Weaving, Part 1
A few months ago I started a prompt fill about Loki living in different realities at the same time, so nothing he says is a lie (it's always true somewhere).
There have been some major edits since I started posting.
Title: Weaving
Warnings: Misuse of actual Norse Mythology and a slow descent into madness. Enjoy.
Part 1
When she had first joined them he had not known what to make of her. It puzzled him at first why he would walk by and, for a second, see a different person. He had been sure, so sure, that the day before her hair was different. But when he looked up at his big brother, fingers gripping on the hem of his tunic so he will not be left behind (again), Thor is unfazed and already bellowing a greeting too loud to come from his still small body. Loki spends the rest of the day waiting for there to be a shift, a something, he doesn’t know.
No one else notices.
The next day it matches the wheat fields again, but he doesn’t want to ask Thor or Fandral because they might laugh and call him a baby as they did the last time they tried to distract him and hide in the armory where he’s not allowed to go.
Time passes and he is so very close to being a man, but not one, not ever one if he will not grow wider than a blade of grass, as Thor constantly reminds him. He becomes accustomed to being left behind and forced into unwanted Quests in equal measures. It does not take long for his brother’s merry band to grow, doubling in size, and Loki also becomes accustomed to leaning against the fence of the practice ring across from where Sif usually stands. He takes to quietly watching for the rich blackness to sweep over her hair, over the lashes of her eyes. He stops wondering, when he passes Sif or stands with her to spar or pulls her (or is pulled) to the side of the hall where they can speak without the teasing words of their friends (because he still thinks of them that way. The truth is that he always will, only in time the word will burn), why her hair is golden when it used to be dark. It becomes such a constant that he forgets it happens until the day she sits close and asks to see him change the flowers to butterflies. Away from the others, with all her focus (still young and open) on him, he realizes that he rather prefers the way her eyes pierced his when they were not surrounded by delicate gold.
They were the only dark ones in Asgard; circling each other, like his father’s birds
He thinks about the way she looks lying in the field by the tree line after they fight. The light breeze picking up strands of hair in a dance from where it is spilled like ink over the rich green of the grass. He wonders how they look to the birds when he lies down beside her. He wonders if they matched. He liked it when her hair was dark, he felt less different when she was near him, less like an accident, a stain on Asgard’s golden perfection. He thinks he told her that once and her nose wrinkled, but then she smiled, still shining like the sun as she always did, and kissed his cheek.
The next day when he greeted her and tried to hold her hand she broke his wrist.
---
Threads like spider webs.
He thinks if he followed them to the center, the birthing place, he would find a dark monster with too many legs. He wants it to be small, like him, but it will be big enough to ride on because Loki never gets things he wants.
Mother plucks him up into her arms.
“Be careful my darling,” she holds both his hands in one of hers, the other tucked round his belly. “There are lives in those threads, we mustn’t tangle them.” Warm breath makes the hair around his ears float, like he is underwater.
His arm stretches out toward the loom, her hand following, still cradling his as if it is the most precious thing in the world.
“Wha’happens if they tangle?”
“They don’t.”
“Why?”
A kiss on his forehead.
“Because my love, if they tangle they would not be lives anymore.”
---
Unless it is a specific something, unless he has the will to focus, the shifting is something he hardly notices. Floor work and walls adorned with plates of gold one moment, ornate carvings of wood the next. The ebb and flow of the golden surface as natural as the ripples in the water of the forest streams and the river he sometimes sees under the bifrost
It is not important yet for him to see the differences, but he knows that Thor smiles at him more when the floor is wood.
---
“Once,” the story begins on the way out of the family quarters, “mankind accepted a simple truth.”
Mother stands in a doorway as they pass, alternatively looking on with watery eyes and a soft contented smile. One of father’s heavy hands ruffles Thor’s hair, the other cradling Loki’s shoulder, pulling him closer. He is pressed into an armored waist, resting against a strong hip that has never carried him. The moving is difficult because the angles are awkward, but his father is holding onto him and that’s all that has ever mattered.
Father speaks of Gods and man. Of the endless cold and darkness and the battle which is glossed over and described in heavy detail. The blood and the death and Thor glances around their father’s torso to grin at Loki wickedly. While they walk, Loki can feel the cold of the wall seeping into his skin, an odd comfort. He tries to balance the sound of his own footsteps walking with those he could hear coming down the hall from where he is huddled in the corner of the vault he sleeps in when the Allfather’s guards lock the door after the food is brought in (if there is food brought in).
The heavy doors of the treasure vault push open, the space filled with light of haunting blue. He feels as though he is toddling down the stairs and struggles to stay upright and in time with the wide strides leading him down, but he is unwilling to let go of his hold on father’s waist. Past the shining trinkets on their pedestal, the casket glows brightly. It is all at once frightening and familiar and home and if he can just look inside of it maybe everything will make sense.
“Do the frost giants still live?” He watches himself reach out to touch and both his arms are hanging at his sides and father his holding his hand.
“When I’m king,” Thor gestures violently; Loki glances up at him out of the corner of his eye. He can feel the sting of Thor’s fist on his jaw in only the vaguest sense (a feeling of might be, of not yet) and is captivated by the manic gleam in the other boy’s eyes. “I’ll hunt the monsters down and slay them all. Just as you did father.”
The Allfather looks upon the golden prince with affection.
"A wise king never seeks out war, but he must always be ready for it.” Father passes by them, Thor smilingfrowningglowering at Loki in his wake. Loki smiles hesitantly back, unsure which Thor can see it. His brother runs ahead, and Loki tries to catch up so they will not have a reason to leave him in the vault. His left hand is stiff; he rubs it against his vest.
“I’m ready father."
"So am I.” He’s not, but he thinks he might be later.
“Only one of you can ascend to the throne, though both of you were born to be kings.”
Loki clings desperately to his father’s hand; they leave the room and there is blue fading from his fingertips.
Thor goes to find his friends when they are dismissed and leaves Loki to his own devices. He stands in the hall and looks at his hands, thinking they might be smaller now. As he walks he traces where he thought he saw lines, but they are gone and faded into the paleness of his skin.
It takes him ages to make his way to the bridge only because, when it’s where he needs to be, he can never find the right place. Past the guard tower the land opens to grass and fields and Heimdall rests against one of the stone turrets, helmet setting on the ground beside them.
Loki reaches a hand up to show him, fingers splayed wide; he’s forgotten he was worried.
“My fingers turned blue.”
“I know.”
He looks back down at his hand, skin pale and rosy pink. When he looks back up he asks, genuinely curious.
“Are they always blue?”
“Not in all places.”
Loki blinks doe eyes up at him, then sits down and starts to build little towns out of sticks and dirt.
The next day he is pushed into the mud by Fandral by accident on purpose and he is left behind, helped up, pushed down again, and taken to mother with whispered apologies to get cleaned up.
He laughs it off, he cries, he hides in his rooms, he goes to see Heimdall again.
Huginn and Muninn circle overhead.
He is playing along the edges of Asgard one day, throwing pebbles as far as his little arms can to hear them plink in the water when he suddenly realizes.
“Your teeth aren’t gold.”
The guardian does not turn his head, but he smiles.
The light is fading when a servant comes to fetch him, it is the one who smells of kitchen spices and touches his forehead when he is too warm and his stomach won’t stop moving. She is his favorite.
He wonders if she turns blue too.
And then he forgets.
---
When the threads are cut they are placed carefully in a basket on one of the shelves that never fills up
They are not lives anymore, he is hypnotized by the basket, and he wants to play with them. He wants to weave them like mother.
He asks.
“No.” He is shuffled out of the room by a hand maiden.
“Must he stay here?” One of them asks another when mother is not close enough to hear. “Should he not be out with his brother? He is weak enough as it is.” He does not know their names; they are never the same long enough for it to matter.
Later he will sneak in and take some of the scraps out with him, but that night when (Thor is snoring on the other side of the room) he tries to weave them it becomes a knotted mess.
---
It is important for him to notice things.
Loki remembers the old hammer in the vault. Remembers going up to it when he is cold and alone behind the locked doors and touches it, traces the patterns, picks it up to admire the weight of it and feel of the handle. He thinks it is beautiful and one time he keeps it for himself. The hammer doesn’t exist and he wants to make it for Thor.
The dwarves are easy to manipulate. They are bitter kind wrathful and he speaks stories that are always true in a different place. They bring weapons (a staff, a hammer, a boat) to Asgard. The golden hair he brings back himself, Sif does not always accept.
He gets away with it. His lips are sewn shut by thedwarvesThorOdin. Eitri walks out of the throne room triumphantly gripping Loki’s head by the hair. He does nothing and is stuck in the throne room as the petitions go on for days.
Loki rubs his neck, hand coming back streaked in red. Thor hefts his new weapon up and grins, sneers, strokes Sif’s hand in reassurance (she smacks him off and allows it), sighs restlessly by his brother’s side and whispers of adventures they will have when the petitions are finished.
As soon as he is permitted, Loki flees. Thor waits standing on the dais to speak with father and quickly follows to match his pace, a combination of light relief and fury in his tread. All of the footsteps are accompanied by grumbles, only most of them are directed at Loki.
“I thought they would never stop,” His brother grouches, flexes his stiff muscles in a way that makes Loki both flinch from him and hold very very still. “They speak so slowly. Must be dim."
Like gravel, Loki thinks. Like choking on gravel.
After a beat of silence Thor sways closer and nudges him with a shoulder. It is gentler than expected, but Loki still keeps his voice clipped and deferring when he speaks.
“It is their way, I believe.” The drying blood pulls at the skin of his neck.
“The hall will reek of them now.”
“Be sure they don’t hear you say that.”
“They already have.” He shrugs carelessly and Loki heaves a sigh, coughing on the treacherous little laugh that wants to escape him because the walls are still golden and he doesn’t know.
"You are going start a war. Again.” He aims his voice at lofty, worries he missed but Thor makes the face he always makes when he doesn’t want to admit Loki is right and rolls his shoulders. His neck still itches, Loki tries to ignore it. “Sooner or later, father will realize you are unsuited to be king and pass the throne to me.” It is meant as a joke, but as soon as it leaves his mouth he knows the truth of it, is filled with giddiness until he realizes the place it is true is not here. Thor laughs in a sharp burst of noise, grips tightly on his arm, and leads him towards the closest way outside because they suddenly have full packs and wear traveling clothes.
The floor is polished wood and he relaxes enough to breathe evenly.
“WE are going to start a war.”
“No. No, it will definitely be you.”
“And yet we haven’t.” Thor claps his hands together once loudly, as if in celebration, and Loki snorts. “We should present ourselves with another opportunity. Alfheim, I think.” Thor turns to him brightly. “We haven’t been hunting there in ages.”
He hates going to Alfheim. “I don’t suppose we have. Enjoy yourself brother.”
“But you will be coming with us.” His brother’s voice carries down the corridors. “There will be no one to amuse us with tricks if you are not there.”
Loki fights back a twitch.
“I find that hard to believe. Fandral will be coming with you, yes? I find myself amused every time he opens his mouth.”
His brother roars with mirth and an arm is thrown about his shoulders. It is a burning heat, but steady, not painful. They continue to move in the direction of the pastures where, at this time of the day, their mounts are likely feeding. “If I must.”
The arm circling him pulls him closer with an affectionate squeeze.
“You must.”
---
One day there is not a wall. The Allfather stands looking over the fields and towns in the distance, to the rough-hewn stone bridge and the glint of light of the Guardian’s helmet where he stood watch. Loki stands by his side, eyes darting over to Odin when he speaks.
“We shall have one built.”
---
He remembers running in panic, the heavy tread of the stallion’s hooves close behind him. The terror made all the worse by the thought of what would happen (might happen) if he fails.
What happens to all jotun who can’t be of use.
He tries not to think of the Allfather’s last words before he had changed and then he is trapped and can think of nothing.
It takes three days for him to find his way back to the palace. All of them passing in a blur that he cannot quite remember, except that there is a hurt deep in him that he does not yet understand. A stable hand with rough fingers (that run along his nose, sides, legs; he does not know why he is being touched) finds him by the gate and leads him, exhausted and dragging, to the pastures and stables across the grounds.
The following months are a rush of noise and silence and aloneness that culminates in a white hot agony which pierces him
His son is beautiful. When he has the ability to do so, Loki tells him this, the horror of his creation left behind in the wake of the only thing Loki thinks he will be allowed to keep. “You are lovely. You are perfect.” He pets the velvet fuzz of his baby’s ears and tries to turn so that he blocks the view of those who come to gawk. It was easier to do, he decides, when he had been a horse. Sleipnir whuffles and rubs his nose against the soft fabric of his mother’s tunic and all Loki can think is Love. They nap and wake and when he blinks his eyes open he says “good morning baby” to the bright, shining eyes of the playful child in front of him. He changes and Sleipnir begins to suckle.
They are out in the field the next morning, his little boy dancing in the grass and warm air, when he hears Thor.
“Brother, enough of this.” It is the first time any of his family has visited him during the length of his stay in the stables. Sensing his mother’s distress, Sleipnir dashes over to plant his four front feet between them and glare at his uncle defiantly. Loki runs a reassuring hand over his child’s flank. “We haven’t seen you for months and when you finally return to us, you insist on holing yourself up in the dirt with-” he trails off, an incomplete gesture moving in Sleipnir’s direction. Loki’s blood starts to boil and Thor changes tactics. “When was the last time you ate?”
“I ate this morning, Thor.”
“Ate REAL food, brother. It doesn’t count if you are in the form of a beast. ”
Loki reaches down to scratch under his son’s jaw. “We had apples.” The grinding of Thor’s teeth is audible from a distance, but when he speaks the anger and shock is surprisingly restrained.
“You are giving it what?”
“IT is my-“
“It is a horse!” He roars and leaps over the fence. Sleipnir startles. “If we just-” Thor makes a move to lay a hand on his child and before he has a chance to consider his own actions, Loki has changed forms and Thor is lying on the ground where he landed after dodging his brother’s attempt to put her hooves through his skull.
Thor leaves.
It is the last time any of his family visited him in the stables.
Loki doesn’t go back into the palace for days until there is a direct order from the Allfather and several guards intent on physically removing him if he does not comply.
Frigga greets him outside his quarters with a hug and “my darling” and he is lured inside with promises of a warm bath. There is a feast to celebrate his return, Loki does not go and no one except his parents notice. It is a formality. Asgard does not need a reason to feast; it is enough to celebrate the survival of the last feast. He is kept inside, informally as punishment for his defiance, but officially it is due to the coddling of his mother who has guilted him always into doing what will make her happy. The cool of the weaving room is as comforting as it has always been and he wonders if he will be able to provide the same comfort for his son when he has grown.
When he is finally allowed to withdraw from the palace, he stumbles into the stables to find a grown stallion and elaborate riding gear. Sleipnir tosses his head and paws at the ground. The Allfather had ridden Sleipnir since Loki was a child.
Loki stands in the stables, fingers tangling in the mane of his father’s mount and cries.
Heimdall is expecting him when Loki is able to drag himself away. The heavy despair has left him drained and confused, his eyes burning, and as has given way to rage.
“Where is my CHILD?!”
“What child?” The gatekeeper rocks with the force of impact when Loki hurls himself over the threshold, fingers clawing at the plates of his armor, streaks of red where his nails caught and ripped off. He yells, screeches, discordant insulting slurs of words. Heimdall stands still, accepts every hit and cry until the second prince has once more exhausted himself in his fit of emotion.
ldquo;Sleipnir is where he has always been, and always will be.”
Loki falls as if he has taken a hit to the chest. Heimdall catches the sagging prince, grips an arm around him and lowers him gently to the ground, but does not stay crouched near him. Loki collapses into incoherence, a babbling broken mess of words. He is the opposite of himself. He buries his face in the cold surface of the elevated platform by the gate keeper’s feet.
Heimdall does not speak until Loki is able to push himself up, still curled around his own body, but at least not crumpled on the floor.
“…. He is not always your child.”
“I hate you.”
Loki looks out into the blackness past the gate of the bridge. The seething that had built since he stepped out of the stables finally leaching away into the void and he is again left with nothing. The surface is cold like stone under him and he uncrosses his legs to let them dangle over the edge of the bifrost. Sometimes, when he closes his eyes, he can see water underneath his feet instead of the nothing. He wonders what it would feel like to slip off the edge. Was there anything in the blackness? Would it swallow him?
Would it burn?
The gate keeper shifts and a wide, heavy hand comes to rest on the crown of his head with an unexpected softness. Loki fights the urge to snarl and pull away
He thinks of the shifting surfaces, and Sif’s hair (his wrist twinges), and the way his brother’s friends will sometimes welcome him with open arms, but usually with hostile confusion.
He thinks of the living ice.
"Are they real?”
“Yes.” Heimdall’s gaze never falters from the distant place he watches.
Loki sits quietly for a moment, his eyes dead, swollen red, glancing off to a far corner at nothing.
“Which one do I belong in?”
Golden eyes turn to him. Filling him with the everything and the stars-roots-ice-panic-mychildren -Yggdrasil-kingdominruins-rainingfire-laughter-alonethundersomewherebutitsnotThortoobigforThoritburns-Mother-whyistherenosun
And though all his tears are spent, he is over come again by the urge to cry.
“All of them.”
---
In the back of the archives is a niche with the outdated text no one bothers to read, no matter where Loki is.
He has cleaned out the corner, but there is a hall of dust in the surrounding isles and he can hear the snuffling and coughing out of the throat coating grime before theyanyone are anywhere near him. Only what he needs is kept here. A small table, a padded chair and a hard one. An unlit candle and a grimy window behind them that lets in the barest amount of light. A written log, hidden in neglect, that keeps track of everythingnothing.
- Muninn keeps the sleep away, but it doesn’t physically hurt. If the Allfather’s armor reflects like water Huginn will go for your eyes.
-Avoid Stay with Thor when he wears the heavy belts with the dark buckles. If you don’t he will find you, and that’s worse.
-If there are dogs wolves carved into the doors of father’s the Allfather’s father’s study you can go in knock, but only if they are angry. If they are howling do not go in. If they are crows birds not eagles do not go in. Don’t go near the wing if the walls by the stairwell are embellished gold.
-Volstagg does not hurt you.
-It is safe to love Thor when the palace is wood. Oak. Carved with baseboards of Asgards’ history. He smiles at you.
-If you make mother cry I will kill you.
-Your skin is not blue.
-Thor should can not be king. yet
He is sitting in the archives, feet tucked under him, gently fingering the pages of the ledger. It is blue today. A gift, he thinks, from the thin girl with honey-brown hair that he talks to at feasts. It’s unclear to him why it was gifted, but the inscription addresses him as “My heart” and reads “You are not that cute”. There is a crude drawing of a man in a dress that ripples as through the artist had been laughing uncontrollably. Loki has taken to petting the cover when he sees it, writes what is closest to his heart. His mind. His life. They take the form of poems, spells, daydreams; they are chaotic on purpose in the unlikely event that they will be found. They are his warnings and his memories stored in a place where they cannot melt together
Loki goes to bury his face in his hands, but there is a scar along the inside of his wrist that is still angry and red around the edges. By the time he pulls back his sleeve it is gone.
“Brother!”
The light of the candle in front of him burns shadows into his eyes and he closes them. Breathes deep, a sigh calculated to taste the tension in the air, to know who it is before turning to greet-
Odin.
He looks over his shoulder at the archives, empty save for the staff, and back again.
His father reaches out and grips his forearm, pulling him up from his seat in one easy motion.
“We had not expected you back,” Odin’s eyes are filled with a not-laugh that is the closest to one Loki has seen in years. They are black and angry and his voice is knives. “The coronation is tomorrow, Thor will be king.”
Loki stops breathing until there is again a smile on Odin’s face and an arm clasped around his shoulders.
“Come to dinner, it has been too long since you’ve sat among us.”
At the doors of the archive entrance a small boy with red hair meets them and reaches up to take his hand. Loki allows it to swing back and forth as the child chatters about his new training sword.
By the time they reach the hall Thor is towering over him.
Link to Part 2