A Falling Bluebird

Challenge

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Loki automatically clawed at the fingers clamped about his arm, immovable as iron and about as comfortable. Moth was staring at him with a dumbfounded expression firmly in place and he wanted to yell at the idiot - 'I didn't think I'd do something so stupid either!' Only a squeak came out. An absolutely mortifying squeak and he could feel the tips of his ears start to burn, as if attempting to set his hair on fire.

"The fuck was that? Are you suicidal?!" Hon Dör said under her breath and shoulders tense. She had appeared from the fray next to Moth and favoured her left leg. Loki was asking himself the same thing. Evidently, falling from the rainbow bridge hadn't been enough for his self-destructive subconscious.

But there was no time to retort that he had everything perfectly how he wanted it and that his master-plan was most certainly real and most certainly implemented. Of course he had been plotting this since Odin had chucked him into Asgard's dungeon many months ago.

Instead, Loki was dragged away by the guard with his blustering excuses still swimming up and down his throat, but it was too tight for them to escape. Like the hand on his arm was actually sunk through the flesh of his neck and clenched about his trachea.

Moth's large brown eyes and Hon Dör's blank mask followed him to the exit, where the doors were flung open and they disappeared from sight.

Quick march, through vaguely familiar corridors. He didn't bother digging in his heels - such behaviour was undignified and would expend valuable energy.

At first there were no crowds, then the halls were lined with the occasional person and then they were suddenly wading through bodies, all casting him sideways glances or openly staring. Evidently some had been watching the recent spectacle through those cameras in the mess and were eying him up. Would bets be placed on how quickly he would be squashed by this Champion of theirs?

Loki mentally shook himself. It did not matter what these insignificant imbeciles thought. He did not care. As long as he managed to get off of this forsaken, primitive rock, then he could make it to Asgard and Thor and find out what in the Nine Realms had happened. Because the Crown Prince had not yet tumbled through one of the portals - of that, Loki was certain. The Thunder God's presence always made a mark in the fabric of seiðr. If he could sense it was another matter.

Unless what tumbled through one of the portals was a corpse.

A corpse with staring, glazed over blue eyes. No longer sparkling and vibrant and filled with life. But frozen still, looking out in one direction never to shift, glance over and crinkle at the edges. Like they had when spotting Loki out of the corner of his eye, hiding behind a golden pillar in the palace and gesturing for quiet, so that some trick or another could be performed.

Cold on his cheeks and Loki blinked. The skin under his eyes felt sore and he reached up to touch them, felt frost on his fingertips, barely covering the puffy skin.

No; he would not allow his brother to die.

Because as much as it hurt less for him to think of Thor as a stranger and an enemy... The thin sheen of ice which had formed on his face said otherwise, and it didn't lie. Mostly, though, he was tired. So tired. Not just from this whole escapade, but from worry. Worry, worry, worry. He felt like an old, world-weary caretaker. Because he had been trying to convince himself that Asgard and Thor and all the rest of it was alright, that they would have vanquished Hela the moment she arrived. But at the same time with the absolute certainty that he didn't care. That this was all mere curiosity.