Passions Untaught

Loki simply couldn’t understand it. Stark truly loved his electrical spirit, and he genuinely believed that Loki had killed it. If someone killed Thor or Frigga, Loki would hunt that person to the end of the Realms, and when he found them no amount of defenselessness would save them. It was absurd to contemplate. He would have reveled in their pleas for mercy. He would have bathed in their blood, danced in their ashes, made garters from their skin and lute-strings from their intestines – all while what was left of them watched and howled. He had learned a number of tricks on Sanctuary. Stark simply hadn’t had the stomach for it. Could all of Midgard’s heroes be equally soft-hearted? Was that, in fact, what made someone a hero on Midgard? Loki now recalled that he had seen even the Widow Woman, the most merciless of them all, stop and hold off once an enemy surrendered. Then the secret to making it out of this alive would be to act as surrendered as possible.