Brother, we can go home…
Loki lay in bed, his arms behind his head, and he stared out the ceiling. His gaze was far-seeing, searching, hoping for a moment that there was some part in his psyche that had not been corrupted by his own ambition and hope. He held onto the thought that there was something within that allowed him to have a moment’s of peace. Yet, every time he tried to sleep, he was reminded of his brother and the pleas that had fallen on deaf ears. Loki’s dark eyes fell closed, and he sighed. He was rife with conflicting emotions. He wanted something that he knew he could never have. He had never been trusted in Asgard. He had been considered an outcast by everyone but his family, and at the end his family hadn’t been enough.
Breathing out slowly, he placed his hand over his chest and felt the solid heartbeat. It let him know that he was still alive, stuck in existence that he had created for himself. He was an outcast, stuck in a world where some knew him and all expected him to try and force them to kneel. He had tried the brute power, and it had been met with equal power. He was not going to make the same mistake again. The constant influx of people that came to him expecting him to force them down nearly made him laugh. He found them all simple. Only a fool would make the same mistake twice.
He rolled to his side and rested his head on his arm. His mind wandered back through his life. He wasn’t one that dreamed, instead he remembered. In each of his memories, his brother was at the forefront. They were always laughing or being competitive with one another. Each trying to clamor for the attention of their father. The old anger rose up from inside of Loki, as he remembered all of the times that Odin turned to Thor and heaped praise upon him, as Loki faded back into the shadows. He remembered the feel of his mother’s hand on his shoulders, assuring him that Odin loved him as much as he loved Thor, that she loved him. The all too familiar pain struck him. He wasn’t sure what he missed most, the relationship that he had with his brother, or his mother’s guidance. He knew that he was never going to have her in his life again. He had broken her trust in him. In that, Thor had won a battle that he didn’t know that they were fighting.
He had never belonged in Odin’s family. He didn’t belong in the Jotunheim. There was nowhere that he truly belonged. While he remembered his brother begging him to come home, he knew that Thor would never fully trust him either, but he took his position as brother seriously.
“I wonder what will happen when I fully break his trust and love,” Loki said into the darkness.
Shadows crept from the wall and slowly condensed into a solid form that sat on the end of his bed. Inky-black feathers from the shadows and two forms blended into one. The young man relaxed back onto his arms and looked over at the bound-god. “You’ll die,” the shadow-morph said simply, no judgment in his tone. His pale eyes fixed on Loki’s, soul-searing deep. “When Thor has lost all hope in you, then you’re going to get everything that you tell others that you want. Then you’ll have nothing left. Ragnarok will come and you will die, as you must,” the young man said. He reached out and Loki pulled back. He knew who the young man was. Huginn and Muninn into one form, as they were normally separated and carrying messages to Odin.
“Checking up on me again?” Loki asked, ignoring how sad the human-raven looked. He turned his back on him. The flutter of wings was the only goodbye that he got. There were so many warnings and foretellings of his eventual death. He had been honest. He was a coward and if he could worm his way out of death than he would do that, yet everything was saying that it was a fight that he wasn’t going to win. He knew that he wasn’t the only one that was going to die. Everything has an end, and he was going to help start Ragnarok. He didn’t know how. He didn’t know when. He only knew that his antics and tricks would lead him to killing the family that he once loved.
He didn’t know if he cared.
“I have time to figure it out,” he said finally, sitting up, as he gave up on sleep. Running a hand through his black hair, he shifted his form to a lean hound and leaping nimbly down from the bed, he ran through the small door he had installed for Odinson and took off down the street. Running from the house, his thoughts, from everything that he had done and would eventually do.
