cloudspinner | (no subject)

No, he decided, he would not tell mother that ultimately it had been Thor who had done so, because Loki had been dead. Why grieve her for no more reason? No one else would be so cruel as to tell her that.

Instead he gave her a crooked smile. "Thor let me out of my cage for it," he said. "He planned it all on his own. I was rather proud of him. Subterfuge, if you can imagine it."

"It is rather hard to imagine," Frigga said with a touch of wryness, allowing the tone to return, inch by slow inch, to something more casual. She would much rather he not call his cell a 'cage.' She rather hated the connotation. But that was not a battle she was ready to fight right now.

She leaned back, settling comfortably against the couch. "Will you tell me what happened?"

"There is little to be told, really. Or perhaps little I can tell, for I was not privy to it and the Thor with us here has not yet lived it." He considered where best to start the tale. "I do not know what had happened at all, beyond the invasion being defeated. I saw the Kursed one, of course, but he did not deign to free me."

His smile fell away then, because yes, he'd made his mischief. And he would not have cared, not even now, but for the harm he knew it had done.

Should he simply gloss past it? What good would it do? He felt as if his mother might have forgiven him for his words, but for this? She had been wounded by the words. This, she did not know and therefore it could not hurt her. And yet. There were few things in his life Loki truly regretted, and this had become one of them. It ate at him like a cancer still. He'd told Rogue of it, and she'd told him it wasn't his fault, but still it plagued him.

And now this was the chance, to confess, to beg forgiveness. Loki, admitting what wrong he had done. But it was not often he thought anything he did wrong in any sense. But his words had, to his thinking, ended his mother's life. And that, he could not escape. Caught in indecision, he fell silent, hand coming up to his mouth so he could worry at one knuckle with his teeth.

The Kursed, of course, was the one who had slain her. She'd had Malekith dead to rights. She had not known the origins of where the monster had come, but that it had been implanted in the dungeons made a certain amount of terrible sense. Freeing the prisoners - of course, the distraction, the one that Odin had told her was nothing to fear.

Frigga shook her head slightly, thinking. Then she saw Loki withdraw from her, saw the way he worried at his hand, and without scarcely a thought, she reached out to take his hand away from his mouth. "Don't," she said quietly. "There is no need for that between us."

She had said such things to him before, when he was younger and learning magics. She had not wanted him to give into fear and nervousness. She had not wanted him to feel as though he could not speak or think on his own.

Loki sucked in a breath. He shook his hand, but at the same time he gripped his mother's hand, as if afraid she might fly away. It felt a concern indeed. Better to lance this particular festering wound. He'd already had to speak the words once, and broken the seal, so to speak. This was perhaps the last time he would confess, and then be free of it one way or the other.

"It was my fault, mother," he finally said. His shoulder hunched. "When that... thing looked at me and refused to release me." What monster had the Kursed seen, that it had feared to give him his freedom? Hah, perhaps it was right to fear, it had known he would destroy it in the end. "I... I told it how to leave the dungeon. The best means to do so, what would put it by the generator room." A vague thought that the destruction it wreaked would release him, though Odin had proved a more canny gaoler than that.

He shook his head again, no longer able to keep his voice so steady, the anger and hatred that always came so readily to him these days shaking his words, but for once it was directed primarily at himself. "It is because of me that the monster was able to reach you and Jane."

Hah, Jane, who he once might have loved. Not in Asgard, though. He'd never even met her until the deed had been done there. And probably for the best, that.

...oh.

Would that she could tell him it hadn't made any difference, but the seconds had mattered. If the Kursed had been delayed for just sixty of them, Thor would have come to her in time. If the Kursed had been delayed for minutes, she would have killed Malekith and it would have not come up behind her. She would have faced it down, fought it to a standstill, and Thor would have come in time.

It hurt to know that. It infuriated to know that. And yet it was done. It was done and now they must all bear the brunt of it. It was more than evident that Loki had not intended harm to come to her. She could picture it; Loki stewing in his anger, hatred, and pain, seeing the opportunity for mischief, for escape, and taking what he could, caring not for those who might be hurt around him...

"That was spiteful, Loki," Frigga said after a time. "And a foolish risk." That was said in the tone of a teacher; he had meddled with forces he did not understand. He must now bear the consequences, and this was far worse than dyed hair or a wounded hand. For she could not come back, she could not make this right. She could forgive him, she thought, but she could not wipe it out. "Yet do not think I would cut you off for a thoughtless moment. We have all born a heavy price for a foolish word. I fear you will go on bearing it long after I have."

Her hand, which had slackened in his grip, tightened once again. "You are my son. I love you. That does not change."

Loki didn't pull his hand away from her, though he could not just accept the absolution to easily. Perhaps such forced honesty with Rogue had given him to bad habits. He wanted to be fully understood. He rested his other elbow on his leg, his face in his hand.

"It was spiteful," he agreed. "But a calculated risk. I wanted--needed out." He laughed sharply. "Out of my cage. You ought to have let Odin cut off my head. You'd still be alive and I would have had my freedom." He would have happily killed a thousand Asgardians with his bare hands for that escape, but not Frigga. Never Frigga. The one person he'd cared about, and the Kursed had gone unerringly for her.

She felt a layer of her heart calcify at his insistence. It was difficult enough, hearing this now for the first time. She couldn't help but be angry and disappointed - and now Loki was insisting he knew what he was doing? Insisting that it would have been better for him to have died? After all she had told him, how could he say that, how could he believe it?

"Death is not freedom," Frigga said. "And if I must trade my life for yours, do not doubt that I would do it, a thousand times. You are my son."

And it was wrong, painfully so, for a child to pass before the parent. But he seemed intent on some disapprobation, so Frigga glanced aside for a moment then looked back at him, trying to pick her words carefully. "I am sorry you were so hard-pressed. And I am -" disappointed? angered? frustrated? "-somewhat surprised to learn the part you played in this. And I am grieved. But I would not hold you to account for it. It was a bid for freedom, however ill-conceived, and not for my death. I'll not treat it as if that was your intention."

He let out a shuddering breath. "Will you then forgive me?" he asked quietly.

He shut his eyes tightly, expression twisting with grief and anger. "I didn't even know. No one told me. Not until you were sent down the river and--a guard told me." Pain and an insult and the refusal to ever let him even say goodbye. That perhaps was what had turned this so poisonous within him, what wrong he had done compounded by his imprisonment, by the way he was treated as if he was not Frigga's son at all. "I never saw you again."

Was it any wonder he'd nearly fallen apart when she'd arrived? He'd almost been bled to death by a creature that had worn her face? For all he knew, this was another illusion, and he no longer cared.

This time it was Frigga who gathered Loki into her embrace. She held him tightly and shut her eyes.

"Yes," she said. That Loki would ask for forgiveness at all was... telling, and she could not help but give it in word, deed, and truth. It was a matter for forgiveness, because there was no method of righting the wrong that had been done. She must forgive or she must see him bleed for it, and she would not demand blood from her son. Instead, she gave him the words. "I forgive you, Loki."

Her hand tightened in his, imagining that scene as he painted it for a moment. Her voice was thick with grief. "And you will see me again soon enough."

For just a moment, Loki allowed himself to fall wholly into that embrace, as if he was a child again. He pressed his face against her shoulder, one hand tangling in the fabric of her dress. She smelled the way she'd always smelled, earth and flowers and growing things.

Loki breathed out a long sigh against her shoulder. No tears; he refused to cry, still, always. But the words felt like absolution, and he'd thought himself long past needing such things. It felt like suddenly being able to breathe again. Mother was still gone, in Asgard, but at least she did not hate him for it.

He twitched, slightly at those words. You will see me again soon enough. Did she know, after all, of his supposed death? Had someone told her? But he said nothing about it, yet. Better to not speak at all, yet. He didn't trust his voice.

She did not hate him for it. She was angry. She was grieved. Those emotions could easily coil into hatred if Frigga allowed it, hatred even for a beloved son whose bitterness had cost her dearly. Frigga had been the gardener of her soul for too long to allow grief and anger to take root and morph into hatred. She would grieve, and she would be angry, and she would forgive. That was all.

She held her son fast as he shuddered in her arms and hoped that what she could not restore to him through her life would be restored to him through her death - the knowledge that he was loved, that he had a family, that he belonged.

Loki was silent for a long time before he finally uncoiled, sought to move back to a more normal distance. He did not wipe his eyes or anything like that; he was still for the most part composed.

No, he'd been telling her about the escape, everything that had happened after. A steadying breath and then he sought to continue on as if there had been no interruption. "Some short time later, Thor came to the dungeon to offer me a bargain. He would release me so I might help avenge you, but he swore to return me to my cage once we had succeeded at that task."

He shrugged. "Of course, I accepted." What son wouldn't? There was of course opportunity to be had, and he'd been very conscious of that. But foremost in his mind had been the purpose of revenge.

And so Loki shifted back and Frigga allowed it, allowed him to resume his story as if he had not interrupted. She realized that he could have easily not told her of the fault he bore. This was a sign of great growth or of great guilt... perhaps both. But she was at least comforted in this, that in whatever time they had together this wound would no longer fester in her son.

She maintained her hold on his hand, a loose grip, but constant as she ever had been.

What must it meant for Thor, who had for so long refused to see his brother, refused to recognize his brother in Loki, to seek his help? What had driven him to it? She did not think Loki would know, so she did not ask.

"He freed you, then?"

"He did." Loki smiled crookedly. "Though he put me in chains first. And came up with a serviceable enough plan to get us free of the palace, even, for Odin had no intention of letting Thor and Jane leave." He described the escape briefly to her, and their plan to use Malekith to coax the Aether from Jane so they could try to destroy it.

Frigga listened with true attention. Well, that was certainly... a cause for wonder. She wondered at the great extent Odin had gone to in order to make sure his own sons could not act. Must he have all things his own way? Did they not raise their sons to move, to act?

Still, Odin was king, and the king's rule must be obeyed.

"You planned to destroy the Aether with... what, exactly?"

"Thor's plan, really. He intended to use Mjolnir. I didn't particularly agree, but it did have a chance of working. Far more of a chance than waiting in Asgard."

And it had gotten him out of the dungeon.

"Thor needed me to take us to Svartalfheim. But also, ultimately, in order to get close to Malekith, and to fight. He trusted me enough to free me of my chains, then, and give me one of my daggers back. And yes, mother, I served his trust well. Malekith did take the Aether from Jane as we'd expected. And I protected her."

She was glad to hear him say it, and a bit sad that he needed to say it, that he'd served Thor's trust well.

"Good," she said quietly, able to say now what she would never be able to say in truth in proper order. "I am proud of you for that, Loki."

"Mjolnir could not destroy the Aether when it hung in the air, free of Jane. Malekith took it into himself and left for Midgard whilst Thor and I fought many of his soldiers and the Kursed one. We slew them all."

Hm. This was where the story was going to be tricky.

Frigga nodded, remembering now some of her earlier arcane studies - in the foundational elements of the world... infinity stones. It wouldn't be so easy to destroy them.

"Well done," she said quietly.

"The battle continued on to Midgard. There, Thor slew Malekith and... captured the Aether." This he knew in fact, but also plausibly knew from what Steve Rogers had told him. But he was also hoping to skate around the issue entirely. "At least that is what I have been told. I come from a time between those two battles."

And who was it that had told him then... ah.

"Jane, then, is from a time after Malekith's defeat," Frigga said. "It must be a comfort to you to know how that story will end."

Her grip subconsciously tightened on his hand in the face of the inevitability of the fact that she must and will let him go, never to be seen otherwise in her life.

How kind of mother to provide that excuse for him and allow him to skip over that part without prevaricating. "It is, indeed. I was rather disquieted not knowing."

As her hand tightened, he wondered if she knew, somehow. He'd asked everyone to keep the unfortunate fact from her. He squeezed her hand back.

"That is all the story I have to tell you, then." Otherwise, he has been in Luceti. And...

What a mess. Why did he bring these things up?

Frigga's heart, meanwhile, was still echoing with the realization that her son had been an indirect participant in her murder. Thor, she realized, must never know of this. He would not understand, and he would know all too well how it had been a matter of moments. Though of course, she realized a moment later, Thor did not carry that burden here. That was well, then, since the son of her blood had always been all-too-canny when it came to reading her heart's shadows.

And now... now Loki's face was still clouded.

"Is it?" she said quietly, lightly. "I note you have spoken not of what plagues you so in your 'personal life.' Your expression is still distraught, my son. I would help you clear it, if I could."

Loki was already so aware of what he'd told her that day; he'd killed her. She had said she'd forgiven him but... it was already difficult enough. And then to add on top of it, the far more petty troubles he'd faced here? His inadequacies in opposition to the strange way humans conducted themselves? What had been done to him that he still could not escape? Hah, and Frigga as someone who had never had other lovers. And then on top of that, to reveal other, far more personal things?

I killed you, mother. And by the way, I'm a pervert.

No. He was a cruel man at times, but this seemed just unnecessary and pointless.

He shook his head. "Of no account now, mother. Perhaps some other time. Today has already been weighted down quite heavily."