Hi guys! So I am soooooo sorry about not updating my other fics, especially Demons in Your Soul, but I promise they will be updated soon! I just had to write this fic after being inspired by the Thor 2 trailer (EEEEEKKKKKKKKKKK) and after hearing some potential spoilers. So WARNING: this fic contains them, as well as character death. Also, the title of the fic, and the lyrics in it, are from the song 'To Build a Home' by the Cinematic Orchestra. This fic has not been edited or looked over by a beta, so any mistakes are my own. So, without further interruption, please enjoy (and I am soooooo sorry)!

I climbed the tree to see the world
When the gusts came around to blow me down
I held on as tightly as you held onto me
I held on as tightly as you held onto me

Nobody tells him at first.

Nobody bothers to come and let him know, to break it to him, to even just inform him. Not Odin, not Sif, who would surely rejoice in being the one to bring him such pain, not even his dear brother.

Instead, he hears it from the guards, when the ones who are forced to so constantly stand vigil at his prison are changing shift. He hears their solemn whispers, murmurs that made his world freeze and the seconds that so mercilessly don't seem to go by any faster in this god-forsaken prison pause entirely.

"Her death is a tremendous loss to us all. Our Queen was truly a gem among us all."

Loki stopped breathing.

"Mother!" The sharp, joyful cry jolted her out of a peaceful slumber, her eyes flickering open to meet the excited ones of her youngest son. Loki was standing in front of her and her husband, holding something behind his back, eyes glimmering. She, Odin, Thor and Loki had all ventured into the garden by the castle an hour or so ago, and the king and queen had been relaxing and watching their sons play; however, with the lovely weather and surroundings, Frigga had soon found herself falling asleep.

She saw Odin immediately open his mouth to reprimand their child for waking her up, but she silenced him with a look before turning to her son.

"What is it, dearest?" Frigga asked with a warm smile.

He grinned up at her, holding his hand out and handing her a beautiful flower, one with large deep blue and lavender-coloured petals. "It's your favourite, is it not?" He asks, cocking his head to the side.

She nodded, feeling her throat close up but still managing to beam widely at him. "It is, my love. Thank you." She leans forward and kisses his forehead softly.

Loki gazed up at her with bright-eyes, clearly proud that he remembered that they were her favourite flowers, and that he made her happy by finding them.

"Come on Loki!" Thor called impatiently, eager to get back to whatever game they were playing, and Loki rolled his eyes at this, not unkindly, before going back over to his brother.

"He's a prince, not a child." Odin reminded her gently as soon as Loki was out of earshot, but she ignored him in favour of continuing to stare fondly at her laughing child and weaving the flower into her long, flowing hair.

"He's perfect." Frigga whispered.

In a surprising instant, Loki had stood up, chains rattling at the sudden, jerky movement. The guards immediately turned round, weapons raised and aimed at the fallen god. Loki paid them no mind, feeling light-headed, and not just from standing up for the first time in months.

"What is it that you speak of?" He asked, cracking from disuse but otherwise steady, because no matter what his silver tongue would be the one thing always there for him.

He felt their eyes pierce him, unwavering at the question. Why would they? Loki the trickster, Loki the traitor, Loki the unforgiving, Loki the unfeeling-

Loki repeated the question, and this time it sounded more like a hiss, punctured with an underlying threat that he can never (not yet) act upon. "What is it that you nimble-minded cretins are discussing?"

One guard steps slightly forward, voice and face impassive and most likely in an effort to get the god to shut up. "The Queen," He informs Loki without emotion, "is dead."

Loki's vision swirls, but he manages to stay upright. He briefly wondered if it was all a joke, a cruel gimmick, but he wasn't the god of lies for nothing and he found himself believing them, unable to find a lie lacing their words.

"How?" He forces out, voice just as devoid of feeling as the man who told him the news.

The guards who were being replaced before Loki interrupted them all left, boots clicking on the hard stone floor, while the others took their places, their backs turning to face Loki. Nobody responded.

Feeling a rush of adrenaline and fury run through him, Loki slammed his lean hand into the white wall of the cell, causing the guards to face him once more. "How. Did. She. Die?" He spat, poison dripping from his amplified words and accented by his narrowed, wild, blazing eyes.

The guards assessed him for a few moments, the god who was so often a ghost, a merely lingering presence behind them, coming violently alive. Eventually, one of them answered, lowering his weapon ever so slightly, and Loki caught the barest a hint of sympathy lingering in his stony voice. "During an attack. She died bravely in battle, an honourable death. Valhalla awaits her most gracious presence."

And with that, both turned back and resumed their positions, becoming like stone giants once more.

After a minute or two of nothing but blood roaring in his ears, a numbness engulfing him whole, Loki slumped against the wall, throat closing up. He soon slid to his knees, eyes fixed upon the blood running down the side of his hand from the punch he had aimed at the wall. His mouth threatened to come apart in some sort of twisted, silent scream.

The guards don't notice his soundless state of agony, and if they do, they don't care (Loki doesn't expect them to).

He stays like that for a long while.

"I want you to close your eyes, alright?"

Loki did as his mother asked, emerald eyes fluttering shut at her soft words. Wind stirred around him, but he wasn't cold. He felt her hands gently grasp his, fingers threading through his own.

"Open them again." Frigga spoke a few moments later.

He did, and a startled gasp escaped his lips. They were standing in the clearing of a forest, trees towering around them and gray clouds stirring above. But now, light was also pouring down on them from above. Their intertwined hands were glowing, now a deep, iridescent blue. Above them, that same blue was coating the top of the clearing like a murky film, causing the glow to fall over and shine upon everything below it. A few moments later, Frigga let Loki's hands go, and the glow shining from both them and that was above the clearing evaporated, and pale blue sparks started to fall around them, disappearing as soon as they hit the ground.

"That," Frigga spoke with a rare mischievous smile on her face as she watched her son, who was in utter awe, "is magic."

Loki turned to her. "Will I be able to do that?" He asked in wonder, catching a spark between his fingers and looking utterly interested as it faded away.

Frigga nodded. "One day," she promised, "you'll learn not only how to do that, but how to cast dozens of other spells. See, my dear, with magic, you need no other weapon." She twirled her hand, and more blue sparks came flying from them, causing Loki to laugh in delight.

She had seen Loki use several weapons before, like spears and knives and swords and other sharp objects that made her heart skip a beat whenever her young child was near them, and she saw how he had potential to become skilled with them. But Frigga also saw how fascinated he was in whenever he saw her use her magic, or heard tales and stories of the wondrous things you could do with magic. She had decided to bring him to her favourite spot in the forest near the palace to show him some these things, what you could do with magic, and if the enthralled look on his face was any indication, she made the right decision.

But suddenly Loki's face fell. "But Thor and his friends said that magic was for the weak." He muttered, clearly downcast at this. Frigga felt anger run through her when she heard this, and decided to have a talk with her oldest son about discouraging the thing that Loki was so clearly interested in…and that she herself was well-practiced in and loved.

"You, my heart, can do whatever it is you want to, and be brilliant at it." She spoke with utter conviction, not doubting her words for a second.

Loki looked up at her with undisguised hope in his eyes. "Really?"

She smiled at him lovingly and leaned down in front of him and kissed his cheek. "Really."

(A day later, when she caught him practicing magic and reading spell books in his room, she smiled in triumph.)

Almost three days later (71 hours, 19 minutes and 39 seconds), when Thor finally comes to tell him (I'm sorry, she's gone), Loki laughs and laughs and laughs until he feels like his vocal cords have been drenched in venom. He laughs until he can't breathe and hot tears are streaking down his pale, unwashed face, until he is floating on a brutal, emotionless cloud.

He feels Thor watch him for a while, catches a glimpse of his heartbroken face in his haze of hysteria. He doesn't know what his not-brother is thinking, and he doesn't think he wants to.

Eventually, Thor approaches the glass walls, his hand rising to press against the clear slate. The glass ripples, and Loki is still laughing but can see it all through his blurry eyes, and Thor silently steps through it. He comes to stand before the small table in the cell's corner, and places something on it.

Loki catches a glimpse of it, realizes it was another book, but suddenly he gets a better look at it, and his blood runs cold, his laughs spluttering into momentary silence.

"Loki?" Her voice, warm and like spun-gold, floats towards him, and the Loki looks up, sharp green eyes immediately seeking her out before falling back down to his lap. Frigga is wearing a long, flowing silver gown, but pays no mind to it as she comes to kneel beside him on the fresh earth. "What are you doing, my darling?"

He had been sitting under a tree, absent-mindedly picking at grass with nimble fingers. She had caught the look of sadness on his face from her bedroom window, where she had been peacefully weaving, and instantly abandoned the mindless task to join her youngest, concern swamping over her and remaining even as she sat beside him now.

Loki was silent at first, but eventually a soft sigh escaped his pale lips and Frigga felt her heart clench at how weary it was. He was too young to sound that old and burdened. Stifling a sigh herself, she wrapped a tender arm around his lean shoulders and squeezed them tightly. She knew Loki had never really connected with or gotten closely along with any of Thor's friends, who he was so often with for the sake of his brother. She knew her youngest son was different, and he knew it too, and that broke her heart, especially when she caught him sitting around, alone, looking sad and heartbreakingly lonely.

"I want to give you something." She startled herself by saying, but she knew in that instant that it was the right thing to do.

Loki's eyes met hers again, this time shining not with tears but with excitement. A smile painted Frigga's face, and she unwrapped her arm from around him, turning to sit in front of her son, eyes flickering shut as she used her magic to conjure a book into her arms.

It was a thick book, the pages made of fine silver and the pictures and words made of hair-sized strands of gold. It was filled to the brim with stories of magic and mythical creatures and adventure and tales that she knew would have Loki entranced. She herself had grown up with the book and had at first planned on giving it to Thor, but she very soon realized that he, her bold, boisterous son, would never truly appreciate it and the stories it held. Soon after this revelation, Loki, bright, witty Loki, came along, and Frigga knew with aching certainty that he, like her, would be able to find the beauty in the stories, to understand and treasure them.

She explained this to Loki, who was enthralled immediately, and gave him the book to hold. She felt her heart burst with love as she watched him, his lithe body almost shaking with excitement.

"Will you read me a story?" Frigga asked, weaving be damned. He looked up at her, earlier sorrows forgotten and eyes unbelievably bright, and he started reading, fingers whipping through the pages as he read the words effortlessly, his voice floating through the wind.

Later that night, when she tucked him in and watched his breathing slow, her eyes flickered to his bedside table, where the book was. Biting her lip, she quietly grabbed it, fingers twirling with magic until a writing tool appeared in her hand, and she wrote the words she knew he needed to hear, to remember, because to her it was the utter, irrevocable truth.

For my darling angel,

I will always love you.

But even as Loki remembers this, even as he knows he is going to open that book later on and see the inscription and scream curses at the world, Loki just resumes laughing even though it hurts it all hurts, and continues until Thor stops watching and turns away to leave.

And when Thor does go, those laughs finally turn into sobs.

And I built a home
For you, for me
Until it disappeared
From me, from you
And now, it's time to leave and turn to dust

~To Build a Home; the Cinematic Orchestra

Okay...so again, sorry. Truly, I am. And I know it is crappy and rushed, but I do hope you enjoyed it nonetheless. Please review if you can and tell me what you thought, and thank you for reading! :D 3