Thus Spoke Zarathustra
You were back on Vormir, standing at the foot of a jagged cliff, the icy wind whipping through your robes. The sky was its usual purple, the sun eclipsed by one of Vormir’s many moons, causing the low-hanging clouds to look like they were on fire. Two pillars silhouetted themselves against the sky in the distance; the gateway to what you knew housed the soul stone. It was the Vormir you’d left in the past, the one you’d left hidden in the sky. And now you were back, uncertain of how you’d gotten there.
Something was different, though, in the way the wind changed, the way gentle flecks of snow caught in your lashes. You weren’t alone.
Slowly, you turned, uncertain of what was waiting for you. A few feet away stood a man, or what was left of one, watching you with eyes devoid of a sclera, all black pupil that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. His skin was mottled grey and sunken over his skull, the hands that held his coat—made from the skin of an animal you couldn’t identify—closed were withered and atrophied. He was not human, that much you could tell, but you were uncertain if he had been and deteriorated, or if this was his permanent state of being.
“Child,” the man called, and suddenly he was right in front of you. You sucked in a breath, backing away, but he followed. “It is not nice to run. Not from your creator.”
“I don’t know you,” you said, reaching for your blades, but they didn’t come. Your magic had abandoned you, leaving you at the mercy of this being. “Who are you?”
“I am the one who brought you into existence, at such great cost.” He raised his hands slightly, his arms trembling as he did so. “Look at what you have done to me.”
“Done to you? I haven’t done anything.”
“Once upon a distant time, I was practically a god,” he spat, his mouth foaming slightly, green saliva coating his cracked lips. “A god from a distant planet, one that had fallen to war and self-destruction. My wife, the greatest love of my life, had heard of a power on an abandoned planet, one that had the power to end wars with a simple thought. And so we journeyed here. And do you know what happened?”
You did. You knew the cost of acquiring the soul stone; you’d seen the bloodstains of those who had come alone to find it and realized the power they sought was unattainable, surrendering themselves to their own worthlessness by pitching themselves off the precipice. To acquire the soul stone, one had to surrender the very person they loved the most; a soul for a soul. And this man had gone through with the exchange.
He must’ve been able to read your expression, because he continued. “I lost her, and I knew from that moment that I did not care what happened to my people. My love for her had always been so much more potent than any other force that drove me, and I had foolishly let her go, because she cared for the people more than her own life.
“I awoke in a pool of water, and in my hand was the soul stone, so small and inconsequential compared to what I had lost. And I knew in that moment that I could not bring her back, so I attempted to do the right thing. I tried to do something she’d be proud of, so I asked the soul stone to give me a power that could end wars, inspire love, bring the universe to its knees, be invulnerable like nothing else is. Apparently that was too big an ask, because it did this to me.”
He lowered the hood that had covered the rest of his head, and you couldn’t prevent the horrified gasp that left your throat. Stumps, where horns had once been, were blackened and burned on his head, the skin shrivelled and scarred. “The effort of using the stone drained me of my physicality, of most of my power. And what did I get in return?” His voided eyes bored into you.
“I got you. A pathetic, weak little girl in a humanoid body. You rose out of the water as my life ended around me, looked at me, and then you left. You were a ghost. A shell of what you were supposed to be! You were meant to be the wisest being, and you were a fool. And then you left me there to crawl my way back to my spaceship.”
“I’m sorry.” You backed away further, a tear freezing on your cheek, more out of fear than sympathy.
“I have searched the corners of the universe, looking for something that can restore me to my former glory, and I recently had an epiphany: you made me like this, so only you can revive me.”
“You’re mistaken. I did not ask to be made by you, I did not ask for this fate. Your hubris and hunger for power has done this to you.”
He scowled at you. “You’re just as stupid as the day you were created. I see now that not even you understand the equilibrium of your powers, that your own entropy has blinded you. No matter. I shall find you, irregardless of how hard you try to hide. My adventures have garnered me a rather large following, and we shall meet you soon.”
With that happy sentiment, he turned away, his form gradually vanishing, leaving you alone on the planet you hated, without a way off. Letting out a broken wail, you sunk to your knees, the numbing cold no longer biting at you. Shaking, you cried out the only name you could formulate.
“Loki.”
Suddenly you were awake, bolting upright in bed, your breath coming in pants. The very god whose name you had uttered was sitting in a chair, blinking wearily, a book propped open on his lap. The night sky was visible outside your window, your little rejuvenating nap having apparently dragged on longer than expected.
“You said my name?” Loki said, closing the book and walking over to you, his eyes raking over your terrified expression, landing on the way your hands clawed at the sheets.
“He’s coming,” you choked out, your hand reaching out and gripping his arm, your body reacting without thinking it through. Immediately, his head shot back, his eyes glowing the same ochre yours always did. It faded within a second, and he blinked, shaking his head out.
“Since when can you project your memories into people?”
“I can’t…” you said quietly, letting go of him.
“Then what the hell was that that you just showed me?” He shuffled into the bed with you, ready to listen despite how late it was.
“I don’t know. A dream, maybe? It seemed so real in the moment.” You popped your knuckles. “Loki, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“That man, if you can call him that, he said he created you with the soul stone.” Loki pulled you into his chest, and you took a moment to marvel at his gentleness. “And he’s going to try and find you. Well, obviously we won’t let him get you. The Avengers will fight to protect you. I’ll kill himself if I have to.”
“He thinks it’s my fault his wife is gone,” you whispered, letting Loki stroke your hair mindlessly. “He said I don’t understand the balance of my powers. He said I was supposed to be able to… ‘bring the universe to its knees’. That’s not me, Loki. I don’t know what he expects of me, what clauses he put in place when he created me, none of it.”
“He wanted to create something beyond divinity,” Loki said softly. “He wanted to create a new order for the universe, and the soul stone made you. That’s power beyond anything any god is capable of. You’re the living incarnation of the soul stone, y/n. There’s nothing you can’t do.”
“I don’t see it like that,” you said. “You heard me the other day. I could have ended wars, yet I did nothing. That’s a failure of my purpose, isn’t it?”
“If you get caught up in all the ‘what if’s’ of life, you’ll drive yourself crazy. Maybe you prevented more wars by doing nothing. We’ll never know. All we can know is that you were made for things so far beyond the Avengers, so far beyond all the foolish things Fury will have you do. That is the path you must walk, so far beyond the lives the rest of us are destined for.”
You looked up at Loki, only to see him sporting a sad smile. Something caught in your throat, and you felt tears well up in your eyes. “I don’t want that. I like where I am now. I like being with you.”
“I know. I know. But you’re meant to do more, y/n. You’re meant to go further than the Nine Realms.”
“What if I refuse?” You pushed away from him, raising your hands and making a circle with your fingers. “I, y/n of Vormir, bestow upon Loki of Asgard, the power-” Loki clapped his hands over your mouth, pushing your backwards into the mountain of pillows and silencing you.
“Don’t do that,” he said, looking you in the eye, dead serious. “You don’t understand your magic, don’t go throwing it around like that.” Giving you a warning look, he released your mouth, still hovering above you, one knee on each side of your body.
“You’d do a better job than me,” you pouted at him.
“We both know I wouldn’t. You’re designed to be placed above the regular designations of good and evil. You’re on a different moral plane than the rest of us.”
“You got all that from one freaky dude in a dream?” You quirked an eyebrow. “Impressive.”
“I’m serious, y/n, there’s a lot more at play here than you and I know. It’s like-” you cut him off by pressing a searing kiss to his lips, the sudden urge to be distracted seizing your body. Loki returned it in full for a moment, his train of thought temporarily interrupted as you pulled him closer to you. Finally, however, he caught on, pulling back for air.
“Are you just making out with me to avoid the subject at hand?” He sat back on his feet, giving you a disapproving glare.
“Is it working?” You sat up too, chasing his lips with yours. He indulged you for a moment before pulling away entirely, standing up.
“What happened to taking it slow?”
“I have been hit with the sudden urge to find out what that worshipping you were talking about earlier was all about.” You fixed him with a mischievous grin, fluttering your lashes.
“God, woman,” Loki groaned, weighing his options. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
“I was thinking the same thing about you.”
Loki pursed his lips, still considering, before he shook his head. “No. I’m not going to take advantage of you in your obviously…clouded state. When I do get my hands on you, I want it to be proper, not a distraction from your complicated birth status. Let’s go check out the library, since you were so keen about that before.”
“I hate you,” you groaned as he pulled you out of bed, wrapping an arm around your waist.
“Seeing as Stark’s library got incinerated, I think we should pick out some books to take back with us,” Loki suggested as he led you through the corridors of the palace, conjuring a long, silvery robe for you to wear over your other clothes, protecting you from the nighttime draft. It was a sweet gesture that made you smile despite all the turmoil of the night.
“Are you going to teach me how to read Asgardian?” You leaned into his chest, well aware it was inconvenient to do while walking. You just loved being close to him, knowing how far the two of you had come to the point you were comfortable enough with each other to touch one another in this manner.
“That sounds like a lot of work,” Loki hummed, his voice rumbling in his chest.
“I’m a good student.”
“I’m sure you are.” Loki stopped outside a massive set of oak doors with a golden tree embossed in it, turning one of the oak handles. The door opened with little resistance, and the two of you stepped into the dark hall, Loki closing the door behind you.
The second it swung shut, it was like an invisible wind swept through the library, lighting the lanterns that ended every row of wooden shelves. It was beautiful, the ceiling high and domed, with a glass top that looked out to the stars. Small sitting areas with leather chairs interrupted the shelves in some places, discarded books left in some of the seats.
You could see why Loki would love it. The older architecture and the looming shadows reminded you of him, along with the elegance and splendour it possessed. This was a vault of knowledge, with first editions of classics lining the shelves, their spines still in perfect condition, although you expected that was the work of magic as opposed to lack of reading.
“My mother likes to keep a collection of modern day literature,” Loki explained as you paused by a shelf with far more vibrant covers, in stark juxtaposition to the leather-bound, muted tones of the other books. “Thor brings them back for her at Jane’s recommendations.”
“Who is Jane?” You asked, turning a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird over in your hands.
“Oh,” Loki laughed slightly. “She’s some mortal who somehow managed to enchant my brother into falling in love with her. It was quite ridiculous, to tell you the truth. She hit him with her car while he was in exile on Earth, and ever since then they’ve had the least amount of chemistry in a romantic pairing since my father and mother.”
“Ok-ay,” you said, giggling at his tasteless explanation. “I get the sense you do not approve?”
“That idiot goes to Earth once and comes back a changed man, crowing about the power of love and forgiveness, all that stupidity, as though falling in love can really change a person that much.”
You raised an eyebrow at him slowly, returning the book to the shelf and crossing your arms over your chest, not once looking away from him.
“What?” He asked, oblivious. “He’s an imbecile. I would never do that.”
“Of course. You’re Loki, you can’t be changed by something so insignificant as a human connection.”
“Darling, what on earth are you getting at? I feel as though I’m missing something.”
“Absolutely nothing,” you soothed. “On a completely unrelated note, can I get a kiss?”
“But of course!” Loki leaned forwards, and you had to fight to keep yourself from laughing at his ridiculous attitude. You failed miserably, and Loki pulled back, examining your face way closer than he needed to be. “What is so humorous?”
“You’re cute,” you said, well aware you were blushing as you voiced your thoughts, running a thumb over his bottom lip, tugging on it slightly.
“We came here to get books, and look at you, distracting me once again,” Loki chastised you, waving his finger at you, which only served to dissolve you further into giggles.
“I’m sorry!” You said in surrender, putting some good distance between the two of you, turning back to the bookshelf, but you couldn’t help the way your eyes slid back to Loki, hoping you could subtly admire him from afar, only to see him still watching you.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” You said accusingly.
“I was just thinking about how glad I am that you can’t read minds.” Loki gave you a sly grin, and you didn’t have to be a mind reader to tell he was thinking something most certainly explicit.
“Loki.” You grabbed a book, tossing it to him. “Try and read that, I’m sure it’ll help with those naughty thoughts of yours.”
“Did you just throw Candide at me to curb my libido?” He thumbed through the Voltaire book, grinning as he did so.
“I threw it at you so you’d shut up, Mr. We-came-here-to-get-books.” You gave him a sarcastic smile which he reciprocated in full, and you grabbed a book for yourself at random, making your way to one of the sitting areas and kicking back.
You quickly became engrossed in the text, losing all sense of time and space as you read, only coming to your senses when the light of day early day spilled into the library and Loki, who had settled down into a chair next to yours, nudged your foot with his.
“Good morning, princess,” he said, giving you that smile that gave you butterflies.
“Princess? Since when am I a princess? Technically, I could say Vormir has a monarchy, in which case I, the sole occupant, would have been queen.”
“Forgive me, my queen.” Loki inclined himself towards you, gently plucking the book you’d been reading from your hands and placing it on a nearby table. “However, now that it is the light of day, I believe we should have a small discussion of the information which has come to light.”
You sighed, chewing on your lip anxiously. He was right, you did have to talk about it, especially since the man from the dream had implied he would not stop searching for you, yet you wanted to forget it and burn that bridge when you came to it.
“Can I be honest with you, Loki? Free of judgement?”
“Free of verbal judgement, perhaps.”
You levelled a glare at him before speaking, wondering if you were making a mistake by speaking aloud. Some thoughts, once verbalized, became too large for one to master, to rein in or take back, and you had a feeling this was about to be one of those moments.
“I’m so sick of people seeing me for my powers and nothing beyond that,” you burst out, unable to restrain your mouth for a second longer. “The Avengers want me for my power, Fury wanted me for my power, and the man on Vormir created me for it. He killed for it. All so that they can assign me some sort of washed-up idea of a destiny. Well, you know what? I am done with people telling me what my responsibilities are. I’m my own person, a being beyond the powers I possess, and knowing my own soul, I reject any other input from people telling me who to be.
“If others are permitted free will, then why shouldn’t I be also? I should be allowed my own opportunities to be my own hero and my own villain, rather than a passive participant in my own life. I have already lived a hundred lives in which I had no claim to my individuality, and I shall not permit anyone to strip it from me again. I lay no claim to, nor have interest in my birthright. Birthrights are for those who never had it in them to create their own person. Beginning now, the only birthright I have is to finish what the stone started; destroying that man.”
Loki watched you wordlessly, digesting your words, and for a moment you thought he might genuinely not know what to say, so you plowed ahead on his behalf.
“I have already diverged from what I was meant to be. I was meant to be an unattainable power of sorts, perpetually above the other beings in this universe, and yet I find myself infatuated with you. This was not the life meant for me or you, and yet here we are, watching the sun rise in a palace on Asgard when the universe meant for us to be elsewhere. This is our world now, because it is what we made it to be.”
“You would give up the chance to actualize your full potential?” Loki fiddled with the cuffs of his shirt. “You would walk away from all of it?”
“I would walk away from a lifetime of servitude. It’s not who I am, Loki. I can’t even fake it. I’m not a god, I’m not above gods, I’m just…me.”
“Then I have nothing left to say, save that I will support you to the end.” He bowed his head slightly. “It is noble, what you mean to do. I suppose I never thought of destiny as something which expunges one’s free will, but you have always been of more mettle than I.”
“And yet you have always been the first to stand beside me, when the majority is undecided. To support those who vary from the blueprint takes a certain amount of daring in my opinion.” You reached for his hand, putting all the words you left unsaid into squeezing it. And by the way he ran his thumb over the back of your hand, you knew he understood.
“I will help you face this man, unreservedly,” Loki promised. “Despite the fact that loyalty is not in my nature.”
“I’m so happy to be your exception,” you said genuinely.
“Can I say something foolish?”
“It’s never stopped you before.”
“Ha ha.” He gave you an exasperated look. “I too have lived about a thousand years, and yet I have never felt as alive as I have as of late. I wanted to thank you, until you said that stupid comment.”
“How was that supposed to be something foolish?” You asked, following him as he stood up, gathering a few books to take with him.
“Sentiment in itself is ridiculous,” Loki declared. “Generally I have no use for it.”
“Sentiment as in feelings of affection or as in emotion altogether?” You couldn’t resist asking as you pushed the door open.
“A bit of both.” He seemed unperturbed by your jab. “How would you like to see my chambers?”
You raised an eyebrow, prepared to answer his loaded question in the affirmative, when Thor came barreling around the corner, his blond hair streaming behind him.
“There you two are! Come, Director Fury wishes to speak to us.”
“And since when do we indulge that man?” Loki rolled his eyes. “Tell him to leave a message.”
“He did. It’s on your computer,” Thor responded, dragging the two of you down the corridor.
“What were you doing on my computer?” Loki snapped, batting Thor’s hand away.
“Attempting to contact Stark. I wanted to send him design plans for my new room. I can’t have silk sheets, or else I’ll be shocking everyone until the end of time. Anyhow, Fury says that y/n knows how to set up a video call so that we can communicate.”
“How did you even get wifi up here?” You glanced up at the palace’s stunning and gigantic architecture as you passed under it. It didn’t look great for signal.
“I brought the wifi with me when we came up here initially,” Loki said. “Stark did say they have impressive range.”
“The wifi router,” you corrected. “Generally speaking, wifi is not a transportable object.”
“I literally do not care.” Loki, caring as always, marched into Thor’s room, where his laptop was open on a massive gold desk. You walked up to it, fiddling for a moment before you sent out a video conference request to Fury.
“Why is it so small?” Thor frowned at the screen as Fury’s face filled it.
“Because the laptop is that small,” you shot back, sitting down in Thor’s seat, ignoring his noise of protest.
“Thor, Loki, Anubis,” Fury said, nodding to all of you in turn. “Thank you for sitting down with me.”
“Oh, it was optional?” Loki reached for the books he’d set down on the desk. “In that case…”
“Loki,” you and Thor said at the same time. Sighing, the raven-haired man stilled, moving his hands instead to your shoulders, thumbs rubbing small circles on them out of the view of the camera.
“I wanted to discuss what occurred in New York,” Fury said, steepling his hands. “Miraculously, it didn’t cause that much damage outside of the unfortunate demolition of the tower, but the assailant has thus far been unidentified.”
“We have no idea,” Thor said. “We assumed it was an adversary of Stark’s.”
You stilled, suddenly fearful that the feline women could have been attributed to the man in your dream. She hadn’t seemed human, that was for sure.
“Y/n?” Your body language did not go unnoticed by Fury. “Anything you’d like to share?”
Suddenly the screen went dark, a loud crunch filling your ears. Loki was standing there, the wifi router emitting smoke from where it had been crushed in between his hand and the desk. Unsympathetically, he let out a small “whoops”.
“Loki?” Thor rounded on his brother. “Why did you do that?”
“I noticed it was letting out an odd sound. I thought I might be able to fix it; I’d seen Stark bang his electronics against the nearest surfaces on quite a few occasions in attempt to get them to function appropriately. Sadly it appears I picked the most inopportune moment to be incorrect.”
You whispered your thanks to Loki as the two of you left Thor’s chambers, headed towards Loki’s.
“He will ask again the moment he gets the chance, probably more suspicious than before,” Loki warned you. “Do you think that girl and the man are related?”
You shook your head. “I can’t tell. He simply said that he had people willing to follow him, but he didn’t seem to know where I was, for now at least.”
“I’ll have Heimdall keep an eye out,” Loki said earnestly. “The man will not be able to enter Asgard without coming through the Bifrost, and so the safest place for you is here. Heimdall will be able to observe the Nine Realms, and make sure he does not come close.”
“Thank you, Loki. I mean it.”
“Out of curiosity,” Loki said, his voice dropping a few octaves as so not to be overheard by passing palace workers. “If you had to restore the man to his former god-like power, would you be able to?”
“The damage that was done to him was done at the hand of the soul stone. I cannot reverse that.”
“But technically you are the soul stone.”
You stopped for a moment, before pulling him into an alcove, vanishing his books with a wave of your hand so the two of you could fit.
“Listen pretty boy. The infinity stones – that’s what the soul stone is – dictate the laws of nature, and because of that, they can violate them. But the damage of the singular stone cannot be undone by that singular stone alone. If I had more of them, perhaps I could undo the effects of the soul stone upon his physical person, but I couldn’t bring back his wife. I am bound by magical limitations just as much as you are.”
Loki just grinned at you, the tip of his nose just a few centimetres from your face. “I love it when you lecture me, darling,” he purred in that seductive voice of his, and the remnants of your explanation drained from you as your gaze floated to his lips. “And calling me a pretty boy? How my lady loves to flatter me so.”
“Your lady, huh?” You raised your hands as much as you could in the tight space, smoothing them over his chest. “Alright, let’s go back to your room.”
Loki just smirked, those dark lashes fluttering. “I knew I’d convince you eventually.” Without further ado, he swooped you up in his arms, carting you off to the unknown.