~~Chapter 4~~

A Blind Attendance on a Brief Ambition

A well-known phrase by Midgardian philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche states, " . . . if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you." I can say without hesitation that this is a lie. An abyss is only darkness, and it does not care enough for your existence to take note of you in the least. Gazing into that nothingness does have its consequences however, although its acknowledgement of one's existence is far from one of them. Perhaps the most terrible of these consequences - beyond the burning cold, the loneliness, and the madness that inevitably comes over time - is the perceived loss of one's identity. Most of what I endured after I fell from the Bifröst has been mercifully shielded from me by my own mind, and what I do remember is more than enough to make me believe that I should not make attempts to go back and retrieve it. The second half of Nietzsche's quotation is of much greater importance, and yet it is almost always severed from the section about the abyss as if its simplicity cannot compete with the hollow elegance of the later words. I would argue that it is of far more use than its successor, for it reads, "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that, in the process, he does not become a monster."

I recall enough to know that I battled monstrosities during those times when I was absent from the Nine Realms; furthermore, I believe I killed too many of them to count. Those demons who survived me were the ones that controlled me in the end, and it is because of these devils that I cannot fully trust many of the memories that I do retain from my life beyond the Abyss. I do remember making myself a vow in the very darkest of times: that I would survive. I must have known what the results of my survival would mean, but still my wrathful, jealous heart would not allow me to die where I was, alone on the other side of the universe among beasts that would literally tear me apart for their own amusement. So I resolved to live, simply because I refused to die among the filth and the blood of such evil creatures, in a place where my fate would never be known by my mother or (dare I say it?) by my brother. The moment I made myself that promise I knew that countless lives would have to be taken to ensure my continued existence, and that many of them would be 'innocent,' if such a state truly exists beyond that of the youngest of babes.

I made it anyway.

I knew precisely what the cost would be, and it did not dissuade me. If I believed in such things, I would say that was the moment I truly lost my soul - but that might be a lie, as well. That instant probably came in Asgard, when Odin told me that I had been born a monster myself and that my wretched life had been spared only for its potential use as a political pawn. Oh yes, I'm afraid that memory is painfully intact. I had spent the whole of my existence trying to measure up to the golden Prince of Asgard, only to learn that I had never had a chance in Hel of being his equal. I wanted to rip out the heart of my so-called brother and then feed it to the palace dogs just to guarantee him an ignominious end. He had always been so arrogant and brash - and yet so easily loved. Thor had to have known the truth, that I could never be king and that he was the heir to the throne, unchallenged.

Granted, I may have lost my mind a bit at that moment, but my soul remained mine alone. You see, I have spent long hours discussing the whole of the universe with beings who can truly capture the souls of men and gods, and I assure you that they will never have the pleasure of taking mine.

If the Abyss could have gazed into me, it might have been surprised at what it found there, for when I had fallen into that darkness, I had no expectation of surviving it. I was dying, and I was prepared for it, even if death had not been quite ready for me. What I had felt most acutely was isolation, but more immediately than that was a detachment - an empty void that was left within me. Perhaps it would not have been so deleterious if I had not instantly recognized the cause of it: my disconnection from Thor. My brother who was not my brother, and yet the loss of him had caused me to ache with inescapable need - a longing to be reunited with him even if it meant rending the entire universe to accomplish it. In a breath, I had crossed from wanting him dead to needing him with me, irrevocably.

I have since come to the realization that this was the result of a disruption of the current timeline as defined by the Norns, as Thor's destiny and mine were entwined tightly within the wheel of existence. You see, our proximity is necessary for the approach of the end. The Realms had all been better off without me in them, and yet now I would spend eternity trying to claw my way back into them simply because that was the way that the narrative should unfold. If I had hated Thor before, I was now consumed by a furor that could only end with his blood upon my hands.

(Most of that rage was beaten out of me within the first few months of my captivity, I believe, although the details are still a bit fuzzy.)

After that initial stage - which I refer to only as the 'Dark Times,' for reasons far more numerous than one - things become only slightly less hazy. I was brought to a room with the Mind Stone, and I spent innumerable hours shackled to a chair while trying to learn to control it. I know that I suffered, and yet I cannot recall what form this torment had taken. When I had mastered that task, I was coerced into using the stone to reach out to the Tesseract until I could command it, as well. In a way, this assignment was easier, as I feel like there had been less physical and emotional pain on my part, and yet it had harmed me in ways that I could not even conceive. The cube had defended itself, and, in the end, I was governed by it just as much I was controlling it. Even this indignity is nearly lost to me now, my mind wiped all but clean of the trauma that I must have endured. I find as time passes that less and less remains of it in my memory.

So it is with the events on Midgard. The Chitauri invasion remains a blur of images to me, although I do have a strangely clear recollection of my time on the mortals' flying fortress. Likewise, my exchange of words with Tony Stark in his residence in the sky is surprisingly lucid, to the point that I can remember the sentences we spoke down to the very word. Odd, is it not? What is certain is that I only regained full control of my faculties after I was repeatedly thrashed by the giant creature known as "Hulk," and so, although I should have been utterly humiliated by that exchange, I find that I am a little thankful for it since it rescued me from my bondage to Thanos and the Chitauri. Of course, then I had to live with aftermath of my oath (as well as the irreparable damage to my mind and my sanity), but I had chosen my path. There could be no return.

What I find most peculiar was the time between these last two events: my actions within Stark's tower and my sound thrashing at the hands of that green menace. My conclusion has been that it was some result of my proximity to the Mind Stone, which I carried in my scepter, and the Tesseract, which was on the roof above me. Perhaps it was even some retaliation on the part of the Cube for my having conquered it back when I was in Thanos's custody. Whatever the impetus, the circumstances are worth putting into words, if only for the sake of trying to better comprehend them.

***.**.***

The skyline of Manhattan rippled beneath me like waves lapping a shore. So unclear - so distant. I was pleased with myself, I think, as I stood with my arms spread wide upon that precipice, my flesh absorbing the light. So much light - I had not seen such brightness in years, but it felt more like centuries. Everything was coming together so beautifully, and, although the recollection is vague, I know I felt pride at all that I had made come to pass. The Midgardians had folded like the pawns that they were, and I was so close now to my liberation. Thanos would let me go. He had to release me. After all, I had fulfilled my part of the bargain.

I felt almost feverish there, caught up both in the joy of my triumph and the nearness of my freedom. What had become of Thor, I could only guess. Asgardians were much more resilient than humans, so even if he had landed without breaking out of the chamber, he could be no more than moderately wounded. I fully expected that I would see him again before all of this was over: hopefully broken and pleading with me to spare his compatriots from the horrors to come. Let them all bleed as I had, it was no matter. I had seen light, felt the warmth of a nearby star and tasted the possibilities of a life unbound from the monsters who had held me. Let the whole of Midgard burn for all I cared, for my fortunes had finally turned.

You are but words, I had told the Other. Damn, but I was arrogant.

Then Thor was there with me, and he was pleading as I had fantasized, begging me to help him undo all that I had done. The generalities of his words are written in my memory if not the precise phrasing. I said something back to him, something humiliatingly absurd such as "There is only the war."

And that is when it happened.

I jumped from my perch upon Stark's platform to face my brother on an equal level; after all, if I was going to defeat him at long last, I did not want him sniveling about any advantage that I may have had. It seemed to take longer than I had anticipated to reach the ground, almost as if I were falling so painfully slowly that I might spend the rest of my existence hanging suspended in the atmosphere of Midgard. I felt an odd pull on something within me - that same 'something' that Norns and sorceresses seemed so keen to mine for information - and its anchor point seemed to be at the other end of the universe. I was pulled out of my body by someone or something ancient and beyond even my comprehension. It was like being dangled over a precipice, a well of time, space, and knowledge that had no end that I could perceive. The whole of reality was balanced upon one immovable point in the universe, and it was converging right beneath me.

My mind quickly flitted to the Mind Stone, but it was settled and still within its encasement in the scepter. The Tesseract, then? Not that I could sense, and, believe me, the presence of that damnable cube was tormenting most of my waking moments. I reached out tentatively with my power, and it merely hung there for a few moments before it was shoved roughly back into my form. As it re-entered me, I experienced a flicker of energy, like a spark - just as brief but impossibly powerful - and with it came a taste on my tongue, so fleeting that I could hardly relate it to anything I had ever known. It tasted old, like earth after a storm, but infused with blood and heat and surrounded by a burst of lightning that brought no thunder.

The binding inside of me began to turn, and I could sense a second filament twisting along with mine into an infinite strand of - of something. Energy, space - life? Of all the options, it was most like the last, although I cannot describe in what way. It was a painful torsion, the tether that held me from my very core entwining itself with another strand, and as the coil completed itself, I could 'see' the two spiralling lines emanating from me and moving outward. There was a cloud of dark but brilliant colors swimming within the two halves, and as the twining of the strands flew away from me at speed, these colors were approaching me just as swiftly.

"So be it."

That had been a voice, its timbre reaching my ears but emanating out into nothingness. Familiar. Thor's, I realized, but that fact barely held any meaning.

The glowing hues still approached, and, as they reached me, they bent into pictures. Some were recognizable, events from my past that were so random I could not believe that they held any great significance. I quickly saw my fall from the Bifröst, and the twisting of the two parts halted. I then saw images that I had never wished to experience again, which, with denial as my aid, I had pushed so far back into the crevices of my mind that I never expected them to see the light of day. Mercilessly, they were as brief as all the others.

"Look at this! Look around you!"

Thor again. I could not even begin to follow his instruction for my vision was full of the horrors from what felt like another life, followed by the return to Midgard and my 'surrender' to the Avengers. Then a memory of Thor, his hand around my throat, forcing me out into the night. That was when the intertwining began again, and the well beneath me shifted - changed. It looked the same but felt very different.

"Do you think this madness will end with your rule?"

Did I? It was difficult to think of such things at that moment, for now I was seeing unfamiliar scenes, and they were equally as horrible, only now they involved Midgard, and Asgard, and Nidavellir, and Alfheim. Destruction, death, suffering - endless and unrelenting, the equal of what I had endured stretched out to all the Nine Realms.

Was this Ragnarök? 'Had I caused this?' I wondered, and immediately I knew the answer: not directly, but I had had a hand in its making. This blight upon the universe was not the result of the twilight of Asgard and its myriad 'gods,' but that of Thanos, whom I was serving for my own selfish purposes. There would be no kingdom at the end of all of this - only death meted out by the Mad Titan as he saw fit. I could feel the improbable sting of tears welling up in my eyes. All of this madness because I could not please my father, make him see that I was equal to Thor, make him love me the way he loved my brother. 'That no longer matters,' Odin had said to me when I confronted him about my existence. Rage began to flicker within me once again.

The last thing I remember as the world below me reclaimed my soul was the image of a being, ancient beyond comprehension and enormous beyond all possibility. Its eyes were pale and seemingly sightless, yet it was clear that he saw everything - knew everything. He had one face that gazed out silently upon the whole of existence and two others that were not visible on either side of his head, hidden from sight in varying degrees by a layer of cloth. As I fell away, back toward the chaos and annihilation beneath me, the iridescent eyes from his one visible face met my own, and my mind was filled with words. They did not arise from his throat but rather they echoed through my head as if they had originated from inside it. Three words, in fact:

Equity. Necessity. Vengeance.

If I could have screamed, I would have, but my body was still far beneath me. To endure that gaze for even a second was to bear a weight that could violently crush my entire soul beneath its significance.

"It's too late."

This voice was also familiar. It was my own.

"It's too late to stop it."

Was it, though? Was it too late for me to end the attack on Midgard and . . . and then what? Being on the non-Thanos side of this ordeal would not play well with the odds regarding my personal promise. If the Titan won, I gained my freedom. If he was defeated, then I would be fortunate if I were to die in the battle rather than endure in any form. I certainly was not going back to the place of my horrific incarceration, although I imagine that Thanos would have far more creative and terrible fates for any of his generals who might fail him. And that is what I was at this moment: a military leader commanding a force that was invading an entire planet. That was probably something to which I should return my attention.

I was back within my body, but I was still incredibly dazed and off-balance. From the aches in my chest and back, I could only presume that Thor and I had been battling one another during my curious absence, but what force had been controlling me during the fight I could not say. 'It's too late to stop it,' I had said. Yet it was not the ill-fated invasion of which I was speaking - at least not entirely. I was answering the cold, judgmental stare of that ancient being who had left my skull ringing with such unusual words: Equity. Necessity. Vengeance.

Speaking of vengeance, I was staring into the hopeful eyes of my once-brother, who was pleading with me: "No, we can. Together." What a simple, hopeless fool he was. It was not just the matter of my having tried to kill him, but the pure fact that he had no idea of the scale upon which all of this was playing out. My eyes welled with involuntary tears, and I think may have smiled. To him, it must have seemed as if I were on the verge of accepting his proposal, throwing my allegiance in with him and his pathetic band of cohorts. Little did he know that I had reached back to a well-hidden sheath that contained a number of daggers, capable of piercing even Asgardian armour if they were given a forceful enough push. The only matter under my consideration at that moment was merely where to drive one in, and Thor was close enough that I could have dealt a fatal blow, for he had left his midsection unguarded. Ah, signs of lingering trust! I would have carved out all of his enduring faith in me just to watch the dawning realization as he died.

You see, I am not one to be trusted.

When the blow fell, it was just a pitiful wound to the abdomen, no more than an aggravation to an Asgardian. In the end, I could not even fully trust myself, because my intentions had pitifully betrayed me by sparing him.

"Sentiment," I lectured myself.

Thor's faith in me might have taken a hit, but his patience had finally collapsed. I took a few powerful blows then, although the exact nature of them is lost to me. I know that they shook something loose, however, for time seemed to continue at a more normal pace, and I could feel the full depth of every bruise that I had received during our skirmish. I was suddenly gripped with an intense desire to be as far from him as I could get while still maintaining control of my army.

The journey through Manhattan on the Chitauri's speeding chariot had been thrilling at least, and it provided the added bonus of requiring a great deal of my attention to control it at great velocity. The distraction was a little too much, perhaps, because it caused me to miscalculate the cunning of the spiteful Agent Barton.

That was when I found myself back at Stark Tower, facing the anger of the Hulk in all its horrifying glory, and I tried to make a final stand. I was tired of being threatened, being controlled . . . and, most of all, of being pursued. I was emotionally exhausted, and so I stood my ground. I was then pummelled until I could barely form a coherent thought, but, in reality, it was the best way that the attack could have ended for me. I felt the presence of the Other leaving me, the mental restraint he held over me mercifully vanishing, only to leave me physically spent and disturbingly vulnerable.

For an immeasurable amount of time, I lay with only my thoughts, pondering the vision that I had experienced while suspended in space. What message had it been trying to convey to me with those simple words: Equity. Necessity. Vengeance? And why would such a powerful, primeval being be trying to reach me above all others?

More importantly, just what in Hel was I supposed to do now?

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