IT IS MANHATTAN, NEW YORK.
New yellow cabs crawl about the lazy streets of winter. Reconstructed sky-scraping buildings stretch even higher towards the dirty skies.
The sound of bells and drums and bass thud in Loki's ears, blasting from the speakers bejeweled in red and green to flashing neon clubs at every corner. The flashy, dominant hue and modest, quaint one bathe the grey cement slushed over with soiled snow, decorate the lavish street lamps in haughty flamboyance, tender reminders of quiet nature, or visceral riches when tied together as bows. Passersby walk to the rhythm of fervent cheer in the crisp winter air.
"It's Christmastime, there's no need to be afraid.
At Christmastime, we let in light and we banish shade."
Lightning cracks centimeters away from Loki's ducking head. The boom of angry thunder makes him run faster and faster, half jumping and half limping. His lungs fill with the rustic smell of snow and blood.
He slips on slush, falling face-first into an alley. He scrambles to get up, but he's gasping, heaving, crying, trembling, and throwing up adrenaline. His lungs burn to the point that he mistakes the sight of his breath mixing with cold hair as smoke. Loki forces himself up onto his knees. He fumbles for his hilt, grabs the tip of his dagger, ignores the empty spot that comes before it.
"But say a prayer. Pray for the other ones.
At Christmastime, it's hard, but while you're having fun—"
Nails scrape his skull and pull out strings of crow-black hair until he's back on his feet not another minute later. He kicks Aesir knees that don't tumble, punches the impeccable mirrors of Odin Allfather's eyes. But the Ice Prince was never stronger than the Golden Prince.
Thor tosses him with full force against the brick wall of the alley. His lungs rattle like a plate of jelly as he slides down with a layer of dislodged bricks.
"You vile pest! You demon!" Thor snatches him up again, up to his face, crushing his windpipe, and yells as loud as the thunder in the grey skies rumbles. "How much sorrow will you cause me? When will you stop wearing the face of my brother?"
He's slammed over and over into the stone ground until a spot big enough to be his shallow grave gives way. The berserker's shadow looms over his broken body. Loki finds he can't breathe, can't think, can't live under its agonizing oppression.
"Get up!" He jumps at the poison in the voice and Mjölnir's ready lightning cracking. "Get up and fight, devil."
It is with aching perseverance that his broken body chooses to help him rise. Loki meets the blue flames in his eyes. His bleeding, swollen fingers close against the dagger in his hilt. Mjölnir's full power swings at his face first.
"There's a world outside your window,
And it's a world of dread and fear."
He flies into the snow-covered asphalt in the street, scrambles back onto his swaying feet. Pedestrians and automobiles screech at the sight of a true fight-to-death. Thor marches closer, dreaming of he who pretends to be his deceased brother's blood on his hands.
"Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears."
Thor's booming cries fill the foggy streets of New York. Loki's dagger falling away as he flings himself to the ground to dodge a fatal blow fills it even more. The golden Avenger crushes him below his feet - his broken knee couldn't lift him up in time - and raises Mjölnir.
Loki frantically snatches a generous shard of broken windshield glass a meager stretch away from his fingers. It is out of instinct that he closes his eyes, turns away, and plunges it into the chilled, shocked air as Mjölnir's fires burn an ear and strands of his midnight tresses to crisps.
"And the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom. Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you!"
His eyes open in morbid curiosity. Thor's close in wallowing pain.
The Golden Prince falls backwards, stuck in time, looking at the piece of windshield that had pierced his heart after his emptying eyes met his killer's for but a moment. He blinks before his face settles into hardened cement. He falls with a thud that shakes the world.
"Thor!" Loki screams at the top of his battered lungs. Even louder than the Midgardians surrounding the scene. He shoots up, forcing a crooked back, swollen fingers, broken bones, and useless knees to hold him up. Golden blood mingling with microscopic shards of glass soaks through the flimsy grey-blue Midgardian shirt the Aesir had put on that glum but cheerful morning, which the not-Aesir scrambles to congeal. He pushes down with all his cut fingers. His own blood drips from his lips in thick, uneven drops.
"And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmastime.
The greatest gift they'll get this year is life."
Webs of lightning shutter around Mjölnir's hilt like a short circuit only to shoot back down into the sodden asphalt. Then the sound of metal wind, a white noise to those who don't know any better, hushes.
There is no God of Thunder anymore. The sun of the shadow is gone, forever.
The survivor lets go. His feral scream splits the streets of New York into two, breaks windows as far as five miles away, fries electricity wires across the nation. A different light goes out in baby blues as he watches pooling golden blood runoff from his palms, and drip down his arms in elegant swirls. They are flourished signatures from the galaxy, honoring the unlikely winner.
Loki forgets how to breathe, about the stone in his pocket worth all the Nine Realms, how to move, even as a woman bolts through the crowd towards them.
"Do they know it's Christmastime at all?"
All he can think about is that the music sounds so, so sad.
Dossier published in full length at home: allerdale. wordpress. com.
Thanks to RavenReux for being my second pair of eyes throughout.