Fables/Fairytales Fan Fiction ❯ All I Have ❯ All I Have ( Chapter 1 )

It was agony. He could hear it above his head. He could see the blurry image, something pale wrapped around something dark. Something wet was hitting the dark thing, adding to it and weighing it down.

He blinked several times, but his eyesight did not sharpen. He figured it never would. Whenever the venom was allowed to hit his face it would blind him. Even if his eyes were closed, which they always were, the venom seeped through his eyelids. Whenever the venom was blocked, his eyesight would slowly, oh so slowly, return. But it never fully recovered.

He knew, in fact, that it was almost time for the venom to be removed because he could see so well. He could see more than undefined shapes of color now. Things had an actual border to them.

He turned his head as much as he was able, seeing another colored blob move toward him. He felt a hand caress the side of his face and almost flinched. It was so cool, so gentle. It shouldn’t be that gentle.

The corners of his mouth pulled down and the hand retracted, the blob retreating somewhat. He tried to follow it, but the restraints at his neck stopped him. His sons…his sons were restraining him. He almost laughed at that, almost jerked his hands and legs to feel them against him. They were only their intestines…but they were his sons’ intestines.

He felt that hand caress him again and jerked away from it. She shouldn’t touch him like that. She should’ve never touched him like that.

A soft voice filtered through to his ears. “Close your eyes. I’ll be right back.”

He was obedient. It wasn’t as if he could refuse. It meant pain to disobey. He had been stubborn the first time, cursing her and thrashing against the binds uselessly. It was useless. He was stuck here…until the end times.

The end times were a sadistic joy for him to think of. He would avenge himself. Imagine the audacity of them all, trapping him here, forcing him to suffer! He was suffering for the death of the beloved Baldur? He almost laughed. They didn’t get it. They never would either.

He heard the shifting as she moved away from him and tensed, his whole body starting to tremble.

The first drop burned through him. It hit him like Thor’s hammer and then continued past the skin and bones, sinking into his soul, eating away at him. The next drops that followed were nothing compared to that first drop. It was the first drop that was the true pain. It was the first drop that continued to burn him through all the others.

He was screaming, but he couldn’t hear it. It was just a loud vibration in his ear that shook his body, or maybe the pain shook his body. He could tell the first time they had chained him to this rock, but now, after so many times this had happened….

Even though his scream of agony, he heard it. The sound seemed to stop the pain for one moment. It stopped that drip, as if the droplet of venom was held poised over his face. The whole cave stilled for that one sound. He stilled for that one sound.

“LOKI!”

He was very suddenly free of his restraints. He felt them fall around him right before he tumbled off the rock, grunting as he rolled onto the ground face first, smacking into cool rock that seemed harder than where he had lain.

He laid there for a few moments, panting and grunting as parts of his body that hadn’t been in contact with anything for millennia were suddenly in contact with everything. He just, breathed, seeing nothing but blackness, and listened to that blackness echo nothing back at him.

When he did move, it was slowly. He reached a hand out first, grasping clumsily along rocks and dirt, shoving them aside in order to feel something, although he didn’t know what.

The other hand joined his search, scrambling and not caring what went up his nails or scraped his skin. This pain was nothing, a relief from the earlier pain, the true pain. What if it was only a respite? What if this was a new kind of torture? They had released him and—

But the scream….

He let out a noise from his throat, a sound meant to be a name, a question. It never made it past his torn lips. Instead he brought his legs into action, shoving himself violently forward and making a strangled cry as his hands didn’t work with his legs, almost bending him double.

He took a deep, even breath and tried again, this time using his hands as guides as he pushed with his legs, moving toward the entrance. He could feel the cool air gliding across his skin, could breath air that wasn’t stale with venom and tears and screaming.

It took long agonizing moments for him to move, and he could only move for a foot at a time, maybe half a foot. It took him thirty such movements until he could actually feel a change in his surroundings. Wind swirled around him, warmth touched his face, and he could hear sounds in the air all around him.

He had no time for these things. He was near the cliff edge of the mouth of the cave, so he had to proceed with caution, stretching his hands out as far as they would go around him before shoving forward.

It only took four movements before his hand touched something. His whole body jerked and the hand retreated. He was breathing hard before from exertion, now he breathed hard from surprise and denial.

His hand crept out, blindly feeling the leather and cloth that made up a shoe. It was lying on it’s side, and he could see in his mind the exact color of it, the exact shape, how it fit onto the shoe, how she would bend down to put it on in the mornings after lying in bed all night waiting for him.

His hand traveled up the shoe and clasped onto an ankle.

His whole body stilled then, and he redirected himself, shoving himself forward until he laid next to the body, forcing himself into a sitting position and reaching for the body.

It was cooling.

His hands traveled over hair and face, touching the features he knew so well, delicately brushing over neck and breasts, stomach and hips. He couldn’t see her. So he would have to wait. He would have to wait to see what had happened.

He could feel the warmth shifting on his face. It must have been morning, because by the time he could see her blurred shape finally the sun was beating down directly on them.

The sun’s warmth did not touch her body. By now it was cold in his hands. It was a shell of flesh and bone that wasn’t she anymore. He still couldn’t see what had happened, but that scream was echoing in his head, about to drive him crazier than the dripping and the restraints.

Why had she waited beside him after all these years? Why hadn’t she left him to his punishment? He had done so many things, and he didn’t mean just those pranks or killing gods or anything like that. What he meant were all the people he had slept with, all the women he had flirted and cavorted with nightly. He had done this all while married to her.

He remember when he’d first seen her, laughing at some joke, life and joy shining in her eyes and the sun reflecting off her hair. A true goddess she’d seemed to his young eyes. He’d wanted her then, and when he had her he’d wanted her forever. So he took her as his bride.

His eye had wandered though. There was soon another beauty with shining eyes and laughter that he could take to his bed, another woman he could trick with guile and cunning. It became almost a game; to see how far he could go with this or that woman, even to see how many he could get at once.

His wife was left behind, waiting for him, always patient. He knew what they whispered about her as surely as he knew what they whispered about him.

When he had done his final, unforgivable deed, she had joined them. She had watched them tie him up. She had watched them place the snake above his head. She had watched and listened as the first drop of venom hit him, as he screamed his first scream in that cave.

But when the other gods had left, she had not. She had stayed beside him and she had held a bowl over his face, keeping the venom from him. She had just stood there, day after day, night after night. She was so patient.

Now she was dead.

His hands fumbled his hands over her face time and time again, memorizing what he knew was there, what he could see blind or asleep, awake or pleasuring someone else in some other bed.

His sight was fine now and he could see her. The sun was shining in her hair, her skin was unmarred, her clothes untouched by dirt or time. It was as if she hadn’t stood beside him for millennia, touching him even when he jerked away, speaking so softly and kind to him when he did not deserve it.

His eyes dropped to her arm and he made a noise in the back of his throat, lifting the pale limb to his face, staring at the bruise on her upper arm, right below her shoulder. It was just a bruise, but that couldn’t have killed her. She was a god. What could kill a god? A bruise to the arm surely could not.

Who had killed her? The other gods wouldn’t have done it would they? They wanted to torture her, but to kill her and set him free to see it? It made no sense. They had loved her, pitied her yes, but loved the gentle and pure goddess.

No mortal could have killed her. No mortal could have touched her. Who had killed her?

It mattered to him and yet it didn’t. The gods were partly at fault for her body lying cold in his arms, for her scream before she died. They knew where she was. They knew whom she helped. Did they try and get her away from his side? Did they come to offer refreshment or companionship? Why didn’t they try to take her away from his side, even if by force? Had they pitied her from afar like always?

No, it wouldn’t have been they that had killed her and released him, because they knew what releasing him would mean.

The prophecy, it spoke of the end times, it called them Ragnarok. Ragnarok was the great battle where the gods would be fought against, where the world would be torn asunder with their war.

He, Loki, was the fulcrum. When he was freed, it signaled the end times. It meant Ragnarok was right around the corner, so to speak.

He grunted heavily as he lifted her body into his lap, as he cradled her head to his chest and slowly clambered to his feet. His legs and feet tingled, his arms shook with strain they hadn’t been put under for so many thousands of years, but he still lifted her with himself.

He was the fulcrum. He was the beginning of the end. He would bring the end to the gods. He would be grinning as he sliced their throats and drank from their blood. They had not even cared for one of their own. They had not tried to save her from him.

He stumbled toward the cave, stumbled into it and past the rock with the snake dripping venom. He stumbled further back, into darkness that led downward, deep beneath the earth. It led to where dark creatures moved and plotted.

When they found out she was dead, they would take her body. They would take her body and they would chain him again. They would take her away from him.

He wasn’t going to let them do that. He was going to hide her body. He had only just found her, and he was not going to let her be taken away a second time. He would keep her place hidden and secret within him, and he would dwell with those under the surface for a time, plotting himself.

When he came back to the surface, he would continue to hide. He would wait until opportunity arose and then he would rise up and strike them all down. They would feel his wrath and he would kill them all for leaving her with him. She was dead because they had left her with him.

He walked steadier now, brushing against the walls of the cave only a bit as it slowly sloped downwards into darkness. He would see them all dead, but they would not die with a bruise as she had.

And if he ever met her killer, there would be nothing in the world that would save them from his wrath.

*   *   *

Hold on another time is waiting for us someplace closer now
Gun to the head you made your bed and you can't stop the ghosts oh

I was wrong when I lied
I was going to tell you
I was wrong, we were young
And I can't forget you

And I had a dream last night and you were walking all alone
And I couldn't reach you and you slipped away into the crowd
And now all I have is a photo of you smiling at me
And all I want is you here with me and I'll be happy

Hey close the door I'm waiting for the light to knock it down
They say experience will recompense what you lost today but uh

I was wrong when I lied
I was going to tell you
I was wrong we were young
And I'll never forget you

And I had a dream last night and you were walking all alone
And I couldn't reach you and you slipped away into the crowd
And now all I have is a photo of you smiling at me
And all I want is you here with me and I'll be happy

Oh I'd do anything
Oh to have you here again

And I had a dream last night and you were walking all alone
And I couldn't reach you and you slipped away into the crowd
And now all I have is a photo of you smiling at me
And all I want is you here with me and I'll be happ

~L.P. – All I Have