Loki hears. So long blind, so long in the dark with only the sound of his own breathing, his own screaming, to sustain him.
At first he'd spoken to himself. The first decade, perhaps two. Difficult to tell. When words came he spoke them, exercised a tongue that once was clever but now had no meaning there, alone, in the dark. That had dwindled away to nothingness, to silence, nothing until the droplets fell and set him shrieking again.
Now what he hears confuses him. Voices, yes, sounds, words that take time to process, so long ago did he last hear them. Other familiar sounds, Earth sounds, the more he listens the more confident he is of that, but it all takes time to call up memories, to make sense.
All except for one sound. One particular sound, which rips through him like a jolt of electricity, faint though it is: the twang of a bowstring and the hiss of an arrow through the air.
He can't see, but he didn't need to see the last time, either. One. One he catches and instinct makes him throw it aside. Two. But the third, the third was covered by the sound of his own movements, of the other arrows, and it catches him in the shoulder as he turns.
The arrowhead doesn't penetrate far, but it does penetrate, bringing a well of fresh blood to the surface, blood to run down Loki's arm and mingle with what has already dried on his skin. The same blood, in some senses. Father and son.
Loki snarls and turns, fingers sparking with magic he doesn't know where to direct. A step forward has him stumbling over something, he doesn't know what and he doesn't care. His bluff hasn't been called because he hasn't been bluffing – he's nearly completely blind, and his magic hasn't fully returned to him. All the more obvious when the exploding arrowhead goes off behind him and tosses him forward onto the pavement.
What bothers him most, though, isn't being attacked. That's to be expected. It's how, the method, the tool, the familiarity of it. Only he can't place why it's familiar; it's too long ago, too unexpected, too far removed from his current experience for him to be able to bring it up now.
And so Loki turns blind eyes upward, pushing himself shakily back to his feet.
Who is this, this human – must be – he's likely not even looking at? Why does he remember, when it's been far too long for any human he know before he was put in that cell to be alive anymore?
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At first he'd spoken to himself. The first decade, perhaps two. Difficult to tell. When words came he spoke them, exercised a tongue that once was clever but now had no meaning there, alone, in the dark. That had dwindled away to nothingness, to silence, nothing until the droplets fell and set him shrieking again.
Now what he hears confuses him. Voices, yes, sounds, words that take time to process, so long ago did he last hear them. Other familiar sounds, Earth sounds, the more he listens the more confident he is of that, but it all takes time to call up memories, to make sense.
All except for one sound. One particular sound, which rips through him like a jolt of electricity, faint though it is: the twang of a bowstring and the hiss of an arrow through the air.
He can't see, but he didn't need to see the last time, either. One. One he catches and instinct makes him throw it aside. Two. But the third, the third was covered by the sound of his own movements, of the other arrows, and it catches him in the shoulder as he turns.
The arrowhead doesn't penetrate far, but it does penetrate, bringing a well of fresh blood to the surface, blood to run down Loki's arm and mingle with what has already dried on his skin. The same blood, in some senses. Father and son.
Loki snarls and turns, fingers sparking with magic he doesn't know where to direct. A step forward has him stumbling over something, he doesn't know what and he doesn't care. His bluff hasn't been called because he hasn't been bluffing – he's nearly completely blind, and his magic hasn't fully returned to him. All the more obvious when the exploding arrowhead goes off behind him and tosses him forward onto the pavement.
What bothers him most, though, isn't being attacked. That's to be expected. It's how, the method, the tool, the familiarity of it. Only he can't place why it's familiar; it's too long ago, too unexpected, too far removed from his current experience for him to be able to bring it up now.
And so Loki turns blind eyes upward, pushing himself shakily back to his feet.
Who is this, this human – must be – he's likely not even looking at? Why does he remember, when it's been far too long for any human he know before he was put in that cell to be alive anymore?