Bug
.
.
This is what Loki thought while committing the (vile, gruesome, heartless) act: 'I'm going somewhere.'
He did not linger for a moment longer and disappeared into the forest.
Tonight there would be a thunder storm in Midgard. His imbecilic half brother would scream himself hoarse with rage. But he would not blame Loki—the weaker, uglier, quieter one—who followed him everywhere, a shadow observing and (quietly) destroying. The villagers had dismissed him and cherished Thor as a child god. Fools. He'd made them regret it. The village would never be the same. But they'd remember him.
Loki stopped by the river bank and washed the blood off his hands.
The forest was thick with ancient magic. He sped through it as if he was going somewhere.
Where, he had no clue, but he was making good time. That's why he stopped to pick up a bug—brown and ugly. Without much effort at all, he gave it human language and told the bug what he'd done. "I'm going somewhere."
"You think you're going somewhere?" repeated the bug in monotone. "We all do but when you're you find you're in the wrong place. Finally, that dawns on you. No matter how hard you drive you don't move further up the food chain. All life is insect-like."
Loki disagreed. "I don't think of my life as insect-like. I don't even think of your life as insect-like. I know you're a bug, but I don't think of you that way."
"Well I am a bug," said the bug. "And so are you. We're all bugs here."
"I know that bug theory has a literary tradition behind it, but I never liked it. I don't see myself as a bug. I don't look at people as limbed worms, as wiggling tubes, with teeth at one end and an anus at the other. I won't look at it that way! I cannot! It's too disturbing. If we look at life that way, it has no meaning, and life has got to have a meaning!"
"Meaning," said the bug, "is a strategy for hiding the instability of one's position."
"The instability of one's position? What position it that?"
"One's positron in the charts. One's position in the bureau of complicated affairs. One's position on the war. It doesn't matter what position, all positions are the same—they're all extremely delicate. Because reality is completely beyond our control."
"I know that. That's why I obsess with tricks, what choice have I got, I hate fighting."
"Fetishes," said the bug, "has no effect on the universe."
"I'll show you effect," said Loki, "I'm God!"
And then he squashed it flat with his hands.