LOKI's diary
BROKEN SOUL
In the dungeons of Ásgarðr
"Pain makes us Bad."
"Some suffering is capable of breaking your soul and making you fall into the deepest darkness.
It happened to me, but how did it go for you?"
After arguing with those four vapid and pretentious "friends" of Thor, I left the room.
I descended into the Válaskjálf Vaults, with each elegant and purposeful step, my emerald cloak billowing behind me. I was already upset by my brother's expulsion from Ásgarðr, I just wanted to find some peace of mind, but there was something else that prevented me, something more shocking and terrifying.
I stopped and looked at my left hand: the one I had seen turned a frightening blueberry blue. At the mere thought I shuddered, turned my palm over and realized that I had inadvertently gotten some light pink bruises. I felt tired, nervous and very upset, but above all I was afraid that something was wrong with me.
I arrived in front of the "Casket of Ancient Winters": I was tremendously attracted by that blue treasure that shone with a glacial light. In it were hidden all the answers to my deepest doubts. I had to know if the episode that happened in Jǫtunheimr was just a bad joke created by those horrible creatures of darkness.
Panting and filled with agitation, fearful that something malicious might happen to me, I found a modicum of courage. I took a step forward, with bated breath I grabbed it forcefully in my tapered hands and began to stare at it with unstoppable lust. Inside he sensed a raging cold energy that begged to be released. I lifted him from his seat, never looking away.
I remained there, motionless, increasingly obsessed by the vibrations that that luminescent object gave off. I felt something change. I was struck by a shiver, a strange sensation crept inside me. My body became cold, my veins froze, and my heart turned to ice. Then it happened again: my skin turned that disgusting blue color again.
“Am I cursed?” I tried to ask him frankly. That seemed like a pretty reasonable assumption to me.
“No,” he said in that annoyingly quiet tone of his.
I placed the chest in its place carefully. Many uncertainties began to swirl furiously in my mind, creating a sense of dizziness and confusion. I was almost afraid. “What's wrong with me?”
"What are they?" I asked him then, already quite shaken. A feeling of panic and terror welled up in my heart. Now I was really scared, but I tried to stay calm anyway, at least as much as I could.
“You are my son,” he stated simply like any father. I did not believe it. There was something more that I didn't know yet, something that maybe he was trying to hide from me.
Slowly I turned around, curious to see his reaction to observing me in my cold change. I turned my blood red eyes on him, my skin returning to its usual paleness. He peered at me from across the room, shrouded in darkness, only partially illuminated by the amber color of the hearth. He was standing there, calm and unperturbed as if my awkward appearance didn't affect him in the slightest. When instead for me it was a truly tragic revelation. It made me so angry.
“And what more than that?” I pressed him. Anger was starting to boil inside me.
I started to get closer to him. “The chest wasn't the only thing you took from Jǫtunheimr that day, was it?”
I walked down the corridor and arrived in front of him. Motionless on the stone staircase he stared at me indifferently with his one eye. It made my nerves tingle with impatience.
“No,” he snapped. Here is Odin's first lie that scratched my soul. Now I was right in front of him. «At the end of the battle I went to the temple and found a child. Too small to be a giant. Left there suffering, alone to die."
I was a Frost Giant, one of those monsters...
I couldn't understand, I was really too lost and upset. The scratch in my soul became clearer and deeper. A trickle of blood ran from the wound. And then he heard those damned words: “Laufey's son.” His second lie, the one that hurt my heart.
“Laufey's son.” I repeated calmly, more to myself, as if I couldn't realize it, accept it.
I looked him straight in the eye to see if it was another one of his tall tales. “He was still hiding something from me, I could sense it.”
“Yes,” he said, sighing slightly.
Everything I had always suspected or assumed as a vain childish whim was actually a truth disguised as a lie.
I felt betrayed, worse, deceived.
Something changed in me. A strange sensation I had never felt before began to make my heart think. My breathing became short and labored. Suddenly I felt an unusual and deep pang of pain inside my chest. An unknown heat began to burn me and radiate throughout my body. There was something inside me that hurt, hurt like hell. Bad enough to leave me even without strength. My face also wrinkled from the pain inflicted. My crystalline eyes veiled with emerald shades became shiny. Now unable to bear another spasm of pain and suffering so great. This was how I remembered the previous cut that already vividly furrowed my tender and frail soul. It was slowly expanding. My soul was cracking into thin, intrinsic black veins, each one like a nail driven into my weak and sensitive spirit.
"Why?!" I exclaimed in frustration. “You were knee-deep in Jotunn blood. Why did you take me?”
He didn't answer, just stared at me passively once again.
You'll make me even more excited. The blood that colored my internal injuries threatened to burst from the excessive anger I was feeling towards Odin. He had to reveal the truth to me once and for all! "Why had he taken me away? Why had he taken me away from my real family? How dare he do such an act? Kidnap me and raise me as a perfect Asgardian, as if nothing had happened?"
“You were an innocent child,” he uttered compassionately.
"Liar, you didn't do it just for that..." I thought angrily.
So I blamed myself. I didn't want to let him win.
"No. You got me for a reason. What was?" Once again he was silent. He didn't want to answer.
All that suffering I was experiencing was slowly destroying me, it had become excruciating agony, not only of pain, but above all of anger. I decided that the exact moment had come to show it to him, I couldn't repress it inside anymore, he was taking my benevolent part.
“Tell me!” I yelled at him. I begged him angry and broken with tears in my eyes.
“I thought we might unite our kingdoms one day. Form an alliance, create lasting peace, through you."
I was breathing heavily, more and more in disbelief. "What!?" He managed to pronounce.
“But those plans no longer matter,” he concluded bitterly.
Here is the third lie, the most serious, the most scary, the one that my soul already knew from the day I became part of the Kingdom of Ásgarðr. Odin took me with him only so he could use me for his glorious purposes. To show his strength, his power, his greatness as an immortal King, to demonstrate to everyone that he is a good and compassionate God, who saves the innocent so as to be praised for his actions and in turn be praised, adored, glorified by his people as a victorious and courageous hero. But in reality he is just a stupid and presumptuous liar, selfish, narcissist who only thinks about his fame and the good for himself. He is not worthy of being a King, he is not worthy of sitting on the golden throne of Ásgarðr.
A lone tear rolled down my left cheek. “Then I am nothing more than another stolen relic, relegated up here until I can be of use to you.”
“Why do you distort my words?” He tried to defend himself, but I didn't want to fall for his nonsense anymore.
He just treated me like an object and not like a son.
He never cared about me. He always kept me in the shadows as if I were something to be feared.
“You could have told me what I was all along, why didn't you!” I blurted out.
«You are my son. I tried to protect you from the truth,” he explained. I noticed a sudden tiredness in him.
"Why? Why am I the monster that parents warn their children about at night!?” I continued in anger again.
I was right. I will never be his son. I am a Frost Giant, a monster, a villain who must be guarded against, because he only brings trouble, death and destruction. Because I come from an unknown and dark land. Where chaos and evil forces reign, where everything is unpredictable, uncontrolled and dangerous.
"No." He barely spoke. He closed his eye and crouched on the ground, as if tired. But I didn't care, I was too angry and so I raged again.
"Well. Now everything makes sense, why have you preferred Thor all these years, because even though you claim to love me you could never accept that an ice giant ascends the throne of Ásgarðr", I pronounced Odin's last lie in one breath: not he never loved me, he never accepted me because I was in fact an ice giant. He considered me a monster, a despicable, different being.
I was not part of his Kingdom, but of the enemy's. For him I would never have been worthy, nor worthy of ascending the throne of Ásgarðr, because it was not mine by right. It belonged in Thor's future. His only true son, the light of his pride. On the other hand, I was nobody to him.
Odin tried to grab my arm, but soon slipped and collapsed down the stairs, closing his eyes. I followed him with my eyes, no longer understanding what was happening to him. In an instant I found him there in front of me, helpless with his eyes closed and his breathing regular and heavy. He seemed to have fallen asleep.
I approached and bent down in front of his body.
Fearful, I caressed his hand with a fleeting and delicate touch.
"What had I done to him? Was it my fault? Did I put him in that state? Am I really that horrible and despicable? What if I really am a monster?"
"Guards!" I called them, screaming. Very shaken and upset.
The massive doors opened and a pair of uniformed men burst in.
«Guards, please help!» I begged her again. Soon after I saw Odin being carried away from the Vaults.
I remained there alone, surrounded by silence. With eyes wet with tears and cheeks flushed.
Maybe I had exaggerated too much, maybe I had gone too far.
This had always been my reality, my life, my cruel and sad truth. Born into a kingdom that had disowned me since birth due to my fragile appearance. Taken and taken away against my will by a God proud only of himself. Raised in the shadow of my "brother" because I was not an Asgardian, but a Frost Giant. For them I was an enemy, a monster, a villain to be feared, to be kept away and hidden.
That's why everyone always acted weird towards me. Since I was a child they have always kept a certain distance. Some looked at me superstitiously, others ignored me or whispered unknown words behind my back. Even if they didn't know about my real nature, they were able to glimpse something sinister and evil in me.
Suddenly I was invaded by an intense feeling of inner emptiness. I felt sad. A great feeling of loneliness blossomed in me. I had always been alone, abandoned, part of a kingdom that wasn't mine where perhaps everyone considered me a monster.
I was lost, homeless, without a family. I didn't belong anywhere. I was truly nobody.
How much I'm hating myself for this misfortune. I don't want to be a monster. I don't want to be this. I want to be other, to be considered as one of them.
I would really like them to accept me, even just for once, to look at me with different eyes, without having any fear.
I don't accept this injustice, I don't accept all this pain, I can't give in to all this suffering.
I have to do something. I must prove that I can be as powerful as them and worthy of having a throne of my own, because I too was born to rule that Kingdom of Ice, of which Odin deprived me. I will never forgive him for making me miss out on this birthright of mine.
The pent-up anger starts boiling in my veins again.
If I cannot have my own throne, then I will take his and take Thor's place
They will have my revenge.
Soon my silent tears stream down my graceful face, as I stand here writing the pages of this diary of mine.
I close in more and after a shiver, I feel an invisible arrow piercing me and burning my chest. Then a myriad of pins stick and prick me. Grieved I huddle even more within myself. I feel my heart stop beating and become heavy and sleepy as if twisted around a barbed wire dripping tears of blood and suffering.
I surrender to evil: finally my soul crumbles into a thousand pieces and I let it fall into the depths of darkness, where I can find tranquility, comfort and a dark peace made only of solitude.
I don't want to go back anymore. No one would ever save me again from all the painful resentment I carry inside.
I am alone and without love.
"Now you know why they call me Loki, the God of Mischief"