The Odinsons on Midgard

Lokasenna by LindaMarieAnson

I actually did this couple of days ago, but couldn’t make myself post it.

To this place he has come. Loki, the Trickster. Loki, the Shape-shifter.

Perhaps, as Thor said, it was true that those transparent waters had the power to cleanse your soul and make you think more clearly. Perhaps this is the power the Gods have given to the salt waters of Midgard. Thor and I enjoyed ourselves as I never remembered before. Perhaps only in our earliest childhood days, I remember a joy so pure in being together.

I swam with him, competing in speed with the white-crusted waves: we are young, we are strong, Sons of Odin, and we looked like the creators of Midgard came down to enjoy the beauties of that paradise. Sometimes I watched him swim, while I stopped to wash out the water dripping on my face from my hair. Thor, my wonderful brother. Thor, whom I feared having lost forever. Thor, please don't leave me behind ...

I wonder if I'm still your brother, at your eyes. Somewhere, in our past, a crack has opened up and is chasing us to swallow both of us once and for all. Even now.

It was my fault, Thor, I opened that crack, ... and I'll close it for both, i promise you. But don't let me go this time.

Then I couldn't think more because a dripping blond giant swept me away with a bear hug, and dragged me off with him, with a laugh, over the waves.

Dinner was roast meat of which my brother was very proud. As the air turned purple and the sun went down, I had already made my decision. No regrets. I felt strong, strangely euphoric. I wanted to hug him but I restrained myself. There would be time, i was sure of it.

The fire crackled placidly. The night air, which became almost pungent, didn't disturb me, on the contrary, it cooled my skin a little, and caressed my thoughts. Even the wind had changed its voice, its smell, ...no longer the scent of freedom, but something deeper, earthy, almost visceral. Perhaps due to the volcanic rocks and ungainly bushes of the hills above us. And he was there, beyond that bonfire ... with flaming reflections to sculpt his face, blonder than ever, an open smile.

Thor Odinson. 

My brother. Who spoke loudly, who told me stories, who laughed, ...and I listened to him, teased him, laughed with him, while another part of me, secretly, was looking for the guts to put into effect what I had decided earlier.

It had been a wonderful day. The first since Thor brought me back. Perhaps one of the rarest of my whole life. And I didn't want to ruin it with what I was going to do, but I decided to be ready. Or anyway I could try. I wanted to start trusting.

Ours had been a wretched and unhappy family, yet, whether I wanted it or not, I loved Thor. Desperately.

I had given my life for him.

Twice. The word 'brother' in my mind has the bright face of Thor. And I had decided to let him enter in a part of my life so private and hurtful that I've been hiding since years. That I know only myself.

I wanted to start trusting him. Showing him that I had changed, that I could stop protecting myself and flee. Although it would have required a lot of courage, since I should have ...

Thor was laughing at me and the fact that I was staring at the fire dance like an idiot. I roused myself, smiling.

'C'mon, you bastard ...'

"Thor, listen ..." I bit my lip, he noticed it this time, and softened his voice.

"Loki, what is it? Do you have migraine? Do you want us to go home?"

I chuckled to hide the tension: would you face the most terrible of storms, knowing you were naked as a worm? Totally defenseless? Because this was what I was going to do from now on ...

"No, I'm great,... no, listen ..."

'Look at him, Loki ...'

"Do you remember when we fought each other, during all those painful and absurd years? You've always accused me of being too quiet. You told me to keeping you at a distance, to rejecting you. Of never making you enter my thoughts, explain my feels... that I was the worse brother, ... no, wait, please. "  I smiled  "Please wait ..."

A deep breath. Burning air, cold and salted, rising up the nose, until it invades my chest.

 "So I decided that I can do it, a step towards you, brother, and try to break down this wall that keeps us in our pride. And that Surtur may devour me if I'm not trembling to the bone, damn you!"

 Silence. Wind and the liquid chant of the sea, black into black.

"Do you remember when ...when I ...I let it go? When I fell down, long time ago, ... when everything was shattered, me for first but nobody cared. Remember when I came back and everything was different, everything changed. Your gang of new pompous friends, Midgard, ... all the rest. I have very confused memories of those days, but I remember well when we met again, between heaven and earth. And we talked, or rather we spit on each one our hatred. I could have told you then, but you had other things on your mind and no intention of listening. Or maybe not, I wouldn't have told you a shit either." I giggled nervously.

I was wearing an half-buttoned old shirt, worn and light, of which I didn't care at all,...dark blue, shiny fabric. I undid the third button.

"I fell into the void, then, ... into nothingness. I wanted... to die, to finally find peace, to appease my pain. Instead I found a worse hell. Perhaps the worstest of all. And I implored death as the sweetest of salvations."

Gods, it's terrible to remember aloud. I can't believe you're next to me, listening all of this. For real.

"He took me. I don't know how he did it, but I found myself crawling at his feet in an alien and terrible world. He was thirsty for power. He had a plan. He wanted everything. He wanted the Gems and crush down the Worlds, and I could be useful to him. But first he had to crush down me."

I undid another shirt's buttonhole.

"I know you never understood much of what's on my mind, Thor, ...but it wasn't your fault. Not always, at least. And this thing ... maybe it was beyond both of us."

I undid the penultimate button.

"There was no more day, no more night. There was only cold, pain and fear. There were many of them. They surrounded me. They laughed at me. Call me names. But his shadow on the moldy marbles was enough to make them disappear, leaving me at his mercy... Did you ever wonder why I hate sudden gestures, or why unexpected noises make me uncomfortable when they don't terrify me? "

Here, the shirt was open.

"Have you ever wondered why I stiffen every time you touch me? ... I was afraid of the whip, but the worst was the fire. The fire was the craziest pain, and ... I lost consciousness. Almost always. That maniac knew how to use the whip well. Where to hit. How to hit. He whispered in my mind, ... no one will ever care about you, little monster, ... nobody wants you, they despise you, spit on your shadow of demon, you're been a burden for everyone, you will always be, but I can give you the power that... if only you... "

I swallowed again. The air started to become cold, too much cold, ...carried with it a vague hint of resin ...

'NO!!'

It has always been like this. Frost magic woke up every time I was upset, or if something infuriated me, and blew ice on everything around me. But it couldn't happen there, ... there, in the sea waves glossy of moonlight, and the holey rocks of the volcanoes.

'Loki, dominate yourself!! Not now, Loki, not here!!'

The blue shirt slid over my shoulders, then I pulled my arms off from sleeves. Here, Thor, ... take a step into my world, ... look at my miserable pain.

"It was ... it was pure hell, Thor. A hell made of blood, pain and fear in which I crawled for I don't know how long. I saw my blood, I felt it on me, it made me sick. Did you ever notice how sickening it is the smell of blood? ... With fire I went crazy. With the blades I saw death in the eyes, and had the purple skin of my killer, that son of a bitch. He wanted me crushed, and he crushed me. He wanted me submitted and I bent. Because I healed. In a hurry. I am a God and he knew it. So the ... horror started again, always. The young Loki, the one who sought death to forget the pain, is gone. He was destroyed by that hell. I ... I don't know what he made me become but I survived by pure animal instinct, I survived the fire, the whip, the blades, the cold and beatings. But I healed more slowly, so he decided I was ready."

I didn't have the guts to look at Thor. I was there, bare-chested, arm in arm with him, and I felt his burning blue eyes on me. It burned like those blades.

Are you pale? Are you speechless? Furious? In tears? I don't want to know now, brother.

"I know what you are seeing. I know them one by one. They heal slowly. Some will never heal. Some intertwine on the shoulders, stretch to the chest. There is also a fire wound, next to it ... the blades instead were biting arms ...here, and here, ..." I barely touched my pale skin "The whip tore the skin from the back. The back is the worst. There are a couple that still hurt,...others no longer exist. Like here, on the eyebrow, or just above the ear..."

Scars. From the shoulders as far as a whip could reach. Or tongues of fire. Or those damn blades.

There was no better way to tell you. Nor a different way. Forgive me, brother...

He had to see them and I had to do it. I realized that if I wanted to recover from all my shit, I had to let go and expose myself.

Running away had only made things worse, it was festering everything.

I need my you to see, Thor. I need to hear your support. I wanted to know that you can be with me, so my recovery will be less painful and I could move on more easily. Will you stand by my side, brother?

So I looked up at him, and saw it.

The raging storm.

Flaming fury in Thor's dark eyes. Ready to lash out at me. I could feel them, those eyes, like a punch in the face. I knew I had hurt him and it devastating me. Now I realized I had broken him and I would have given everything to be able to go back and cancel that insane decision of mine. I wanted to die, and I probably would have died by his hand, because the one in front of me was no longer the chatty, smiling Thor who hugged me and called me "little brother".

He was the God of Thunder in his wildest and most primordial form. Rage and fury. It was pure berserk fury as I had never seen it before.

Pure primordial instinct. What was inherent in his being, in seeing those scars, literally exploded. If the words had shaken him and the images of those macabre events had come to life before his eyes, it was those signs that completely detached his rationality from his body.

His last articulated thought was one and only one.

Brother ... If only ... If only I had known how things really went, I would have killed that bastard in the cruelest way possible. I wouldn't have pardoned him for a quick death, no. I would have brought him back to life and killed him. So, over and over again, until my thirst for revenge was satisfied.

That son of a bitch ... He dared to defile you-

And then the dark. In his eyes. In his heart.

Everything around him exploded in a dazzling blue light and only the unconscious, like a rope thrown to rescue him, prevented which soon developed in a lightning storm, to kill him. And while his brother, terrified, did not dare to move a muscle, stuck between the elemental fury that would have overwhelmed him if he had tried to move further, and the monstrous image of the Son of Odin turned into pure and simple destruction, Thor's soul was being devoured by pain.

What came out of his lips was not a scream of pain, but a roar. Thanos, even when he was dead, had managed, in the end, to tear his soul from his body. If the pain of seeing Loki killed before his eyes, with him helpless, after saying those hideous last words, Thor believed it was the utmost desperation he could have experienced in his life, the truth ... The truth that Loki finally decided to confess, almost killed him.

He heard himself called, although his eyes could not see his brother's face. He could not speak, he could not move. From the outside, his face was creepy: his eyes, illuminated by the light of his power, enclosed two black cavities that seemed, to Loki, almost like that horrid void in which he had fallen.

The rock was gradually disappearing. The wind blew so hard that it fought victoriously against the ocean itself.

"If I hadn't destroyed the Bifrost, it wouldn't have happened."

Thor felt himself sliding down, swallowed by the ground and he felt a stab in the heart. It was only for a moment, but that pain interrupted the uncontrolled flow of his power and he managed to see Loki's face, in that reality of destruction. But it was only an instant.

He tried to row instinctively against the force that was dragging him down, responsible for his fury and drift. He tried with all his powers to awaken his conscience, to get out of that pool of emptiness in which he was inexorably sinking.

He tried to scream. He tried to breathe. He tried to survive.

A new pang, tremendously powerful, shook him and his power faltered. SoThor tried that way, that path, holding on to the unconscious again. Again, again and again. Pain was the only thing he could feel at the time. Which testified to the fact that he could feel more than just the purest and inexorable desperation.

 It was like a blackout: I regained consciousness, finding myself kneeling in the destroyed rock. The hands were tight on my chest - my hands, at the height of the heart. The pain was terrible.

I coughed several times, trying to breathe. My throat was burning, as if I had swallowed pure fire and tried to open my eyes, finding them heavy as boulders. I focused on what was in front of me and found my forehead almost resting on my brother's feet.

I couldn't breathe. I felt my cheeks wet and not from the rain.

I raised my head with difficulty, looking for my brother's gaze, but my vision clouded again and a deep dizziness made me almost throw up the dinner I had just eaten. My body was shaken by a deep tremor and I felt a chill in the bones that I had never experienced.

Maybe my time had really come? No, I couldn't afford to die like this, before his eyes.

"Lo-ki"

The sound of his name came out deformed and choked - I barely recognized my voice. I tried to call the Stormbreaker back, but was unsuccessful. Before me I heard noises that I could not identify.

What was going on? Why couldn't I remember anything of the moments that just passed? Why-

"If I hadn't destroyed the Bifrost, it wouldn't have happened."

- I feel this ... Pain.

 Thor's hands went up along Loki's legs, holding on to the pants of his swimsuit. He pulled him to himself with the strength of despair, resting his frozen forehead on his right side. His eyes were slits now, but a final breath of voice came from his lips.

"I love you brother".

 Thus he remained motionless, on his knees and with the forhead resting on his side, while his hands and arms slid downwards, releasing his grip.

His weak but regular breathing. Eyes closed. The neutral expression.

That day, Thor broke up.

'Why don't you hit, why don't you shout, why don't you kill me? ...'

I didn't understand.

I had seen them, Thor's eyes, two globes glittering with blue lightnings; I had seen him, his face, ... tense, motionless, gloomy, full of wrath. A God's wrath.

But nothing happened.

Until I heard that roar. There wasn't nothing human or divine about it ... it was pure desperation, and it was like it entered in my chest, cutting off my heart to take it away. The earth shook with him, the sky crashed with thunders. Then, suddenly everything fell silent, and it started to rain. While Thor brought his hands to his chest, doubled over by a nameless pain, as if he really had torn my heart and now wanted to keep it with him forever, leaving me there to look at him, ... silent and terrified, without understanding what was happening, nor how to deal with it.

"Thor ..." a strangled whisper came out of me in the rain. I saw him waver, grope for air, cough.

"Thor, .... Thor, what ..."

He collapsed on me like a downed redwood, looking for me with that wild, confused look, full of pain and anger that screamed my name.

It was raining. Thickly. Inexorably.

Thunders. The sea became a scary black abyss that rumbled somewhere behind us.

A mighty hand gripped my thigh, his forehead slammed against my chest, then he collapsed down to lean against my side, his cheek sunk in the dark damp sand.

So I understood ... and for a terrible moment I went back in time, there, young and innocent, ...at the foot of a staircase in the dim light, the thick air full of the candles' heavy smell, in my ears still the excruciating echo of my life just shattered on the words of my Father.

It was happening again.

"Lo... Loki ..."

NO!!

I grabbed him, and frantically i started to removed strands of wet hair stuck to his pale cheeks.

"I'm here, ... I'm here, silly oaf, ... Thor, ... you ... you can't do it, not you,... Thor, listen to me ..."

But he was already going away, his strong body shivering, his gaze now vacant that he saw who knows what in that oblivion that stretched his hooked fingers to claim him.

"I love you, brother..."

I barely heard him, between the violent downpour of the rain and the salty splashes of the waves that the wind spit on us.

He had said it. And he was gone like this ... leaving me those words as if they were a legacy of flesh and blood to protect.

While I watched him helplessly slide away, away from me, without anything I could do to hold him back.

Because there is no magic in the Worlds that can stop the Asgardian Magic Sleep.

Bastards. You fucking bastards. Asgardians.

Coward people without guts, that allow who knows what mechanism to detach them from the material plane to swoop into a sort of muffled and silent coma.

And for what purpose? To protect oneself? To not see? Not to hear? So as not to get overwhelmed?

"Thor, no! ... No, not again, ... Thor, talk to me, ... please, talk to me, you damn bastard, ... you can't do this to me !!"

But as much as I scrolled, he was gone. There was only that empty, mute, unconscious body, ... Thor's body without Thor.

"You did it, coward, ... like him, as then, ... you left me here, ... and I can't even hate you ...".

Nothing had changed.

Nothing changed. Like my father, my brother too had let that that mysterious and irresistible call overwhelm him. For the first time.

The result was always the same: I was left shocked and speechless. Me. Wordless.

I was wondering why.

Well, it was my fault, it was clear, perhaps this time more than the first.

It was raining in freezing gusts of wind, while the sea screamed furiously, letting gigantic waves crashing over the dark beach. I felt it, moist and ferocious, breathing like a beast behind us.

I closed my eyes, exhausted. I knew that Thor was curled up against me, I felt his warm skin, his breath becoming imperceptible. He was there, yet he wasn't, and I didn't even know where the hell they went to wander, fucking Asgardians!

I sank my fingers, clawing that raspy sand, to vent a wave of violent anger. I spat rain and salt water, then with an imperious gesture I lit a magic fire, greenish and bright, untouched by the storm. Thor Odinson. A divine giant slumped by my side, under the merciless pouring rain. He was even paler, even more spectral in that green, trembling light, ... okay, that's enough!

"I've had enough of your damned sea, Odinson!" I grabbed that muscular, heavy body, and with a shout I lifted it up, holding it close to me "... We go back home, do you agree? Too wet in my taste, and the air,...the air intoxicates your brain like a not seasoned beer, making you overtalk and saying idiocies, did you notice it?"

I spoke to him as if he could hear me: I remembered my mother when she and I found ourselves at the bedside of the Old Man, in that same state. She had explained to me that he would hear us, that he understood, that he knew, only he did not react. Maybe they choose not to, ... I don't know, I don't know Asgardian biology so deeply.

I shook the rain off my face, panting.

"Where the hell is your so precious axe?"

Here she is, leaning against a black rock, as powerful as the arm that held it, with its brash and massive line.

"It is a good thing that you are not seeing me, brother, ..." I chuckled nervously with eyes shining with tears "...for what I am about to do would probably make you turn up your nose."

I dragged him with me, one step at a time, feeling his head dangle on my shoulder.

"How were all those pompous speeches at court about being worthy?" I almost grawled, grasping Storm's solid handle... and holding it firmly in my very hand. "All right, I hope those petty courtesans are watching right now, i hope they enjoy the show and that awful nightmares haunt them in my name, tonight!"

Then, at my command, a crash and a cloud of blinding light hurt my eyes, accustomed to the darkness, while Stormbreaker, brought us back home.

I don't know how long it had been, honestly. Things had started to overlap one after the other. I only know that at some point the physical reality managed to reach me and I found myself next to Thor's bed, while he was there, immobile and silent as a statue of the ancestors.

"All right, silly oaf, let's do what you want, ..."

I sang a spell, weaving words and magic, until the air around him became a kind of golden cocoon, bright and warm; a maternal uterus that prevented the body from surrendering to a real death, waiting for his spirit to return from higher Realms.

I reached out and entered the soft, welcoming mist, to put a hand on his forehead. Then on the cheek. But I retracted it, upset and instinctively, trembling. I swallowed: I had touched him. I had never been able to, with the Old Man, ... and now I saw again my irrational fears, which concerned the revolting vision I had had in Jotunheim. I still hadn't stopped shaking. Only then did I realize that I was still half-naked, wearing only those ridiculous swim shorts, dripping hair and icy chills.

A moment later I was under the hot shower jet, motionless, my hands resting on the wall. I stayed there, letting the water run over me, on the skin, on those same wounds that I had decided to show to my brother. Foolishly, it was appropriate to say.

It had seemed a good idea, proof of my desire to change, my commitment to get out of that swamp of terror, anxieties and nightmares in which I had sunk. Towards my brother.

My family, the only one I ever had. The only one I had left.

And this was the result.

He didn't move a muscle.

Never.

The first few days I spent hours sitting on the edge of the life bubble that I had created, and I scrutinized him.

I was frustrated, I was angry, I was helpless and I hated being that way. You can't even imagine how much.

So I talked to him. Imagining that every single word of mine stuck to him, that they chased him everywhere, and that I exasperated him so much as to make him come back just to yell words at me.

"I hope you don't think you're dead, brother. Don't think to be so special. I tell you, I've made this trip at least a few times."

I bitten the cheese toast that was my lunch, and winked, pretending to be outraged.

"I'm only eating junkies, and poorly cooked, in addition. It's your fault and your Asgardian sleep."

Thor. His stupid, bright smile, his cheap jokes, the loud music, his enthusiasm, the talks about Asgard over a beer that I always cut in half.

Gods, how much I missed all this! When would I get it back?

And if he had wandered who knows where, in a shapeless void, without conscience, without knowing why? Perhaps by detaching himself from the body, and, above all, away from his mind, he could have lost all knowledge ...

"No, you're not dead, silly oaf ..." I sighed, then, softening my voice, taking his hand from inside the bubble of light "You just went away for some time. Do you remember when as a boy, every now and then, I wanted to be left alone just thinking, and you ... you taking a long sleep after a day of training? Here, is what you are doing now. Thinking and resting. Far from everything. Especially far from your brother. It will be all right, I promise you. And it's not a lie, this time. It will be fine. You will come back here, you will remember something, ... maybe not, I don't know how your mind will react, but you will come back. I just can't tell you when. It depends on how long you want to think, or how long you need to rest. In the meantime I will stay here, keep you warm and take care of your mountain of muscles, okay?"

Silence.

I could not imagine how it was possible that he heard me, but it was so, and I forced myself to believe it.

The nights were long and full of nightmares. Once I even wondered if I could take advantage of the dream plan to reach him, but I also knew it was a pitiful lie that I was building, due to frustration. I slept on the armchair I had brought from my room, more comfortable than the piece of plastic where Thor piled up clothes to store.

I always fell asleep late, always reluctantly, always pointing a finger at him with the same threat:

"Dare to recover your senses while I sleep, and I'll beat out of you, back into oblivion!"

But he did not wake up, and in the morning I always found him there, asleep like a child, his thin breath, the same immobile expression.

When, after two weeks, back pain and headache were vying for my attention, I considered giving myself at least a couple of hours of decent sleep in my bed.

And I did it, already knowing I was going to failing.

What if he wakes up? If he doesn't remember anything, what if he starts screaming, if he doesn't recognizes our home? What if he were scared, or disoriented, ... what if not ... '

Do you know the Midgardian story of that beautiful princess who manages to avoid a sentence by sipping stories to a curious and passionate sultan? With the necessary differences, I did the same, but with Thor's butter and chocolate biscuits, the ones he kept in the bedside table. I ate a piece of them every night because their flavor was the only thing that comforted me. Because it reminded me of many things that I shared with my brother. From our childhood until one night a few months ago, when after a strong argument, I ended up falling asleep here next to him. After eating biscuits and remembering stupid things like two giggling teens.

I took off a piece of biscuit, and ran it under his nose several times, as if it were a remedy to regain consciousness. I chuckled.

Since some nights I layed down next to him for the few hours I was able to sleep: I hated the thought of stay away from him, even though I knew well that, whether I was there or not, nothing changed.

But it changed for me, damn it!

"Isn't it funny that we've never talked for centuries, and now we're doing it thanks to one of the Sleep that hits you Asgardians like stray lightnings?" I turned to look at him, laughing "Sorry, I ... I didn't mean ..." I burst out laughing "Oh, Gods, we are so pathetic, silly oaf, I hope that at least you will noticed this, wherever you are having a good time! The fucking funniest thing is that you are forced to listen and I, who have always been silent, can now speak. Midgardians call this thing karma, and I find it deliciously interesting."

I put the cookies away and went back to him: since a few days I had been grinding a ridiculous thought ...

"Are you with him? Are you seeing him? Our Father, I mean ... is he talking to you? Tell him that he was such a shitty father for both of us, that he didn't deserve even a hint of that love and respect that he received instead,... by his wife, by you, ... even by me, until the day his words has punished me for being what I am by throwing me down from Bifrost. Tell him I know I wasn't the son he wanted, but it's all his fault if things went like this, and we're at this point. Tell him I hate him for what he did, and especially for what he said while he was about to lose a son, maybe two, on the Rainbow Bridge. But it was the wrong son dangling from the bridge, so it was acceptable, right? Do I really hate him? Maybe, but as well as one at a time I hated all of you."

I looked at him and nothing changed.

"Thor, damn you, ...why you're gone, ... I need you, I need to know you're here, to talk to you, I need your voice."

"Stay in this state a little longer and you will have become the perfect listener, Thor!" I said chuckling, and may Surtur take me if I didn't see a grimace of the lips become a kind of smile.

Then I started to get into more serious thoughts. And they both shared the letter A.

It was raining that morning, and it was cold ("Thor, is that you? Come on, what should you be bothered about now?") and I was in the next room, staring at Asgard's map, attached to a wall like a teenager's poster. Yes, the map I had tattered once already ...

Asgard. I was biting my lips, and now that my brother wasn't there to notice, I was free to slaughter myself at my free will.

I was living on Midgard, dressed in inconspicuous and questionable clothes, drinking grapefruit juice, and fighting terrible personal demons, but I always still Loki, God of Mischief, Prince of Asgard, second in line of succession, and possibly King of Jotunheim. I shouldn't have to forget it, yet it seemed to me that I had already gone too far. Those were my people.

'Okay, Big Man, let's have a chat.'

Asgard. I pushed the real world away, to reach the mental plane where thoughts were almost tangible.

"I call Heimdall, Guardian of Bifrost, Defender of Asgard."

It was a long time since I heard that low, almost cavernous, yet firm and proud voice. Heimdall was not afraid of anything or anyone, ...sometimes he gave the idea of ​​being even superior to Odin himself.

"Loki, I was wondering when I would see you again ... my lord. Unexpected events occurred one after the other and Asgard is in pain. The King your father is prey to the Magic Sleep ..."

"... and our future King has decided to do the same thing, somewhere on Midgard. He has been sleeping for two weeks. I cannot know when he will wakes up."

"I know, Loki, and this complicates an already rather delicate situation."

I could almost see him. The grave expression on his face, the stern voice, those golden eyes that look between the Worlds, everything and everyone.

"I am glad to see you again, my lord, ... after all ..."

I guessed a smile behind those words, and I had no reason to doubt the authenticity of what he had said.

"Thank you, my friend. I have no reason to lie telling you that me too. Now tell me, how is the King? Who is guarding on him? How is Sleep going?"

"The King sleeps, Loki. He has been sleeping for many months now. His vital signs are stable but they tend to drop week by week. Healers are pessimistic."

A pause in which I felt tension.

"It could be his last one. He may never wakes up."

"Thor informed me after his recent trip. As you will surely understand, I ... I had other things to think about."

I hovered over the ferocious argument that followed, hoping it wasn't as nosy to have seen that too.

"I'm sorry for it."

Who knows if it was true ...

"The High Council chairs the government, with my help. With all due respect, Loki, ... I couldn't know if you ..."

"If I'd ever go back to Asgard. It's difficult for me to talk to you about this, Heimdall, and I know you will understand."

"I promised to your brother to not to intervene. Nor to demand your presence here, despite everything ..."

On Midgard, my body staggered for a moment. I remembered all too well, his last trip. Was that why he left? To talk about me? To make arrangements and protect myself while trying to put my life back together?

"... and I'm not going to break my word. But Asgard is defenseless. And we can't afford to be vulnerable. Not yet. Not now."

"It will not be, Guardian of the Worlds. But as in Asgard you certainly watch over the King's Sleep, I have a duty to watch over Thor. It is his first Sleep, it could be unpredictable. At the same time, I will not miss my people protection and support. After the Great Battle, a balance seems to have been established. Subtle and precarious, but still a balance. I trust you, Heimdall, ... but if Asgard is threatened again, and the throne will still be vacant, know that you can count on me. "

"I wasn't expecting anything different, Loki, knowing about your support is important to all of us. And if I can help in your guard with Thor, ...I know it's his first Sleep. It could be unpredictable, yes, but it won't last long. "

"It is comforting to know, in fact, my friend. I hope you can see his awakening soon. May Asgard continues to rise stronger than before. "

As the room returned to have tangible walls, I wished I had made the right decision. I wished myself the same thing later, pressing the tiny green receiver on Thor's cell phone.

'Maybe he won't answer. Maybe he's busy putting numbers and letters in column in the most esthetical w..."

Click.

"Hey, big boy! I haven't heard from you for a long time!"

"And I think things will go like this for a while longer. Hi Bruce, may I bother you?" I grinned.

For a long moment I feared that he would fall to the ground.

Banner. He reminded me of other times, distant times, darker and darker times, yet he was the only person in the gang of Thor's new super friends, with whom I could speak without hitting my nerves. Which, considering Bruce Banner, was ironic enough to amuse me ...

"Bruce, I need to talk to you."

"I -... oh Jesus, what? Loki ... why are you calling me? What ... what happened to Thor?"

"It's ..." I rubbed my temples between my thumb and forefinger. "Listen, there is nothing to worry about, he just needs some time."

"What ... what does 'some time' mean? Loki, what's going on, what's wrong ..."

If in all that time he had remained the same Banner as always, now his anxiety must have screaming in his head with his green friend's voice.

"He sleeps. He sleeps as the Asgardians sleep when they are ... overwhelmed by too many things. By things they don't expect. By violent emotions that dry them up. He sleeps to recover and he will recover, Bruce. I know for sure. I just don't know when. Nobody knows. But he will wakes up and everything will go back to the way it was.

"Where is he now?"

"Here, of course. He is here, at home. In a sort of cocoon I created... in which I manage to keep all his vital parameters stable and safe. Bruce, Thor is not in danger. Paradoxically he is perfectly fine. He will wake up when he wants to do it, when he feels he is ... ready. He is having a long, deep sleep, that's all. "

Silence.

"Bruce."

"Why are you telling me?"

"Because is right that at least one of you know it, and you are the one I can talk to without your midgardian arrogance making my stomach ache. And gave me the desire to set everything on fire. Just ... don't say anything to anyone. If there is an emergency for you supermen, I ask you to cover it and figure out something ... they would ask questions, they would become suspicious. Our dear Fury may even want to investigate. Panic scenes for something not worth to. If it sounds more consoling to your conscience, think you're doing it for Thor and the friendship you have for him, ... not because I'm asking you. I don't ask you to trust me, Bruce, I ask you to trust what Thor too would do. "

Silence again.

"You sounds very sure of what you say."

Perhaps because I had seen the man who said he was my father collapse in front of me like a deflated goatskin because he was unable to hold my gaze after shattering my life. Maybe because I knew how he comes go and fro from that state, for millennia. Maybe because Thor was now inside a bubble of light, motionless as a stone, and I felt the full weight of our miserable lives on my shoulders.

But I was careful not to say it ...

"Because I am, Bruce."

My voice was the deep, firm, almost imperious voice of the Prince of Asgard, and it seemed to have an effect on the scientist. For a moment it also affected me, because I had been hiding it for a long time. Ignored it. Forgotten.

"Oh, ...oh my God, ... I ... agree, Loki. Maybe I understand what's going on. And I understand what you're trying to do, Loki. Okay, I'll do what you asked me if there was a need. But keep me informed, and ... and I'd like to know when he wakes up. "

I chuckled.

"You won't hear my voice then, you should be happy!"

He babbled a sort of awkward greeting in his own way, and I was more than happy to press the little red receiver that ended the call.

I sighed. Two weights removed from my shoulders, in the Norns' name! Now I needed a nice cup of hot, black coffee: I had found that I was good at making coffee. I ended the call, but I couldn't help smiling when I saw the massive silhouette of Stormbreaker in the phone background. And the sparkle of my golden helmet hanging on the head of the huge ax.

Thor and Loki. Together. Always. Despite everything and everyone. Despite death. Despite Asgardian magic Sleep.