A/N: Random Loki feels struck the muse this evening.
Fear and love, say the old tales of the gods—the tales of the king who is not his father. Fear and love.
It is a lie.
It is or, never and—as Loki well knows.
(You can only have one).
Loki knows.
It is his darkest secret. When he first chooses fear, he fears it too. It is an unspoken thought, that burns hot at night behind his sleepless eyelids. It is the shadow that stretches behind Thor's brightness wherever he walks.
Thor does not know about the shadow.
(You must be behind Thor, to see it).
Thor is the sun, and Loki learns to hide from the heat of his glory. And Thor is kindly in his shining light; Thor has a simple, happy, brutal heart. Thor is passion, Thor is strength.
And Loki can pretend that he knows better, or that he knows at all. Thor is like the old gods, like a new king. Thor will break heaven and earth and take them both.
Fear and love.
Take me, Loki wants to shout into the abyss, shout until his voice is no longer swallowed up in the silence. Make me a king.
They may smile for Loki, they may bow for Loki—but they watch and live for Thor.
So it is that Loki's secret grows. It grows in the silence, in the waiting, and in the days after days when the sun sets gold.
Yet it is not until Laufey dies, with Loki's hands closing and crushing the life out of him—it is not until then that Loki names his choice. Because it is not until then, when he knows for what he was chosen, that he can choose himself.
Fear or love.
Fear, because it hurts, as he has been hurt.
Fear, because it cannot deceive him.
Fear, because love has never been for him.
