Cellmates

17

Loki, it doesn't have to be this way. We can fix it! He'd never heard his brother sink to a place of such desperation – that he would bargain. Even if his decision had already been made. Loki stop! This is madness! You can't do this! And his choice would never be swain. I have to do this. I have to do something. I have to save her! And in all his life he'd never known such panic. The pain was rivaled by incidents in the past, but together it was a scarring combination. He felt himself drowned, the agony ebbing away until he felt nothing at all, every sensation survived only by his singular drive to save this woman who had utterly stolen his heart. He knew nothing else as he reached a point of no return. And like a tether snapping, his mind finally made its escape.

It had become a habitual action, honed with years of mischief and magic. His form re-collected as it had so many times before, but this time with nowhere to return. And so the whole of him staggered in a form barely fitting of a projection. And he clung to her in the only way he thought he'd ever know. A hollow touch and, for a time, only what he had imagined it to be. And in a way this was worse – to know her soft skin beneath his fingertips – to know the reassurance of her hand in his – and then to have it reduced once more to this. This empty existence – for one last, desperate attempt to make amends. To do what was right. To save her. I have done what I had to, in order to keep at least one promise I've made to you. Please, Naomi. Don't wait. We don't have the time anymore. Not anymore.

And before his eyes she was gone as his presence, real or not, was erased – as he abandoned her again. But she'd be safe this time. She could make it. I know she can. She could go home. She would be safe. Free. It was a moment he had imagined for so long now, but he'd never thought it would end like this. Not until the moment it struck him that he had no other choice. And in that moment he had known the Hel he'd accepted.

As her touch disappeared, as he was dragged from her grasp, he was hurtling through darkness – an endless void of existence he had for so long feared to return to. The branches of Yggdrasil had burned every nerve raw once before, and then left him torn apart, shredded within an inch of his sanity. But this was not the Void he remembered, this – no, this redefined even that horror.

He had foolishly hoped for a moment that he would return to his body, to find himself awake and recaptured, left once more to rot in that norn-forsaken cell. Even death would have been an acceptable alternative. Anything but this. Pulled at the seams by the vacuum of space was a tortuous end, but in this tumultuous whirlwind of emptiness, left only with himself – it was torment with no foreseeable end. There was no logic. There was no reason. There was no bargain that could be made. There were only the mind numbing, blood curdling thoughts that he had bottled and shelved in his subconscious. They were malicious whispers that festered, once calm and collected – and quiet. Now singing. Screaming. Chanting. Imagined spells that tore at his flesh. Very audible derision that brought a sick turn to his gut.

Monster. Only a quiet hiss at first. Monster. Then a laugh when the sounds grew louder. The monster parents tell their children about at night. The monster even you had come to fear. Frost giant. The words echoed around him with distaste. But you were the monster even the Jotuns despised. A runt. Pathetic! My birthright – Your birthright was to die – cast out onto a frozen rock.Abandoned. Unwanted. Forgotten. Adopted. But into a life whose expectations he could never amount to. Doomed for eternity to never belong. If you could have told me what I was from the beginning – but what difference would that have made? You are but a shadow. A blemish. A disgrace. A disappointment. Have I made you proud? An entire lifetime of taunts and jests rung in his ears, the sound – their words – piercing. Even now.

Loki, it doesn't have to be this way. Brother, please!

I'm not your brother! I never was.