Logic tells him that the Warriors Three are taken that night. Loki sleeps the blest, dreamless sleep that was his the other two nights when Thanos took his comrades. He wakes, and he wonders who will come to tax him with the crime. Perhaps Odin? Three possessions in a row, five of Asgard's best warriors: This is getting serious enough for the All-Father to pay attention. - Or possibly Frigga? Loki remembers the grinding feel of shame when his adoptive mother visited him after he returned from Midgard: Nothing troubled him, ere he looked into her eyes and realized how he'd hurt her. Oh pray, he thinks, pray let her not come this time, when he would have to know himself condemned in her eyes, and would have to drive her away so that the plans would succeed.

He is relieved when she does not come. – No one comes, and he is all the more relieved. Thanos' behavior has a pattern, thus far predictable: On the days when Loki remains alone, he visits him in his sleep; on the days when he has a visitor, Thanos comes for the soul of that visitor at night. As long as he can stay alone today, Loki thinks he will see Thanos in his dreams when he sleeps. He will... Can he find the Warriors Three once he is in the Titan's realm? Is there any chance of it? All he knows is that it is his only chance. He must return to that realm of dread that he has visited too many times before and, while there, this time he must keep his wits about him and search for the Warriors Three, that they may stand together. Tempting though it might be to think of some people he knows suffering in Thanos' clutches (It might be quite amusing to watch Odin being tormented for instance), he cannot allow it, for with every soul he takes, surely Thanos gains strength, and eventually all Asgard will fall to him if he is not stopped.

Night falls, and Loki feels his stomach clench, as he crawls between the blankets of his bed. He thinks about the darkness of Thanos' realm, about the cold. He remembers the taunting voice, the face, only rarely seen. He remembers how it is not the pain that is the worst part, it is not knowing when the pain will come. ...Or how.

His hands work without thinking. All his candles flare brightly, and the adventure book is in his lap. Loki opens it. He discovers that his breath is coming in shuddering gasps. It is by will alone, that he damps the lights, then returns the book to its place on his desk. He brings the covers up close under his chin, – As if his old bearskins can protect from a Titan's attack! – and closes his eyes. And eventually, he sleeps.

The first dream is childish and silly. He is in a field of grass, dotted with daisies. A blond boy toddles ahead of him, and he runs on chubby, baby's legs to catch up. Thor turns. "Hurry up, slowpoke!" He waves a stick he has picked up from the ground. "Today we will catch bilgesnipes!" But they won't. The awareness is like a sickness. The big blond boy in the field with him is an illusion, for the real Thor has already been caught. The bilgesnipe has won.

Thor winks out like a little golden light, and despite everything that has passed between them, Loki still feels the pang. It is physical pain, when he goes. But the field remains. The flowers are still there ...for whatever dark purpose Thanos wants of them.

When the Other appears, Loki is not surprised. "You've come back, fallen Prince." He laughs, the sound a grating offense against the fields and the flowers around him. "My Master will be pleased."

"Thanos brought me here. Surely my presence will be no surprise." It is easy enough to respond to this one, who is servant only. Soon the Master will come, and it will not be so easy.

The servant laughs again. "A pleasure, but not a surprise. You amuse, Asgardian. Your pitiful struggles, like a spider suspended over a flame, crawling, struggling in your desperate attempt to escape your fate. Some are less entertaining as they die."

"A compliment." Loki steels himself. Thanos will be here soon, he knows. "Your Master is kind."

"You brought gifts." – The light changes, – Does the light change? – the Other's voice deepens. It ...widens; it is all around Loki now, and not his voice, but his Master's. And the field, the daisies, what of them? Are they there? Have they gone? Loki does not know. All he knows is that the voice is here, and the voice is everything.

"My little toy, my little fallen Prince. It has been long since I have found anyone who gives as you do." The voice is different from before. There is an exultant, gloating pleasure to it that disgusts him. Loki focuses on the disgust; it is a stronger emotion than fear, he thinks. "You give gifts. – Would you like to see what I've done with your gifts, Prince of Asgard?"

Loki swallows. No, no, a thousand times no; his mind floods with the desperate wish not to see. He can just barely stand this if he does not see, he thinks, but if he does... If he has to watch his brother (not brother!), or Sif, or the Warriors Three, and see the torments they endure at Thanos' hand... He has to stay strong. – One of them has to stay strong, else their doom is sure.

"Don't you?" Amusement thickens the disembodied voice. "Do tell me, my fallen Prince, is that fear I see on your pretty face? - Tsk, you're not looking good. Have you had trouble sleeping?"

A chuckle. – No, he's not in the field any longer, Loki finds himself thinking, for the sound is all wrong. Thanos' chuckle echoes like ...like church bells, he thinks, against the walls of whatever dark cavern he's been brought to. "But I am generous. – Thank me for my generosity, Loki of Asgard. – I will show you, though you neglect to ask."

Loki closes his eyes, but it does no good. The images are in his mind, he thinks. He sees Thor turning, searching on all sides for someone, anyone. The golden boy, everyone's favorite: He thought he'd have laughed, to see Thor lonely like him for a change, but somehow he is not laughing. And Sif: Her strength is gone, her weapons are nowhere. She faces this empty world in petticoats, trapped in a woman's role. Once again, there is revenge here, surely so sweet. How many times has he been relegated to the woman's role himself? – How many times has he been told, and by Sif herself, that magic is for women only, and he unmans himself by practicing it? You'd think he'd feel something like pleasure? And yet what he feels – All that he feels for some reason! – is a despairing regret, to see childhood friends so humbled.

...And hope. There is a tiny ray of hope. Where are the Warriors Three? Why does Thanos not show their fates too? Is it – Can it be? – possibly, because they have not met with them yet? Have those three lummoxes, those roisterers, good for nothing except brute battle and crass entertainment, actually found it in themselves to stand firm? Do they wait, drawing strength from the thought that Loki is coming?

"You are cruel." He shielded his mind – A few times! – from Thanos when he was in his realm after he fell from the Bifrost. The question is, can he do it here in the dream-realm? For that, no way to know but to try. "They are the fates I've always dreamed for them. But I see only two. Did not three more of my comrades get taken?"

Thanos laughs. "The tubby one? The womanizer and the brawler? What fates had you pictured for them, my Prince?"

"But that is simple." Loki turns a smug smile Thanos' way – What he thinks is Thanos' way, in this realm where he sees only what he is shown. "For Volstagg, a Tantalus' feast, ever present, and yet receding when he tries for a taste. For Fandral... But come, Master of the Chitauri. I'd see yours, sooner than spin my prisoner's tales."

"Once again, you amuse." Oh, the pleasure, the condescension in that voice! "Every time I think I will grow bored, you surprise me yet again. We shall create their fates together, Prince of Asgard. Here, let me show you them."

It is the colossal egotism that is going to win him this. Scarce any shielding is needed, for Thanos is so impressed with himself that he assumes others will be impressed as well. At once, light shows like a window opening. Loki stands in the reeking cavern he expected and there, adjoining and just past the stalactites, stand the Warriors Three.

They are clustered together, and their frowns speak of confusion. They are not dead, Loki thinks. They are not lost in nightmares like Thor and Sif. His advice to them has borne fruit, but it was not just his advice. These three that he thought hopeless wastrels have managed to hold on. They stand together, weaponless and disoriented, but ready to begin the defense they planned together.

"Loki!" Relief is palpable in Fandral's voice. "When you didn't come, we thought…"

"'When you didn't come'?" Thanos' voice is merry. – Uggh, the thought of him merry! – He thinks he will present new sacrifices to Death soon, Loki thinks. "What is this, Prince of Asgard?" he says. "Do I sense a betrayal here?"

"Betrayal?" Volstagg jerks a look his way, then turns back to his friends. "Did I not tell you: Loki is ever for himself."

Hogun puts a hand on his arm. "Hsst." He eyes Loki warily.

"Welcome." Thanos' voice echoes, disembodied as before. The Warriors glance around, trying to find where it's coming from. "This is not the reunion I expected either. But it is not the first time Loki of Asgard has surprised me with the depths of his perfidy."

"Perfidy?" Doubt shades Hogun's voice, and Loki feels a flare of anger. Is the Warriors' trust in him so fragile, to be broken as easily as this? "Who are you?" Hogun demands. "What are your plans for us?"

"My plans? Say rather Loki's plans. I put myself entirely in his hands." A chuckle in that voice: Uggh, agony, anyone's agony, delights him so! "It is a signal achievement for my pet Prince: Thanos does not usually allow another to dictate to him."

"Thanos?" Fandral's voice shakes, but he answers, and Loki feels his respect growing, for one he once thought good only for squeezing a tavern girl's fanny. "Master of the Chitauri? Titan-God?"

"The same." Loki pitches his voice low, ashamed-sounding. He did not expect to see Thanos trusting him, it was not in the plan he constructed back in his cell, but how useful now, to find it so. It will make it so much easier to turn the tables ...soon. In just a little while. "If a god would serve another," he says, "best that it be one higher than himself. And you are the only one higher than the gods of Asgard, are you not, My Lord Thanos?"

"Not the only." Egoism suffuses the voice; vanity is as ever, a potent intoxicant. "I would place my servant The Other above you as well. ...Albeit, barely."

"I propose a game, My Lord." Loki throws a cold look toward the Warriors. He hears Volstagg's snort of anger, as his gaze goes back upward, toward ...wherever it is that Thanos has placed himself. "Hope disappointed is surely more amusing than mere, immediate terror. These men know only victory." – He calls to mind their many defeats of him on the practice-fields, and lets bitterness shade his voice. Well Loki Liesmith knows that truth makes a lie more convincing. – "Let us give them some failure for once," he says. "Let us..." – Pretended thought. – "Oh, let us have an eating contest: The fat one thinks himself quite the trencherman. Why not show him what a Titan can do at table, My Lord?"

"An eating..." The pause: It is the sound of a Titan confused, for once in his long, long life. "I am above such material needs. If you do not know that by now, Prince, you will have to be taught."

"But you can eat?"

"Oh, certainly I can."

"And you are a Titan, and above the Aesir as I am above... Oh, as I am above a mortal of Midgard. Surely it would be the work of moments to defeat this puny warrior," – Volstagg! Puny! Has he inflated Thanos' ego enough to get that one by? – "and then I will create similar torments for the others."

A pause, long enough to make him wonder whether he has failed. Then Thanos laughs. "It shall be as you say, Loki of Asgard. I will provide food, and we shall compete, this Asgardian against myself. Nay, I will go further. I will offer a prize: His freedom" –

"Say rather, all of their freedom, My Lord. – Nay, let us say their freedom, plus that of their erstwhile comrades, Thor and the woman. Think how their hopes will be dashed, with so much at-stake before the inevitable failure."

– "All of their freedom then. And that of the others. You are convincing, Prince."

The air changes in the miserable cavern where Thanos has put them. The air shimmers, it seems to grow larger. A Presence is with them: In size, he is scarce larger than Volstagg, but he gives off an air of largeness. It is his face, Loki thinks, that cracked, ancient face of his, that was old before the Universe was in infancy.

"Consider yourselves honored, Asgardians," Thanos says, "for I am gifting you with my presence."

They've all seen monstrous beings before. The Warriors Three have battled with Ogres, Trolls, Werewolves... – And Frost Giants; Loki swallows his discomfort as he remembers their most recent engagement with beings from another realm. – Thanos' appearance is passing strange, but there is an aura about him as well. One cannot look at him, Loki thinks, without sensing the aeons he has spent in pursuing his dark ends. It is there in the cynical twist of his mouth, and the dark, malevolent glow of his eyes. He drops to his knees. The position serves well to reinforce his pose of submission, but in truth it is involuntary. Thanos' presence makes an impression on him, as well as on his comrades.

Once down, he bows his head. He can feel his gorge rise, can hear shocked gasps from the Warriors Three. A Prince of Asgard should bow to no man! But if this is to work, it must be done well. In truth, is this not just one more deception? One more lie, from the God of Lies?

He steals a glance upward. Is there a smirk, can that be a smirk of pleasure on Thanos' face? Impossible to gaze directly into that seamed and ancient horror for long enough to be sure.

"I am honored." He continues his own pose as though he knew for sure. "I am sure my comrades are as well."

A snort from Volstagg. "I seek no honor from alien overlords, unlike some," he says, throwing a nasty look Loki's way. "I will accept this challenge only to show you the true strength of a warrior of Asgard."

Thanos chuckles again. "How quick you are to rush toward your own defeat. Your phenomenal girth will be as nothing, compared with my ability. – Have you any idea who you deal with, fat warrior?"

"I care not." A little amazed, Loki sees that Volstagg is looking directly into Thanos' face. Is it that he does not fully understand the Titan's power, or does the courage of a challenge accepted give him the strength? "Though I battled against all the Nine Realms together, against any, in or out of the known Universe..."

"Good." There is a clinking sound, and a table appears before them. Five places are set. "Perhaps all of you will join us?" Thanos looks from one to the next, with an amused expression.

Is this what the Titans eat? Is it Chitauri food? Bowls of blackish, bluish goo sit at each place, their surfaces bearing a faint, opalescent sheen like tar. Steam rises, but it is a cold steam. Loki swallows. Can even Volstagg the Voluminous be expected to stomach this mess?