The three things going through his mind when the Kursed impales him are: why did I do that I don't even like either of them so why am I getting stabbed for them, this is much much worse than being smashed around by the beast, and if I die here Thor will have to leave my body behind.

It's that third thought that convinces Loki to die on Svartalfheim; because while his heart still beats, he is perceived dead, and if there's anything he's learned from years of magic lessons from Frigga (don't think of Frigga don't see that disappointment in her eyes don't remember the last words you ever said to her you are the god of lies surely you can convince yourself that you did not say that she is not your mother) it's that perception is what really matters. (The last words she said to you were about perception do not remember that either.)

He uses his knowledge of the roads between worlds (and he has always been proud of knowing things that Heimdall does not) again to stow Odin in a place that does not even have a name. He could kill the AllFather – he could do it easily, remorselessly – but he doesn't know everything that Odin does.

Not yet. That day will come – and he will kill the AllFather – but until then he keeps the deposed king alive, as a precaution.

It is practicality that Thor, foolish oaf, would mistake for sentimentality, were he around to witness it.

Odin told them both that they were born to be kings but what he did not stress at all was that there was more to being king than fighting battles to defend the realms. There is work, boring and mundane, negotiations, management of resources, and it is hardest to wear Odin's face during those times because Loki wants nothing more than to snap and start projecting snakes raining from the ceiling to liven things up a bit, and he can't, because Loki is dead.

He is glad that Thor is already on Midgard because if something occurred making it necessary for him to feign worry and dispatch a force to protect that realm, he would certainly crack and destroy his carefully-managed ruse.

Dealing with Sif and the Warriors Three is the worst. They practically grovel before the AllFather (part of which might be trying to get back into his good books after their acts of treason) and the respect they show Loki-we-think-is-Odin is a thousand times more than the respect they showed Loki-we-know-is-Loki-who-actually-had-a-legitimate-claim-to-the-throne-because-Odin-is-asleep-and-that-was-while-Thor-was-exiled-for-idiocy-albiet-Loki-encouraged-idiocy. They defer to his every word (again, probably trying to make up for the treason) and he wonders if they would throw themselves off the Bifrost if he asked.

Loki desperately, desperately wants to ask them to, but Odin wouldn't, so he can't.

At some point he remembers that their way of showing disrespect to him when he had the throne before was to commit treason, and then they committed treason under Odin-actual, and he questions what conclusion he should reach from that before deciding that it means that they care more for Thor than for whoever sits on the throne. It makes him feel a little better about things, though he still wouldn't mind seeing them take a dive into the void.

Sometimes he wouldn't mind taking a dive into the void.

In the AllFather's form.

Just to see the reactions and hear the screams.

It makes him smile until he realizes that they would mourn Odin in the way they never mourned him, and then the bitterness returns.

He hears his name sometimes, always attached to a bad word, and he cannot defend himself because Odin would not defend him, and he always manages to cover up the hurt with the anger of practicality be damned, I want to kill the AllFather.

He never does and there is a punchline about perception, Frigga's last words to him, somewhere in there, and he lies and tells himself that he is practical not sentimental. Practical because it is practical to keep Odin alive with the slim possibility of his being discovered or escaping, because of the greater possibility of someone asking him something that the king should know and his having to go to Odin to bleed the answer from him.

He sets all of the horses in the stable loose in the palace and makes a big show of wanting to know who did it, but the fun is hollow when he is not allowed to giggle in the shadows while everyone curses at him like Loki we know you did it but we can't figure quite out how. Or why.

The fun was in claiming credit for it. (Why yes Thor I do happen to know where your cape has gone and yes Thor it is being worn by a baby goat and no Thor I do not think it is warrior material.)

He wishes that both of his parents, not just Frigga, held a streak of mischief in them. For Odin to develop one now would be seen as senility, insanity, and while destroying Odin's reputation would be a joy, it would lose him the throne.

Imagining that consequence scares him less and less, and that frightens him more and more.

Gungnir is not enchanted like Mjolnir but the staff begins to grow heavy in his hand. His birthright still dangles tenuously out of his grasp because while he sits on the throne he must hide behind the face of another. For Loki to claim the title of king (and the fun is in claiming credit for it) would set all Asgard against him and even he does not like those odds. It would result in his actual, not just perceived, death, and actual death is something Loki would much like to avoid. He is king and he is not, he has the throne and he doesn't, and even with this discrepancy he is still greater than Thor who cannot claim even half a hold to either –

And maybe all he ever did want after all was to be Thor's equal.