PART ONE

Laufeyson, Thor called him, and Loki broke each finger on his right hand and then sawed it off at the wrist. It took a terribly long time, and somewhere in the middle the screaming started. His head was circling, and his hands were shaking. Thor looked at him with eyes like the storm with no mercy, no love. It had been such a very long time. He felt a smile curling like a gash across his own face, and wondered what a sight they presented. Thor strained at the chains that bound him and jangle, jangle, clink they went. It was terribly sad.

He started to hum, a soft little song whose tone calmed him, though he could no longer remember from where he had heard it, or why it mattered. He did notice the effect it had on Thor, though—all that terribly bright anger slipped away for one moment, and he looked nothing more than old and weary and very, very sad. Loki broke both of his knees and the chains hissed and swung like serpents above them. He almost missed the delicious grunt as Thor bit his own tongue and closed his eyes. He remembered the last time. He remembered it somewhere when he had pulled most of Thor's innards out but he hadn't yet died. The last time he had cut off Thor's hand, only that time, it had been nothing more than an illusion. They had both been so young. Almost children. Perhaps, then, things could still have gone another way. Loki didn't believe that, but he told Thor, musingly, just to see his reaction. Unfortunately, though he wasn't entirely unconscious, he was hardly in a state to react. The circling in his head wouldn't stop. The screams had forced its way into his ears and drowned themselves in his head. They floated uneasily.

He remembered where he had heard the song. It was a lullabye Frigga used to sing to them when they were small. Loki scowled. It wasn't right. Thor had no opinion. The screams were starting to annoy him. He pressed his fingers to Thor's mouth until he went still and quiet, and then he tried to do the same to his own mouth, but the screams didn't stop.


They are young. Thor and Loki are the best of friends, living in the golden, shining Asgard. They have not yet seen the rot that lies under the veneer, skim over the gilded surface as though they had wings and could fly. The king and queen rule well and happily.

Loki sits in his younger self's room and waits for him. He tries not to look around. Everything has memories attached to them, and they are alien. He wonders if his skin has disappeared, if he has turned invisible, unnoticeable, but when the young boy comes into the room and sees him in the chair leaning back and head tilted, he tries to scream. The doors shut before he can react and Loki springs up, reaching forward to grab the boy and covering his mouth with a bruising grip. The little prince tries to get away—fighting physically, kicking and wiggling and desperately trying to conjure a ball of fire upon his palm. Loki laughs at how pathetic it is. He still thinks he will get away. He still thinks he is loved.

He wants to hear the screams, so he lets go of the boy's mouth—he screams, louder and louder, but no one will come. No one else can hear. He holds the boy's wrists, traps him with his body, and lets the coldness flow down from him. He watches as the boy stills in surprise and then in horror, before his struggling redoubles. He watches.

Little monster, he says, almost kindly. See? We are alike.

The creature is ugly. It has progressed to crying now, to desperate pleas that Loki disregards. He lets go and just watches. He watches the blue thing try to piece together its shattered worldview. Just like he did, once. It watches him in fear, and he grins.

He tells it everything. How Odin stole him only as a tool. How Laufey, his father, abandoned him. Not even good enough for the monsters, you were. Who knows what would happen if Thor found out?

The thing merely shivers. Loki looks around, starts to pace, snarling out his words in increasing anger, but nothing comes to meet it. He is loose, adrift, rocketing through space and there is nothing to collide with, nothing to absorb the impact.

He hates himself more than ever. The young one hasn't even tried to escape, to move, how could he be so pathetic? Even as a child.

Loki was never a child. He walks forward, slowly, almost without menace, and tilts up his chin, meeting his eyes. The silence lengthens, and he watches the bob of his throat as the little one freezes in terror. He imprecates slowly, letting the words fall oily from his lips, no more silver for him, he is tarnished and empty. That is when his other self goes to true heights of desperation. Fighting like a mad, cornered thing, pleading, cursing.

"You will kill your family. Thor, Odin—" he hesitates. "Frigga." Better that she die now than live to see what her son would become.

It settles into his bones like the drowned screams.

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