The Trickster: Ragnarok
by: Shadow Chaser
Disclaimer:
I do not own any characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. All characters belong to Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Comics, and Disney. I am not writing this story for profit, only for my own (twisted) amusement. I will try to return the characters unharmed, but some they might have a few scuff marks.
Story:
Chapter 13
"Asgard has fallen, my King."
The words still echoed in Loki's head like a very bad nightmare as he stared out into the darkened skies of the city of New York. The artificial bright lights of the city dimmed the night sky to the point where no starlight or wisp of nebula could even penetrate it, leaving only the inky black sky for him to look at. Still, if he really had to debase his own thoughts, he supposed that the bright lights of the mortal city could be akin to starlight. It was a very...Thor thought, but one he could not help but cling onto at the moment.
Asgard had fallen.
Loki stared at Sif, stunned. Asgard had...what? He barely comprehended that she was bleeding from a large gash down the length of one of her legs, or the fact that she was covered in dirt, soot, red and black ichor, exhaustion evident in her eyes. He could only stare mutely at the simple golden spear named Gungnir that was in her outstretched hands. Even though he had seen it numerous times, had been close to it, had even held it briefly during his short tenure as regent, he had never truly stared at Gungnir like this before. There were flecks of dried blood running up and down the length of the staff. The butt end along with its spear-point were both covered liberally in still-dripping blood, a sign that it had fought a great battle. He could feel the hum of still active magicks, the buzzing thrum right behind his front teeth. It would have been an uncomfortable feeling had he not been desensitized to it after being near it for so long.
Loki found his mouth dry and swallowed heavily as he tentatively reached out and accepted its weight as Sif released it to him. Like before, when he had been regent, he could feel the rush of power traveling through him, the ancient magicks that granted the authority and power to wield Gungnir itself, weaving its subtle magicks over him. He could feel the barest hints of where the power had threaded to and to his shock, he felt it faintly pulse with something that could have been equated to pain, the living magick of Gungnir that had built and ruled Asgard for eons. The best way he could describe what was happening was that Gungnir magick was similar to that of Mjolnir, spellwork and all, except without the caveats of whomever was to be worthy of the hammer. One could only wield Gungnir by the authority of the previous owner.
And it had accepted him once more.
The shifting clink of armor made him look beyond Gungnir to see Sif kneeling before him, one hand across her breastplate in fealty. Beyond her, he saw that it was not the Warriors Three that had accompanied her, but rather Huugin and Muunin, both in their human forms, heads bowed towards him in respect while they tightly held the chains of a very defiant and bloodied Sleipnir.
"Explain," Loki was mildly surprised at how calm his own voice sounded in light of what Sif had just said and handed to him.
"It was as you had forewarned us, milord," Sif started a bit stiffly and Loki felt the rush of vicious pleasure, but restrained himself only just from saying 'I told you so' to her face. "The ancient ancestors of Dark Elves attacked in a number we had never thought to be possible. Their leader, Malekith, distorted the very fabric of reality to cloak his ships in a shadow we could not detect until it was too late. We had not heeded the warnings of Heimdall nor of your foresight, blinded by our very own thoughts and trickery that had prejudiced us to what was had been laid bare." She gestured with her chin to Sleipnir bound behind her, "The traitor that had felled Asgard's defenses confessed to the Allmother in the midst of battle before we were overrun. I was tasked to bring him before the Allfather for judgment, before the Allfather commanded me to take Gungnir and the prisoner to you."
"And Odin Allfather?" Loki asked softly.
"He was last seen with the the Warriors Three defending the Vaults, milord," Sif looked up at him, worry evident in her gaze at the implications of what she had reported, but Loki only stared at Gungnir.
"The stone will call to the stone," he murmured quietly. The mysterious Dark Elf that had wielded the power of the Aether finally had a name and Loki knew knew why Malekith had gone straight to the Vaults in his attack. It seemed that Odin had also known exactly why and more than likely had every single Einhenjar and capable warrior of Asgard defending it. He thought he could feel the ghost of something touching his shoulder, the barest feeling, but brushed it off. It was his imagination, the lingering fear and terror he had felt during his time under Thanos' influence. The Allfather was a very capable warrior as were the others. They would not fall so easily.
"M-My King..." Sif's voice had taken on a hesitant tone and Loki snapped his eyes up to look at her. She looked down, refusing to meet his gaze, "T-The Allmother...Loki...your mother...Frigga, the Queen died in the attack." The last of her words came out in a rush, but it mentally rocked him back on his heels as he stared at her, almost unable to comprehend the words.
Sif opened her mouth again to say something else, but closed it after a few seconds and instead, looked down towards the ground, seemingly oblivious to the blood she was dripping on the tiled floor. Something hollowed opened up a void in Loki as he finally processed her words, a part of him wanting to shake his head in denial, another part of him still almost unable to believe what she said. And just as suddenly, he viciously shoved that part of him down, his grip on Gungnir tightened to the point that he realized his knuckles were white. He forced himself to relax his grip.
"Continue," again, he marveled at how steady his own voice sounded.
"Heimdall has given his word that the Bifrost will be destroyed after we had arrived, milord," Sif stuttered a little over her next words, "A-Asgard was burning when we had received our orders- Loki-"
It felt like he was not in control of his own body as Loki realized that his hand was raised and that he was close to ripping through the shadows of Yggdrasil to Asgard. He blinked again as he hesitated, Sif's words finally catching up to him. He lowered his hand, squeezing the burnished metal of Gungnir tightly to control himself before he looked beyond Sif towards the human-formed ravens who held Sleipnir's chains. The icy blue eyed, red-haired mage stared back at him, an oddly familiar defiant look in his gaze. He had seen such a look before-
Loki pulled himself from the memory as he felt the sudden shift and change of air near him, the coolness of a familiar body materializing out of literal thin air. He absently added a warming spell to the one that continued to cloak him from the eyes of others in the Tower – or for anyone else for that matter. "Did she suffer?" he asked quietly as Hel all but almost pressed herself against him, the flare of the warming spell countering her cool-deathly touch. One of her hands absently danced across his own in greeting, placed flatly on the balcony's railings.
"No," she replied in her customary monotone, but Loki could hear the faint edge of sorrow in it and smiled bitterly. It was a very cold day in her realm if she actually was trying to comfort him. "She arrived safely and painlessly," Hel continued, "I have given her over to the Valkyries. She died a warrior and battlemage."
"And her murderer still lives," he replied.
"Yes, he does," Hel's spindly fingers ghosted over his own, sending spots of flaring warmth across his knuckles and parts of his fingers. "What will you do now, 'o King of Asgard-"
Loki's anger flared as he suddenly reached out and gripped her hand with his own, squeezing it tightly in warning, "Do not mock me, Hel." He glared at her only to see her shoot him a mirthless smile, seemingly unaffected by how much crushing force he was exerting on her hand. The warming spell burned hotly against his palm, but he ignored the pain.
"You have everything you have ever wanted, my King. You have a throne, a crown, Gungnir of your own free will. You have power, you have pity, you have love, and your brother has nothing," she said, staring at him with a sharp look, "I am not mocking you."
"Not everything," he growled out, suddenly angry with her, but her smiled grew only wider, sharper, more predatory and razor-like.
"You have the means of seeking out what you wish the most," she said, "and you have sacrificed what you hold most dear for it. You just do not realize it yet-"
"I have not sacrificed it yet," he countered, glaring at her before she suddenly pulled her hand out of his own as if it had not been squeezed to the point of breaking bones.
"You have," Hel made a tsking noise as the smile dropped from her face, her voice resuming its usual monotone, almost emotionless candor, "you have not realized it yet because you are clinging onto the threads of what you do not want changed.
"You stand before a precipice. Swing one way, and the doors will open, but at the highest cost. Swing the other and the path will be filled with unimaginable pain and suffering. The cost will be negligible," she continued, tracing an absent hand across his shoulders as she moved to his other side. She reached out and touched Gungnir, an inscrutable expression crossing her face as the innate magick on it seemingly reacted, a shine of gold flaring across it before it quieted. "You have everything, my King, and yet you think you have nothing," she said in a simple tone, turning back to look at him, "are you so selfish to want the world laid out before you?"
"Like him?" he asked, a hard look on his face as he stared back out at the city. He hated to admit that she was right – that technically he did have everything he ever wanted right here, right now. He was King, given Gungnir of Odin's free will instead of having his mother give it to him with the resentment of others looking on. Sif had even bowed to him, a far cry from the last time she had taken a royal audience with him. The ravens actually acknowledged his control of Gungnir. And Thor...Thor had nothing. Thor had not even factored into any of this.
And he had nothing.
Asgard was burning, reduced to ashes if not razed by enemy forces. The Bifrost was destroyed if Heimdall was true to his word – and Loki had no doubts that Heimdall was always true to his word. For all of the literal things he knew the Guardian to talk and to say, the man was always literal to a fault. The Vaults were more than likely pillaged by now; Odin and the Warriors Three captured if not outright killed. And he was stuck on this Nornforsaken ball of dust with the very mortals he had tried to conquer and mostly detested – he reserved judgment for Dr. Banner and maybe Agent Romanov, as well as the nameless metal-armed man that had deftly attacked him without the slightest provocation and more than likely had read him as just a threat – who were Thor's friends.
"Still afraid to speak his name?" Hel tilted her head at him, the reflection of the moon across her glasses sending motes of lights dancing across the darkened balcony.
"Has Odin passed through your realm?" he pushed aside her question as she smoothed out an absent wrinkle from her formless dress, sending an invisible wash of power and the silent howls of the damned across the balcony.
She closed her eyes briefly, her lips compressing just a little bit in concentration before she opened them again, "No."
The implicit understanding that hung between the two of them was that it had been an irrelevant question at best. Even if Odin did not appear in her realm could mean that he was either still fighting Malekith's forces in the Vaults, or that he had been captured already. Neither boded well for him. But she had obliged his request and he thinned his own lips at his next question, "Would you greet him like an old friend? A member of his coterie?"
The corners of her lips twitched up in a mirthless smile, and he knew from long experience with her that on another person, it would have been a boisterous laugh. "Jealousy does not suit you, my King."
"Neither does it you, Queen of the Dead," he shot back and saw her smile drop just a hair. It was rare that anyone was able to surprise Hel, being Death's daughter and all. She had such an awareness around her; her fickleness and unpredictability making her just like her mother in respects. Her whims and her rule was more ordered and perhaps more regulated than Death's legendary fickleness, so maybe there was an aspect of 'humanity' if one wanted to call it, with Hel that was never with Death. Death was death, simple as that. Hel was...
"The dead had come from Jotunheim back then," Hel shrugged as she danced a few spindly fingers across his shoulder and down his right arm, sending bursts of heat from where her cool-death touch met his warming spell. "A purge of Jotun magisters, of corrupted magick and of blood-borne destruction whence my mother's nature was sated. The lifeless Jotun magisters reported that a new power was rising with the purge of the old power and control of the universe they once held."
"Asgard," Loki replied softly.
"Such upheavals are common," Hel seemed indifferent by his answer, "happening every so often, but in this one, my mother had taken a new lover, enamored by the sheer amount of destruction and the soaking of the bloodbath that she could have drowned thousands upon thousands of babes in."
"...Thanos?"
Hel's fingers continued their dance up and down his arm, "Jealousy did not beget his rival as Thanos bathed the stars in the the blood of others."
"Thanos had a rival for Death's affections?" Loki was surprised to hear that. He would have expected Thanos to have no rivals, the sheer amount of power he commanded and the way he had suppressed- He drew in a sharp breath, stopping himself from going down the dark thoughts from that time...that time of ill-gotten mistakes, desperation, and of-
"Hindsight reveals everything, the securing of status, of power, of knowledge, the actions taken in foolishness and in insecurities," Hel's words drew him out of his tunneling dark thoughts and he grasped on them, suddenly wondering why he had all but faltered and thought of the shadows and of the infinite pain that Thanos had unleashed upon him now. Talking about him had triggered it, he knew that, but it had also seemingly opened up something he had been pushing at ever since Thanos had been trapped in the Tesseract. "Of what would build a kingdom, the power to suppress worlds, realms, spreading the roots of power-"
"The Tesseract-"
Her expression had not changed, but Loki caught the subtle smile behind the barest glint of her glasses and by the way the warming spell flared brightly as she pressed on his upper arm. She absently drew lines back and forth on one of his shoulders with a finger as she stared out into the same inky night of the Midgardian city.
"And..."
"...Bifrost," though Loki was used to layering his conversations with her, he also knew that she liked puzzling out a conversation too. More often than not, it was a a way to ferret out clues that they might have missed the first time around during one of their adventures. "No," he corrected himself, "Yggdrasil...which means, Bor Allfather was Thanos' rival...for Death? But, that would not make sense-" He paused, a frown on his face as he thought hard about what he had learned in recent days and what he knew.
Sleipnir had said that Asgard was a race of conquerors, using their martial might to suppress rebellions, keep order within the realms. But he also knew that there were realms hidden in the shadows of Yggdrasil, realms that were not under Asgard's direct control whether by sheer fact of not being seen or because they were not part of Yggdrasil itself.
Then there was Yggdrasil itself. Everyone had taken its formation by happenstance, but Thor for all of his blunt, brute force, had proven that it was capable of being destroyed. The Bifrost itself proved capable of destroying worlds upon worlds, his attempted purge of Jotunheim four years previous telling him that. But it was the Tesseract that had proven that it was capable of rebuilding such world destroying, peace enforcing, thing like the Bifrost. It was capable of opening portals between space, transporting armies, persons between realms and beyond that.
What better weapon than the Tesseract to challenge Thanos as a rival for Death's affections?
And who but Asgard wielded such power in their conquering of realms? In their creation of Yggdrasil the World Tree and enforcement of peace?
"...Then how do the Dark Elves factor..." he muttered mostly under his breath as he rubbed his lip absently, before he realized it. The Dark Elves that had attacked him in the Aether's resting spot wore ancient armor, and did not look like the current generation of Dark Elves that he knew and had seen in audiences with Odin Allfather. In fact, the last time he had seen such ancient armor was written in the rare history tomes that they were during roughly Bor Allfather's time.
And if Asgard was a race of conquerors, it meant that Bor Allfather had utterly wiped out Malekith's kin and kith in his quest to unite the nine realms. Svartalheim was more than likely razed and replaced with the current generation of Dark Elves. But how did Malekith know about the Aether's location unless... "Malekith somehow knew Thanos..." he said, "Sleipnir was not able to send me through to the Aether's resting place until he used the power of the sceptre through the geas he had with Baldr there. I was able to leave using the Tesseract through the geas I made with Thanos..." He frowned harder, his grip absently tightening on Gungnir, "But Malekith is one of the ancient Dark Elves..." He glanced over to Hel, "Malekith knew Thanos when he and Bor Allfather were rivals for Death's affections-"
Loki abruptly stopped as it hit him at the same time he saw something in Hel's eyes and realized what it had really been about thousands upon thousands of years previous. "What is the Aether?" he asked even though he felt like he already knew the answer.
"Reality," she replied, her hand stopping its lazy motions and instead, rested next to his.
The sudden weight of what he had within his possession, in the spaces in between, felt like having a bligesnipe dropped on him and left there; leaving him struggling with its enormous weight. "There are six slots," he said, "where are the other three?"
"Far, far from the realms themselves," she looked pleased at his progress, at unfurling the layers of the puzzle she had presented him. It was akin to peeling skeins off of a complex modular, but there was no weaving a new addition or improving it – at least not yet. "Odin's unexpected imprisonment of Thanos in the Tesseract has hampered his plans greatly for the three beyond his grasp."
Loki nodded mostly to himself as he furrowed his brow, piece together more of the puzzle that had been presented before him. Bor, before he became Allfather, must have somehow wielded the Tesseract, the Space Gem. He used it it to carve out a place for Asgard and its people, to conquer his corner of the universe. But if there had been others who wielded the Infinity Stones in other capacities, it seemed prudent that others carved out their own parts of universe for themselves. Thanos had one as did Malekith, except Thanos had the Mind Gem back then – the Chitauri sceptre given to him by the Other was proof of that. Malekith must have had the Aether. Whomever wielded the other three Infinity Stones was of no concern to him at the moment. It seemed that based on what Hel said about Thanos and Bor being rivals for Death's affections, Bor must have betrayed or tricked the two into who they were now – Thanos hidden in the shadows of Yggdrasil, biding his time to strike; Malekith near wherever the Aether was, waiting for the right moment to bring Asgard down.
He was pretty sure that none of the three in question had created the Infinity Stones, but that they had apparently used them to great effect eons ago. There was also the fact that the three more than likely knew about the other three unnamed Stones; considering Thanos tasked him to retrieve the Infinity Gauntlet from the Vaults three years ago. Whether or not they knew who wielded the three other Infinity Stones was another question, but not one Loki cared about at the moment. If Hel said that they were far from the realms, he would take no more note of it. She had never lied, even when layering her words.
"And the coterie?" he finally asked, turning back to his original question. Odin's coterie had formed long after all of this had happened; so what was Hel's purpose in it?
She only stared at him, but he read a faint amusement in her eyes, "As I have stated, jealousy does not become you, my King."
"And neither does it you," he countered again, meeting her look with a raised eyebrow before she acquiesced to his request with a tilt of her head.
"You were not the first to ask me to watch over those in my realm, my King," she said, "sentiment."
"Because Death's daughter feels the emotions of us lesser beings," he replied sarcastically as he shook his head, unable to believe what she had just told him.
"You have answered your question to me with a question that needs not answering should you seek the answer out," the corners of Hel's lips twitched up in another faint smile – another boisterous laugh by her standards – and moved her hand so that it was sitting directly on top of the one he had placed on the balcony. The warming spell flared hotly, compensating for the cool-death touch of her skin against his own, but Loki immediately understood the gesture. He understood it not only because it was very deliberate, but also because it was exactly like the mirror reflection of what her sister had done during the days of the coterie – forcing him to counter her hot touch with a cooling spell. It had been a signal used back then...
He knew what she was offering – that even for that one moment where she claimed to be indifferent to everything, that on some level, she understood what had just happened; the shock, pain, grief, the overwhelming sense of everything pressing down upon him – and knew what she was offering. It was not human, nor was it animal, just a moment of her attempt to perhaps be a bit more like them, instead of what she was, Death's daughter. And while she had used the signal that her sister had used back in the days of the coterie, he could still hear the faint echo of his own words towards her "and jealousy does not become you, Lady Hel."
And though he knew he could have ruthlessly cut her to pieces by shoving her attempt to be like Sigyn into her face; at the same time he also knew that she had only done so because it was her forte of magick. Mirror spells; whereas Death mirrored Life, Life mirrored Death and so forth. And a part of him marveled at the control, at the utter and total control she had. It was fascinating in a very primal way, but also reminded him greatly of who she was – Queen of Helheim. Queen of the Realm of the Dead. And she had just offered it, just like that. Anyone would have been a fool to not take what she offered without any strings attached.
Loki was no fool.
He pulled his hand from underneath hers, the burning touch of the spell disappearing as he deliberately ended the spellwork, "I will take that offer and return it for a favor."
He saw the smile that had been at the corner of her lips turn into a small full one; she was very pleased that he had chosen not to take up her offer, to seemingly not debase himself in such an animal fashion of relying on comfort and succor in a moment of overwhelming grief and hurt. Then again, he also knew, like her mother, her whims were fickle and unpredictable. "The favor exchanged in the prisons was returned."
"And this one for the the revocation of punishment for your actions in Jormungandr and Fenrir's rebellion," he deliberately rolled Gungnir in his hand, emphasizing to her that he was the current undisputed King of Asgard. He had the ability to negate whatever Odin Allfather had handed down as her punishment two years ago.
"What is it you wish, my King?" she asked.
"There will be a time when I require assistance," he said carefully, "you will know what to do then."
She inclined her head once, "As you wish, my King." However, instead, of taking a step back or drawing the shadows of Yggdrasil close to her to return to her realm, Loki suddenly found his mouth covered by hers. Before his instincts could re-activate the warming spell so that he would not die by her touch, she suddenly stepped back, a more impish look on her face as she deliberately drew in the blue fiery lines of the shadows of Yggdrasil around her and disappeared.
Loki shivered as he saw that his hands had turned Jotun blue in the split second Hel had taken to kiss him. He knew that his body had also more than likely had reverted back to its Jotun form in base self preservation. The Jotun-blue was slowly fading, longer than when he had first picked up the Casket of Ancient Winters; if Hel's touch had lingered for even one more millisecond without any of his warming spells protecting him, he would have died.
He could not help but smile and shake his head; Hel had proven what his coterie had and always will be; a disparate group of magick users teetering on the edges of madness and near-death. And somehow, it comforted him, more than anything else she had offered.
The silence had stretched to the point where Jormungandr did not know how much time had passed since he had sat down in front of Sleipnir's makeshift cell in the Avengers Tower. The cell itself was not really a cell, more like a containment field that had been clearly designed for the green monster aptly named the Hulk, that Dr. Banner sometimes turned into whenever he was angry enough. He had learned that it was based off of the same containment room that Loki had stayed the first time he had boarded the Helicarrier – which was also a cell for the Hulk. Though the cell itself was part of the building, it had mechanical rotors and joints that clearly enabled it to push it outside where apparently boosters of sorts, similar to the man of iron's repulsors, would lift the containment up high and into space where then it would open up, exposing the occupant to the cold unforgiving vacuum of space.
Jormungandr did not tell the others that he was sorely tempted to push the button to enable it to happen to the man that sat in the cell. Instead, he kept his hands to himself and had been watching Sleipnir since Loki had ordered him placed in this cell.
The Queen was dead in the attack and Jormungandr's first instinct was to find whomever had murdered the Queen and to slowly poison them to death. The Queen, for all of her haughty imperialistic facade, did not deserve such a death; even if she hid behind her husband, adopted the same warrior-mentality instead of championing for her fellow mages. She was the only one besides Loki, who had been somewhat kind to him, the first to care for him during the feast after his core had been ripped out of him. He could not help but stare at Loki whose knuckles had turned white at the news, gripping Gungnir in sheer furious anger.
"Continue," Loki's voice could have frozen the wastelands of Jotunheim ten times over without the power of the Casket of Ancient Winters. Jormungandr shivered involuntarily at how calm and collected the Prince, no, the King of Asgard sounded.
"Heimdall has given his word that the Bifrost will be destroyed after we had arrived, milord," even Sif was surprised and stuttered a little over her next words, "A-Asgard was burning when we had received our orders- Loki-"
Jormungandr felt the tell-tale weave of magicks that he knew to be uniquely Loki's whenever he opened a skein into the shadows of Yggdrasil and took a half-step forward before just as suddenly, the skein dissipated as Sif's words seemingly registered and he lowered his hand. He noticed that Loki's fingers still twitched as if he wanted to do it, but something held him back, something that troubled him greatly. Jormungandr had not spent the last two years in close proximity, re-learning what he had learned during the days of the coterie without picking up some knowledge of his Prince – his King's body language. It was what kept the coterie alive during a majority of their adventures, their ability to read each other and compensate for a variety of spells, battles, skirmishes, and even schemes across the realms.
It had also been the coterie's downfall with Loki easily reading their plans and stopping them from committing regicide all in his name. Jormungandr pulled his thoughts away from what had happened back then, refusing to delve into the past and what had been. What had been done had been done; there was no changing the past.
Instead, he saw his King focus his sharp angry gaze upon Sleipnir who stood, body bent a little as the chains that bound him together forced him to hunch forward. Jormungandr twitched and shuddered a little at the dead-eyed gazes of both the human-formed ravens of Huugin and Munnin as they held Sleipnir's chains. He did not like the judgmental look in them, shaming him each time he was within their vicinity. It was at least mitigated whenever they were in their raven forms, but in the rare times that he had seen them in their human forms for the last two years, he felt like he had not done enough. Certainly it was not for their benefit or respect, but that he had not done enough for Loki. And they judged him, reported everything back to the Allfather and then some.
He shied away from their look and focused instead on Sleipnir bound by chains that exuded tightly bound weaves ans skeins, clearly suppressing all magick. The older man was bleeding from a gash on his forehead, blood dripping down his face. His tunics looked like they had been slashed in places and burnt on others, a clear sign that someone, more than one, had fought him. Though his wrists had manacles on them, the majority of the suppressant weaves coming from there, his fingers were liberally covered in dried blood. A muzzle covered his mouth, but Jormungandr could see the defiance in his chipped ice blue eyes.
It was then that he noticed how tight the chains around Sleipnir were pulled; he had mistaken the initial tightness of the ravens' grips on the chains as a warning to the former mage to not do anything, but a second glance told him another story. The ravens were furiously angry, their dead-eye gaze hiding how they really felt having spent so much time in their raven forms that they had all but forgotten how to show emotion in their human ones. Jormungandr realized that they were not angry with what had happened on Asgard, but their anger was directed at Sleipnir.
And in that instance, he realized that Sleipnir was not only the traitor who had brought down Asgard's vaunted defenses, but that it was he who had killed Frigga Allmother. Sleipnir had killed the Queen. Whether the ravens were channeling the anger of the Allfather per their status as the familiars of Odin, or whether they were angry of their own, it was telling and it seemed Loki had come to the same conclusion as he moved past Sif and stood before Sleipnir, thumping the end of Gungnir onto the ground like a ominous gong.
Jormungandr drew in a soft, sharp breath. Loki could easily exact his revenge here and now on Sleipnir, could kill him with Gungnir and no one would protest. In fact, he suspected that Sif, Huugin, and Munnin would probably cheer if Loki just plain executed Sleipnir – especially if he did it in his capacity as King.
That could not happen.
"...Loki," he opened his mouth, wanting nothing more than to see the traitor dead himself, but knowing that if Sleipnir was killed, then all hope for Loki would be lost. That he would end up with nothing and that was something Jormungandr never wanted for him. Because as much as he detested everything else, Jormungandr knew the very reason why the coterie had broken so long ago – why Loki had betrayed them.
It was the same reason why he had at first gone along with his brother Fenrir's plans, only to realize what he truly wanted for himself; and even then, still went along with Fenrir's plans out of some misguided sense of loyalty before he finally understood what drove Loki to do what he did.
"Stark," perhaps Loki had come to the same conclusion, or perhaps he knew his King's mind was always deviously thinking in ways he could not even begin to comprehend, but Jormungandr closed his mouth at his words. He did not need to say anything now...the dangerous moment had passed.
"Y-Yeah?" Tony Stark sounded stunned and Jormungandr glanced at him to see some wary, yet angry in the man of iron's gaze. He suspected the anger was not directed at Loki as it had been, but rather directed at what had happened.
"You have holding cells," Loki's voice was still eerily calm, making it seem like a statement instead of a question, but Stark nodded.
"Uh, yeah...got one with the guy's name on it..." he sounded a bit faint from shock, but the corners of his lips twitched in an apparent effort to suppress what looked like the beginnings of a mirthless smile.
Loki directed an unspoken look at the ravens who bowed their heads once before stepping forward, ready to follow Stark to whatever cell he had to place Sleipnir in-
"Surely your master has summoned you- Oh wait, no," Sleipnir's soft raspy voice broke Jormungandr out of his thoughts as he saw the older man lean forward from where he sat on the floor, "no summoning, no tugs, nothing to bind you to him and his will."
The chains that the ravens had been holding onto had been latched to opposite ends of the wall. There was the faint thrum of magick from where they had been seemingly fused into the wall. He knew none of the Avengers had any magick, the closest was probably the man of iron, the arm and lingering faint spellwork upon the metal-armed man, and the shield the Captain wielded. That left the ravens and he wondered if one of them was a former mage before becoming Odin's familiar. The muzzle that had been over Sleipnir's mouth had only prevented him from speaking in case Loki had wanted to render judgment without any interruption from Sleipnir and had thus been removed.
"Is he cruel enough to let you eventually go mad?" Sleipnir asked quietly, "to let you rot away, pine away, beg until he sustains you with his core? Surely you have done enough for him to render at least a measure, a sliver, a piece upon which you could call your own?" The red-haired mage shot him a sharp smile, "Or perhaps he wishes to use you, discard you in a manner that is of amusement to him-"
"Is that what made you betray Asgard?" Jormungandr interrupted, blinking once as he stared at the other man. "That you blame Baldr for all of this-"
"And can you say the same for your brother Fenrir? Of his betrayal of Asgard? Of his and your betrayal of your vaunted Prince?" Sleipnir growled out, tugging on his chains a little bit as if he wanted to steeple his hands together.
"I was always loyal to Loki," he said and saw the other man scoff in disbelief, "never to Fenrir no matter our shared blood."
Sleipnir laughed lightly and bitterly as he sat back, "It is amusing that you say such words, Jormungandr, knowing full well what we were meant to do, what he wanted us to do."
"He never said and in fact never even cared. I only knew because of Fenrir and because of the pieces and stories gathered. He never cared for us," Jormungandr countered, feeling a little angry at the flippant way Sleipnir had broached the subject. It also confirmed something that he had suspected ever since he had joined Loki's coterie. And as much as it threatened to shatter him, the knowledge so painful and agonizing that it hurt to even think about it, he knew that he could not stoop to such a level, to let it consume him. Sleipnir in front of him was proof of that, that he could not falter anymore, that he needed, had to in a desperate way that man needed air to survive, that he knew his path. That he picked his own path. No one chose it for him.
"The Mad Titan always cared more for his adopted 'daughters' than of his true-born sons. Assassins, all of them, useful and weapons in their own right," Sleipnir scoffed in an off-hand manner before pinning him with another sharp, teeth-filled smile, "maybe we were also weapons, tools for him to also use in the long run. That our defining trait twisted, corrupted, broken..."
"Is that why you betrayed the Crown Prince? Even in his hour of madness in Thanos' thrall?" Jormungandr did not like what he was hearing, each word that emerged from Sleipnir's mouth hitting a little too close to home. "If you were so definitive about our...trait...as you claim, then why?!"
Sleipnir only stared back, his icy blue eyes calm and reflective as his sharp smile softened almost to one that could have been called wistful. "You are so very young, Jormungandr, so very naive. The youngest of all of us..." he said quietly, "look at Fenrir's actions. Look at what he did and tell me my own was the same."
"Fenrir loved him," Jormungandr shook his head, "I will not besmirch my brother-"
"And it was Fenrir's love and loyalty that was utterly twisted and corrupted because it was absolute. Because it was unconditional and in his mind, it was rejected and told that it was not worthy," Sleipnir's soft smile turned sharp and bitter again, "I know of what happened on the Helicarrier, of the things that had happened. Because such loyalty cannot accept the conditional love of another, an intruder if you will. And because it cannot accept the fact that your vaunted Prince chose the brother he claimed to have hated over the lover, partner, and beloved. The family he had versus the family he could have had."
"I do not love Loki like Fenrir had," Jormungandr shook his head, "he is more my father and family than Fenrir ever was." He narrowed his eyes, "And judging by what you have said, Loki was family more than you ever were in your apparent absence in my life, Sleipnir so you have no recourse in claiming such familial ties with my brother and I. Is that what made you betray Asgard? Betray it twice over because of your so-called twisted loyalty to Baldr? To the madman who dealt with the unwanted father you and I have hated since our birth?!"
"I wonder," the red-haired mage stared at him, seemingly brushing his question to the side, head tilted to the side, "will you speak with such loyalty to Loki after you realize the truth of what I am saying to you."
"I will never betray him-"
"I am sure not intentionally-"
"I have accepted his faults, his wishes, and his wants. I have accepted my punishment, my sins, and my actions. I have accepted that his first loyalty will always be to Thor and to himself and I will follow him to the ends of the Universe," Jormungandr said heatedly, "and if it is a question of absolute loyalty, then yes, this is my absolute loyalty to Loki."
Sleipnir made a humming noise as he watched him, "Grand words, heartfelt words, little serpent. Words I used to profess to my adoptive father, right up until I realized the madness that was Thanos had consumed him."
Jormungandr drew in a sharp breath as he realized that Sleipnir had known all along that Loki had a geas with Thanos. That using this knowledge, had enacted a plan buried under the initial layer that was to raze Asgard to the ground and burn everything that Odin Allfather stood for. He also realized that if Sleipnir knew about the geas, it was more than likely that Baldr also knew about it. Which meant like Hel releasing him and Fenrir from their prisons two years ago, this was an attempt to release Thanos from his prison. Sleipnir had cleverly laid his trap with honeyed words by telling an inch of truth in his stories, that many of them were probably true, but the falsehoods were laced within the words and jumbled so much that it was hard to pick apart what was true and what was false. Or perhaps they were all true from a certain point of view.
The auburn-red haired made smiled thinly, "There was no geas involved with the Crown Prince. Just little hints of truth, of falsehoods, and of betrayals. No scorned lovers, no slighted honors, just one simple word, and one simple truth."
"What," he did not like the glint in Sleipnir's eyes.
"Ragnarok."
Author's Notes:
The decision to kill Frigga has always been at the forefront of this story. Like the writers of Thor: The Dark World I was debating what would motivate Loki and as I was planning this, realized that even if Asgard was burning, there would not be sufficient motivation – at least for Loki in regards to this series. Frigga's death would push him towards that motivation, but unlike TDW, it wouldn't drive him. This is partially my own fault as a writer for not quite expanding on the relationship between Frigga and Loki like it was explored in the movie. But I also realized that I had explored it enough with other characters not Loki that they would end up driving Loki himself to do something. Though Frigga's death hits hard at Loki, it is other compounding factors that makes him do something about it and towards the plot overall – which is ultimately the end goal of any story – driving the plot forward.
I know that a lot of readers will be angry with me killing Frigga off, but I just wanted to let you know what goes on in an author's head as they plan and plot out a story like this.
In other news: I adore Hel like there's tomorrow.