Whumptober 2023 ~ Marvel Edition

'Like Crying Out Into Empty Rooms, with No One There Except the Moon.' - Loki

Day 3:

"Like crying out into empty rooms, with no one there except the moon."
Journal | Solitary Confinement | "Make it stop."

~~~

A guard? They had sent a guard? Did his so-called family really have such little regard for him anymore that they felt sending a guard down to inform him that his mother was dead would be adequate?

As furious as he was with them, all that consumed Loki's heart was complete and utter despair and grief. His mother was dead. Gone. And the last thing he'd said to her was that she wasn't his real mother. Norns, how could he be so thick? She was the one person whom he'd actually still truly loved and cared for in this universe, and she died thinking that he hated her. He was just angry, of course he didn't mean what he'd said, but that wasn't an excuse for saying what he did.

Loki ran his hand through his hair in an attempt to calm himself, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get his breathing to even out. He had already psychically thrown what little furniture he had about the room; he needed to calm down before he did something else he might later regret.

Letting himself fall to his knees, Loki clutched his heart and let out a single sob before biting his cheek in an attempt to keep himself from crying out further. He let his eyes squeeze shut, and tried to block out his angry and saddening thoughts as best he could. Through the noise, however, a coherent thought came to the forefront of his mind - or rather, an image.

Loki crawled his way over to his now messy and thrown about pile of books and dug through it until he found the leather-bound journal he was looking for. It was a gift from his mother. Ever since his imprisonment, Frigga had been giving Loki book after book for him to read so that he could better pass the time, but one of the books she'd given him had been different from all the rest. Not only had it been blank, but it had come alongside a quill and ink.

He didn't know what to think of it at first. Did she want him to write her letters? Did she want him to write out his feelings like some child? Completely dismissing the notion, Loki had thrown the journal onto the pile with the rest of his books and had hidden the quill and ink in his pocket dimension. He wasn't really sure if he'd need it, but he figured it wouldn't hurt to have them on hand.

Loki let his hand gently trace over the spine of the book and he opened it to the first page. It was blank, just as it had always been. It was silly, he didn't know why he'd gone for the book - it wasn't like he was planning on writing in it any time soon - but he knew that it was a gift from her, and he wasn't going to get one of those again. This book, though empty, was special in ways Loki couldn't even begin to try and explain.

Bringing one hand up to rub his temple, he let the book fall lazily into his lap. In doing so, the pages flipped open and something in the back of the book caught Loki's eyes. He paused. Was that...writing he'd seen?

His heart skipped a beat as he blinked at the journal. After a few moments, his eyes narrowed slightly and he hesitantly reached to pick up the book. He flipped it open towards the back, where he thought he saw the writing, but still, the pages were blank.

Loki frowned and continued to let the pages flip until the end, and there, on the inside of the back cover, he saw it.

Just like the moon, I will always be with you.

It was his mother's handwriting. Something about the way it looked on the paper brought a tear to the god's eye. It was so recognizably Frigga's handwriting, to the point where he could almost visualize her wrist movement as she wrote the words onto the page.