The Long Road

9

When Frigga learns her youngest son has returned to the palace and no one told her immediately of his arrival, she is furious. The guards are loyal to her husband and she is certain that he ordered that she be kept in the dark. It is only thanks to Heimdall, who refuses to take a side, that she knows at all.

She meets Thor as he is leaving the dungeons, "Where is he? And why did you not tell me he had arrived?"

"Father had us met with chains. He was sleeping in my arms and they dragged him from me. He is very weak. I had to see to his care first."

"Where has he been?"

"Midgard. But that is all I know. He is to tired to speak."

She brushes past him, "He was weak when you found him in Jotunheim and yet he still managed to hide from us all this time."

"Mother, let him rest."

"There is no rest in the dungeons." She descends the stairs and demands to see Loki. He is laying curled up in the corner of a bare cell when she enters. She kneels beside him and strokes his hair. He does not stir. She begins giving orders to the guards. The hesitate, but the look in her eyes is fearsome. Before long, there is a proper bed in the cell and Thor is beside her, lifting him to its comfort. She kisses his forehead.

"Mother, how is it that we can touch him? He is...in this form. Should his touch not freeze our skin as it did when one of them touched us in Jotunheim?"

"He can touch us because I have made it possible."

"But his skin..."

"That was your father's work, a gift meant to be revoked at a whim."

"And yours cannot be?"

"Only if he asks. Otherwise, he will always be able to touch those he loves."

"And if he ceases to love us?"

"Then he will be able to feel the touch of those who love him despite it."

Thor takes comfort in his mother's steadfast belief that Loki is still her child. Frigga is beside him every day, bringing breakfast and tucking him in at night until the day she finds the dungeons barred to her. She returns to her chambers and her scrying bowl. If she cannot visit her son in his cell, she will do so through other ways.

It takes some time for him to recover enough to easily move about his cell. He hardly remembers his mother's visits. He longs for her touch and to curl against her. Thor visits on occasion, but he wants to talk and Loki wishes for silence with his thoughts. He writes nearly every day, a few lines here, a few lines there. When he does want to talk, all he has in his mind are questions. He writes every question down, hoping to some day get to ask them in person, rather than to an illusion.

His anger with Odin only grows. How could he adopt a frost giant? How could he tolerate the monster under his roof? How was it possible for him to think that he could raise him anything but what he was? How can he not understand why he tried to be the hero? And how could he be so cruel as to tear him from Thor when they returned? Every day, the questions eat at him. He has always thought Odin cool towards him, but he did not think his own father would cut him out of his life entirely. But that is exactly what has happened. To stop the gnawing questions, he works to convince himself that Odin is not his father. He has forgotten about his younger son, so his younger son will forget about him.

But this leaves the problem of Frigga. He does love her. He loves her so dearly that he believes his heart will simply stop when hers does. He knows the conversation on this will not be easy. But left alone to his thoughts, his pain rules him and he blames Odin for everything. His actions, his poorly conceived plan to defeat Jotunheim and be the hero, does not factor into his thoughts, merely a catalyst for something that would have happened anyway.

The next time Frigga projects herself into his cell, he is in a foul mood and has been thinking of how different things would have been had his plan not failed, "The dungeon is filling. Does Odin plan on emptying the Nine of all those who think against him?"

She ignores him, "The books I sent, do they not interest you?"

"Is that how I am to while away eternity? Reading?"

"I've done everything in my power to make you comfortable."

"Have you? Does Odin share your concern?"

"You know that my relationship with your father is strained, at best."

"He is not my father. A father would not send his son to die in Jotunheim."

"Then am I not your mother?"

He hates his answer, "If one must come with the other, no. But if you can be separated from him, I would hope that you might still be my mother, even if I cannot claim him."

"You know that in our world, denying your father is to deny your entire family. Your mother. Your brother."

"I cannot call him father. I have tried, and the word is bitter on my tongue."

"I know."

He reaches to touch her and she dissolves. His heart sinks. He does not know if she will visit again if he is not her son.

He is not aware that Thor has not visited him in days because of the Convergence. He does not know of the strange things happening in Midgard, nor does he know of the Aether that surges through Jane. He knows lonliness and guilt.

When the prisoner incinerates the others in his cell, Loki is fascinated. He watches as other prisoners are released, wondering if this is his good fortune as well. But it is not to be. He thinks nothing of telling the creature to take the left stairs, assuming it will lead to more soldiers and its death.