The Forgotten Prince
Asgard
Many Years Before
The princes stormed through the palace.
Well, the elder, Thor, stormed. It would be more accurate to say his twin, Loki, stalked. He was a smooth and silent shadow behind Thor’s blustering presence.
“Father!” Thor boomed.
Loki seized his brother’s vambrace urgently. “Thor, now is not-”
“Father!”
The king, Odin, turned away from his counselors with a scowl. “What is it?” he snapped. “This is a very tense time-”
“Father, we must not let this insult to Asgard stand,” Thor rapped out, gesturing effusively at nothing in particular. “The Kree have disrespected us one too many times! And on top of this latest wound, they have attacked our military outpost the day before the peace treaty was to be signed!”
Loki stepped to the side to force Thor to look at him. “Brother, listen. You have no proof that it was sanctioned by their government-”
“Enough, Loki! This peace treaty was your idea, and it has failed! You are naught but an obstruction to the throne! Father, please. Let me lead an assault on their home planet-”
“How can you expect to be a good diplomat if you can’t even be bothered to recall the name of a people’s homeworld?” Loki said, voice forceful yet deceptively polite.
Odin held up a hand. “Enough. Thor, you’ve made your position clear. Loki, your judgment?”
Loki straightened and ordered his thoughts. “There is no reason this attack should cause Asgard to break off negotiations with the Kree. It is well-known that they have many militarized tribes on the outskirts of their cities who answer to no government. There is already a clause in the peace treaty which would require the Kree oligarchy to actively challenge those groups and contain their assaults on Asgardian outposts and civilians alike. As there is no evidence whatsoever linking the attack to an official Kree military unit, it seems most prudent to sign the treaty and ensure the oligarchy knows that they will be expected to punish all future attacks. As it is, their army has been stretched too thin fighting our own to focus on the anarchic tribes, which pose a much lesser threat to the stability of the Kree society.”
“Tis ridiculous,” Thor snarled. “That we should let this go unpunished - Father! You’re not considering this proposal-”
“I am not,” Odin said, looking down his nose at Loki. No mean feat, given that Loki himself was several handswidths taller. “Loki, you make note of several salient points, yet Thor is correct. The insult is too grave.”
“For a military unit unattached to the government and unbound by the cease-fire to attack an outpost of the army that has been on Kree soil fighting them for a century and a half? Really? That’s a grave insult?”
“Their motives matter not,” Odin growled. “We cannot tolerate any attack on Asgard’s army whatsoever. Loki, I suggest you go speak with the Kree delegation. Thor, come with me, we must begin planning the invasion…”
The king led his elder son away, toward his other warriors. Among them were several high-level generals, Lady Sif, and the Warriors Three. Sif and the Warriors smirked at Loki; clearly, they’d overheard some part of the argument.
Loki didn’t let any of his fury and indignation show on his face as he gave them a cool nod and strode out of the throne room. This was ridiculous. Who had solved the baelor’s riddle and saved all their hides when Hogun dragged them into that cave in search of a treasure that didn’t exist? Who had rallied Thor’s friends when the golden prince himself fell to the poisoned barbs of the alken on Vanaheim, and led the battle against it? Who had saved their lives from the bilgesnipe that Thor and Volstagg woke on a dare from Fandral by casting an illusion that enticed it off a cliff? Loki. He could match any of them in battle and was one of the most powerful seidr masters in living history, trained by Frigga herself. And he was a prince of Asgard, one of two heirs to the throne. Yet they cast him aside as if his opinion mattered no more than that of an illicit peasant raised in the far reaches of Midgard’s poles!
He registered that his icy demeanor was causing people to dodge out of his way in the hallways, and took a moment of brief and vicious pleasure from it. He was not well liked and less understood, here in Asgard’s palace, the one member of the elite warrior class who was lean and fast rather than blunt and forceful and bound in muscles. Loki almost snorted. He was in excellent shape and could run far longer, move far faster, than Thor. He much preferred his own build.
Even if it got him shunned.
He braced himself as he approached the palace wing reserved for visiting ambassadors. It was a gesture of respect for him to visit them personally rather than summoning the Kree ambassador and his retinue to Loki’s personal audience chamber. They’d take it as rudeness, mockery perhaps, that he had come here only to throw the gesture in their faces with the denial of the peace treaty. It was better than summoning the delegation and appearing as the haughty Asgardian second prince, lording his position above the simpler society he had decided not to assist.
Loki resisted a snarl. He knew exactly what would happen. Sending him off with this task ensured he would become the face for Kree hatred of Asgard. And while Loki’s list of aliases included the Liesmith and the Trickster Prince, he had no desire to add Traitor Prince to that list by revealing details of Asgardian state decisions and who had made them to the Kree.
He could. He could be honest with the Kree ambassador.
But as he nodded curtly to the guards and they opened the golden doors to the Kree’s suites, he knew he shouldn’t, and probably wouldn’t. He had a duty. To his brother, and his king.
A Kree woman was sitting in the antechamber to their suite of rooms. She leaped up when she saw him. “Your Highness!” She poured herself into a startlingly graceful curtsey. “What may I do for you this afternoon?”
“Take me to see Ambassador Yanden, please.”
“Of course. Right this way, Your Highness.”
Loki was shown to a familiar receiving chamber that he had visited often over the centuries, sometimes as a guest, sometimes while wearing the guise of the ambassador presently occupying those rooms. He settled himself into the seat on the guest’s side of the desk and waited.
Ambassador Yanden strode in minutes later, looking perfectly sharp. Loki still detected an elevation to the man’s pulse. He’d been moving quickly.
“Good afternoon, Your Highness!”
The dark prince of Asgard sighed and pressed a finger to his temple, knowing Yanden would catch the motion and pick up on the tension.
Yanden slowed, and moved around the desk at a more stately pace. “It seems that I may have spoken too soon. Is there a problem with the treaty?”
“Of sorts,” Loki said. “In that the Allfather has decided to suspend negotiations.”
Yanden froze. Loki waited several seconds before the ambassador replied, “Your Highness, I believe I may have misheard. Asgard wishes to suspend negotiations?”
“Yes.”
“May I inquire as to why?” Despite the polite words, Yanden’s tone was icy, snappish.
Loki eyed the other man. This was unpleasant. He actually liked the Kree ambassador, which was an infrequent occurrence. The Liesmith was notorious for having few, if any, friends. “If I were the Allfather, or Prince Thor, I would say no to that question,” he said quietly. “However, out of the respect that I believe has grown between us over the years of negotiation on this treaty, I will tell you that it is the opinion of Asgard’s crown that yestereve’s attack on the Asgardian military outpost was an act of war and thus breaks the conditions of the cease-fire. Such an action on the part of the Kree oligarchy cannot be tolerated during a mutually accepted cease-fire. Therefore, Asgard will be indefinitely withdrawing from negotiations on any peace between our realms.” He chose each word carefully, hoping to the Norns that Yanden would read the subtext.
Yanden’s face grew darker with every word. When Loki finished, he spat, “That attack had nothing to do with the Kree government. We have been opposing such militant groups for decades, and have done nothing because our armies are occupied fighting Asgard. Tell the Allfather to consider that before he makes this decision.”
Loki caught the double meaning: Yanden knew the decision had come from the one person of higher rank than Loki in this court: the king himself.
“He has already considered it,” Loki said quietly. “The decision is final.”
Yanden’s face was taut with fury. “I expect I need not tell you that the Kree government is not going to react well.”
“I am aware of the repercussions.”
“Yes, I thought you would be.” Yanden considered the dark-haired Asgardian for a moment. “Your Highness, I am overstepping the bounds of propriety to say this, but as things are already irreparably fractured between our respective leaders, I have nothing left to lose by giving you this warning. And something to gain.”
“What warning?” Loki snapped, focusing sharply on the blue-skinned Kree, wondering if there was an attack of some kind being planned, or an ambush-
“It is because I respect you, as you respect me, that I say this. You are aware that sometimes it is… difficult to see a situation clearly when one is too close.”
Loki nodded stiffly.
Yanden continued, each word a boulder, eyes fastened on the prince. “I see with fresh eyes the balance of power in this palace, Your Highness, and it rests with the Allfather first, then Prince Thor, then you. I know you and your brother are twins, thus the Allfather has yet to name his heir. You have been raised on the belief that you would one day be a king.” He leaned forward, face intense. “But they will never permit you to sit on that throne.”
Loki was grateful, then, for the centuries of experience he’d accumulated at hiding his expressions behind a pleasant, blank mask. He was sure that none of his fury was outwardly visible as he dipped his head once and said, “I thank you for your candor.”
Yanden bowed and left.
And over the following years, as the peace treaty collapsed in cinders and Thor dragged Odin and the rest of Asgard by the hair into a foolish, pointless war, Loki watched. He mastered the anger he’d felt that Yanden, a Kree ambassador, of all people, had been the first to notice the truth. He thought of his childhood, the countless memories of Thor and Sif and the Warriors Three running through the gardens while Loki struggled to keep up, of spending more and more time with his books and his mother, learning seidr and her style of fighting, because he knew where he was unwelcome.
It was a seed, really. Planted in his mind, just a speck that occasionally sent out a shoot into a childhood memory that had once been innocent and pure. And slowly Loki realized that Yanden’s words had wiped a film from his eyes.
He did not like the truths that he came to understand.