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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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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