Past bleeds into the present whenever Magic Man sees Finn, and he sees him all the time now, and those old things so carefully walled away to be forgotten about and ancient wrongs ignored and fated dooms left behind all come rushing back, and he hates it so much and he can't stop himself from loving the boy as the brother he knew once.

His love is bound up in hate, and never has he loved anyone like he loves his greatest enemy, half-remembered but treasured in his treacherous heart. He knows that but he pretends that he doesn't. Magic Man has a different name once (and it aches that he cannot speak it, the name dances on his lips but will not meet the World and how it chafes him) but his nature is the same, and always has he painted himself in untruthes and guarded himself in lies and shaped the word with falsehoods. He is the liar so good at his art that his lies change the world, and he can't let go of old habits even now; honestly will break everything, crack his mind in two and let the horrors come spilling out.

Finn was his brother, Magic Man remembers, a long time ago, and he hates him so much that there seems that there was never a Magic Man, never the Name-That-Came-Before, just this endless gaping hatred, passionate and bright and pure as volcano-fire, and how he wants to burn everything he loves, make him bleed and scream and go back to the way things were and stop pretneding to be a squishy-soft-stupid-human.

Magic Man (or who Magic Man used to be) knew who Finn really was. He saw the lightning in his eyes, felt the wind follow him like a lover's hand, saw him grip a sword with hands so well-trained in all things made to protect and kill but cried out for the haft of a hammer (THE hammer, the Crusher of all things, and his brother was never terribly imaginative with names). He was holding himself back, so stubbornly blind to the reality of the situation, and Magic Man felt his own real name screaming in his head-

(He wants to say, "I am Loki-that-was," but the words die in his throat, burning in the heat of things that are lost but may yet be. It must happen again, they MUST remember and let the world burn if that's what it took.)

So much frustration, so much anger. So much sound and fury, from a little storm that refused to let go of the illusion of human weakness he had incarnated himself into.

Magic-Man-That-Was-Loki follows him around sometimes, shifting from shape to shape and taking everything the World can give him in his quest. Wake the boy up, he thinks. Watch the Storm awaken again, hammer in hand and bellowing mastery to the winds, and how Once-Finn's friends may recoil at the sight of the Storm Lord in all his furious might unleashed, and speak that name is thunder incarnate.

Magic-Man-That-Was-Loki is chaos and flames and madness all in one, expressed and birthed through his existence. He cannot help but be anything else, and it chafes at him. He thinks that there never was a choice for him, never anything but hate and fire and jealousy and Ragnarok-

(he thinks of his brother, now a human and surronded by friends and family and women that might be his beloveds, and how Loki-That-Was gnashes his teeth when he knows that his own children are buried with swords in their mouths and forced to sleep in the sea and doomed to die for a world that is too small for them and the injustice of it just makes him hate so much)

So he finds his brother-that-was in a picnic of all things, with those two girls he associates more than anyone else - the Candy Princess and the Vampire Queen, he thinks and scowls, thinking of how they could be broken and if it might make his brother angry enough to make the Storm Lord arise again, and he stares from a tree and watches them for a very long time, nails burning the bark and threads of reality unraveling from his presence, and then they see him and he's still staring at Finn, eyes wide and mouth thin and hate-love written in every line of his too-old face.

There might be questions. They might want to fight him, they might want any number of things and Loki just cannot handle that right now, not with all this things blazing up in his mind and heart and this insuffurable knowing that his beloved (despised wretched smug self-righteous) brother has gotten so lucky AGAIN.

Just for a moment, the mask slips. The guise of Magic Man, so carefully honed and built over centuries of planning (or was it, or was he just born as Magic Man, birthed fully into the role of malicious trickster and the truth is that he just doesn't know) slips just for a moment, long enough to give the false human and vampire and candy-woman a sight of lips still scarred from where they had been sewn together, too-pale skins burning from the inside with fires that would outblaze the sun, hair as red as all the blood his schemes have spilled, and eyes wide and mad and so full of an apocalyptic rage focused solely for the blonde human and-

but he isn't supposed to be blonde! Loki rages in his heart. He has red hair, he must have red hair, this is ALL WRONG! A moment passes of their shock, and he realizes that he did not just think this but yell it.

Before they can speak he growls, "I know your name," and directs his attention upon the boy again. "I know everything about you."

(For a moment, he almost speaks the name, feels it curl from his throat and out of the endless parts of year, places the name to that young face and silly hat and half-understanding expression: 'Thor', Loki wants to say, wants to see those eyes light up and the lightning strike and this stupid game of their begin again, but it will not be spoken, the name dies halfway upon his lips and Finn-Who-Was-Thor must go another day without knowing the truth.)

Frustation is a fuel to the fire that is Loki's hate, and for a moment he just sits there and howls, fury and loss and utterly inhuman loathing-love spilling out from the depths of his heart gone closer to insanity by the years and he erupts into flame that casts him away, flies him from the sight of Thor-That-Should-Be's stupid incomprehending face anddamn it all he should have incinerated him on the spot and taken vengeance for Jormungundr before Thor murders him at the end and damn the World he just wants to have Thor back and make things like they used to be before their dooms had been written and Ragnarok scarred into their fates.

Loki doesn't know what he wants. He maintains a glimmer of satisfaction that he has surely given Thor-That-Should-Be more questions for his friends to answer, perhaps instigated some chaos in his life, but he knows that Thor always found the greatest of friends and this will soon be brushed away, and all Loki can do is nurse his hatred and scheme with his plans for the Flame Princess and-and-and…

Loki doesn't know. He does not know what he must do next. And that hurts even worse than the boy who was Thor looking at him and not knowing , Loki thinks that Thor is always lucky enough to be surronded by family that loves him and that Fate does not conspire to tear apart.

Even so. Loki just wants things back the way they were.