Voices

Loki:

Now I'm sitting in this damn cell again.

Apart from my mother and Thor, I haven't seen anyone for weeks.

The guards were very restless today, but didn't want to say anything.

Reading what felt like the thousandth book, I jumped up slightly when the doors to the cell block opened and my brother and his friends brought someone in with a sack over their head and put them in the cell next to mine.

Of course, something interesting happens, and on the only side where there is no glass...

"Thor!" He stops when I call him and turns to me.

"What do you want, brother?" he almost spat out the word "brother" as if it were something poisonous.

"Who is my new company?" I asked arrogantly.

"You'll be told soon enough... Not much better than you, anyway!"

His friends laugh and go out with him.

Next door I hear a quiet moaning and whimpering.

A woman?

What's going on? Have these idiots completely lost their minds now?!

"Did they hurt you?"

A hoarse voice answers. "Nothing that won't heal and now leave me alone. I want to sleep."

"Well... as you wish..."

Wow, cheeky.

The last person who dared to talk like that to me... She's long gone.

I'd better get some sleep too...

Otherwise there's not much to do here anyway.

In the middle of the night:

What is that?

That voice!

I must still be dreaming.

"I am my mother's savage daughter

The one who runs barefoot

Cursing sharp stones

I am my mother's savage daughter

I will not cut my hair

I will not lower my voice"

If this is a dream I never want to wake up.

I haven't heard her voice in ages.

"My mother's child is a savage

She looks for her omens in the colors of stones

In the faces of cats, in the falling of feathers

In the dancing of fire

In the curve of old bones"

Where did this memory suddenly came from?

I thought I had forgotten her voice forever.

"I am my mother's savage daughter

The one who runs barefoot

Cursing sharp stones

I am my mother's savage daughter

I will not cut my hair

I will not lower my voice"

No, she never kept quiet and always fought for me. Defended me from Odin.

"My mother's child dances in darkness

She sings heathen songs

By the light of the moon

And watches the stars and renames the planets

And dreams she can reach them

With a song and a broom"

How many times did we lie under the stars and she sang this song?

We knew each other better than ourselves, trusted each other blindly and then she was gone.

"I am my mother's savage daughter

The one who runs barefoot

Cursing sharp stones

I am my mother's savage daughter

I will not cut my hair

I will not lower my voice"

When she didn't come back from the fight, the part of me that could be happy died.

My only happiness had been taken from me. I saw it over and over again in my worst nightmares how she was injured and collapsed in front of me. Her last command was to bring me to safety...

"We are all brought forth out of darkness

Into this world, through blood and through pain

And deep in our bones, the old songs are waking

So sing them with voices of thunder and rain"

My beloved, my fiancée... A single tear runs down my cheek.

"We are our mother's savage daughters

The ones who run barefoot

Cursing sharp stones

We are our mother's savage daughters

We will not cut our hair

We will not lower our voice"

I see my love before my eyes.

Her smile, hear her voice as clearly as if she were next to me.

"We are our mother's savage daughters

The ones who run barefoot

Cursing sharp stones

We are our mother's savage daughters

We will not cut our hair

We will not lower our voice"

She was the most beautiful being in all nine realms.

"We are our mother's savage daughters

The ones who run barefoot

Cursing sharp stones

We are our mother's savage daughters

We will not cut our hair

We will not lower our voice"

I must have fallen asleep in tears.

I was teary eyes and heard a scream from the cell next to me which woke me up.

"LET ME GO! LET ME BACK! THEY'LL LOOK FOR ME! HE WON'T GIVE UP ON ME!"

She must be having a nightmare.

But why do I even care?

Her voice?

That panic in her voice.

Without realizing it, I sang to calm her down and it seemed to help.

"A clouded dream on an earthly night

Hangs upon the crescent moon

A voiceless song in an ageless light

Sings at the coming dawn

Birds in flight are calling there

Where the heart moves the stones

It′s there that my heart is longing for

All for the love of you

A painting hangs on an ivy wall

Nestled in the emerald moss

The eyes declare a truce of trust

And then it draws me far away

Deep in the desert twilight

Sand melts in pools of the sky

When darkness lays her crimson cloak

Your lamps will call, call me home

And so it's there my homage′s due

Clutched by the still of the night

And now I feel you move

And every breath is full

So it's there my homage's due

Clutched by the still of the night

Even the distance feels so near

All for the love of you.

A clouded dream on an earthly night

Hangs upon the crescent moon

A voiceless song in an ageless light

Sings at the coming dawn

Birds in flight are calling there

Where the heart moves the stones

It′s there that my heart is longing for

All for the love of you"

Only when I sang the last note did I know what song I was singing.

The last time I sang it was just for herhermy only love.

I never wanted to sing it again.

It was born out of my love for her.

"Loki?" I heard a painfully familiar voice whisper.

But that's not possible, she's dead!

"Is it really you, Loki? If it is you, please," her voice broke off.

"V...Vilja?!"

"Loki! I thought I would never hear your voice again!" She was nearly in tears as where I.

"Vilja, you...I thought...you were...I saw you...and they told me...you were dead?!"

"I was...almost...

I hoped for years that you would come and get me...but..."

"I didn't want to believe that you were dead, but they wouldn't let me go back and look for you! How did you survive?"

"One of the dark elves...he...took me as prey...he...I was his...slave. I was there for over 100 years. I thought you were too badly injured or dead because you didn't come to get me."

"I was locked up here for years because I went crazy...then when I was free...I...without hope and without you...I...I did so many terrible things Vilja! I was a monster."

"You were never a monster to me, and if you were, then we both are now.

I destroyed everything that came into my way, that's why I'm here.

No matter what you did...I...I never stopped loving you." No she never saw me as the monster I am deep within. Without here my monster broke free and run mad.

"I never stopped loving you either and no matter what you did that will never change." No! Never could I not love her.

She was crying and I couldn't even take her in my arms.

I hit the wall in despair, I just wanted to get to her, hold her, finally be whole again.

"GET SOMEONE! MY MOTHER, MY BROTHER, MY FATHER, I DON'T CARE WHO IT IS BUT GET SOMEONE!" I shouted at the guards.

One of them actually left.

Vilja was still crying and I tried everything to calm her down. I was raging inside to get to her and hold her.

It felt like forever until my mother came.

"My son."

"Mother, please, I have to go to her. S...she needs me, please." I cried bitterly.

"Loki, then it is her?"

"Yes, mother! PLEASE!"

She nodded and ran off, contrary to her usual habit.

A short time later she came back with Odin.

"Odin, please at least let them both stay in one cell. I know how angry you are at Loki, but do it for me." She pleaded.

Father seemed to think about it and came towards our cells.

He looked at me and then over to her and with a nod from him the wall between our cells disappeared and I saw her again for the first time in so many years.

I crawled to her on all fours and pulled her into my arms.

She flinched but then looked up at me and immediately looked away again.

She had 3 large, deep and red scars across her beautiful face.

What had they done to her?

She pressed herself against me like a small child against it's mother and clung to me.

"You are still the most beautiful being in all nine realms."

"I... but..."

"You will always be for me."

I looked at my parents

"Thank you"

My mother smiled and father nodded briefly.

"Loki, I hope that this doesn't give you any stupid ideas again." He said admonishingly.

"Don't worry, father.

I have my world in my arms now. Everything I was missing has returned.

What more could I wish for?"

He nodded and they left us.

"Loki... you... I... the dark elf... he... before I could kill him he..." she stuttered and couldn't really say but I had a suspicion what this mewling quim did to her but she could tell me later... I briefly kissed her and she finally relaxed a bit into my arms.

"Don't say anything more, my love. No one will ever hurt you again. I will never leave your side again.

First get your strength back and then you tell me everything you want to tell me and together we can get through anything.

We will get married, even if it is in this gods damned cell!"

She cried even more, so I pulled her onto my bed and put a blanket around us.

It would be a long road but we would walk it together step by step and never let ourselves be separated again.