"I could have done it father!" Loki screamed, his last desperate attempt to win his father's favour, "I could have done it!" He felt his voice falter, knowing in his heart that it was in vain. "For you! For all of us!" His eyes met that of the Allfather, willing this man, his father, to notice him, to look upon him the same way he did Thor, to be proud of him. He had tried so hard. He did not have Thor's strength, or his accomplishments in battle, he did not have the golden hair of the house of Odin, nor did he have Thor's gift of being immediately liked by whomever he came across. Maidens would fall at Thor's feet, but only looked upon Loki with mistrust, and more often that not, their faces would screw up in disgust. So he had used the few gifts he had, he had lied and plotted, he had double-crossed and betrayed his biological father. He had thrown away all hopes of being honest and heroic because he knew that was something he could never be. Loki had done all this, and more, for the man who now looked upon him; the three men of the house of Odin, stuck in a moment, suspended in space and all Loki could see was that one eye. The eye which had seen so much, now turned it's judgement upon him. That pause seemed as though it lasted for an infinity.
"No, Loki"
Loki felt as though Odin and delved into his throat and pulled out his heart. He saw Thor cry out to him but he could hear nothing but the sound of his world, his entire being, crashing down around him. It hit him like a wave of pain. No, it was more than pain, pain was but a distant memory. His grip fell away from the staff; there was no point to holding on any more. There was no point to anything. He held the Allfather's gaze, that man who was once his father, as he let himself fall into the abyss; he couldn't bring himself to move his body even an inch. He felt paralysed as his mind, and his heart, shattered, and became indistinct from one another. Slowly, all that which he had once known and loved fell away from his sight, and Loki became trapped in nothingness, with only his agony and the icy, callous remains of his heart for company.
He did not know how long he had fallen, his soul writhing and his mind shrieking, nor when he had fallen unconscious. All Loki knew was when he awoke his torment hit him again, angry and bitter it ravaged it's way through his very being, tainting every part of him all over again. Yet this time it was accompanied by something else. He felt it in the pit of his stomach, the pieces of his heart rattled, as though in maniacal laughter, his broken and twisted soul reached to it, like a man in a desert reaches for water. And Loki knew rage.
It spread like fire. It's light chased away the darkness of anguish which he had known for so long and he clung to it, he fed it. In his desperation he cared not that fire has always been the destroyer, he cared not that the dark was being replaced by something far worse. He could not bare to have the remnants of his soul tormenting him any longer and he fed them to the rage. The fire consumed him and became his entity, he was nothing but ferocity and resentment. He felt pain once more, that far distant memory of the sweetness of pain found him, and he was grateful. Loki opened his eyes.