In Symbiosis we trust: Rue, for Repentance, Rosemary, for Remembrance

by MomotsukiNezumi

Midgard is saved, and Asgard's been returned their stolen foundling, the dark prince disgraced and imprisoned. All seems to end well. But Loki and his other half still have another game to play, an arsenal of tricks to use, and a grudge to settle with the dark and the dead. After all, only the Norns know if a dog that's been chained is any less dangerous when it's still hungry...

1. A Sprig of Holly, A Wisp of Oleander

A/N: Thus, we have said good night, and bid the angels sing us to our rests, but then, if this were sleep, you'd think all this merely a dream, wouldn't you? To those who have been so kind as to continue down this twisted trek with my writing, thank you, and I hope you enjoy this next dive into the dark humors drawn out of my mind so as to give a little grim music. This chapter, should you choose to accept it, is a handcrafted fan-made person-cello from me, to you, as a way to (unfortunately, belatedly) thank you for your lovely patience. Cheers~

NOTE #1: Night falls over Isengard...oh, sorry, wrong universe, I meant Asgard. But, nonetheless, I must say one thing: this year is making us lose so many lovely actors and writers, it's rather saddening. Farewell to one of the greatest and coolest actors in the past two centuries, may he rest happily and peacefully (and, if they do still make films wherever he is, may he be able to finally fulfill his desire to play Gandalf!).

But, given the wild nature of the Aether, there will indeed be a bloody darkness to come, and, considering what (or in particular, who) that situation cost, our "Rock of Ages" and his hungrier half will not be too happy about it.

NOTE #2: Odin honestly does have the names mentioned here (canon-wise, Norse mythology has apparently given Odin over two-hundred), and yes, the name Vófuðr (Or "Dangler"), all filthy puns aside, is actually one of them. I think that one came from his little period of hanging from the World Tree for nine days, or possibly from the fact that, mythological and comic canon alike, he tends to sire quite a few children by different people. For clarification (according to online research), in Old Norse, Herteitr means "War-Merry", Skollvaldr means "Ruler of Treachery", and my personal favorite, Viðrímnir, means "Contrary Screamer", and extending from that, contrary noises in general. That incredibly awkward "hhhngh!" grunting sound that the Allfather made at Loki right before Thor was tossed out the BiFrost to make a human-shaped falling star makes a lot more sense now...

NOTE #3: Given that this is an AU, I have included pseudo-flashbacks of some of the deleted scenes from the first and second Thor films that involve Loki conversing with Frigga and showing proper character development and actual explanations for his motivations and thought processes. In both current Thor films, these scenes get cut out to give a simpler plotline and clear-cut characters, and in the process, I've noticed they leave a giant gaping hole in the film!verse that would otherwise explain a lot about how Loki functions and thinks. If I hadn't found the deleted footage online for Loki being crowned King/Prince-Regent by Frigga in the first Thor, I'd be far too confused as to how he went from an emotional wreck calling the guards to help Odin after he went into Supernap-mode, to being in the throne room and staring down Thor's friends like he doesn't have time for their (technically illegal, given that Loki was standing in as Prince-Regent due to Odin's sleeping and Odin's last pre-Odinsleep order being to have Thor banished until he learned proper humility) demands (and then attempts) to bring Thor back (because three days is somehow too long a time to function without following him around and killing things?).

NOTE #4: begat is an (archiac) past tense of the word beget, which means "to bring about" or otherwise "produce" something.

NOTE #5: Regarding the gigantic splice of dream-time Loki has regarding the destruction of Jotunheim, where he uses the BiFrost as a giant laser beam, that takes place (mentally) over a much longer time period than is portrayed film-wise. That long internal angsting-worse-than-all-an-entire-post insert season here! of Supernatural-summerlong-cliffhanger takes place in his head, but otherwise events occur relatively canonically. The conflict here is done when Loki first contemplates theoretically destroying Jotunheim.

DISCLAIMER: As is has been before, now, and quite likely forever, I own nothing considered even remotely cool/financially-profitable of Marvel, Norse mythology, pop culture, references to other fandoms (there are several just in this chapter, and congrats to anyone who can spot them!), etc., be it places, characters, phrases/paraphrases, sci-fi-esque weaponry and/or technology, etc.

WARNING: As in our previous adventures, this story includes, but is not limited to by this chapter: semi-graphic violence, foul language, gore, awkward/morbid humor, unaccounted-for cannon-fodder deaths (for both Midgard AND Asgard this time!), disturbing imagery, mentions of alien genocide in the case of Svartalfheim (that the film obviously doesn't fully care about since we never see any women/bearers, children, or civilians of any kind and so by Asgardian standards it's somehow okay to obliterate an entire population, even if they're also bloody hypocrites about it because of film!canon intergalactic cultural differences regarding the entire Jotunheim/Midgard/Chitauri invasion issue of "if it's not human/Aesir or it doesn't look human/Aesir, we can kill it by the realmload, right?"), Odin's "A+" parenting (and the unfortunate fact that Frigga is technically an enabler since the King seems to make all the actual decisions (women apparently can't rule on their own in Asgard?), she's never shown wielding any real power onscreen beyond appointing a Regent or defending Jane literally to the death from Malekith, and the sad truth that, the more I think of it, her answer to Loki of "We never wanted you to feel different" as to why he was never told of his icy heritage seems more and more a rather silly excuse to cover up the giant gaping hole in Odin's logic of taking Loki in and raising him in a similar manner to how people like to take in stray cats, except without any of the generally-included-and-repeatedly-affirmed love apparently included), and the usual-for-this-AU symbiote-and-It's-Host shenanigans.

---

The air was rife with tension as he looked at the two people who, once, in what seemed now to be another person's lifetime ago, had once been the occupants of the time-honoured role of parenthood.

Once, he had called him Father, and had done so with pride, with awe, with respect and an ever-growing wish for a display of an increasingly distant parental affection.

Once, he would have gone to war for this man, would have killed for him, spied for him, lied for him, and walked to potential death with his head held high and the reassurance of his being needed to kindle his magic to sparking into a glorious, infectious inferno of power and haunting song.

Once, but no more.

Now, as he stood, brazen, shameless, mocking in his very presence, the fallen god looked at Odin Allfather, Ruler of the Gallows, the Twice-Blind, and saw nothing, felt nothing, save for an emptied, hollow blankness that spoke volumes not only to the importance he deemed worthy of recognizing of the aging ruler in question, but also as to the importance that he himself posed to the being who stared down at him from the high golden throne with a stone-hard expression, his gaze lacking so much as a scrap of proper acknowledgement.

You are nothing to me.

He wondered, for a moment, why, in the end, it had cost so much to realize it. Not even a sshadow, then, am I? The wayward foundling runt, a ghosst here. Not even worthy of a proper damnation, iss that it?

Perhaps, he conceded, that would indeed be crueler. Acknowledging the stolen brat from the frozen wastelands that he'd left to fall into the dark with a proper condemnation or eye-to-eye contact would put him in the position of actually being recognized as important enough to warrant continued existence, even if only to denounce and judge. Time and space alike showed all too well to the once-prince that the Allfather was nothing, if not vindictive in his goals, when the situation called upon his more ruthless moods.

He wondered vaguely how long until the icy expression would freeze on the aged face, locking it in a state of perpetual gruesome ill-humor, as if showing some form of excruciating painful intestinal distress.

Volstagg had that look once, he recalled idly, after he ate all thosse ssweet rollss after wolfing down a plate of every coursse at ssecond ssupper. Thosse wasshroomss were never quite the ssame again...

The expression upon the face of the Allmother, he noted, was far less ill-looking, though the saddened expression curdled his feeling of faint, grim amusement at the farce of a trial being presented.

Why iss the nice one upsset?

He blinked, momentarily confused, then pleased as to the direction of the new title, before answering. Sshe iss not very pleassed that I have come back from my apparent death, only to be involved with the attempted ssubjugation and desstruction of Midgard insstead of returning here and posssibly rejoining the royal family. I did not return to thiss realm after I fell from the BiFrosst, given that your rather delightful intervention in my near-demisse changed the coursse of what I had thought, at the time, would be my end.

An inward shudder rippled through their shared vessel, sapphire-dark drips of uneasy worry bleeding through the mental landscape at the ugly reminder that their union had been crafted what it was almost too late for It to steal It's host from the icy grip of a painful, undignified death, far from hearth and help. No one ssent for you, It muttered, the words almost sickly in their bitter truth, and disgust bubbled up in gurgles of poison-apple green as Loki replied, No one here would have wanted to wasste manpower ssearching for ssomeone whom they would not miss or mourn. Sshe iss Mother, but sshe iss Queen firsst and foremosst. Duty before dessiress hass been the way of the elite for centuriess, and to go againsst it and demand a ssearch for a pressumed dead corpsse, in particular one viewed to be unworthy of hiss term of kingsship, would have raissed an incredible amount of disssent amongsst the populace for an effort viewed to be inssultingly futile.

They would have ssent people to ssearch for the one with lightning, It shot back, a faint tinge of pale yellow-orange confusion accompanying the statement, the mixed colours so pallid they appeared almost mist-like.

Yess, but he iss Thor, and thuss can do no wrong, and will be misssed like the final candle gone out in the darknesss. They did not even lasst an entire day apart, before hiss friendss decided to dissobey their orderss and go vissit him on Midgard when he was sstill sserving hiss little "lesson" in humility, remember?

Iss he really sso important?

To them, he iss.

A low hiss of dissent followed the reply, as the symbiote spit out mental droplets of venomous green in acidic contempt, tendrils branching out inwards to nestle around It's favoured refuge of the god's ribcage in a plaintive demand for reaffirmed closeness and support. That iss not right, that iss ridiculouss. The one with lightning wass to learn to be lesss arrogant, lesss desstructive, lesss quick to anger, yess?

Yess.

He doess not sseem much changed than he wass in your memoriess. We could not talk back very much when he sspoke to uss, and in return for all his sshouting, we got bruissess and achess and boness ssnapping! He grabbed thiss vessel by the throat and threw uss into a mountain before even sspeaking to uss!

I know. I do not think they noticed, or posssibly they do not care. I've found that it'ss besst not to think about it. Perhapss if he continuess with hiss little tripss to Midgard, improvement will increasse? At leasst he hass picked a mortal woman with a helping of functioning brainss to court, though I highly doubt that the Allfather approvess.

Grumbling in annoyance, the symbiote let the subject end for the moment, choosing to back away and curl a few extra tendrils around his wrists, clinging possessively, as It offered a rather dismally-coloured mental impression as to the likelihood of said acceptance. If the Allfather could not even bring himself to raise his own children equally, the idea of him allowing his firstborn to marry someone considered inferior to Asgardian society would be completely unacceptable.

Perhapss he could keep her for a missstresss, then, if not a proper queen?, Loki mused. Though, given what I glimpssed of her temperament, I rather doubt she would meekly agree like sso many of hiss previouss ssimpering, vapid bed-warmerss dreamt of doing. Sshe might even run him down with that vehicle of herss again, given that his divine consstitution can now withsstand the damage without hiss death ressulting...

The image of his not-brother sprawled on the ground, golden hair an unsightly mess of dirt and tangles, Mjolnir several yards away and that muscular body covered in tire tracks, surfaced in their shared mind for a moment. Thor's imagined face held a comical look of confusion, brow furrowed and mouth gaping in shock as he stared uncomprehendingly at the blue sky, the car several feet away with the windows rolled up to keep out the resulting dust cloud. Hmm, amussing, but not quite right...

Within a split second, Loki felt the thought change slightly as the symbiote rearranged the scene: now his not-brother was slumped on the ground, body contorted as if he were a caterpillar inching along. The long, majestic blood-red cape the thunderer often wore to battle now sprawled over a good portion of the top half of his body, as well as his face, as if it had knocked him over, and he was fighting his way out from underneath it, with little success.

Taking a moment to consider the mental image, he forcibly repressed the urge to laugh, knowing that the action would not be received well. His other half had no such qualms, and the fallen god felt a knot of tension unravel as the mindscape rang with peals of warbling, gurgling, rose petal yellow-tinged laughter.

The sound of the Allfather's throat clearing reluctantly redirected his attention back to the throne. Dragging his gaze to eye-level, he looked first to the more approachable of Asgard's current ruling parental unit.

"Hello, Mother," he offered, letting the words slip free and breathe for what seemed to be the first potentially palatable family conversation in a long, long while. "It'ss been a while. Are you proud?"

Loki wasn't sure, if truth was to be crushed out of him, powdery and fragile as volcanic ash in the wind, if he could even speak to her properly at all. Asking if she took pride in his more recent exploits seemed more suited towards cruelty, and the vaguely looming feeling of self-acknowledging his being the subject of the goddess's uncommon maternal disappointment, a sentiment leftover from childhood, seemed to creep back up like ascending vines of slow-strangling ivy.

The wounded look in the lovely eyes certainly left an ugly feeling, somewhat like the lingering of a long, particularly unpleasant illness, and he inwardly shrank back from the uncomfortable, needling sensation of it. "Please," and she looked so terribly saddened, the usually-bright gaze shimmering, liquid-like in its sheen, with unshed tears, and he felt the ugly feeling reach down deep and twist as if worked like a knife between ribs by phantom hands, "don't try to make this worse than it already is."

From out of the corner of his eye, he watched the Allfather's expression shift uncomfortably, that single visible eye bulging with rage, red veins appearing as tiny rivers of blood, and decided that, if cruelty was to be made present, perhaps it could be redirected. "Define worsse?"

The eye twitched sharply. The symbiote rippled gleefully at the sight, a pale green wave of laughter resounding through the mental landscape.

"Enough!," Odin bit out, "I will speak to the prisoner alone. Leave!"

Frigga stared for a moment, then silently nodded and left her seat, leaving the room in a soft swish of skirts. Loki stared at her retreating form as she vanished beyond the great doors, the symbiote curling tendrils around his fingers in silent support as the only non-hostile presence of the two older royals disappeared from view, leaving them alone with only the Allfather and a cold, uncomfortable silence for other company.

The Allmother's buffering presence gone, both fallen god and symbiote turned as one to face Odin. In the wake of the withering glare the single available eye gave them, their shared form's posture purposely relaxed, projecting an aura of intentionally-aggravating personal calm. This was a feat that Loki knew, from several memories forged in youth, would have cost lesser prisoners of the magical persuasion the ability to so much as breathe without trembling from the pain of the specially-inscribed shackles and collar now unwillingly adorning their vessel like so much cheap, hazardous jewelry.

Even with over a thousand years of magical practice, the action was costly: he could feel the tainted spellwork in the rune-scribbled metal burning away at the flesh of his wrists, ankles, and throat in punishment, and the symbiote's reaction, one that had been repeated on the restraints from the very moment they had been bound, was to once again stab at the offending metalwork with an alarming plethora of viciously-sharp needles and warping teeth, biting back as good as was given, and all the while hissing curses and blights in a thousand colours and wavelengths against the slight to their shared form. Loki felt amusement, warm and soft like a bedding of furs by the fire during winter nights, rise up as his companion let out a string of muddy slurs, the colouring rust-red and bristling with savage renewed vigour, as the inside of the collar creaked ominously under the repeated jabbings. Crussh it to dusst, dusst! Hate it, hate it, want it smasshed, melted down into nothing, unmade and sccattered into oblivion! Sstupid metal doessn't even make for good eating, tasstess dissgussting and old and dirty...rotten, rotten, rotten like the filth that hurt uss! Dead, dead metal, filled with darknesss and sstinking dead power...

It was truly a wonder, he decided, that the hatred for the army of insectiod nightmares on the backwater edges of the universe could inspire such hatred and disgust from his other half that not even the potential consumption of their forms was enough punishment, but the idea of eating the despised embellishments attached to their vessel was outright incomprehensible. The metal was so despised that not even eating it was an option.

Then again, that iss a valid point.

The collar and shackles were disturbingly alive. Despite his and the symbiote's previous fruitless attempts to probe at the restraints for loopholes, the collar and shackles were utterly walled off, and yet hummed with a distinct, primal energy that sang of thoughts far, far older than the one who now unhappily wore them. The runes pulsed, like some unnatural heartbeat, with an ancient and frightful power, that of the sort that he cringed at, some inner part of him feeling inordinately frightened and put ill at ease by the effortless trapping of his magic, the warped inscriptions deadening the song in his veins to an eerie, lifeless silence.

Hating the obstructions, thusly, was effortless.

Pulling his thoughts away from pondering the current unpleasant wardrobe trying to crush his and his other half's resistance and energy into smithereens, Loki let the aura of exaggerated relaxation and tranquility spread out, infecting the surrounding air as he stared at the older god seated before him with the sort of disarming, wide-eyed look he knew would irritate to no end. Clasping his chained hands together in front of him, he stepped forward with his head held high, bared his teeth in a wolf's grin and laughed. Fingers interlaced like puzzle pieces as he shrugged, bright-eyed and grinning with the sort of maniac edge that left the room feeling suddenly less balanced, and let words issue forth like smoke billowing from a funeral pyre, heady and strong and wreathed in death. "We musst ssay, really, we don't ssee what all the fusss here iss about. Care to elaborate?"

Odin glared with the type of intensity usually reserved for those whom one's subconscious wished a bout of spontaneous combustion upon. "So, it has come to this. Tell me, do you truly not feel the gravity of your crimes, the blood staining your hands? Wherever you go there is nothing but a continuing bloom of war, ruin, and death. In your footsteps are sown the seeds of the end, and in them bloom fields of destruction. Of all the actions you have done in this life, is that something to take pride in?"

Loki stared, unafraid, the symbiote warbling inwardly a tune that sang promises of horrendous gory pain at the contempt in the older god's voice. The grin on his face grew until he wondered if it might snap in twain as he thought on his reply.

Let uss ssee how many liess I can sspin today, for Twice-Blind you have been titled before, and now Twice-Blind I will call you back.

"We came to rule Midgard in the guisse of a benevolent god, to offer them the gift of leadersship and the aid of proper guidance." Lie. I came to burn down the ssum of my tormentss found in the pit of desspair and damnation I fell down to, aided only by the darknesss that would accept me when you who sstole me would not extend the ssame basse affirmationss. The warriorss of Midgard drove them back to the dark reachess of the universse, we ssimply brought them their targetss and guided the filth to fill their Masster'ss thrice-curssed quota of death. There is no benevolence for the Chitauri, no charity for the Other, no camaraderie for the Mad Titan and hiss delussionss of winning the bridal hand of death. There is no childissh love for you and your machinationss, your fabricationss of a throne, your pathetic excusses for a deciet that you would have fed and watered to lasst five thoussand yearss if not for the chill of the box you sstole me with.

"Jusst like you." Lie again. Tell me, wass I to be king of a molehill, an anthill, a wassteland of frosst and death that begat a race that you told me ssince childhood wass the ssworn enemy of thiss kingdom? Puppet-king, then, plaything dancing upon your stringss, hanging upon your every word, your withering toness ever whisspering yet more untruth into my earss? Or wass there not even that, in the end? You gave me hope, damn you, you gave me hope. In youth you promissed both the boyss that grew up under your roof that they were born to be kingss, yet you sstated in the ssame wretched breath that only one could asscend the throne. Wass I to nurture that hope, feed and water it, sstroke the downy wingss and teach it flight sso that it might ssoar unimpeded by doubt, yet when it reachess adulthood wass I to clip thosse ssame wingss and lock it away in a gilded cage, if even that, sso that it might not let it'ss ssong be heard?

The bushy eyebrow twitched violently, the eye below it in a similar state for a small, uncontrolled second. "We are not gods. We are born, we live, we die. Just as the humans do, and just as the remainder of the Realms do. It is a law of the universe, and your flouting of such law is dangerous."

Loki smiled coldly, the symbiote rustling against his skin in flickers of mimicked raven's feathers, glossy and edged with the familiar oil-slick rainbow tint. "True enough...give or take five thoussand or sso yearss."

Odin stared, unmoved. His voice was cold as dwarvish steel as he spoke. "All this horror," and here his gaze looked utterly blank, bereft even of an effort of disappointment, "because Loki desired for himself a throne. Was the madness wrought in your wake worth it?"

Anger, hot and surging as boiling tar, bubbled up, painful and familiar and terrible all at once, and Loki forced down the sudden, violent urge to lunge forward and strike, shift into something bigger, stronger, and sink fangs into that ancient flesh and choke it, tear it into the arms of a warless, honourless death at the hands of the child (no, not child, he's Eitr, they were just Eitr, for that was the only sanctuary in the end) he had irreparably set upon a course he had never even asked for or wanted, and who, in this terrible, dizzying moment, wanted nothing more than to seek retribution upon him for actions that had left him branded in a thousand names that didn't truly fit, and bound to a fate with more relentless pull than gravity and garnering more dispassion than even his own former lack of self-definition-

The symbiote fluttered within, wrapping tendrils around his insides in a familiar embrace, and let the mindscape wash over with soothing shades of pale blues and greens, a quiet hum of ceaseceasecease that bid the fallen god come back to himself, letting the anger become doused with the mental ebb and flow of calm from their body's other cohabitant until the fires of it were smothered down to faintly smouldering coals: still present, but now more manageable. Letting the tension fall from his shoulders, he uttered a low growl, the action cold as the Casket of Ancient Winters, and let his answer lisp out, echoed by his other half. "It iss our birthright. Unassked for, unwanted, but ourss sstill. You had no right to take uss, no right to raisse and raze uss at once, no right to condemn uss to a half-life then and no right to refusse to ssee your influence in thiss now."

Black hair swung back and forth in a jagged, messy curtain as he tilted his head to the side, ebony locks falling over his left eye and leaving the remaining visible one exposed and glittering, blacker than the Void itself and ringed with the rainbow slick around the iris pulsing eerily. Laughter rent the air, a gurgling, rasping noise like draining water, or the cough-like caws of a crow. "Look upon your work, Father. Look upon all your good work, Allfather, won't you? Look at it."

I want you to look at it, look at me, look at uss. Look at what you've made, if you could only ever care to ssee it, the beasst you made of me.

Odin stared back, his gaze still cold. "Your birthright, foolish child, was to die, and die you would have, had I left you be! Cast out onto a frozen rock, left to wither away alone and hungry, that is how I found you. If I had not taken you in, you would not be here now to hate me, but instead buried beneath a mountain of icy tundra, bones long since frozen over and lost to leave your wretched spirit to wander for all eternity in what would have been a slow and terrible death."

The mention of Loki's potential death was too much: having held back earlier only because calming It's host's emotional state held more importance at the time, the symbiote, an incensed wrath-made-shadow in the lighting of the room, now lunged forward in a mass of writhing, razor-sharp tendrils thick as javelins and alarmingly long, all the while screaming a long, awful mental litany of slurs of every colour able to be considered rude and jabbing the viciously-sharp ends of the dark appendages at the Allfather as if trying to tear through every last inch of flesh.

Odin, to Loki's inward disappointment, did not fully panic at the sudden attempt to rip him to shreds, though the younger god inwardly conceded such control was likely due to the fact that several thousand years of living experience and at least a thousand years of ruling had likely tempered his self-control, at least as to whether or not to panic when a sudden attempt upon your life was worth reacting to in any manner other than level-headed logic.

The widening of the single eye and the slight leaning back away from the reaching appendages was worth the effort, though, he decided. Never let it be ssaid that with age comess both fearlesssnesss and wissdom. Equal meassuress of both certainly aren't pressent in thiss.

Pleased at his other half's actions on his behalf, he stared at the Allfather from beneath the swath of rippling shadow, fingers idly reaching out to stroke the twisting, writhing tendrils. "Well, then, if we're for the axe, then for Mercy'ss ssake, jusst sswing it and end uss, if you dessire our demisse sso dearly. It'ss not that we don't love our funny little talkss, it'ss jusst...," he searched for a word to use, then discarded it as useless, "we don't love them."

The Allfather was undecipherable once more, his expression seemingly carved from granite, for all the emotional output Loki could read in it, but he still refused to lean forward again. "Let this be clear, for it is the last thing I will say to you on the matter peacefully: Frigga is the only reason that you're still alive at all, and you will never see her again, not in this lifetime, nor the next, for you have proven undeserving of such privileges. You will spend the rest of your days residing in the dungeons, for it is solely by her grace that you still breathe instead of facing proper condemnation."

Loki stared back, unwilling to draw his gaze away, as the symbiote retracted Itself back to the safety of It's host, nestling back into shared flesh and flattening back down to the disarmingly calm-looking catsuit. "And what of Thor, then? You'll make that witlesss oaf you call sson King while we rot below in chainss?"

The guards moved back into place as Odin turned his back and dismissed him. "Thor must strive to undo the considerable damage that you've done in your callousness. He'll bring back order to the Nine Realms, and then, when all is returned to some semblance of balance, then yes, he will be King."

The hands that took hold of the chains yanked sharply as Odin strode away. Loki bit back a hiss of pain as the action caused his shackles to bite into his wrists and ankles sharply, and the symbiote rippled dangerously, spikes appearing on the catsuit in jutting, thorny barbs to force the guards to walk farther away and allow some slack into the chains. Head held high, he began walking in outward silence, letting the approaching darkness as they made their way down to the dungeons fade into obscurity as the symbiote flooded the mindscape with a wash of calming pale green.

---

The cell was larger than he had expected.

The space was sparse, the lack of personal possessions evident to anyone who might care to look, but the overall room that had been supplied was far more luxurious than he had anticipated, given the nature and extent of his actions. The few furnishings that were present had been supplied, he was begrudgingly told, by request of the Queen, leaving a bed, a small table stacked with books, and a chair in what was otherwise a plain, lifeless-looking chamber.

But then, if it had not been for the interference of the Allmother, he knew it was almost completely certain that he would have ended his first day back in Asgard by being publicly executed. Whether they would have deprived him of his tongue, his head, or his magic first was debatable, but the final result in the end would, undoubtedly, have been suitably humiliating by the time he was rendered a corpse.

To Asgard, a realm that glorified battle, courage, valour, and strength, it was considered both an honor, and a privilege, to be able to leave the realm of the living by fighting. For every drop of scarlet blood lost, for every bit of salt-tainted sweat that fell, for every single inch of battered life that clawed tooth and nail to wage battle against their opponents until the very final breath was exhumed from their lips, such a way to go on and pass into death was nothing short of exquisite, a worthy manner of exiting the stage of the living, breathing world.

He knew, as certain as the need for air, that such a privilege, baptized in the blood of the fallen and singing the funeral hymns of departure from sweet Valkyrie lips, was as untouchable for him as the very Thread of Fate that both blessed and cursed him to life.

He and his other half had been condemned, and in the same breath somehow pardoned, to life in a prison little better than a glorified box.

A gilded, pretty prison, that was assuredly so, but a prison, nonetheless, with four imposing walls and a single large window that was left bright and glaringly clear to crush any weak hope of privacy.

How utterly juvenile.

By no means was he going to actually protest the accommodations, given the endless number of grisly interpretations that could be done as the alternative, but that did not mean he and his fellow cellmate could not make the space into a more comfortable environment.

The symbiote had taken to the constant bright light and lack of privacy with an almost-childish amount of ornery disagreement, reaching out tendrils of liquid shadow to stab through the room like a series of razor-sharp cables, creating a haphazard, disconcerting-looking, wild mess of dark webbing that filled the space like an overly large funeral shroud. The organic structure was twisted and knotted in numerous areas to fashion a simple, high-hanging nest of sorts, not unlike what they had made for resting in while trapped in the Hulk Cage, although the thickly-woven basket that was made here in the dungeon's cell was instead hung in the farthest corner's topmost nook, creating a tiny bubble of dark shadows to use for privacy and quiet amidst the unfailingly bright light and lack of acceptable furnishings for potential hiding places. The uneven, mesh-like latticework molded to the lean, vaguely wraith-like form of their shared vessel as if in fond reminiscence, every bony angle and bit of battered flesh locked onto and wrapped in darkness, as if swaddling the two lives into a silken, fluid-feeling blanket nestled deep in a patch of thorny briers.

They had taken to staying in their makeshift roost quite often, a fact which irritated the guards patrolling the cellblock to no end, as it kept them from being fully observed for any inklings of unruly behavior, save perhaps from Heimdall. Here in the silence of the dark little alcove of latticework, both host and symbiote were able to rest in relative peace, content, if not properly happy, to exist apart from the piercing gazes of the outside world.

---

Dreams did not come often, but still, they came, dragging fourth broken, disjointed images of pinprick stars amidst velveteen, silently screaming space and It'snotcoldwhyisn'titcoldsomeonetellmewhyIdon'tfeelcoldwhatisthiswhatisthissomeonefindmefindmepleasefindme-

-decades-gone moments of solitude in the library, pouring over tomes in search of elusive spells, something to make him stronger, something to make him faster, better, something to improve him (make him more like Thor, more like the sun, more like the light), but even here, among a thousand mountains of books to peruse, there is nothing-

-shattered fragments of days at the training ground a century ago, with jeers and jabs because he was smaller, thinner, less muscled than his peers, with no hammer or battle-axe or long-sword to his name to carve out a reputation, ignoring the acrid, bitter tang of blood spat out with saliva, breath knocked from his chest. Battered limbs shook with exhaustion as he got up again from the ring, sweat shimmering like a mirage atop the bruises already forming, shaking blood-spattered hair back and wiping sweat away from his eyes, and his opponent smirking, muscles untouched by the sweat that came from heavy exertion (and wasn't that hateful, a bitter, angry snake of a voice hisses from the back of his mind, that a prince is really so pathetic that his opponent need not even fight at full strength?) a cocky grin shining all the way to his big brown cow's eyes, and for a moment he wonders what it would be like to whisper a spell, a simple little vanishing spell really, to make him lose his breath, lose his stupid little smirk, just for a moment, just a moment, a quick jerk of the wrist and a hiss of syllables learned from Asgard's ancient, dust-filled libraries, and he'd be missing his lungs, just his lungs, just for a moment, just a bit, show him what it felt like to not be able to breathe when they're all laughing at you, just a bit, just a bit, justabitjustabitjustabit...!

His hands twitch, for a moment, traitorous with emotional ruling, the burning urge to mutter a hex and flex his fingers in the sharp little jabbing motion that was all it would take, and then he quells it, crushes it back into dust and silence, because he didn't need to use his magic, not now, he would suffice with his knives and his fists, as always, and the ones with the physical advantage here could be beaten with a little application of wit and quickness, he didn't need it-

But, for a moment, just a candle flame flicker's worth of a moment, he wants it, because he sees that dumb, brutish grin, listens to the mocking, the laughter, the congratulations received for besting the second prince of Asgard in combat, and he forces back the words already forming, bright and glittering as broken glass, sweet as poison, on his lips, digs his nails into his aching, quaking palms enough to draw blood down to run in little red rivulets, and turns, walking out of the ring, because he knows if he stays, if he looks back, even for a split second, then the fool will be on the ground, clawing for breath, rasping and choking on nothing, lips turning blue as polished sapphires, eyes bulging out in pain and instinctive, primal panic for the sudden sinking in of the magic sparking like whispers of conquest and power at his fingers-

-crack-riddled memories of battles long gone, with the scent of centuries-old spit and blood dripping into long-abandoned ground, the cries of ghosts shrieking through empty air, flesh cleaved into pieces beneath a well-placed blade to slip through long-dead ribs to mingle lifeblood with the dust of ever-hungry time, and then as blood rushes back, thudding madly through his veins, he remembers he is here, stuck in the icy grip of Jotunheim with Thor and his foolish friends, and the oldest prince of Asgard had decided to start a fight because of the simple, stupid slight of being called "Princess". From seemingly every crevice and crack in the glaciers, every lofty spire of ice shelving, every snowdrift and snowbank, comes one of the Jotnar, the infamous Frost Giants carrying weapons of their own and with dangerous intent shining in their blood-coloured gazes, and his tongue, struck dumb with horror at what Thor, unthinking, cocky, powerful fool he is in this moment, has wrought with a turn of the head and a grim little smirk even as Mjolnir is called to arms, can only muster a whisper of "Damn" before he summons his throwing knives to ensure Mother won't be upset, because if Thor dies she'll be inconsolable and Father will be unforgivable and the lumbering blonde fool is still too important to let get needlessly killed. Over and over as the wind howls and the ice turns to flurries of snow, he weaves in and out of the mass of fighting bodies. He feels dizzy, sore, exhausted, flicks gore-grimy hair from his eyes as he lunges forward for the kill again and again and again, turning and twisting out of striking range even as his hands close, noose-tight, on another dagger handle, and he looks around at the desolation around him and wonders What battle is this? I have lost count, whose blood is this to be spilt today, what throat must be cut to satisfy the bloodlust now? even as he listens to the bellow of his brother (not-brother?) in victory as another skull in a line of dead too long to count caves in like rotting fruit under the blood-polished head of Mjolnir. The sound proves to be a life-altering distraction, as then, horror of horrors, a huge, grey-blue hand closes round one of his wrists; instinctively, he braces himself for the agony of frostbite eating away at his flesh. Yet instead, his gut lurches, threatening to expel breakfast, as not only is there no pain, but the limb turns blue, intricate raised lines appearing and then flickering out of existence, and even as he stabs the Jotun as the taller being tries futilely to strike, the alien skin colour vanishes as quickly as it came, returning to familiar pale tones, and yet he knows something is horribly, disturbingly wrong, that what has just happened should be utterly impossible-

-looking at the disturbing change seeping over his skin, flushing pigment into rich shades of pale blue, then darker shades of sapphire, veins pulsing and scars suddenly sharply noticeable, swathes of a previously-familiar body suddenly painted like the sped-up progression of some horrifying illness, feeling the cold, the numbness, sinking in deep to his core, freezing him from the inside out until he thinks, for a wild, frightening moment, that if he breathes his mouth will erupt with a blizzard instead of air. The Casket of Ancient Winters is a heavy, leaden weight in his hands, as if in mockery to its deceptively small-seeming appearance, and he wonders for a moment why he does not yet feel anything besides a dull, muted horror, the ache like a slow-healing wound, and then a voice cries out from behind him, that voice which, for the first time in centuries that he can recall, sounds oddly, almost insultingly worried, and he turns around and sees that one eye widen in horrified recognition of what has occurred and in that moment he knows, he knows that this was known, and yet it was hidden from him-

-the Allfather's face is so still, so sombre and quiet beneath the golden glow of the bed's enchanted barriers, that every wrinkle and scar is made visible in dips of aged flesh, craggy and exhausted as the deep grooves made in valleys by long-running water, and it strikes him like a blow to the head how terribly old his father (no, not father, not anymore, not ever, not truly) looks, how frail and tired his ancient form is, so disturbingly vulnerable in the Odinsleep here, and the weight of what that means, now that Thor is banished, is heavy as a mountain. He looks at his mother's hands, Gungnir held out by slim, elegant fingers in offering, and he looks at the golden handle and the wickedly-sharp point of the spear's tip, and feels unease churn in his gut like a snake uncoiling, cold and rough. He wishes, for a brief, small moment, that life was not throwing such milestones at him like clods of earth meant to hurt, instead of the gemstones that they are meant to be. But he is not able to complain or refuse, not when Asgard needs a king and the firstborn is banished and the woman who, even now, he yearns to have the privilege to keep calling Mother is holding out the gauntlet of power to him in this solemn mockery of a coronation, stranded here in the dark with only a handful of guards and the shattered remnants of his almost-family for company while Thor, damn him, bless him, confound him, is still an entire world away-

He takes it, feels the power within rolling and twisting like the tumultuous sea, his own magic flaring up for a moment in turn, bucking and howling wildly as if to scream at the sheer lunacy in the action, and then the storm of Gungnir lessens, curling in on itself as it hums with energy, burning warm but not hot enough to hurt anymore, and he understands that the great spear is offering a solemn, if uneasy, truce, in consideration for the issues at hand. The maelstrom of energy buckles down into the grumbling hiss of resigned, partly reluctant camaraderie, and he sighs inwardly in sympathy for it. The power is not for him to wield, he knows that as surely as the sight of the moon's pale gleam in the skies, but there is no one else to take it.

No one else left worthy to take it. The thought is ill-seeming, sitting in his mind like a squalid, scowling spirit, and he shrugs it away, letting it fall to the bottom of the chasm of mentally unmentioned things accumulated over the years. Supposed worthiness or not, it is necessary.

He turns to the Allmother, offers a wan smile, and the look of a gentle, strained smile on her face makes the act almost worth it, before her expression turns to that of worry and horror, and instinctively he prepares to face whatever ill-made occurrence has caused it, hands flaring with golden magic around Gungnir's handle, ready to strike before so much as a single drop of blood is spilt because Mother is afraid so the cause must be eliminated-

-the tip of Gungnir pierces so easily, so fluidly, that for a split second, it seems almost an extension of his own magic, and then he looks up into uncomprehending ruby eyes and sees death staring back at him as the final breath's exhaled in a sudden rasp, and then the body drops, a dull weight that echoes like a collapsing mine-shaft as it hits the floor. He can only stare, the murmurs of those left present seeming to be babbling from some far off underwater place, at the suddenly-made corpse on the polished, torch-lit floors.

But the now-dead intruder wasn't alone. Loki doesn't even have enough time to curse properly before the other two Jotnar seemingly melt out of the shadows cast by the torchlights, both moving towards him with grim intent in their red eyes. Loki held up Gungnir, feeling the power building up, crackling within the enchanted metal, and fires, letting the bolt of energy sizzle through the air and slam into a sapphire-tinted pale blue chest, knocking it's owner bodily into the nearest wall with the sickening crack that Loki knows, from years of listening to Thor's usage of Mjolnir, usually arises from being the unfortunate recipient of a smashed-in skull.

The thud of footsteps still echoes, though, and he turns around again just in time to see the remaining living member of the band of Jotnar intruders lunge forward, hands reaching out, but even as Loki raises Gungnir again, energy shimmering into existence at the boar spear's tip, the ruby eyes widen with surprise and pain, and then suddenly the light in them flickers out like a snuffed candle. Loki stares in surprise at the sight of Thor, who is is staring at him, a strange, unfamiliar look in his blue eyes, and Loki realizes after a moment that it's disbelief. Disbelief, and slowly-mounting anger, suspicion, and a little bit of grim amusement. He clutches Mjolnir in his hands again, and the significance of the weapon's presence is dizzying, fear suddenly rising up within as if to crush him at the sight-

---

The dream seizes, memories convulsing and twisting like a mongoose trying to snap a serpent's neck, and then changes again.

---

-the throne is uncomfortable. Loki did not understand quite why this particular thought kept resurfacing, but it continued to do so, nonetheless. Every so often the urge to get up and pace seizes control of his limbs and bids him walk about in an attempt to calm his racing thoughts and clear his mind. Time passes seemingly with the pace of water wearing away mountains, but in the moments when he can stand it without his conflicting emotions threatening to crush him beneath their staggering weight, he regains enough dignity and external tranquility to sit in the gilded, shining throne. In these small snatches of mental quiet, he watches the world below from the imposing height of the raised dais, and contemplates when he will start to suffer the consequences of being the unfortunate soul sitting in the most dangerous seat in the entire Nine Realms.

Will I burn? Am I to glance down one moment, and see this form begin to smoke like tinder catching aflame on a hot summer night?

Will I wither and decay, collapsing into old bones that shall crush themselves into naught but powder to coat this seat in a handful of centuries of suddenly-dead history?

Will I be struck by the lightning Thor wields so easily, burning from the inside out until I am nothing but ash before so much as a single scream can escape?

But time passes, and he does not suddenly expire while seated upon the golden chair.

The world is different when one is burdened with the considerable weight of responsibility, and Loki rues his situation mentally in as many curse words as he could find languages to speak. A throne, even a secondhand throne given out of necessity rather than propriety, is still a responsibility, and with the Allfather unreachable in his current state and Thor banished an entire world away to learn the trait of humility that the Allmother and Loki had both tried, and failed, in equal measure over the years to instill properly into his character, he feels a sense of vague, yet unquenchable abandonment. Despite his own education and centuries of listening and gleaning secondhand information from Thor's complaint-ridden recollections of the staggering multitude of lessons required for the heir to attend and learn from as Asgard's future ruler, he knew he was not properly equipped for kingship, not in the long-term. Despite Mother's private, solemn declaration of "Make us proud" and her quiet support of his temporary regency, he knew, even before the moment Gungnir was held out to him, that he was unprepared, a figurehead standing in place to keep the seat of Asgard's monarchy warm until a more permanent, socially-desirable solution is found. The Asgardian people did not desire the waifling spellcaster for a ruler, even a momentary one, they desired the golden sun-made-flesh that was trapped in a Realm that most others considered inferior, lagging behind in civilization and proper living ideals. The level of responsibility and power bound to him in this situation was utterly unbalanced, a juggler's act he wasn't certain he could maintain when the weight of his true origins was still threatening to crush him underfoot like an insect.

When he hears their footsteps, he feels no surprise. He knew that they would come, that they missed Thor and craved the thunder god's presence and return like nothing else in the Nine Realms. The echo of the mismatched feet rumbles like an avalanche, and he wonders, with more than a little bitterness, how he could ever have thought, in some vague, distant time from centuries ago when Thor had been simply brother and not heir to the throne and older brother, that he could have ever been a true part of their exclusive, tightly-knit camaraderie so interwoven that no amount of spellwork could ever hope to unravel the secret of its' inner workings.

Speaking to them was useless as ever. When their footsteps had finally faded, he knew, without even needing to check, that they would be going to fetch their beloved leader from the realm he'd been stranded on like a disobedient dog, no matter that in doing so they would be in violation of their oath of obedience to the King (to Odin who decreed banishment and now sleeps like the long dead, and to Loki himself, now King, however temporarily, who knew as easily as drawing breath that retrieving Thor as he was now would accomplish nothing beneficial, but when had Sif or the Warriors Three ever known to listen to anyone but whom they wished?). Three days was too long, it seemed, without the thunder god's domineering presence to fill in the gaps of their social circle.

When he sends down the Destroyer, he wonders how Thor will take it's presence. Orders or not, he doubted the Allfather had left his firstborn completely helpless upon an alien realm when he cannot even wield his own hammer. Perhaps destiny yet will change. Perhaps the hammer will choose a wielder once more, though Mjolnir had not accepted him when he himself had visited (and what a waste of effort that was, to even think that worthiness would be bestowed on me. What defines worthiness to that hammer, save for the Allfather's enchantments laid in deep? I did not ask to rule, not like this, yet the fool still stares at me as if I speak in nonsense and riddles when I told him of Odin's slumber and the regency I did not ask for. No wonder Mjolnir refuses him as well, small comfort that it is, he still has learned nothing!). Thor was still on Midgard, but he had amassed himself several new friends in the local mortal population, and his own friends from Asgard would be arriving to give him aid soon enough. Lesson learned or not, he would come back, it was inevitable as the rising and setting of the sun.

So he watches, and waits. There is a feeling, sickly and familiar and all too close, that tells him Thor will be returning very soon. Anticipation wars viciously with apprehension like viruses in his blood, and Gungnir growls under his fingers like a tensed wolf, ready for the hot flow of blood from a torn out throat-

-he watches for what seems to be the thousandth time since this entire entanglement of horrors began, solemn and silent, the world dark and cold before him as he stares through the BiFrost portal, Heimdall's all-seeing golden eyes notably absent after their forced stillness had been induced earlier with the help of the Casket of Ancient Winters, the cold of which he still can feel, phantom-like and clinging, against his hands like an invisible brand. He knows that what he is doing is disturbingly dangerous, that it is horribly reckless in its suddenness and potential for unthinkable destruction, but what other choice is there? He cannot think, cannot try to fathom an understanding of the hideous, unspeakable responsibility he holds in his hands in this moment.

Only, it is not in my hands, he thinks, and a laugh claws free, bubbling and bitter like soured alcohol, but o'er my neck like the dwarves' axes, hanging like a great blade to lop off this head full of empty dreams and clouded thoughts and a madness most foul. Off comes this head, off comes sweet clarity, gone like an arrow flying. I could claim kingship all I wanted, for all Mother has declared me Regent while the golden heir and ruler remained away from their duties, but I sit upon a throne of lies so horribly old that the carrion has long since picked away all pretense of fleshful truth, and left only the bones of loss and uncertainty behind for Hugin and Munin to pick at. Thor has returned, but there is no balance restored, only more discord. Fools, the both of us.

Thor has returned and yet nothing is the same, the Allfather still sleeps away the days as if the death of the universe itself would not stir him from slumber, and Jotunheim will be wanting compensation for the blood spilt by the foolish youths (damn them for wanting to go to that frozen wasteland, damn Thor for starting a war he couldn't even begin to fathom the enourmity of in its consequences, damn this wretched self of mine for the horror it consists of) that had stepped into foreign territory and had their weapons begat corpses when the drums of war sounded in their blood and by the rise of Mjolnir. Asgard has a potential war looming over the horizon, dark and cold. A winter, he fears (as a child, I was told of the coldness of that place, now it comes forth from my nightmares to taunt me in its truth), is coming, and the Golden Realm (pretty bauble it is, shining like a tree full Idunn's apples, will it wither away? Will the fruit of the Asgardian people sheltered in the blood-drenched branches and roots be left rotting and freezing to black ashes and ice-burnt flesh, under the winter of Jotunheim?) stands utterly, terrifyingly oblivious.

He slew Laufey in the Allfather's chambers, watched the body fall upon the floor and bleed out until the torchlight dancing upon the marble glittered with a darkly shimmering lake of blood, the flickers of the fire casting flecks of gold to dance like spirits in the slowly-widening stain of death.

He had killed the king of Jotunheim, which in itself could easily be considered an act of war. Thor and his friends slew a number of their people, and he as well, and, if the Allfather had not intervened, he had no doubt as to whether the count of the dead would have increased, if that was what was needed to satiate the firstborn prince's earlier anger and quickly-roused need for violence upon hearing the insult that had been hurled at him like a child throwing mud. There had been trips to other realms when such warriors' spirits had not been appeased until there were mountains of corpses with which to water the landscape in a rain of blood until the soil turned blacker than tar.

The icy realm he had heard of since childhood only as an existing nightmare would not be so easily forgotten and discarded after such a display.

The BiFrost is shining, glittering, a halo of multicolour light glinting from the mechanisms that kept the celestial bridge tethered to the road leading to Asgard's gates. He watched the stars shine and twinkle like fireflies from beyond the mouth of the Gatekeeper's domed post, and waited for retribution to strike him down for what was to be done tonight.

The dead beyond the count of grief shall spill over like too much wine for this, he thinks, and he tries to focus on the realm that would be left when this was done. He closed his eyes for a moment, picturing the frozen, unnerving-looking tundra lit up in a halo of echoing, blinding death, and felt bile, involuntarily summoned by the horror of the thought, rise up. Forcing it back left a sour, bitter taste that lingered like poison, and he shuddered.

Thin hands (are they even truly mine? he wonders as he looked at them, these pale, shaking spiders, trembling under a position too heavy to keep?) reach out, gripping the handle of Gungnir, the unsettling sharpness of the boar-spear's tip terrifyingly noticeable as he took in a breath, staring at the dark, thin tunnel of the slot put into the BiFrost machinery for emergency activation.

If this is to be done, damned, terrible, incredible action it was, it would need to be done now. There wasn't much time left. He would not be alone for much longer, and the opportunity to strike is growing increasingly minuscule the longer he hesitates.

I will regret this, and yet I will not, the thought notches into place like an arrow, and he lets it fly, breathing out, and slams Gungnir down into place before his nerve could waver and let regret or the whispers of his uneasy conscience slip through. The BiFrost erupts into a maelstrom of humming, glowing energy as lightning bursts forth from Gungnir's tip, exploding through the air like the twisting branches of some strange, ghostly-bright tree. His ears ring with the shock of the sudden blast of power, and as the great bridge whirs into action and unleashes the beam that would, in other circumstances, be used to create a connection between the realms.

The shining beam of celestial energy burns through the cold reaches of empty, star-strewn space, connecting to the distant, frozen realm of its' intended target, and he can only watch as it crashes headlong into the hallowed, hauntingly silent world. Bile rises up, unbidden and foul as a bird carcass presented by a wayward cat, to lodge in his throat and leave bitter, sour unease and a sick, horrible sense of acknowledgement to well up.

It is done. He reaches inwards for his magic, wraps it around himself as if shielding against the rolling, conflicting storm of emotions churning through his body.

It is done. How is he to continue after this, bathed in oceans of blood that had never even touched his skin? How would Mother take the news? How would Thor, or Father (Allfather, Not-father, Odin One-Eye what are you to me now?) once he awoke? True, they had no love for the Frost Giants, but this was still an entire realm altered. What would become of the balance between other Realms now than one was all but obliterated in terms of populace, burnt and scorched raw from the BiFrost, barely clinging to life in the cradle of Yggdrasil's branches?

It is done. The horror, the sheer, disgusting, unworldly horror of what has been done, even to a sworn enemy, has not yet appeared, but the ill-seeming sensation of nausea and the sensation of phantom blood coating his whole body in a slick, gory coating of red to rival Thor's cape persists, and so he thinks it must not be far behind. A strange, tickling sensation threatens to come up alongside the bile vying to evacuate itself, and he realizes dizzily that it's the urge to laugh, hysterical and unbalanced as the stormy turbulence of the seas in a hurricane. He swallows the bile back down, but the laughter escapes, wild and high and terrible like a hurricane being released upon the plains, and it just won't stop.

He had grown up being nursed with goat's milk served alongside stories of their grotesque, uncivilised lives, followed Thor in playing games at killing off the beasts of their world, listened with the rapt, unwavering attention of a younger sibling as the not yet Mjolnir-wielding older prince had sworn, with the sweet pride and the solemn promise of a child, to slay them all. He had soaked up the few tales Odin had read to them in their youth, of the war stories and old histories of Asgardian glory that left fighting an honor, death in battle a privilege, and the blue-skinned people a million stars away the villains and monsters that children everywhere trembled in horror and fear of in youth, and took up arms against in adulthood.

So why then, does a part of me feel sick inside? I was born upon that broken world, I was once blue as the ocean and cold as the moon, but that is all. I remember naught of that time, I only know of what I was raised as in this place, golden and unending and warlike as the bursts of flame from a birthing star. I have not worn that skin since I was stolen with the Casket, then again when I held it in my hands and watched it unmake my entire life with a single touch. Why then, does this conflict plague me? Why? Why?

The universe does not collapse at the despicable blasphemy performed, the air does not vanish, the sky does not unmake itself and let every last star become extinguished like trillions of aborted candle flames. Loki stands at the BiFrost and does not expire on the spot for his actions, but that does not prevent him, laughter still spilling over (it would choke him otherwise) from bracing himself against the operating mechanism, clutching Gungnir with thin fingers as he resolutely fights the sudden urge to collapse, his legs suddenly feeling weak and shaky as a newborn foal's limbs but he will not collapse and he still can't stop laughing-

-There is anger, and also pain, bright as starlight, and pain, terrible, achingly clear agony, in the blue eyes staring back at him from across the floor of the BiFrost gate. Mjolnir(reclaimed returned reforged in the crucible of an apology he still cannot fully grasp) is held securely by calloused fingers, shining in the light, the head of the hammer gleaming faintly at the edges like freshly-polished steel, and he felt apprehension skitter up his spine. He wondered, for a moment, if the lightning would taste of anything aside from the coppery tang of blood once it ripped through his body-

-"I've changed." What a lie that is. It is, in the end, an interesting one, but one that, he reflects, is still utterly transparent and useless. Mjolnir still hangs limply in Thor's tanned grip, ready to unleash another bout of lightning, and the look in the blue eyes is still as stubborn as ever. In some manner or another, the firstborn will get his way, even if than means beating it into being like hammering a sheet of silver into dinnerware. So he laughs, feeling the sensation of it rip out of his throat like a newly whetted blade, and offers an answer of his own. "So have I." Thor lunges again, Gungnir crackles with power under his fingers-

-Mjolnir welcomes the opportunity for settlement, pinning him down on his back against the glittering rainbow length of the celestial bridge like a landed fish caught in a net. No matter how he struggles, no matter the straining and twisting to pull away from the crushing weight of the enchanted weapon that makes his ribs creak ominously under the strain and his breath turn limp into his lungs, the hammer remains stubbornly put, and Loki curses in a thousand unspoken tongues that he cannot get out, get away, get free, even now, from under Thor's shadow (for what else is it, then? This mockery of a battle, wherein I am trapped beneath Thor's favorite toy and gawked at, not even worth properly fighting?). Thor is standing above him, eyes staring down at him, and he wants in that moment, childishly, maddeningly, to scream at the utter, pathetic wrongness of the entire situation, and the sound breaks free of his throat and echoes-

-his arms are burning with strain from holding on, he's looking up at them, and they're looking down at him, two blue eyes and one blue-grey (Is it even truly grey? He has not looked him in the eyes in so long, so very long, that memory itself has faded) looking down at him, and while Thor's are full of tears, full of a storm of such emotion it hurt to look at, the Allfather's expression seems carved from marble, it's so unmoving and unruffled (or perhaps he's forgotten how to feel when it concerns something out of his control, something strange and mad to be pitied and molded back to desired normalcy?), save for the slightest furrowing of the bushy eyebrows that could likely be attributed to the strain of holding up two additional weights, and the only proclamation offered for his confusion, his pleas to understand, his need to know what did I do wrong, why am I wrong, how do I fix it so you don't look at me this way is a mere mouthful of syllables, a short, almost curt "No, Loki" that felt like a sickening burn sluicing through his bones like some foul, incurable disease, and that's what he was, in the end, was he not? A blight of shadow that does not help, but hinders, and for something so dark the only solution is to raze it-

-he spares a moment to look up one final time, wondering if there will even be a search for his corpse after this, and allows himself to manage a mental I'm sorry, Mother, good-bye before hope, fleeting, fickle mistress that she is, returns to make him change his mind-

-and he lets go, feels the cool, smooth handle of Gungnir slide out of his hand as he wrenches his fingers away, fancies for a moment that he feels a pulse of energy from the ancient boar-spear that feels like a brush of sombre farewell, and watches as those blue eyes up above widen with shock, mouth twisting in an expression of horrified surprise as a drawn-out cry of "No!" tears free (and what a pretty little empty thing that cry was, wasn't it? If you cared you would have gone after me, caught me, yet even with Mjolnir at hand for you to wield and fly with, you still clung to Odin and watched from above as I fell, you watched and you did not find me), and then space is rushing up to meet him, cold, so cold, colder even than the touch of the Casket as he drifts away into blessed, cursed, fathomless oblivion-

-the yell of denial echoes, vast and deep as the depths of the sea, as he falls back, and when the golden hue of Asgard finally is no more that a bit of glittering needlepoint in his vision, darkness surrounding him, the scream finally rips its way out from his throat as the magnitude of what has occurred catches up with his body, and he does not know how long he descends, only that it feels unending and disturbingly isolating-

-Sharp points of rocks digging into his back, pain radiating from every part of his body like ten thousand white-hot knives digging in at random, and he looks up to see a multitude of unreadable faces, ancient, greyish like corroding stone, all clicking and hissing to one another in a language that, unnervingly, he can't properly grasp, despite his attempts to speak, to try and glean some sort of ground upon which to stand on and assess the situation. A skin-crawling amount of serrated blades and ominous-looking firearms are held out in offensive positions on all sides, blocking him in, and for a moment, the unpleasant, dizzying flash of memory flares up, of a hunting trip long before, when Thor had brought back a juvenile bilgesnipe home to skin and roast for the night's feast, and of how they had circled it like wolves, weaponry drawn like exposed teeth as the cornered beast, already wounded and bleeding from an impalement wound from Sif's javelin, panicked and twisted, running back and fourth in a futile attempt to find a weak spot to burst through, all the while foaming at the mouth, snorting wildly, horns twisting this way and that, eyes wide and rolling with terror as it cried and cried and cried-

-They didn't stop, not even when the sight of his own blood pooling beneath him from the horrors inflicted on his broken form became familiar as the act of breathing. His tongue had long since grown rusty from disuse in calling for his once-family, for the pleas were given no answer and he had grown tired of growing the appendage back with what little magic he could scrounge up after they grew tired of his screams and tore it out yet again.

He wondered how long he had been down here, how many rotations of the sun, stars, and moons through the skies had passed since he had landed in this godless, lifeless, luck-forsaken wasteland of the darkest fringes of hellish space. He had forgotten what the kiss of sunlight felt like, what the flavour of real food tasted like. What was water? and How much more red is left in me? became much more pressing things to ponder, when he could scrounge up what tatters they left him of his mind to try and piece his reality back together. The hours slurred together like words spoken under the haze of inebriation, mashing into clumps and uneven floods that left gaps in his memories. He rasped in a breath, wondering if the sensation of knives stabbing through his battered, bruised chest to nick and crack apart ribs like chestnuts was truly real, or simply another hallucination, and then he blinks, and the wavering sight of the blade freshly piercing through flesh solidifies. His vision cracks as panic bubbles up alongside fresh agony, shimmering with a red brighter than a long-vanished cape from a billion stars away, and then the world spirals away into blessed unconsciousness-

-Peace. Blessed, incomprehensible peace. He knows that he is healing, slowly but surely, and that he is hidden, and that he is, above all, safe. He breathes in, breathes out, blissfully detached from the devastation lurking outside their refuge like circling beasts, and wonders at the strangeness of being protected, cared for, and sheltered simply for the fact of merely existing. The lukewarm, silken material coating his skin like a shield, wrapped so carefully around his bones, humming in his blood, nestled into his heart, infused with the very essence of his magical core...pure, unadulterated bliss. He exhaled, feeling It breathe out, not just precisely at the same time, but in the same time: there was no separate action, merely a single, smooth motion. In this place, he is safe-

-Orders. Hateful, putrid, as disgustingly curt and filthy as the mud and gore of their prized war casualties, but they are orders nonetheless. Obedience, even grudging obedience, must be unhappily given until he and his delightful new equal (and what a lovely thought that was, warming and bright like Mother's smile, that unconditional closeness and aid that soaks up like water to an ever-thirsting desert) could find a method with which to twist and manipulate the threads of the Mad Titan's web of corrupted power and dark dreams, pulling and tugging and rewriting their plans of conquest and death until something vital snapped. Neither of them wish to be pulled into servitude, the mere concept of such pathetic submission after everything they had experienced was unacceptable. Standing up from the wreckage of their chrysalis, the two of them regarded the invasion forces, the buildup of power in the air now singing grisly promises of the portal that would send them on a military excursion festering with unnervingly focused insanity and greed.

To his shared displeasure, in order to ruin the conquest efforts of such hateful figures, they would need to at least pretend to heed the demands to fetch the Tesseract like a hunting dog after a rabbit, and in the process, slaughter the local planetary population by the droves in order to impress a potentially nonexistent female personification of death. The very imagining of it left him wanting to crawl out his own skin with disgust, and it was only the knowledge that the symbiote has nested in that skin (filthy, monstrous, frozen, so blue, too much, too COLD), that his other half had, somehow, impossibly, incredibly, made it bearable (safe, safe, safe, It tamed the cold and made us safe, It ate the darkness and the poison like nothing more than a bowl of Idunn's apples, cursed the lie back into obliviousness and let it sleep eternal) that prevents him from reaching out and clawing off great swaths of flesh in inward loathing and horror. He shares a form now, cloaked in ever-present hunger and a living sea of semi-fluid, that leeches out the poisonous frost in his polluted self and leaves him blissfully claimed in the savage security and the strange, feral, viciously intelligent bond to a bizarre, yet somehow kindred spirit.

Grounded by the living, liquid shadow coiled tightly around him like a great serpent of dead stars, Loki refrained from spitting out a incendiary curse to turn everyone around them into a pathetic, mangled pile of burnt flesh and bone, and instead listened to the morbidly comforting mental litany of the symbiote hissing long, guttural strings of blood-red insults at the oblivious audience surrounding their now ruined place of rebirth and recuperation. Together, they stand at the head of the invasion, stepping into the disturbingly bright glow of the portal, watching the bustling, scurrying life of the populace on the other end, and feel the dizzying jolt of being sent elsewhere-

-Thor, eyes uncomprehending points of blunt, shining sapphire, Mjolnir held at the ready to bring down a crackling, burning retribution as the red of his cape fans out like the spray of hot blood from a freshly-slit enemy throat. Barton, arrow notched and ready to fire, steady-handed and dead-eyed as if facing a rabid animal needing to be put down. Romanoff, gun steady at her side and curls so red that blood paled in envy, aiming for vitals with the precision of ten thousand Norns-blessed oracles as she clutched the scepter in the other hand. Rogers, shield mounted on one arm, the other held tight as Barton's bowstring, ready to let fly a punch capable of shattering a Leviathan's armored hide in a single blow. Stark, armor-clad palms mockingly slack at his sides and yet still shining with a light strong enough to seem as if he'd captured stars in his hands to release right when they reached the supernova stage and scattered their energy back into the branches of Yggdrasil. Banner, skin still green and gargantuan form still bulging with muscle, hands twitching slightly and he has to resist the nigh-overwhelming urge to run hide get out get out get out-

A choked scream burst out from behind his teeth as Loki opened his eyes, breathing in huge, burning gulps of air as shudders wracked shared flesh. A bright glow to his left almost blinds him in the gloom, confusing and out-of-place in a prison cell during nighttime hours, but after a moment his eyes adjust, revealing a shimmering yellow-gold orb of light, likely conjured into existence on instinct as he awoke from the nightmares.

Several moments pass in silence, save for the harsh sound of his sleep-shaken breathing, but the darkness all around him suddenly pulls closer, wrapping around his shaking body like a blanket, and his thoughts flicker suddenly with beautiful, warm, welcoming light, twisting and knotting and spiraling into a halo of colours that ask, raspy as the wind through the trees and thick and dark as freshly-collected honeycomb, Are you alright?

His limbs, still shaking from the dream-bourne urge to run, are bundled up in a thick, soft layer of liquid shadow, curling round and round and round until Loki isn't quite sure how to move any longer. The darkness is silken, weighted but overwhelmingly so, pressing in firmly on all sides so that he can't panic and flail. A hysterical laugh bubbles up, threatens to break free from his scream-laden throat, when he finds that the symbiote has wrapped up their vessel all the way up to the point where neck meets chin, and branched out in all directions, cradling their shared form in a deep, sunken indent in the furthest part of their makeshift nest. They're submerged in a sea of living ink, faintly glistening like a web of unnatural gossamer and throbbing with the melody of a shared heartbeat, and the urge to laugh resurfaces as the sunken space rocks back and forth in time with his breathing, as if mimicking the cradle his infant self had slept in over a thousand years ago.

Ssleep. Nothing will hurt you.

How do you know?

A tendril, and then five, and then ten, and suddenly the whole nest is writhing with ten thousand twisting, wriggling, razor-sharp needle-tipped threads of shadow, squirming, raging, cold and hungry as winter's bite in a brutal, simple truth. They'll die firsst.

Thick swatches reach out to further curl around him, and he relaxes, exhaling, at the sensation of the living covering twisting and threading together to blanket flesh and bone in a protection that even the darkness of his memories flee from.

He doesn't remember falling asleep, but the mindscape is awash with a faint, soothing hum of wheat-gold in the pattern of a half-remembered tune from childhood slumbers (Mother's hair, Mother's songs) as he closes his eyes.

It is enough.

---

-Beautiful as the morning sunrise. Bright as a thousand stars. Weaver of futures, Seer of fates yet to come, of what could or could not be. Kind and graceful as falling flower petals, yet sharp-eyed as a hawk. Wife of the Allfather, and Queen of the golden realm of Asgard. Frigga, she who, even after all this time, he would, in the darkest, blackest, most mangled corners of that vestigial organ called a heart, always call Mother.

But never, in all the years he had ever known in his life, had a thought ever spawned in him of her dead.

Lying, suddenly graceless and empty-eyed as a doll, upon the floor of the palace, was Frigga. Once-bright, far-seeing eyes now were coloured marbles in an eternally fixed and sightless gaze, her hair ringing her head in a wheat-gold halo. Her dress, once immaculately unruffled and glittering like spun gold dust, was torn, threads hanging haphazardly like a half-woven tapestry, slowly staining with the blood that seeped out onto the floor underneath her broken body. The sword lay, abruptly dropped from the shock of a doubtlessly painful death, on the floor beside her, the blade glimmering faintly in the light.

Her opponent (filth, damnable putrid wasste of exisstence, kill it kill it KILL IT) stood, the twin black marbles (they cannot be eyess, he inwardly protests and the symbiote hisses in unnerved agreement, not when they leech light from out of their owner'ss face like the Void tried to conssume uss) staring unflinchingly at the death he had wrought, his gaze as calm and cold as a slab of polished, finely cut marble. Far in the corner, hiding behind a pillar, Thor's beloved mortal woman shivers in silent horror at the scene before her, fingers milk-white and clutching desperately to the cold support the pillar provides. Her eyes are wide with shock and dismay, mouth agape in a muted scream as her gaze flitted back and forth between the Allmother's too-still form and her murderer.

-Wake! Wake! Colours, so many colours, why? What was happening? Why was there nothing but colour (and emotion, so much, too much, where is this coming from wake up wake up WAKE UP-

Loki woke with a rasping, half-choked cry, shaking and wild-eyed, staring unseeingly at nothing for several seconds as he tried to remember how to breathe without feeling as if the air was being scraped out of his lungs. The symbiote rippled questioningly all around him, warbling mental whorls of curious, worried greyish-yellow even as the catsuit erupted with a thick, protective layer of bristling, katana-sharp needles in response to It's host's panic. The lighting of the chamber, dimmed for the night hours, flickered wildly as his magic lashed out, blasting apart the few pieces of furniture present to fly in all directions as pieces of finely-carved wood.

What in the Nornss' needlework wass that?

Bad dream? The future? the symbiote offered mentally, tendrils pulling the makeshift nest closer around them, weaving Itself back into the dark clusters of organic material to cocoon It's host in a thick, swaddling wraparound of shadow, pressing in against shared skin and letting soft vibrations quiver and thrum against the hollow of pallid throat in an unspoken gesture of comfort.

I...I am not entirely ssure. The thought was horrifying in its uncertainty. The Allmother iss the one of the housse of Odin who perssisstss in recieving and reading vissionss, be they of passt, of the pressent, or of the future. I do not have the ssame capability. But on occassion, thosse who are practitionerss of the magical artss are capable of prophetic dreamss, though they generally are conssidered more of a cursse, given that mosst dreamss of that ssort ussually drive the recipient mad with fear of the potential future.

Then sshould we worry, or sshould we wait?

Claw-tipped fingers reached out from underneath the cocoon of shadow to brush back a thick, sleep-tangled curtain of messy raven's wing hair, pulling the inky locks back behind a pale ear as the fallen god contemplated what to do.

On one hand, thiss bodess ill for all beyond thiss cell. That filth looked to be one of the Dark Elvess of Ssvartalfheim, the world desstroyed by the Allfather'ss father Bor, who wass king before him. I am certain of it, he matchess the desscription of their people from my hisstory lesssonss...

But they needed to be certain.

The symbiote reached deep into their shared memories and began searching, pulling forth recollections of past history lessons on Asgardian wartime, and of the numerous glories of their victories against all they encountered and fought. A low hiss of surprise bubbled up as a memory flickered into place of lecturer that had spoken of Bor's crushing victory over the Dark Elves, detailing the vast legions of vanquished foes that led to their leader's subsequent sacrifice of his remaining people to the whims of Asgardian military might in exchange for the opportunity to flee. Loki dimly remembered the feeling of nausea and disgust that had arisen (youth and frequent illnesses made for a frail stomach for tales of war, he later mused) when Thor (who had, given the subject, been actually interested in furthering his knowledge) had managed to request elaboration on the lesson, asking for tales of conquest and glory done in his grandfather-king's time. The Allfather had obliged, pleased with his firstborn's interest in their family history and times of fortune, and had proceeded to enlighten the two princes. The sensation of unease and an unsettled gut had only furthered as the lecture delved further into the war against Svartalfheim, detailing a world left ravaged and disturbingly empty of life, rendered cold and death's-pallor-grey and dust-bogged to the point of choking, the landscape littered with, and in many cases at least partly composed from, the corpses of the millions of the long-dead native population.

Bor had not been kind to those left behind in the wake of victory. Odin had ensured that both members of his audience understood this.

At the time, his younger self, not yet old enough to comprehend the full scope of his thought-to-be grandfather's military regime, had only felt an inward sense of disproportionately-mixed disgust and confusion at the waste laid to the conquered world. Slaughter of a number of your enemies was a necessary action in wartime, but the willful massacring of the entire populace had seemed needless and wasteful, a squandering of Asgardian fighting resources and time, as well as a uselessly brutal disposal of an already-defeated population that otherwise could at least bid for continued existence as a workforce, or could offer an opportunity for information on their people's technologies and arts. At the time, Svartalfheim's transportation technology alone had outstripped Asgard's be a wide berth, having the capability for long-distance interstellar travel in their spaceships in an age where Asgard's off-world transportation relied almost entirely on the continued functionality of the BiFrost.

They are ssuppossed to all be dead. Your lesssonss sstated sso. All gone, all dead, all left to rot. Nothing but boness and dusst left.

They are all dead. Or, sso I was told...

Letting out a sigh of resignation, he reached a decision.

We need to talk to Mother.