Description
For years, he has studied magic from all across the nine realms. Countless nights were spent in his room, fighting off sleep until he had that one perfect spell mastered. He forced himself through mind altering trials and tribulations to raise his abilities to their very peak. The day came where he held all the magic in the universe in his hand; second only the All-Father, and only just.
Some called him a god.
For many years, he believed them.
Until now.
Now, he stands before an elaborate shrine. Flowers of all size, color and fragrance cascade down from the ceiling, which is coated with all the beautiful stars that she had loved so dearly. She looks so beautiful in her glass casket, so peaceful, like she's only sleeping. The whiteness of her skin makes her almost doll-like. Her intoxicating eyes are closed, and for the rest of eternity they will never again open for him. Her hands rest on her stomach, over the faded scars that he had healed himself, long after the breath had left her body, all in the desperate and futile hope that if he could just stop the bleeding… if she could just open her eyes and please look at him…
But that was all just a dream now, wasn't it?
Loki rests his head against the clear glass over her heart. He remembers her sitting up in the dead of night, reading from an old storybook about a princess trapped in a case such as this one, and the handsome prince whose kiss awakened her. She would rub soothing circles over her stomach. It was the pain that kept her awake, no matter how many times she told him different. He should never have listened to her. He should have done more to make her see reason. She wanted so badly to have his child, that she put away the fact based logic she had always run on before he came along. She looked in the mirror every morning, searching for wrinkles that were a long way off from coming, but would come all the same. She feared that day more than anything else, even as he held her to him and promised again and again that he wouldn't let that happen. The truth was that there was nothing he could do, with all that power of his, and they both knew it.
He should have fought harder against Odin. He should have done more to convince him that Jane was worthy. He should have tossed aside his foolish pride, thrown himself before Odin's feet and begged him for mercy, that he would spare Jane from the fate of her kind, for her sake if not for his.
So many things he should have done, so many beautiful days with Jane that he could have had. All because a jotunn child was simply too much for a mortal body.
He had buried the child in the yard and since then never visited. Jane would have hated him for such callousness, almost as much as he hated himself, but to look upon the stillborn little girl with hair and eyes so like his, and a face so like Jane's, and to think that if it wasn't for her, his Jane would still be in his arms and alive, even for just a little longer, it kills him inside all over again.
He hears the double doors open behind him and Thor enters the room. He does not look ready for battle, much to Loki's surprise. He can still hear the sounds of screams from his latest attack and smell the ashes of a burning city just outside his window.
"What fool granted you entrance?" Loki asks bitterly.
"I came on my own," Thor says, as if that answers his question. "I wish not to fight you Loki, not here where Jane rests."
Loki is up in an instant, and standing before Thor with a blade to his throat. His eyes are wide and wild and brimming with tears.
"Don't you dare say her name."
Thor is unfazed.
"I only want to talk, Loki. To convince you that this isn't the way."
Loki snarls and stalks back to the pyre. Thor doesn't move to follow, which is good. If he came any closer to her, Loki would have to flay him alive.
"Loki, brother," Thor says dispassionately. "Look at what you've done! You were so much better these last few years, you were happy. You were your old self again... and I know you are grieving, but would Jane have wanted this? Please, Loki, think about all that you had with her-"
"IT'S GONE!"
The walls shake with his roar, and even Thor senses the danger. Breathing heavily like the madman he is, Loki allows the tears to fall freely. He doesn't even care anymore if Thor sees.
"Don't you understand?" he seethes. "It's all gone, everything! Jane, our child…"
Loki walks to the window and looks out at the carnage he's wreaked on this realm. The pain in his shattered heart has not diminished, and it never will no matter how many worlds he burns to the ground. The peace he found in Jane Foster's arms is gone.
That is why there will never again be peace.
"There is nothing left for me now, Thor, nothing but this."