FALSE GOD, loki laufeyson

━━ chapter sixteen

SIXTEEN:

first tragedies

Something's made your eyes go cold
Come on, come on, don't leave me like this
I thought I had you figured out
Something's gone terribly wrong

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CAS STARTED RUNNING AS FAST AS she could. She heard and there was nothing else she could do. In her grief, in her shock, all she could think about was him. Getting to him, holding him, anything.

Frigga was dead. there was no turning back, and Cas could only imagine the state Loki was in. She couldn't let him do this alone. She couldn't do this alone

The dungeons were finned with a more unsteady atmosphere and Cas felt it. Her chest hurt. Maybe it was from the running, maybe it was just because she was trying not to have a mental breakdown ad get to him.

"Loki," She murmured between labored and fragmented breaths from running across a palace and holding back tears. Her voice was stuffy as she pressed her palms across the golden shield keeping him contained, trying to find a weak point in desperation.

Nothing in her mind was really rational at this point. She was choking back sobs as she worked with her hands, trying to find a weak spot. It was there, she could tell.

"I'm so, so sorry," Cas murmured. "I—" She found it. It was small and not very noticeable, but she pressed her fingertips to it. She gritted her teeth as magic pressed through them, taking down the magic for only long enough for Cas to get inside.

In desperation she wrapped her arms around Loki, holding his face in the nape of her neck. Loki's arms were almost as tight around her as hers were around him. They wordlessly stood in the middle of the cell, Cas just holding onto him. It had been so long since she had the ability to do so, and in the wreckage of the room around them, they didn't care.

She moved backward and sat down on the bed, cradling Loki's head. She held him in her arms as he broke down wordlessly. He sat next to her, leaned into her arms, holding onto her forearm as she rubbed his shoulder gently and kissed the top of his head.

"I'm not gonna go to her funeral," Cas admitted gently after a long moment's silence. Loki looked at her.

"I'm not a very big fan, ironically." She let out a breathy chuckle that seemed more like a sob as it escaped her lips.

This was the first bout of tragedy that would strike her in the near future, but she was used to tragedy. It was the kind of thing that one with her heritage was used to. Her father dealt in the currency of grief and gold; her mother in pomegranate seeds and flowers.

Cas should have been used to misfortune by now, knowing that she wasn't exactly lucky and it was fabled and tried and oh so very true that the greeks were ones who weren't lucky. Held tight in their myths and storied, broad overlap and difference is Midas-laced destiny when the storied are dealt by word of mouth. They all had one thing in common — it was given by the name and obvious by anyone who looked at them — tragedy.

Cas should have been used to tragedy, but she knew how to run from it (or at least she thought she did). Now, she could no longer run from the damp misfortune that was laced in what could very well be a poor tarot spread (in fact one she had drawn before was showing itself reasonably well): the lovers, a ten of swords,  and a reversed star.

There wasn't another word that needed to fall from either's lips, knowing that they could ruin everything if they tried. Cas would leave and their clandestine moment of shared sorrow would be a distant memory.

And it was; Cas found her way back out, and they had a mutual understanding of not to bring it up again, spending the rest of their grief alone. It wasn't exactly ideal, but nothing really was.

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A KNOCK ON HER DOOR INTERRUPTED her moment's quiet. She didn't mind, left to her own devices she would drive herself absolutely mad and that wasn't ideal.

"mm," Cas said. "come in if you wish."

"I—we need your help," Thor said. It wasn't who she was expecting and she didn't really know who she was expecting, but it wasn't Thor.

"what do you need?" Ca stood to greet Thor and Jane, inviting them in and having Cas sit down as she was starting to look pale. The infinity stone was taking a toll on her body and Cas gave her understanding, as the infinity stones were wretched items.

"We are going to Avenge Frigga," Thor said in the odd matter-of-fact way that Cas only noticed in Loki.

"I see," Cas said. "what do you need from me?"

"Would you be able to fly a ship?" Thor asked, pressing his finger s against his lips, not leaving Jane's side. It almost made Cas ache for Loki, some sort of comfort, some sort of pillar to hold on to.

"I would," Cas smiled gently at him. "I have a lot of ship flying experience so it lowers the possibility of us dying, which I would personally label as a good thing, no?" Her eyes flicked to Jane who smiled softly, exhaling a breath of air from her nose as she dug at her fingernails.

"that would be good," Thor chuckled. "allow me to explain as we walk."

Cas nodded, following the two from her bedroom and down the hallway to exit the Palace, finding themselves in the presence of a small Asgardian ship.

"so you push your brother out of a plane and onto this ship?" Cas asked, stepping onto it.

"Do you object?" Thor asked, pressing his lips together.

"No," Cas said, flicking her tongue across her teeth. "Meet you at the bridge?" Cas was confirming their previous conversation, dealing with the timing, and getting accustomed to the ship's controls.

"yes," Thor said. "Thank you, for fighting a battle that is not your own."

"Who told you?" Cas asked, furrowing her eyebrows.

"You're not the only one with secrets Cas." She laughed at his turned back as he began to walk towards the palace.

"Oh and Thor!" He turned around. "any Asgard battle is mine."

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