A/N: Potentially confusing material ahead… think along the lines of Inception, as in what's real and what's not. And of course, if you want to talk about anything or have any questions, let me know in a review and I'll be glad to PM back!

Massive thanks to my beta, Hr'awkryn, for always being so accommodating, for answering all my rambling notes and questions, and for making everything I write that much better! You have my eternal love and devotion!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything having to do with Marvel Comics or any of its creations. I can only appreciate the characters they've given us to work with.

To See A World In A Grain Of Sand

hold infinity in the palm of your hand
and eternity in an hour

It feels a bit like drowning, not having access to his magic. The steady thrum thrum thrum of power that tamps down any time traces of it flicker at his fingertips makes his teeth grind, puts his entire body on edge. To still feel it twining with the blood in his veins but not be able to use it is the worst punishment.

It's what defines him.

It is him.

Death would be easier.

Surprisingly, it's the little things that bother him the most – the bed that remains disheveled and untidy because he can't bring himself to do something so menial by hand, the wrinkles in his clothing that only get deeper because he doesn't want to change like everyone else, the mess of books and broken wood littered across the cell from the time he'd smashed the bookshelf to pieces in a fit of rage that only collect dust because rebuilding things by hand is something he doesn't do. A thousand little things that he used magic so thoughtlessly to do before that now he cannot.

Most people believed if he were given back his gift, he'd use it to escape in an instant, use it to wreak havoc and take revenge on every person, place, and realm that had ever slighted him, beginning with the Realm Eternal and all its inhabitants.

And he might do that, in all honesty, if given the chance.

But the chance is nonexistent because escape is out of reach, killing a distant memory, conquering a quickly fading dream. He's trapped, caught in a gilded cage that leaves him powerless and wanting and shoved into the dark, hidden depths of the palace, tucked away where he can be easily forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind. A lost memory.

So he remains in the growing disarray.

And for a being that thrives on disorder and chaos, he hates the disorder and chaos of his surroundings.

"The great Lie-Smith and God of Mischief…"

Food splatters from the tray when it connects with the floor, painting what was once a white but is now splotchy grey carpet with brown and green juices. He stares at the liquid dispassionately as it sinks into the fibers. It'll start to smell within the next few days.

"Loki Laufeyson…"

The emphasis placed on the surname is unnecessary when the mere thought of his heritage makes him want to destroy anything and everything, makes him want to peel the layers of his skin away so that the cobalt hidden within the cells can never come to light.

"How does it feel to be held here knowing you're stuck in your own filth and mess for the rest of eternity?"

Jeering faces peer at him from behind the sheen of gold, an endless visage to the stream of taunts that will stretch out for as long as his incarceration. The ethereal light emphasizes the planes of their faces, highlighting the bridge of a nose while darkening the hollow spaces beneath their eyes.

"Where is your power?" One guard laughs while another bangs a spear against the barrier in a flash of sparks. "Where is your precious seiðr now?"

He watches the guards until they finally tire and wander off. Only once they've left does he look down to his hands, rotating them slowly, examining the lie that is his appearance. The power of the cell clamps down on the flare of magic when his fingers twitch, and it is with a clenched jaw that he fists his hands and slams the right to the floor.

Where is his seiðr? It's trapped. Trapped within a body that is trapped within a cell that is trapped within a palace, a realm, and a life to which he's never belonged.

"I never thought I'd see you here." He closes the book with a snap and sets it aside, presses back into the stained armchair in a stretch before standing. "Not the best place for the crown prince's favored guest to wander."

She's a petite thing, smaller even than he remembers seeing through the eyes of the Destroyer. The hard lines and edges of the dungeon swamp her as she hugs her arms around her waist and only serve to accentuate the frail nature of her mortality. It won't be long now, though, before the ages span out before her as well.

He may be imprisoned, cast aside, but he's still heard the rumors. A future queen that would die within a century is of little use to the Realm Eternal. But one that has tasted one of Iðunn's apples… well, that is a different story.

"What is it that brings you to the dungeons?" Time has done nothing to dampen his abilities at intimidation, so it's to her credit that she doesn't back away from the barrier as he stalks closer. When another step would result in an unpleasant shock, he stops and holds out his hands, gestures to the expanse of the room. "Curious to see what hell looks like?"

"I imagine hell to be much worse." With a hard swallow, her attention drifts from his and skims his form. "Although this…" She nods to the destruction in the background. "Is disgusting."

He's been to Niflheim, seen Hel and the lifeless world she rules where the dishonored dead roam the land with unseeing eyes and vacant expressions for millennium after millennium. It's nothing like his ruined cell. And yet, it is. Because he can feel that emptiness in his mind sometimes, that blankness that only isolation can generate.

Even still, he fixes her with a cruel smirk. "Says the one with the freedom to walk away."

"Can I, though?"

It isn't the answer he expected, but it's no less pleasing. Resentment is something he can work with, something he can mold to his advantage, a low-burning fire he can stoke. He lets the cruel edge of his grin slide away and leaves genuineness in its wake.

"Hell, it seems, is a matter of opinion."

The next time she visits, she brings a book. He watches, curious, as she sits on the rough stone floor, leans against the pillar, and immerses herself in the tome for hours on end.

The time after that, she brings a stack of notes. He watches, curious, as she explains what it is she studies, details the gaps in her science, and offers open-ended statements that beg to be completed.

The time after that, she brings a blanket. He watches, curious, as she tucks it around her shoulders to ward off the damp air, stares down the hall for a while in silence, and eventually closes her eyes.

"Do you enjoy living like that?"

His attention drifts to her form, meets with the eyes that peek over the edge of the book. There's a wariness there that he likes to observe, takes pride in knowing he's the root that caused it to grow. Caution had been virtually nonexistent in their first few meetings. Now, it's an ever-present companion to their encounters.

"No." He lets a goblet fall to the floor, wine spilling out in a rushing wave to dye the carpet crimson. "But the state of this cell is the only thing I can control."

The book lowers to her lap. "Frigga would be ashamed."

"She would be… that is, if she ever saw it."

How long has it been since he's seen anything other than the guards' sneering faces? How long has it been since he's had any pleasant company other than the human? How long has it been since he first pulled apart that bookshelf? How long has it been since the walls had been erected around him in an electric buzz?

"My room was never like this." He scans the mess – the scattered pages ripped from books, the days old scraps of food stacked in various piles, the fragments of glass on the far side of the cell that led to bloodied footprints – and purses his lips. "Servants would come daily to clean, sometimes more than once a day if the situation called for it. Everything was pristine when they left, no dust or dirt or debris of any kind. It was a necessary trademark of theirs; anything less wouldn't have been tolerated." Not once in over one thousand years had he found so much as a speck of dirt. "Even I couldn't find fault in their work."

An eyebrow arches, high and delicate on her fine features. "So basically you're too superior to do things that you consider beneath you."

He grins, all white teeth and glimmering eyes and easy charm, and mimics her. "Basically."

"How pretentious." She snorts and shakes her head in exasperation as she lifts the book but doesn't quite manage to hide the smile that pulls at the corners of her mouth behind the curtain of her hair before it catches his eye.

The scrape isn't very large or very evident… but then, few things have ever escaped his notice. It begins at her left temple in a yellowed bruise, stretches up and across her forehead in a meandering line, and eventually blends with her hairline. His gaze lingers on the mark even as she speaks.

"I'd never seen a bilgesnipe before. No one ever thought to tell me that running away from one only made it more inclined to attack." She touches lightly to the bruise, eyes narrowing in a slight wince. "I didn't see the branch until it was too late."

"My brother should take better care of his woman."

"My name is Jane." This time, her eyes narrow with something other than pain as she carefully enunciates every word with something closely bordering loathing. "And I'm no one's woman."

For some, hell is a destroyed cell and a natural power that hovers just beyond fingertips stretched long in vain.

"I don't like apples." Her tongue darts out to wet her lips, leaving them shiny and pink, and her fingers drift up to the circlet on her head, run across the intricate engravings and priceless gems. "I don't like crowns."

For others, hell is the haunting taste of fruit and the weight of a realm's expectations on thin shoulders that are unwilling to bear the burden.

The barrier shimmers when he thinks a little too much on the magic that has been lost, and he watches the glimmer reflect in her honeyed eyes. She stares at nothing, lost in the recesses of her mind. Or maybe she's hiding. After all, as the queen, within herself is the only place to which she can retreat.

"You could run."

Wrinkles mar her brow in a frown. "They would find me anywhere I went."

No one turns down the God of Thunder once his sights have been set. No one turns down the God of Thunder, period. So for her to have even considered it is a monumental first that just makes the situation all the more interesting.

Wending closer to where she sits beyond the cell, he crouches down to her level and fixes her profile with a sober expression. "Not if you had me to guide and conceal you."

The words are not wholly self-serving right then. With her genial smile and indomitable spirit, he can't help but be drawn to her. But there's still an undeniable truth to them because, really, who in all the realms could manage such a feat, can wield magic so skillfully as he?

She's all action, the human… constant movement and questions and ambition that can't be contained within the Realm Eternal's golden walls. But at his statement, she falls still. The entirety of her being is so motionless that he wonders if her heart itself has ceased beating. Then a single finger twitches, her eyelids close and open in a blink, and she turns to him with a look that's half-hopeful, half-skeptical.

"But you're supposed to be captive here for the rest of eternity."

"True…" He nods sagely and offers a one-shouldered shrug. "Unless someone were to speak on my behalf to set me free."

Resentment is such an easy flame to fan.

Sleep is an elusive thing. It teases at the edges of his consciousness without ever making itself truly known. When he closes his eyes, he drifts in the timeless place between sleep and awake, and when he opens them again, he feels just as restless and unsatisfied as he had in the beginning.

Always, always left wanting. It's the definitive of his being, to want.

Before the cell, he would sleep regularly, but within the cell, it's impossible to know when last he slept. The days blend into each other, one after another, a continuous line of monotony only broken by her visits. She's his lifeline, his sanity, the only thing that keeps him from falling into the bottomless pit that yawns in the back of his mind.

There are times, though, that sleep comes. And when it does, he dreams.

He dreams that the carpet is still an immaculate white, that the floor isn't littered with shattered pieces of furniture, that bloodied paintings of his fist aren't scattered across the one solid wall of his cell. Sometimes his brother is there, staring at him silently and wistfully from behind the golden sheen. Sometimes she's there, a sad smile on her lips that doesn't quite meet her eyes. Sometimes no one's there, leaving him all alone with only desires for company.

Then he wakes.

But through the haze of sameness, it's hard to tell reality from the dream anymore.

"It's been a while." Her steps falter at his ringing words, and she pauses before turning to him slowly, meeting his smirk with a curious look. "The demands of the throne too strong to ignore?"

Time has no meaning, not anymore, not when everything remains unchanged, but it feels like a significant amount of time has passed since her last visit. It might just be his mind performing tricks on him since there's no one else to play victim to his mischief. Or it might be that a tendril of worry that she wouldn't return had slithered its way into what was left of his heart.

"What?"

The barrier flared brightly when he steps within centimeters of it. "I was beginning to think you'd reconsidered."

"Reconsidered?" She crosses one arm over herself to hold the opposite elbow and regards him from beneath knitted brows. "I'm not sure I know what you're talking about."

A laugh falls from his mouth. "Why the sudden need for pretense when we both know that no one wanders these halls aside from you?" Stringy locks of hair flop into his face when he shakes his head. "Or have you simply forgotten in your absence? After all, it's been some time since last you came here."

"Yes…" But there's something strange in her eyes in that moment, something he doesn't recognize. "It has."

"There's nothing wrong with him."

"Memories are fallible, Thor… even a supposed god's."

He lays back on the chaise lounge and closes his eyes, pretends he can't hear the words curling through the dungeon halls, allows the deep tenor and lilting soprano to seamlessly flow in one ear and out the other.

"You think him deranged."

"All I'm saying is that centuries spent in isolation can do funny things to a person's mind. No man is an island. People weren't made to be alone."

She touches a finger experimentally to the barrier, lays the rest of her hand flat when realization that the exterior isn't harmful like the interior comes.

"Did you mean it?"

"Yes."

Downcast eyes lift to his steady gaze. He can feel her hope through the magic wall as clearly as he can feel the torn flesh on his knuckles. Optimism is a hereditary trait, a natural-born characteristic ingrained in all humans.

"You'll really help me escape?"

"Yes, so long as you do the same for me."

Never breaking eye contact, she licks her lips and snags the lower one between pearly teeth. Wariness wars with recklessness and unruliness and wildness, but there's a spark of rebellion in the depths of her that can't be denied as he holds his hand out in a mirror image of her own just far enough away from the barrier to avoid being hurt.

"Be ready."

"After all this time, now you come to visit me? Why?" He leans forward, digging long fingernails into the hands clasped behind his back. "Have you come to gloat? To mock?"

"I've come to set you free." His brother smiles, radiant and wide and completely trusting, as if the transgressions of the past never happened. "One thousand years is a long time, brother."

He stands in the middle of a room that is familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

Everything appears to be the same. The four-poster bed with its green overlay, the ancient rug in the middle of the floor, the ivory window coverings, the book on magic still opened to the twenty-third chapter on his desk… they've even moved and repaired the books that had been in his cell, rearranged the volumes just like they'd always been on the mahogany bookshelves. If he didn't know better, he could be standing in a memory, which means the only thing different is him.

The man that had stood in this room before is not the man he is now.

It's a meaningless observation, though, because he'll only be here for a few hours at most. By the time dawns streams across the horizon the following morning, they will be gone; him and her, the fallen prince and the escaped queen, hidden forever in the vast wilds of Yggdrasil.

With a wicked grin playing at the corners of his mouth, he lifts a hand to conjure one of his trademark silver knives. But before he gets the chance, something captures his attention. The far side of the room is pulled into focus as the hand before his face blurs, and in one smooth motion he's crossing the space and kneeling on the floor.

It's small…

Almost imperceptible, lost in the pattern of the marble tile…

But it's there.

And it's with a hollow, self-deprecating kind of laugh that he picks up a speck of dirt, rolls it to the middle of his palm, and feels the electric weight of it pressing down on his bones.

fin.