Disclaimer: The plot and characters of the MCU are not even slightly mine. This story is in no way for sale or profit. The song "Mordred's Lullaby" belongs to Heather Dale. The plot of this story is mine; feel free to link to this story, but please do not repost this elsewhere without permission.

This story is set after the events of Thor: The Dark World, and is non-compliant to any subsequent events in the MCU.

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Prologue

A Song of Ice and Shadows

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In a time beyond time, in a place with no name, through a door carved in the roots of the World Tree that lies somewhere beyond the Infinity Haze, three creatures crouched around a bottomless well. The well bubbled and frothed, and its depths were clouded with drifting silver mist.

"Do you have it, Sister?" said one.

"I have it here with me, Sister," said another

"Bring it forth, Sister," said the third, "and let it be done."

The creature drew from the folds of her cloak a weathered pouch. Releasing the draw string, the worn fabric fell open. In the palm of her hand rested a glittering shard of ice so cold that it puckered the material of the pouch that touched it. It was black as night, and glinted with white pinpricks reminiscent of diamond stars gone rogue in the inky void of deep space. It hummed in the wide vast nowhere of the nameless place, a rich, deep, haunting melody, laced with magic and sorrow and vengeance and love.

"What is it, Sister?"

"Why, Sister, it is a song."

The second creature extended one long, pale finger into the seething deeps of the well, crooking it coaxingly again and again, until at last she drew back. Around the bend in her finger was snagged a gossamer thread. It sparkled and glowed and resisted her pull, insistent upon remaining as one with the boiling liquid morass. But the creature insisted as well, and it separated, bowing up out of the misty miasma, drawn taut, both ends yet anchored in separate, far distant places in the abyss below.

"A song, Sister?"

"Oh, aye, Sister. A song made of ice and shadows."

The third creature, eldest and strongest of the three, reached forth and delicately lifted the glittering shard of ice with the barest touch of thumb and forefinger. Even so, the pads of her fingers began to crack and blacken almost immediately. With nimble grace born of ageless practice, she brought the shard to the thread, and swiftly bound the thread around it. The shard pulsed triumphantly, pulling the thread into itself like a mother drawing her child into her arms, until the thread was no longer one unbroken line, but two slender shafts of silver piercing down on separate paths from the same frozen, inky origin of ice and starlight. The vibrations of its song intensified, and an instant later the reverberations traveled down the length of the threads, carrying the melody to those two distant points in the abyss, so very far apart, but now eternally bonded at a crooked angle.

"For ice and shadow."

"For blood and birth."

"For a mother's love and a mother's curse."

"For a king three times denied…"

"…and the three queens that will crown him."

They raised their voices together.

"For the vast unending Night, for She who sleeps between the stars, for the will of our Mother and the sake of our brother, do we prophesy and decree!"

Slowly, reverently, the creature lowered the shard, pulled by the strands, into the seething soup, and released it. It vanished instantly, dashed down into the bottomless well by the pull of the threads.

"The deed is done! The seed is planted! The debt is paid!"

Wide-eyed, the creatures leaned over and peered down into eternity.

"I see it, Sisters! Long and lonely is the path, winding through wonder and loss. Gods become mortal, and mortals becoming gods. A terrible and twisting trail of treachery and lies. Must it be so, Sisters? Must it be so?"

"Oh, aye, Sister. Their legend was written from the beginning, and it shall ring through the ages, in every time and every place."

"So it must be, lest song of ice and shadows echo on forever."

"So say the Norns!" they proclaimed as one, their voice reverberating outside of place and time and folding in and through the silvery haze over the infinite depths of the well, etching the words in the roiling waters as though in stone. "May the Lord and Lady of the Lost Lands reign forever beyond the Infinity Haze!"

Then creatures lapsed into silence then. Listening. Watching.

Waiting.

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Many ages earlier, or else in the distant future…

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The Aether descended; a liquid cloud of infinite night. The high pinnacles of the eternal city were caught in its miasma. They blackened, transforming until all light that touched them was swallowed up, and their inky darkness became visible only as a gaping absence of being. The people screamed and ran as the seething cloud of nothingness slithered ever nearer. Chaos erupted as they scrambled for shelter from this force no shelter could hope to stand against.

But Asgard stood against it nonetheless. Even as Prince Thor battled the Svartalves upon Midgard, the magic masters wove defenses of light and sorcery. The Einherjar stood in ranks, a bright barrier of burnished gold, and crossed shield and sword to reflect the light, their weapons and armor gleaming and sparkling in the glittering green glow of enchantment. Asgard shone, a beacon in the darkness, and for a time the darkness was driven back in places. But it could not hold forever.

In the midst of the fray and confusion, the All Father directed his troops, ever vigilant even against an enemy that no sword could cut, nor spear pierce, nor shield deflect. Some he sent to bolster the magic masters, others he charged with corralling the terrified civilians to safety, if such a place could be said to exist anymore. They would stand to the last, the first and last defense against any foe that threatened the might of the Realm Eternal.

Odin sent them on, squad after squad, until only his honor guard remained.

"With me," he barked, sweeping out of the throne room down a side passage with sure, purposeful steps that belied his weary, aching, hopeless state. They would take a shortcut to the Bridge. He would stand at the fore of his men, and the champions of the nine realms, who had turned back every enemy ever faced, would die on their feet, charging into battle, as warriors of Asgard.

With he faceless enemy looming without, none of those remaining inside the castle ever expected an attack from within.

As they moved through the high narrow corridor towards the secret passage to the gate, a deeper darkness flickered in the shadows of the columns an instant before one of the guards cried out. The handle of a throwing knife sprouted from the gap in his armor at his throat and he crumpled to polished stone, rolling swaths of blood blossoming from his still form.

The remaining guards came instantly alert in deadly concert. Blades rang free of scabbards as armor and shields clattered into familiar stances of readiness. Odin, too, lowered Gungnir to the ready, though it drooped in an uncharacteristic display of weakness. But weary as he was, his eye was sharp as he searched the shadows for the next attack.

Without fanfare, it came, swift, brutal, effective. The foe seemed to be everywhere at once, darting like a serpent between the shadows.

A swish and whisper of a blade slicing the air, and two guards fell, fountaining blood, their slayer vanished faster than Odin could turn to strike. There was a cracking snap, and Odin turned again to see a third topple, his head twisted to an unnatural angle. A flash of green caught the corner of his sight as two more guards began to scream. The king turned in time to see them burst into acidic green flames that consumed their flesh in mere moments. The clatter of falling armor did not quite drown out the rattle of charred bones against the stone floor.

Odin swayed, dizzied by adrenaline and fear that would never show on his face. He gathered himself. Prepared. His breathing slowed, quieted. He listened.

There was the barest sound of a footfall behind him. He swung the spear, blazing a trail of golden fire as it bisected the air around him. For an instant, the shadowy silhouette was illuminated – an instant before the final guard was flung through the air into the path of Gungnir's fury.

Odin instantly ceased fire, horrified, but there was no time to grieve the young soldier, as a force struck him full in the chest, throwing him off his feet. Marble cracked and chips of stone flew from the crater he made in the wall. Gungnir was wrenched from his grasp. The world swam. Darkness tinged with gold blackened the edges of his vision. For some time the strain of the Sleep had pulled at him, and he had pushed it aside, waiting for Thor to at last ascend to the throne. But the Dark Elves had attacked, and the pall had descended. Time was up. The sleep was upon him

The shadows shifted.

"Show yourself!" Odin commanded, his voice strong though he could not longer even stand. "I would look upon the face of my killer before I die!"

"Am I your killer?"

The swish of blue fabric fluttered into the light. Odin thought he felt his ancient heart stop beating as his breath caught in his throat and unfathomable pain tore through his chest.

"Or are you mine?"

"Frigga…" he whispered brokenly.

She stepped from the shadows, straight, proud, graceful, heartrendingly beautiful. His dead queen advanced slowly, an expression of rage and hate colder and darker than the blackest pits of Helheim twisting her dear face.

"I was yours to protect," she hissed, advancing. From the folds of her gown flashed a blade. "I should have been your heart, your dearest treasure. Nothing should have reached me. And you let me die!"

The blade was cold against his throat, cold as ice, and the hand that held it shook with the misery and grief swimming in those eyes… those emerald eyes…

The pain in Odin's chest transformed, deepened and broadened, lit with the smallest, faintest spark of joy and relief sunk under a cold crushing ocean of sorrow.

"Loki…"

Frigga's eyes went wide, draining of their rage, until only agony remained. Green light flashed and Frigga's beloved face melted away leaving the pale, vengeful visage of his second son crouched over him, the blade in his hand still fast against his flesh.

"You let her die," he growled through clenched teeth.

The tremor in his hand drew a thin line of blood at the old king's throat. An angry tear slid from the corner of his eye. The muscles and veins in his face and neck strained, as though he were fighting to bring the blade down – or fighting to keep himself in check. Odin saw the war raging in his eyes on a field of hopes shattered to jagged shards under leaden skies of grief. His broken boy…

Abruptly, another mind, with eyes of onyx that gleamed with pinprick diamond glints, like a spray of stars across the deeps of the cosmos, glared down at him from the verdant shine of Loki's green eyes.

Oh, Nott… It wasn't supposed to be this way… I'm sorry…

He suddenly, irrationally, needed Loki to know. The truth of his birth – all of it, not the strategic half-truths he'd delivered in the weapons vault, nor the stunted, guilt-driven proclamation at his sentencing. The reality the boy deserved to know at last.

Odin's secret shame.

"My son…"

But his sight was fading, and the last thing he saw before the golden glow of the Odinsleep dragged him under was Loki raising the dagger to plunge it into his heart.

"I am not your son."

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Jane watched, stricken, as Thor's towering form was swallowed up by the black and red gale. Her eyes flicked restlessly between the control module in her hand and the wall of shrieking darkness that the Aether had become. She couldn't see him any more. But in her mind's eye she could see the Aether expanding, consuming, destroying, felt its frigid, inhuman longing for unmaking. She wanted to scream for him to come back, to take her hand and run, even though there was nowhere left to go.

Ever since the liquid darkness had invaded her, gods had been falling in her defense. Frigga had died in defense of her. How many soldiers of Asgard had they sent to their pyres with her, all because she had wandered into something she didn't understand and walked into their midst carrying a deadly danger? And Loki… she closed her eyes for a moment, before forcing herself to turn her eyes back to the screen. Loki had put his body between her and danger more than once, for reasons she could barely fathom, and while he had not actually died defending her, he would not have been there in the Dark World in the first place to be impaled on an iron spike if it were not for her sticking her hands in places they didn't belong...

She wanted them back. Just for a moment. Long enough to ask why.

Frigga and the Einherjar she could understand. They were not defending only her, but the Aether, the weapon that would unmake everything. But Loki… the Aether had been taken from her body by then, and she had been nothing more than another fragile, disposable human, no different than the countless people he'd caused to be slaughtered when he tried to conquer her world.

Why did these shining near-immortal beings fight so hard for humans? For her?

Now Thor was diving head-first into a seething mass of pure destruction. For the good of them all, yes. But she had sent him there. She, who was too weak to go herself, too pitifully fragile for even gods to protect without suffering for it. She swore softly, clenching her teeth, wanting desperately to scream out her frustration and helplessness.

Instead, she took a shaky breath. And made herself sing. It was only three lines, over and over. A lullaby she had heard in her dreams since she was a child. Her chest swelled with longing and wonder, and not a little courage as the song filled her mind and her mouth.

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Loki's downward swing faltered and halted as Odin's eyes slid closed. The old man lay there, weak and vulnerable. As good as dead. Deserving death - a thousand deaths more painful than a knife in the heart for all the lies and the failures, the betrayals, the broken promises.

An old melody, a lullaby, something out of his dreams, from before the pretty lie of his childhood had been shattered, was echoing in his head, a product, no doubt of some specter of guilt and longing.

He stared at the man he'd called father for over a thousand years. When had he grown so old? He'd been here before, he realized, crouching over the old king's fallen form, torn ragged with emotion he ill knew what to do with. Emotion ripping at him from the fresh horror of learning he was no Aesir prince, but a stolen monster being kept like a particularly dangerous pet…

Pain, burning and immediate, flooded his veins with fire. He raised the blade again, teeth clenched, chest heaving. His muscles bunched painfully poised to slaughter. The blade flashed. It fell.

And clattered to the stone floor.

Loki followed an instant later, going from the balls of his feet to his knees. There he crumpled against the slumbering king's form, clutching Odin's sleeves and pressing his forehead to his breastplate.

"Father… Father…"

The whispered plea did not make it farther than the space between his lips and the cold metal, and silent tears washed them away. He broke against the old king's sleeping form like waves crashing against the cliffs. He rode the surging tides of pain and rage and sorrow, lost, adrift, clinging irrationally to the very one who constantly destroyed him, the one who's pride he had only ever aspired to obtain, the one whose pride he now abhorred because it could never be anything more or less than a lie.

He rode the waves of grief and anger and shame for his mother - for her death and his part in it, for the final kiss he could not bestow upon her cold brow, and the funeral barge he could not light to send her to her ancestors. Because this man had locked him in a cage.

And he was rocked violently between searing jealousy and desperate regret to imagine Thor, his one time brother, the treasured natural son of Odin, the beloved true child of Frigga. The ideal he had admired, and to which he had always aspired. The height from which he had always fallen short.

Another face flashed through his mind, a face that should hold little to no weight, meaningless and incidental, yet it threatened to tip him over into the boiling sea of pain and madness. Why now did he see Jane Foster in his mind? Well, of course… she was the one who embodied every person who had ever chosen and adored Thor. Always Thor, always…

He wanted so much to hate them all.

He clung there, absent to the passage of time, until at length the turbulent currents of his mind calmed and his shaking stilled. The jagged ruin of his heart was scooped back up and tucked away into darkness as his mind regained some semblance of purpose; of cunning and ambition, and lies and even mischief.

When he straightened and rose, his air and countenance were calm and controlled, his expression edged with dark amusement.

He stared thoughtfully down at the sleeping king at his feet.

"Isn't this an interesting development," he commented to no one, his voice rasping slightly from his show of emotion.

He glanced up and down the passage. A wave of his hand, and the blood and bodies and all evidence of battle melted away in a cascade of green luminescence and were hidden. His eyes fell once more on Odin. His face stretched into a grim smile.

"Very interesting indeed…"

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The lullaby left Jane suddenly, almost as if it could retreat from her voice on its own. It had served its purpose. Her mind had focused and found its true course, and the clamoring doubts constricting her chest had quieted.

She opened eyes that she had not realized had drifted closed. The spike flared to life on the screen in the same instant, and she twisted the knob with renewed purpose, grinning darkly as it flashed out of this world. A second time the screen flashed and she twisted again. The Aether screamed in protest. From the corner of her eye, she saw Mjolnir fly through the air like a comet and plunge into the abyssal black whirlwind. An instant later, the console beeped, and she spun the knob with grim satisfaction, her eyes riveted to the Aether.

As it evaporated into thin air, its grip on the nine worlds lost through the gravitational anomaly she had conceived and created, she found the painful helplessness that had gripped her so viciously had subsided.

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The sky was clearing when Odin stepped from the shadows of the gate, Gungnir in hand.

"My king!" one of the captains shouted, fisting a hand over his heart. "The aether has gone! Heimdall says Prince Thor has triumphed!"

Odin turned and cast his gaze down the length of the bridge towards Heimdall, whose whole attention was riveted on the far off battle on Midgaard. The corners of the king's lips turned up, and his eye flashed with approval.

It was an expression of pleasure. Pride. Triumph.

Yet somehow it caused the captain to falter in his approach, chilled and uncertain. An urge to reach for the hilt of his blade made his fingers twitch.

Then he shook it off, chastising himself. What weakness was this lack of recognition? This irrational feeling of foreboding after the battle was won? Utter foolishness.

The enemy was driven out, and his king stood before him in triumph.

What more was there to fear?

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TBC

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A/n: Thank you for choosing to click on my story!

This was the first Loki/Jane story I ever thought up; started writing this about three days after I first saw Thor TDW; then it sort of fell by the wayside. Now, I'm posting what I've got written so far on here for safe keeping, and to commit myself to finishing it.

This story will be updated very infrequently until I finish my other two Lokane stories – but it will be updated. The muse likes the premise way too much to do anything else; what the muse wants, the muse gets. Plus, I've already written a prequel that I can't post until I finish this - so it is happening whether you or I like it or not. If you like what you see, please be patient; more story will be coming.

The rating on this story may increase in future chapters – in fact, I plan on it. So, you know, prepare yourself.

The concept of this story was first inspired by the song "Mordred's Lullaby" by Heather Dale. Be warned, the lyrics may hint at spoilers.

The structure of this story was inspired by ancient mythologies; it is broken into parts, and each part was influenced by elements of a different ancient legend. By request, all parts will be posted in a single-story format.

This story incorporates my oneshot fic "Triumph", but there are further plot points added to the telling, so even if you have read that story, don't skip those parts here, they may contain important details.

Please remember to leave a review and help me become a better writer! Any comments or constructive criticism are always welcome, but no flames please , if you don't like it, just don't read it. Thanks again for reading!