Title: Doubt Truth to be a Liar

Author: Theano

Rating: PG

Summary: Something's rotten in the realm of Asgard.

Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me (though if Loki comes up for grabs, I'm willing to talk). My sincere apologies to Marvel, Kevin Feige, Alan Taylor, William Shakespeare, and Tom Stoppard. I regret nothing.

Warning: Don't read this unless you've seen Thor 2, or unless you actually like spoilers!

I. A Horse With an Arrow in its Forehead

Inside, the feast was a bedlam of food and music and revelry, but the stars over Asgard - hundreds more than there had been a bare month before - were silent. Two of the friends stood, leaning down to peer at several small ivory cubes as they spun and danced and landed on the terrace stones with an oddly musical sound. The third had sprawled to the ground in a comfortable puddle of flesh some time before.

"'Tis not natural. Where did you say you found them?"

"Can't remember. It was the night of that feast, you know, the one with the great big - " Volstagg gestured, cupping with both hands.

"Oh, indeed," Fandral replied with a grin. "I remember her!"

Volstagg glared up at him. "I was talking about the roast lamb shanks, you singleminded - "

"Gentlemen," Hogun interrupted, picking up the dice once more. "The question before us is this: Do we track down the owner of these dice and teach him justice - "

"Or," Fandral said with another flash of his winning smile, "do we track down the nearest rich idiot and relieve him of both his wits and his wallet?"

Volstagg grunted. "I say we track down some more of those roasted..."

"Ho, my lord! How fare you?" Fandral bowed as Thor wandered onto the wide terrace to join them.

Hogun bowed as well, while Volstagg rolled his bulk off the ground into his own flourishing obeisance.

"My friends," Thor said with a tired smile. "What game busies you this night? I find myself in need of diversion."

"Does not your lady divert you, lord?" asked Fandral. "Why, I'd never suffer boredom again, if one so fair should grace me with her..."

"...lamb shanks?" Volstagg finished for him.

Thor chuckled. "I could wish her here, but tonight her time is her own. She is meeting with with Erik Selvig and the lady Darcy to discuss their arts. Truthfully, I cannot follow her thoughts on nights such as this. Her mind sees the Nine Realms in ways that perhaps even Heimdall would be blind to."

There was an uncomfortable silence, then Hogun spoke up. "How fares Erik Selvig? There have been whispers throughout the palace of his curious customs."

"The healers say he needs only time and peace. My father has given him sanctuary, and Sif is tending to him."

The dark-eyed warrior nodded, then rolled the dice in his fingers. "We may have a diversion for both you and him, lord. Have a look."

Before Thor could move, though, Fandral had snatched the dice from Hogun. "A wager, lord?"

Thor matched Fandral's grin with one of his own. "As long as there are no gowns involved! What is the wager?"

"Three ones," Fandral stated confidently.

"Why, then, I shall choose three sixes. Your wagers, friends?" Hogun declined with a slight bow; Volstagg belched loudly and waved Fandral off. "Very well; cast, Fandral."

The dice spun in the air. They tumbled to the ground, chiming and twirling like dropped coins, rolled a few times, and came up all sixes.

Time stopped.

"Fandral? Volstagg? Hogun - my friends, what - "

A shape coalesced out of mist and starlight. She wore a pale blue gown, stained with red. Her eyes found Thor's, lifeless and pleading.

Find Odin.

"...Mother?"

Find him, my son.

A nightingale trilled, a breeze blew up, and the dice kept rolling to stop on three ones.

"Sif and Selvig, eh?" Fandral quipped. "I shall have to ask her - my lord? Thor, where are you off to? Don't worry, I won't make you wear..."

But the prince was gone. Fandral and Volstagg looked at each other in confusion. Hogun knelt and examined the trio of dice again.

The All-Father sat on a broken throne, his old face scarred from wars long past; weary, patient, sorrowful as they all confessed their treasons.

Merciful.

Thor wasn't certain when he had begun to suspect that things were not all well.

Of course he knew Loki was not to be trusted. But when Loki had died - perhaps it had merely been the chaos of battle; grief as well, leavened by pride in his brother's final acts. It was never too late to learn honor.

They had been punished, of course: Sif to a year of service among the healers; Volstagg, Hogun, and Fandral banned from carrying any weapons other than daggers; and Heimdall - banished.

Thor stormed into the dungeons, shoving guards aside unceremoniously. There was only one cell left functioning. Behind the barrier field stood a small barque on a raised platform. Within lay a body, lean and pale with dark, tangled hair, still clad in bloodied leathers. He had been neither buried, nor burned. Not even the All-Father trusted the corpse to remain a corpse.

Thor touched one of the rune-carved stones that made up the walls of the dungeon. The barrier field whispered into nothingness, and Thor stepped through.

"Loki." The body did not respond. "I know, Loki."

Thor had chosen his own punishment. He knew, now, why he could never sit that throne. He had not the wisdom of the All-Father, not the wit of the late queen, not even enough warrior's skill to save his brother from his fate.

He had offered Mjolnir back to Odin. For a moment, something disconcerting had moved behind the one tired eye, but Odin had merely smiled and declined. "Mjolnir is yours," he'd said, "as is the power to hold it."

He laid his hand on Loki's chest. The body was stiff and cold, leather and metal, green and black and gold.

Gold. A gleam of gold on a chain around Loki's neck. That wasn't right. His brother had never fancied trinkets, or needed amulets to accomplish his trickery. He wrapped the chain around his hand and pulled.

The tiny links snapped, some flying past the edges of the casket to land on the floor, tinkling like far-off windchimes. He'd first seen windchimes on Midgard, hadn't known what to make of them, until Jane had explained that they used moving air to make music. Midgardian magic.

"Where are you, brother?" Thor whispered. "Guard!"

Footsteps. "My lord?"

"Who is this man?"

The guard blinked at him, then stuttered, "Your - that is - it is Loki, my lord."

The body in the casket wore the armor of a palace guard. Thor recognized him, a man who'd served for many decades in the All-Father's household.

Thor grabbed the guard by the back of his neck, pushed his face down close enough that his nose was nearly touching the dead man's. "Look again!"

"It - it - my lord - it is only Loki's corpse!"

He heard muttering outside the cell, turned to see the other guardsmen exchanging worried looks.

"That thing," Thor roared, "is not my brother! Where is he?" He flexed his hands into fists, then looked at them in sudden realization.

The amulet was gone.

Loki's body lay in the barque, pale and dead. No chain around his neck, no trinket gleaming gold against the green and black and long-dried blood.

Find Odin.

He left in search of his father. And his brother.

A/N: Fair warning, I have very little idea where this is going, or even if I'll continue it. It's meant to be loosely based on Hamlet, though I'm far from a Shakespeare expert. This chapter insisted on being written, but I only have vague ideas about what to do with it now. I'm rummaging through both Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, though, and having a lovely time!

...I consider the coin-flipping opening of R&G to be totally canon to Hamlet-verse.