Not sure what to say with this one. I'm not quite happy with the formatting since my original version had bits aligned to the right instead of left, but... what am I gonna do?
This was the result of a session of brainstorming and subsequent pondering on a few lines from the third part of my story Orbitals.
I can claim no ownership of the characters found in this. I think the idea may be my own but I make no promises.
Anyway, hope you enjoy ^_^
It was at this point that everything in his life fell apart. But, as anyone could have told him, he had nowhere to go but forward, no destination but up.
If only he still knew where "up" lay.
What going forward even meant.
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He was exposed as he journeyed…
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Laughter ringing through the hall like grinding ice. Cheers and applause flowing close behind.
My father is rising from his frozen throne.
"Behold my son." He rumbles proudly. "See how he changes his surroundings to fit his needs. This is our hope. This is Jotunheim's future!"
I am basking in the flow of adoration from my father's subjects. I am their future, I am to be their hero.
I will save them; I will save my home, return it to what it once-
It's dark. It's cold. The stars wheel by in unfamiliar trajectories.
They Jeer At Him Where He Is Curled In His Own Filth, A Forgotten Corner Among The Shifting Ice His Home, His Sanctuary. He Is Too Small, They Say, Unfit To Be Prince, Unfit To Be Jotun, Unfit To Be Alive…
He Guards His Magic, His Secret, Jealously. It Had Kept His Tiny Form Alive For Years After He was Abandoned. And Now It Keeps The Jeers And Taunts From Becoming Blows. A Slight Twisting Of The Threads That Tie Reality Together And They Forget He's Even There.
He Knows He Was Meant For More Than This.
A figure bends over him.
I never wished for this to happen.
"Father, please-"
"No, Loki. I will hear no more. Thor has been punished for his actions in the hopes that he will learn a much needed lesson."
"But it was I who made him g-"
"I know."
What?
"I knew it was you who allowed the Jotun within Asgard. I understand now that it was meant as a gift for your brother, a way for him to prove his place as King…"
I cannot find the words to speak. He has said all that I was to use to convince my father that Thor is not at fault.
"… but he used that gift to prove only how unready he is. A King of Asgard must act swiftly when the need arises but he must also learn to wait when patience is necessary. On Midgard he will learn the humility his life here never granted him."
"B-but Father, why must he be punished so while… while I remain here?"
You imbecile! What was that – do you want to be banished as well…?!
"You have never needed lessons in waiting, my son. Rather, I hope this may teach you that it is others who often suffer for your schemes."
He turned away from me.
"Now come, Loki. It is time, I believe, to show you something…"
"We can use this one."
The jotun's touch does not freeze him.
It envelops him.
He cannot move, nor breathe, nor cry out to his comrades in arms, his brother.
He can only watch as the giants give chase, his brother so caught up in berserker fury that he never notices his shadow has been left behind.
He hears their plans for him.
A trade, some argue: the dark sorcerer-prince for their long-stolen treasure.
Others say to shatter him where he stands.
"Think of all he must have seen… all he has learnt."
He has long known he was only a replacement for the son they lost.
Has long known that a true son would have been preferred to one stolen from an enemy as payment for such a grievous loss.
But he has never doubted their love for him. Even if the melancholy in their gazes, the wistful look of a possibility that never occurred, is for someone he has never met…
There are worse things to live up to, to be jealous of, than an idealized Maybe.
"Loki Odinson, my heir. My chosen son…."
Gold light fills the throne room where he kneels before his king and father.
"So long entrusted with gifts of magic and discernment. Power tempered with the wisdom to use it. Fit companions for a king…"
His father speaks of his own reign, of the glories of ancient times, and of the necessity of change…
"Do you swear to guard the Nine Realms?"
"I so swear."
"Do you swear to preserve the peace?"
"I swear it."
"Do you swear . . . to cast aside all selfish ambition, and to pledge yourself only to the good of the realm?"
"Yes, I swear!"
"Then on this day, I Odin Alfather… proclaim you to be the next King of Asgard."
He can ignore how many of the cheers are not so joyous as others.
He had long known that the Prince of Asgard was not overloved by all.
But what was discontent among the masses when his family has such smiles for him alone.
"All the secrets he will tell us…"
A wrodlsles sarecm traes its way out of his thoart. He has nveer flet pian lkie tihs borefe.
It bnurs, it fzreees as it sedlis anolg his borw, his lpis, his tnguoe. Sinelces his sarecms.
A pnuishnemt he kwons.
One too mnay tcrkis.
Soon his bndos wlil baerk, soon the brnunig wlil end.
And tehn all the Remlas wlil brun as wlel.
"…the things he will say to gain your partiality."
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A thousand deaths, a thousand lives, millennia of experiences compressed to an instant in that non-space between worlds. Where realities and possibilities and impossibilities collide and merge and become one – where he was everything and nothing.
Dreams he wished were nightmares. Nightmares he wanted to forget.
And then the dreams ende-
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You are awake. Good.
Where am I?
Tell us who you are, first.
I am Loki. (Of no realm)
Welcome then, Loki, to Titan of Acheron.
Please let this be more than just another dying dream...