Erhem. Hi there. This is not my first fic, but I seem to have locked myself out of my old account. Luckily for me, those fics were written a while back, and I have since gained a little finness (I hope.) Please be dears and review. As a warning, you probably won't get some of these references if you don't know a vague outline of Norse mythology, so I suggest Wikipedia-ing (?) all things related to Loki (his later schemes, at least. Alright? Great! I hope you enjoy this, let me know if I characterized Loki ok.
It was only natural that Loki escape once he and his un-brother hit Asgard, slipping out of his muzzle in the form of a snake once unchained due to a tearful look, buzzing past Thor's ear, now a gnat, as a shout of alarm gave out, soldiers searching for a serpent that un-was. For Loki Liesmith, shifter of Matter and Space, was not one thing but Infinite Things, his current form but a different pattern of energy that could be twisted for his own amusement. Loki was an anti-Aesir, a thing not of fire and wind, but of ice and smoke. Things which take many shapes while shapeless. Things which cannot be held at will.
He took to the mountains, made of crevices and tunnels and Secret Places that Loki assumed only he knew about, discovered in old and dusty texts only he had bothered to read. Cowardly, they would call him, he was sure. Swiftness was weak compared to strength in the eyes of Asgardians. Which mattered not- he was no Asgardian. Nor, he was quite sure, was he Jotun, though his heart he now knew was the blackest of blues, and his blood bled white when undisguised by a now-unconscious glamour. He was an un-thing, occupying negative spaces, spaces which Thor promptly filled to the brim with his himness. But there was no time to linger on such things as he fled in the guise of a swift-footed buck, no time to linger on the fragile betrayed look which flickered across the thunder-god's face before rage took hold, no time to imagine the pain of his un-father and mother –for Frigga would always be Loki's mother, no matter what- when they heard what their not-son had done with his newly Opened Eyes. Oh yes, he was probably mad. But madness, he had found, was simply what happened when the gauze- gauze wrapped around every thing's eyes since birth- was lifted. Madness was Truth.
The buck sprung into the air at the base of the mountain range, shifting into a duck as he took to the air. Why not a raven or falcon? one may ask. A duck seems rather foolish and lumpy in comparison. But Loki knew he must travel a great distance upon wing, a thing which swiftness in itself could not accomplish. Loki needed power, and migrating birds were, in fact, the most powerful when it came to such tasks. Only great fools – fools such as Thor- would choose grand appearance over sensibility. Especially during flight in both senses of the word.
And Loki flew.
An admittance- he did shift into a raven once he got closer to his destination. Theatrics won out over sensibility, a personal quirk of his.
Once settled, he started to plot. The other gods were coming- he could sense then even now, without even sending out searching feelers of magic, so loud was their presence. He was near a stream- a further escape route, if needed. He had once found pleasure in taking to the Sea – the one which overlapped into Midgard in some places- slickly shifting into this creature or that, now a tuna, a stingray, a shark. He had played games with his eldest son, bloody games of catch and hunt and hide with unwilling prey, slipping through chaotic waves in the form of an orca, a swordfish. Until his son had grown too large, more sea draco than snake. Until Asgard saw it fit to chain him at the deepest, darkest bottom, his long body twisted into knots of discomfort, he vast, round eyes slowly eaten away by krill.
Loki was younger, then. Man of mischief rather than mayhem. God of the Naïve.
He fought a rolling wave of rage which formed in the pit of his stomach, flooding ice-blood veins, clenching teeth and stiffening shoulders. He fought it back down into a tiny seed of discontent, as he was so apt at doing. His boiling face calmed into that of a smooth, placid lake. Calm, emotionless mask . They would pay, he knew. Promised himself. They would beg for agony after he was through. Death would be but a sweet promise. He would tear their minds to shreds, chew on their souls and spit them out, leaving them the crumpling heaps that they once were. That would be vindication for not kneeling before [loving] him.
Ah, but love is for children
Burning, screaming children, flesh warped and blackened by flame.
For now, he would flee, crouched within shadow. A good plan took deliberation. He stared into the smoke of his fire, lost in the chaotic formation. How was it that smoke was straight as an arrow one moment, and as twisted as a maze the next? For this was the nature of mayhem- all was well, until it wasn't. So entranced was Loki as his fractured mind sought solace in simple un-things that he almost did not sense the gods approach. But his eyes snapped from their rolled-back position and he quickly doused his flame with a few words, diving with nary a ripple into the nearby stream, now a salmon fish.
This, dear reader, was an important moment, which I'm sure you are all familiar with if you but glanced at Norse myth. Thor and his chums, the Warriors Three, as well Lady Sif, landed their pegusai near the stream. Of course, you humans tend to gloss it up a bit, but what transgressed afterward was as followed: Thor, screaming in rage and confusion, unsure as of what to do. Sif pointing to the still burning embers, and then the stream, suggesting Loki may have shifted into a fish to avoid capture. Volstagg nonchalantly reaching for the half-eaten roasted hare, remarking that such food should not go to waste. Hogun slapping his hand away. Sif suggesting that perhaps they should use a net to reel said fish in. Fandral agreeing with Sif's chest. Fandral getting slapped. Thor now in a near-berserk rage, screaming at the water and subsequently scaring all the fish, but one. Thor and the salmon sharing a look. The salmon taking off. Thor grabbing it out of the water with a very unThor-like quickness. The salmon becoming Loki once more, shivering slightly but face proud. The brothers stare, eye to eye, blue to silver-green, sky to frost-covered ground. The knock-out punch.
The chains, and the venom.
And while all of this occurred, an upheaval of the throne of Niffelheim, land of mist and shadow.
Oh, but you have not heard? Your myths regarding Hel deceive you. And, really, you deserve to be deceived, with such nonsense. Why, for instance, would the All-Father hand the responsibility of ruling an entire realm to the Midgardian equivalent of a nine-year-old? And how could only half of her body be dead- what, like she dragged half of it around as if it were a bloody doll? Literalists, all of you. Of course, my sister is half dead, but not half dead. Bloody fools, bleeding sacks of brainless meat-
Ahem.
As the past goes, Hela was born dead, a stillborn. But her mother would not, could not accept it, and so pressing her own lips to the shell of her daughter, breathed life back in once more. The girl's soul, in the meantime, was halfway across the gate into Thockheim –for that was what the city of dead was called, Darkrealm, before a certain egotistical brat decided to rename it after herself- and so half the infant's soul remained, and half was ripped screaming backing into the world of the living. Hela Half-Soul, she is called. Only half alive, though her rage, over the years, has grown to that of a thousand living. A girl, just a girl, the youngest of three, taken from the arms of her slain mother and standing before the court of her mother's slayer, sentenced to a life of slavery as a handmaiden to the Dead's then-ruler. Wretched girl, ugly grey-skinned, pink-irised, girl, ghoulish girl, sent in chains to the land of the dead. Rage built up into magic, magic which sang in her ice-white veins, magic of two wrathful sorcerer parents, vengeful parents, wretched Jotun parents. (Though, I should point out, her father was then unknown. Nor was she connected to my brother and I- could you blame anyone? We look so different in our un-shifted forms.) And Hela waited, silently, power growing. Growing immensely. As all three of us did.
Which leads us to today.
Hela sat upon her thrown of bones and rotten flesh, her newly claimed sword, Hungursneyd –more on that later- firmly at her side. A pale crown of ash branches, threaded with iron and silver and embedded with pearls, sat on her raven hair, which they say she never lets down, ever. She glared at me, which is unsurprising. The girl glares no matter what the mood. When she is pleased, she glares with happiness. At the moment, she glares in surprise, and a bit of annoyance- I am not yet dead. Nor will I ever be, being immortal and all. She should know this. I give a mocking bow and snark God save the queen, which causes her to grip her sword tighter. An agonizing weapon for which even my new ax, Rifa, cannot match against- and this old gal will cut anything, often without provocation.
"What ails you, Fenrir," she drawls, cutting my little song and dance short. "You best hurry, for that weapon's owner will soon be slitting your throat." She says this with a twisting smile as she pictures the deed. Gigantic quim, this one is. But I do not say so, preferring to flash a charming smile.
"The previous owner," I say rather proudly, "is dead." Alright, very proudly. It was a long, bloody battle, and he nearly got the best of me in my current, weaker form. Sentiment had saved me, in the end. A quarter of a second's hesitance, and I had torn out his throat. "His blood held much sweetness."
"I have yet to sense Tyr…ah."
"Ah, indeed," I echo as Tyr crosses the iron gate into the newly-renamed land of Hel. He gives me a mournful, reproachful look, which I shrug off after a quick, unnoticed shudder. Damned foolish git shouldn't have looked at me like that, after all that he did to me. I spat in his direction as he floated past.
"He lacks his pelt," my sister noted.
"My pelt, you mean."
Another misconception: that I was actually, physically, bound to a rock. Doesn't make sense either- I would have chewed through that ribbon eventually, no matter how many un-things it was made of. I had all of eternity to do it, after all. Rather, the All-Father bound my true form –the Great Fenris Wolf- by ripping my entire pelt clean off of me once I was temporarily incarcerated by that bloody ribbon, and what remained, what I could pull together through the pain of being skinned, was a smaller being, an Asgardian-looking fellow; though my teeth were still slightly too long and sharp, my nails a tiny bit too pointed, and my eyes holding just a dash of gold in the whites and blues of my eyes. They handed my pelt off to Tyr, God of the Hunt, probably as compensation for his hand. He wore it whole, my head atop of his head, my tail tickling the ground- for after drying it out, my skin shrunk to that of a normal wolf. Or perhaps that was my ego transferring from the old body to the current one. In any case, it was creepy to watch someone drag around my body like that. Especially Tyr. Whom I had trusted. Foolish to trust an Asgardian, I know. Foolish, doltish, stupid me.
"And it is gone."
"Gone, eh?"
"To Midgard. Odin, sensing my movement through his pet gatekeeper, has handed it off to a defensive mechanism."
"You're one to criticize pets," she said mildly. I bristle. "Speak slow, now. A mechanism?"
"A type of shield, methinks."
"So cut through it with that," she pointed to my ax with her gloved arm, belying annoyance. "And be on your way. I have a realm to govern."
"It is a shield of Midgardians," I say patiently. "Most evidently powerful ones, as they sent father home as a sniveling wreck-"
At this, she stood. Ah, yes, Loki was a bit of a sore spot for her. She hated him, but oh how she loved him and oh how I would use this for myself.
"A shattered, gibbling shell," I continued as she descended down her throne to meet me. I tried not to wince before her immense, broiling aura, and failed miserably. "They did something, Hel- la. He put up nary a fight when he returned; simply fled. He is un-right now, instead of his usual wrong self. Behind his mask I sense they have broken him." Mostly drivel- the man was mad, not broken, but oh, how her eyes narrowed and her teeth clenched. She was lapping it right up. She had never liked Midgard, and how its scholars constantly referred to her as ugly rather than powerful, intelligent, sly, crafty, resourceful, vengeful. Which she was, all of those descriptions- including the first. Unfortunate.
"I will cut them down, my sweet," my voice now vaguely singsong without a particular tune, "but, I need a way in. Open a doorway, and I will trouble you no more."
"No need," she snarled, cape whirling, stance stiff in her rage as sickly sweet visions of her vengeance which would unfold ran through her head, "you will be joined shortly. Three days hence, these mortals will witness true hell. Run along, little wolf pup," her eyes, angry and mocking, "whomever you do not slay, I will."