Loki and Ingrid 25

Love is Poision

“That doesn’t matter now. I’m going to mess with Thanos if I want to!”

          “No.”

          “Stop telling me what to do!”

          “I’m KING!”

          “And I thought that I was your equal?” I falter.

          “Fine then. But you just actively rejected me. So, I’ll continue to be king, and you’ll be…”

          “Cleaning the toilet,” I snap, “Whatever. We can go back now.”

          “No.”

          “Yes! Come on!”

          “Don’t tell me what to do!”

          “Then it’s mutual.”

          “What is even the point. You don’t love me, you told the truth, Mother’s death was my fault, I shouldn’t have exiled Father, Thor hates me, you hate me, Sif hates me, Lyd always hated me…”

          “I told you. I don’t hate you.”

          “Then you’ll have a nice cleaning brush. Really, stop it, Ingrid. You don’t love me either.”

          “I didn’t say that.”

          “Oh. Do you think that you have to say it for it to be true? You don’t think you’ve said enough!”

          “No. I haven’t. Maybe I should have said more! I can go back farther! You sent the destroyer to Midgard and you—”

          Loki puts up his hand, “Stop.”

          “You said you wanted more. How about the time you tried to kill yourself because your father made a perfectly reasonable request for you not to destroy a realm! You’re a sore loser!”

          “I said that wasn’t the point!”

          “YOU TRIED TO DESTOY JOTUNHEIM.”

          “Stop. You’ve said enough.”

          “Oh, have I?”

          “You remind me of Nova.”

          “What?”

          “Pathetic.”

          “The wool doesn’t lie.”

          “Then you changed your mind since then. You were the last person who cared about me. Congratulations, I’ve officially pushed everyone away.”

          “Well, you are like that.”

          “Like what?”

          “Maybe if you stopped doing things?”

          “What things?”

          “Do you want me to say them again?”

          “No more. Hearing that coming from you—it reminds me of when Nova tortured us—END IT ALREADY!”

          “What do you want from me? You want me to lie?”

          “And say you love me? Yes?”

          “It’s not a lie. But maybe it isn’t the truth either—I just don’t know!”

          “I already said it. Poison the well.”

          “What?”

          “Maybe poison is the best word for love.”

          “No. Poison is the best word for Loki.”

          “Loki is poison. Poison is love. There was once a Midgardian tale…”

          “Why all the Midgardian stories?”

          “I was bored in the library one day—anyway, there was a boy and a girl who wanted to marry—but their parents wouldn’t let them, so they tried to run off together, but she was set to wed another man, so she faked her death by poison, and when her lover found out, he poisoned himself, then she stabbed herself with his dagger.”

          “That’s bleak. And what does that have to do with anything anyway?”

          “Love is poison.”

          “Stop it.”

          “Love—”

          “STOP IT! AND DON’T YOU WORRY ABOUT MY PARENTS SAYING ‘NO’!”

          “Stop threatening me. People do crazy things for love. Crazy insane things when they lose love…”

          “Loki, stop.”

          “Crazy, insane, sick things, that you couldn’t imagine. It is Asgard after all—and Jotunheim. Do you want to hear what the Jotun would do when someone refused to wed their betrothed?”

          “No, why—you aren’t going to kill me, are you?” I back away, slowly, and for the first time in his presence, I truly fear for my life. I am in a cave, all alone, with one ship off this planet. “Lyd!” I holler, trying to back out of the cave, but stumbling, “LYD!” I shout through the howling wind. There is no response. Great, now she’s run off and left us, “HEIMDALL!”

          “That won’t work.” His voice is smooth and emotionless.

          Then I remember. Sif’s com. “Sif? Sif? Do you copy!”

          Static.

          “SIF? DO YOU COPY?!” I try to run, as Loki gets up, staring at me coldly.

          “SIF?”

          “Hai! Who’s there!”

          “Sif! Oh, thank goodness! I think Loki’s gonna kill me?”

          “What! I can’t hear you over the wind!”

          “I’M GONNA ASK THE IMPOSSIBLE!” I shout, “GET ME THOR!”

          “Are you crazy!”

          “YES! NOW!”

          The line cuts out, and I know I’m alone. I turn around back towards Loki, “What are you going to do? Kill me? I don’t think you can do that. That knife isn’t near me yet—I’m fast!”

          He staring at the knife, gleaming against the dark sky and the white, swirling snow.

          “Oh, the Jotun rituals were much worse. But I don’t have a giant scimitar to chop you up with—”

          “So, you are going to kill me?”

          “Of course,” says Loki, examining the knife again, “Not.”

          “Then put it away, stop playing with me, and call on your friend at the Bifrost—oh and I forgot about that one--!”

          “JUST STOP!” Loki holds the knife high, “I may not have a poison—”

          With a great flash of lightning, the sky splits apart as I see the colors of the Bifrost splitting apart—and the Asgardian here himself emerge. Sif did it! She actually did it!

          Loki glances in the direction of the crash, “Brother?”

          “Ingrid?”

          “Figures. I suppose I’ll go on with this—”

          “WHAT?” I shout through the wind.

          “Ingrid! What do you need? Sif sent me!”

          “Thor?” My head is still spinning as I see my friend dust himself off and set Mjolnir on the ground beside him, “How did you--?

          “No time for that now. Are you in danger, Ingrid?”

          “What? Yes! No! I don’t know!”

          “Where’s Loki?”

          “Right there!” I point, “Don’t kill him!”

          “Never. But what’s going on? Did he really?” Thor’s fists clinch.

          “No. He was just acting weird—so I got mad at him—it’s a long story, then he was just talking about love—”

          “Is poison. Do you remember the ballad of Romeo and Juliet?”

          “Ballad, brother?” Thor whirls around quickly, “Not a ballad, Loki, but a great stage play!”

          “All the world’s a stage…”

          “At least we have something in common. Surprised to see me?”

          “Ingrid told me what happened on Svartelheim and Nova, right after you were, er, abducted?”

          “By my Joutn half-sister who hates me—it’s a long story. And figures, that Ingrid would tell you.”     

          “Enough standing around. Let’s get out of the wind.”

---

“So, you mean to tell me that Ingrid said all those things? Nice Ingrid?”

          “Please try to understand, Thor!”

          “Oh, I understand. Loki you did some—things.”

          Loki remains silent as I try to explain to Thor…but everything is so strained. I am sorry to say the relationships between Loki and Thor don’t seem to have improved…

          “Loki tell me about the love and the poison! And Jane told me about the play, by the way. She said she felt like Juliet. You know I don’t read.”

          “Ingrid doesn’t love me.”

          “That’s not—” I begin, but Thor cuts me off.

          “But why? That doesn’t have anything to do with the play? It’s about two people that were so in love with each other that they—well it’s a stupid play. But it doesn’t have anything to do with Juliet rejecting Romeo!”

          “Worse than her being dead is if Juliet walked out of room after Romeo did nothing but love her.”

          “You aren’t making sense.”

          “Thor,” I say.

          “What? Were you being a bad Juliet?”

          “This isn’t a joke. Drop the play.”

          “What?”

          “Nevermind. I was just saying, that—”

          “Ingrid was the last person—”

          “The last person to care about you, so you got all dramatic with that knife and were being really creepy!”

          “What? Ingrid isn’t—”

          “I think I scared everyone off, Thor. I don’t think you want to talk to me.”

          “Oh, it’s not you.”

          “It’s that I stole your kingdom. I am terribly sorry.”

          “So, Sif is ruling as of now? Sif!”

          “She wants you, you know. You should dump Jane and marry Sif!”

          “What?”

          “Nothing. But what were you doing with the knife, Loki?”

          “What were you doing with the hammer all these years?”

          “Seriously, Loki?”

          “I just said it. I told her about the ancient Jotun rituals and she thought I was going to kill her—and for a moment, I wanted to, but I know that I could never do that, then I was just looking at it—knives are more fascinating than hammers by a million miles, and I was wondering how Juliet felt when she saw Romeo—”

          “Excuse me, but I’m alive!” I can feel the tension in the cave. “You don’t have to get all dramatic about it.”

          “If the last person who cared about you screamed at you about your failures and tried to punch you in the face, and you got what you wanted, but it was all lies…would you want to live anymore?”

          “Not with this again.”

          “Here’s the difference between you and Father. I was testing him, but I always knew he didn’t care about me. I believed that you did.”

          “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

          “The problem is, you’re right.”

          “Okay. Maybe I’m right. But maybe you also resisted Thanos for months with no hope of escape. I can’t even imagine—I know you made mistakes, but you were trying to do the right thing. I don’t agree with all of your decisions, but I love you. Don’t try to take over a kingdom next time, and maybe I would be more forgiving.”

          I say it in my teasing voice, as I did when I was younger, we were innocent children, chasing wistful dreams in the back garden.

          “And why should I believe you?”

          “Everything? After all these years? I know it’s too much to ask you to forgive me.”

          “Well, I’m back and—ohhhh hooolllllly crap, is that—the legend!! Your brother who should go back to Crapland.”

          “Who’s this?” asks Thor, looking up.

          “My sister. Sorry. I thought you left.”

          “Nope. Been listening the whole time. And watching. Give it here!”

          “What?”

          “The knife, dumbass!”

          “I don’t know why your insults make me feel better than Ingrid being articulate, but—” Loki slowly hands the knife to his sister as he introduces her, “Thor, this is my sister, Lydvor. Back in her Jotun form, too.” He frowns.

          “Just Lyd,” begins Lyd.

          “No. Only I can call her that.”

          “Who gave you bragging rights, bonzo?”

          “Nothing.”

          “And I am Thor, Loki’s older brother. You have probably heard of me.”

          “Yes,” says Lyd, through clenched teeth, “And I hate you already.”

          “Thanks.”

          “No problem,” says Lyd, throwing the knife on the ground. “Now Loki?”

          “What?”

          “I want you to destroy it.”

          Loki casts a spell, and the knife shatters into a million pieces. “There. Are you happy.”

          “Am I ever?”

          “Loki,” begins Thor, “You know I care about you. Being older doesn’t change that.”

          “I’m afraid me being me constantly changes that. A predictable failure.”

          “But you’re not.”

          “Don’t remind me that you’re the biggest liar on the face of the universe.”

          “The universe doesn’t have a face.”

          Loki pouts, “Why take things so literally, brother?”

          “Who needs a hug?”

          “No! I’m going back to Asgrad! You go back to hunting stones or—"

          “Just like old times. And thank goodness that we have the Bifrost,” Thor looks over his shoulder, because I think your little friend has gone and left us.”

          I look behind me, and I see a speck of a spaceship flying into the great swirling sky.