Hey all. I decided to finally try and write a Thor fanfiction. It will mainly just be sticking to the Marvel world, I think, except for this prologue here. Yggdrasil was a lot more in the mythology than it was in the Marvel universe, and I stole some of those ideas in writing this. If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask me. And yes, I do plan on Thor, Jane, Darcy, etc. to have a large role in this fic. Also, all of my other chapters will be much longer than this - prologues for me are always short.
Thank you so, so much for reading. Enjoy! And please, don't forget to review!
Loki fell.
He fell and fell and fell and fell for so long that it almost felt like floating.
Falling, floating – it made no difference. No matter which, it was not going to end.
Not until he was dead.
He fell through Yggdrasil and its branches for what felt like an eternity. He knew, as many others did not, that it did not have just nine branches. Of course, there were the main nine, but that was not all. There were pathways and crevices in Yggdrasil that spidered down through its trunk and travelled through her roots; vines wrapped around its branches, containing the stars and heavens; hidden veins ran through its leaves and reached for higher parts unknown to any living being. For the great tree of life to be limited to but nine offshoots was absurd, as Loki had often said. Unfortunately, few had accepted such depths to their universe since the oldest of times. Now, Loki fell through Yggdrasil's trunk alone, cold, and exposed.
What he fell through was not meant for many living being's eyes. In the Tree, new stars opened their bright faces to the dark expanses of space. Dying stars burned crimson, their fiery light bathing all around them in blood. He passed fire, its greed burning up whole worlds. He passed ice and great glaciers, shining like precious gems, though there was no source of light to make them shine so. Up above him in the highest branches and leaves, the deep black rustled as ancient, terrible beasts, whose forms had always remained unseen, maneuvered through the wide expanses of space, as they had since the beginning of time.
Down, down Loki fell, through the cracks and webs of the tree, passing the gossamer strings of Time and Fate, which were weaving intricate tapestries that would put even Frigga's to shame. He fell through darkness and light. He fell through snow and wind. He fell down toward the very roots of Yggdrasil until he could almost feel the billowing breath of the wyrm that resided there, wrapped around the endless wandering fingers of the tree. The dragon slept, and would sleep, for all eternity, spurting occasional bouts of magma that immediately cooled into hardened earth and developed new life.
Loki noticed almost none of this. The Asgardians had long ago discovered what a poor decision it was to travel through Yggdrasil without the aid of a Bifrost, and Loki was now just experiencing what had not been felt for thousands upon thousands of years. Glacial, freezing air that howled through the dark battered him from all sides, tossing him through space and forming ice on his body, freezing his eyelashes and lips so that he could not cry a single tear or scream out in pain. And he was in pain – so much pain. The ice and wind alone cut his skin until it was ripped and torn, hanging from him like a ghastly garment. The biting cold dug down into his very bones until it reached his heart, stabbing at it until he could feel it nothing more than a dull ache. He often collided into rocks and debris floating through the air. At some times, his ears were assaulted by the screeches, howls, and hollow laughter of creatures made of stardust and murk, and they were hammered by complete, deafening silence at others. His blood floated freely out of his wounds, flowing around him and dissipating into the night, only for more to follow as his body attempted to heal itself in the most desolate and cruel of places.
He tried to avoid slamming into any of the things that slinked lithely through the darkness of Yggdrasil's branches and sucked on its lifeblood, though he didn't have much control. He wasn't always successful - he was caught occasionally. And it was always what felt to be years before whatever slithering, oozing, clawed thing had caught him let him go. He never knew what they looked like - it was too dark in the Tree. They never killed him - they only ever tortured him. The creatures would slash at his ribcage; they would slide their tentacles over him and allow the teeth of their suckers to rip at his face, his eyes, his chest; they would take bites of him and save the rest for later. Over and over these disgusting things would violate, snap at, and snarl at him, leaving off only before he reached Death, and beginning again once he had healed. Sometimes they reached into him and pulled out his intestines and ate them until his body repaired itself. Sometimes they spat poison at him, boiling his tongue in acid.
The wounds they inflicted did not always end in blood and bone, either. Sometimes, their claws would slice at him and instead of blinding pain he would feel darkness fill him, or ice, or fire. Sometimes it was insanity that penetrated him, or blinding fear, or crippling thirst. It was during these sessions that he learned that not everything dealt in injuries of the physical kind - it was during this time that he learned that these different sorts of wounds were to be feared more. At the end of several years (by his reckoning, though he never really knew) they would let him continue his fall, though he never knew why. He never cared to learn either; some things did not need to be known. Though this only happened occasionally, it was enough to drive him to the brink of madness. If not madness, then perhaps just extreme exhaustion. The two seemed to be the same too often for him to tell them apart.
The fall never ended. Time was not the same where in Yggdrasil – it may not have existed at all. So Loki fell and floated and tumbled through the Great Tree for lifetimes – eons, centuries, eternities. A second could be an hour, or a day could be a minute; he really didn't know. All he knew was open space, darkness, slicing, slashing, breaking, and blood. He screamed for years, his cries ripping out of his throat and shattering the black in front of him, echoing off of emptiness and remaining unheard.
After ages and ages, the stars became cold to him and their silvery light only served as a lantern into the terrifying beyond. The slithering and clacking of invisible beasts ceased to inspire horror and instead inspired hope – hope for death. There was no way out but for it, and so it became his prayer. He prayed, sending his wish out into the void, for death, not expecting it to be answered, but praying nonetheless. However, though he whispered prayers and pleas in his mind, his screams continued of their own volition.
Once, for one beautiful, shattering moment, he heard his heart stutter and then stop. He let out a final breath, ready to embrace Death and enter Hel, only for his heart to start again. His anguish unleashed the shriek that finally destroyed his vocal chords.
No torture could compare to what he was enduring. No crime was worth this. Though he had travelled to other realms through his own secret pathways, none had involved wandering like this, alone and without defense through Yggdrasil. Thousands of times, Loki cursed himself for ever letting go of Thor. But what else was he to have done? Again and again, Odin's words played in his mind.
No, Loki.
No, Loki.
No Loki No Loki No Loki No Loki No Loki No
As Loki's damnation continued, his father's words (No, not his father, never his father) became a constant drone, tormenting him just as much as the fall was. Odin's two words (Was he his father? Yes, of course. No, no he wasn't. But yes, he was. No!) cut him deeper than any shard of ice or sharp claw had yet.
"I could have done it, Father! I could have done it!"
I could have made you proud.
"For you!"
Yes, for you, it's all for you, and it was for Thor, and it was for me –
"For all of us!"
It was all he could have done. He had been left behind, ignored, taunted, so often, but he could have done this. He should have. It was all he could do. It was all.
It was the only thing that would have made them see.
He had tried so hard. He had been running as fast as he could, running from the chaos he had created in his own mind, and running toward acceptance, recognition, the fruits of labor – anything. He had worked and planned and he knew he could do something. But the darkness that pursued him relentlessly had advanced too quickly, swallowing him whole, and no matter how frantic his efforts were, they would never mean anything. Nothing. That's all he had ever been, was nothing. But he had to make them see.
And then Odin – his father – (No, part of him screamed. Not your father. But everything else said yes. Yes he is) cut him down. With one word he ended everything.
"No, Loki."
No.
No, it meant nothing. No, he was worth nothing.
No, Loki.
No.
The memory grieved him and caused more pain than anything else ever could. All he could think was no.
No, Loki. No.
And so Loki fell interminably, the stars dancing around him in their cold, calculating waltz, the darkness pressing in, the ice piercing his skin, his father's words cutting his heart, and his soul weary of living.
But Death never took him.
Hel never opened Her arms to him.
Instead, after what felt to be eons and eons, his fall led him through the Tree, though he ignored his exact path, too tormented to notice anything but the pain. Eventually, after falling through branch after branch, floating through vein after vein, he slipped through one last crack, and with that, was gone from Yggdrasil for good.