Feel Something

Chapter 8: Just Another Family Torn

"How long will it last?"

"I don't know. This time it's different. We were unprepared."

Thor clung to his father's hand, studying the weary lines on his face. Thor had never thought of his father as old. Not until he watched him collapse after...

"Father! No! He is your son, you cannot send him away so callously!"

"Silence, Thor. You heard what he has done. He cannot be trusted. He must learn, and it is a lesson that cannot be taught here."

Odin sounded surprisingly defeated, but not so much that it silenced Thor's tirade.

"And what of me, then? I betrayed your trust as much as he did! I went to Jotunheim against your command. And I would do it again! If you can so easily send Loki away, why can you not do the same to me?"

"If you cannot learn to hold your tongue and keep your anger in check, I just might." There was no passion behind those words. Even as they left his lips, Odin lowered himself to the steps of Heimdall's pedestal, looking ready to collapse on the spot.

"Father, you must stop this foolishness! First you allow the Jotuns to take away my coronation, and now you allow them to take my brother! Bring Loki home!"

"You must trust me, Thor. There is a purpose in all I do, and a time for all things."

Odin exhaled and closed his eyes. They did not open again.

Thor turned to look upon his mother. Dearest Frigga, always loving and gentle even when her foolish family tore each other apart. Always seeming to understand Odin's intentions so much better than Thor ever could. Always seeming to understand Loki so much better than anyone ever could.

"Mother...why did he lie? About Loki?"

A shock of pain crossed Frigga's features as she looked up to her eldest. "He kept the truth from you both so that Loki would never feel different. So that you would never see him as different. He is our son as much as you are, Thor. He is no less your brother now than he was before all this madness revealed his...heritage."

"I know that, Mother. Nothing could make me doubt the love I have for my brother. Not even...this." Despite his claims to accept it, Thor still could not bring himself to name his only brother a Frost Giant. An enemy. It brought into question everything he had been taught about the presumably inferior race. Were they all the monsters Asgardians saw them as? Was Loki an exception, or was Asgard wrong about the Jotnar?

Thor's desire to end the beasts battled incessantly with his need to reconcile Loki's blue form with the brother he cared for.

"What is past is past," Frigga continued, "But we mustn't give up hope that your father will return to us. And your brother."

Thor nodded, comforted by her conviction. "You are right, as always, Mother. I will not lose hope. For either of them." Loki's treachery at the coronation was honestly no more a shock to Thor than any of his other tricks. It was likely just more mischief...a scheme gone too far.

Frigga gave Thor a gentle smile before turning to look upon where Gungnir rested above Odin's head. "Coronation or not, It is yours now," she said with a nod at the spear of Odin, "Until your father awakens, you are King of Asgard. Ruler of the Nine Realms. Make us proud, Thor."

Thor stared at Gungnir with trepidation. The moment he longed for since boyhood was here at last, but this isn't how he wanted it. Not like this. Not when his father lay prone and so clearly opposed Thor's ascension to the throne. Not without Loki at his right hand, as it was always meant to be.