Fidelity

The Forgotten Son

            As I stared at him, Loki smirked slowly. It wasn’t his usual, playful grin, but more of a twisted, knowing smile. I took a deep breath, wondering how he could hear me from the other side of the thick glass. I stood right in front of it, touching it for a moment, until Loki chuckled lightly from the other side. “You’ve come here with a purpose, love,” he muttered. I looked up at him and narrowed my eyes.

            “I was sent here with a purpose,” I corrected him. I had learned over the years that it was useless to lie to the god who had mastered the act.

            “No,” Loki chuckled, smiling widely at me so that he resembled a cat, ready to pounce. “You came here with a purpose of your own.”

            I hesitated, taking a step back and lowering my hand from the glass. Loki took that opportunity to lean casually against it on one shoulder, crossing his arms. “And what purpose might that be?” I finally asked, coldly.

            “You want answers. Answers I didn’t give you on the mountain.” He grinned when I couldn’t come up with a clever retort, because he was right, and he knew it.

            “I want to know why you left. Was it really that hard to cope that you had to run away?”

            “I didn’t run,” he snapped, straightening up. His smile had disappeared now. “I wanted to die. I wanted to spare Odin the burden of having a bastard son, who wasn’t even of the same race.”

            I shifted uncomfortably at that, looking away. “You did try to kill yourself, then?”

            Loki nodded. “Nobody wanted me there anyways. You heard Odin that day, did you not? If it weren’t for Thor being between us, he would have let me fall off that bridge himself.”

            “That’s not true, Loki –”

            “It is!” He snapped, raising his voice now. “I was always behind Thor! If Thor hadn’t been there, do you think Odin would have risked his own life trying to save me?! The frost giant?! I wasn’t even good enough for that! I was left to die! I am always in someone’s shadow, and I am sick of it!” He was pressed up against the glass now, screaming at me as if it had all been my fault. I looked up slowly, a little frightened, to see him scowling at me with his teeth bared like an animal. This wasn’t the Loki I knew. For the first time since landing on Midgard, I took a moment to really look at him. Not only was he different, but he looked different as well. His hair was longer, which I couldn’t deny that I loved, but his eyes were sunken, with dark circles around them. He stood a little taller now, without the weight of being second-best bearing down on him. But worst of all, and most disturbing were the color of his eyes. They weren’t green anymore, as they had been all his life, but a bright, unnatural blue.

            The whole time, he stared back at me without moving. But when my eyes connected with his, his jaw slackened, and his scowl was replaced by a small frown. His eyebrows drew together before turning up the slightest bit, and his eyes shimmered with a hint of their natural green. For a moment, I was perplexed by this. I raised my hand up to his, which was pressed against the glass, but just as my fingers touched the glass, he growled and pulled away. He turned before I could see his face again, quickly striding across the cage to stand in front of what looked like his bed.

            I sighed and stared at his back for a long time, hoping he would allow me to speak to him again. I stood there for a full two minutes in which nothing happened. It felt longer than that, but I knew if I waited any longer, he would only get angry. It was obvious that he wanted me to leave. I put my hands against the glass once more, trying to hold back my tears, and looked up at the mass of dark hair that stood unmoving before me. “You said that nobody wanted you there anyways,” I whispered, “If you truly believed that…then I guess that means I was ‘nobody’ to you.” I watched him for a moment, hoping for a reaction, but all I could see was the change in his breathing. His shoulders moved slightly as he took one deep breath, but then he returned to stillness.