A/N: Breaking the radio silence with a hastily scrapped-together story written while procrastinating summer homework! How wonderful~ I know very few of you are my Hetalia watchers, but for those who are; I'm sorry! X/Y kinda fell onto the backburner after The Avengers came out and I fell off the Hetalia archive, but I still love the story and as such it shall be finished! And I'm also working on a PruHun oneshot, so expect that too :)

ANYWAY! This isn't up to my usual standard of "reviewed for weeks with a red pen" but I'm curious as to how this new fandom will respond, so viola! Expect one or two subsequent parts within the next few weeks. This story isn't too seriously thought out, but I figured "Hey, I havent written the obligatory Be Careful What You Wish For archetypical story yet. Why not now?" This was actually inspired by something I saw on deviantart, depicting the earth as seen by the righteous as completely black and white. We all know that there are shades of gray, but Movieverse Thor doesn't seem to have realised this yet. Please excuse any spelling and gramatical errors, I have no Beta and it's quite late.

The Consequences of a Righteous World

Part One

Loki was a firm believer in balance. There is always a balance, an equilibrium of sorts, to ensure that the universe remains stable and life a struggle. There could be no happiness without sadness, no sadness without happiness. There could be no light without dark, no dark without light. No good without evil. No evil without good. And Loki understood that neither part could be hindered, nor squelched, no matter how hard so-called 'peacekeepers' and 'heroes' tried.

As the god of mischief, Loki was a constant player in this balance. He understood that his mischief was keeping the balance, providing a far more positive outlet for the negative forces of the universe than many of his counterparts would.

Therefore, it stands to reason that shallow minds of the Aesir never ceased to vex him.

"Your mischief causes naught but trouble!" Thor chastised, pacing before the throne. Odin sat behind him, chin high, eyes low, staff planted firmly beside him. It was to Thor that Loki's punishment fell, and Thor would make sure his brother faced justice. "Your lies carve skin from the backs of innocents! Your evil is felt across the nine realms, your wake spreading beyond even that! You have brought destruction, death, carnage, and misery! Odin forgive me, but I fear you would herald Ragnarök if given the chance." His voice echoed as loudly as the following silence, filled again quickly by the clacking of his boots. He continued with a softer tone; that often reserved for disciplining unruly children. "You are restrained, and yet your power grows daily. Soon, nay, now, we may be unable to hold you. Still you remain. Certainly! For some devilish purpose we are not yet privy to! So tell me, brother, why should we not kill you where you kneel?"

Loki looked up, his neck craning. Despite his proximity to the floor, he would not be looked down to. He was strong. The muzzle clamping his tongue jiggled when he jerked his chin, the angry shine in his eyes saying what his words couldn't.

Behind the would-be-king and the will-be-king, Odin Allfather tapped his staff against the floor. The muzzle fell to the floor with a clatter, and the father of all things spoke. "Defend yourself, Loki, but do so with discretion. A single lie and your voice will be taken from you with no hope for it's return."

The trickster wiped the corner of his mouth with a shoulder, his arms bound painfully behind his back. "It is typical of you, Father," he spat, "so eager to silence my lies, you would not care to wait for the truths that would follow. Tell me this; do you silence all of your prisoners before you pull what you would consider the truth from them? Or am I a happy exception?"

"You are a liar, Loki. Your truths are muddied."

The trickster laughed. "My truths are the most sincere truths your ears would ever hear, should you only look for them, and as few and far between as they are. Now, I would gladly tell you the truth, should you ask nicely."

Odin said nothing.

Thor looked on angrily. "Tell us your 'truths', brother. I asked you once before, who controls the would-be-king?"

"I am not your brother!" The room seemed to freeze. Lies would silence the Silvertongue. For a moment, Thor feared all was for naught – for Loki was his brother despite his belief otherwise – but then Loki opened his mouth and spoke again, this time through a devious smirk. "I speak only the truth."

Something overcame the prince then, as his resolve crumbled to ash between his fingers. His father stood. He took two steps forward and with the end of his staff nudged Loki's chin, guiding him into a standing position. "Then speak, Silvertongue. Show to the court the evil that hides beneath the skin of an Aesir."

For a beat, Loki prepared himself. He made a very important decision then – born not in anger and thirst for revenge but from the desire to teach such ignorant regents a lesson – that would forever revolutionize the realms of Yggdrasil. And then he began.

"No evil lies beneath this skin of Aesir. Malice, certainly, but not evil. Asgard teaches such a righteous view of good and evil, does it not? There is good, and there is evil, and that is it. Good brings only happiness, evil only melancholy, and that is it. You have been blinded. But I can see. You would have peace eternal, joy eternal, happiness eternal, if only you could eliminate all you deem 'evil'. So you think. But without that which you have deemed evil, you will see horrors the like of which you have never known."

Something caused the trickster to shiver. It was a complete, encompassing shiver, that of a man anticipating death. "I was saved from my fall by the Eternal One, who was to destroy me then rebuild me as he saw fit. A weapon, if you will. The deed was nearly done, but there was not enouth time. I was sent to Midgard prematurely, to retrieve the Tesseract for the Eternal One and my fellow acolytes. But the Tesseract saved me from the Eternal One.

"It showed me this truth, among many. There is a story on Midgard, of the creation of all life self-aware. The Great Creator – even greater than you, Allfather – planted a tree to bear fruit. This tree was called the Tree of Knowledge and it held that all that the Great Creator knew, because the seeds from which it had been planted had been since a time before even him. They are the same from which the great Yggdrasil was grown. When his creations ate from the tree, they became as knowledgeable as the Great Creator himself. The story is true, though not even you are aged enough to remember it, Allfather. The Great Creator burnt the tree after this betrayal, but collected the fruit, for such knowledge is not to be wasted. So he hid them about Yggdrasil for us to find.

"It is said that Aesir are the descendants of those who first feasted on the fruit. That the other realms are primitive and stupid because their ancestors ate not the fruit of the tree. It would certainly explain our – your – sense of superiority. I digress; as millennia have passed, all those who have but touched the fruit have been changed. We have known a child of such fruit our whole lives, and yet we knew it not. For many years the fruits were rare, taking many different shapes. In our time there has been but one. The last fruit of this tree I have touched, I have tasted. I have always believed in balance, that for every action there must be another, opposite, counteraction, and the fruit of knowledge has only brought me vindication."

Thor interrupted, "What mean you by all this, Liesmith? You tell such a tale and hope we forget what was demanded of you."

Loki laughed. "I tell no lies, my voice is proof enough of that." Again he shivered. The prince wondered if the action was voluntary after all. "But my time here grows short. You have said that you can no longer contain me. You are correct." A soft blue glow melted the cuffs from his wrists. Thor took a backwards step, a tiny spike of fear forming in his stomach, but the all father remained resolute. His gaze did not falter. "I am hunted. Should I stay, the Eternal One would find me and this time succeed in remaking me. I must go. But if I am to learn the consequences of my actions, you too shall learn the consequences of yours."

He lifted a hand into the air and with six graceful swipes painted a spellcaster's circle in his aura. Thor's hand fell to Mjolnir at his waist, but the Allfather remained resolute. "If you will not hear my lies, then I will not speak. If you will not tolerate my mischief, then I shall make none. If you are not fond of the chaos I create, then let there be peace. Through peace you shall taste true evil. We will see how happy you become." The circle glowed a bright red, then moved toward the trickster, shrinking, finally making a home on his forehead before fading away. "I bid you farewell, Allfather. I bit you nothing, Thor, but good luck. Because now you have lost not only a brother, but the only chance at happiness you ever had."

With that he disappeared, not even a wisp of smoke to prove that he had ever been there in the first place. Thor looked to his father, who he had learned to defer to since his banishment, but the Allfather's gaze was trained on the spot where Loki had once stood. "Father," the prince began, "what do we do now?"

Odin Allfather tapped his staff against the marble, a tiny wave of energy flowing out, over all of Asgard, over all the nine realms. He sighed. "Loki has left the Realms of Yggdrasil. Now we return to our lives."

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