippery, himself, as an eel. It is a fact he has grown up with, but never before has it been turned on him with this much effect. Not before Loki's fall.

Still, it's a fact that makes him almost smile, wearily. "I can tell you are the same brother, even if you cannot," he murmurs. Only Loki would vex him so. But only Loki would have him still standing here, after doing so.

"So I have always been hideous, in your eyes," drawls Loki. "How reassuring."

At least his tone isn't entirely angry. Exasperated, tired, but not so virulent. He understands what Thor thinks he means by the statement, even if he doesn't believe it.

It's not easy to say what he wants. It's not easy to think about it, even. But he tries. He pauses, and breathes, and quietly ventures: "I want to be seen." Seen as Thor is seen, acknowledged as Thor is acknowledged, lauded as Thor is lauded.

"Stop that," he warns, halfway turned away -- in disgust, no, but vexation, yes. Loki Liesmith. Loki the Word Twister. He is in no mood to play those games right now; he was not from the start, and he grows less and less so.

But when Loki finally falls silent, he turns back, waiting to hear what this answer will be. Wondering, even as he does so, if it will be honest. There's a part of him that hates Loki a little for making him wonder, but it seems to be a matter of self-preservation at this point.

After all, how many times will he fall for it?

Still, the answer baffles him so much that he has to assume it's a real one, because he's not even sure what it means. "I see you," he replies blankly. "We all see you. Perhaps-- incompletely, but we do."

"You do now. Before, I was a shadow..." And sometimes he still feels like it. An insubstantial, misty thing, the son that never counted, the brother that never mattered. "But you do now. Thanks to villainy, you see me as you never have." And it's ruined everything. It was all Loki wanted, and it ruined everything. What is he supposed to want, now? How is he supposed to get it, when all that he wished for is out of his reach?

Thor's eyes darken sharply as understanding drives itself home like a hidden knife, like a spear, like a machine into a man's eye... And for a moment, he is so angry he cannot even speak, because if he opens his mouth, he knows the only thing that will come out is a roar. This Loki is not that Loki, but the question slides sickly into his mind: how different are they, truly?

He turns away again, fists clenching tight at his sides, bullish muscles going taut. This Loki is not that Loki, but this Loki still murdered for his moment in the spotlight. "And yet," he finally grinds out, "you seem to feel it has not been enough for you. You still lash out at me, do you not? At Sif? Do you say such things to our mother? I have heard you are changed here for the better, my brother, but I have not seen it -- and I do not mean your eyes!" he snaps, before Loki can say it.

"And who is to blame for that?" A snarl. Loki forgets, for a moment, that Thor does not remember how he first arrived. That, perhaps, it was even a different Thor, from a different time, with a different set of memories pulled about him like a cloak. "I had hardly begun to build a new life, here, in this place, as someone who could be seen as hero -- I was esteemed, I was acknowledged, I was the favorite of the powers that bind this place -- and then you. You came, and you stole it away. Again!" For Thor only had to exist to steal what Loki wanted. He had only to step into a crowd of idiotic villagers and they would worship him for the greatness of his stature, for his might and for the thunder and lightning he could call.

"A thing I asked no one for!" he growls. "I did not come here on purpose, Loki, I was pulled here. Just as Sif was, just as Mother, just as all these other heroes!"

He does not turn back, but he raises his chin, steely blue eyes burning a hole in the window. "And if that is a title you desire so, brother, it is not I that stands in your way. Take it, if you would. Share it with us. Be a hero. This is up to you."

"And yet, your hammer may be the key to the thorns." There is a bleakness in Loki's eyes. A helpless anger. "Not your choice, perhaps, but you ever-outshine your brother."

He takes a step back. "I have to find out what's happened to me."

Thor does turn, now, and his own eyes are still angry, but not uninviting. "I mean to ride against the thorns, Loki. You could still come with me."

He does not mean it as a choice, but in a way, it seems to be framed as one: turn inward and seek the truth; turn outward and become a hero.

And Loki, abruptly, remembers what it is that he's forgotten. From yesterday. His eyes widen.

"No," he says. "No. Don't ride out. There is something greater at stake. How could I have forgotten..."

He rummages in his pockets. The grey stones -- they have come with him. A handful of gemstones. He holds one between his fingers.

"Carry this with you," he says.

He hesitates.

He can't help it -- he hesitates, and he does not yet take it. "What is it? Why?"

Loki presses it into Thor's palm, and he darts past Thor. "I will explain all," he promises. "Do not ride out. Do not go; if you have trust left in you, use it now."

"Loki--" If you have trust left in you? He turns quickly to follow his brother, the stone still in his hand, unsure whether to pocket it or throw it away. There must -- surely, there must be a trick here, mustn't there?

"Loki, tell me."

"A threat greater than the thorns," he insists. "Once I find what's happened, I will tell you."

And then he is gone, fled, for the mirror. For Anya, and answers to his questions.

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