Thor sat in the windowsill of Loki's bedroom watching the spectacular sunset. It was the solstice, and the mingling of the two suns was beautiful. Odin sat on Loki's bed with his back to the window, content to only watch the sunlight paint the walls opposite, content because Loki was using his lap as a pillow as he ploughed through the latest book they had brought him that evening. Loki loved reading even more than he loved light, and tasting, it turned out to absolutely no one's surprise. He would happily ignore anyone and anything else once he had his nose in a book, so they only let him have one at a time. Since Loki generally ignored them, the evenings in Loki's room had become a strange time for Thor and his parents to ruminate together, talking mostly about Loki, but also about the goings-on at court and anything else that privacy demanded not be said in more public places throughout the day. Loki's room was simultaneously a peaceful haven for the royal family and their ultimate source of tension and heartache.

"I have been thinking," Thor said as the first sun finally sank below the horizon. "Father, I am grown convinced that someone did this to Loki, and for a purpose."

"I have thought as much ever since you brought him home, but had no evidence to prove it. What makes you so certain today, Thor?"

"Several things. Chiefest is still simply the fact of his survival. He fell from the Bifrost, where there is nothing for him to fall into. It is already unheard of for something lost to the Void to pass safely through the veins of Yggdrasil and back to the Nine Worlds. It seems beyond belief for him to appear on Midgard in quest of the Tesseract at the same time I was."

"Unless it was the Tesseract which called him from the Void," Odin commented. "Such a thing would not be beyond its power, and the mortals could have activated it in their meddling."

"If you say that is a possibility, I would not deny it, but that would not explain the scepter he carried. He had it with him from the moment of his appearance, according to Heimdall. He must have exited the Void somewhere else, where he acquired it."

"Well reasoned so far, my son. I have a question for you, though, before you continue. What is the Tesseract? Do you actually know?"

Thor hesitated, but Loki didn't, answering the question in a sing-song voice,

"Conceive space: imagined structure,

A cube of points and lines.

Perceive space: unmade of finite maths,

Curved and recurved, formless and void.

Octachoron! Octahedroid!

Infinite eights, cube unto cube,

Holt of space, the summa-sanctum,

Wise geometer's chamber of secrets,

Object of Metatron, Die of Fate...

The Tesseract, Cosmic Cube."

Thor and Odin both stared at him, partly in surprise at what he had said, partly in surprise that he had said anything at all. He usually didn't in the evenings. "You're singing again?" Thor asked with a nervous laugh. "I thought you were done with that."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean. But most of the information about the Infinity Gems predate the written record and was instead remembered in music and verse," Loki answered in a more normal tone. "The Tesseract in the titular sense is the four-dimensional container for the Space Stone, third of the Infinity Gems, which is itself of infinite dimensions. The Tesseract is a glorious paradox. The stone it contains offers the ability to bend space to those able to wield it and dare take the risks."

"Is that true?" Thor asked Odin slowly.

"Of course it is," Loki said.

"I believe it is," Odin confirmed. "That is why it was so urgent to retrieve it once the humans discovered it."

Loki turned to look at him incredulously. "You have the Tesseract?"

"...yes."

"Fascinating." He fell silent again, no longer appearing interested in either of them.

"What is an Infinity Gem?" Thor asked, still watching his brother.

"Thor, I am certain you must have learned about them at some point in your education," Odin said with a hint of reproach, though his overall tone was that of amusement.

"Probably, but I must have forgotten."

Loki started singing again, though his verse still had no rhyme and a rather subtle meter, more a chant than a song:

"The Infinity Stones: a set of six jewels,

Ancient ornaments, dear-valued treasure,

Creation of the first, the sentient powers,

Six fundamental features of nature:

Space, time, reality, power, mind, and... soul... I think.

Worthy men won them; War-death reclaimed them.

Perilous hoard for a ring-twisted armor:

The Soul stone: mistress of life,

sweet death of love, repository of the lost,

Devondra's domain.

The Time stone: all-seeing, omniscient,

bringer of birth and death and renewal,

the End and Ellipsis.

The Space stone: omnipresent,

the Drawer, the Warper,

the Vast against the Void.

The Mind stone: deepest thinker,

dream-weaver, thought-maker,

the Mindscape of the Sleepwalker.

The Reality stone: un-real and alternate,

the Liar that makes truth,

plaything of Archivus, drafter of the World Pool.

Power stone: energy and annihilation,

omnipotence, the Ultimate,

Dynamus' Arena..."

Loki laughed before continuing gaily,

"Ego stone! Mind of vengeance, Nemesis' dream!

Rhythm stone! The Liar's lie!

Light stone! Purest radiance! Hallowed of Varda!

Dream stone! Hope to hopeless. Nightmare of Atë!

Continuity stone! Ear of the gods!

Void stone! Hollowness and Hunger!

Death stone! End of all Enders!"

Loki broke off in a fit of maniacal laughter.

"Uh, Father, how many stones are there?"

"Six, according to legend."

"Six," Loki agreed, nodding.

"So... was Loki telling us true?"

"Of course," Loki said.

"I think the first part of it was. I am not well-read on the lore of the infinity gems, but they are absolutely a subject Loki would have read about before. I think the first six he named are the real six."

"They're all real!" Loki protested.

"Loki, you said there were only six, but you named thirteen," Odin told him calmly.

"Did I?" His face grew pensive, and he shrugged. "There are only supposed to be six. I must have made the rest of them up. Sorry." He did not appear overly concerned by this. Lady Eir had a word for that, actually. Anosagnosia. It meant Loki lacked the ability to recognize his own disability. He knew he couldn't tell what was real the same way Thor could (or thought he could, as Loki saw it), but he rarely regarded this as a problem, except in that it bothered others. He only sometimes truly seemed to recognize that he was not well. Most of the time, he forgot, or as Eir said, simply could not understand the concept as yet.

"So... are space, time, reality, power, mind, and soul the real ones then?" Thor asked, just to be clear. Loki frequently spouted what seemed to be utter nonsense, but he did also still have a lot of knowledge packed into his sick brain.

"Maybe," Loki answered. "I can't tell. The truth and the lies all feel the same to me."

"...Ah." They had made next to no progress on that particular problem. Loki still relied on Thor to ground him in reality, and he at times seemed to take a wicked pleasure in designing more and more realistic illusions to confuse Thor. Frigga had explained why: despite what he said, Loki still didn't actually trust Thor to be correct and was unconsciously trying to catch him in an error. It was exhausting.

Loki continued obliviously, "Also, I said there were six stones, which is correct, but since there are really only two infinitudes, the One and the All, it might be more technically correct to say there are only two stones with six faces between them. Technically correct is the best kind of correct."

"I think I will regret asking this, but now I have no idea what you're talking about so, Loki, what are the One and the All?" Odin asked.

Loki sat up, cleared his throat dramatically and recited,

"All expanses and capacities, all length, all breadth, all depth:

All territory a vessel.

All seconds, minutes, hours, days, years, centuries and millennia:

All ages a moment.

All matter, all bodies, all beings, all substance, all existence:

all mere possibilities.

All energies, all capabilities, all forces, all potentials:

All might a pliant tool.

Once seven are united, One wields All.

One to be alive, to know life, to love living;

One lover, beloved, and lover's love of beloved;

One mind, knowledge, and consciousness;

One memory, purpose, and will;

One mind's remembering itself, understanding itself, and willing itself;

One knowing, one understanding, and one willing:

Thus does divinity begin, and end."

Loki watched them expectantly then sighed. "You still do not understand, do you? I've actually been trying to explain the concept ever since I remembered how to speak, albeit in a different context for a different reason, but perhaps it is simply beyond my ability to teach, and I don't think you want to really learn it the way I did."

"...How did you, ah, learn this wisdom, Loki?"

"By becoming All. That's not the traditional way to do it. You're supposed to become the One, obviously. It certainly worked, though. Except for tomorrow, I don't have any memories of understanding nearly so well."

"You don't have any memories of tomorrow, Loki," Thor pointed out.

"You might not, but I do. Or if I don't, the imaginings are very convincing, and I hope they become memories."

"Oh? What do you remember about tomorrow, then?" Odin asked.

"Besides meditating on the nature of All and One? I read five books and six people brought me cakes, and they were real."

"Ah. I see. Well, that was an illuminating side-track," Odin chuckled.

"One of them was made of cloudberries from Midgard. The people were real too. They were friends of Thor's."

"Of course. Right, where were we? Thor, you were going to talk about the scepter, I believe."

"Er, yes. I talked to several scholars about the scepter and the stone it contained today. I had given them sketches of the designs I saw a few weeks ago to study, but I didn't tell them it was Loki's weapon on Midgard. Anyhow, all of them recognized it as a type of mind magic device." He unfolded a copy of the diagram and started pointing out the various components, as both Odin and Loki leaned over it in interest. "The scepter functions as a controlling device, and the stone seemed to be both power source and conduit to the victim's mind. I think whoever found Loki in the Void must have found him much as he was when I brought him home. They already had this stone and then fashioned the device around it in order to access and control his sleeping mind."

"...Plausible, from what little we know. Finish it."

"That's the Mind Stone," Loki interrupted.

Thor dropped the papers in surprise.

"It is?" Odin asked.

Loki nodded as he watched the loose papers flutter to the floor. Thor stooped to pick them up again, staring at the drawings in wonder.

"How do you know?" Odin asked.

"I just do. I can tell from the machinery encasing the central stone. I don't know of anything else it could be, and I would be very surprised if your so-called scholars had anything else in mind when you showed this to them." He suddenly sounded entirely rational again. "Either they do not know the lore of the stones, or they are trying to conceal this from you, Thor," he finished grimly.

Thor whistled. "Loki, could someone use the Mind Stone to distort your mind the way it is, so you can't tell what's real anymore?"

Loki grinned wryly. "I don't think you can trust any answer I might give to that question. I might have read the books, but I've never seen the stone, unless it was so underwhelming as to appear imaginary in my memory. Or if I have truly seen it, as your tone intimates, then by your very question my judgement on the matter is lost to you." His brows drew close together in thought. "I do have a memory, though I might have imagined it, in which I thought I knew much more than I know now. If you were to ask the me of then, I would say that the destruction of a living mind is not one of the Mind Stone's functions." He shrugged. "I can count the things I know on my fingers and toes, though." He held up his hands, watching his fingers intently. His fingers suddenly multiplied nauseatingly before he abruptly dropped the illusion again with a shrug.

Thor tried to wrap his mind around what Loki just said. "You have a memory of thinking you knew... never mind. Your grammar confounds me, brother, so I will take that as a 'yes.' That leaves the question of motive only. Whoever sent Loki after the Tesseract, they could have had him for months or days before sending him to Midgard, but send him they did. They wanted the Tesseract more than they wanted the scepter... the Mind Stone. Our enemy probably learned of the Tesseract's location the same way we did, from the flare of interstellar power emitted during the humans' great war decades ago that my friend Steve fought in. Whoever did this, they have a base at least as close to Midgard as Asgard is, possibly closer since they managed to send Loki as their agent a little before I could arrive." Thor's brow furrowed in thought. "Although, now I say it out loud, this still doesn't entirely make sense. If the enemy had one of the six infinity stones, where does that leave us? Why would they risk the one they had to gain the Tesseract?"

"Strategic value," Odin said. "As Loki said, sort of, the Space Stone can bend space, warp it any way it likes. Using the Space Stone, one can travel between the furthest reaches of the universe without the inconvenience of needing a ship to navigate the veins of Yggdrasil. The portal Loki opened on Midgard is but a small sample of its power. Even our Bifrost is a pale imitation."

"I had the Tesseract?" Loki asked in surprise.

"Yes," Odin said simply.

"Fascinating. And the Mind Stone. Fascinating..."

"You compare it to the Bifrost," Thor said slowly.

"Indeed, I do compare it to the device that granted Asgardian supremacy across the Nine Realms," Odin agreed.

"Any enemy of ours would want it," Thor concluded.

"Yes. At best, Loki is in fact guilty of all that has happened," Odin said solemnly. "He already had the Mind Stone as a well-kept secret from the rest of us, and the magic of the stone is what protected his consciousness when he fell from the Bifrost. The flare from the Space Stone drew him from the Void to the holdings of the Chitauri, where he used the Mind Stone to subjugate the simple race prior to his power-hungry invasion of Midgard, and it was his own mishandling of both stones that landed him in his current state."

"At best?" Thor objected incredulously. "Do you want Loki to be guilty?"

"At worst, Asgard faces a foe who is collecting infinity stones," Loki said quietly. "If that is the case, we face a renewed Creation War. The Cosmic Entities themselves fought over the stones when they were first made. Anything approaching a conflict of that magnitude could destroy the Nine Realms entirely. I hope I am guilty, for all our sakes."

Thor winced at Loki's words, but chose to ignore his last statement. "The Creation War? Now that, I remember hearing about. In a children's story," Thor accused.

Odin shook his head. "If you had attended more history classes with your brother, you might know more about it. But truly, the details are not common knowledge for a reason. The infinity stones were scattered and lost as a result of the war. Most people are better off not knowing about them."

Loki again,

"Six scattered powers, burning through the Void,

Flotsam of a ruinous war that made the victors weep.

Six sacred weapons, lost but not destroyed,

Seeds to grow a bitter harvest, for Lady Death to reap.

One found its way to Eson, and Eson soon was gone.

One rests inside a challenge, which only few have won.

One fell to Agamotto, and its secrets lost with him,

Lost to future or to past, and hasn't been seen again.

One fell from hand to hand and burnt each one to hold.

One fell to Titan, and thence none know, once the dread bell tolled.

One bent the world to Malekith, until King Bor i'gained;

He sent the lesser of his two to Midgard, th'other broke in twain."

Odin's one eye widened in shock. "You know about... the hoard of Bor?"

"You mean the Aether? The Celestial Wind of Paradise and Perdition? The Seed of Possibility?" Loki smiled faintly. "Yes, of course."

Odin swore.

"What is it?" Thor asked in alarm. The Allfather never swore, at least not out loud.

Odin regarded him with a pained look. "Let's just say I broke a vow when I sent you to retrieve the Tesseract, Thor. I had hoped no one in the universe would realize it, though."

"Both are still here? You have two infinity stones on one planet?!" Loki exclaimed in alarm. "Have you lost your mind, Allfather?"

"And there it is," Odin groaned.

"Asgard already had one of the stones?" Thor asked in confusion.

"Technically, yes. It's a crown secret you would have learned after your coronation. Loki should not have known about it."

"Really? Why not?" Loki asked in surprise.

"Because it's a secret."

"Ah. Logical."

"And we are in a lot of trouble if anyone else knows about it," Odin informed them grimly.

"If I'm right, and someone did this to Loki and sent him to Midgard, then we probably have to assume they know about this 'Aether' as well," Thor remarked.

Loki raised his eyebrows. "Our hypothetical enemy presumably knows the whereabouts of three of the stones, then. If not more." He straightened up and glared suspiciously at Odin. "Assuming you are real, and he is real, and this conversation did happen as I think I heard it, and that Thor is correct... a lot of assumptions, but still, this seems urgent!"

"Loki, calm yourself."

"No."

"He's right," Odin said. "This is urgent. Asgard cannot allow anyone to collect Infinity Stones. Not even us, under usual circumstances. Come Thor, we must speak to your mother and to Heimdall."

Thor and Odin both stood up and started walking towards the door, Loki still watching them worriedly, though he was lucid enough not to get up and follow them. "I will communicate with Midgard," Thor said. "To check on the stone there and warn the Avengers. We can retrieve it if needed..." He stopped in his tracks and looked back at Loki. "Do you know where any of the other ones might be, brother?"

Loki rolled his eyes. "How could I possibly know something like that?"

"Where might you imagine them to be, then?" Odin interceded.

"Ah... For Power and Time, I have no idea. As I said, Time was lost with Agamotto, long ago even as I see it. No one could say where he went when he vanished. Power is always found in the hands of warlords, but otherwise I could not say. The Soul stone though... unless it has been recently retrieved, it resides eternally in Vormir."

"Vormir? Where is that?" Thor asked.

Loki looked around, then pointed vaguely upwards. "That way, I think," he said unhelpfully.

"We will search the star charts in the Library," Odin said quickly. "Come, Thor."

Author's note: hopefully you enjoyed all that confusion. For this chapter, I was really thinking about the difficulties and failures of communication. Loki knows a lot of things, but he does not know what is relevant most of the time, particularly as he of course is still struggling with the difference between reality and imagination: his knowledge is like the internet with a bad search algorithm. Everything is there, but it is impossible to find what you are looking for and easy to misinterpret once you do find something. Thor and Odin have to play detective to figure out what is happening. They base this mostly on their own assumptions about the world and integrating Loki's arcane knowledge with their existing worldview rather than really understanding Loki's perspective, except with the "meeting of the minds" at the end, where they are all finally talking about the same thing for the same reason: the possible threat to Asgard.

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."

-George Bernard Shaw

"Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know."

-Jim Rohn

Other notes: anosagnosia is a real thing and interesting to read about. There's a whole list of -agnosias on Wikipedia for the inability to recognize various things. Could probably catalogue a lot of other agnosias Loki was struggling with earlier in this fiction, like verbal agnosia before he realized that the sounds people were making were actually language...

Other other notes: I'm not going to explain all the poetry, but I will mention that I found Thomas Aquinas' meditations on the nature of the Trinity inspiring for the lines about "the One." Aquinas attempts in the Summa Theologica to provide a logical explanation for why the One God of Christianity is necessarily also a Trinity. For my very reductive explanation, "God the Father" is the "perfect being," the first mover/first cause/necessary being/absolute being/grand designer. "God the Son" is a necessary consequence of the existence of "God the Father," because a perfect being must be aware and must indeed be perfectly aware. Perfect awareness/knowledge/understanding of the perfect being must necessarily duplicate the perfection in the form of thought. Thus, "God the Son" is the "perfect knowing" proceeding from the perfect being. "God the Holy Spirit" is a necessary consequence of the existence of the other two: philosophically speaking, it is impossible to be fully aware of and understanding of the perfect being without also loving it, because it is the nature of true perfection to be loved absolutely. "God the Holy Spirit" is not a person in the way that most people would understand the term but rather the force of "perfect love" which necessarily proceeds from the perfect knowledge of the perfect being. The Holy Spirit is so named not because of what it is but what it does, an entity named for its acts rather than its substance.

I find Aquinas' God the Son very interesting, because of the implication of perfect awareness of everything. Thinking about it sometimes lends me perspective, imagining a perfect mind with a perfect understanding of absolutely everything, the whole general mishmosh. Whole new meaning to the word omniscience.

If you would like to be further confused, you can go read the Summa yourself.