Keeping count of tragedies is no simple thing, when you and your worlds last forever.
.
You, Loki, rule.
For a time.
For a time, and for a price: you wear your father's face. There is something of the farce in it all, and you glory in it.
It does not feel frail until Thor returns, though perhaps it should have.
.
You have been many things in your life. Once you were a grave and lonely child, who longed for everything and thought that time would reach it.
Once you were a monster, though you did not want to be.
Once, you wanted to be.
You rose, you feared, you fell.
Enemies thronged around you; the only one who loved you like you loved her burned into eternity.
And then.
Then, a second chance.
And now? Thor looks on your kingdom and calls it weak, Thor calls it a failure, Thor points to the storms of war without. Thor, who, you once howled, never deserved to be king.
There is something of the farce in it all. Whereas once, you called your past a tragedy and your future a retribution—
But tragedies fade. The absurd is everlasting.
.
Somewhere in Midgard—their Earth—somewhere in a green field that looks as close to paradise as you, prince of Asgard, have ever known, you watch your father's end.
He says he loved you. There is profound injustice in that.
Does he not remember?
Does Thor?
.
(Keeping count)
(No simple thing)
.
This is the land where the lost are found, where the unloved remain so despite the best and worst of wishful thinking. A wasteland, a wasteland, too much light and color and stench.
When you fell, that first time, long ago—several tragedies ago—it was dark.
You grind your teeth, you pay the Grandmaster grand compliments, and you think that the darkness was a mercy.
.
Thor returns.
(Keeping count)
.
And did you miss him, in the endless cacophony? Did your head pound with secrets? Did your heart beat at all, or has it ever? (Its natural state is ice.)
.
You have been many things in your life, but always a traitor.
A traitor to both your fathers, both your peoples, to the quiet boy with his mother's love for magic, to the golden brother who did not look to see what fell when he flew.
Thor is gruff, Thor is angry, but it is an incandescent, temporary anger. Thor tells you that perhaps it would be better if you remained here, among the lost and unloved who have found—well, what have they found, really?
It as though he has forgotten who you are.
You try to betray him, so that he will remember.
You try to betray him, because that is the Loki he knows.
.
In the end, well, you might as well get on the spaceship.
.
Is this what irony looks like? The dark and evil heir? Only it cannot—for Odin cared enough for Hela that he tore her from his heart, that he set stones over her memory.
And what did Odin ever do for you?
(He loved you. He loved you.)
(As if that counts, or can be counted.)
In the end, well, you might as well stand by your brother. He does not seem sorry you are here.
The people hail you as a hero, and you wonder if, all along, it might have been simpler, being a hero.
(No simple thing)
.
You, Loki, redeem—
Yourself, for a time.
(Has it not always been so? Is this what Thor means when he dismisses you, when he calls you predictable, when you are broken on the ground through your own fault, your own fault unchanging?)
.
Deep into the heart of the dying city.
Deep into the death of an icy heart. You like this better, this warmth. You are still wicked enough, perhaps, to like it better in the midst of bloodshed. But everyone must stumble to the right side somehow, sometime.
Is this your time? You, Loki, are unchanging.
But perhaps you can be changed. Perhaps—
.
Everything stops.
(It is calling you.)
Everything ends, except your heartbeat.
Ice and light and blue.
.
(No simple thing)
.
The war is won, and the war is over, and you, Loki, are here and he does love you—your brother loves you, your brother is not sorry you survived—
.
Ice and light and blue.
You are the keeper of shadows, of tricks. Some things, you reflect, with the Tesseract in your hands, never change.
You choose to forget that this—this glow, this gleam, this promise of glory—is always where your tragedies begin.