I've been reading Lokific all day while I've been sick, but this... this was so beautifully heartbreaking. *sniffle* Yes, it brought me to tears. Your wordsmithing perfectly captured the emotions of grief. I loved how the boy and the Smith expressed their sympathy, and it was real and honest. Too bad that Loki never knew that he was honored by the ordinary citizens of Asgard. I will ever more envision Loki's helm engraved on Thor's vamp races when I watch the films and read fanatic that mentions his armor. Well done!

I read this months back, and the fact that i still enjoy reading it, means this was a memorable fanfic :)
Great work !

It's too early in the morning for me to already be in tears, dammit.

Wow. This was beautiful. The part about the vabrace guiding Thors life like Loki had once done was stunning. Lovely work:)

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Again, I marvel at your ability to tell such fine, simple storytelling. You use your words well. And I'm happy to see that you have written more! Are you near finished with the last chapter of Veil of Smoke?

I don't know you but I love you. This was so heartbreaking and amazing. It's also perfect for the Thor and Loki feels I've been having lately.

Wow. You know I always have to thank angrbodagiantess because there's so much fic in this fandom, that I can never read it all, so I sometimes look at that profile, the favorites there never disappoint.
And i am so glad because this story is beautiful. It's short, but so great. You made my eyes water and the descriptions were very good, very vivid.
Thank you for sharing this little snippet. It fits. It's sad. It's beautiful.

Wow. Just wow. It's an unfortunate truth that sometimes fan fiction can be, well, to put it bluntly, crappy. And then there are stories like *this* that prove that it's not always the case. Masterfully written, you're clearly one of those authors that just *has it*, and what "it" is doesn't need to be explained. I tip my hat to you, simple words can't do this work justice. Truly magnificent.

There's a mix of contentment and bitter ache to know that only Thor had thought of offering up light and warmth for his brother. It's like a glaring testament how the courts of Asgard felt for its second prince.

Thanks for putting up a little story around Thor's vambrace in the Avengers. You're the first I've read who's done it, and done it marvelously.

You know I have to leave you a proper review here, because this just about destroyed me, no joke. You are just such a brilliant writer Rene, and as I told you in the note I left on your blog, I was so happy to see you back writing for these guys, even if it left my heart in tatters, haha.

I think what really struck me about this piece was how acutely you captured Thor's sadness and regret, and the unbearably heavy weight of the loss of his brother upon him. The way he keeps remembering throughout his journey to the forge these little snippets of his final encounters with Loki, keeps hearing Loki's words and his voice, just going over those last moments in his mind again and again, that felt so genuine and so real of someone who was truly grieving, and lost and confused about what happened. Thor feels genuinely without direction here, and it's so heartbreaking. Like he's lost his shadow, which you wrote almost literally into the scene here when he sees the helm's shadow over his shoulder, and it looks like Loki is walking right behind him again. Gah, the visual here is stunning.

And then the encounter he has with the little boy, and what the boy says, you can feel such a purveying sense of sadness and pain throughout the entire city, reflected in this one child, and it really throws into relief just how devastating Loki's loss was, and especially in the way he "died", when the boy questions about Loki having no send off, no light to warm his way, etc... It just reminds you of how WRONG it was, the way Loki seemingly died, and how wrong it was that he tried to kill himself at all. It's utterly tragic.

And you can see how the wrongness of it all is tearing Thor apart, how he never even conceived that something like this could happen, that he would lose his little brother is such a cold, wrong way. He seems truly blindsided here. And it also feels so real, the way he keeps noticing all of these little reminders of Loki's presence, like Loki's sigil carved into the wood above people's doors, along with the rest of their families. All of these awful reminders of what he's lost. I thought the line about Thor never realizing how much smaller a number three is than four was particularly moving.

But I think, hands down, the scene that really affected me most was when the forge tells him he can take Loki's helm with him, because it's obviously something precious to him, and Thor is questioning himself what that even means, how it can be precious when it's nothing without his brother. And when he throws Loki's helm into the fire and watches it melt, God man, that just struck me so deep in the heart, and I almost started crying when Thor falls to his knees and speaks to Loki, trying to give him warmth and light through the burning of his helm, trying so desperately to send him off with something kind.

And him wanting the symbol of Loki's helm over his vambraces, after contemplating them as an ally and a guard against his enemies, as he used to think of Loki as, in a way, it's like Thor keeping Loki as that ally and guard. It's so poignant.

As always Rene, you prove to be such a powerful, amazing writer, who's so brilliant at capturing both emotion, and bringing these characters and their world alive and making it real. I swear, if I could, I would hire you in a second to write every Thor film, because you get these characters in the most spectacular way. And you capture so beautifully and heartbreakingly just why Loki's loss was such a devastating thing.

I hope to see you continue to write for Thor and Loki more in the future soon! And as always Rene, thank you so, so much for sharing!

As always, your grasp of Norse mythology is beautifully woven into your works. The only thing that kept me from crying at the close was the fact that I am in a public computer lab.