Fic: The Scent of Lavender (MCU, What If)

[bookishwench]

“You are lying!”

Loki’s face was twisted in fury, his eyes crackling with barely controlled magic. It was rare that he accused anyone of telling untruths, but the situation was made even stranger by the fact the recipient of his anger was Heimdall.

“I am not,” he said, his usually impassive face showing a shadow of regret. “I only wish that I were.”

“My brother was sent to a backward, idiotic realm that could not hope to reach the merest shadow of Asgard’s technology for millennia,” Loki said. “Even stripped of his power, what could possibly have killed my brother in such a place?”

“It was only an arrow,” Heimdall said. “No advanced tools are needed to do murder, only intent.”

“I do not believe you,” Loki said. “This is some trick of Thor’s to regain the throne now that the Odinsleep has claimed Father and I reign.”

“Had your positions been reversed and it had been you that I saw fall, I would think that possible,” Heimdall said. “Your brother has no history of trickery. I do not believe he is capable of it.”

A shadow crossed Loki’s face as he considered the truth of Heimdall’s words. It was not a plot his brother would be able to concoct, and worse, there was no motive. Odin had only just slipped into the strange and unpredictable state of unconsciousness mere hours before, and Loki had not yet officially taken the crown. Thor could not possibly have heard of it yet, let alone taken the time to come up with a plausible way to fool Heimdall into thinking he was dead. A chill ran down Loki’s spine as he began to suspect something was truly wrong. Not death, of course, but some other catastrophe.

“I will not have the Queen told of this,” he said.

“Is that an order, your majesty?” Heimdall asked, and Loki almost felt as though he had been slapped. It was the first time he had been called that title, the one he had so coveted, but if it were for this reason, he didn’t want it.

“It is,” he said. “Return to your post.”

Heimdall saluted him and left, and silence fell in the nearly empty throne room as the sound of his footfalls died away.

“It can’t be,” Loki mumbled, more to assure himself than because he believed it. “It’s not possible.”

“I have never known my brother to lie,” Sif said quietly from her place at the foot of the steps leading up to the throne.

He glanced down at her. She was there as his guard, more for tradition’s sake than concern for any attack, and it was merely chance that she of all the Einherjar had been given this duty just now. Oddly, while part of him knew he should be angry at her for daring to answer him without being asked, he felt only gratitude that of anyone who could be there, it was her.

“There is a first time for everything,” he said, his voice bitter. “I warn you, Lady Sif, if Heimdall has fabricated this, the penalty will be great.”

She only nodded, but her steady gaze suggested she still had faith in her brother.

“I will not believe this until I see if for myself,” he said, stepping down from the throne. “I am going to Midgard.”

“Shall I send word to Heimdall to prepare the Bifrost?”

“No,” he said. “No, if he is lying, I will not trust him to bring me there. Other options exist, as I’m sure you remember.”

“I do,” she said, and for a moment he saw a shadow of fear cross her features before she continued. “My king, I would ask permission to accompany you.”

“Why?”

“Your safety is my sworn duty,” she said. “If anything has happened to your brother, some enemy may also attack you.”

It was sound reasoning, he supposed, but something in her eyes said it was not her only purpose. They had been friends once, and then more than friends, at least until he became so certain of her feelings for Thor that he had deliberately burned that bridge, humiliating her publicly and earning her eternal anger. Her declaration that he would always be alone had rung in his ears for days, and he feared it was a prophecy. Whether she wished to come with him to fulfill her duties as a warrior or to see for herself whether her beloved Thor was dead, he did not know.

Still, she was right about the possibility of an ambush, and he would not have any other warrior told the rumor until it was proven, one way or the other. The fewer who knew, the less likely it was that his mother would hear of it. He would not have her thrown into even greater grief over an unproven and wild tale.

“Fine,” he said. “Follow me.”

She walked a step behind him, the inevitable dull clanking of her armor on the stone floor too loud to his ears. They did not travel far, though. Loki stopped before a polished mirror on the other side of the throne room.

“Your armor prevents stealth,” he said, sending a burst of magic towards her and changing it into a nondescript tunic and leggings in dark grey, but she still held her sword. “If there is any danger, it will turn back. Otherwise, remain silent.”

She looked uncomfortable, and her grip on the sword tightened as she nodded.

Loki placed one hand to the mirror, dredging the spell for how to reach Midgard from the back of his mind, and used his fingertip to make a series of runes on the glass. Heimdall had told him where Thor was. He kept the location clearly in mind, and the reflection in the glass changed, becoming a window to a cold, sterile room in the other realm. He impatiently waited for a uniformed man in the room who was adjusting a sheet on one of three long tables to leave.

As soon as the door shut behind him, he gripped Sif firmly by the elbow and stepped through the mirror as though it were no longer there. For a few seconds, the universe seemed to shift and bend, as indeed it was, and galaxies shot past them, warping like images from a dream. They were nowhere and everywhere, and then suddenly, they were in the room that had been visible.

Loki released Sif’s elbow, and she swayed for a moment, unused to the mode of travel. He had no such difficulties. As soon as his foot had touched the ground, he had cast wards to confound the primitive cameras and security devices, firmly locking the doors. He still did not trust anything, even that no one else was present. Tricks were his specialty, and he would not fall prey to one himself.

But he felt no other enchantments in the room save those he had cast. A survey of the room revealed only two heartbeats, his own and Sif’s. No one else was there. He would bet his life on it.

Sif took no such chance. She kept her hand on her sword, ready to strike at a moment’s notice, her eyes moving back and forth across the breadth of the room, looking for any potential threat.

Loki came to the first table and took a breath before lifting a corner of the sheet that covered it to see a dark-haired man he did not recognize. Some strange device was set in his chest over the place where his heart should be, but it was silent and dark. He was dead. Loki looked over at Sif, who was standing near the door to the room, sword raised, and he shook his head to indicate that it was not Thor.

He went on to the second table. After the first one had held nothing of interest for him, he reasoned this one might not as well, so he raised this sheet with somewhat less caution.

He found Thor’s face looking up at him from beneath it, motionless, his eyes closed in what was undoubtedly death.

Loki froze. It was as though he had forgotten how to move. He stood there, stupidly holding the corner of the sheet aloft, staring down at his brother’s face. Seconds passed, and he slowly drew the whole sheet back, revealing the rest of Thor’s body. He was dressed in Midgardian clothes, a blood stain soaking the upper left part of his chest, and a large hole was ripped through the fabric, indicating some projectile had been there.

“Thor?” Dimly, he was aware that he had broken the rule of silence he had imposed, but he did not care. “Brother?”

There was no response. Loki scented death in the room, not only from the other two tables, but from the one before him. He reached out with his magic, observing, checking for any possible answer except the obvious one. It wasn’t a clone or decoy, not a deep state of unconsciousness, no drug masking the living as the dead, not a hallucination or trick of the mind. It was his brother’s dead body, and that was all.

He had dropped the sheet to the floor at some point, and his hand reached out to touch Thor’s shoulder. It was cold, and he pulled his own hand back as though he had been burned.

“This isn’t possible,” he said, his voice betraying panic. “It is not possible.”

Sif had moved to the other side of the table and was looking down at the wound.

“It struck him in the heart,” she said, the words coming out shakily. “I have seen this kind of mark before. It is always fatal.”

Loki brought both of his hands slowly to his temples, gripping his own head as he stared at Thor. His skin was nearly as white as the corpse.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No.”

The shaking became more violent, and his whole body began to tremble. He fell to his knees on the cold tile floor, his hands still wrapped around his head, unable to look away from his brother. He wanted to scream, to shatter the room with his cries, to scream so loud it woke the dead even if it made his throat bleed, but not a sound came out.

Sif turned quickly and took off the third sheet, looking beneath it. It was strange Loki noticed it, but everything seemed heightened, slowed down, as though life was moving at the wrong speed.

“This one has a bow,” she said.

Somehow, that brought him around enough to look up.

“A bow?” he said, standing.

He didn’t bother to walk to the other body, knowing it must be the murderer. He, too, was dead. Loki could not exact vengeance on a corpse, but somehow, he would still have it. The thought gave him a little more focus, enough to be almost functional.

“We need to leave,” Sif said.

Loki nodded stiffly, but he didn’t move yet. He looked at Thor, willing him to move, to somehow have this all be an elaborate joke, one he would forgive immediately, one he would welcome and compliment and then punch his stupid brother in the face for even if it cracked his hand apart. But he remained still. Perfect, but still.

Loki’s fingers were shaking as he raised his hand, a light mist of magic moving from him to Thor, and a soft scent of lavender filled the room.

“Thor’s favorite,” he said in answer to a question Sif had not asked. “Ever since we were children. The soap mother used to bathe us, it was scented in lavender. To help us sleep, she said. Sleep with good dreams. I would have him sleep well.”

Sif stood beside him, looking down at Thor with tears in her eyes, but she put her hand on Loki’s arm.

“Loki,” she said, using his name instead of his title, speaking to him as a friend and not as a warrior, “we must go. Please.”

He walked with her to the portal, stepped through, paying no mind to the rush of space and chaos surrounding them, and returned to the palace’s throne room.

“I have to tell Mother,” he said aloud, though he didn’t know if he was saying it to himself or Sif.

He walked three steps, then toppled to the floor as though his knees had ceased to follow his orders. His stomach rebelled, and he vomited onto the white marble floor until nothing was left in him, and even then he continued to heave sporadically. Sif’s hand rested gently on his shoulder, her fingers stroking softly as he coughed uncontrollably. Dimly, he remembered the same soothing touch from long ago, when the night was dark and she was curled beside him in bed, a show of tenderness neither of them allowed themselves to indulge in often. Bile burned in his nose and on his lips, the taste disgusting.

“This was not what I intended,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, willing his body to submit to his will. “He was not ready to be king. Father was in grave error on that point, and I would not have seen Asgard falter under Thor’s reign. I wanted him only to be stopped.”

Sif said nothing, remaining near, but her hand was withdrawn.

“I admit I wanted the throne, yes, but not like this,” he said, his hand sweeping shakily in an arc, indicating the entire universe in its path. “Never this. Had I foreseen even the possibility, I would never . . .”

His words ended. The image of Thor’s dead face burned in front of his mind’s eye, and he knew it would be etched there for eternity.

“I did not kill my brother!” he shouted, his eyes shut tightly, but nothing kept away the memory of Thor’s corpse. He opened them again, turning his head towards Sif, who was standing now, looking down on him with a mixture of pity and grief.

“I did not,” he said, and he knew no matter how many times he said it, he would never convince himself.

“I do believe you,” she said, her voice firm although, warrior or not, tears glistened in her eyes. He did not question whom they were for. “Whatever was between you, I do not believe you intended to murder your own brother.”

Except, Loki thought bitterly, he was never truly my brother. He wondered, if Thor had known the truth, and their positions were reversed, would the golden son of Odin have mourned the misfit child of Laufey?

But it was no question. With all Thor’s countless faults, Loki had no doubt that he would have grieved his death with all his heart. Thor had loved him. At his core, even with envy so sharp that the taste of it would never leave his mouth, he knew Thor had loved him. His own heart ached with regret over the stupidity of their countless squabbles, the pointlessness of his jealousy. Loki acknowledged, in that moment, that he had loved his brother as well. Blood kin or not, he would always be his brother.

Slowly, he got to his feet. He took a deep breath, letting his magic clean the traces of sick from his clothing, and then looked at Sif, and with a flick of his wrist her clothing was armor once more.

“Please apologize to your brother for my accusations against his honesty,” Loki said, enunciating each word slowly, “but I do wish this once he had been a liar.”

“I wish that too,” she said. “I will tell him.”

She turned to leave, but a thought occurred to him.

“Wait,” he said, and she stopped at once. “I will be going to Midgard with a contingent of Einherjar to seek vengeance for Thor’s death. Have the Casket of Ancient Winters readied.”

“It shall be done, my king,” she said.

“Sif,” he added, taking one step closer, then stopping. “When I appear before these mortals, I would have you at my right hand.”

She looked startled.

“Yes, my king,” she said, then bowed and left him.

Loki remained there for a few minutes alone before he found the strength to walk from the throne room and climb the stairs leading to the room where his mother sat beside her husband’s unconscious body, keeping watch. He drew a breath and opened the door, not knowing what to say, his heart breaking again. But when the queen turned to him, her eyes were already dimmed with grief.

“You need not find the words, my son,” she said, standing slowly and coming towards him. “I know.”

A sob wracked his form, and as his mother held him in her arms, they wept together. The sound of their tears would have made stone weep in sympathy.


ETA: This now has a sequel The Pain of Memory, from Sif's POV.