The Warling

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

When Mira awoke she was lying on a couch with Asgardian handcuffs on, which nullified her already limited powers. Her head was pounding and she was afraid to open her eyes to the light because of it, but she remembered the fight.

“Would someone please tell me what the hell is going on?” she asked.

“I am sorry, Dove.”

Although her muscles screamed in protest, her fight or flight instinct kicked in and she sat bolt upright to find herself facing Thor.

“So what, you’re finally taking me home to be executed?” she felt the bitter sting of tears in her eyes and frantically blinked them back.

“No. I heard everything you said in there and you were right about me, I was jealous of you and Loki, and I was cruel and arrogant.”

“I also said petulant.”

“That too. I am truly sorry for what I put you and Loki through.”

“If that were true, I wouldn’t be wearing handcuffs.” Seeing no immediate way out of this, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes, trying to quieten the pounding in her head.

“I’m afraid I have to trade you.”

“You know what, Thor, fuck off. You and your fucking family have brought me and my people nothing but pain and betrayal. You’re about as trustworthy as a rattle snake, I wouldn’t believe anything you said anyway.”

“Loki is alive.”

That got her attention and her head shot up so fast it made her dizzy.

“There is much I need to explain to you, events that happened after you were executed. Well, after we thought you had been executed.”

She regarded him with a cool eye.

“Go on,” she eventually said.

“On the day of my coronation, Loki let the Frost Giants into Asgard and I reacted poorly. I broke the peace treaty we had with Jotunheim and for that, I was banished to Earth. Here is where I learned the humility that you had previously given my brother. While we fought on Jotunheim, Loki had discovered that they couldn’t burn him with their touch and when they tried, his skin turned blue, like theirs. He confronted our father and discovered that he was not Odin’s true son but the son of King Laufey, left to die because he was a runt. My father had taken him from Jotunheim as a baby, with the intention of using him to unite the civilisations one day.”

So many things began to make sense, why Loki had so much magical ability, why Odin always favoured Thor, why Loki never felt he fit in. She remembered how the Frost Giants were viewed on Asgard, as animals, brutes and monsters. How must he have felt to suddenly learn he was one of them?

“Father fell into the Odin sleep while I was banished so Loki became king in my stead, and he used his new power to try to finish what I had started. He killed Laufey and tried to destroy Jotunheim, and I had to stop him. As we fought, he told me that he had never wanted to be king, he had only ever wanted to be my equal.”

Thor actually sounded remorseful and tears fell from Mira’s eyes as she imagined Loki’s plight.

“At the end of our struggle, Loki fell into the void and we all thought him dead.”

“The void?” she whispered, wondering how long he floated there, all alone, so cold that it would be painful, even for a Frost Giant, and falling through debris that would cut and tear at his skin. It was a miracle he had survived at all.