Conversation Spiraling out of Control
The dark walls seemed to seep with desperation and frustration, timid yellow light emanating and brightening the staircase spiraling downstairs laid out in front of you. Whatever that light was it seemed to function as one of the dungeon’s only light sources, for you merely detected smaller bits of fire roaring in golden bowls in the corners at times. Only few guards passed you as you practically tiptoed your way through the hallways, yellow to orange cape fastened to their golden armor and flowing behind as they walked, golden horns catching some of the yellow glow in their shiny appearance. These helmets looked rather similar to what the Alien-God wore when you first saw him on the news.
Your shoes continued to make soft noises against the ground carved from stone before you came to a halt once the cramped alley made way for a gigantic, wide room. You were overwhelmed by the sheer amounts of prisoners locked into the cells, often more than one huddled together in one. The frames were made of engraved stone with a shimmering yellow barrier filling in the holes like window panels—one cubicle looking just as bland and empty of any kind of furniture as the next, while the inhabitants only appeared to get more dangerous the further your eyes travelled along. The white walls surrounding the inmates on the inside probably didn’t help in keeping their sanity intact.
A few more guards were stationed somewhere in the long hallway which led across the entire room; a middle path through the rows of prison cells lined up to the edge of the hall. Two were keeping watch on the entrance you just stepped out of and you gave them a timid smile on the way, before walking further into the open space.
“Hello again, Little One.”
You whirled around to meet the owner of the familiar and calm, but slightly irritated voice, standing face to face with the black haired Alien Princeling, only separated by a dim glow—the barrier encasing the engraved pillars. His posture seemed as princely as always; up straight with his hands folded neatly behind his back and a look of utter superiority gracing his sharp features and pale complexion. With a tilt of your head you noted his clothing to be different, something more akin to a dark green bathrobe of sorts with a leather coat over it. Perhaps the leather part was slightly familiar—looking as if merely stripped off of the golden armor parts. The metallic, ancient-looking shackles were also gone from his wrists and you couldn’t say you missed the rattling noises they had produced at times.
Apparently his cell was the only one with any kind of furniture whatsoever. There was a bed placed in the far right corner, something that resembled a washing basin to the left, a chair and stool in the middle as well as two tables with a book placed on top of one—many more collected and stacked in another corner.
At least it was halfway acceptable looking. Better than nothing.
“Hi again, Alien-God.”
If he was belittling you with that stupid nickname of his, you would surely return the favor. It seemed to work, for you noticed with a veiled grin how his expression had grown even more dark for a split second. Apparently you had hit a nerve.
“Now, to what do I owe the honour of your presence?”
The sarcasm was heavy with this one you grimaced, shifting your weight from one foot to the next in hopes of distracting your nerves. Calm steps brought you around the corner of his cell to stand slightly more secluded, being agitated by the guards mere existence.
You collected your thoughts before responding,
“You. You still didn’t answer all my questions.”
“Oh, have I not?”
His gaze turned to the side for a moment, look of utter annoyance crossing his face before his green eyes returned to stare at you with a light tilt of his head.
“If answering your questions means that you will further leave me alone—Fine. What is it you wish to know?”
There was a certain way his inner mind screamed at you with a feeling of loneliness and fearing to be abandoned; it made you bite down on your lip, resisting the urge to call him out on his contradictory behavior.
“I want to know,” you spoke, voice clear with curiosity as well as determination, “I want to know what happened.”
“I am afraid you will have to be more specific,” he responded, shifting in his stance to stroll around his cell with calm, deliberate steps. His hand reached to elegantly sweep his fingertips over the cover of the book lying on the wooden table to his left, golden font adorning the cover reflecting the light as he regarded it with barely a hint of interest.
You took a step closer to him, annoyed by his apparent need to make you feel irrelevant and dispensable.
“What was it that made you attack New York?”
He paused, by now standing almost exactly in the middle of the room with his back turned to you and you noted how his hand twitched ever so slightly, how he seemed to take in a deep breath before answering.
“I was merely claiming my birthright.”
The words he spoke were deep, controlled. As if he had recited them over and over in his head, perhaps to reassure himself of the truth in it—a truth you refused to find.
“Certainly not.”
Your voice matched his in level, almost taunting him to show you his real face—who was he beneath all of that confidence? The mixture of apathy and ignorance, of indifference and disgust.
“Earth has nothing to do with you and your possible birthright—“
“I was a king!”
His entire body whipped around so quickly your mind could barely process it and his yell shredded the otherwise calm atmosphere of the dungeons below the kingdom so harshly, you feared the nearby guards to arrive and drag you right back out.
But nothing happened.
Yes, the dungeons. A disastrous place leaking of distress and devastation—a place to hide away the monsters created over the course of decades, millennia and eons.
You watched the furious expression of the prince as he stood before you, black hair clinging to his face as his ragged breathing tore through gritted teeth, a clenched jaw.
“Not of Earth.” you replied, bringing your face closer to the barrier separating you.
By now, being so very close to his face you noticed that his jaw looked almost as if on the brink of snapping; air blowing out of his nose in aggravated puffs as he apparently tried to calm himself. You watched as his posture relaxed slightly, a smirk replacing the grimace on his lips.
“I would have almost been—And it would not have hurt you, rather benefitted your rotten kind.”
“I strongly beg to differ, oh glorious king,” your voice had turned into a sneer, mocking him with how you imitated his tone and dragged his beloved wanna-be title into the very dirt, “Seeing how you murdered most of your new almost subjects on a whim.”
“These people were but discardable obstacles in my way,” he continued on, words sounding just as forcefully strung together before pressing his face closer to the yellow glow separating you, mirroring your enraged movement and staring you down with his intense glare.
That was not all there was and you knew it, you felt it. From what you had heard, most of the deaths were at the aliens’—the Chitauri’s—hands and your mind immediately shifted back to his memories, back to when you made him recall your first encounter. How there seemed to be something in the back of your head, cutting in and correcting you. Correcting staff with scepter, murder with incapacitate and fury with panic—
Still, your very own fury at his seeming indifference outweighed the need to understand whatever the loving hell that meant, your own emotions outweighing the unknown corrections. Indifference—regarding the human lives which had been involved, involuntarily involved. People had died, you had heard some of their last cries and they echoed in your head right this moment as the same terror you had felt back then coursed right through you once more.
Indifference.
Even your very own life had been in danger; if the scepter hadn’t managed to kill you, the knife still had had the chance. He just missed his chance.
You clenched your hands to fists and opened your mouth for a shout.
“You almost murdered me too—sorry for my strong sentiments!”
There was a sudden pause, green eyes trailing your face. Once more you felt the conflict raging within him, the turmoil turning and twisting his insides; but the smirk that didn’t seem genuine in the least made you toss all your feelings of probable regret and pity, sympathy and whatnot right out of the window.
“I can’t believe I felt sorry for you.” you said, before a sudden laugh ripped out of your throat in exasperation and interrupted you.
“I mean—sorry for what? New York? Your punishment?”
You turned your face to the side, refusing to meet his gaze and glancing at the stone wall instead, following the engraved lines with your eyes while crossing your arms over your chest.
“And of whatever these stupid memories of yours are.”
There was another pause and when you looked back over to him, you caught him narrowing his eyes at you.
“Memories?”
“Oh right,” you said, “You can’t remember.”
For some reason you had enough playing nice with him. Honesty was your strong suit; an important quality of yours as well as one you valued in others, and seeing him still trying to mask everything, despite you feeling his outer behavior to be horribly false deeply struck you as frustrating. It felt like an umbrella not opening while you were standing in the pouring rain, toast falling onto its buttered side whenever it fell no matter from which height—
There was a hint of a burning twinge welling up from within you, but you carried on, far too deep in rage and a tiny amount of fear to stop yourself from giving in to the fuel.
“It’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you. But as it is, helping you isn’t my priority anymore.”
Taking apart everything you had just said would make for another day.
Your priority? Since when?
“These memories of your brother and father—
“Useless memories then?” he interjected, an expression which held both characteristics of a smirk and a snarl gracing his slightly opened mouth and lips.
“You say that as if they have never loved you—“ you halted, remembering his father’s hostility, “—Like your brother has never loved you.”
“My brother never loved me,” he all but spat against the barrier, teeth bared in a growl as he glowered at you. Enormous amounts of rage as well as deep grief were dripping from his words and posture, even in the way his eyebrows twitched and knitted on his forehead, the way his eyes moved around in short, abrupt movements.
“Oh sure he does. I know it because I’ve seen it.” You took a deep breath to calm yourself while bits and pieces of the memories mixed with what you had seen in Thor mere minutes ago.
“Because I’ve felt it.”
He turned around as if considering to pace through the room, hands clenching and unclenching tightly into fists before his attention directed itself at you once more.
“Then—per chance— tell me why he had shoved me down the Bifrost Bridge? Why he had attempted to murder me while I had poured everything I had into saving this wretched realm?”
“He didn’t push you! He tried to keep you from letting go!”
The memory replayed right inside your mind while you fought the underlying hint of fire under your tongue, burning you as you spoke.
“You are lying. I do remember the memory you are referring to—I still hold it. It was not nearly how you described it.”
Silence.
Everything was still as his words rang through your head and lingered in the room suffocating you—like walls inching closer in adventure movies—suffocating you with its implications.
Him? Accusing you? Of lying?
Apart from the fact that this could not possibly be more false—regarding your high value of honesty—it also couldn’t be possible in general. Even though precisely controlling your abilities wasn’t exactly your expertise, you knew he couldn’t have them anymore because you took them. The fact that he was unable to remember your first actual encounter was enough proof of this theory.
You tried your best to keep your voice calm as you spoke,
“I’m not lying.”
His expression was pointed as he stood almost agonizingly still, face barely a hair’s length from the barrier separating you, eyes boring into you. A rough breath escaped his parted lips in a shudder without his look fraying from yours, drop of sweat running down his oddly pale skin.
“Oh I know that you do. I am the God of Lies for a reason.”
Every word was pronounced carefully, forcefully separated from each other as if he tried to mock you in not understanding the meaning behind it. As if pretending he was speaking to a mere child.
You felt desperate, so very truly desperate, stress twisting your mind into little knots while you uselessly fumbled and twisted to break them apart. With a hurried motion your hand gripped into your clothes to suppress the sudden burst of agony surging through you like lightning split the sky above, practically clawing at the fabric as if wishing to hold onto your beating heart to coax it to rest.
“I’m not lying. Listen Loki—“
“Do not call me by my first name, mortal,” he cut through your words like a sharpened blade and you fell silent in an instant, “If I were not contained in this cell, I would murder you were you stand—“
His speech didn’t even manage to stab you like he had intended as a wheeze tore through his words, hand flying to his chest and clutching the green fabric covering it. At the exact same time you fell to your knees mirroring him, molten lava running through your veins rendering you unable to communicate. Your vision blurred with salty tears, dark specs dancing around to the rhythm of your beating heart, the melody of the painful groans coming from the Prince and your labored breathing mingling together, while you took on a fetal position on the ground. Fingers pressing themselves into your stomach as if it would cease the agony.
It burned you. From inside out.
Your thoughts ran wild before dying out completely, before your body fell limp.
Before you fainted and succumbed to the darkness.