Undercurrents
Loki Hears, Loki Sees, Loki Speaks, part 2 - Loki hears much more in people's words than the average Aesir. And he knows this. But he's still finding it difficult to accept.
All Loki wants is to change the world.
Asgard is stale, it is broken, it is weak, and as it is, it cannot last. Loki sees that now. Loki hears that in the hollow, retreaded lines spoken around him.
They do not question. They do not think. They cannot adapt. They are as unprepared for this new era in the Realms as Earth, perhaps moreso. Earth, at least, can change more quickly.
And Loki thinks it likely that he has one chance to convince Asgard's rulers that change is necessary, before he is locked away forever, or at least locked away until disaster falls down around the Aesir's ears.
And he has never been able to get them to listen... truly listen.
The jangle of his chains is the first undercurrent, and the loudest. It sets the tone for the rest. He does nothing to mute or minimize the sound, but jangles the chains intentionally. Not everyone here is reassured by their presence, by what they mean.
"Hello, Mother. Have I made you proud?" I know you are conflicted about this. Tell me what you're thinking.
"Please, don't make this worse." I fear there is only so much I can do for you.
"Define worse." I know how grave the consequences of my actions may be. Tell me something meaningful, tell me you understand what's at stake here. Tell me you are not as blind as the Allfather.
The Allfather interrups rather hastily. "Enough! I will speak to the prisoner alone." There will be no voice to oppose mine, no ears to hear your subversion.
Loki speaks to the Allfather flippantly, daring him to explain what is so wrong with being a mad, conquering tyrant.
Odin, as always, disappoints, continuing forward on his prescribed track. "Wherever you go, there is war, ruin and death." The bad kind.
"I went to rule the people of Earth as a benevolent god. Just like you." Please! See your hipocrisy! Open your eyes! Apply your standards to yourself!
"We are not gods." We are humble. You are humble. Understand your place.
Loki sees that Odin has blinded himself, like a horse in a city, unable to focus without blinders, able to see only the path that continues straight ahead. This is a new universe, and Odin is far from fit to rule it.
And yet you always speak of the brevity of mortal lives. "Give or take five thousand years."
The blinders do their work, and the point passes Odin by. He forges ahead. "All this because Loki desires a throne."
"It is my birthright!" If your word was worth anything, I would have had an equal chance with Thor, in your eyes!
"Your birthright was to die!" You are only here because I wished you to be. You owe me everything. Therefore you are mine to do whatever I please with.
Finally! I knew in my gut, in my throat, with a bitterness learned over long centuries, that you thought this all along. And yet you used me. Please stop. Please stop lying and lying and lying and tell me what it is you want of me. "If I am for the axe then for mercy's sake just... swing it."
There is a pause for that to be absorbed, but Odin seems unmoved. And there is ever more proof. This man never loved him.
"It's not that I don't love our little talks," Loki says, imbuing the words with all the delightfully dark enjoyment he gets out of running mental circles around everyone else in this dark little corner of the universe, "it's just..." and he attempts for once to sound serious, to convey his exhaustion, his deep sorrow with the unchanging way of things here. "...I don't love them." Can you hear me at all? Testing, testing. Do you have the sense required to hear when someone is speaking what you do not think?
Odin speaks again. I will take away everything that ever brought you joy, is what he says. I will put you away where no one can hear your voice. What I want of you is to vanish, to be forgotten. Like all the errors of the kings of Asgard.
Of course. "And what of Thor? You'll make that witless oaf king while I rot in chains?" You think he will forget me as easily as you? You'll trust him, after all the times he's fallen for my tricks? For my false self, his adoring brother?
"Thor must strive to undo the damage you have done; he will bring order to the Nine Realms." I will keep him distracted.
There is that, at least. Thor can only benefit from being given experience, rather than counsel. Experience is good for Thor. Experience gave him his newfound wisdom. And at least in this, they both agree. That Thor must not be compromised by insane, duplicitous, power-grabbing people, no matter how close their family ties.
It's just that in Loki's case, that means Odin.
"And then? Yes. He will be king."
Loki lets the Allfather have that as his last word, as it is perhaps the least selfish thing the man has said all day, and goes to his cell without further complaint, to await the chaos he could not stop.
Good fortune comes to Loki, or as close as it gets, nowadays. His mother comes to visit him in his cell. He has a second chance.
He comments on what he knows of current events, and Frigga asks if his books do not occupy him.
He asks her, "Is that how I'm to while away eternity, reading?" There is so much more I need to do. So much wrong with the Realms. And you think books should be enough to distract me from that?
Frigga ignores that; perhaps she, too, sees it as madness, after all. "I've done everything in my power to make you comfortable, Loki." There is no more meaning than that in her words. She is tired.
"Have you? Does Odin share your concern? Does Thor? It must be so inconvenient, them asking after me day and night." Can you not see the signs, the facts before you that if I was ever to have a chance here in Asgard, I would need them to attend to me much more than they do? But they lock me away and ignore me. How can you insist that I was ever truly family to them?
For once, Frigga replies to the heart, to the unasked questions. She, at least, attends. But the content is less encouraging. "You know full well that it is your actions that put you here." You deserve this. This is just. They are justified.
"My actions? I was merely giving truth to the lie that I've been fed my entire life, that I was born to be a king." As ridiculous as that is. Can you not see the nonsense and hipocrisy I've been steeped in?
But the answer he gets is only an echo of Odin. "A king? A true king admits his faults. What of the lives you took on Earth?"
Blind. Blind, and blindered like her husband. Seeing Loki's faults only because he stands in their way, but blind to their own and each other's.
"A mere handful compared to the numbers Odin has taken himself." Please, open your eyes.
"Your father..." The one who took you in... And that cannot stand.
"He's not my father!" I owe him nothing and I wish to be nothing like him! Do not tie us so!
"Then am I not your mother?" I am nothing if not his queen.
That is low, Mother. You knew it would hurt. I did grow up at your knee. That is where I first learned to twist words around on people but now you are twisting them around on me, trying to get me to admit that I am wrong and Odin is right. You do not truly see me as I am, care about the person behind the princely facade you so carefully constructed. "You are not."
The moment he said it he tasted it and it was bitter. She was the only one who'd truly tried; she'd come the closest. she'd taught him magic despite the implications of seidr, because she sensed he would love it.
"Always so perceptive, about everyone but yourself." You only hurt yourself by struggling. I wish you would stop.
Mother. Mother. Mother. When was I ever not going to hurt?
Loki feels trapped. Loki feels more truly trapped by her than he has by anyone else.
And disaster comes down around the ears of the Aesir.
And terrible truth rings in the guard's words when he comes to tell Loki that the queen is dead.
He has failed. He has only one more thing left to salvage.
Ah, yes. Thor. The boy who ran beside him now strides, solemn, to his cell.
Loki will not fail again.
He hides his insanity. Thor does not need to see it. He asks why Thor is here.
"No more illusions," Thor insists. You are not so composed.
Wisdom. It constantly surprises me when it comes out of your mouth. You've learned so much. "Now you see me, Brother."
Loki knows the dangers of failing to listen. He listens to Thor as they discuss what is to be done.
What Thor says is this: "You should know that when we fought each other in the past, I did so with the glimmer of hope that my brother was still in there somewhere. That hope no longer exists to protect you."
Loki only smiles to hear that. Good. I am not what they sold to you as a loyal younger brother. I have no argument with your having grown suspicious. "When do we start?"
Loki delights in Thor's newfound sense of secrecy, stealth and deception. But of course he plays with it, as he had every other of his brother's traits in turn.
Is it my turn to play the blunt instrument, then? "I can feel the righteousness surging."
Loki gets slammed against a wall for his trouble, but he feels better, having done his mocking part.
Evidently Thor is just as idiotic about some things as ever, and their ship is being shot at, and the plan is doomed. Evidently Loki still needs to be the brains of every operation they're involved in, but, as ever, Thor won't trust him to be, so he is left yelling at Thor for having a skull as thick as a brick. "Brilliant, Thor, truly brilliant!" I'd hoped you would have learned to see reckless folly when it - oof.
He did not expect Thor to toss him out of the Dokkalfar ship. He did not expect to land on a smaller, nimbler Aesir one. He did not expect Thor to follow with Jane as though this had been the plan all along.
Perhaps he should have.
"You lied to me." You fooled me. Wisdom upon wisdom, making use of the image of yourself as an oaf. "I'm impressed."
"I'm glad you're pleased."
And the strange thing is, behind the crown prince's veneer of sarcasm, Loki could believe he actually is.
Loki steers them towards Svartalfheim.
"Are you mad?" Thor asks as the little ship hurtles towards the gateway. And, yes, the maneuver does require a certain amount of finesse, probably beyond most Aesir's ability.
"Possibly!" Not everyone can see the subtleties necessary. If 'mad' means seeing the world differently than the Aesir... then, yes.
But the important thing is that they get through safe into Svartalfheim... if Svartalfheim could ever be considered 'safe.'
Loki can see the way the Aether eats away at the mortal woman. Loki knows well how his brother prizes her. The idea of caring so much for a mortal... disturbs Loki.
"This day, the next, a hundred years is nothing. It's a heartbeat. You'll never be ready. The only woman whose love you prised will be snatched from you." If it were me... my sanity would not survive. Are you blind to consequences, Thor? Do you hold the same stubborn stupidity as the Allfather?
"Then will you be satisfied?" I know. Must you remind me?
"Satisfaction is not in my nature." It doesn't please me that the world is cruel, but the fact remains.
"Surrender's not in mine." I will do what it takes to provide her with as much time as possible. And my power is great.
"The son of Odin." Marching only forward, not heeding the cost, not examining the complexities. Of course.
"No, not just of Odin! You think it was you alone who loved Mother? You had her tricks, but I had her trust!" I am not the only one here who carries some part of what she was. She had faith in people, in her place in the Realms. I trust that the world is not so cruel, that I will find a way.
Loki laughs darkly. "Trust. Was that her last expression? Trust? When you let her die!" Trust is idiotic. Death comes, sooner or later, and most times too soon. Especially if you march blindly forward to battle without thinking!
But it seems Thor does not take his point. If something goes wrong in Asgard, it must, of course, be Loki's fault, and none of their own. He should be used to this.
"What help were you in your cell?" the prince accuses.
And it degrades into a pointless shouting match, with a high chance of shoving as well. Nothing will get done now, Loki thinks. They are too stubborn.
So he is pleasantly surprised when Thor breaks off with the realization, "She wouldn't want us to fight."
"Well, she wouldn't exactly be shocked." Loki uses humor to cement the cessation of hostilities.
The thickness of Thor's vice surprises Loki as he says, "I wish I could trust you." I miss the times when I thought of you as dependable.
I was never dependable. Brother, perhaps you are at the point where you may truly learn this. Trust is not about a single vector, some ideal of nobility. Trust is about accepting things for what they truly are, darkness and all. Trust is about examining the possibilities, thinking for yourself, and trusting your own judgement. Trust the things that are consistently ignoble, as well as the things that seem noble. "Trust my rage."
And that is the point they build on, when they make their plan.
The key to a good lie is to keep it simple, keep it close to the truth.
Loki knows this well and deeply, how he can keep his surface voice honest and keep the lie to the undertones. But people no longer expect him to be honest. They expect darkness, they expect deceit.
Another way to lie effectively is to play to people's expectations.
Loki hurts Thor, and tosses him down to the ground.
"You really think I cared, about Frigga? About anybody?" When trying to leave an impression so laughably far from the truth, phrasing your assertion as a question is incredibly helpful. "All I ever wanted was you and Odin dead at my feet!" Dead is perhaps an exaggeration. Perhaps. For one of you.
"Malekith, I am Loki of Jotunheim and I bring you a gift!" A poisoned morsel worthy of your poisonous heart. "I ask only one thing in return: a good seat from which to watch Asgard burn!" Burn and spring up anew. I fervently hope.
The lie works. The plan as a whole, not as much.
Getting stabbed was never part of the plan. But it does prove opportune for placing that grenade.
Loki isn't going to be much use in the rest of this battle. Thor needs to leave him here. But the oaf seems still inextricably attached to him.
That has to stop.
"I'll tell Father what you did here today," Thor tells him. You still have a place on Asgard, if I have anything to say about it.
"I didn't do it for him." I did it for everyone but him. ...And I really don't.
Now is the time to free Thor of the insanity of his brother, to let him continue on the path he has very well begun.
Loki slumps back and lets his heart rate slow, slips into that near-death state he explored as a guest of Thanos, and before, in the cold of the Void. He can live through more than he ever wanted to live through, he knows that now. Perhaps this hibernation is inborn in Jotunn to wait out the cold of their world.
His pulse slows to near-nonexistence. His perceptions fade. He truly does not know whether he expects to wake.
But he does wake.
There is one clear thing he must do, to finish the business of Loki, prince of Asgard.
One final lie. One final test. "We found a body," he tells Odin. I found it. It's mine. I'm alive.
"Loki." Loki. I hear you there behind that mask.
But it's much too late for that realization to mean anything, Loki thinks. The throne cannot be left to someone so obtuse. Loki realizes that, at last, he is in a position to do something about it.
And he smiles.