Chapter 1
Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Here was a truth: Loki Laufeyson served no one save himself.
***
Six days after Fenrir disappeared from his chains, Loki vanished from his cell. Heimdall could see neither, and this was where all the similarities ended.
Fenrir’s disappearance left empty chains and a broken sword, and a smear of blood on the island where it once stood. Loki left his cell neat and seemingly unused, its door still locked and the windows barred. The guards noticed nothing until the serving lads came to clean away the meals. By all appearances, and for all intents and purposes, the second prince simply disappeared.
It was, in Loki’s humblest opinion, a very quiet affair, any future furor from the Aesir notwithstanding. Then he patted his arse and slipped to another realm, humming a ditty on his way.
Three weeks was peace enough. There was no rest to be had for the wicked, after all.
***
“I’ll find him, father.”
“Bring him home, my son, before someone else does.”
***
The next time Loki saw Thor, it was two months later and he was fighting for his life in Vanaheimr.
He leapt. Left. Right. Back. A twirl of his fingers and the knife flew true. A Chitauri crumbled, knife between its eyes. Fifteen left alive. They besieged him on all sides in no clear formation. The one behind him fired a shot from its stave. He barely dodged, and the beam of energy scalded the left side of his neck.
Pure blinding white on the inside of his skull. His neck burnt. A snarl escaped from his throat, unbidden. The entire situation was hardly fair. Not fair, to the holy mother of fucking unfairness.
Funny, how a walk in the woods could turn into a fight for his life. Lady Fate loved him as her personal bitch these days. The next time he saw her, they would have words.
His staff swept wide in an arc, and flames burnt through the air. The toon of Chitauri scurried back. They screeched. Witless critters. The fire caught one before fizzling out. Fourteen left.
Breaths hung heavy in his chest. Weariness and aching soreness twined through his limps. He bled from more wounds than one. He was made of wounds. Everything hurt and nothing was fine. He shifted, slowly, and eyed the circle of creatures. The creatures stood at ready, stave heads pointing at poor little Loki.
How droll. How familiar this situation had became. The third time in as many days, and the numerous battles before that.
Loki licked his lips. Fourteen, fourteen, and how many could he destroy in this state before they get to him? There was a way out of this. There had to be a way out, because he was Loki, not some churlish fool, not that oaf of a man who called himself Th—
Thor.
There was a glint of gold at the peripheral of Loki’s sight. An almost familiar battle roar bellowed and reverberated through the trees. Rattled, the Chitauri swerved as one to face the source, and in their inattention, four fell swiftly.
Sif. The Warriors Three.
Loki gaped, then winced, shock and relief warring, before firing the flames and taking out another. Ten. Now nine. The clouds rumbled with one man’s discontent. Thor deflected the attack of one with his hammer and struck another. Eight. Seven.
Swiftly, niftily, Loki crept his way behind a tree, then another, and tried to back his way away. Because no, now was not the time to face Thor, to face any of the Aesir. His heart hammered in his throat, and it took effort to stay silent and almost not breathe. Six, five, four. The Aesir worked in tandem. The Chitauri dropped like flies. His… his enemies were now pitted against one another, and there was enough elegance to the situation and Loki almost wanted to laugh.
But no. He could not. Had to get away. Dried autumn leaves crackled beneath his feet, and he prayed it would not be heard. Where next? Álfheimr. Or Svartálfar. The Gems. He had to get to the Gems.
Then the world slipped away and he saw only black.
***
The Void taught lessons to those who dared brave its horrors.
For some, knowledge, in exchange for pieces of one’s soul and mind and body and peace of mind and goddamned self, was a worthwhile trade. Others had no choice.
Traversing through the Void dulled some things within the traveller. Happiness. Hope. Desire. Memories. Faith. But the Void sharpened others. Conviction. Belief. Agony.
I was a monster at heart.
Cycles and cycles of broken memory, they filled him like shattered glass, fragments carving deep into soft flesh. Strange, how the clearest parts were always the worst. Oh, lovely Baldr and gentle Sigyn. Thor, beloved Thor. Ragnorak came and went and came again. His life was a monument to failure, and he was the mother of everything monstrous, and he deserved his lips sewn bloody shut and his heart tightly pinched.
So Loki Skywalker, Loki Liesmith, Loki the Lost traded a bitter sort of despair for magicks lost even to the Royal Libraries of Asgard, and on some days Loki thought it was almost a fair trade. Odin traded an eye for wisdom, and now the lost prince innately, instinctually understood black sorcery that would horrify even Odin.
I am a monster at heart, and now everyone will see it.
When Thanos plucked Loki from the horrors of the Void, the boy was already half mad. It was almost insultingly easy, afterwards, to mold the other half into a curious sort of complicity.
***
Loki woke to the thrumming of greater power and a dull throb between his temples. The bed beneath him was softer than anything else he had slept on for the past two months, and the sun rose enough to cast a pale light through the window and into his eyes, and there was the faint aroma of healing broths and spiced wine in the air.
He blinked. All memories felt vague in the aftermath of the Void, but this was clearly his chambers in Asgard, gold and green and mostly untouched. So they hadn’t cleared the place out for another noble or two after the traitor fell. Fancy that.
Thor sat, asleep, by the bed. There were no other guards within sight. The cuffs and the collar at his throat, though, were new. He pushed himself up slowly and inspected the cuffs. Dwarven-make, with power-binding runes of the Vanir. Black wisps of power escaped from his fingertips to taste the Vanir magic, and what the blackness touched, it devoured.
His grimace became a half-cruel smile. Once upon a time, these could have bound him for years. The Aesir must have still thought it would. Now, it would last only days. He had gained much in his fall. Maybe too much. But even a few days may be too long. Far too long.
No realm, no barren moon, no crevice where he cannot find you. No, no, you don’t have to find me. I’m here. I’m right here for the plucking, and these oafs are the only thing standing between.
He wanted to laugh and laugh until hysterics ripped his throat to shreds. He wanted to cry until salt poisoned and rotted his eyes blind.
Sometime between his attempted flight from the forests of Vanaheimr and now, someone had tended to his wounds. In a bout of morbid curiosity, Loki wondered how deeply his torso had offended the delicate sensitivities of his healer.
Vanity was a thing long since lost in the void, but even still Loki knew he looked almost a draugar, undead, beneath his armor, bloated with the stench of poisoned decay, all jagged wounds and bleeding boils, the new upon the old until there was barely a patch of decent skin.
He was made of wounds. Everything hurt and nothing was fine.
***
Loki Laufeyson knew two things with utter conviction.
He was a monster, and what he had to do must be done alone.
***
The next time he opened his eyes, it was high noon and Thor was awake. There was food on the table, but it felt faint and faraway.
“What happened to Fenrir, brother?” Thor asked.
And this is the first thing you ask me? Loki laughed, but did not sit up. His voice rasped with the dryness of thirst, but he did not ask for water. “Should I be grateful for the lack of the muzzle?”
“I am sorry,” Thor whispered. He was stealing looks at Loki’s neck, and pretending to be subtle. Hilarious, really.
For a moment, Loki let Thor wallow in discomfort. As a bit of good fun. You used to do this, his memories whispered, sly things that they were. Remember the night before the coronation?
He used to love his not-brother too, and sometimes where the night grew dark, he thought he still did. The Void sharpened convictions. But I am a monster, and this he knew to be truth, and therefore there was nothing to love or be loved.
"How did you find me?"
“Luck, brother. The Norns must have willed it. We looked for you every day these last two months, and only found your blood in Vanaheimr by luck. Please, brother,” Thor said, a whipped puppy afraid to move and afraid to breath and afraid to back away. “Asgard… You left Asgard in an uproar when you escaped. They think Fenrir’s disappearance is your working. Father bade me to find out the truth before—before—”
“Before they string me up a tree to bleed like an eagle?” Loki mused, then giggled. “Wouldn’t that be a sight for you?”
“Brother!”
“I am not your brother, Thor.” The words were light admonishments on his tongue. Like sugar-frosted truth, sweet and a relief to speak. The words did not say you are not my brother. The words said I am not yours. I must not be yours.
Because what he had to do, had to be done alone.
“Tell me,” Loki said, almost drained. “What does the Allfather plan to do with his wayward tool? Beheading? Quartering? Poison in my eyes? Or something more mundane? Another thousand years on top of my current sentence?”
The look on Thor’s face! Disbelief and horror and disgust and aghast. A fine look to use when faced with a villain.
“You are my brother and you are his son. Do not forget it. Father will see you in audience tomorrow.”
Wasn’t that kind? He had another night to recover, at least. His throat throbbed with thirst, and the first pangs of hunger made themselves known, but Loki asked for nothing.
“Leave, Thor. I require sleep.” He turned his face away. “I had nothing to do with Fenrir.”
A lie, of course.
***
When he slept, the black wisps of power devoured Vanir magic.