Not Afraid of the Dark ~ A Loki Fanfic

Part Four: Thunderstruck

Loki blinked.

Odd, he had the feeling that someone was watching him. He looked up from his book.

Glittering gold through the barrier of Loki's cell was one of the palace messengers, standing stock still. His helmet was respectfully removed, his eyes were down.

Curious, Loki nodded at the man to speak. The man shifted his feet, clearly uncomfortable. A cold hand of fear clutched at Loki's heart for absolutely no reason. He ignored it.

"Well, go on," he prompted gently. The messenger finally forced himself to raise his eyes to the princes face.

"The--the king has ordered that I deliver this message."

Loki nodded slowly. The man bit his lip uncomfortably.

"The message is--" he paused for a deep breath. "Your mother is dead."

Your mother is dead.

Why--how--that can't possibly be true--

Your mother is dead.

He didn't even notice the messenger's hasty departure.

Your mother is dead.

And the words seared into his head, his heart, his whole being, until he could hear nothing else.

Your mother is dead.

Loki's fists clenched and he hardly noticed as the furniture was flung against the walls and the energy barrier. For a while all he could do was rage, destroy his cell, unconscious of physical pain. There was nothing but the fire--no, the frost--eating at his heart.

Loki collapsed against the wall, shuddering with tears.

And the raindrops, real or imagined, started.

Outside, the thunder growled. The downpour threatened, deep in its throat, to tear him apart. He couldn't see the lightning, but he could feel it, flashing hideously against the dark, cracking open the sky.

It had lost some of its terror, though. The thunder had already taken his mother--now, all it could do was remind him of the pain.

Later on another messenger arrived and gave him some very small details. Frigga had been killed by Malekith. His "father" and adopted brother had arrived too late. She had died with honor.

This messenger, too, left quickly.

Loki was glad for that--and glad, too, that the cells were empty. No one saw him crying his eyes out until late into the night, when he finally fell asleep from exhaustion.

He slept fitfully.

Thunder crawled through his dreams and wormed through his rib cage. It finally personified itself in a voice. A voice he knew all too well. Loki instinctively shielded himself, wrapped his body in illusions like a blanket.

He heard the words he was saying but he wasn't paying attention to them. He was too tired for anything but hostility and sarcasm.

"Have you come to gloat?" he asked.

There was something in Thor's face that hadn't been there before.

"Loki, ENOUGH," he commanded.

A small stab of surprise shot through his numbness. So he could tell...

Loki lowered the illusion, revealed himself small and miserable.

"Now you see me, brother."

And he was too tired and lonely and heartbroken to care much about what Thor thought, so he asked the first question on his mind.

"Did she suffer?"

"I am not here to share our grief." Thor sounded almost apologetic, diplomatic even. He kept speaking, calmly, gently, and Loki listened attentively.

Vengeance. Thor was offering him revenge.

Fool. And yet--try as he might, Loki could not suppress a rush of ironic affection for him, for his once-family who actually carried Frigga's blood in his veins.

He listened to Thor lay out the skeleton of a plan before him. Thor, who never thought anything through.

He smiled. "When do we start?"

Only afterwards did Loki realize that he had called Thor "brother".