Loki had been rotting in the dungeons for days. The silence was almost worse than the bruises. His body had begun recovering, though slowly. The worst of the pain had faded into a constant soreness, leaving behind the humiliating reminder of how thoroughly he had been defeated. His clothes were still torn from the battle, his hair no longer carefully arranged, and there were faint marks across his face that even Asgardian healing could not erase overnight. But it was the solitude that irritated him most. No one came.
Frigga had visited once. She had stood outside the cell for several minutes, looking at her son through the bars with a mixture of sorrow and disappointment. She had wanted to reach for him, but Loki had turned his face away. Odin had been less gentle. The Allfather had made his judgment clear. Loki's actions had endangered Midgard, threatened countless lives and brought shame upon Asgard. Whatever explanations Loki might have offered, Odin had no patience for them. Thor, meanwhile, avoided the dungeon altogether. He told himself it was because he needed time.
The truth was more complicated. He was angry with Loki, but beneath the anger was the familiar ache of having failed his brother yet again. He could not decide whether he wanted to shake Loki until some sense returned to him or simply sit beside him as they had when they were children. So he stayed away.
Until one afternoon, with Jane still on Midgard and the palace strangely quiet, Thor found himself thinking about Eirlys. Perhaps speaking with her would help. She had always been more patient with Loki than anyone else. Perhaps she would know what to say. Thor searched the palace first. Her usual chambers were empty. The gardens were empty and the training grounds yielded nothing. He questioned servants, guards and members of the court, but no one seemed to know where she had gone. The realization unsettled him. He considered asking Loki. Then immediately dismissed the thought. He was not ready to speak to his imprisoned brother. There was only one person who might know. Heimdall.
Thor found the Guardian at the Bifröst and approached him without ceremony. "Heimdall. Where is Eirlys?"
The Guardian looked toward him. "Eirlys left Asgard."
Thor was surprised. "When?"
"Nearly a week ago."
The answer stopped him. "A week?"
"She left without informing the court. She was in haste."
Thor's expression tightened. "Why?"
Heimdall's gaze remained fixed beyond the realms. "Vanaheim is facing an outbreak known as the Rot. It has spread rapidly. Many have fallen severely ill, and some have died."
Thor stared at him. "And Eirlys?"
"She went to help."
Something cold settled in Thor's stomach.
"She has healing abilities," Heimdall continued. "Her presence was requested urgently. She believed there was no time to waste."
Thor looked away and for several seconds, he said nothing. Then the pieces finally fell into place. Eirlys had left before Loki's attack, the invasion, the battle, and before Loki had been dragged back to Asgard in chains. She had no idea. She didn't know what Loki had done, or what had happened on Midgard. She didn't even know that her husband was sitting alone in the dungeons. Thor's anger shifted into something else entirely. Concern.
He imagined Eirlys in Vanaheim, surrounded by the sick and dying, exhausting herself trying to save people while believing everything in Asgard was normal. And Loki was sitting below the palace, probably convinced that everyone had abandoned him. Thor closed his eyes briefly, this was not simply a matter between brothers. Eirlys deserved to know. And whether Loki deserved it or not, Thor suddenly understood that keeping her ignorant could only make things worse when she eventually returned. He turned toward the palace. He had one more conversation to have. And this time, he could not avoid the dungeon.
The dungeon had become strangely quiet again. Loki sat against the cold stone wall, one knee drawn up, his head resting back as he stared into nothing. He had stopped counting the days. At first, he had been furious. At Odin for imprisoning him, at Thor for defeating him, at Midgard for refusing to bend as easily as he had expected, and especially at himself for being captured. But anger was exhausting, and eventually even Loki's temper had worn itself thin. What remained was thought.
And that was considerably worse. His mind kept returning to Eirlys. He wondered what she would say when she found out, what she would think of him, and that was the part he couldn't escape. She had trusted him. Perhaps not completely, not without hesitation, but enough to let him close. Enough to accept him as her husband. Enough to look at him without seeing only the prince who had spent years hiding behind sarcasm and manipulation. And Loki had repaid that trust with a lie.
He had not told her that he had gone to Midgard that evening, he said that he was going to meditate. He had no clue how he was going to explain that he had taken the Tesseract, unleashed an invasion, and that people had died. As a result, he was sitting in a dungeon.
His jaw tightened as he pictures clearly how furious Eirlys would be, with her eyes narrowing, that quiet disappointment that was somehow worse than shouting. She would ask him why and Loki wasn't sure he had an answer that wouldn't sound pathetic. Because he wanted power and spent his entire life believing he needed to prove himself? That somewhere beneath all of it, he had been terrified that if he remained merely Loki, he would always be second?
He had wanted to become powerful enough that nobody could ever look down on him again. But Eirlys had never looked down on him and that hurt more than he expected. She had seen the parts of him he tried hardest to hide and had still reached for his hand. He lowered his gaze. What would she do when she returned? Would she refuse to speak to him, look at him with disgust, regret the morning they had shared?
That last thought made his chest tighten. Loki could endure Odin's disappointment, Thor's anger, the humiliation of chains and imprisonment but the idea of Eirlys regretting him was something else entirely. He remembered her face that morning, flushed with embarrassment, her stubborn attempts to hide how nervous she was and how she asked him to stay. The memory felt almost cruel now. She had trusted him with something precious. And he had gone behind her back almost immediately afterward.
Loki dragged a hand over his face. "Damn it."
For the first time since the battle, he wished he could undo one decision. Not the Tesseract or even the invasion but the lie. He wished he had told her. Perhaps she would have stopped him or hated him, or perhaps she would have understood. He didn't know and that uncertainty was unbearable. Outside the cell, footsteps echoed faintly through the corridor. Loki lifted his head because for one foolish second, his heart leapt. Eirlys.
The thought was immediate and instinctive. Then reality returned. She was not here, she did not even know. Loki looked toward the empty corridor and let out a slow breath. He thought, that was worse. Because when Eirlys eventually learned the truth, she would not simply be angry with the Loki who had invaded Midgard. She would have to reconcile that man with the husband who had held her afterward. And Loki had no idea which one she would believe was real.
Thor stopped outside the cell, his expression hard as Loki slowly lifted his head. Neither of them spoke for a while. Then Thor said quietly, "Eirlys is in Vanaheim."
Loki rolled his eyes with a hairflip. "I know that, you dimwit."
"She left nearly a week ago. There's an outbreak there. She went to help the healers."
Loki stared at him, he was aware that she didn't know. That's why he executed his place the first place but he did not want to accept it.
Thor could see the realization settle over his brother's face. "She doesn't know what happened here," he continued. "She doesn't know about Midgard. She doesn't know about the Tesseract. And she certainly doesn't know that her husband is sitting in a dungeon."
Loki looked away as Thor's voice hardened. "And when she returns, you better understand something."
Loki glanced back at his brother because of his protective tone.
"If you cannot take care of Eirlys the way she deserves, then don't keep drawing her deeper into your life."
Loki's jaw tightened. "You think I don't care for her?"
"I think you care for her," Thor replied. "But caring for someone and protecting them are not always the same thing."
The words struck deeper than Loki wanted to admit, Thor stepped closer to the bars. "She trusted you. She let you close when she had every reason to be cautious. And you used that trust while secretly doing exactly what you knew she would fear."
Loki remained silent but Thor exhaled sharply. "If you cannot give her honesty, stability, and safety, then stay away from her except when absolutely necessary. Do not make her pay for the choices you keep making."
Thor turned away. "I left you alone because I thought you needed time to understand what you'd done." He paused at the end of the corridor. "But perhaps you needed to understand what you were risking." Then he walked away, leaving Loki alone with the one thought he could no longer escape.