Warning: Minor spoilers for Thor: The Dark World, graphic imagery.
"Let us sit upon the ground, and tell sad stories of the death of kings."
- Richard II, Act III, Scene II
Threads
It starts with a needle.
Cold, unforgiving; piercing the skin with the smallest of scratches before causing incontestable pain, coursing toxicity through the veins until blood burns and memories of a sweeter passivity are but bitter on the tongue.
He is the needle. He injects himself with fatal substances.
The blood that runs cold within him is corrosive to the skin in which he presides, burning until he finds it hard to breathe behind smiles that are meant for happier times. And he will change from it, mould under an impressionable intoxication of substance abuse; from every passing wary glance and threat of a knife upon his throat, he shapes himself until he cannot recognise the eyes that stare back at him unyieldingly, searching with an anger for a glimmer of sobriety from this unwavering masochism.
And how pitiful, how unworthy, that he shall fall not under a battle axe, nor a tragedy of misfortune. He shan't have tales spoken about him, nor have children named after him.
No, his fall is undocumented; lost to the abyss of darkened cells and eyes that turn away for fear of meeting a monster's. Or better yet, for fear of recognising that monster's folly.
The bastard Prince will fall into nothingness, his name lost on a wind that once swept away a memory of a misplaced boy, slipping from the edge of a mauled Bifrost; a speck of dust brushed hastily off the untainted realm of Asgard.
And though he sees through the same eyes, and passes through the same halls of grandeur day by day, nobody will see him. Nobody will know the shadow that he lies behind by aid of a smile, or recognise the forgotten Prince that wishes so desperately in that shadow to remember the shape of the man he nestles in the darkness of. Perhaps, as if in the periphery remembrance of a bad dream the night before last, nobody wishes to look.
From that needle comes a thread, so thin and acquiescent to a gentle wind that it almost seems harmless.
The thread sways gently towards his mouth, tickling against the top of his lip and trembling his heart.
The King needn't have spoken his punishment. The God of Thunder needn't have held his tongue. The Queen needn't have wept. As he was dragged into the dark chasm of unconditional imprisonment by rough hands too suspicious of his mental stability, he knew he would never deserve the look in his long forgotten family's eyes as the doors closed behind him. That false weight on their hearts:
The monster would never deserve their pity. He spreads his fatality unto them.
The dragon will breathe fire to burn the village. He chars them with his harmful physiology and leaves a community scarred with a black surface that will never quite scrub away from innocent men's houses and children's toy dolls. And it must be begged to ask, how else must one slay a dragon if not by immobilising the destructive fire he breathes?
He is fatal not by his silver-tongue, but by the words that slay from it. From the psychology that hides in darker crevices of himself and menaces a smile at the devastation inevitably caused. Of course, for this kind of monster, cutting off the tongue would be too simple. Too poetic. Perhaps biblical, but the Bible never prepared Gods and men alike for the Devil inside of him.
No, instead they push his own poison through him, let it burn his blood and char his sins. Chain him in the darkness plagued by artificial light, with his own menaces giggling and nibbling precious sanities in the corner with each shuddered breath he takes. And when he is too broken from his own horror that he screams in agony, they make sure that his mouth is sewn shut by invisible bonds. They make sure he screams until he is mute.
They make sure the monster knows how it feels to destroy himself in every way he destroyed others.
He breathes a humourless laugh. Such a death sentence from the King of Asgard truly leaves him to ponder for a moment just whose tree he hadn't fallen far from; was it the Frost Giant, with brash decisions and merciless rampage? Or perhaps he finds more likeness in the ways of the manipulative noble King's: so unsuspectingly mighty in his fraudulent smiles, recounting bids of peace, yet malicious and ruthless as he bathes with a flourish of bloodlust in his lies behind the closed doors of democracy.
He first feels the pain of incision when, behind the safety of an indestructible cell, he spots a thing most terrifying to his soul: reflective glass.
Constant, vindictive; a reminder of the calloused hands that seem pale now in comparison to the crimson warmth they have bathed themselves in too many times to count. Tough skin so battered that the bruises shade his body tone to look completely unscathed. Lips once a firm line of responsibility and youthful prowess, now shaking and gritted against the gravity that refuses to turn his head away. Hair untamed and harsh to the touch, static against his frame that he almost finds in himself a walking metaphor of madness.
The glass sparkles gleefully at him; shimmering a gaunt face back at him with a laugh that seems so loud it is deafening. The face will stare at him with empty eyes, so lost they have found meaning in emptiness. They burn at him, searing him as if he is an ant and he screams and writhes under a merciless microscope on a day the light of the Sun grins maliciously upon him. And yet...
He breathes unsteadily through lips that synchronise quite frighteningly with the lurid image that stands before him. He would have laughed if he could trust himself not to scream.
And yet, you fool, you cannot look away.
The thread splinters through the first tears that cloud the vision of a man so cold and pale, he feels as if he could turn blue.
And as the first stitch passes through his lips, against the stammer of his teeth as he bites back an admission of pain, he wonders which is more prominent: is it the pain of regret, and the suffocation of the guilt polluting his air system that is more fracturing? Is it the physical sting as he remembers for every stitch a life lost to his hands?
Or is it the pain of his own demons: gnawing on his mind and giggling darker intentions into his reluctant consciousness, even as his body shudders in surrender to its punishment? They whisper his name and beg him to respond. They find the little innocent boy that once was a hopefully bright Prince, who now hides in the faintest of memories in his mind. They caress him fondly, their giggles unnerving, their smiles never faltering. They caress that poor, lost boy to the point where his skin is raw and bloodied with wicked affection, and the child screams desperately as his pale cheeks are peeled away by their thirsty talons into oblivion. And still, the demons will laugh. They echo in the emptiness and shudder through his body, infinite and unforgiving for the monster he has made himself. And as their sharpened claws sink further into the venomous grip on his understanding, and another stitch stifles a whimper in his throat, he feels the darkness that he had once resigned himself to as an ally become a heavier and more perilous foe than he could ever dare to withstand.
Another stitch passes. And with it, his freedom sighs its last glowing ember into extinction.
The thread is tangible to its puppeteer, twisting into the shape that will so unsuspectingly wrap around its puppet that it will only feel like a gentle irritation of coarse strokes. It pries at one's mind until it is pulled taut, and every insignificant instance that has ever been carelessly forgotten strings its puppet into an unbreakable prison of chains, and the thread that has found its way around every limb rubs at the skin until it is raw and bleeds years of poison.
For every image he created of himself under the guise of trickery and mischief, he wonders how many times he has taken the needle and mutilated himself.
The next incision creeps up on him innocently. Quietly and perfumed, it makes the pain all the worse. He barely has time to register the cold line of the needle before he is thrown against a wall of agony and his body shakes to rid of himself, oh Gods rid him of this torture. His heart stutters in such pain that he feels his mouth form wordless cries as he thrashes in solitude, feeling as though blood should seep from his pores in anguish so unbearable he fears immortality is but a death sentence under the semblance of freedom.
In the soft palms that he had come to love so desperately in his youthful days of misdirection and loneliness, his mother pulls another thread through his skin.
What a shame, he had mused with his practiced mask of indifference covering the shaking anticipation in his hands. What a shame she sees white skin and refuses to meet the red eyes that bleed malicious heritage. He needn't ask why she stands before him. He knows the basest of natures has forced her here:
Look upon your failures.
He speaks with practiced words, perfected lilts of humour, awardable tilts of the head and curves of the lip upward. His eyes shine with a playfulness that could fool a jester as he remains light on his feet, dancing around the stoic maternal figure as if he could spin a web of disguise around her, leaving her dizzy with his careful charade.
How blind he must be: with madness, or perhaps grief for a life that once was, that he seems to forget who taught him such masquerade. The needle that is embedded in her palms seems to become longer, flatter, and with a serrated edge as it twists in her hand before he can blink and plunges ruthlessly into his body. He desperately grasps for breath that his lungs scream frantically for, and it feels as though each organ burns and shudders with the onslaught of pain so vivid he momentarily mistakes it not to be real at all.
So perceptive, her soothing voice that once told him brilliant tales under candlelight permeates barely above a whisper, the saddest of smiles quivering against the lip so regally strong, eyes imploring in a way that he almost remembers the name he used to go by, about everyone but yourself.
The glint in her eyes does not fool him for a second; for he knows she can see him. But regardless, he knows well enough, that the precipice of forgiveness was obliterated long ago. On whose part, he does not dwell upon. The water that threatens against his eyes are mere sentiments of betrayal, he convinces himself. After all, he thinks he has forgotten what the shuddering impact of the onslaught of emotion feels like. He hides behind fabrication of words and warmth that will never touch the walls he has built around himself with unbreakable forces. He thinks he no longer knows how to care.
His hands (they shake and he wills it to be from the cold of the room) tremble through the image of her, like a ghost of his past that is long since gone and but a sweet fairytale told to children. She is untouchable and he is intangible to her. He is so intangible to her effect that he doesn't think she was ever there at all.
He is nobody's child: he was nurtured in shadow and whispered voices of mistrust.
He tells her she is not his mother and he wonders why they ever called him the God of Lies at all.
When he hears the news, he doesn't need a thread. He takes the needle and draws bloodied patterns upon his skin. He thinks that it might help Frigga better understand that the son she used to love has been stained beyond identification.
He believes the next stitch was a long time coming, but he dutifully ignores it until it stands opposite him, unmoving, with eyes bright as ever forcing him into the reluctant submission of yet another incision.
He thinks Thor can see his blood-stained lips that are sewn together and mutilated beyond any chance of redemptive truth.
He does not comment on it.
Sitting against a wall of protective lies and snipes, he remains gleeful and disinterested in his cage of merry destitution, spinning his fingers with illusions of neatness, painting the masterful picture of a mind less made as the God of Thunder speaks to him with volumes of new wisdom and softer spoken tones.
It is the first moment in which he wonders how much time has passed since he went missing.
When Thor sees past his magical charade and peers tentatively into the shadow he resides in, lying amidst a room of broken furniture and ripped pages of memories from book; he feels as though he owes the man a free push of the needle for his constant, treacherous and infuriating persistence. But the Crowned Prince is just as everyone else; he no longer recognises the broken figure who lies in a cell, that has been ripped apart by a monster's claws after darkness has fallen and watchful eyes have turned away from him and in the direction of a funeral of a woman who died having been loved unconditionally by monsters and martyrs alike.
The monster does not care to remember the feeling that night, when his claws had never felt so human as they sank into his own skin.
He guesses that was what the Midgardians would call love.
When Thor asks for help, he will spend a moment humourlessly wondering what darkness is looming that is so grave as to ask for the aid of a monster. Then, he will ask when they start with a smile that is so practiced that it feels ingrained in his features. He will rise with a bounce in his step, a grin on his face and an arsenal of wit and humour to hide himself away from those tentative glances he knows he will receive with every step he takes through a childhood memory he never thought he would return to. The glances that do not come often, but yes, he feels them against his back. The gazes of those who feel as though they recognise his face; feel as if they might have known him in another lifetime.
He looks just like the Prince, he would hear as he strolls past with a different light in his eyes that leaves him invisible to the recognition of a fading memory, What was his name?
The future King turns away from the man in the cell, and leaves him alone to stew in the poison he has filled himself with. And as the monster is left to darkness, he waits. And then, with a shattering pain of realisation that physically knocks him backwards, he suddenly screams until he cries. Through excruciating pain, he smiles, and he feels as though his tears finally have a name.
He realises that it is the first time he was not called a brother.
Loki pulls out a needle and threads his own fatal tapestry.
I started working on this a while ago, and TDW (and procrastination) inspired me to continue it. I cannot see Loki's character in the new film as much as I have seen in the previous two films: I believe he became a catalytic device in the new film, and his jovial attitude was quite shattering to me. Although arguably this could be due to film direction, I hope you enjoyed my spin on the reason why. I apologise for its haphazard presentation, and any mistakes within. I'm not really sure what this is, it's a bit messy but intentionally so, for whose mind is clear and coherently chronological when in the captivity of their own demons?
Any reviews would be appreciated, and would not go unnoticed.