╟╫╫╫╫╢

My hand needed thirteen stitches on either side where the sword had penetrated it. Even the magic of Asgard's healers couldn't guard against the intense pain that the wound caused, after the shock and adrenaline wore away and there was just the pain and the grief.

Thor and Jane stayed by my side all day. Jane and I did our best to offer Thor comfort, but in the wake of losing a parent, there wasn't much that could be said.

Eventually, he was pulled away by Odin, and I was left on my own. Left to think, which was never a good thing.

Eventually, as the sun dipped low into the sky, Thor reentered the room with Jane on his arm.

I sat up to greet them.

"My mother is being sent off, as is Asgard's tradition," Thor informed me. "I understand if you would prefer to rest, but you're invited to attend."

I bit down on my lip.

"Does Loki know?" I asked slowly, afraid to meet his eyes.

"A guard informed him a few hours ago."

"Have you... Have you been to see him?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer.

"No," Thor said bitterly, "I have half a mind not to think he played some part in all this."

I wanted to argue, but knew he was right. That possibility wasn't too far out there.

I lowered my gaze, "I—I think I'll just stay here. Rest."

Thor nodded, his lips pressed into a thin line. He lingered a while longer before he and Jane went to clean up and dress for the ceremony.

I pushed myself up from the marble slab I was rested on the moment they left. I didn't intend on staying here and resting at all.

I paid a quick visit to my room, swapping clothes. The ones I'd worn earlier in the day were soaked through with blood. Most of it not mine.

I pulled on a long golden dress, working carefully so as not to hurt my hand.

Then, I made for the dungeons.

I stood on the other side of the holographic glass, peering in at Loki just as I had this morning. So much had changed, and yet he appeared exactly the same.

"Come to see me a wreck?" he asked, stepping up to the glass and looking down on me, "Or perhaps to interrogate me?"

He didn't sound torn apart. But he couldn't muster his usual arrogant, witty tone, and that unsettled me.

"Loki—" What was I going to ask? If he was okay? Obviously he wasn't. I looked down and sighed. "I'm so sorry."

"You're sorry?" He scoffed. "For my loss, are you?"

"I'm sorry, because it was my fault. I was there, and I couldn't save her."

Suddenly, the Loki in front of me flickered. I realized what I was looking at. An illusion.

"Can I see you?" I asked quietly, my eyes glued to my shoes.

In front of me, there was silence. And then, the illusion fell away.

Loki's cell was in shambles, furniture tossed around and broken. And Loki was slumped against the wall, hair a mess and eyes rimmed red.

The sight twisted my stomach.

"They told me you were dead," Loki said suddenly, not looking up at me. "When you wouldn't wake up, at first. I had to wait hours down here, alone, thinking you'd both died, before a guard came to me with news of your condition."

I closed my eyes. Reached forward. And I opened his cell. I stepped inside, and he pushed himself to his feet, watching me wearily.

I opened my arms to him and we fell together into an embrace. He held me to him as though he feared someone might rip me away.

I winced at the pain it caused my hand, he pulled back and looked at me, his eyes wide with concern.

I held up my stitched hand to him. "I got run through. Guess now I can say I've been stabbed." I shook my head. "I should have fought harder. I should have saved her."

"No. You did more than I."

"You can't blame yourself for this. There was nothing you could have done." I lifted a hand to his face, and he held it. "Your mother's send off is happening tonight. I want you to come with me. You deserve to be there."

"One of the last things I said to her was that she was not my mother," Loki said lowly, "I don't think she would have wanted me there."

"You knew her better than that, Loki," I said, taking his hand and leading him from his cage, "Of course she would have wanted you there."

I had him disguise himself as a royal guard while we made our way through the largely empty halls of the palace. I took him up to my room, where we entered out onto the terrace which overlooked the ceremony.

Below, at the water's edge, rows of people holding orbs of light illuminated the dark night, as a small boat floated out. A single torch allowed our eyes to follow its path through the pitch black water. And then, a single flaming arrow arched from the shore, striking the lone ship. It burst into flame and Loki shuddered beside me.

I leaned into him, and he wrapped an arm around my waist, as both of our eyes lingered on the flaming boat, and the storm of flaming arrows that followed the path of the first. More boats—more dead—followed Frigga's. At the edge of the water, the boat floated on, suspended in midair. Something like stars went up as the boat dropped away, and the people on the shore released their orbs of light into the sky.

The lightshow cast a white glow over Loki's pain-stricken face.

I didn't know what to say to him. To make it better. "I'm here," was all that I could force out.

He looked down at me, his face hardened with the effort of concealing his grief. "I want to forget." He lifted a hand to cup the side of my face.

I wanted to forget too. I wanted to forget it all. I leaned in and closed the distance between us. And it was like no time had passed since the last time I'd left Asgard.

He pushed me through the glass doors and into the room, his lips never leaving mine as we moved. He was fast and rough, but careful not to touch my injured hand.

I pushed him back onto the bed, straddling his hips. He brushed my hair over my shoulder and unfastened my dress at my back. I shuddered with desire. Desire for him to touch me, to kiss me, to take me. This desire had been living deep in my mind since I'd left Asgard. I'd pushed it back, and back, and back, but now it had broken through the ice, surfaced with aching passion.

I unbuttoned his shirt, pulling it over his head and feeling his skin beneath me with my good hand. He clasped the back of my head, pulling me into him. His other hand explored the bare skin beneath my dress climbing up my thigh. He left a trail of goosebumps as he went.

He maneuvered himself on top of me, sliding me out of my dress as he moved. He looked me over, lust in his eyes.

"My, how I've missed this," he said darkly, "How I've hungered for you beneath me again, pet."

The pet-name, as flustered as it made me, caused an excited chill to race down my spine.

"Tell me, have you yearned for this, too?" he asked in a whisper at my ear.

"Yes," I breathed in a sigh of pleasure, as I felt him enter me. I dug my nails into his back as our bodies moved in a practiced rhythm.

"Tell me," he said again, leaving a trail of kisses and bites along my neck.

"This is all I've wanted since I left Asgard," I said to him, my mind high on pleasure, "You're all I've wanted."

"Is that so?" I could feel him smirk against my skin, "Well, love, I'm all yours."

I felt the knot, low in my stomach, unravel. He purred low into my ear again, his voice stimulating my heart rate. "And you're all mine."

╟╫╫╫╫╢