The Heat of the Snow // A Loki Fanfiction

Chapter 17

That day again. Somehow he'd come back here. Back to that place that would haunt his memories as a much younger man. He didn't have it often anymore. The passage of time and his ability to quash unpleasant thoughts helped him forget. But now, it's as if he were standing right there. Watching the moment unfold without any breath in his lungs.

It'd been a normal day. He'd been alone, reading the latest spellbook he'd found hidden within the depths of the library. It wasn't like he was hiding. Loki didn't hide. He just liked his peace and quiet, even at that age. And because he liked it so much, he was protective over it—especially when it came to improving his magic. After all, he didn't have Thor's brute strength. But he had wit, and he had cunning. Those were traits he knew would carry him through life.

Thor on the other hand had often been blindly unaware of Loki's achievements. Choosing instead to torment his brother on the obvious differences between them. And his friends...Odin, his friends drove Loki mad. It was no wonder he'd sit up here reading, practising, learning. Loki would likely never admit it to their faces, but avoiding Thor's friends became a skill in itself—a skill that often lead to him having a much better day.

When the book could no longer keep him entertained, he had left the palace, weaving through the crowded Asgardian streets and following cobbled roads into a greener horizon. It wasn't long before he was away—away from the hustle and bustle, down into fields of swaying reeds and tumbling waterfalls. His mother had shown him this place. A place full of untapped magic and unreserved potential. It had been an escape.

And that's how Loki had felt, leaning back in the grasses, closing his eyes and marvelling at the warmth on his face. He'd loved this place. His sanctuary. He didn't have to pretend out here. He didn't have to be strong. He was just him. Loki. The child born with a silver tongue...the shimmer of magic at his fingertips.

As usual, Thor had spoiled it all.

Thor and his friends.

When his brother had trampled through the grasses, raucous laughter on his lips, goaded by his group of idiot lackeys, Loki had never known fury like it. It was all-encompassing. Mind-numbing. Their complete disregard for his space, the natural beauty around them. How they whipped at the tall flowers with their overly large swords. Their taunts at him being a loner, a loser. How he would never see the glory that was soon to be bestowed on Thor.

The words had left his lips before he'd known he'd uttered them. Words of destruction and cruelty that had been weaved into his brain only hours before. For the books, he now was beginning to read were much different from the books his mother would lend him. His thirst for knowledge of the magical arts had grown beyond that now.

And out here, those words took a much stronger form than he could have anticipated.

The spell Loki quickly weaved had sucked the breath from their lungs. Clamped them as tight as squashed bellows. And in the depths of Loki's mind, as he'd watched them all clutch pointlessly at their throats, something inside him had smiled.

It was only when Thor fell to his knees that he realised the gravity of the situation. The hopelessness on his brother's face. Why weren't they fighting back? They always fought back. It'd be a question that would haunt his mind every time he'd think back to this moment.

Loki had tried to pull the power back. He'd never used a spell like this. It was certainly not something Mother would have agreed to him learning. And part of him was shocked that he'd even remembered it, as if the words on the page had taken their own form inside his mind. A living script that used his lips for their own purpose.

"Stop!" he'd screamed. "Stop!" But the spell had continued to squeeze. And the more it squeezed, the more Loki felt their lives start to slip away.

Thor's face had been red, his eyes bulging, his body giving out and laying him prone on the grass. The sword at his side seemed childlike now. Powerless without the weald of a hand. It was a distinct part of this memory that Loki could recall. His brother, weak.