Horrible Terrible Things

Chapter Eighteen

'You will bring war, ruin and death. Your arrival to a fallen kingdom will come at the end of a Great War.' Thor's words echoed around the ship and my body trembled, I felt as if I might implode but despite all the insults I wished to throw at Thor and all the screams scratching at my throat, I could say nothing. I could do nothing.

'Enough, Thor.' Loki warned.

He didn't, I could do nothing but stare at my father as he continued to speak about what was to become of me, 'You will break apart the sky with the tools of your father. You will prosper and thrive should you bury those of us who stand in your way.'

Loki turned to me, blue eyes pitiful as they bore into mine, 'Prophecies are the currency of the dead, don't listen to him.' His words did little to settle the roar of my mind.

'You believe mother to be a liar, dear brother?' Thor asked as he stepped toward Loki and then reached for me, his eyes also full of pity, 'Do you believe it to be a lie Eva?'

Loki placed himself between Thor and me, hands pressed against my waist as he kept his back to Thor and spoke softly to me. Could he tell I was about to lose it, that I was going in on myself?

It felt the same as when I found out that my family wasn't coming back. The body shakes, thick tongue heavy with unspoken words and shallow breaths. My mind was a black hole and all I had wanted to do was close my eyes and sink into it. Let that darkness take me over, allow myself the freedom of falling.

'You are not bad, Eva. You are not Djǫfull.'

My eyes shuttered closed and I felt myself drowning in the blackness of my own thoughts. The heaviness was all that I had known once and how easy it was to give into it.

Loki's grip on my waist tightened, his voice soft and filled with an urgency I had never heard from him, his words quick, a warmth spreading through me from his touch,

'Eva darling, I promise you that I won't let that happen. You won't ever realise that power.'

And what a fucking lie that was. His only reason for saying those words was to talk me down from the edge, he didn't want me to be powerful - didn't want his own power to be lessened because of mine. Was he afraid of what I might become like Thor was?

Loki had never wanted me to come into power in the first place. I opened my eyes to be met with Loki's own and though I attempted to shift away and have Loki stop touching me he didn't let me go. I had to peer over his shoulder at Thor whose face was set in a deep frown.

'How do I stop it?' my voice trembled, was I even sure I could? But I also knew I wouldn't burn down the fucking world, not that I didn't have it in me, but really what would I gain from doing so? Maybe my power was not mine, maybe I didn't come into it as suggested, maybe it was a type of curse?

'You don't.' Thor swallowed, 'The Thrice Prince will.'

'Who is that?' Both Loki and I said in unison, Loki shifted to face Thor but still his grip on my waist like iron, the warmth turning to a chill as I looked down at the bare skin of his hands and wrists to find they had turned blue and lined with curved markings, revealing his true heritage.

Thor's eyes meandered between the both of us and caught Loki's hands against my waist and his lips twitched as if he might ask why my uncle was touching me so intimately, why his skin was turning blue or why he had suddenly become so fond of me, so protective. Thor didn't, he pressed his lips together and turned from us with a twitching eye, stalking back to the cockpit, hands on his hips as he gazed out at the night sky before us.

The small moment was strange like Thor had been caught interrupting something, not like we had been the ones doing something wrong. I placed a small distance between Loki and me. Had Thor found Loki's sudden concern for me as confusing as I had? Had he assumed that there was something going on between us but was too embarrassed to address it?