"I do not know 'what now.' I think if I thought of it, I would weep for me. But that would be awfully self-centered wouldn't it? Let's save worrying about tomorrow for our newly purchased dawn." – Loki Laufeyson, Journey into Mystery, Vol. 1

This was written as a contest prize for a friend on deviantArt. This is based mostly on Tom Hiddleston's (fantastic) interpretation of Loki on the silver screen. For the record... I haven't yet read any of the Thor comics. For research (pfft), I watched the live-action film of Thor (twice...), checked out the Wikipedia pages for the movie, the comic-book characters, and the mythological characters. (Along with how to spell crazy names for things, like Mjolnir and Jotunheim. .) I also watched Thor: Tales of Asgard and Thor & Loki: Blood Brothers. And that is the extent of my knowledge.

op•ti•cal il•lu•sion
Noun:
1. An experience of seeming to see something that does not exist or that is other than it appears.
2. Something that deceives one's eyes and causes such an experience.

Disclaimer: All base are NOT belong to me. In fact, all of this belongs to Marvel and Tom Hiddleston and gods know who else... whoever owns the copyrights, really.

Optical Illusions

"I tried to protect you from the truth."

"Why – because I'm the monster parents tell their children about at night?"

. . . . .

He had once believed that his mixed blessing of a life, his eternal curse to stand in his brother's shadow, would be easier to bear if only he had known why. He had believed what he had been told: that he was a brother, a friend, a beloved (if underrated) son. He was different (he had always felt it), yet in his heart, the same (or so they said). He was an Asgardian, a prince – a rightful heir to the throne.

But when he had dug his nails in and peeled off their smooth, alluring skin, these beliefs were revealed, like so many things in that world (and the rest), to contain nothing but the ugly putrefaction of deceit at their core.

He knew why now. But the answer to the riddle lacked the satisfaction of a solution; it had not lifted his curse. The answer was the curse, and to know it was to bear the full weight of it, as he never had before. It was a heavy burden, and (as others had always been so quick to point out), he was not as strong as his so-called older brother.

But Loki was cleverer. The trickster son dreamt dreams that would never even have occurred to the warrior son, and planned plans Thor had not the patience to contemplate. The soldier had his strength (and Mjolnir, Loki thought with a curl of his lip), but the sorcerer had his spells… and now, the throne.

Loki stood alone in the great hall; the sentries had been dismissed for the time being, and stood outside all possible entry-points, doing what guards do best. The throne room had always been enormous, but now that Thor's tall frame and Odin's commanding presence had been removed from it, the void created by their absence made the space seem to rival space itself. Loki had expected this moment to feel larger than life, but somehow, his first impression of it left him feeling even smaller than before.

The vacant throne was but a few steps away, silent, waiting. For him, obviously. At least, that was what he told himself.

He hesitated. He stopped to think – that was one thing he had always been better at than Thor. Before he sat in a king's chair, he had to be certain the path was clear for him to do so. A kingdom built hastily on a slapdash foundation was little better than a sandcastle waiting to be drowned. To err was human… But he was a god. He did not make mistakes. He was Thor's equal – more than – and he would prove it. He would not fail.

He circled round the great golden throne as he turned his schemes over and over again in his mind, and he listened to his own steps echo in the hall. The ordinariness of the sound was strange to his ears – unfit for a man who was neither human nor a god of Asgard, a god of flames and light. Loki's magics were dark, and there was ice in his blood. Yet his footsteps sounded the same as those of any other god or goddess who had set foot in the hall before him.

He scowled, dissatisfied with this train of thought, until it occurred to him to consider it as yet another one of his cunning deceptions. Frost so cold it burned like fire; shadows masquerading as light. A monster wearing a hero's cloak. It almost amused him – would have, were it not for the simple fact that it was not really what he wanted, no more than the throne was his ultimate goal. Stepping stones, nothing more.

He took up his horned helm, and the Allfather's scepter. He placed the helm on his head; it was made for him, the horns crafted with perfect balance so that it seemed to weigh almost nothing at all. The scepter was heavier than it looked. He took the steps one at a time, reminding himself to relish the moment. A frost giant on the throne of Asgard… that sort of thing only happened once in a millennia. In a way, he was lucky: this rarest of moments was a simple triumph that could never be stolen away, that could never belong to another (there were no others like him) nor be overshadowed by some foolish, heroic feat of his brother's. It was his, only his.

He ran his fingertips lightly along the bright gold of the throne. It was warm at first, as though Odin had only just risen from it, but the metal quickly chilled at Loki's touch. It had been crafted by masters, and the workmanship was unrivaled; it swooped and flared out around him like a Valkyrie's wings, threateningly beautiful.

It was also, if memory served him correctly, exceptionally uncomfortable. Of course, it was made of solid metal, rigid and unyielding. Much like its previous occupant.

Loki had only sat on the throne once before in his life, many years ago. As children, he and Thor had been playing in the throne room together when Odin had left briefly, to greet some royal envoy or other the boys had been too young to take interest in. Against the advice of the guards, they decided to make a game of seeing who could sit in the throne the longest before the other "usurped" it.

Of course, with Thor being both the elder and larger of the two, it was not a fair fight (it never was), but Loki fought tooth and nail, clinging desperately to the sides of the great chair while Thor struggled to pry him free. It was Loki who had still been sitting in it and had caught the full force of Odin's glare when the king returned unexpectedly to rebuke them for their misbehavior. The throne, Odin had lectured them, was not a plaything, to be toyed with on a whim and then be left to tarnish and corrode when they grew bored. It was a symbol of honor, of respect, of power. Surely they were old enough to know better.

Thor, who was sorry but not discouraged, had laughed it off as soon as they were out of earshot, and immediately began to look for another game to play. Loki, who had hated above all things to be a constant disappointment, had been too young to hold back his tears.

That day, the view from the throne had been exhilarating (at least before Odin had ruined it). It was like surveying a vast, golden kingdom from atop a mountain so tall you could see beyond the horizon when you stood at the top, if only you squinted hard enough. The throne had been too big for him, but it had not bothered him then, any more than the size of a mountain bothered a mountaineer.

Had he ever been a child? The memory felt unreal, now that Loki knew what he truly was – what he had always been. Ironic, that he had once had fled in nightmares from such creatures.

He closed his eyes, and saw the icy wasteland of Jotunheim reflected in the dead eyes of Laufey, who smiled with a mouth full of ice shards and whose voice was the jagged sound of the wind tearing through a frozen ravine. Legends of the dark king had haunted Loki's dreams long before he had first laid eyes on him; now, old, half-forgotten terrors mingled with hate as Loki pictured the visage of the beast who had sired him, who had ever sought out the Casket that Odin had stolen from Jotenheim, but never the lost prince.

He clenched his fist tightly around the scepter, remembering the horror of the moment a frost giant's claws had wrapped around his arm… and had not killed him. Thor had always laughed in the face of death, claiming there were far more dreadful things in the universe to fear. Now, Loki laughed as well, bitterly, for the god of thunder would never know how right he had been.

Loki's laughter began softly, but ricocheted madly around the vast, empty chamber, bouncing back to him from every angle, each echo more amplified and distorted than the last until it no longer resembled laughter at all. He let his head fall back against the chair, and indulged in quiet, private hysteria until he was on the verge of sobs. But he was no longer a child, fragile and weak and weepy. He froze the tears in his eyes before the first was allowed to fall.

The double doors of the main entrance cracked open, and one of the guards (clearly a new hire; most who had met Loki before would not have dared this) peered into the room. "My king, is everything all right?... I thought I heard something."

Loki stared at the man, his expression a blank slate. He stretched a thin-lipped smile across his lips that lacked emotion. "All is well here. Mind your station, and do not presume to interrupt me a second time."

The guard nodded and hastily retreated, the door slamming smartly behind him. Yet the scene he had beheld in the hall stayed with him long after he had turned away: Loki, sinking down into the gold of the throne, puffed up like a fowl trying to convince predators he was larger than he appeared – and behind him, his horned shadow, flickering and colossal in the firelight, looming over him as though waiting to devour the world, and Loki along with it.

It was the shadow of a giant.