Lesser Gods

It did not take long for Raeyn’s curious face to reappear looking for Thor. This time, with him nowhere in sight, it gave Raeyn a moment to study the elaborate cage. The portion that she could see was quite simple — just a half circular room encased in the flickering, glowing glass. However, there was a doorway on the wall in the glass bubble, and through it Raeyn could make out a living room that looked not unlike the one she and Loki kept, only slightly smaller. From the inside, the rest of her view was blocked, and on the outside of the glass there were walls with a door on either side. Slowly, she raised her hand to the glass and rested it there. Though thousands of volts of deadly energy passed only centimeters from her skin, there wasn’t the slightest vibration or hum. She wondered vaguely just how behind Earthly technologies were compared to those in the other realms.

It was hardly a moment before Thor emerged through the doorway and gave Raeyn a small smile — unlike the last time, his hair was pulled away from his face, he was wearing polished armor, and he seemed to have shaved ore recently.

“Well, don’t you look spiffy,” Raeyn chirped as he came to a stop in front of her.

His eyes gleamed with his boyish smile. “Well, I had to find the time to look presentable for my company,” he said, just as sarcastically.

She grinned before tugging at her skirts and sitting on her side of the glass. She looked up at Thor before motioning for him to sit across from her.

“I sit whenever I can, since I get so tired so easily now a days.” She rested her hand on her belly and smiled lightly at him.

“Have you told my brother the news yet?” Thor asked, his happy gaze now focused on Raeyn’s middle.

Sighing, she shook her head slowly. Her golden hair (matching that of Thor’s, she realized) falling around her face as she looked down shamefully.

“He will be so happy.”

Raeyn looked up at Thor. “I would not be so sure,” she whispered. “We have never even spoken about it. He hardly seems like…”

Thor’s smile grew. “Trust me. I know my brother. You need not be worried.”

Raeyn’s eyes glazed over quickly. She could tell Loki, she could tell him now, and would he really be excited? Would he smile, laugh, pick Raeyn up and spin her around? Would they then begin to think of names, decorating its room and buy toys? Or would his features harden, would he sadly say that this is not place for a child to be raised, and would he ask her to leave?

Raeyn blinked quickly as an awkward silence fell over the two.

“Am I the first Asgardian you have met? Not thinking about your parents, of course.”

Raeyn’s head shot up to give Thor a confused look. “Loki as well. Or do you not consider him Asgardian any longer?”

One of Thor’s busy eyebrows lifted. “Well… no.”

Raeyn’s frowned, turning to face him adamantly. “And he is no longer Loki Odinson but Loki Laufeyson, is he?”

“He is not related by blood to the All-Father-”

“So he is no longer your brother!” Raeyn stood up, hands on her hips and glaring down at Thor.

“Of course not!” Thor stood up as well, but he held his hands up to show that he was not trying to attack what she said. “I mean no offense.”

“But it was given none the less! You think that Loki imagined all his plights, yet here you stand and continue to insult the memory of his time in Asgard! To have put up with you people continually… silencing him, telling him to find his place. You were a family! What is so complicated about that?”

Raeyn was breathing heavily, the anger building up in her enough until she was physically becoming upset. Ordinarily, Thor would have asked if she were alright, but at the moment… at the moment, Thor was floored. Even slowly, his eyes glazed over and he sank to his knees. Raeyn hardly paid any attention.

“Here in Midgard, there are thousands of children whose parents do not want them, and when they find a happy loving family, they take those peoples’ names! Because those people are the ones who took them in, took care of them, and built them to be the people they are today! To be told that you are part of the family and then to be ostracized constantly in such little ways would be difficult for anyone to handle, child or man! I just… I don’t…”

Raeyn, too, sank to her knees and let out a great sigh. Tiredly, she looked up at Thor, who was still seemingly oblivious to anything she did. He was in a world that now only existed in memories — searching, scouring for any mistake that could have led to the current situation.

“I am sorry,” she breathed, but it was certainly loud enough for the Asgardian to hear. “I should not have…”

Thor shook his head. “I needed to hear it.”

She sat across from him, her hand resting against the glowing glass wall, waiting for Thor to come back to the present.

He finally cleared his throat, looking up at Raeyn. His eyes were rimmed with red, but it quickly faded as he spoke. “I promised that I would give you all the answers that you seek. What is it that I can do for you?”

Raeyn glanced up, completely taken off guard. She had thought that she was coming here to help Thor, not for him to help her. She has so many questions, yet she did not want to cause horrible memories and nightmares to resurface.

“You wish to know about the battle,” he said finally, looking into Raeyn’s eyes calmly, as if he were reading her like a book. “You need not worry about upsetting me — I have had many days and nights to relive those short hours, to criticize myself and realize the mistakes I made. I doubt there is anything that could be said to make me feel worse.”

Raeyn nodded slowly, not saying a word.

“It began in Asgard, when Heimdall discovered an alternate way to transport from realm to realm — ever since the Bifrost was destroyed, we have been secluded to Asgard alone… But I am sure that you have heard about that many times from the would-be king.”

Raeyn shook her head, her hair bouncing around her face. “I only know of it from the files I read,” she said, not mentioning how brief and unclear they were. Loki’s handwriting was quick and hurried — she knew that he did not want to linger on that memory, for whatever reason. It was never said how the tale ended, only that after that day he was in the company of The Other.

Thor’s great brows knit together. “It does not sound like the Loki I have spoken to these past months to not linger on such plights.”

“He never speaks of his time in Asgard or of you. Even rarely does he bring up the Avengers, and even then he does not speak of you.”

“He was always one to play the victim when he wanted to manipulate-”

“Perhaps he has changed,” Raeyn declared sharply. Thor took the hint and continued.

“It took quite some time to harness the amount of energy to transport a single person, however, because there are no sorcerers quite like Loki to do such. I was to be sent to the exact location where Loki was, take the Tesseract, and then bring the both of us home. He was to be cleared of all his crimes and welcomed back into the family, where we would try to work everything out.”

Raeyn folded her legs under her and neatly placed her hands on her lap; she was going to be here for a little while.

“Heimdall warned me of the dangers of the Midgardian aircrafts he had seen — new, unstable, and hardly anything safe to land on from an already unstable means of transportation. But the portal would not stay open for long, and only one of us could go through… I had let go of my brother before, I had no intentions to do so again.”

Raeyn leaned in, her brows knit. “What is your meaning in that ‘you let him go?’”

Thor focused on Raeyn’s eyes, and if she was not mistaken, the red in his eyes began to deepen.

“I… I had just been banished from Asgard to Midgard for disobeying my father’s orders. I had been stripped of all my godly powers and condemned here to learn respect and humility. Loki came… he was so traumatized. There was not a doubt in my mind that he was speaking anything but the truth,” Thor gave a small sniffle, and did not try to play off wiping his nose with his sleeve. “He said that our father was dead, the throne had come to him, and the Jotuns were threatening war. And finally, that Mother had forbidden my return. We were devastated… He did not stay long, for a mortal interrupted us. I thought it would be the last I saw of my brother… Looking back, I am sure he thought so as well. This act was meant to keep me on Earth until I died a natural, mortal death and was out of Loki’s way for good.

“My friends… the Warriors Three as well as Sif evaded Loki and escaped to come for me. They told me the truth… that my father was not passed, and of Loki’s unstable rule. They begged for me to come home and return everything to the way it was meant to be. But before we even made it out of town, my brother sent the Destroyer. He sent it to me, to kill me…” Tears did not fall down Thor’s broken features yet, but his broad shoulders trembled as he spoke.

“I should have realized then my fault. But all I felt was anger, fury, and betrayal. Before turning on me, the Destroyer attacked my friends and demolished half the village. When Loki tried to kill me, my powers returned. I killed the Destroyer and with the Warriors came back to Asgard. Loki… Loki was mad, insane, at that point. He wished to fight me, to kill me off at his own hand. But first, he unleashed the Bifrost to destroy Jotunheim. I overpowered him and severed the connection of the Bifrost to Asgard in order to save the Giants and their home. We… we both fell. In that moment, I thought we were both going to die. But I caught Loki’s scepter, and Father caught my leg. We were dangling, and… and Loki…”

At this point, the tears streamed down Thor’s face and he shook with great sobs now and then. Raeyn, on the other hand, sat perfectly still with her wide jade eyes set unblinkingly on Thor as his story unraveled. She was riveted.

“Loki became desperate. ‘I could have done it, Father!’ he cried. ‘For you! For all of us!’ Though he is a talented liar, he was not making a jest. I fear this desperation grew over the years of crying, dealing with his pain, alone, where no one could see him. Even now, I am here, with you. Loki… he had no one, he was alone all those years that we surrounded him.”

“What… what happened then?”

Thor wiped at his tears harshly. “My father… he said something, but I was not listening. I was looking at Loki, watching as the scared boy I knew as a child emerged once more. I saw his world crumple around him, and then… he let go. He fell.”

Thor appeared to mean to say more, but the words would not come. With his hands pressed against the glass just opposite Raeyn’s his forehead rested against it as he became lost to his grief. Tears streamed down Raeyn’s face silently as she watched the broken man.

“The great man you once more is not gone,” she whispered, her voice hitching. “He is the man I fell in love with, the man I know now. He is not dead.”

She then leaned forward until her forehead was, too, pressed opposite to her brother’s. It was the only way she could even possibly come close to comforting him. She wanted so badly to just pull the broken man into her arms and let him release his grief in the comfort of company, but she did not know how. And even if she did, she did not trust him to not try and overpower her.

So although she never learned the story of the great battle, she never asked again.