Set after Avengers. As a way to redeem himself, Loki is charged with finding and protecting a Midgardian. One who is responsible for finding a weapon of legend, capable of bring devastating destruction and death if it falls in the wrong hands. Like most mortals touched by fate, she finds it very hard believe that she's responsible for such a heavy burden. This was going to be harder than he thought.
Author's Note: This is my first serious venture with a Loki fic (compared to Gone Awry, which is meant to be sillier). There will be links to Norse mythology; in fact, the plot is based off of a chunk of the poem The Lay of Svipdag from the Poetic Edda. I will not throw the gist of the poem at you now; it will be later elaborated on further down the road.
Jan 2014: I've begun editing the chapters I've put up so far for grammar and style. Little bits have been added, such as hints towards parts/characters of the backstory to Thor: The Dark World. However, this still branches off after Avengers and ignores TDW entirely. I've also found a good translation for the myth I'm basing this off of, by Kevin Crossley-Holland; his version is slightly different regarding the rooster Vidofnir (some say sickle, others, like his, say tailfeather; I'll be using both).
This is going to be a long story. I have to bring the characters together, get one to believe everything being thrown at her, and then deal with throwing her and Loki together on a quest. It's my first real attempt at a long fic with plot, so please bear with me.
Let's get started.
The hall was a familiar sight to him, the golden walls gleaming in the torchlight. The figure on the throne gazed down upon him, his helmet throwing the flame-light in the same fashion as the walls. The woman beside the throne let a kind, motherly smile grace her lips, the same smile she had given him for centuries.
He had grown up here under the guise that he was a true Prince of Asgard. He knew these halls like the back of his hand and several corridors no one else could see. He once called the two in front of him 'mother' and 'father'. He once considered their son his brother, the very man responsible for bringing him back to Asgard.
The realization of his heritage still ached on occasion, how he had been treated all those years. Nothing like the fiery rage, the spurn he felt for not being considered a true king of the land he grew up knowing. He had taken his anger and pain out on a planet that had nothing to do with the situation, if only to get back home, away from the dark recesses of space he had landed in.
In truth, he was only carrying out the Asgardian tradition he had grown up with, shoving his will over another realm and replacing everything the inhabitants held dear with his ideal image of the world. As Odin had done with the Frost Giants, as his ancestor had with the Dark Elves.
His actions on Midgard had earned him the stitches that sealed his mouth. They cut off his power source; words. He was not known as the Silver Tongue for nothing. He knew which words to say, how to phrase them just right, create a loophole for himself. A trickster. He was a talented sorcerer but words were just as important to him.
His fingers had trembled across his lips at first when he saw his appearance. Blood-crusted strings zigzagged across his thin lips, soaked where they entered his skin, crimson dripping down his chin. He had wiped it away with a wet cloth but it did nothing to lessen his gruesome visage. His reflection stared back at him, his eyes unable to escape the amount of pain they held.
He hated it. Loki hated not being able to speak. He couldn't even ask for simple things, let alone carry a conversation. Not that there were brilliant ones to be had to begin with.
Loki had attempted telepathy with a servant once; it resulted in the poor lad thinking he had gone crazy. He must have been new to the palace.
His pain and anger abated in the months of his punishment. He had time to think, not that he would have spent it any other way. Perhaps Thor had been right; they played together, grew up together, and knew secrets the other shared with no one else.
Brothers not in blood, but in bond.
If only more Asgardians were so…open. It was one thing to hear it from the one he grew up with; as if it were what was expected to come out of the thunder god's mouth.
He grew into a routine; every morning he would be found in the library for a few hours reading. After that, it was usually whatever he felt like doing. A sense of normalcy returned, for he had spent a very large amount of his younger years here. The books offered so much within their bindings, worlds and knowledge and secrets: all one had to do in return was to bother to read them.
Loki had plucked a book from a shelf, one he planned to finally finish, and sat in his usual arm-chair. He cradled the spine in one hand, turning the page carefully with his other when the need arose. While immersed in the words, he could still hear the sounds around him. Others came and went, scholars put back their materials, tutors sat and taught their pupils. These were easily tuned out.
He heard the footsteps and identified them before the servant had rounded the corner of the bookshelves. Well-paced and soft, knowing to be seen and not heard.
Loki looked up before he could even be addressed, taking the man off-guard. It was a curious thing, the way many of them looked at him, especially those who seldom interacted with him. Staring was impolite on any level, but it was difficult to look away, he came to realize.
"The Allfather wishes to see you, sir. Out on the Biforst."
As he nodded his thanks to the man, Loki noticed how quickly the man had dashed out of the room. He would have smiled if it didn't hurt. Yes, he instilled fear, but not in the way he used to. Tricks turned into murder, apprehension and fear turned to outright terror, stares and sniggers resulted in turned heads and silence.
It was strange to meet at the place they last saw each other, before the fall. Why not the throne room? He knew Odin's health hadn't been its best; the old king looked so tired when he was brought back. The power it had taken to send his son to Midgard had taken its toll.
Banishing him would be pointless. While he had, at one point, considered Asgard his home and to some extent enjoyed the beauty and knowledge the realm had to offer, it was a punishment to be here. It was home no longer; home was not a word or a feeling he knew anymore. Loki had to face what he had done, come to terms with everything that had transpired. Asgard was where that had to happen.
The Bifrost had been repaired, although the jagged seam was visible if he looked hard enough. He wouldn't let his eyes stray towards the edge, where the whirling cosmos lay, the water and stars and dust a powerful reminder.
The gate was not fully repaired yet; the fractured dome would take much longer than the Bifrost to fix. He wasn't sure if there were even any connections to the other realms; the Tessarect had been the power source to bring him and Thor back. The platform and pedestal where Heimdall's sword acted as a key were in one piece, but that could mean nothing.
The gatekeeper was staring straight out into the cosmos, watching over the realms. Beside him, the Allfather stood straight with his hand tight on his staff. Loki could hear a hushed and hurried question from his father, and a deeper reply, just as quiet.
"Have you found this individual?"
"No, sire. I have isolated the location to Midgard, but I cannot see who…yet."
Odin nodded, giving his thanks to the gatekeeper before turning and finding his youngest son.
Son.
He sometimes wondered if Loki considered himself that anymore; he was still part of their family despite his lineage. The resentment was understandable, but everything Odin did was done for a reason. Keeping the truth from him was an attempt to make him feel less isolated, grow up without the burden of knowing he was different.
Yet everyone always knew Loki was different. He practiced magic, preferred tricks and illusions over brute strength; books and experiments over sparring every day. Not that he was incapable as a warrior, he knew how to fight. His preferences and skills just laid in another area. It was enough to make him a little odd in Asgardian terms.
Loki placed his right hand across his chest and knelt on one knee, relying on the action as a greeting.
"Stand, Loki." The God of Mischief rose, meeting Odin's eye. "I wish to speak with you."
A simple gesture of the king's hand had resulted in the black thread splitting between his lips, the fragments pulling themselves from his lips and disappearing in wisps of black. Pale dots would line his lips forever, but he was relieved to be able to open his mouth.
"Thank you," Loki murmured, his voice sounding foreign to him, hoarse from disuse.
"I have summoned you here to speak about a vision Frigga had recently."
Frigga's prophetic visions were seldom discussed, for she hardly ever revealed what she knew. Perhaps snippets left her lips, but unless it deeply troubled her, she just wrote it down and kept her knowledge to herself.
Loki's brow furled but he stayed quiet, letting Odin continue.
"She had seen a figure consulting with Hela in Niflheim. He was trying to persuade her into action. Into handing something over."
Hela. He had not thought about her in a while. According to Midgardian legends, she was the result of a union between him and a Jotun, Angroboda.
The truth was muddled. He had been experimenting; Hela had been one of three results, the other two being Fenrir and Jormundgandr. Odin had given them their place and her appearance had certainly fit the realm of the cold and ice. She was extremely emaciated, half pitch-black half snow-white. It was decided she would be the ruler of those who did not die a notable death or suffered a cowardly end.
It was with her, in her realm, a precious item laid. Those Midgardians who had worshipped them had written about it in their Eddas. They said it had the power to kill the rooster, Vidofnir, atop Yggdrasil, who sat and oversaw the moral integrity of the nine realms.
A half-truth.
The weapon could feel what the wielder wanted, what he or she wanted deep, deep within his or her soul. It could corrupt them or it could help them not to stray from the moral path. A destroyer of moral integrity, yes, on some level.
In the wrong hands…
"I had that weapon forged for you, just as Mjolnir was made for Thor. It is temperamental, fitting itself and its purpose to the one who holds it. However, it was never yours to retrieve from where you placed it."
"I highly doubt that whoever is after it is the one rightfully appropriate for that task." Loki commented, letting a sneer ghost its way across his lips for a moment.
He remembered the weapon, an emerald pressed into the hand-guard, old runes carved along the indestructible, dark blade. He had barely held it before setting it into the chest and closing the nine locks upon it. The iron chest was placed at the foot of the throne and left for centuries. An untapped power.
Odin's blue eye met the green eyes of his son. "That is why I have decided that you must be the one to find the one who is."