O Trickster, My Trickster
You were there that day in New York City.
You saw the black hole in the sky above Manhattan, and the ships flying down. The buildings aflame, the people scrambling like mad rats, chaos not uncommon and massacre not unheard of since a previous fateful day eleven years ago. But this one was worse. Even you could figure that out in what was left of your mind. This was an attack from some other place that was not Planet Earth.
You heard the screaming, the explosions, the fire raging all around. Up above, you saw the ungodly, unfathomable, slithering faces of the attackers. And you did not know what to make of them as they shattered windows, snapped necks, and splintered taxis. You wondered, who were they? And what the fuck are they doing out here?
You just cannot understand what is happening. Ironically, you are the one who will end up with the best view.
Somebody is shouting. It is police, a cop.
"Everyone get to the subways. Stay off the streets."
In the midst of the papers flying and hair whipping and coffee spilling and feminine screaming surrounding you, you manage to steal a peek outside the window of the lobby. Sure enough, they were coming. Only in that moment did the most terrible thing called fear begin to sink in.
You are afraid again.
Get out. Get out of these walls. Get away from the people. Fresh air. Space. It will stop it.
That is all you can think of as you squeeze through the disassembling crowd, as they dive like bubbles to the surface of a glass of root beer. When you push open the door, the sounds turn quite different. You stumble outside. Smoke is rising in the air. Smashed concrete has made the taxi you arrived in into a pancake. Broken glass crunches under your feet...shit. You have a habit of taking off your shoes in the lobby, so they must be still in there. The blood feels warm and slick.
Slowly, you crane your head up, gazing and pondering at the sight. New York City is burning. Its attackers dance and flame in the air as they break down one by one, each casualty filled in by five replacements. From the smoke, your mouth runs dry. Your hair whips over your face as you clench your fists.
This is all you know, and all you want to know.
A sound approaches you from behind, like a car on the interstate. You turn around, squinting. It is coming closer. Maybe it's headed right for you.
Run.
Don't let him catch you.
It is a flying car and it's going to fucking catch you, run, dammit, run.
"Clint? Little help," Natasha Romanoff says into her mouthpiece, glancing over her shoulder to see Loki, the God of Mischief, coming right for her with every intention of ending her little ride. His two horns glisten in the sunlight as a small smile crosses his pale face.
"Yup. I got him," Clint replies. He too smiles, as he raises an arrow to his bow, and aims right for Loki. He just doesn't want it to be a fatal shot. That would be too boring for...afterward.
Clint hesitates. Loki was turning off-course, away from Natasha. He was heading for the ground. What the hell is he planning?
"Just shoot already, Clint."
"Nat...I think there's someone down there."
"Meaning...?"
Clint tightens his grip on the arrow, clenching his teeth. There is someone down there. The roads were supposed to be evacuated of people, but someone was down there. A girl. Just standing there, wandering around in Equestria and Candyland.
"Oh fuck, Loki, don't." But Clint can't shoot. Not from this angle. If he did, he would hurt the civilian. A Chitauri lands on the roof behind him just before he can try for a different angle at Loki. With no choice, he spins around and tackles the beast, stabbing it through the neck with his arrow.
To his horror, Clint looks back just in time to see Loki swoop down, steering with one hand and reaching out with the other, and in a flash, snatches the girl right off the street.
"Oh, shit...!" He aims again.
The archer is too late. The girl is pinned in front of Loki, a body shield. A whimpering, trembling body shield for the God of Mischief.
You cannot breathe. You don't know what's happening. You don't understand!
Oh god, what are you doing!please let me go, I'll do anything!just put me down! Oh, fuck, what are you doing!
A cold, bony arm bound by leather coils over your chest, pinning you to his front. You crouch your legs in the uncomfortable position. You feel the tickle of frail, silky hair against your cheek as your head is forced to turn to the side. In a minute or so, if nothing changes, you are going to either vomit or wet yourself or both.
"Don't squirm, Midgardian. Now, do as I say, and cooperate, and nothing will happen to you."
His voice is an icy river cutting through a forest made of dark caramel.
Your body decides to vomit first.
"Stark? Stark, come in!"
"Yeah, Legolas?"
"I have Loki. He's heading for the Stark Tower."
"You got it. Let's see who shoots him in the knee first. On your mark, get set—"
"Stark, do not open fire on Loki. I repeat, do not open fire!"
Other voices come in from separate lines, stinging in Clint's ear with the ragged reception.
"This is Captain, I'm headed right over."
Clint is staring ahead through his scope, not believing what he is seeing.
"Hawkeye...hey, Hawkeye? You there? What's happening?"
"Nobody fire on Loki. He's got a hostage...!" Clint cries.
You crash face-first onto the roof of a tall building. Vomit has soaked the front of your shirt and dribbles down your chin and from the ends of your hair. Before you can catch your breath, you are snatched up and held tight again. The leather stings your bare skin. Below, a red and glowing figure like fire lands a flight below. Beside him is a wrestler in a red cape who has just dropped a third figure decked in blue. You close your eyes against the burning sun. You hear the voice again.
"Come a step closer and the girl dies."
"Loki..." one of the figures says, you cannot tell which, "try to think. It's only a matter of time before we are victorious over the Chitari army. Let it go. You have to give it up. Help us stop this now and Asgard will not press charges against you."
Fingers dig into your ribcage beneath the bone. You shake hair out of your eyes.
"Is that the best you can offer me, Odinson? Is that all you have? How little you know of the ways of the Chitari and that of your own world."
"Put the girl down, Rock of Ages. Come on, man, it's over."
"It is never over! Until no mortal stands in the way of my quest, my war, my victory, this will never be over!"
Oh fuck, what are you doing!stop squeezing me!I need a drink of water, stupid!
"Shut up!"
"Loki, if you do not let her go, you know what I will have to—"
"And what can you do, Thor? What can you do?" His voice dies down to a technical tone, as if he has become an ATM with leather arms and legs. "Bring in the rest."
That is when you look up and you see the black hole above Manhattan. It is a dark gap in the heavens, a Bermuda triangle, and pouring out like bees from a hive are more of those grim attackers. You watch the streets explode in flames. The building the Empire State is beheaded, and its metallic, splintering, crumbling blood spews in a ring around its top.
You are dragged backwards through a broken window and into a large room that smells of something alcoholic. Farther and farther back you go until you find yourself in an elevator that drops down several stories. All the way there, you cannot escape the smell of leather damp with sweat. Behind you, the captor's heavy panting warms the back of your head. You are positive that you are dying of thirst.
How tall are you?
The elevator opens up to another large room, far darker and with one obscure window. You are tossed down to the floor like a rag-doll and discover a glowing scepter has violated the personal space surrounding your front. It is then that you see your captor for the very first time.
He is the tallest man you have seen in your short life, and the tallest you will ever see. His head is adorned with a golden helmet from which two horns protrude and curve up like that of a wild African mammal's. He dons a leather outfit speckled with green and gold, glistening with what you suddenly realize is your own vomit. His face is long, slender, and pale, terrifying light emitting from emerald eyes. His hair reminds you of licorice the way it glistens and falls back in layers. There is something weird about him and you cannot think what it is.
The look in his eyes sends a trickle down the side of your leg.
"You do as I say, child. One move out of bounds and I will strangle you with your own intestines. Do you understand?"
I just shitted myself.
"I care not what you just did. Now stay put and be silent." With that, he spins around and faces the elevator, clutching his scepter.
You look down at the blood dripping from the bottom of your feet. Glass shards are wedged beneath the skin, between the toes. You grab the biggest one and yank on it. Blood flies everywhere.
God, what did I do!
"I told you to be silent!"
Please make it stop! All the blood. It hurts, please!
He turns back and looks down at you. Against the light from the window, he is a silhouette. You watch as the growing red on the beige carpet floor is reflected in his eyes.
"Where the Bifrost is your footwear?" he hisses, still staring at the blood.
Make it stop! Stop!
"You stop that infernal shouting!"
Stop! Oh, god, stop, what did I do!
You cannot understand the next thing the captor says.
"Just my luck. She's nothing more than a petty simpleton." The captor takes off his helmet, which he sets on the bed behind you. He coils one hand over your ankle as he bends down over you to look at whatever happened to your foot.
"Here," he says to you. "I'll make it stop if you promise to stop your shouting."
You nod your head. Two snaps of his fingers and a brush over where it hurts, and just like that, it is gone.
Is that magic?
"Magic? In your pathetic Midgardian realm, I suppose you would call it that."
Your eyes glue to him as he returns to full standing height. Like a giant, he towers over you. The smell of leather is intoxicating. You like the way it glistens. You like his hair.
But the look in his eyes.
Who are you? What's your name?
That is the first time you see the captor smile, a grin fit for a toothpaste commercial, you think, or a late-night horror flick in your uncle's basement. It is the last smile you will see before you go under.
"I am Loki of Asgard, and I am about to become ruler over your earth."
War rages and screams out your window.
You slowly grow accustomed to the sounds of people dying, buildings crumbling, the dark attackers shrieking and howling and curling into death. As the hours have ticked by, you realize you can begin to ignore it. It is not so bad anymore. Now you are certain you will die of thirst. You stand up and try to stretch your back but your feet are too sore, so you say his name aloud.
Loki of Asgard, oh, Loki of Asgard. I'm thirsty.
You see him standing in front of the window, looking out to the destruction beyond the small glass. His eyes glow an intense, flaming orange. You see an exploding Statue of Liberty reflected in them. A split second later, a large rumble shakes the entire Stark building.
Loki of Asgard, why are we here?
You jump at the way he snaps his head towards you. He clenches his jaw as his eyes seem to flash all the colors of the ocean right in front of you. But you do not even know what an ocean is.
"Petty simpleton," he hisses, a snake spitting venom across the dark room. "You know not what befalls your world as we speak? You remember not who I told you I was?"
You're a ruler.
"Precisely. At the end of the day, when all your heroes have fallen or given up the race, when all your leaders scatter to private islands to hide away, out of the ashes of this battle, I will rise. Then you will know me as your ruler, your only ruler."
You do not know what a hero is. You do not know what a leader is. What you do know is that two hours ago you wet yourself, your throat is as dry as the Sahara desert, and this man standing before you has eyes that flash all the colors of the ocean.
Are you the attacker? Are we hiding?
"No, simpleton, we are not hiding. We are waiting for your heroes to either surrender or die to me once they know the battle is already won. Until the five mutants and the Odinson come to their senses and stop this futile endeavor to save the world, you will be my body-shield, and we will watch from this window." Then he quickly adds, once he spots the dark lines running down your pants, "I will watch from this window."
That's called hiding.
"And what do you know of hiding, as you call it?" he dares to ask, finishing his venomous streak with a sly smile fit for a king, a tyrant, a god.
I like to hide, all the time. Loki of Asgard, I'm thirsty.
He looks back out the window. Now it is his sharp cheekbones that glow. You swallow.
"It is only a matter of time, now. They know it will not be much longer before my army is victorious." His smile only grows, sending an icy chill curling towards your spine. "First they will invade all the Midgardian capitols, then the largest population areas, letting no one escape, holding every being captive until all are subject to my rule. Do you not understand? I am a god. I will win this one."
Water.
He blinks and stares at you. It is as if he had just forgotten something important. Then he clears his throat.
"If it will make you shut up, I suppose, drink." With a beckon of his hand, he leads you to a small table on the other end of the room where a pitcher of lukewarm water awaits you. You swallow every drop.
Loki of Asgard, are you going to win?
"Of course I am going to win," he laughs. You do not realize he is laughing at you.
So if you're going to win, why are we hiding?
With a shove, you fall backwards and land on the bed.
"I said we are not hiding!"
And now it is all the colors of hellfire that flash in his eyes. A raging hellfire. And you see the fire burn as he glares down at your petty, simple existence, and you smell the leather and you hear the explosions outside. You realize he truly is the god of mischief. He has been lying to you.
An old phrase from who knows how long ago from a gray and dead period of your life returns unexpectedly: to dream of a place that did not exist, could never be.
You don't think it's a good idea to say that aloud, and so you don't.
How many days has it been?
You do not know.
You do know that there is a funny taste in your mouth, and your jeans are tattered, and the captor's eyes and their furious tempest have paled. He paces to the window, then back around again.
It used to be that you could hear an explosion every ten seconds. Now it is every ten to twenty minutes. Not too long ago you heard voices up ahead, familiar voices from before that made you start to laugh.
"Give it up, Loki," one voice had said. "We got the entire building surrounded, which, by the way, is my building."
"Your army is scattered. Now come on out and bring the girl."
"Listen to them, brother. In the name of Asgard, give up this foolish fantasy!"
The captor had shot at the ceiling, rattling the dark cage that entangles both of you.
"Fantasy? Fantasy! Your world crumbles to ash and fire around you and you dare call it my fantasy! Can you not see all my army has already won?"
"I said give it up, Reindeer Games! You're going to lose sooner or later!"
"Do not take me for a pathetic runt as you Midgardians are!" Something in his voice struck a cord there that you found strange.
Now you wake up, pull your matted hair from your face, and crack your thumbs. He is facing the window again. It seems as if the room has grown darker. A glow surrounds him.
He notices you have awoken, and he looks right at you with a cold, piercing gaze.
"I will be victorious, my dear," he says quietly, his jaw tight and his lips pursed. "I am not a weakling. With the Tesseract, my army will win your entire puny earth."
But what about what they said.
"It matters not what they threaten. They idly waste their time attempting to convince me I have lost, and yet the war rages on right out their door. It is they who do not understand."
His voice deepens. You step back, your eyes widening. If he does anything rash, you will wet yourself again. Every time you do so he laughs the funniest laugh you have heard in your short little life, and so maybe you have started wetting yourself on purpose, just to see him smile for once.
"They want me to be a monster? Fine, I will be their monster. I have struck fear into the hearts of every Midgardian, and I will do the same again and again, until the whole world knows me for what I am, and even Asgard will one day tremble at the mention of my name."
Where is Agard?
"Simpleton," he cackles. That is his favorite word when he is talking to you. "Asgard is where I come from, and where my brother originates as well. It is a place full of haughty, conceited hearts who favor strength over skill, war over leadership...and when I was cast out, not one tear was shed for me. But my brother whom was not even dead, oh, how they mourned him."
You fall back onto the bed, afraid that with the way things are going, the captor will hit you.
I guess you don't like it.
"If I may lend your Midgardian vernacular...'no shit', I do not like Asgard."
But Loki of Asgard, you're going to lose.
"Enough!" he shouts. His black hair whips at your face as you feel hot leather bury you from the waist-down onto the bed.
Loki of Asgard, you're hurting me...!
"You think I will let a band of petty humans push me around? You honestly believe my army will fall to a realm such as this? I am no ordinary god. I am Loki. This world will kneel before me! It is inevitable! Do you not understand? It will be mine!"
He freezes before he can speak another word, staring down at your simple little face. You are helplessly pinned to the bed. Beneath you a dark puddle is starting to form. His eyes widen a bit, and his mouth cracks open. Sensing a change, you reach up and pull back a loose strand of hair from his face.
You could just give up, Loki of Asgard.
He manages to speak, but his voice is held back, tighter and more frail.
"Why should I give up when I know I will be victorious?"
Uh, why'd you kidnap me?
Loki's eyes pale all the more. And the weight burying you down is eased just a bit. Suddenly you realize you are not looking into the eyes of a terrifying bull-headed god, but just a little boy left in the corner of the room because he shrank under the shadow of his brother.
"I'm winning, simpleton."
But he is going to lose, and you know it.
In the darkness of the night, you can hear the captor.
"No...no, I will be victorious...I am Loki of Asgard and this is my purpose, to win this...it is what I was born to do, and no one shall stop me! I will win this one! They do not know what they speak of...they pretend the battle is theirs but it is mine..."
His voice trails. You hear something. It is a muffled sob of that little boy in the corner of the room. And you have heard it before. You heard it in the special place where the doctors took care of you on the worst days, where your arms were filled with needles and the walls were gray and dead. Filling the hallways and the beds next to you, from above and below, the muffled sobs. Men older than you, women younger than you, children who would not live past their tenth birthdays, and all the others who fit in the cracks of the majority like yourself. Alone, abandoned. Needing most what the world had the least of. Screaming at the top of their lungs to stone-deaf ears. Taking another night to dream of a place that did not exist, could never be.
"I will be the god of this realm...and when I am, I will no longer be their weakling, their monster, their inferior one...I will be feared by all, revered by all...it is mine and I will win and..."
That is when it hits you.
Loki is just like you. He has been just like you all along. He is like all the others, no matter what he wears or how he talks or where he is from. He, too, wants to believe in a place that will never be.
You're dreaming, Loki of Asgard. You have to give up.
"What are you talking about?" he snarls at you.
You can't win. See, out the window, I mean, I don't hear anymore explosions, just lots of bitch-mad people and those guys. What if you just, you know, give it up, Loki of Asgard?
"Surrender," he scoffs, as if it is the most vulgar of words. "Surrender when it is only a matter of time before my army—"
I think your army's all gone.
"Do not interrupt me, simpleton!" In a flash his scepter is pointed at your neck, his face inches from yours. His scent is so strong you can almost taste it, and maybe a part of you wants to taste it the same way you want to taste an ice cream cone when you see a picture of it, and you want to lick it and let it run down your throat on a hot July afternoon at the ball game like fucking crazy.
Then he pulls back from you.
Your neck cracks as you look up at him, the captor. His hair has become matted with perspiration and blood. His cheekbones are bolder, his face paler, his eyes all the more wild in their waltz of colors.
You decide he too knows he is dreaming. The catch is, he does not want to wake.
And you have some dreams that you know are dreams, but do not want to wake from, but you, in your mind, would never know it. Only you know of one thing that matters now.
As long as you are here, the captor will still be dreaming.
As long as he has you inside this dark place, he can pretend he is going to win and become ruler of your earth and other shit.
It is not them who hold him down, as you realize he is not the captor at all, but rather, the captive. It is you who holds him down.
Well, that isn't good at all.
An hour passes. The air becomes thicker with something you think is smoke, but it stings your throat like you swallowed a Popsicle whole. The voices from above continue.
"Loki, brother, listen to me. It is over. Let the girl go and come on out."
You watch the tendons in Loki's long, vanilla neck stretch as he swings his head up at the ceiling, his matted hair falling behind him.
"Move any closer and she dies!" he screams.
The way his sweat glistens behind his ears, on his lower lip, on his Adam's apple, you wonder what would have happened if you got that taste the same way you got all the other tastes, and if your doctor back home would have told you to stop making those mistakes with men again, but as always, you would not care, because after all, he is a god. So is having a god inside of you any different from a kid who looked like a god?
Hey, Loki of Asgard, let me go, okay? I'm tired and I want to go home. It's been all fun but aren't you getting a little tired, too?
"Stop it, simpleton."
"Brother, I beg of you—"
"Call me brother one more time and she is dead! Is that what you want! You refrain from slaying me in the bargain for one measly life? What is it worth, Odinson, I tell you, what is it worth!"
"No, don't kill her, Loki, please..."
You feel an icy hand grab you by your hair, snapping your head backwards. The scepter is at your taut, exposed throat. You cannot breathe. He is shaking you. Your forehead is damp with his saliva, his sweat, his blood. You want to be soaking wet.
"You think me to bluff, Odinson? Is that it? You think I bluff you!"
"No, Loki, don't..."
You are back in the elevator, as behind you, the captor is screaming and tearing as just like the first time you met him, clutching you tightly to him, as if his life depends on it. You just cannot understand that, in the end, it does. The frail, silky hair and the cold, bony arm! As you went in to become a captive and thus meet your fellow captive, so you will go out!
"And don't you dare wet yourself..." Loki whispers in your ear.
Can I shit myself?
"Especially don't do that."
But—!
"Stop shouting. They're right above us, don't you see?" he hisses. You hear him begin to chuckle as the elevator doors snap closed behind you, entrapping you in that dark closet. "Have you ever wanted to be free, simpleton?"
Free from what?
"Why, the freedom of this petty realm, your Midgard," he continues to whisper, while still chuckling. "You look up at the stars and the galaxies and you read the stories in your textbooks. Would you not like to see words on a page become songs sung aloud, images of your mind become wonders surrounding you? And then perhaps you would not be such a simpleton anymore, my dear."
What? Are we going to a movie?
"I think the both of us have had quite enough of your world. Suppose it was time I show you mine. My world." He pauses as the elevator slows its ascent. "I still control the Tesseract...I can still deliver it to him and return to Midgard with reinforcements...and dear, I could drag you out of this if you cooperate, and you will see my world. I am going to take you away from here and show you all the realms, just you and me, one after the other, all the stars and wonders to reach out and touch, just for you."
But...isn't this your world anyway, since well, of course, you're gonna win...
His arm digs deeper into your throat, almost suffocating you. Goddammit, you hate it when the captor does that.
"Enough talking. Let us go. I'm still on their side."
The elevator doors open and fire burns your face and arms. You hear a shout like that of the crack of thunder, and although it is a far distance off, you almost wet yourself again, but he said don't, so guess what? You don't.
You have never heard your captor cackle as he did at that very instant. He drags you across the room of the top floor of the building until you are just close enough to look over the edge through a large gaping hole, which might have once been a window. You almost throw up at realizing the altitude and hearing the wind whistle in your hair, but the captor holds you close to his chest. His arm around your neck loosens until you are standing on your own. Slowly, and dragging his scepter along the ground, he backs away as if he is about to take a good photograph of you with this monstrosity in the background.
"They have run from me, my dear...you see, you see?...I am not a weakling as they thought I was...and look how your world burns, look what my army has done, the smoke rising from the sky, the rubble scattering your streets...and it will go on until I have won, won...they pretend the battle is theirs but it is mine..."
It is not them who hold him down. It is you who holds him down. You are the poison that keeps him dreaming. He is dreaming.
You turn around and look back at him one last time. The oceans in his eyes have washed out to a terrified moonlit twilight, as your neck cracks once more just by looking up at him.
You were there that day in New York City.
You saw the black hole in the sky above Manhattan, and the ships flying down. You heard the screaming, the explosions, the fire raging all around. And you just could not understand what was happening. Ironically, you were the one who would end up with the best view. And here you are, and a burning, wailing New York City stretches out before you, as thousands of those gray attackers lay dead like trampled insects in the streets and across the rooftops.
And this man, this Loki of Asgard behind you, he has got to wake up.
I'm sorry, Loki. I wish I could have seen your world.
He freezes.
"What, what do you mean?"
Wake up, Loki. Just wake up and go back to your world, okay?
"Wake up? Wake up from what?"
As you spin around on your heels, the wind pulls your matted hair away from your face. For a fleeting moment, you are free, as Loki promised you would be—free from the freedom that is Planet Earth. Free from the freedom your mind has confined you in. Free from the freedom they call you names like retard and freak and pervert. Free from it all, in Loki's world—flying.
Then your ankles slip over the edge of the rooftop, and you are falling.
You close your eyes and begin to sing the only lullaby you know.
Be free, Loki of Asgard. Just wake up and be free.
From above, you heard a heartbreaking scream, the scream of the child who sees his kitten flattened to a pancake by a truck tire. The thing is, it is not. It is the scream of a man waking up from the most wonderful dream into the worst sort of nightmare, and it was you, his dear little simpleton, who kicked out the chair, and in doing so, fell to your death.
Eighteen seconds later, you are the last casualty in the worst battle New York City has seen.
Nineteen seconds later, the scepter slips out of Loki's grip, the wrath of its spell ceased by the simpleton, and tears mingle with the sweat that drenches his cheeks.
He is awake.