A thousand thoughts swarmed in his head, seemingly random at first, but slowly becoming more coherent with each passing second. The wind whipped his hair against the confines of his golden helmet, sending a shrill, yet strangely calming sound into his ears.
Below him lay a vast expanse of Midgardian structures, each taller than the last. He planned to raze everything to the ground so that glorious structures akin to the ones in Asgard would take their place. All he wanted was to usher in a grand era of prosperity and peace in this realm…was that too difficult for them to understand?
A sudden grip took hold of him and he shuddered as a malignant presence overwhelmed him.
Remember your promise, Laufeyson. The Tesseract or your life.
He drew several deep breaths. He had never shown weakness, save for the moment when his reality was shattered the moment he learned he was not a son of Odin, not an Asgardian, and not the younger brother of Thor, but the son of a monster.
He was determined not to show another crack in his psyche ever again.
I am a king, he told himself. And great kings never show any weakness.
He barely appreciated the beauty of the sun against the horizon; his attention had been focused on the white-haired man slowly piecing the Tesseract on one of the high platforms of the structure known as Stark Towers. The structure would serve a glorious purpose before the day was out.
Turning from the Tesseract, he removed the cumbersome helmet from his head, his ears picking up sounds from the street hundreds of feet below. Despite the distance, he could hear excited children chatter endlessly to their mothers and fathers, their tiny feet slapping against the pavement as they skipped excitedly down the street.
His lip curled and he focused his sights further down the street.
He cared not for what would happen to those children and their parents in the future; they were all his subjects, whether they agreed with him or not. Even as he stared at the small figures, he could make out a dark-haired boy standing apart from the crowd, his head turning this way and that, as if seeking a parent who would whisk him away from loneliness and isolation.
The seconds ticked by and he found himself rooted to the spot. The boy held his attention and, unbidden, memories of a life so long ago came flooding through his mind. Voices swirled in his head, each fighting to be brought to the forefront.
Do the Frost Giants still live?
So I am no more than another stolen relic, locked up here until you might have use of me?
What, because I am the monster parents tell their children about at night?
I remember a shadow, living in the shade of your greatness!
He shook the thoughts away now, but his eyes remained fixed on the boy, that small, thin, dark-haired child that so resembled him...once. For one moment, for one fleeting moment, he thought that the child was him.
But then a harried but extremely worried woman came up to the boy and with a cry of relief, threw herself at the child and enveloped him in her arms. The child rested his head on the woman's shoulder and allowed himself to be swept up into the crowd.
The man's finger twitched, but otherwise he remained still.
"The Tesseract is ready, my king," he heard the white-haired man say.
Slowly he raised his head and rested his eyes on the Tesseract, which pulsated with blue light. A small smirk slid across his face.
"Very well. My subjects yearn to be ruled. Open the portal."