Chapter - 33

He is angry. Inner Bastard is angry. "You have betrayed us, you coward. You were going to off yourself, not buy into this hippy holistic aura let's all be friends shit! You have no guts! We had made a decision! Have you no fucking pride?"

The main reason Inner Bastard is angry is because he has been thinking more and more about phoning home. He's willing to risk even fucking Odin visiting to see his mum. He's terrified. He wants reasons not to do it.

When Frigga comes that night, Loki doesn't conjure anything for her, not even her face. She's just a blur.

"You can come home, darling. Pick up the phone. Come home."

"I will hurt you. I will always hurt you."

"You hurt me now, not being here with me, not letting me know where you are, that you're safe and well. Pick up the phone."

Loki cries.

"I can't. I can't."

"And Thor, you hurt Thor. He will never stop looking. All you have to do is let him know you're alright to put his mind at ease."

Loki snarls.

"Thor hates me."

"Never."

"He hates me. After what I did, and the things I told him.

"No, Thor loves you, it's the way he is. He can't help it. We love you. And no matter what you think, your father…"

"He is not my father!" screams Loki.

Frigga's face sharpens up for a beat, becomes clear."And I am not your mother?"

Loki's heart is breaking, Inner Bastard is smirking meanly.

"You're not," Loki says.

That argument he wins too, and he is alone. Except for Inner Bastard, who is always there, of course, patting his back. "That'll do, boy," he says, disgustingly smug, his touch repulsive. "That'll do."

*

All Loki remembers from that day is Sigyn kneeling next to him on the floor, tears in her eyes, pulling him to her chest.

"Oh sweetie, I'm so sorry," she is saying. "I'm so sorry about your mum."

They tell him later that he thrashed his room and managed to open his head and dislodge a shoulder when they were manhandling him to inject the sedative, which is why he is carrying his arm on a sling. He looks at the bite marks on his arms, serrated crescent shapes that have broken through the skin and have to be monitored for infection, and the scratches on his face and neck sting when he has a wash with hot water. His throat is raw, presumably from screaming himself voiceless.

For the next week or two, he is either apathetic or crying his eyes out, there is no in-between. They allow Sigyn to be with him a lot of the time. Clever, clever Sigyn, she knows when to give him some space and when to stay.

Banner also comes to sit down with him every now and then. Eventually, he tells him that he's put two and two together and he knows who he is. He also promises to keep it to himself as long as Loki wants him to.

Sigyn sometimes sits down by his bed and reads The Little Prince to him. She tries to read well.

"On one star, one planet, my planet, the Earth, there was a little prince to be comforted. I took him in my arms, and rocked him. I said to him:

"The flower that you love is not in danger. I will draw you a muzzle for your sheep. I will draw you a railing to put around your flower. I will --"

I did not know what to say to him. I felt awkward and blundering. I did not know how I could reach him, where I could overtake him and go on hand in hand with him once more.

It is such a secret place, the land of tears."

When Loki cries for his grief, he does not cry for himself. He can be consoled then, he can be reached and cuddled. He senses the pleasure and the joy Sigyn gets from feeling she is helping. It's comforting to know he is doing something for someone.

*

For weeks he is little more than a zombie, unseeing the world around him, his brain swamped by a lifetime of memories.

Loki is little. His mum is learning her lines. Loki learns them as well, just from hearing her. When Frigga goes to rehearsal, she takes him with her. He mouths the words along with his mum and imitates her gestures.

"You clever boy!" says Frigga, impressed, when she spots him at the side of the stage. "Now, if I take even longer, faster steps away, what do you see? Am I happier or angrier?"

"Angrier," little Loki says.

"That's right. Now say the line again as you take longer steps, and be angry!"

Loki tries.

"My darling, you're better than your dad at your age. Clever Loki!" and covers his face with kisses.

Loki is eight. Ballet is a lot harder than he thought.

"This hand a bit more… That's it." Frigga corrects his shoulders then. "That's it. Beautiful, Loki. Now do the croisé again. Perfect! See? You've got it. I told you you would."

Loki is eleven. He is practicing the concerto his professor told him was too big for him. Frigga comes through the door. "Will you play it for me now? It's just so lovely."

She sits with him every afternoon, before she has to make for the theatre, listening to him.

"Thank you my darling. It sounds more beautiful every day."

Frigga takes fifteen year old Loki out for dinner with her friends. It's a bit too late for him, but she said it was fine. They address him like he is one of them, they don't dumb it or tone it down for him. They are lewd and cultivated and they like a boy who reads, what a fucking breath of fresh air. They actually listen to him when he says he likes Yeats more than Keats, and why.

Almost all the men are gay. They flirt jokingly between them, mourn lost relationships and broken hearts, curse the whole fickle race of men, gossip and pass comment on shapely new talents rising up in the business.

When Loki goes to sleep that night, he feels like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. The next day at high school, he hovers three feet over the fucking jerks that call him names.

Loki is sixteen. Frigga asks him if he is dating Matt, Matt from drama school. Loki shrugs. He wouldn't call it dating. She still takes them both for virgin cocktails one evening. Matt will forever say your mum is the absolute fucking best. Loki wonders where he is now.

Loki is fourteen. He is in hospital. Frigga cuddles him in her arms and hums.

"My beautiful baby," she says, kissing his forehead again and again. "My beautiful, beautiful baby."

*

He goes back to The Little Prince whenever he's overwhelmed and can't bare to do anything else, but needs to get out of his mind. The book always opens up for him, lets him in, and takes him away for a stroll. And whenever he finishes, tears have been streaming down his face for a while, but as he shuts the book he doesn't feel like a charred, smoking city, but one that was burned long ago, with edges softened by centuries of wind and dust, with grass on the unpaved streets and clumps of moss and ivy starting to reclaim the ruins. There is more quiet than pain to be found there, like in an old graveyard.

"All men have stars, but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems... But all these stars are silent. You alone will have stars as no one else has them... In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars will be laughing when you look at the sky at night. You, only you, will have stars that can laugh! And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me... You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure... It will be as if, in place of the stars, I had given you a great number of little bells that knew how to laugh."