loki. (misrule) wrote in thedoorway, @ 2013-04-28 18:30:00 |
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Screams were nothing to Sif who, with a stark precision, marched her way through the lower-level corridor and swiftly dispatched any agent who attempted to bar her way. After Thor’s Avengers levied their judgment upon a Prince of Asgard -- her friend, though troubled and complex -- she knew what she had to do. There are none who will but me; the All Father saw. It is why I was thus charged. Even so, she knew it would sunder her from her friends for a time.
Duty -- for those who lacked cowardice -- would do that from time to time.
A large crack danced its way diagonally across the surface of the glass which separated Loki’s cell from the SHIELD guardians. It was joined by another and then another, the pops coming up sharp like atonal piano wires as one became two and then two became one hundred until finally it rested in its frame with a sagging weariness. She tapped it with the base of her spear and it came crashing to the ground in a roar of sound. Lights dimmed to a sullen red and somewhere within the corridor, she heard a siren blare.
“Come with me. Hurry.”
It was only a matter of time. Through the blackest peaks of his rage, Loki had reminded himself of this: that it was only a matter of time before the Asgardians had had enough of the ignominy of a prince of theirs (albeit fallen, gone astray) kept within a cage and held by the whims of the Midgardians’ making. Whatever his bloodline, whatever his crimes, Loki was a prince of Asgard, and punishment, when it came, would be Asgardian.
So when the commotion filtered through in the suddenly tensed postures of his SHIELD guards as news was wired across their communication devices, he was instantly alert. Cautious, even, as though this were a trick, a ploy to catch him out; he watched through the veil of his lashes, hands loosely linked across the flat plane of his belly as he remained supine on the bench that was meant to serve as a bed.
When the glass fell away in so many infinitesimal shards, his suspicions were (mostly) assuaged, replaced now by a visceral excitement that settled hard against the nerves. Yes. And as Sif’s voice rang out amidst the clamor of the siren, he sat up, swinging his feet to the floor and placing his hands lightly on either side of his legs, gripping the hard edges of the unforgiving surface.
“Thor will curse you.”
“You are very familiar with Thor’s curses,” she told him, her face immovable flint. “And I do what must be done for the good of our people; the Tesseract is unstable, Midgard seeks to judge and thus we must protect our own interests. That is where my loyalty lies.”
A brow arched -- “Unless you would rather stay.”
“Certainly not.” Despite the indignity of his appearance (the simple, nondescript clothing SHIELD had provided him with, a wan complexion, and hollow eyes), he rose from his seat with the tense grace of someone poised and ready to act.
Stepping lightly -- so lightly that the glass shattered upon the floor barely cracked beneath his weight -- he paused before her, a hand extended in expectation. “You have something of mine,” was chased by a more considering, “The Tesseract needs me.”
“I have my sword -- which will do the job far more neatly.” The bifrost would alert Thor to their activities. “We must return the Tesseract to Asgard where it belongs.”
She unsheathed one of the twin blades which resided at the small of her back and regarded him along the serrated edge -- “This, my prince? And its fellow?” A quick cut of her head to the right and the left. “They are mine - by rights - through time. But you may have one.”
A half-step brought him close enough to be in invasion of her personal space, his smile a leer that was quick to contort across his features. “Entitled, as ever.” And a quick flick of movement saw his hand slipping around her waist to unsheath the second of the pair, the first left undisturbed in her hand. “We’ll talk about this. Later. Take me out of here.”
“I cannot help my nature,” she said, her smile crooked as the other dagger was re-sheathed (though there was momentary pause; his hand, all too close). “As neither can -- nor should -- you or any of us.” But there would be time for effusions and oaths later. She strode through the corridor, the double bladed spear lightning-quick in her hands. Loki would slaughter where Sif neatly dispatched.
Then, finally, the ante-chamber to the great cavern in which the Tesseract was housed.
She turned back to Loki --
“Prince ... ?”
“Prince, you call me.” An abstracted, flat tone of voice, as though the work of bloodshed had been nothing but an exercise in the mechanics of movement and being moved. They fell, his captors, the little blade in his hand whip-like in its speed and dripping wet as it did its work, his own figure splitting and shuddering as magic choked the hallways in a smog of delirious confusion. Let them choke on it and their own fluids.
He strode past her now, pushing the doors open with an easy jab of movement, and stepping in, expression slackening with something akin to rapture as the blue light of the Tesseract bathed the hollows of his face.
“Come.”
“Prince you are.” Sif knew -- in some opposite corner of her mind, in some dark and lonely space -- that her work would be against Thor’s wishes because it would ultimately cost Midgardian life. She knew that there would be a certain lack of nobility inherent in her mission. But Sif revelled in chaos; she drew strength from contention and felt at one with violence. Let Thor pander; she was -- at last -- herself.
The blue light which so enraptured Loki seemed to give her a baleful, wary gleam. She had spent much time within its gaze and supposing it had found her wanting, she drew no comfort. It was duty. She turned to him and unsheathed the great sword which hung at her hip.
“When you are ready.”
He remembered its grip well, unnatural and cold -- but then, cold had always been something strangely soothing, as though he’d known without knowing why the snows of winter always made his skin sing. A pale finger was run lightly against a plane of the metal contraption which held the glowing cube; a hand extended backwards, beckoning her near.
“Put that away. You need it not.”
The sword, naked in her hand, seemed to grow heavier as she approached the Tesseract and its tip fell upon the ground to be dragged the last few feet until she paused at his side. Electric thrummed through her arm from the sword -- as if by its very nature two magnetic poles were drawn apart from one another -- and rather than cry out she grasped his waist with her free hand for support.
“Will it take us to Asgard?”
“Asgard?” was hummed in the back of his throat. Loki could feel himself changing: certainly his eyes glowed red, and the skin of his fingertips tingled as it seemed to contract, darkening into a blue deeper than that of the Tesseract, the hue creeping ever so slowly up his palms to his wrists.
Turning then, to look at her with a briefly questioning gaze and a smile that hung looser than before: “Valhalla.”
-- and he gripped her wrist with a hand whilst plunging the other into the deadly depths of the Tesseract’s light.
Though his touch froze and blackened her skin, she held steady. Valhalla -- the hall of her fathers and the place of preparation -- she was prepared. “Yes.” But as he plunged his hand into the Tesseract, she could feel herself begin to burn anew.
This was not the bifrost; this was not the sword entrusted to her family. This was a light purely sentient and loyal only unto itself. It sought to destroy her; to seek out the atoms of her existence and furiously smash them into their most fundamental bits. The sword clattered to the floor and she screamed.
-- only her screams ripped through his throat, and they were not her screams, but his, screams of agony and fury and acceptance that the time had come at last, that beyond this was not Valhalla, but a great and terrifying nothing.
Darkness. Then: light, slamming in hard as his eyes snapped open, chest rising and falling with rapid breath as the air around him was filled by the sound of tapping.
Perhaps there was something to be said for shared dreaming; perhaps it was the gift of a troubled mind. But Sif, giving a smart tap upon the glass which separated Loki from the rest of Midgard, had schooled her features into a clever phalanx of impassivity. Perhaps it was Steve Rogers which caused her heart to tread all too heavily. Or it was ... something else entirely. She could not hazard to guess and keep her all too precarious footing.
“Hello.”
Breathe. Breathe. Inhale... and release. Loki’s eyelids lowered once more, a hand fisting into the material of his trousers. He wanted to banish her from the duty of watching him. Sif, go away.
“You have something you want to say?”
“I said it,” she said, making the practice of giving him neither ire nor judgement to feed upon her mode of operation. With a breath, she disengaged the locks of the cage and stepped inside, only to shut the door behind her. “What else were you expecting?” A scoff. “Moralizing, I suppose.”
“I suppose,” he echoed, turning his gaze back to the ceiling, fingers laced loosely across his chest. “You’ve said it. What else do you want?”
She paused for a moment, her fingers dancing idly upon one hip as she considered all that the other Loki had said. Why could he not understand what he was doing positioned Thor into the stronger position? For always.
“I was curious if there was anything you wanted to say to me.”
Always the weight of expectation. He squeezed his eyes shut, letting the pressure settle against his skull, then blinked and smiled gently up. “I killed us in my dream.” A beat. “I let the Tesseract kill us. It was easy.”
Her lips slid against the back of her hand. “ ... so did I.” Loki was the hard knot of anxiety in the pit of her stomach; he used her before, he nearly ended her other times and spent his life making her the design of his own desire. She could rip his beating heart from his chest and present it to the All-Father all frozen and black, shrunken with despair and the hard blue light of the cube.
But why? What stayed her hand?
“It must have been pleasurable for you.”
“You came for me; that was pleasure.” But the Tesseract? How to describe the twist of emotion it sparked in him, terror and fascination combined into one potent mix that quickened the blood? It fed on chaos; he was chaos -- symbiotic, the relationship. (Or perhaps that is what he liked to tell himself in the darkest depths of the night.)
“How do you kill me, Sif? Do you cut my head off with that blade of yours?”
“You mistake me; I dreamt I had my sword and was taking you to the All-Father. You, instead, grasped my hand and reached for the Tesseract. We were -- both of us -- unmade.” Her features were set in flint but for the brow that arched broadly over her unblinking eye.
“I could kill you now if you like and save the Tesseract the trouble.”
A sigh of a laugh escaped him as, with a flicker of movement, he pulled the inky hair that had gathered on the pillow away, providing her with a clear view of his neck. “Go on then, lady.” Beat. “You all try; you all fail. Maybe you’ll break the pattern.”
Her palms itched to do as he wished her to do. A clean slice from his own blade with the frozen Jotun blood pumping as he gurgled and drowned in his own noxious fluids. But she could not. She remembered his unlined face and the clever, dancing eyes. It seemed anathema to fight Loki for a memory of himself. She took a breath.
“No. I do not think that I will do you the favour just yet.”
“Oh, but you want to, don’t you?” He kept her in the corner of his sight for a moment longer, then turned his head, letting his cheek rest across the rope of muscle that was his arm folded beneath his head. “Despite yourself. Thor stills your hand, but the thought warms you.”
“ ... a moment of benevolence for your brother, Loki? I’ll be sure to tell him that you think he can keep me from anything. Perhaps the laughter will shake the walls.” She paused. “You should know better than to say such things -- I believe that you are trying to do nothing but tempt me toward the edge of the cliff -- and I am unmoved.”
She took a step forward, just within arms reach of him. “I wish they would release you. That is all I wanted to say.”
A long moment in which he merely stared across at her, blinking once, twice, before redirecting his gaze back to the ceiling. Sentiment. Sentiment. Sentiment will do me no good.
“And now you’ve said it,” he said, all dullness now. “And now you may go.”
“Just a moment --” said so quickly, she was standing near him one minute and had her hand clamped round his throat the next. She leaned in close, teeth bared to murmur close enough that the cameras and the SHIELD agents could not hear --
“Sentiment won’t unlock you. That’s what you’re thinking. My darling Loki, sentiment is all you have. Wield it -- or perhaps magic has made you weak, flabby, incapable of figuring the mutability of the spirit. That is a war we’ve yet to fight, my prince.” She released him with a jerk.
“And anyway, you must last until Ragnarok. We are not there yet.” She turned to go.
He would not bruise for longer than a day, but the ache would remain, a leaden brand beneath his skin. A ragged cough scraped through his throat as he yanked himself up to a sitting position, gripping the sides of the bench as he filled his lung with a calming breath of air.
“Don’t think I don’t know why you choose to let your hair remain thus.”
Stopping at the door, she turned around and threw a smirk to him over her shoulder. “ -- it is so that you might pick me out of your golden tressed foes. You marked me. Me. Out of a thousand.”
He could play this game, even through the ache that grew in his bones. “Branded like a cow for slaughter. Yes, just so.”
“Oh, you are so sure of your own abilities. Who’s the cow, Loki? That’s my question ... we’re all dead in the end.” She smiled for him -- a brief, brilliant thing -- before she turned to disengage the lock upon the door. After a final wave farewell, she strode along the corridor and away from the glass prison.