Loki navigated the corridors from his own chambers to those of Thor, now clad in a royal blue tunic with gold embellishments, one of the few more colorful choices in his wardrobe. He had initially reached for one of his many go-to dark green to black colored ensembles but reconsidered his choice. Loki was well aware of the messages that were sent to others by one's clothing choices. On Asgard, as was true of many cultures in Midgard as well, dark colors were associated with mourning and death. The last message he wished to send to his mother or anyone was that he was anticipating his brother's demise.
Most Asgardians preferred lighter colored shades for their clothing which reflected the generally joyful and contented nature of the realm's inhabitants. Loki was one of the few that did not, something that among other traits he was cognizant set him apart from the majority. With the exception of anything dripping in gold, he simply preferred darker hues. They favored him, at least he thought so, and no one had ever told him any different. He also appreciated the air of mystery and the message to be wary, not to cross he who wore them that they signified.
Four einherjar stood sentry outside of Thor's chambers, three more than was customary, lined up before the doors, blocking the entrance. They bowed their heads, shifting aside and opening the doors for Loki to enter. He knew that there were two more posted directly outside of Thor's bedchamber. Odin was also currently flanked with more guards than usual. Why had his father not also assigned him a retinue of protectors? He supposed the fact that the assailants had already had their chance to fell him and had neglected to do so had something to do with it.
The question of why they hadn't taken the opportunity troubled him, not that he wasn't happy to have been left unscathed. It was obvious they wanted him alive. If they wished to disrupt the line of succession, if the attack on Thor was an attempt at a coup or conquest, surely it would have made far more sense to take out both contenders for the throne. The only explanation Loki could come up with was that either someone had a personal grudge against Thor, though he couldn't think of anyone in Asgard or elsewhere who would have reason to harbor such feelings toward his universally beloved brother, or they wished to ensure that Loki would be the heir and soon take the sacred vows of kingship believing Loki's rule would benefit them more than Thor's. However, the assailants, at least the ones whose bodies had been left behind, were of Midgard. Why would they care? Why would this Coulson care? In any case, Loki had no intention of being anyone's useful idiot. He was not a puppet that would dance as another pulled the strings.
As he had expected, his mother had not moved from her position at Thor's bedside. He was surprised to see that Sif had not returned as of yet, the chair placed on the other side of the bed empty. Eir had returned to check on her patient. She drew back the sheet and smooth, velvety blanket that covered Thor to expose the bandage over the exit wound in his abdomen, just below his diaphragm. Loki wordlessly returned to his mother's side, again placing his hand on her shoulder. Frigga did not look to him to acknowledge his presence, her eyes instead watching as Eir removed the bandage to examine the wound.
Eir did her best to remain stoic though she was not entirely successful. Loki attempted to do the same for his mother's benefit, raising a closed fist to his mouth as if he were about to clear his throat to both obscure his expression of horror at least somewhat as well as to block off his nostrils, the air now corrupted with the pungent odor of rot. Frigga gasped, raising one of her hands from atop Thor's to cover her mouth, tears beginning to flow copiously once again from her eyes, as she viewed the blackened flesh around the stitched area of Thor's torso. Loki was sure he could see the blackness spreading outward from the wound, Thor's tissue dying before his eyes.
"Mother, look away," Loki told Frigga, moving his hand to the opposite side of her head, gently turning it.
Frigga buried her face into Loki's side as she continued to weep. Eir herself was on the verge of sobbing as she re-covered the wound.
"There's nothing more I can do. I'm sorry, my Queen," Eir said to Frigga, her voice breaking.
Frigga turned her tear streaked face from Loki and reached over Thor, grasping Eir's hand.
"You've done everything you could. Thank you."
"I can attempt to wake him, though it may only be for a short while," Eir said to Frigga, Loki fully aware that Eir was offering her the opportunity to say her goodbyes to her son...and Loki to bid farewell to his brother.
"Will he be in any pain? Will he suffer?" inquired Frigga.
"I've relieved him of that burden. He should experience no discomfort," Eir assured her queen, Frigga looking up at Loki mournfully.
"Summon your father."
Loki nodded morosely, leaving Frigga's side, exiting the bedchamber and addressing one of the einherjar standing guard outside the door.
"Summon the Allfather," Loki said, the einherjar bowing his head before leaving his post.
"Find Sif as well as Volstagg, Hogun, and Fandral. Tell them to come quickly," Loki ordered the second guard who also bowed his head before following the first.
Loki stood in the doorway of the bedchamber looking in at his grieving mother and dying brother in a daze. Was this all a dream? If it was, that would explain the strange sense of something not being right, not the way it should be he had been experiencing since right before Thor was attacked. But then why had he not awakened? In the past during his slumber in the midst of a dream, once recognizing it for what it was, he had rather quickly roused from it. If it was a dream, it was the most vivid and realistic he had experienced in his nearly fifteen hundred years of life.
He couldn't begin to count the many times over those centuries that his brother had vexed him, had been a thorn in his side, though in most cases unintentionally. It was that fact that had often irritated Loki...his brother's naturally jovial attitude, his boisterous nature that drew others to him like moths to a flame, something that Loki, though a talented actor, had never been able to emulate. All eyes were always on Thor, everyone vying to be in his presence, to bask in his glow, to heap praise upon him while Loki was at best tolerated. Whenever they had found themselves battling an enemy a part of him had envisioned Thor being slain. Loki had often fantasized about ways to be rid of him who cast such an immense shadow that he could never escape its darkness. If he had ever truly wanted to do so, however, he could have long ago. It was unlikely Loki could ever best the God of Thunder in combat, though he could hold his own for a time at least, but there were other ways and as intelligent, clever and sly as Loki was, he would have had a good chance of getting away with it.
How could Thor have been brought down so easily in moments, he who had fearlessly taken on and bested so many perilous foes, and by mortals no less? It was definitely evidence of the immense value of the element of surprise, something Loki himself well knew the importance of as he employed it quite often to even the playing field to make up for the brawn Thor possessed that he lacked. Not that Loki wasn't physically strong...he was, deceptively so as many an enemy had learned firsthand, and his svelte frame allowed him agility and litheness and a grace in battle that was absent from Thor's fighting style, but he would never be able to measure up to his brother in brute strength.
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Loki returned to his mother's side as Frigga wiped the tears from her eyes, attempting to put on a brave face along with a warm and comforting smile for her dying son in what was likely to be his last moments as an actor prepares to get into character before going on the stage. Sif and the Warriors Three entered, their faces expressing sorrow and bewilderment. Despite their knowledge of the dire circumstances, they had up until that moment continued to believe that some way, somehow, Thor's strength and resilience would win out. Sif appeared especially distraught and dazed. It was not only her friend that was leaving them for an eternity in Valhalla but the man that she loved, her hopes dying along with him. Moments later, Odin made his entrance, standing by the foot of the bed, gazing down on his ailing son.
"Fate has made its decree? All hope is lost?" Odin asked Eir standing behind Sif and the Warriors Three who had gathered on the opposite side of the bed from Frigga and Loki.
"It is so, my King," Eir answered mournfully.
"So be it," Odin said as if proclaiming an edict.
Eir approached the bed, Sif and Fandral moving apart from each other to make room for her. She reached out, placing what looked like a smooth crystalline stone onto the center of Thor's forehead which began to glow a bright electric blue as those gathered looked on expectantly. Loki was the lone inhabitant of the room to lift his gaze from Thor, taking in the scene, having moved to stand behind Frigga, both of his hands resting on her shoulders, his eyes moving from Sif and the Warriors Three to his father.
If his and Thor's places were switched he couldn't help but wonder if there would be such a gathering surrounding him to see him off to Valhalla. Loki had always felt alone in the universe, but perhaps never to the degree he did in that moment. He had up until then convinced himself he didn't care, it didn't matter, he was perfectly capable of going it alone in life but now he found himself wavering in those convictions. He was also troubled by the fact that in what could be his brother's final minutes it was himself he was thinking about. If his mother knew he was certain she would be disappointed in him. An emotion washed over him that was rare for Loki…shame.
Thor's eyelids twitched before beginning to flutter. Eir removed the apparatus from his forehead as his eyes slowly opened. Frigga grasped his hand, looking down on her son with a loving smile as Eir backed away from the bed and silently slipped from the room.
"Mother…?" Thor asked, his voice raspy.
Loki could not recall his brother ever before appearing so pale and sickly, his voice so weak, its usual resonance gone.
"I'm here," Frigga answered, still gripping Thor's hand, reaching out with her other to caress his clammy cheek.
"My son….fate has decreed this day you will join your ancestors in Valhalla," Odin announced as if he were seated on the throne giving a proclamation.
Odin's words echoed in Loki's head. None of it seemed real, it couldn't be real.
"I accept its verdict," Thor managed to say.
It was at that moment that Loki truly knew that all hope had flown as Thor had never been one to surrender without a fight.
"My friends…" Thor said, turning his head to where Sif had seated herself as she took Thor's other hand in her own, the Warriors Three behind her.
"Brother…" Thor said, turning his head once again, Loki moving from behind Frigga to stand next to the bed.
Thor removed his hand from Frigga's and reached out, gripping Loki's.
"I'm sorry, brother. If I had-" Loki began, Thor cutting him off.
"This was not your doing. Do not blame yourself. Your intellect far surpasses my own. You have a keen eye and are a careful judge. You will be a good king and a worthy successor to our father," Thor said, his words leaving Loki speechless for a moment.
"I will prove myself deserving of your confidence," Loki finally responded.
It was all Loki could do to hold his emotions in check but he refused to give the others, Sif especially, the satisfaction of seeing him dissolve into a blubbering mess. In his mind's eye he pictured the mountains of Asgard, the hard rock of which they were made, willing himself to be as they were, a mental trick he had developed long ago in the face of the taunts of Sif, Fandral, and the others along with other children who had teased, mocked and derided him in his youth.
Frigga could no longer hold back her grief. Loki released Thor's hand, returning to stand behind her as she again took hold of it.
"Mother….do not grieve. I go to a better place. We will be together again," Thor looked to all who gathered around him, "In time we will all be together again..."
Thor's words proved to be his last. Shortly after uttering them, his eyes closed in permanent slumber. It was Frigga who first realized that his breathing and his pulse, weak as it had been that she had felt in his hand as she gripped it, had both ceased.
"No!" Frigga wailed, rising and moving into the bed, cradling her son in her arms.
Sif rose swiftly from her chair and rushed from the room as if it were in flames. Hogun, Fandral and Volstagg stood shocked and grieved, rooted motionless where they stood. Odin moved from the foot of the bed, walking around it, stopping as he reached Loki, reaching out and taking his arm. Loki as if in a trance slowly turned his head from where he stared down at his brother's corpse to lock eyes with his father.
"The burden of the throne falls to you now, my son. May you be worthy of it," Odin said before releasing Loki, stepping past him to stand at Thor's bedside, placing his hand on Thor's forehead as Frigga continued to cradle his lifeless body, "Thor, my son, I bid you to take your place in the halls of Valhalla, where the brave live forever. Nor shall we mourn but rejoice for those who have died the glorious death."
After Odin had finished reciting the blessing for the dead, the Warriors Three, their heads hanging, solemnly made their way out of the room.
Loki exited Thor's chambers a few moments after them, leaving Odin and Frigga alone to grieve for their son, assuring Frigga he would arrange for Thor's body to be prepared to lie in state in the throne room the next day before his funeral the following evening. The Warriors Three and Sif stood gathered in the corridor. As Loki exited Thor's chambers, Sif swiftly turned to him, her face tear streaked, her eyes burning with anger.
"You got what you wanted, didn't you?! What did you offer them?! What was the price of your own brother's life?!" Sif exclaimed in fury, lunging at Loki as he quickly back peddled before Volstagg, Fandral, and Hogun intervened, pulling her back from him.
Loki expected her to be upset and grieving but was taken by surprise by her vehemence and her words. He had believed she blamed him for not acting to save Thor out of cowardice but now it was clear to him that it was more than that.
"She knows not what she says. It is her grief that speaks," Hogun told Loki.
"You know...all of you know...I loved my brother dearly," Loki insisted, "I played my share of tricks, we had our squabbles, but I would never do such a thing," Loki said to Sif and the others, unsure what more he could possibly say to assuage her suspicion.
"We'll take her to her chambers and remain with her," Fandral said to Loki, the surviving son of Odin nodding before turning in the opposite direction as Sif, weeping, was led away by the others.
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Loki entered his chambers as the sun was setting, the cauldrons having been lit. He thought of how he and his brother had left the palace and entered the forest as that same sun had risen that morning, no inkling of how the day that had started out as any other, aside from Loki's earlier than usual rising, would end. Loki sank himself heavily into an armchair before the burning cauldron in the middle of the room staring blankly into the dancing flames. From beside him a hand came to rest on his shoulder. Loki turned his head, looking up at Verda.
"Thor?" Verda asked quietly.
"My brother is dead."
"I'm sorry," Verda said sadly, "Do you wish to be alone? Should I go?"
Loki was silent again for another moment, contemplating.
"Stay," he replied.
Verda sat in Loki's lap, taking his face in her hands, looking into his eyes, her own teary, before embracing him. Loki returned her embrace as if he were a drowning man grasping onto a buoy.
"You will be king…"
"I never wanted the throne. I know now I only ever wanted to be his equal."
Verda moved out of Loki's arms and stood in front of him, extending her hand.
"You should rest," said Verda as Loki stared unblinking at the hand she offered before reaching out and taking it, rising.
Verda led Loki across the great room of his chambers in the direction of the doorway leading to his bedchamber before she sensed his forward momentum stop. As she turned to face him, Loki wrapped his arms around her as he lustfully kissed her.