Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

(Dreams.

We have walked each other’s dreams since shortly after she admitted to me the only image that ever caused her to have nightmares – dark, small, enclosed spaces.

When she’d told me, I’d laughingly suggested that what she feared was some prescient thought she’d be entombed, once – and when her jaw trembled for a second before she hit me, I knew I’d crossed a line with her that needed reparation. So, once her animosity had cooled, I offered her some instruction on shaping dream-landscapes… she took to it, more readily than I thought she would. And when a few nights later her awkward adolescent-self surprised my equally awkward adolescent-self in my own dreamscape? Well, that was something…

It was even more ‘something’ when we became lovers…)

*

Hmm. This is different.

I dream, but I am not the one shaping the dream.

The colours in this landscape are saturated and hyper-real. All is still, and the air feels thick. The barren land itself is unfamiliar, as well. There’s a river alongside, not wide but flat. Everything is tinged red, as if seen through tinted glass. For a second, I think I hear a breeze sigh my name – but… there isn’t one. Where did that come from? Who? Why does this place push at my mind, demanding I recognize…?

And then I’m running - because suddenly I know where this dream is, and who shapes it – Sif.

“Loki?” Her voice is clear, but somehow… small. It’s as if it comes from her mouth as a child, not the woman she is now. I round a tree growing up from a curve in the riverbank and the scents of blood and battle assault me. Blinking hard, I keep running and find her still standing, alone. One last burst of speed, my lungs burning now, and I catch her just as she collapses. She is awash in blood on her left side; glaive loosely clutched in her right hand. “Loki? I’m… sorry. I tried… I didn’t under- I misunderstood then, but now I –“

“Shh, Sif. Hush. Listen to me.”

“It hurts so much. I stood as long as I could, but it hurts.”

“Sif, listen.” I grab her left hand, pull it to my chest. “Feel this. Feel my heartbeat (slow the beat, steady it), feel its rhythm. Do you?” She nods, weakly. “Now you must match it. Slow, slow and steady.” I place my right hand to her chest, amplifying the pulse in my palm. “Yes, just like that. No matter what comes, Sif – keep that rhythm until I come back to you. Your friends will come, and bring you home – but don’t fear. All will be well. Just-”

“No, don’t go-” she tries to clutch at my shirt, gasping.

“Sif, you know this is a dream. You called me here to you, remember? I can’t mend your leg in a dream, so I mustneeds wake. Let me. Just feel my heartbeat.” I press her palm flat again. “Echo that. Better. You can do this, my lady. Keep beating. I will hold this dream open in my mind, and you’ll feel my heart the whole time. Breath and beat. Breath and beat.”

“I’ll try.” She’s practically panting… (by the Norns, she should have been found by now. Where are her men?)

“No, you’ll do, Sif. You’re doing.” I say, gently. The weight of her in my arms is a bittersweet thing… I had not thought to hold her ever again. How desperate her mind must be, to reach out for mine – damaged, raging, half-full of thoughts I’m not sure are my own… She whimpers, and the electric tingle of the Bifrost ghosts over her skin. Hurriedly, I look her over for other wounds; slide my hand down her side, now gone sticky with drying blood. Her hip is intact, but her thigh seems… shredded. So much blood; and no sign of her armor.

“Can you show me what did this? Save your breath, just show me…”Closing my eyes, I expect some beast with needle-teeth biting into her leg. But what blooms before me is a child, fallen into the river. She dives… (I dive in without thinking, scoop the child up. The current is strong; so I swim, one armed and end up half-collapsed on the far bank. Panting for breath. Something shifts, energy uncurls and the child is not… it strikes out, catching my leg once, twice, a third time as I try to kick and roll away.) …It is cruel, this piece of metal weaponry, with many fine blades that hook like talons. It is meant to rend flesh, pull armor from skin, sink into maille and not release.

“I think I smell something… Eir; I smell herbs. Am I safe?” she pants, between laboured breaths.

“Yes, you’re safe.” (oh tongue, do not fail me…)

“Liar,” she tries to laugh. “It feels… confusion. Panic. That isn’t mine? Eir… she doesn’t think she can… can’t fix this. Loki, Loki she can’t fix this-”

“Heartbeat. Sif, I’m coming, remember? I’m not going to let you die.”

“You may not… have a choice… in this,” she replies, calming again.

“I recall you saying recently, ‘there is always a choice’.”

“True enough.” she sighs, resignedly.

I am reluctant to let go of her; even this phantom half-contact, now more bitter than sweet. Her palm to my chest echoes the innumerable nights we spent in secret, skin to skin. But the far more pressing need is to slip back from our dream, and find a way to her. Deftly, I work a charm to bind her heartbeat to mine. Whether it will hold in the waking world, I do not know. Dream-magik is a fickle thing, even in the best of circumstances. Her eyelids flutter, and I’m reminded again that this beautiful deadly creature once loved me. My unguarded dream-tongue tried to warn her from this path, to no avail… but what if she might be my path, my light breaking against this darkness?

“L… lo…” she half-slurs – evidence that Eir must be hard at work.

“Shh… breath and beat, Sif.”

“Love, ‘m not ready. T’die. If, if y’need… take th’ leg. To m’shame… I’d rather… live, ‘n not fight ‘gain… than leav'you.” Her voice is now thickly slurred with both sleep and medicines.

“You will wake whole and well, Sif. Sleep now; feel my heart.” I do not add the deeper truth of it – there are two places she might wake in that fashion. But I’ll be damned if I don’t try to make that just one.

As I surface from the dream, I slip a dagger, a dart of thought down a dark hall that I haven’t walked in years. I hope against hope that it hits its mark.

Chapter Text

The Allmother stirs, a shade of dream falling away. It was both more- and less-real; her son, scraped knee bleeding and raw. It feels like a memory roused, unbidden. He cries and she soothes, and his raven-hair is sun warmed under her hands… The pounding on her door rouses her the rest of the way, and quickly…

…Terse words echo in her head as she speeds to the healing rooms; terse words that wrestle with the dream. Eir does not look up as she enters; her hands busy cleaning away blood and dirt in a haze of seiðr. And Sif, she is so pale – paler even than…

“Eir?”

“I need more supplies. The rest of the wounded are well in-hand. But she’s bled so much, and it’s a tangle of-”

“Eir, go and retrieve what’s needed. I’ll do what I can.”

Eir turns, and for a second her face is fraught with panic. She raises her hands, slick with blood – snaps her wrists and they haze clean again. “My queen, there is very little either of us can do…” she mutters, hurrying out.

Frigga presses air tight to the shreds of flesh, holding the blood at bay. How he reached her dreams does not matter in this moment. But the why of it, that is something else entirely. She seats herself in a chair near to Sif’s bedside; anchoring herself to this room, this moment, this breath… and exhales.

As I come awake, I’m certain of two things: I am still alone, and the word ‘please’ has just passed my lips. A third springs to the forefront – the tether to Sif’s heart holds, against all expectation. It’s as if my own heart has a faint echo – but too faint, for my comfort. I focus and try to augment it, but it feels sourceless – I can’t reach back to her. And then… opening my eyes, she appears – as here as she can be. Blessed Yggðrasil, it worked…

“My son, I had a most curious dream, and-”

“Sif is dying.” At this, her face softens, jaw caught mid-word.

“I would not hide that from you. She took a grievous wound, and was alone for longer than we’d hoped. She’s lost a great deal of blood.”

“May I pay my-”

“The dream. You sent that.” she interrupts, incredulous.

“True. Not easily or with certainty, but in all this -” I gesture to the walls, “my dreams are still my own. Time is precious, Allmother. May I-”

“My son, that will not be allowed. How did you-”

“She called to me, and I answered. We waste time she does not have. I can-”

“No.”

“-save her. I can.”

“How, Loki? You are not-”

I yank off my shirt, splaying my right hand across the burn below my rib. “This – you’ve seen this? It was the last gift I was given. Would you like to know the story of it? It had been weeks spent in restraints; weeks of a cycle of wounding and barely adequate healing. There was a blade, and my skin peeled and cut away. Then muscle as well, layer by layer. To the bone, Allmother.” Her small gasp is a counterpoint to the growl my voice has become. “And then, a burning torch was shoved into the wound. I could feel the heat of it warming the breath as it escaped my lung. That was…” I stop short, shaking my head (no, I cannot let that continue to play again behind my eyes. It has to stop, now.) “You are correct, I am not a healer. But I learned, my seiðr learned. It was do that or die, mother (the last word lays thick on my tongue, absent the ‘All’ preceding it).

“What?” Her face pales, eyes gone wide.

“Would you have me believe she told you nothing, when you sent her on that fool’s errand to interrogate me? We waste time on this while she is dying!” The cell spins, and I close my eyes – Sif’s heartbeat stutters, falters and then… steadies.

“I will speak with Odin, see what-”

“No! She hasn’t that much time… I can do this. Please,” comes as a stiff, formal request.

“I know we are both aware of how little-”

“Loki.” Her voice gentles, as one speaks to an unbroken colt. The cell spins again, and my grasping hands catch at nothing, trying to break my fall.

“Please. Mother, please. Her heart is failing…” I’m on my knees; a weak, broken thing. “Do not leave me one more ghost in my head.” Piteous. Tears I can’t hope to stop begin falling. “I… I vow, on my life I will do naught but aid her. I vow, on my life, I will return complacently here.” A sob breaks my voice, “You must let me try… she is… I… please (is a whisper, torn from my throat).”

And her hand, warm and gentle, is on the back of my head. “Loki, oh my son. I did not know. I did not know.” She crouches, wrapping her delicate arms around my shoulders; she is everything I am not have never been will never be. The childish urge to clutch her skirts as I did so long ago overwhelms me.

“You are the only one; I wanted you to not know… I needed…” (Norns, I have to stop. Think. Focus.)

A flow of words falls from her lips, shapeless and un-followed. It washes over the chaos in my mind, carving a channel that my thoughts pour into readily. “You have asked (and I’ve answered. And how am I feeling you, how are you touching) me, to make amends. I would start (after all this time? How are you) here. She must not (slip away. He must not; oh there will be wrath if he learns. He must not be told, or even the image of you will be stolen from me. And I would) die,” I whisper.

“Hold tight to my energy, my son.” I feel tendrils of her seiðr slipping into mine, like waking from a deep slumber. “I will help you hold your image here. I allow you to follow this path I mark, to her.”

I don’t need to be told a second time. Seiðr sings a joyous note as I fold the shadows in on myself. Inhaling, the warm herbaceous scent of the healing rooms suffuses all. There is a clattering noise, sharp – and the sound of breaking glass follows. My mother both releases me and leaps up from the chair she was seated in, words flying from her mouth – desperate and fast - and I hear clearly none of it, because Sif is in front of me, abed. What remains of her left thigh is a seeping crimson stain swathed in linen, skin gone so pale above and below as to be almost indistinguishable; the thick scent of her blood as powerful as undertow.

Eir’s voice breaks through, finally – her words loud and harsh – “If I cannot, how can… He has no training! How can, how is he here?”

“Stop. I will not have anger here. You, of all, know this.”

“Eir,” Frigga pleads, “I can’t explain, but I believe him. She is… let him try.”

“A sleeping draught – I need a gentle one, that does not dull the senses. Now.”

“She has had more than-”

“Eir, it is not for her. I need that, a fine-sharp knife, a set of steel pipettes – the very small ones, and silence.”

I feel my mother’s hand press a vial to mine; one cautious drop to my tongue confirms it to be the draught I remember. The sound of Eir’s slippers scuffing approaches and she lays a tray at my right side. The knife she’s selected is perfect, meant for excising shrapnel with minimal damage. I pick up one of the slender pipettes and shear each end off with quick snaps of the knife.

“Mother? If you would…” I gesture to the far side of the bed, without turning. She steps around without hesitating, but looks at me with a clear amount of confusion. “The only way she will survive is with a… contribution.” I nick a vein in Sif’s (damn, too limp and unresisting) right wrist with the same knife, and slip one end of the pipette in. To her credit, my mother understands without further explanation. She offers me her own wrist, palm up. I nick a vein there too, tracing a (ohh, so heady to feel this) spark of seiðr across the welling blood, and after turning her hand back over - gently, so gently, ease the other end of the pipette in. Her eyes close in concentration, lips moving soundlessly. For a moment, I hover my palm above Sif’s bicep, feeling for the spark… finding it, I release a breath I did not know I was holding. “If you begin to feel faint, pull it loose.” She nods, without opening her eyes.

I pick up and sip the draught, then start slowly peeling away the linens. To my dismay, Sif does not stir. Opened to the bone, there are entire muscles missing… but the wound is clean, thanks to Eir’s ministrations. The bleeding increases and I suck in a hard breath. I must do this. She will not die. Easier, this will be easier; silence, and not howls of wind and creatures. Warmth and softness, not bare rock. Fanning and flexing my fingers, the seiðr responds – pulling the silence tight around us. I summon up every memory of Sif, every time I’ve touched her. I pluck out the ones of her body, her thighs. Sleek, sweat-slicked sensations play at my palms – and I sculpt.

…Here is how this muscle lays against that… …Here is how they will slide, and flex, and contract… …Here is Sif, in my bed and my lips and hands at play… …Here is a tendon, a ligament, a vein dark with blood… …Here is Sif, astride me, over me – my fingers splayed and memorizing the graceful arc of thigh into hip… …Here are the nerves coursing through… …the tiniest of vessels blooming and branching, fine and finer still… …My left hand bids the blood return from her foot; my right speeds the blood from her marrow that is yet to be born…

The part of my mind softened by the draught slips away, down the tenuous tether and back into the dream. I gather her dream-form in my lap, my right hand soothing and smoothing over the raw muscle. The regrowth of skin is the worst - the only part that truly hurt, for me. Her heart still echoes mine, but… shallower. (That’s not right, it should be strengthening…)

“Sif? My lady, I’m back. Open your eyes.” What I feel I could safely label ‘the longest pause of my life’ ends with the fluttering of her eyelashes. Her heart’s rhythm surges as she whimpers, quietly. “Sif?” I try, again. Another whimper – but this one ends by tearing loose from her throat as a howl of pain. I grab her hand, lacing her fingers in mine. She gasps, gulping air as if she’s been underwater. “Come on, now. Open your eyes.”

“It hurts, oh Norns it hurts, just take it, make it stop, please it hurts,” she babbles as her face contorts with pain. I brush my lips across her knuckles, and start shifting the dream, drawing it closer to reality. The barren field and river shimmer and fade out of vision, replaced with bed linens and dry, warm air. I press her palm flat to my chest, forgetting I’m shirtless - and this, this opens her eyes. Oh I have forgotten… to be touched… So small a thing, this bit of her bare skin to mine… this feeling; this (oh, I am lost) bliss. I’ve no power to keep my eyes open as her fingers slide up my chest, coming to rest over my collarbone. (I do not deserve her gentleness, her tender…)

“Loki? You… is this? Am I?”

“Still adream, Sif. But yes, you’ll heal.”

“You fixed… you mended me? My love, you’re… amazing.” She blinks slowly; the drugged, sleepy look is almost the look of desire I haven’t seen in so long. I can’t allow that thought any more progress, though… (focus, by the Norns – focus.)

“The pain is easing?”

“Yes. It itches, though. Burns.” she winces out.

“Normal. That will pass. I need to leave you to your dreaming now. Rest, and heal, and sleep.”

“I’d rather you stayed, love.” And there it is… the look. It scours the hollowness inside me like a rasp, knowing she won’t clearly remember any of this small moment once she wakes. This is just one more price I will pay; over and again I pay. She’ll slide deeper into sleep, wrap this dream tight around her and she won’t even know I’m not still here. And that? Is for the best. Is how it must be. I cannot continue casting shadows in her life, not even in dreams.

“There are things in the waking world I need to attend to. Patience, I’ll be dreaming again soon.” (a half-truth, a necessary one)

“I’ve always slept best in your arms. Don’t be long, my prince,” she murmurs, curling herself bodily into my chest.

I pull back from the shared dream, feeling like molten lead is seeping into and setting solid in the marrow of my bones – heavy, so heavy. The warm air feels chilled for all the sweat dripping down my chest, off my arms. “Pull it loose…” I murmur, hoping I’m heard. My vision clouds and swims - but not before I glimpse the soft, pink, newly-formed skin on her thigh. The room tilts, and I feel myself falling. The last thing I’m aware of is the hard smack of my head on the floor, and then darkness.

Chapter Text

The sharp smell of vinegar fills my nose, waking me… along with my mother’s urgent words. “Hurry, Loki – I can’t hold your image unaided. You must go.” The shadows taste bitter as I fold into them, her hand at the nape of my neck. Boneless, limbless weariness snaps me into the image left behind, instead of my pulling it to myself. For all the guards have seen, I’ve spent the night curled up and sleeping.

“Thank you,” she whispers, pressing a kiss to my brow. “When the time is right, I will explain this to-”

“The Allfather?” I scoff, laughingly – which devolves to a hard cough. “Really. There will never be a ‘right time’ for this. Sif won’t remember, so there is nothing to tell.”

“Nothing? You underestimate her, my son. You underestimate them both. We now have much to discuss, you and I. Once you’ve rested, of course.”

“I don’t underestimate them at all. This was naught but a dream to her, of her own creation. See it stays that way.”

“To what purpose? So you can remain the monster you want us to see, behind bars? Loki Odinsson, you’ve done a good and selfless thing.”

“Selfish, mother. The word you want is selfish. I wouldn’t have one more ghost knocking about in my head, so-”

“Oh, your weariness makes you very honest, doesn’t it?” she chides, gently. “I’ll see that Eir keeps her abed as long as possible. But you know she will have questions, eventually.”

“Then be creative in your answers.” I roll over, turning away from her too-bright eyes. Weariness, she calls it – my bones ache, my hands have gone numb and sleep threatens to drown me whole. Her palm slides over my head, checking for injury and I simply haven’t the energy to protest anymore.

“She loves you too; else you wouldn’t have helped her. She knows you are not what you’ve done, but what you will yet do.” She pulls the blankets up over me, and childhood memories I thought I’d locked away blossom anew. Her seiðr brushes like sunlight across mine, a maternal caress. One last shuddering sigh escapes me, and I sink under sleep’s heavy insistence.

The blackness is sweet, is Sif in her velvet dress – until the howling winds begin. I have no reserves left to push back from this dream, so I let it come. This time, though, it’s… faster. Images flicker past, wavering into and out of clarity. A keening cry comes from both inside and out of my body… and what feels like rain falls on my hair, my face – from a cloudless sky. A raven’s wing-shadow sweeps the… stars. Stars? There are no stars here, but… Mani glints silver and fades, and Sunna, Sunna starts slipping up from the horizon. The wind calms to a sigh that sounds like my name. Soft grass appears under me as a river ripples into existence to my side. Dawn-kissed, I sleep the sweetest lightest sleep, for all the lead in my bones.

***

Frigga stirs, a warm goblet of something sweetly herbal pressing at her lips. She feels the salt drying on her cheeks, the stone that seems fused into her bones. Eir gently presses a palm to her forehead as she first sips at the tea, then takes the goblet in her own hand.

Before Eir can launch a line of questions, Frigga waves her hand away. Just a moment, a moment more of silence, to be certain the echoing howls in her head are actually just that – in her head. Oh, Loki. My son, my son… tears brim over anew, and there is neither hope nor desire to stem them. “It was worse. So much worse than we thought. I must, I must make Odin see reason…” Her voice is rough, uncertain and raw.

“My queen?”

“Eir, what was done to him… he was broken, and lied to, and he’s certain not all the thoughts in his head are his own. He believes lies he cannot see around or through, and… it is going to get worse, the longer he is alone there.” She sips at the tea again, more for some way to pause her words and thoughts than any other reason. “He was brutalized. Eir, my son…” Her eyes close tight, trying to keep the things she’s just sifted from his memories at bay.

Eir can only watch as her queen’s knuckles go white, gripping the goblet tight enough that she knows it must hurt, the raised designs digging into her slender fingers. Centuries of service have taught her much; millennia of friendship even more. Now is the time to wait patiently for a hand to reach for her; not the time to reach out. To occupy herself, she re-checks Sif’s sleeping form – knowing there will be no significant changes since the ones she just watched Loki bring about. A steady and strong heartbeat; deep breaths indicative of deep sleep. A wound so well-healed it requires no bandage. She had wondered what the depth of their friendship was, after taking Sif to the cells. She wonders no more.

“She is well?” Frigga’s voice is hushed, now. Maternal.

“She is. A few days of rest to restore her blood and she’ll be fine.” Eir turns back to face her queen, gently lifting the goblet from her unresisting hands.

“He does not want her to know what he’s done,” she sighs, with no small measure of frustration. “I think she’ll make her own conclusions, regardless.”

“Frigga? My friend, please – go and sleep. All of this will keep ‘til the morning. We’ll make plans then, for how to help your son.”

“Will I? Have your help in this?” she says, uncertainty shading her voice.

“Always.”

“They tortured him with lies… things he believes he’s done, I can taste the illusions in them. He did not, did not kill those…” She shakes her head abruptly, clearing the haze of his visions from her own. “He’s convinced he… committed atrocities, in order to regain his seiðr. But there is a taint of dark illusion on those memories. The brutality made him malleable, but that – that is what broke him. Combined with the mistakes I made…” she sighs, heavily – “It is no wonder he sees himself as a monster.”

“Give yourself and your son a day of rest. I have just witnessed you utilize seiðr in a way I did not know was even possible, my queen.”

Frigga laughs with the smallest bit of mirth at this. “I believe I am not the only one you witnessed do so, and honestly – I am as astounded as you are…”

She rubs absently at the inside of her right wrist, then turns her hand over and traces the vein there with her thumb. Yes, there will be much to discuss… the snarl in his weft-thread is untangling, slowly but surely. Now, to keep it from stretching too thinly or - Mother Yggðrasil forbid – snapping entirely.

She has possibilities now, though – and that grants her more hope than she’s had in years.

Possibilities… and time.