Brotherhood - Loki & Thor ♡

27. till the sun dies

Loki and Thor found themselves on Vormir. The thing about Vormir was that it required a great sacrifice of a loved one.

Trigger warnings, dark theme, disturbing content. Just in case you might be uncomfortable with these stuff.

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Death was the one word to describe the planet. The second Loki stepped down the ship he was hit in the face by that strong nausea of something... unholy. Something that sent shivers down his spine, and he already wished he was leaving, leaving this place behind and never looking back. But this was necessary. To stop Thanos they'd have to take the ownership of the Soul Stone, there was no other way.

He looked around, taking in his surroundings. The landscape was grey with no trees nor any sign of life. The skies were orange, almost red, like the one you would see before the apocalypse happened. The air, toxic and cold, filled with ashes as wind whooshing, howling, piercing through his ears as though someone was weeping agonizingly. No, Loki didn't like it here. But he shoved all those bad vibes away, and moved his gaze toward his brother. Thor was entering his twentieth step into the place while Loki still lingered only one step ahead of the ship. Figuring he wouldn't want to be left behind, The God of Mischief quickened his pace till he caught up with Thor.

"Where do we start looking? We can't possibly search through every inch of this shithole, you know that, right? Or perhaps we could, it'd just take forever and by the time we found it, Thanos might already wiped out half the galaxy-"

"Shhhh," Thor cut him off. Loki always talked too much and Thor always made sure he knew it, but this time it was different, this time it wasn't just Loki being noisy and annoying. (or maybe Loki never meant to be annoying, maybe he just wished he and his brother could be like they used to be when they were children and Thor wasn't distancing himself from Loki so much, maybe. Just maybe. Not that Thor had the slightest idea his little brother wanted them to be brothers again, anyway)

Anyway, Loki followed Thor's eyes until it landed on a shadowy figure of a man, in some sort of a black trench coat, whose face was hidden, standing in front of them. No, wait... as Loki narrowed his eyes to take a better look, he realised the man's face (if whatever-being-this-was could be called a man) wasn't hidden, the... entity simply had no face; just a red skull with hollow eyes staring terrifyingly at them.

Loki, who was standing one step behind Thor, almost winced at the sudden urge to grab his brother's elbow and hide behind him. If this was the old days when they were little, there was no doubt Loki would have sought Thor's protection by now. How weak. How embarrassing, the Trickster thought bitterly, hating himself for feeling a little intimidated by the thing in front of him. He wasn't a child anymore. He'd been through countless amount of battles. Yet for some reason he got spooked by this creature with no face? Thor would be so disappointed, if he were to find out. The thoughts made Loki's eyes drop to the ground.

"Welcome, Thor, son of Odin," said the entity before his head turned to Loki's direction. Loki could feel his hollow eyes burning hole through his soul, and had to look up to face him, the creature said, as an acknowledgement, "Loki, son of Laufey, you may call me Red Skull"

Loki was taken aback, at least a little, he'd almost forgotten the last time someone addressed him as such. Then he forced himself to pretend to ignore it; they were just noises coming from a man with no face after all, Loki told himself despite how unconvincing his own voice sounded. Was Thor offended? Loki unconsciously glanced at his brother, and saw Thor's hands clenched into fists, just for a second before it loosened.

"You know us?" Thor asked, he didn't mention anything about this Red Skull calling his brother son of Laufey, not Odin. Being a son of Laufey meant Loki wasn't Thor's brother, but Thor didn't argue about that. Was Thor okay with Loki not being his brother? Loki wanted to say something, but he didn't know what to say, didn't know if he'd make himself look like a fool by saying something so childish. So he said nothing.