Loki bent over his mother's pail face. Her eyes were glazed over in death. He lifted one of the books she'd given him and carefully ripped a blank page out of the front.
He was holding a slender stick dripping with red. Pulling a chair up next to her coffin he sat down with precision.
Then laying the page atop the book cover he steadied his trembling hand and put the makeshift pen to the page. "Dear mother," he scrawled. "doubtless you have died a courageous death, and doubtless you died living as you always have - for Oden, Thor and all of Asgard."
His face hardened that she would have died for them who didn't deserve her. "You know that I lied to you..." he penned on. "...Everyone does. Although you didn't always see what I was and what I did, you always did see who I was. With your ever perceptive mind you did not pick up on all my lies. I masked and faked and tricked and did everything I could, and that you taught me, to hide myself from the world, but you saw through it. You always saw through it."
Not a soul moved outside his cell. Not a sound disturbed his solitude. "Father always said your love for me blinded you. But when I spoke with you, you always saw more of who I was than anyone in the nine realms ever has, or ever will. How did you always see through me, and yet still love me? I was everything you wished I wasn't. You did not forgive me... but you did love me."
Loki's face flushed as he scrawled on. "You did not believe me, but you did listen to me... ..No one else loves me, and I love no one. The others pretended so often that if they ever were by some miracle to change I would yet doubt them to the end of my days. I will never trust those dull minds NEVER! And I will never forgive them for your death! Because no matter how hard I tried to doubt it, to save myself this heartache along with the rest, I had to know that you meant what you said! I tried to tell myself that you were lying but I knew you were not! I tried to tell myself you were blinded as to who I was as father said, but your eyes told me differently... You knew who I was. And you did not forgive me. But you did love me."
A film of water hovered in Loki's eyes as he penned on. "And those dimwits let you die like the cowards that they are! Don't you see that if I hadn't been in this jail that never would've happened! I would never have let you die! NEVER!" The pen swept across the page. "Because I love you mother! I tried not to. I knew you agreed with father and would always listen to his words against me. I knew you would never trust me again. I knew you were disappointed in me, but you loved me! You were the only one who ever loved me or ever shall! If things were different... If I could have sat on the throne of Asgard I would make you proud to call me your son. I tried not to love you, but you knew who I was - You loved me. And anyone in the universe who read this paper would think it was a lie, a mockery, another trick and I say to the depths with them and little do I care. But I would have given my life for yours. They can doubt all they want but you would have believed. Not blindly - no. You would have loved not my illusions but me. And I would have died for you - I would! They will doubt and despise this note so it is for your eyes alone. If you could only read it. Since you can't there's no further cause for tricks. There's no one here to trick. There's no one here to hate me. So here's to you mother. Come back. I want to tell you that - I love you."
A tear dropped onto the page and he jerked up dropping the page and reached for his mother's face but she vanished because she was only his illusion. He dropped to his knees and sobbed, the paper fluttering to the floor.
The writing was blood red and the words seeped into the page and blurred until you could not read them as his rage boiled inside of him, building with every second that passed.
