A/N: Okay! Another late-ish chapter. Sorry about that.

Also, I wanted to point out a few songs that work absolutely perfectly for these chapters (General language warning, btw): Viva la Vida by Coldplay (Loki's POV), Bad Apple, English version (Also Loki's POV), Breath by Breaking Benjamin (Loki's again) and Pacify Her by Melanie Martinez (Fraye's POV).

There's a whole lot more, but these are the big ones. I'll probably make a whole list one day. -_-

Anyway. Hope you enjoy!

My Ghost watches me with bright green eyes, sitting cross-legged in front of me. She tugs on the sleeve of her black, fuzzy sweater, the one that she used to fight with her best friend for. I sit in front of my brother's prison; he and Foster have long ago stopped speaking loudly enough for me to hear. They talk now in murmurs and speak of greater days, speak of how to make those days come back again. They tell stories of what has happened in their times apart.

(We would never have had to tell those stories)

(We always knew)

(Because we were never apart)

(What stories could you tell me now, my dear Miss Frost?)

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, holding my head in my hands and trying to clear away… something. I no longer know. There is something in my head, or there isn't, and I do not know if I want it gone or if I want it back, but I know that I wish for it to be fixed.

(I think it sounds like a melody. As though the silence is beginning to sing)

(And -realms spare me- it's starting to sound beautiful)

"Is that you, my little Laufeyson?"

I stiffen at the voice. No matter if it belongs to my ally, it is still the voice that speaks in my nightmares. And the speaker still has half of my mind's blood on her hands. I shudder as she steps into view. There is red smeared across her pale arm, a streak of it above her forehead, where she might have pushed a strand of hair out of the way while her hands were coated in crimson. She barely had the decency to wash it off of her hands.

She smiles at me… and then sees the Ghost in front of me. "April?" She asks, one eyebrow arching. I blink, possibly startled. There has never yet been another person who has been able to see the specter. "April Blackthorn?" Fraye laughs. "I should have known it would be you."

My Ghost-well, she has not shifted her form in so long I suppose it is only right to call her by the name of the face that she has taken- April, does not seem surprised in the slightest that Fraye can see her. "What's up, Shadow-Butt?"

I look to the Shadow Child. "You can…?" I try to ask, then realize that I do not care enough to know. The words die away, a waste of effort and time.

Fraye, naturally, knows what I was going to say next. "Of course I can see her," she says airily, waving a pale hand. It may have been cleansed of a majority of the blood, but it still crusts, dark rust-red, beneath her fingernails. "She's a figment of your imagination, is she not? Is she not in your mind?" She grins toothily. "I see everything in every mind, my dear Loki. You know this."

It is a long explanation for something I do not truly care about. And, for the first time… I do not care about Fraye, either. While my spine may be stiff and my hands may be clenched, there is no fear inside of me. My heart does not race and there is no sweat on my forehead. I am not afraid of Fraye. I do not fear this woman who tortured me. Not in the slightest.

Fraye, however, does not seem to notice- or care- that I do not fear her. Maybe she understands it. She, of anyone, should understand this pain. It is possibly even greater for her.

Her lower lip pouts out. "Oh, my little dear, did you actually believe that she was a ghost?" She speaks in such a patronizing tone, casually brushing her black hair back. And suddenly, she flings out a hand, running it through April, moving it about so that My Ghost dissipates into vapor momentarily. As Fraye pulls her hand back, April reforms, no worse for the wear. "It's just the link, darling," Fraye says sweetly. Almost kindly. "It's your head, trying to get you to do anything and everything to reestablish what you once had."

I look to her. Maybe she sees the faintest stirring of curiosity in my eyes, though I do not have the strength, or the will, to ask her how she knows this. Chuckling quietly, bleeding sugar, she asks, "Do you think that I do not see ghosts? Do you think that the dead have ever let me rest?" she shakes her head back and forth, chuckling lightly. "But what the dead do not realize is how beautiful it all is, to hear nothing but silence. To hear a silence that deep inside of you, to hear it sing…" She smiles blissfully at me. "Can you hear it yet, my little giant? Can you hear the Song of Oblivion? The Melody of Ruin?"

I look at her, studying the Shadow Child for a very, very long time. The Ghost beside me says nothing as I look at Fraye. She is the creature of nightmares. She is the Daughter of Darkness.

She is a weak, pathetic, lost child.

I look at her pale skin, stretched taught over sharp and weary bones. Her dead black eyes, her black hair. She looks… unhealthy, ill, sickly, gaunt. She looks as though she will not survive another day, despite all evidence to the contrary.

And what is worse, I see my hollowness in her eyes.

I look down at my hands. At my pale skin, that has only ever become paler these days. How long before it matches that shade of sheet-white, before even my true, azure skin turns to a pallid hue? How long before I am just as gaunt and sickly as she? Before my eyes-red, green, does it matter?- become as dead as hers?

I look up to Fraye again. "I hear nothing," I admit, my voice exhausted. "I hear no sound, and no sound in silence. There is… nothing."

She nods very slowly… then stands and promises, "You will."

She turns. She is beginning to walk away. Another question flows from my lips without my beckoning. "Tell me, Fraye Burns," I ask slowly. "Those that died… how many of them did you love?" I look to her. "Did you have a family? Parents, brothers, sisters… a lover, perhaps? Children?" (Why are my hands shaking?) "How many did you actually love, before they were taken from you?"

She blinks. Smiles a smile that shows all of her sharp teeth and laughs a laugh that shows all of the cracks inside of her. "Parents," She answers. "A brother." She looks away. "I was twenty. Your equivalent of a child." She grins as she turns back. "There was no one else I could have loved, save for the entire world inside of my mind." She looks back to me. "But you didn't love her, did you?"

April is now watching me very, very intently. I do not know where the answer comes from, and, like so frequently these days, I do not care. I think there are tears in my eyes that I do not shed as I smile serenely. "I truly do not know."

And then a little half-laugh cuts out of my throat. "Is it… is such a thing even possible, for one such as I?" I look down at my pale hands, knowing that they are a lie, knowing what truly lurks beneath. For a long moment, I simply… stare.

And then, a truth so honest it bleeds rips its way out of me. "If it is possible… if I could love… then there would never be anyone else." I look up at Fraye. "It would always have been her."

The Shadow Child rolls her eyes. "Well, we shall never know, shall we?" She asks, taking a few steps towards me. "Because she's not yours anymore. She's mine." She bends over so that she can lean close enough into my face that I can smell the shadows in her hair, the ash on her clothes. "And you will never see her again…"

For the first time in months, a conscious decision is made, and made with a true emotion. Made with true hate, hate that surges through me and sets fire to my veins-(fire to ice, and it is glorious)- and flows down my arm, which snaps out to strike. My hand wraps itself around Fraye's pallid, thin throat and grasps with all of the strength I can muster. It is so unexpected to us both that she had no way to anticipate it; and for a moment she simply chokes in my hold.

And then I am standing and flinging her aside, power crackling in my veins, magic lacing itself in between my fingers. My heart is beating quickly -(and I can feel hers, far away from here, syncing up to beat with it)- and I am panting with effort and exhaustion, with hate, and I can feel each breath in my lungs. My entire form trembles and it is beautiful. It is a beauty even greater than that of the silence that I had thought might sing, more beautiful than anything else.

(By all the realms, I can feel again)

Fraye stares at me, her black eyes wide. This was not anticipated. This was not what she wanted.

And I could not care less.

She brings her hand up to her cheek, where she landed as she fell, and pulls it back, checking for blood. There is none, but she is still, frozen, stunned. And then her eyes narrow.

"You would strike me?" She asks in a hiss as dark as night. April stands beside me, the most triumphant of smirks on her face.

"Yeah, kinda seems like he would," she taunts almost musically, leaning against the wall to watch the fireworks. "Sorry, bitch. Looks like I'm winning."

Fraye snarls, a high-pitched sugar sound that, for a second, makes me want to laugh. How could I have ever feared her? Now that she has made me into her, now that I am her… I see her as she is. A pathetic, twisted, broken wreck of a shell. She is hollow and empty and she… she is nothing.

"I gave you this world!" She shrieks, and it sounds like a whine. The wail of a child deprived of a toy. "You paid your price, Natalie is mine!"

For once… for once, the name does not make my head hurt. In fact, it stirs the flames, stokes them, makes them swell, until they are a thousand times brighter, hotter, burning from my core.

"You think that you can harm me, Laufeyson? You think that you can take her back from me? You think that you can take what is rightfully mine?"

The shadows swarm around her, sharp clouds of darkness that burn the air around them, that scorch the skies. In older days I may have quivered and cowered beneath them. In a forgotten time, I may have shown terror. But that was before I forgot how to feel terror. That was before I forgot how to feel fear.

And now there is nothing but anger. Nothingbut hate.

And as the shadows charge towards me, as they lance towards my form, my hand shoots upwards and forms into a claw… and then I am holding the shadows back, taming them myself, struggling for supremacy with their Master and their Nightmare. The shadows halt and quiver, trembling, with Fraye and I wrestling for control over them.

(Though I know that I cannot even hope to win)

Her face is twisted in rage even as she laughs, giggling, hebephrenic. Her hands go out to her sides, thrown outwards, and more shadows gather and swirl around her, flinging themselves towards me…

And no matter my hate, no matter… anything… I cannot hold them back. The shadows crash through my tight barriers and swarm around me, swallow me, so that I am plunged into a burning darkness…

I remain there, inside of that emptiness, until the numbness once more takes hold, until the anger dies and I forget why it happened to begin with. Until there is only shadows and darkness and pain. The darkness slowly lowers me back to the ground. Fraye is looking at me in a new light, and even as she chuckles, there is a trace of… disappointment in her laughter.

Carefully, she steps forwards and runs her fingers through my hair. "It's all right, dear," she says in soft, soothing tones. "It happens sometimes. We forget who we are. We forget our rightful places." She bends down so that she is at eye level with me, sitting on the ground. "We forget what the world has made us into." She strokes my hair, tucks a stray strand behind my ear, runs her pale fingers down my cheek. "But that's okay. Everything will be okay, soon. You'll hear it. You'll hear the Melody of Ruin. And then everything will be okay."

I do not answer her. I merely stare at some point above her, some point far away from her. As though, if I look hard enough, I can see across the empty space that separates me from my other half, that separates me from her-

(No)

From Natalie.

That separates me from Natalie Frost.

Fraye kisses my forehead gently, almost in a maternal way, then steps back. "I only came to check on you," she says quietly. "It seems that it's a good thing I did." She looks down at me, black eyes empty despite how her face seems so caring and kind. "Everything will be okay. I promise you."

She turns a look towards April, who slouches against the wall, looking bored. She stares at the wall, not at either of the living people in the room. "And I would advise you not to listen to her," Fraye says quietly, still staring at My Ghost. "It may not be good for your health."

At these words, April turns to Fraye, grins wildly, and, with great gusto, flips the bird at the Shadow Child. Her voice perky and filled with endless cheer, she says, "I hope you die!"

Fraye studies her, then chuckles softly. "You and I both, my dear. You and I both."

And with that, she vanishes into the dark. April drops down next to me and slugs me in the shoulder.

"Well, it's a start, Blue." She says, her voice oddly content. "It's a start."

I turn my distant gaze towards her. How are her eyes more alive than mine?

It is only as I turn to her that I see the door to my brother's cell open; or at least, the door that leads into his cell. The bars still remain, the shadows alive and holding him bound. But Jane Foster stands by the door, likely having opened it to see what was causing the sounds that my battle with Fraye undoubtedly made.

Her eyes are round with fear and shock. Thor's shock seems to be too great for fear. The Thunderer does not even breathe, staring at me. He must have seen from where he stands. They must have both seen.

After a long moment in which we all stare at each other- and even my Ghost stares at me- Thor clears his throat and tries to speak. He barely manages to mouth the word before it dies. "Brother…"

I am on my feet and walking towards them both with swift, harsh strides. Jane Foster immediately backs away from the door, walks backwards, frightened… but as I enter the cell, she stands before the bars to Thor's prison and holds her hands out a small space away from her sides. Protecting him. As though a mortal can offer him protection.

And yet, she seems to know that it is pointless to try and defend him. That there is nothing that she could do to stop me, if I wished to destroy him. She knows that it is hopeless.

But she does it anyway.

What is wrong with the human species? Why do they fight so valiantly, knowing that it is pointless? Why do they battle against those more powerful than themselves? Why do they fight, knowing that they can die?

(For the same reason Natalie always protected me)

(Because she loves him)

I walk forwards, and Foster tenses. My eyes are hard and I am certain that I seem angry. I do not know if I am angry. I do not know what I am.

For a moment, I watch the two without speaking. Jane is still frightened. Thor is still amazed. Amazed that I would stand against Fraye, after all of this. Amazed that I would fight her. Amazed that I could battle the shadows to begin with.

My eyes soften, and I turn away, as though in irritation. "It is time for you to leave now, Miss Foster," I order; it is soft and almost gentle, but I am certain to leave no doubt that it is, indeed, an order. I start walking forwards, and stop only when I realize that I cannot hear the sounds of her footsteps behind me.

I half turn back to see that she still stands before Thor. Turning completely, I look to her, taking in her firm, determined stance, the defiance in her eyes and in the raise of her chin. I take a step towards her and she does her best to conceal a wince.

I scan Thor's eyes for a brief moment. He is wary and cautious, but his hand is through the bars and resting upon his mortal's shoulder. My head tilts just a bit to the side.

"Aw, come on, Mr. Freeze," April says, smiling widely at the two of them. "Let the little lovebirds stay together."

My decision was made before she even spoke; and perhaps that is why she risked doing so, risked my wrath if she said the wrong thing. A wrath that I could not take out on her, but could perhaps take out on the living people before me.

I look to Jane. "Very well," I say in an airy, indifferent whisper. "If you wish to stay together…"

My hand, at my side, pulls upwards abruptly, I raise it swiftly, up to my shoulder, as my fingers close together into a fist. The shadows of Thor's cell bars react to the movement, pulling outwards, wrapping around the mortal and yanking her inside of the cell as she cries out. They immediately drop her inside and reform, steady bars once again.

Without another word, I turn and leave them behind. April hums tunelessly by my side, more cheerful than she has been in days.

"She is a prisoner now," I remind the specter. "You are aware of this, correct?"

She shrugs. "She was already a prisoner. At least now she can be together with someone she loves."

I do not answer that. Instead, I walk towards Shay Whitacre's office, to inform her of the new charge that I have left in the care of her wardens.

I stir in the bed, my head aching, a remaining remnant of the nightmares. A scream still lingers in the back of my mind.

I blink. Twice. Then roll my eyes as I realize that, perhaps, that scream was not entirely in my mind after all.

I walk out of the room, to where the sound is coming from. Natalie stands on a chair, staring at the bug on the floor, scrambling to find something to squash it with. Clapping eyes on me instead, she cries, "Loki! KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!"

I lean back against the wall, trying very hard- and extraordinarily unsuccessfully- to suppress a smile. "How is it, that a person who never once blinked in the face of danger from an immortal from myth and legend… who stared straight into the eyes of the Daughter of Darkness herself… can be rendered so helpless by one insect?"

"I am not helpless!" she shrieks, scrambling around to find something again, seeing as I do not currently intend to assist her. "And that is not an insect! That is an effing SPIDER!"

I chuckle quietly. "Had I thought to exploit this particular flaw of yours back whilst we were still enemies, our battle would have ended far differently." I reach down and, with a swift move, scoop the small, skittering creature into my palm. It walks across quickly, not seeming to understand its change in scenery. "And you know as well as I that there are no spiders on this world," I remind Natalie.

"It's close enough," she growls. "Just kill the damned thing, would you?"

I roll my eyes and walk to the door, releasing it outside, simply because I know that it will irritate her, and that she will imagine it returning for her later on. I look to her, lifting an eyebrow. "Better?" I ask, a mocking edge to my tone.

She scowls and steps down from the chair, putting it back in its place before socking me in the arm. "Oh, shut up." Her face is bright red. I grin at her. The nightmares are beginning to dissipate in the back of my mind, now that I have her beside me again. I am now beyond certain that it was the wrong choice, to give her up; because, being here with her… I am happy. And in those dreams…

I shudder. How could I ever wish to become that? Even for a throne?

She seems to notice my change in mood. She can always read me so well, and I know that she could do so even if we were not connected telepathically. "Hey…" She says slowly, placing a hand on my arm. "Are you all right?"

I smile softly at her. "I'm fine," I reassure her quietly. "I was just…" I sigh quietly. "The same old nightmares, I suppose."

I have told her of these dreams; and what I did not tell, she eventually knew. That is how it is with us, how it always has been. No secrets. Never any secrets. And we can never lie to each other. Such a change, from a world that never seemed to do anything but lie.

She looks to me sympathetically, and wraps her arms around my waist. "Don't worry about it," She says kindly, resting her head on my chest. "I'm here. And I'm not going anywhere."

"I know," I say softly, looking down at her. She looks up to me, and I stare into those brown eyes. I smile gently and ruffle her hair, knowing how it irritates her. But for once, she doesn't get angry. She just watches me. Stares at me. And I see in that stare all of her empathy, how much she wishes to help, wishes that she knew how to help… because that is what she is. A psychiatrist through and through, who plays with the mind to get to the heart. Fascinated and captivated by each and every emotion, trying to reach their core and repair whatever damage may be there.

As she pulls back, out of the hug, she shakes her head and smiles, as though trying to clear the thoughts from her mind. "One thing you can always count on," she says brightly. "Better or worse, I'll be there!"

I roll my eyes. "As though we are actually married." I retort with great sarcasm.

Her face turns a bright pink, her ears siren-red. "Now that isn't even funny." She says, and a flash of images race through her mind; images that she quickly quells. Most of them feature myself, wearing a tuxedo. I grin broadly; as awkward as she felt, confessing a love she thought entirely unrequited, it has offered its fair share of humor from time to time.

She shoves me aside and walks back to the kitchen, where she has given up on cooking and eats anything that she can eat raw. Mostly fruits that, while they were once alien to her, she is now very familiar with. Tossing one in my direction, she peels her own, standing over the trash bin to let the rind drop inside. There's a moment of quiet. It is always a comfortable quiet with us; none of that… aching silence. It is… nice, to enjoy the quiet. To think of everything else as a bad memory, if that. It fades away, as dreams always do, handed over to the night.

Natalie bites her lip. "Hey, Loki?"

"Yes…?"

Her cheeks are now a brighter red than ever. "I… Never mind. It doesn't matter that much."

"Liar," I chide quietly, stepping up next to her, setting the fruit that she tossed towards me aside, onto the counter. "It means everything." I lower my voice and step towards her. "You wish to know if anything has changed. If you mean anything more to me than you did before… before we left."

Because that was the decision that led us to leave in the first place. Because it was when I realized that I may, in fact, love the Lady Frost as she loved me, that we decided to leave behind the world of Fraye and the Avengers (at least temporarily) and abandon all deals I may have ever had with the Shadow Child. It has been on her mind for days, whether or not I have given more thought to these feelings. And of course I have. Because this life, with just the two of us, together…

It's perfect.

I am no longer in Thor's shadow, my father's shadow. I am free of the Avengers. And, in the time that we have been here, I have seen for certain; that even whilst we are around them, to her, I am never in their shadow. I know for certain that she loves me in a way that she could never love Thor.

But, beyond that… It's simply easier to be who I am when I am with her. And because of that… I'm finally discovering who I am, discovering what it is to be… me, without the lies.

I gently tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. "I know what life would be like without you," I whisper. "And I cannot bear the thought."

She lifts an eyebrow, arching it in a strangely dignified way. "Because of the link," She fills in tartly.

"Yes…" I consider. "And no." I force her to look me in the eyes, holding her gaze with mine. And then I take a deep breath, feeling magic creeping across my skin, turning it darker, turning it blue. My eyes gleam red. "Because you stop this. You stop me from becoming…this."

She smiles very slightly. Her hand reaches up and cups my cheek carefully. "No, I don't," She says quietly. "I just try to stop you from thinking that you have to become something else… because of this."

I grin. "If you insist."

For a moment, we stand there, our eyes locked together. And then Natalie starts to tremble, her lips quivering, her eyes oddly… desperate.

"Loki…" She says slowly. Her words are a hoarse whisper. "I think I'm about to ruin everything."

I lift an eyebrow. She is getting closer to me. "For the fifth time this week?" I ask, my voice lowering. It is a jest, but for some reason, my words are also strained.

"I think…" She says, then clears her throat. She is very close to me now, and I realize that I am moving even closer, my face less than an inch from hers. Half an inch. I can feel her quivering breath on my skin. "I think this might be worse than any of that."

"Perhaps," I respond. A quarter of an inch. I can actually smell her. My heart is pounding, and hers is certainly no better. Her eyes have closed. Mine are closing. We don't move for a brief second, one second that stretches into eternity. Our faces are brushing against each other just lightly…

And then I ask, "But what if I ruin it first?"

I close the gap between us. It is the second that our lips touch that the world shatters and sharpens, that my eyes open and I am plunged into darkness, plunged back into silence. It is that second that I wake, back in my bed, back in my kingdom, back where I rule this world and live the life of a wretch.

It is in that second that I scream.

I howl, loudly and fiercely, as I sit upright, curling around myself, my fists clenched on either side of my head and pounding at my temples, trying to force some noise, any noise, into my mind. But none of that silence, none of that agony in my head can even compete with the absence in my chest, and the sudden lack of absence. Something has been torn to shreds inside of me; and worse, it has been torn for a very long time now. But in my numbness, I did not feel the wound, left it untreated, and so now it is raw and infected, festering with terrible dark sickness. I claw at my chest, trying to rip it out, trying desperately to get it out. This heart of mine is useless, regardless, it never works, it never has, and if it will cause me so much pain, then why can I not remove the damaged tissue? Why can I not just be rid of the wretchedthing?

And I am shaking, because I dreamed of her, because I can still smell her scent of sunlight and parchment, I can still feel the light press of her lips against mine. I shake my head back and forth fiercely.

"No," I hiss, clutching my shirt at the chest, my fists tightening so that my knuckles are white in the light of the lamp that sits beside my bed (for I still can never sleep in the dark).

And I shout now, shout aloud, "NO!" My eyes shut tightly, blocking out the world, blocking out darkness and light. "Why do I dream of you, Frost?! I did not love you! I could never have loved you! I… It is impossible!"

I keep my eyes closed, hunched over my aching, bleeding, infected heart, knowing that my every word is a lie. Tears begin to burn their way out of my eyes.

And then a quiet voice speaks from the foot of my bed:

"Then how did I break your heart?"

I look up. I see her there. With her brown hair and her brown eyes and her small nose and the freckle on her shoulder that she hated. I see her and I am frozen. My heart, shredded and contaminated as it is, leaps once, bounding forwards, as though straining to reach her.

But there is horror polluting me, holding me back. For she is covered in blood. She is dripping it. Every inch of skin that is not bleeding crimson, every bare centimeter that is not coated in her own blood is bruised and beaten, purple-black or yellow-green. She is twisted and bent and there is an ancient pain in her eyes. There are open wounds and shadow burns, scars ringing her entire form.

And yet, the worst of that, is the scar tissue in her eyes. For now she has seen the true darkness of this universe. Now she has seen Fraye.

And Fraye has done her worst.

Tears cut trails in the blood and grime on Natalie's cheeks as she says, with a strained and cracking voice, "And why did I let you break mine?"

She lifts her hand to her throat. It is only then that I see what she holds inside of that hand: a mirror shard. One of the pieces of the mirror that I destroyed.

And in that shard, my face, the face of a Jotun, reflects back to me. My own reflection stares at me from inside of it as she drives the shard into her neck and draws a line of blood across her throat.

I am crying out and lunging towards her, desperately trying to stop her, when I wake for the second time.

For a moment, I sit there, panting. Trying to breathe. And then I curl into myself again, gripping handfuls of my hair on either side of my head. My eyes are wide and, I am certain, filled with madness.

I take a long deep breath. I close my eyes.

And I scream.

I scream as loudly as I can possibly scream, a wordless yell that echoes and reverberates throughout the entire room. The cry comes from deep within my core and does not stop until my lungs are completely empty, until I have nothing left to scream with. And even then, even as it dies into nothingness, it is only temporary. Only long enough for me to pull in another breath.

And then I am screaming again.

It is just as loud and desperate of a howl as the first. It doesn't stop. It doesn't end. And for that time, I am certain that it never will. Because this will never stop. The dreams will not stop. The agony will not stop. My heart will not stop and so I will live forever, and because I am a nightmare, and all nightmares will live forever beside me. Even my own.

I take another breath.

I scream again.

I do not stop until my voice gives. I do not fall silent until it becomes physically impossible for me to even speak, let alone shout with such desperation. My voice is lost as I sit there, staring at… nothing.

And then my Ghost walks up to me.

There are tears in her eyes.

The Ghost of April Blackthorn, the woman I murdered (oh, one of many) sits down beside me. And whatever remains of the night, we pass together, in silence, and in tears.

When the sun begins to peer on the horizon, when dawn bleaches the world with pale grey-blue, April looks to me. She swallows.

And then she places a hand on my arm. Her voice is beyond sincere as she says, "Do the smart thing for once."

She stands. Starts walking towards the door, and looks back at me. "Get her back, idiot."

And then she is gone, leaving my head ringing once again.

It is many days later when the meeting is called, and I find myself at the summit between worlds. It was only inevitable, after all, that Asgard and Jotunheim should discuss matters with the new King of Midgard.

"The threat to Jotunheim has been eliminated," Kiross says, with the utmost of care and caution. We are talking about Fraye, I believe. Fraye and myself. "Until as such as it is reinstated, Jotunheim will recede from this alliance. We have no wish to wage wars that are not our own."

Odin looks to him, his one-eyed gaze so very, very bleak. There is power behind that gaze. There has always been power there. But Kiross merely nods to me, with a formal, "Until our next discussion, your majesty."

I think I nod in return, smiling just slightly at my father as I do so. But I am not sure. My head is screaming.

It is only after the Jotuns depart that my 'father' turns to me, his stare burning, crackling and alive. But what is a living stare, to one who is long since dead? "The alliance may be over," he says, with a voice that does not waver or hesitate, but nonetheless seems pained. I seem to be the only one who senses it; but then, I must live off the pain of others, feeling none of it for myself...

"But the dissolving of our truce does not negate the fact that Midgard is, and always has been, under the protection of Asgard," He pronounces. His generals stand beside him, steely-eyed and determined. Mine sit beside me, watchful, patient. This meeting-long overdue- has been going on for quite some time now. I barely look to my father as he says, "And that the Prince of Asgard is currently held within the prisons of Midgard; or worse." He shows none of a father's pain as he reveals his ignorance of Thor's fate. For all the Asgardians know, Thor has been dead since the beginning of Midgard's fall. "And if he is not released to us-" He continues. I cut him off with quiet, sighs of words.

"Midgard, under its new leadership, shall do quite well for itself in the way of 'protection'," I say, my voice frosted over. Perhaps the ice disguises the deadness inside of me. Perhaps not. I gesture with one hand to the always-shadowed corner of the room. A corner that was vacant at the start of this meeting, but has since been filled. "After all, I believe you have already met my associate."

The darkness shifts and giggles, a wraith appearing out of the blackness. Fraye, pale and sickly and smiling, breezes to my side with gentle, bare footsteps, the shadows lapping at her feet like trained dogs. They trail from her hair in smoking wisps, soft tendrils curling around her wrists and fingertips. I do not look to her. I do not face her.

(And I do not see the blood that falls from her hands in steady drips to the floor.)

(I hear it)

(But if I do not see it, it does not exist)

She takes her place directly beside me, sending chills through my other advisors and generals. Even Murmur shivers, a barely perceptible movement.

"Security," I tell Odin, "As you can plainly see, shall never again be an issue for Midgard."

Fraye sits beside me. Blood smears on the table as she folds her hands on it in front of her, a dark, sticky red. Odin shows no fear and no fury, but beside him, even his stoic-eyed sentries cannot disguise their repulsion. I do not even bother to try to disguise mine.

"As for your Prince," I continue, looking away from Odin, from Fraye. Looking instead to the wall, which holds me in this room with the man who lied to me and the woman who tortured me.

(Who is still torturing me)

"He is, shall we say, a prisoner of war." I tell them all absently, distantly. "It was by his own faults and actions that he resides where he does, not mine."

"He is the rightful heir to the throne of Asgard," Odin responds, with all of the power of a king. I watch him, a more than kingly power myself. Is this how it feels, to sit upon a throne? To be exhausted by it, day by day, to have no use for it, to only wish for the next night so that you may, perhaps, have a blissful hour or so of sleep without nightmares? "And as such, you will release him to us immediately, or we shall be forced to remove him ourselves."

Fraye chuckles once, a blithe and compassionate little sound, filled with sweet, syrupy kindness. "Yes, I've seen your armies," she says, running her fingers through her hair. Shadows squeeze out between her fingertips, running down in liquid droplets, down her bloodstained fingers. Red remains in her hair as she flicks it behind her shoulder carelessly. She looks to me, taking my arm with urgency. She does not react when I wrench it away, repulsed, her fingers leaving streaks of crimson on my coat sleeve. "They have a rather formidable force, your majesty," she says, with all the obedience of a trained dog, all the innocence of a child, and all the sarcasm she can possibly muster. "It would take me almost two whole days to dispatch them all!" She squeaks, then collapses into a giggle fit. All eyes stay on her, disgust in each stare, but my eyes are on the blood on my arm.

(Is it...?)

(But of course)

(Of course it's hers)

I swallow, trying to stop the shaking. It cannot be done.

Slowly, I look back to the others in the room. I do not wipe the blood away. Her blood is always on my hands, regardless. "Thor will remain here," I tell Odin icily. "There will be no debate."

(Because if he goes home, there is no guarantee that he will not come back)

(That he will not try to fight)

(Try to free the other Avengers)

(No guarantee that he will not die)

(I cannot let him die)

(I made a promise)

Odin watches me. Studies me. Am I still a piece in his games, I wonder, or am I another player? Have I finally attained equal rank and footing with the man who tore me away from the ice, but did not bother to tear the ice away from me? Have I finally become his better?

(Never)

Finally, he turns to his generals and orders, "Leave us."

They look at him, his stoic sentries, in surprise. But they are swift to obey. My own council looks to me, curious, and, after a brief glance into my former father's eyes, I nod to them. One by one, they exit, until only Odin, Fraye, and myself remain behind.

The Asgardian King looks at the Daughter of Darkness with a bleak gaze. "I would speak with you alone," he tells me, his words edged and tense.

Fraye giggles. "And what words would you say to him that I would not hear, even if I left this room?"

He does not respond, staring down the vile creature. Clearly nothing will be accomplished if she remains; and so I turn to Fraye. "Leave us," I order in a breath.

She looks to me. To Odin. Back again to me. And then she smiles, her white teeth sharp and dazzling. Holding up her red hands, she says, "Very well, your majesty."

She takes a step back. The shadows begin to swarm at her feet, and she giggles once more, a little laugh that bubbles and chirps. Keeping her hands held aloft to illustrate her point, she adds, "I was rather in the middle of something, anyway."

And then the darkness envelops her. In violent gusts of shadow, she vanishes.

I cannot help but stare after her. Something inside me snaps as I gaze, blankly, at the empty space where she once stood. I inhale a shaky breath and smell the scent of ash and darkness and blood and I cannot help but stare, stare, and continue staring, unblinkingly, until my eyes begin to water.

(She's sitting in the darkness even now. Waiting for the next strike.)

(And I just sent Fraye back)

(So the next strike is now)

(She is bleeding now)

(She is screaming now)

I close my eyes, screw them shut tightly, trying to block out the images. But they are in my mind, not my eyes. And they can never be removed from there.

A father's voice, not a king's, speaks to me in my emptiness now. "Loki, you must see reason."

My eyes snap open, flicker towards Odin. Reason? Does such a word even exist in this chaotic realm of mine?

I ask quietly, "Must I?"

Odin looks to me, his features imploring, yet filled with command. He can never ask for those things he wants; he must demand. He can never inquire, he must order. He is a King, and that is his duty...

"Allying yourself with Fraye?" My father continues. Trying to plead and reason with me. "It is madness, Loki! She will turn against you, destroy you!"

I almost laugh. Destroy me? She has done far worse than that. But there is one thing he has said that is untrue, one thing I know for certain: "She will not betray me," I answer, turning away.

He watches after me as I move to the other end of the room. "And what have you promised her, that you are so certain of that?" He demands. He is now the protective king, worried for his kingdom, and I can hear it in his voice, the pleading father slipping away. "What have you offered in exchange for this kingdom of mortals? Free passage to the other nine realms? A way to eliminate their protectors? What have you done, Loki?"

I freeze.

This is his concern? That I have offered Fraye a way to destroy the other nine realms, with little to no resistance? That I have conquered Earth so that I may nullify our treaty- the one thing that may have helped us all to stop her? His concern is for his people?

For what I have done?

I turn to him, slowly, on my heel. He looks at me with the determined stare of true royalty and power, but as I see him, there is but one thing that I can do.

Laugh.

I laugh.

I laugh in the old King's face, I laugh at his folly, I laugh at the horrific irony of it all. For it was he who began this, who began the lies, who made Natalie into my Keeper, so that she could one day free me from herself forever, the man whose lies began this entire cycle of blood and death... He knows nothing. He knows nothing of what happened. Nothing of what I've done.

I smile at him, a grim and painful smile, with tightly gritted teeth. "What I've done?" I ask, choking on abysmal, grey laughter. "What I have done? You truly do not know?"

Surely he sees the madness inside of me now. He seems startled by only the smallest fraction of a degree, surprised by the fury, the hate, the pain, the insanity of it all. The emptiness inside of me must surely show in my eyes, black holes that suck away all the light around me...

I laugh again. The movement makes my chest- always so torn and tattered now- begin to hurt, to scream, and I am forced to hold it, and my stomach, as I continue laughing. I have no breath left by the time that I am finished, and I can only wheeze out the words, "Of all the momentous occasions in the universe, and somehow, somehow, the shadows managed to keep you from seeing this? Keep your 'all-seeing eye' from seeing that which has reshaped the fabric of the universe itself?" The laughter is so fierce and violent that it draws moisture to the corners of my eyes, and I am all but bent over double, trying to stop it, trying to breathe again, trying to keep these joyous sounds from devolving into the sobs they truly are.

I stumble a step backwards, leaning against the wall for support, still trying to breathe through the hysterics, grinning through the tears that start to leave trails on my face. "What I've done, father," I spit out the words, intermittently, through each laugh. "Is save your precious realms." I gasp in breath, a hand running through my hair and gripping a handful of it as I hunch over again. It is all I can do to stay standing up, to not fall to my knees. "I took Midgard so that the other eight would be spared; or did that somehow slip your notice as well?"

Odin is abruptly in front of me, less than an arm's length away. His gaze is stern and solemn as he demands, "And what did she ask of you in return?" I look up at him, still grinning horrifically, certain that even my smile is bleeding. He grips my shoulders suddenly, grips them tightly, trying to force my wild-eyed gaze to him. I find myself as a child again, looking into my father's fierce, stern and lecturing face, with the knowledge of everything I have done to wrong him in my life... But now I know that my very life was a wrong to him...

"What did she ask?" He roars. I do not respond. I can only stare at him, no more laughter, no more smiling. Just the emptiness. I stare at a point somewhere far away from him, over his shoulder, unwilling to look at him.

The word slips out of me in a breath, escaping me, a word that I had no intention to say but one that finds itself said nonetheless.

"Natalie."

Odin stares at me. Releases me. Almost takes a step back, but does not. Instead, it is I who retreats, who falls back, step by stumbling, weary step. My eyes fall to the ground.

"You..." Odin says. I have never seen him surprised, not truly, a day in my life, but now he seems all but lost. He recovers so quickly that no other eye would see it, but I have known his gestures since I was a child, known his reactions, known him for all he was. For all I thought he was.

I snicker again, a painful sound. The words continue to come, but they clog in my throat and gag me, so that I am forced to choke them out, retching. "She gave me Midgard. She spared the other eight realms. And in return, she took..." These words will not come. No matter how I try, they will not come, not as a whole, not unbroken and not without blood. Breaking them apart into shattered syllables, each letter a shard of glass, I manage to say, "Natalie... Frost."

To hear the words aloud, even if I have said them before, heard them before, thought them before... It is a blow, a blow to my numb body, and it knocks me back, curling in on myself once again and barely, barely managing to keep on my feet. The world is filled with silence as my father stares at me. Once, I may have hated him for seeing me like this. For seeing this weakness, seeing this agony and pain inside of me, seeing the fractured, pathetic wreck that his 'son' has become. But I can no longer care. Even as pain and pity shine in his eye, even as his hand tightens around his weapon, even as he stares at me with that look of such agony, I cannot care. It just hurts. But it doesn't hurt at all. The numbness swallows the pain and the pain drives away the numbness, and I no longer know what I am feeling, if I can breathe, if I am still living (and is that my heartbeat or hers...?)

And then hate finds me again. Hate inside of me, as I can see realization in him; as he realizes whose blood was on Fraye's hands, as he realizes that it was not strictly by my order that it is there, that it does not belong to a nameless, unfortunate mortal that he has never met. That instead, it belongs to Natalie Frost, who is indeed ever unfortunate; unfortunate to have met me. To have stayed. To have fallen in love. And as I see this realization of Fraye's crime in his eye, I find hatred returning to my heart. My next words are snarled out, spat towards him.

"Do you see now, father?" I demand. "What I have done? I have done everything that you could not. I have saved the realms."

As he looks to me, his eyes stern, my hand clenches in a fist. I throw that hand towards the corner of the room, fingers splaying out again, removing the illusion, removing the magic that surrounds the Jotun spy, who now appears, entirely visible. He has been here since long before the Jotuns left. I knew he was there, and so I am certain that my father knew...

I advance on the other Frost Giant. "Did you hear that, little spy?" I demand. His red eyes widen; he cowers from the insanity in my eyes. "Did you hear every last word?" My lip curls into a sneer. I advance on him, and he stumbles a step back in fear.

"Tell your king," I snarl. "Tell your king what I've done, for his realm. Tell him that I gave away the 'woman I love'-" I sneer these words out with as much venom as I can force into them. What a horrendous belief he has of me, that I once loved her, that my heart must now be broken without her. (What I wish I could believe, for then this pain may make sense, if my heart was truly broken, if I truly did love her once...) "For his realm! For his kingdom, his subjects!" The spy stares at me, horror-struck. I throw my hand out to the side, indicating the door. "GO!"

He obeys, scuttling from the room like an insect, hunched over and cowed. As he vanishes, so does most every trace of my anger. Even with my father standing just beside me, there is no longer anything that I can do to keep myself on my feet. I slump over, against the wall, leaning my side against it for support. I can no longer feel my legs. That they lasted this long surprises me.

There is a long silence in the room. My eyes eventually turn distant again as my thoughts go inward, as I subconsciously seek that which I consciously know that I will never be able to hear; a voice, still lingering, still whispering, in my mind. Her voice. But there is only the silence, wailing and eternal.

"Loki," my father says at last, speaking up. I turn to him, and whatever he sees in my empty features, it silences him again. The grieving father has returned. Mourning for his son. Wishing to assist him but, as King, unable to do so.

My voice is only a rasp as I say, "You cannot have Thor."

His eye tightens. I turn away again, staring at the wall. I can feel him, gathering his strength together, and he steps forwards, "Loki," he says again, "Your brother was involved in no part of your agreement."

Calling him my brother. As though that will change my monstrous blood, as though that will make it true. I look to him. "No," I agree, still rasping out the words.

"Then release him. We may yet discover a way for Midgard to survive-"

"You cannot have Thor," I repeat, still with deadened words. (Because Thor was not part of my arrangement with Fraye. He was part of another. A vow I will not break. The one, the only.)

"Loki-"

"You cannot have Thor!" My words only rise slightly in volume, but increase a thousand fold in vehemence. As Odin steps forwards, the shadows swarm; so Fraye has, indeed, been listening. I had suspected as much.

The shadows form a half wall between Odin and myself as Fraye steps outside of them, into the light. She sighs theatrically. Odin looks to me with a gleaming eye, his hand tightening once more on his weapon, his staff. Here he is, now, the protective king. And I haven't the slightest doubt that he would kill me, for the good of Asgard. For the good of Earth.

"We cannot allow this to stand, Loki," he warns me a final time.

"I'm afraid, father," I answer distantly, turning away. "You have no choice."

The shadows converge, twin waves of blackness colliding and merging on the Asgardian king. He is soon buried beneath them, a light that shines through and battles with the darkness; but Fraye smirks, closes her hand in a fist, and the shadows tighten, grow in number, then vanish, carrying him away with them. Throwing him back to Asgard.

I do not watch. Merely fall into my seat and try to breathe once again.

There is silence, for a while. And then Fraye sighs, walking up behind me. Her hand on my shoulder is kind and her words in my ear are gentle. But both are stained with scarlet. "You needn't worry, my little Giant. Your father shall never again be a threat to your rule."

I throw her hand off of my shoulder. "Leave me," I growl.

She snickers, a pealing little laugh, and pulls up a seat across the table from me. "Was that an order, my king? Was my act of obedience and subservience so convincing that I managed to fool even you?" She purrs out the words, leaning forwards, looking me full in the face. Her sweet smile does not quite reach her eyes. "I do not follow your commands, Loki. You are still my... What was it that you called it? Project?"

My mouth goes dry. I turn away from her. I do not want to see the blood on her hands. She chuckles again and leans back in her chair. There is more silence.

Then, "She started calling your name again."

My heart- my empty, torn, wearied heart- now pounds. My eyes flick up to Fraye, and she grins. "She stopped, for a while," the Shadow Child tells me, picking at the dried blood that has been crusted beneath her nails. But it does little for her still-soaked hands. "But she started again, very recently." She looks to me and, with another high-pitched giggle, adds, "But perhaps the question is: Does she cry it for comfort? For help? Or for revenge?" She winks at me. "An interesting query indeed."

As I look at her, as I stare at her, she trills, "What? Didn't you want to know?" She leans forwards. "You've been thinking her name often enough."

(What is this?)

(This pain, this hate)

(I... I could do it)

(Here and now)

(I could kill Fraye Burns)

Fraye grins at me again, then, breezing past me, places a gentle kiss on my head. I expect to shudder in revulsion. Instead, I whirl on her, throwing a clawed hand into her stomach. She manages to dodge it, to dance back, but only barely, and my nails swipe at her black blouse ineffectually.

Her black eyes grow wide as I snarl out, "You will never speak of her again. You are not worthy of saying her name, let alone what you have done!" I look her in the eye as I shout, "You will not speak of her aga-!"

I am cut off by the scream that bursts out of me, as shadows dig their poisonous claws into the familiar pattern on my shoulder blades. Fraye spits onto the ground, her hand twisting, the shadows twisting with it, burying themselves beneath my skin in the pattern of her name. The pattern of my scars.

"I will do as I like, little giant," she coos. "She is mine. You have no right to her. No claim." She goes to one knee beside me. Paralyzed by my pain, I can do nothing as she whispers in my ear, "Natalie Frost is mine. And I can do as I wish." She takes a step back, smiling wickedly, with all of her brilliant teeth. "Like this, perhaps."

She raises a hand and brings it down; shadows pierce through my back, reaching and creeping even further. I gasp. No. I couldn't have killed her. Nothing can kill her. I remember this now, as I writhe in agony, but still I see blood, still I crave it, still I want to exact vengeance on the one who stole my life from me...

"Or I could do this. Do you remember this one, little toy?" She stretches out a hand, and I feel the shadows swarming inside of me, in my lungs. I can't breathe. I suck down air again and again and still I cannot breathe... She giggles. "I must say, it's a personal favorite. It scares precious little Natalie so much..."

Somehow, just hearing the name makes it even harder to breathe. But it rekindles something; hate. A hate that wants to live. A hate that refuses to die, no matter the pain, no matter the anguish.

Fraye releases me, and I am on my hands and knees, choking, coughing, retching, trying to throw up the shadows and darkness that occasionally pour out in steaming wisps. I glare at her, glower from where I crouch on the floor, but as she takes a step towards me, I can't help but flinch away. Fraye smirks.

"Do not worry, little giant," She promises, as she crouches in front of me. "The pain does not last forever. It will all go away, soon; and then it's just... Silence. Singing."

Her eyes are wide and filled with wonder as she says this. Patting me on the head, like one would a friendly stray, she stands, turns, and walks away through the darkness once again.

I stay where I am for a long moment. Trying to breathe. Trying to hate or trying not to, trying to remember and trying to forget. Eventually, I am able to pull myself up, to my knees, and try to breathe.

It is only then that I see My Ghost. She is chewing on the inside of her lip, watching me, leaning in the doorframe with her legs kicked out and her green eyes thoughtful.

"Now that," She announces after a moment's study. "Is what I'm talking about, Blue."

Natalie dips her toes into the river and laughs as I look to the running water in disgust. She hasn't the slightest idea of what is in there, but it isn't as though she cares; it's clear enough, though the current stirs up a few clouds of silt from the bottom. But it's still an alien river on an alien world and, even despite that, she has the childlike urge to wade in it.

"Come on, Loki," She giggles, taking my arm and trying to drag me along with her. I abjectly refuse, pulling my wrist out of her grip.

"I will not," I say coldly. She rolls her eyes.

"Suit yourself, grumpy guts!" She says, then resumes splashing about. I'm not sure why I allowed her to convince me to leave the house that we have holed up in; but I admit, the freedom, the fresh air… it is nice.

Or it would be.

If my Ghost did not appear just at that very moment, watching me from the blood-soaked shadows…

I gasp into the waking world, my heart racing. A lone figure stands at the end of my bed, and I do not give her the satisfaction of seeing the terror in my eyes. Instead, still half-immersed in dreams (or rather, in my nightmare), I turn away from the ghastly form that lingers in the room with me.

"Your majesty?"

I look to the door as it opens, a sliver of yellow light pouring inside of my room, mingling with the light of my lamp. Standing in the doorway, a woman walks inside: Shay Whitacre.

"Are you all right, your majesty?" She asks, scanning the room for any unseen intruders. She does not see my Ghost, of course, the worst of any possible intruder. "Do you need assistance?"

It is not the first time I have cried out in the night, cried out in terror. Nightmares plague me, constantly and consistently, and many of my guards are used to it by now. Many have stopped coming inside to make certain that all is well, that I am not being attacked by some assassin that managed to slip through their ranks. Many of them are used to this. But there is still one or two that retain their good intentions, and make certain that I am all right, whenever they hear me cry out into the darkness.

Sitting upright now, facing the wall so that I do not have to face my Ghost, I answer, "I am fine, Whitacre." I stand, turning to her, giving her the look of the highest dignity. I am a king. She will see no weakness from me.

"That's a laugh," My Ghost mutters caustically. "Tell me, your majesty, has anyone on this planet not seen your weaknesses? You don't exactly look 'strong' to me."

She is ignored. Whitacre relaxes as I order, "Return to your post, general."

She hesitates. "Aye, sir," she says after a moment, turning away, eyes still roaming about the room. I watch her leave in silence, realizing only now that she was not at her post to begin with. She is not wearing the armor that has become her daily uniform, and her hair is not tied up on the back of her head as usual; instead, it flows freely and prettily down her shoulders. My eyebrows furrow.

"Whitacre."

She halts. Carefully, she turns back to me, keeping her eyes on the ground. "Yes, your majesty?"

She is always so very careful with titles. I walk up to her, head tilting to the side. "What were you doing here?" I ask, keeping my words stern, severe. My Ghost scoffs. She always finds it laughable, whenever I behave as a king would. "This is not your shift; and you are not an ordinary sentry, standing guard while I sleep."

She swallows. If it were not for the fact that Fraye had placed her approval upon this woman, I may have suspected that she was a traitor, an assassin… but I know better than that. My generals will never be anything but loyal. That much is guaranteed.

She looks away, tucking a piece of her blonde hair behind her ear nervously. "My apologies, your majesty," She says. "I couldn't sleep."

I raise an eyebrow. "So you took to wandering the halls of the palace?"

"My quarters are here, sir. As is all of my work. I have no reason to leave the palace, even while sleepless."

I study her for a long moment, trying to assess the look on her face. It is only when she looks back up to me that I see it, that I recognize what she is truly trying to say. She was not up at night, pacing aimlessly. She came here for a reason.

She came here for me.

But not as an assassin, or as a traitor. Out of personal interest.

I almost laugh. It is so obvious now: the shy looks she occasionally gave, the way she liked to hover close by me, the way she always took a seat as close to me as she could in all of our meetings. The way she offered advice about the Avengers and acts with such undying, undeniable loyalty.

Is this why Fraye chose her? Because she knew that Shay would try to seduce me?

And it is obvious that it is not out of an actual, truly personalinterest. This is the way that Shay has gained power and climbed ladders before, in her past. That much is clear by the way she has placed herself here, now, so strategically; and, of course, by her hair. She always kept it tied up in that unflattering-yet-professional-way, pulled back on her head, and now… now she is here, in the middle of the night, trying to be certain that I am all right, trying to 'rescue' me from my nightmares… and her hair is loose, down over her head in a way that actually makes her pretty, actually makes her beautiful…

But there is a calculating look in her eyes… one that would not be seen, by anyone but another schemer…

She has been giving these hints for weeks. It goes to show how shattered my mind is, that I have not seen it sooner.

No matter. I recognize it now. I raise a hand to dismiss her- her, and her advances- when my Ghost rolls her eyes.

"Sheesh. So she's a psycopath and a slut. Oh, yes, your options have greatly improved, that's such a step up from having someone who actually loved you."

I glare at her, briefly, as Shay bows and turns away. I did gesture for her to leave, after all… but as she goes, irritation at my Ghost drives me to reach out for her, to take her wrist.

"Shay," I whisper. She hesitates. I do not see the smirk on her lips, but I am almost certain that it is there.

She turns, the possible-smirk disappearing. Her face is innocent, her eyes delicate. "Yes, your majesty?" She asks, studying me just as intently as I would have once studied her. But I do not study her any longer, not in any great detail. I just watch her face, reading the thoughts that I can see there, the thoughts that she is trying to project and the thoughts that she is trying to hide.

"Thank you," I say, trying to see how she will react to this. My Ghost has gone silent. But she clearly knows my intentions, for her eyes flash in fury, and she has pressed her lips together so tightly that they have turned white. "For coming here. For being certain." I smile at her, just slightly. I can feel her pulse beneath my fingertips, but it does not grow more rapid. Her eyes, however, become more intent, and she sways, just a little, closer to me. This confirms it for me; her interest is false.

"Not many show that kind of loyalty," I add. Her lip twitches up, and to cover it, she smiles a little, looking away, as though embarrassed.

"It's my duty, your majesty," she says, in a convincing impression of a soldier warring with their own emotions. "Nothing more."

"Nothing more?" I say, with a trace of skepticism. She looks away, as though hiding a blush.

"Your majesty," she says, sounding flustered. "I…"

I don't let her finish. Instead, very gently, I take her chin in my thumb and forefinger. She swallows, hard, but as I release her wrist, there is still no change in her heart rate. She truly doesn't care.

I meet her eyes for a moment. They're brown, just like hers were, but hers were never like this. Hers held defiance, anger and firelight. This woman's eyes are silent, the windows to her soul barred, hiding what lurks inside. I am certain to keep watching those eyes as I lean forwards, pressing my lips to hers.

She makes herself look startled… and then her eyes close. She relaxes. This must have been easier for her than she'd expected.

But my eyes do not close. I do not fall into the kiss the way that she does. Instead, I look directly at my watching Ghost.

April gnaws on her lower lip, watching me as I stare defiantly back at her. She's only a Ghost, after all. She's dead. There is nothing, absolutely nothing that she can do to stop me.

(Even if she has struck me down before)

Her eyes gleam. My eyes dance. Victory, blazing and glorious, beats through my numbed heart. I smile through the kiss, and my Ghost leans lazily against the wall, sighing deeply. There is a lot of emotion in that sigh, but it is not the anger, nor the sadness, that I expect.

Instead, it is simply exhausted.

She is tired of trying to convince me. She is tired of saying things that I so clearly do not wish to hear. She is tired of constantly shouting, yelling into my mind. She is tired of fighting me.

(But most importantly, she is tired of fighting for me.)

I continue to watch her in triumph as, turning away from me in a way that suggests that she is bored and exasperated by this turn of events, she raises her middle finger.

I almost chuckle. Almost. But it somehow isn't funny by the time that the sound makes it to my lips, and so it dies into this kiss, this false display of affection.

After a moment, I pull away. Shay immediately, dutifully appears stunned. She even blushes; a nice touch, and a very impressive display of acting. My hand cups her face, and I smile softly at her as my Ghost rolls her eyes to the ceiling, her finger still raised.

Without another word to Shay Whitacre, I lead her, gently, towards the door. She seems startled that I wish to end this here, but she does not protest; and it truly isn't an 'ending', for as I open the door for her, I brush my lips against her hand.

"I shall see you tomorrow, General Whitacre," I say, trying to force life into my dead eyes, to make them shine. She clears her throat, straightens herself out.

"A-Aye, your majesty," she says, then steps out. I close the door behind her.

And then I look to my Ghost. She studies her nails apathetically. I am not fooled. Triumph lingers in the air. Perhaps, at last, I have done it. Perhaps, at last, I have silenced her.

I stride back to my bed, lie down, and close my eyes, laughing softly to myself. A moment later, I feel the bed shift as my ghost sits beside me.

I open my eyes to find her peering at me, hovering over me, her face so close to mine that her long hair dangles into my face.

"Wow," She says, and it is in an oddly sad tone. "This is just…"

I smirk at her. Waiting for an admission of defeat.

"Sad." She finishes at last. "I mean… you actually think you've won, don't you?"

Something inside of me crumples. She shakes her head, back and forth, and straightens. "You're a sick, sad little creature, Loki Laufeyson," She says as she fades away.

And, when the hour passes and I once more return into sleep, the nightmares return, and tell me she is right.

From that day onwards, Shay becomes the unofficial lover of the king. It is very easy to play into this charade; giving her the respect and advantages that she so desires, with her acting as my paramour. I give her these advantages, I allow her to pretend.

And in return, I suffer through no more lonely nights.

Of course, we have never 'done anything', as Natalie would have put it. There have been the occasional illicit kisses to prove that we are, in fact, together, but there is nothing beyond that. Admittedly, Shay has tried, but her occasional attempts to seduce me come to naught.

All I ask from her, all I can ask, is that she stay by my side.

"A poor substitute for Natalie," My Ghost once commented, as she saw Shay and I, lying side by side in the same bed. "Like you're hugging a pillow instead of the person you love. She's no better than Jekyll."

But of course, April is infuriated by Shay's very presence. She sees her as another obstacle, another thing to overcome.

And perhaps she is right. But Natalie will never again sleep beside me, will never be there when the nightmares wake me. At the very least, now someone is.

I sit upon my throne, contemplating this new relationship. It is really more of a partnership, a mutually beneficial arrangement. She has all of the benefits of being the King's lover- and potential new Queen- and I have-

"Your majesty!"

The words cut me out of my reverie, and I look up to where Jenner stands, a trace of panic in his eyes. "Sir," he announces, "The Asgardians have sent another ambassador."

I sigh quietly. This is not the first time this has happened since Odin's banishment from Earth. Fraye has barred all travel to my world; it is usually never long before these 'ambassadors' are sent back where they came from. "Leave them be," I say coolly. "Fraye will return them soon enough."

"Yes sir," he says, his words firm despite his panic. He shows none of it, entirely unruffled, as he adds, "However… she says that she wishes to speak to you."

"They all do," I reply dully.

"Yes," He agrees, then somewhat slower, adds, "But she said she was your mother."

Frigga. The name spikes through me, almost as painful as Natalie's, and I stiffen. Standing, I walk towards Jenner. "Who is with her?"

"Shay is holding her until Fraye's retun," He answers bluntly. I nod and stride past him, onwards towards Frigga, towards Shay, towards the inevitable. My mother. It is laughable that she still calls herself that, that she still thinks of herself as my mother.

(And yet, I still think of her the same way)

I enter the room where my mother is being kept. She is seated at the far corner, radiating elegance and grace. Shay stands by the door, looking to me, allowing her 'love' for me to leak through on her face. Claiming her territory. "Your majesty," she greets me with a low bow. I gesture for her to rise, but I am not looking at her. My eyes are on Frigga.

"Hello, Loki."

The words catapult me back in time, back to simpler days, and suddenly I am a child, staring at my mother. I have done wrong, in her eyes. I have done terrible things. I would do anything to make up for them, but I know not how.

And then I am dragged back to the present, remembering that, even if I wished to make things right by Frigga, I could not. I would not.

"Hello, mother." The words slip out without hesitation. I straighten, smiling just a little. "Come to see my kingdom?"

Her stare does not falter, her face calm and composed. But her eyes hold an ancient sadness, a terrible grief. Turning to Shay, she orders in a calm voice, "Leave us."

Shay looks to me, her eyes questioning, searching mine. I turn to her and smile graciously, taking her hand and gently squeezing it, nodding. She obeys Frigga's orders and leaves; but that display was all that was needed. Frigga's eyes follow Shay as she exits, leaving the two of us alone.

"Fraternizing with another mortal?" Frigga asks, her voice gentle but her eyes growing ever sadder. "One would think you have an affinity for them."

"If you are referring to Natalie," I reply coldly, feeling the ice coat my tongue as I speak the name, "There was nothing between us."

Frigga sighs delicately, quietly. "Oh, Loki," she says, and the words are mournful. "You always were a liar. But you've always been best at lying to yourself."

I stiffen, turning away. Desperate to turn the subject away from Natalie, I ask, "Why have you come?"

"Why else?" she inquires. "My son needed me."

I smirk, the gesture painful. "I am not your son," I remind her, but the words are not unkind. I cannot make them angry, cannot force any dark emotion into them.

"But I am your mother," she returns. "And I will always be there when you need me."

The room is quiet for a long time. I find my gaze turning to the floor, gazing at the rugs beneath my feet. I find myself wondering what Natalie would do, if she were here now. I have the distinct impression that she would slap me on the backside of my head, tell me to get over myself. The thought makes a smile twitch on my lips for only half a second before it sends the crashing agony back in my mind.

"Why are you here?" I find myself asking again, much weaker this time. "Why do I need you?"

Frigga's eyes soften. I think she reads me better than I do myself, for she answers, "You want to know if you made the right decision."

I tense. The right decision? How could I have made the right decision? There was no right decision. There was death on one hand and death on the other. I saved the realms! I became a king! How could I compare that to what would have followed if I hadn't?

I scoff. The words are painful bullets, striking me in the heart as I speak them aloud. "The right decision?" I bark out a laugh. "Of course it was the right decision. It was the one she wanted me to make!"

Frigga's eyes widen, just slightly, in surprise. Her surprise makes me want to laugh harder, to spit out more hateful words, and so I do, I do.

(Even though it kills me to hurt her)

"Natalie wanted me to make this choice! Of course she did! To save the nine realms? To sacrifice herself to save them all? That was her dream! That was everything to her! Of course it was! You knew what she was! We all knew what she was! Why else would she have bound herself to me? Why else would she have fallen in love with a monster, if she didn't want to be betrayed, if she didn't want to- to-"

The words are nonsensical, untrue. Falsehoods from the darkest parts of me, but they spill out nonetheless, and suddenly I am choking on them. Tears burn in my eyes. "Why else would she have fallen in love with me?" I demand. "Because she thought so little of herself! Thought of herself as worthless, and so fell in love with a worthless being!"

And I'm laughing and crying and I'm not sure if Frigga is still here or if this all is an illusion, if I imagined her coming here in the first place, and all I can do is laugh and cry some more, until at last, she speaks.

"Or perhaps," she says gently, her hand taking mine. Her hand is soft and kind, a mother's touch, and through the tears I can see her. "She thought of you as greater than you did."

I stare at her for a long moment, my stare sinking into her eyes. My throat still feels clogged with pain and anger, until at last, I hear a voice behind me. A voice of ash and darkness.

Fraye's voice.

"Okay. That's enough of that."

And with a snap of her pale fingers, my mother is swallowed by the darkness, sent back to Asgard, leaving me alone once again.

Shay Whitacre has a question on her mind. I am certain of it. She frequently asks questions; questions I would not tolerate from anyone, save those loyal servants of the crown. Those selected by Fraye.

Questions I barely tolerate from Shay herself, despite our arrangement.

She does not speak for a very long time, but I can hear her, working. Running names. Going through lists of people; those who orchestrate or partake in the rebellions. I sit where I have been sitting, watching out the window. I am here for the sake of formality alone; truly, I have nothing to do with this particular meeting.

At last, Jenner prods Whitacre gently. She looks to him, swallows, and nods.

"Your majesty?" She asks.

Finally.

"What is it, Whitacre?" I ask, my words dull. This endless tedium has done nothing for the ache in my mind, nor for the sound of screaming silence in my ears.

She swallows again. "Sir… We-" She cuts herself off at Murmur's sharp glare, correcting herself. "I was wondering. There's… A large number of people… Under your protection, sir."

"Aye," I reply, bored. Realms sake, she never stops, does she? Never understands, the abject, utter pointlessness of it all…

"And… and a lot of them partake in the rebellion."

"Aye."

"And…" She swallows another time. Frightened for her life, despite everything. Always frightened. No wonder Fraye chose her; Fear, after all, is the shadows' element. "And many have the last name 'Frost'." Shay adds meekly.

The world turns black around the edges. My spine stiffens. The name burns in my ears, scalds its way into my skull, tearing into my mind…

And stops in empty blackness, a numb void. The burning does not reach my frozen insides, but rather becomes… nothing. Sheer… nothing.

I almost collapse, almost fall. But I am still sitting upright as Shay continues with her queries.

"And… the house you went to. The one that you ordered burned to the ground. It was owned by a Frost. And the dog that follows you, he was licensed to that same Frost."

She is so close. So close to saying her name. The name that I cannot hear.

(Please, let me hear it. Just once more. Let me believe that she's alive.)

"Ask your question, Whitacre," I order coldly. "What are you trying to say?"

She twists her hands. "I suppose, sir, that I'm asking…" She hesitates, then boldly, "Who is Natalie Frost?"

My heart halts. Time stands still, and for the briefest of half seconds, that name envelops me. That name and all it describes, all it entails. Natalie Frost. Brown hair that flowed down in waves past tan shoulders. Brown eyes that could hunt out the light in any darkness. A smile like a fool, bedazzling a room. A laugh that never ends, kind and warm. Skin that burns at a feverish rate, a glow like the sun shimmering from it. A hand in mine. A face that has no description. And that smell, realms spare me, that smell of sunlight and parchment and something else, altogether undefinable…

A voice- a golden fire voice- that whispers out a tired, melancholic word. The loneliest of words, the bleakest: 'Sentiment'.

A scream.

Blood as red as a Jotun's eyes, pooling on a shadow-stained floor.

A darkness that swallows a sun, devouring the supernova.

My once-blissful smile has morphed, into an expression of cunning and hate, eyes gleaming as they train on Whitacre. I do not recall lunging for her, nor wrapping my hands around her throat, but here I am, holding her against the wall of my palace by nothing more than her thin, frail neck. Murmur and Goldsclove are far from the altercation, having scattered to opposite ends of the room, and I tighten my hold on Whitacre's throat. No. Never again. Never again will I hear her name, not from any voice, any voice but my own. I will ban that name from all corners of my world if I must, but it will never exist again, it will never be spoken aloud again.

(She will never be made real again)

Whitacre chokes and gags in my hold. There are threats pouring out of me, each more gruesome than the last, but I cannot hear my own voice, can hear nothing over the sound of the roaring silence. The blackness that infests my ears.

I can feel my voice getting lower and lower, quieter and quieter, a deathly whisper as I loosen my hold just enough to allow her to breathe; for now. I hear my own words, remember them, only when I am delivering my final ultimatum: "And if anyone in this place so much as breathes that name again, Whitacre, it will be you I find." My eyes skewer Murmur and Goldsclove each in turn. Goldsclove stands stoically while Murmur watches with raised, curious eyebrows. Shay has gone entirely white; what little color she had left from her lack of air has been wiped clean away by my threats. All that we have shared together, all she has done for me and I for her now means nothing. For this one second, this one moment in time, we are nothing. "You, and all others in this room," I add, raising my voice so that the other two generals are certain to hear it. "And when I have finished with you, I will personally hand over whatever is left to Fraye Burns herself."

Even Murmur flinches now. They have seen what Fraye can do. And they believe her to be my puppet, under my command, my trained dog who will do my bidding. If they only knew. If they could only imagine the leash that Fraye has wound around me, the chains with which she confines me…

"Am I quite understood, Shay?" If anything, the use of her first name makes the threat more personal; and my general's skin transitions from paper-white to ash-grey. She manages to nod, and I release her; she collapses, gasping, at my feet.

I do not look to her. I merely turn away and walk to the door, ordering as I go, "This meeting is concluded."

I travel as quickly as I can, not thinking, not breathing, not speaking. Holding everything inside until I can bear it no more, until I am far away from them, until I can do nothing, nothing at all, but fall against the wall, leaning against it for support. I gasp air into my lungs, starved for it, trying to swallow it down but unable to feel it, unsure if it is there, if the ground beneath my feet is real, if the crown on my head exists or if I am nothing more than an empty puppet shell, waiting for someone else to come and pull the strings…

I continue to wheeze, a horrific, howling scream wrenching itself out of me, beating its way out of my throat as it goes. I clutch my chest. Natalie Frost. Her full name, spoken aloud, not in my mind, not by someone who cared about her, but thrown out callously into the air. I don't know why it matters, but it does, oh it does. The name torments me with vile claws, a festering wound where my chest once was. The wound has grown, become more and more infected, in its days of numbness. It will not be long before I can live no longer, breathe no longer.

(Why can that day not be now?)

I drop to my knees, forehead pressed to the palace floor as I clutch my head in both hands, moaning. There is no pain in my head. There is no sound. There should be life and voices and joy and pain and that supernova of sound and color, that explosion of happiness and pain, that cacophony of emotion, it should be there, it should be staining the insides of my mind with wild explosions of color and light…

But instead, there are only shades; shades of black and grey, shadows of my own deadened brain tissue. Why doesn't it hurt? Everything else inside of me is screaming, keening her name. But my mind is too empty to do the same, and it is nothing but an abyss, an abyss that she left behind… There is nothing now, where there once was light and pain and joy and love…

So much love… Even for me… Even for the man who took everything from her, even as I lied to her, even as she knew I was lying, even as I told her that I loved her in return and held her close and acted as though I really did, as though I truly could do such a thing, even then… Even then she held on in turn, even as I handed her directly to Fraye, even as she spoke the word 'Sentiment', she hoped, even then she believed and…

And even then she loved… loved me…

I couldn't stop her from doing so, no matter how I tried…

"But you were proven wrong in the end!" I snarl, barely pulling myself off the ground, lifting my head but remaining on my knees. I wrap my arms around myself, as though that will hold the tattered remains of my innards together, as though that will keep me from falling apart. But as the words wrench out of me, as I try to shout, I find them coming as nothing more than a child's broken sob. Is that all I am now? A child?

Tears are in my eyes. I see them. I do not feel them, but I see them. I stare into the empty space ahead of myself. Even My Ghost has abandoned me now, left me in this barren waste, to haunt me at another hour... I glare at the nothingness, where once she would have been... Where once she would have smiled sadly and reached out her hand and said sun kissed words that promised brighter days...

I glare up into her imaginary eyes, the invisible Natalie Frost, who no longer exists in my world but somehow, even now, manages to hunt me. Her eyes found me as a child, found me in an invisible state; now that she is the invisible and I the visible, can she still see me? Can those eyes still find me?

"I hate you," It is more of a whimper than a declaration of spite. More of a dying creature's last request, than a pronouncement of antipathy. I try to force more venom into my words, even as I am pleading for them to be true. "I hate you..."

I fall onto my hands again, crouched on all fours in the middle of the empty hall, alone in the world, alone in my own mind. "Do you hear me, Frost?" The words are louder now. Stained with blood. Her blood. Just as my hands are stained forevermore. "I hate you! I hate you for everything that you have done, all that you tried to do, all of your pleading and 'reasoning' and... And all of your love, I despise you for it!" One arm must wrap around my chest now. If only to stop the inner bleeding. (Why do I still live? Surely I have bled out by now?)

"You did this to me!" I howl, knowing that it is the most horrendous of lies. I know who is responsible for the pain inside of me, and for the lack of it. "You did this to me, and I swear, Frost... I swear, I would do this to you! I would do this to you again! I would send you away, I would give you to her, I would do it, over and over again, just to watch you suffer, just to see you bleed!"

I am lying. Again and again, I am lying. But what else can I do? I am the greatest deception ever told; a living lie, a breathing deceit. It is all I am. I must lie. I must continue to lie, until there is nothing of me left, until the lies have eaten away at me once and for all...

I curl up there and sob again. I still cannot feel the tears, but I know that they are there. Somewhere beyond the numbness, they are there.

And then I hear it. A voice. A voice so small, so tiny, such a delicate whisper, that at first I doubt its existence. But then it speaks again. Repeats the same word. Repeats it again, louder, slowly increasing in volume.

A child's voice. A child's plea.

"Why?"

Slowly, I turn. The movements shatter my fragile bones, but the pain does not exist. I can feel it breaking, but I am numb to it. Numb to everything, but my lie of hate.

As I turn, I see him, standing there. A boy. A very small boy, naught more than a child. He stares at me with wide, green eyes, large and pleading. His small hands tremble at their minute fingertips, his lower lip quivering as tears form crystalline jewels inside of his eyes, streaking down his face.

I turn to him completely, still on my knees. A boy. Another Ghost. What else but a Ghost could enter my palace? Who else but a ghost could find me here?

So it is true, I realize as I stare at the child. I have killed myself.

For there is no doubt in my mind that this child is me. Who I once was. He is so identical, such the same; the dark hair and green eyes and the same face shape and cheekbones. There is only one thing that troubles me, a far-away worry in the back of a numb mind; his skin is too tan, his eyes the wrong shape. He looks very like me, but no, not entirely.

But who am I to question the subtle inconsistencies of a ghost?

"Why?" he repeats, and the word sticks to the inside of my throat. It destroys me, somehow, to see such desperate desolation in his eyes.

For the first time, I think on the boy's question. On my question, I suppose it must be. Even if this ghost does not feel like me. He must be me, for I have ripped my own mind apart, torn myself in half for the sake of a shadow's crown... How fitting, that I should become a shadow of myself to earn it...

"Because..." I smile. Laugh a little. It eats away at me; yet another lie, this laugh. "Because she destroyed me."

The child looks at me with wide, almost wild eyes. "She saved you!" He shouts, with all the blind belief that only a child can ever have. "She always saved you! Always!"

I look at him, his eyes brilliant, intense. I find a creeping numbness settling in again, and with it the pain in my chest begins to die away once more. It is with flat tones that I say, "She tried. She failed." I laugh a little. The child stares at me with tear-filled eyes and a red, runny nose. My next words are nothing more than a whisper. "And I hate her for it," my eyes are distant, staring far away from the boy. What is yet another Ghost? They plague me consistently now, unceasingly...

"YOU LOVED HER!"

My eyes whip to the child. His scream echoes in the air, this defiant, obstinate shout. I stare at him.

My heart beats too quickly, a double-beat in my chest. Far away, somewhere, I feel hers do the same.

The boy looks back at me with eyes like burning blades. I cannot look away from them. I cannot tear my gaze from him, this ghost of a child. This side of myself that I murdered.

But this was never me...

"YOU LOVED HER!" He shouts again. From that voice... How can I do anything but listen? But believe? "You loved her, you always loved her, since the moment she forged her mind to yours, since the moment she agreed to stay forever, you loved her! Why don't you see that? Why are you... What are you doing?"

Such indignation, in a child's eyes. I stare at him. Once again, I am no longer breathing. I feel something stirring; another flicker of that hatred. I cling to it, grasp it as a lifeline.

"I never-" I start to hiss. But the boy stops me.

"Stop lying to me!"

I stare at him. He looks back with those same desperate eyes.

Have I been reduced to this? Lying even to Ghosts?

Am I lying?

I don't know anymore...

"Please," He pleads. He is still trembling. Such a small child. So delicate. So fragile. His green eyes shine too much as he sways on unsteady feet. "Please... Don't lie to me. You never lie to me... You never..."

He drops. Falls into a half-sitting, half-kneeling crouch on the ground and starts to bawl. Was this ever me? Was I ever this pathetic and frail, before I destroyed myself irrevocably? Even as a child, was I ever...?

The boy doesn't look at me. I find myself reaching out towards him- what would I do? Comfort the dead?- but as he sees it, he stands again, lurching to his feet. "DON'T TOUCH ME!" He screams. I flinch away from his words, words that somehow send shafts of stabbing sunlight through my ribs, that somehow make me bleed all the more. "You... You..." he blubbers on the words. I stare at him, not knowing what he will say. Not knowing if he will say anything.

And then he screams, "You MURDERER!"

It is only then, as he turns and runs, as he flees the halls, that April arrives. He tears straight through her, and she vanishes into smoke, dissipates into nothingness. I watch him leave. Watch the two Ghosts collide. He carries on past her as though he cannot see her, leaving a trail of teardrops in his wake.

April re-forms, her gaze following the child. I watch with empty eyes.

Murderer.

That was all I ever was. That was all I would ever be. I have known this, I have recognized it for so long now...

But hearing him say the word, hearing that child... How much I hate myself, to say that word with such terrible spite. How much I have always hated myself.

"Who's the kid?" April asks, looking to me. But I cannot answer.

Murderer.

I am the man who murdered Giants. That matters little.

I am the man who murdered mortals. That matters little.

I am the man who murdered a world. That matters so much less.

I am the man who murdered Natalie Frost. Who murdered that child.

And that is everything.

(Because I lied to him)

(I lied to everyone)

(I could never hate you, Natalie)

(Don't you understand that I destroy what I love?)

April watches me with still curious eyes, but I can not turn to her. Can not face her. I can do nothing but curl up against the wall and close my eyes, allowing the blackness to swallow me, hearing the sobs of a child growing quieter in the distance.

The days I spend, wandering between lucidity and madness, are endless. They are filled with pain and yet entirely empty of feeling. I can do nothing to stop it. Even confessing these feelings to Banner, the Silent One, cannot illicit a response from him. He says nothing, will not speak into my silence.

"What do you want from me?" I beg, on my knees, the fallen king on his knees before the man he imprisoned. The human-and-would-be-hulk watches me impassively. "What do you want me to do? She can't be saved, none of you can! I am doing what I must! What I always have been forced to do! Please, Banner, tell me what else I can do!"

But he doesn't. He doesn't even turn to face me. The words he speaks are not ones of consolation, not orders of what I must do next. They are distant murmurs, and all he says is this: "Do you really think it matters, what you do now? After all this?"

And, realms spare me, he is right.

It is only as I leave the cell that I realize that I was not speaking to Bruce, that Bruce has still not uttered a single word since the beginning of my reign, but rather, my words were spoken to Stark, and it was Stark who responded.

But did I even speak with anyone at all?

I'm not even certain any longer.

I wander, alone, in the halls of my palace. His Tower that I stole, that I polluted, that I bought with the price of Natalie's blood…

I am walking aimlessly now, without goal or purpose, and I find myself standing in a dark room. A basement, a prison cell all its own, for there is a prisoner here. He cannot be seen, and his voice is now unheard, but here he rots, banished from the rest of his tower and forced to wither away in here, to rust into nothingness. His voice only speaks in this room, and yet, it does not speak at all. Not now. He has no words to say to me.

And why would he? Undoubtedly, he knew, long before the others, what I would do. What Natalie would ask me to do.

Why am I here? Why has my Ghost not followed me into this darkness? She is always beside me now, always next to me, always whispering screams into my ear. But not now, not here.

Does this place repel her, somehow? Unlikely. She is My Ghost, my Phantom and Specter, and where I go, she follows. If she is not here now… then it is because she does not wish to be.

However, Jekyll is still here. And he wanders about the room aimlessly, his nose to the ground, sneezing out dust every time he dares to sniff at the machinery that has collected here. This is the graveyard of Stark's inventions, the place they were sent to die when I seized hold of the rest of his Tower. And, among the metal shells of his fallen comrades, another invention is held captive.

I try to speak. To clear my throat. It takes time, but at last, I manage to croak out his name. "JARVIS?"

A light flickers in the corner of the room, cold and blue. Metal and mechanical, a machine, with a heart of copper and steel. An artificial creature, a monster in his own right; but even this autonomous, robotic monster has no use for one such as me. The mechanical heart spurns the one made of ice.

"Hello, puny god." His clear, accented voice responds tonelessly.

I watch the flickering light. I had forgotten that JARVIS had been ordered to call me by that, when I had first been released from prison. Perhaps I had forgotten this because he had never followed through on the order. He had never spoken to me directly, had avoided the use of this name. But he had called me 'Mister Laufeyson' in recent history… so Stark must have rescinded the order. Natalie had noticed, I realized now. Natalie had noticed and I had not. But I had the memory of her, of her making note of this and saying nothing, being silently pleased at the machine's small, silent rebellion…

But now I have turned even JARVIS against me. Hardly surprising. If a creature can feel hate, no matter what that creature is, then it will hate me. It's only natural.

I, too, feel hate.

Jekyll's tail stirs the air, wagging back and forth, as he hears JARVIS' voice. He sniffs at the dead machinery, trying to find the one that is still living. JARVIS' voice has been banished, from every room but this one, and I wonder why I never destroyed him. I destroy all else, don't I?

But then it becomes obvious. I did not destroy him because I promised Natalie that I would not kill the Avengers; and she, of course, would include JARVIS among them. Only she would consider these lines of code and metal parts as another person, another being that she must protect, in her quest to save them all.

(But she failed)

(No one can save everyone)

(Not even her)

(After all, she couldn't save me, could she?)

My throat feels dry. Thinking of her reminds me of why I came here. Or, rather, it is thinking of her that makes me realize why I came here. Or did I already know? Did I forget?

"JARVIS," I say again. My voice is weak, and I clear my throat, trying again. My hands shake. I can see her again. If I can only say the words, I can see her again. I walk to the holo-table (another broken relic from an age of long ago) and say, "Display recordings of past training sessions of the Avengers and Natalie Frost."

JARVIS does nothing. Saying her name aloud has made my tongue go numb.

Regardless, I try again, "JARVIS. Display past images…"

And then I cannot force myself to speak, to say any more words. I can only watch the blank holo-table.

"Anything concerning her," I manage to cough out after a few minutes. Or is it a few hours? My knees start feeling weak, melting. I lean against the table for support. "Anything concerning Natalie, JARVIS, do it!"

He still does nothing. I am about to shout and demand when he orders, "Say please."

It is Stark's idea of a cruel joke, programming JARVIS with this dark sense of humor, this concept of taking revenge in the only way he can. But I can't laugh and I can't refuse and I can't do anything, anything at all, but beg, "Please!"

My knees buckle. I'm supposed to see her, now. She's supposed to be here. Because I'm starting to forget her face, I'm starting to forget what she looked like, the image is fading, more and more, the harder I try to recall it. I remember brown eyes and brown hair and the smell of sunlight and parchment, but I don't remember her smile, I don't remember the sound of her laughter, I don't remember… I can't remember…

There is only the sickening sound of her blood dripping on the floor in my mind, as I try to think of her voice. There are only Fraye's eyes behind hers. There is only Fraye's laughter wherever hers should be.

Perhaps JARVIS hears my desperation. Perhaps he has more capability to forgive than most humans do. Because, after a pause, as I collapse to my knees before the holo-table, a blue image flares into life.

It is a composite, a collage, of a thousand different virtual memories. A slideshow of JARVIS' memory of Natalie Frost, what he must see, in the deep recesses of his metal mind, whenever he thinks of her, whenever he hears her name.

I watch the images flash by, snippets of memory, of recordings. I see myself beside her on many occasions, hear her laughter, her tears, her pain, her anger, her fear, her sly mischief, her worry, her regret, her joy. All of the things which comprise and compose Natalie Frost, the good and the bad, I see it all, and every last second of it makes me wish, all the more, that she was here.

"No, stupid," she chides teasingly, reaching forward and snatching a picture out of my holographic self's hands. The entire picture is blue, washed with light. "It's supposed to be a spaceship."

And then the picture changes. She's covered in sweat and barking orders at Rogers, "Go left, I've got this!" And she throws herself into a battle with Romanoff. And, after she loses, she laughs. "Well, that was embarrassing."

Another flickering of light, another change of scenery. Natalie is sitting, alone in her room, reading a book. Not speaking. Just reading.

This happens, over and over and over again. And the longer I watch, the more empty I become. I feel each image pulling something out of me, pulling out each feeling and hope and regret, until at last, I am nothing. Even the empty shell that I used to be has now disappeared. I am gone. There is nothing left of me.

Jekyll hears his master's voice and sees her on the holo-table, but he is not fooled by it. He never has been (though he would bark at the door if a bell ever rang on a television screen. But he was never fooled by their images). Perhaps he is the smarter of the two of us, for he can lie down on the floor, quite contentedly, and sleep beside me. I can only watch, transfixed, as this hologram- this vacant, lifeless image- bleeds me dry.

Because I can see her. I can hear her voice again. But it is not in my head and she is not beside me. It is as hollow as I am. Perhaps that is what I deserve; a hollow man standing beside a hollow woman, ruling a hollow throne.

And then, suddenly, a new image.

She has clearly been crying. Even through the incessant blue of the hologram, I can see that. I can see that her nose and eyes are red and that she is struggling, just a little, to breathe. Finally, she clears her throat. "JARVIS?" She asks.

"Yes, Miss Frost?" A JARVIS of the past asks.

"Where's your camera? The one you have in this room?"

He tells her, directing her until her gaze is locked, solely, on it. And thus, her eyes are solely on me. "I need you to keep a secret, JARVIS," she says. "I need you to not tell the Avengers any of this. Can you do that?"

The JARVIS of the past hesitates. And then he agrees, in a voice that is highly sympathetic, a voice that says he knows, very well, what is about to happen. "Of course, Miss Frost."

She swallows and clears her throat and dries her eyes and she smiles. She smiles weakly at the camera. Weakly at me. "Hey, Loki," she says.

My heart skips. Every muscle freezes and everything that had turned hollow, everything that had turned empty, now begins to ache. The numbness vanishes. She spoke my name. She said my name. She is speaking to me now, speaking from the past, from beyond the grave. Another Ghost. The Ghost of someone who is not yet dead.

"Um…" she looks away, seeming awkward and unsure. I have fallen back, half-sitting, but now I am on my knees again, as upright as I can be, reaching towards her. She has no need for awkwardness, no need for uncertainty. Anything she says, anything at all, will be perfect, if it can only bring me out of this darkness. If it can only ease this numbness. But nothing can, I remember now. Nothing at all.

Still, I hope.

She bites her lip. Her eyes go to her hands, which she wrings in her lap. "Listen," she says. "I don't know… I don't know if you'll watch this. If you'll… if you'll want to see me again. After… you know, after all of this. But, in case you are… and in case you make the decision that I'm afraid you will make… in case you accept Fraye's deal… I just… I thought I should say something. Say goodbye.

"I… You… You already know how I feel about you." And tears start to well up in her eyes again, making them glassy. The numbness continues to fade. In its place is screaming fire, the likes of which I have forgotten how to feel. I am a creature of ice who has forgotten fire, who has forgotten light… because she was all of those things, and she was all I had to remind me of them…

"You already know that… I love you." She looks up again, helplessly. Her eyes find me, even through time itself, and she stares at me from the past, finds me in this ghastly future. "And I know you don't feel the same, and… and I'm not expecting you to. But… I just want you to know that… even if you do this… even if Fraye…"

Here, her voice breaks. She looks away again, biting her lip harder this time, trying to rein in her emotions. She stares at the ceiling, looking up in order to blink away her tears. She was never afraid of death, not after she was first made to confront it. But she was afraid of pain. She was afraid of the things that Fraye would do to her.

After a moment, she has regained control. She looks back to the camera, back to me, and says, "Even if this has to happen, Loki… I want you to know that I still love you."

And here she laughs. It's weak and small and self-deprecating, a giggle so very unlike Fraye's. "Sick, huh?" She asks. "I mean… it's really twisted. But… yeah. I know that you might do this to me, even if I hope you won't… and I still love you. Because… Because I know that you could refuse this. That you could be strong enough. But even if you aren't, even if you're weak… well, that doesn't matter." She smiles, sadly and sarcastically, rueful and wry, and says, "You're only human, after all."

My heart stops. It no longer wants to beat. It no longer wishes to keep going. But after a moment, it must, and I live on.

"And… and I want to say that… no matter what happens next… no matter what Fraye does to me… no matter what pain or peril I go through, I want you to know that… I forgive you, Loki." She is still wringing out her hands, and she does so more vigorously now, but her eyes- which I swear are brown, regardless of the holographic blue- are sincere and kind. "I forgive you. I want to say that. And no matter what Fraye does to make me say otherwise, no matter what I may eventually feel… I want you to know that this, this right here, is the real me." She gestures to herself. "The me without the pain or fear that she might inflict. The me without Fraye telling me what to think. And I know what I feel, and I forgive you. For all of it. For what you did to Earth and what you did to April and what you must be doing to Earth now. And for what you did to me." There is a melancholy on her face even when she smiles, even when she makes her eyes cheerful, even when she grins and says, in a bright tone, "So don't worry about it, okay?"

And then, after a moment, she shrugs and says, "End message, I guess."

And the entire hologram flickers into black.

It is as though I am a puppet, pulled along by strings, and as her face turns to darkness and shadow and nothingness, these strings, which tied me to her, are cut. I fall back, crumple to the ground, and become empty and hollow once again. She was the one who brought me to life, whose words and actions and deeds gave me a life and a name and a voice, and now I am nothing but a shell once again…

"JARVIS," I rasp. A puppet is not meant to talk, but somehow I find the means, the ability, to speak to the machine. "Replay footage. Replay her message."

"Message, Mister Laufeyson?" He uses my name again, but it is an insult. He speaks my name as though he knows very well who I inherited it from, speaks it as it really is: the name of a monster. The name of the monster's son.

"The message, JARVIS!" I try to shout. My voice is too weak. "The last few minutes of footage, replay it!"

He hesitates. It is rare, for an artificial intelligence to hesitate. They consider variables so much faster than other life forms do. But, after a moment, he says, "Very well."

And he does so. I am confronted with a flashing of images, the collage playing once again… I watch, impatiently, waiting for the display to turn into Natalie's message once again…

But, after a few minutes, the collage remains unchanged. No message plays. She never looks to the camera with those red-rimmed brown eyes that showed through the blue. She never looks to me from the past. She never speaks to me. And then the screen goes black.

"JARVIS," I say, gasping. Because I don't want to believe what I know is true. "JARVIS," I repeat. "Replay the message."

"I'm sorry. That is an invalid command." His voice sounds more mechanical than ever. It softens, only slightly, as he adds, "There is no message, Mister Laufeyson."

"No… No, there was! She spoke to me, she said… she said she forgave me…"

My voice trails away into a pathetic silence. My Ghost watches me from the corner of the room, standing beside the flickering light that indicates JARVIS' life, still remaining inside of this graveyard of machines. April seems out of place in this graveyard. But then, she would seem out of place in any graveyard. Even the one that I buried her in.

"She said she forgave me," I whimper to her.

She says nothing. Her eyes are hard and unyielding. And they speak the blunt, harsh, cold truth.

Natalie recorded no such message. No final goodbye. And why would she? She still held out hope for me. Back in that time, back before I had confirmed it for her, before she had felt my decision in her mind, before she had asked me to lie to her… before that, she had still hoped that I wouldn't do this. That I wouldn't send her off to her death, and I wouldn't buy this kingdom at the price of her life. She wouldn't record a goodbye. She would have just hoped.

And it is this. This thought, this notion, this memory… this knowledge of what Natalie would have done, this knowledge that she had once hoped that I could be better then what I am… it is this which breaks me. This, more than the sight of her face or the sound of her laughter, played through JARVIS' speakers and displayed on this holo-table, that reminds me of what I gave up. I didn't just sacrifice her voice or her face or her laughter or her emotions.

I surrendered, unto Fraye, the last hope that I ever had.

And this kingdom before me, this reign that I will look after for the rest of my days, is not my gift. It is not what I received in exchange. It is my punishment.

And it is forever.

Another day, another night, another nightmare. Another moment in which I wake, screaming.

Shay stirs beside me, looking startled for only the briefest of seconds. She is used to this now, used to being woken in the middle of the night by my horrendous dreams.

My hands claw at my face, nails digging into my cheeks and dragging downwards, ripping at the skin and drawing red blood. Natalie's blood still lingers behind my eyelids, the sight of her battered and broken body. The sounds of Fraye's hebephrenic laughter still ghosts through my ears. I can feel tears burn in my eyes.

Shay gently shushes be, placing a falsely kind hand on my shoulder, a gesture of comfort, an attempt to console. From her, from this snake of a woman, it is hollow and lifeless. Her hand isn't warm or gentle; it is tepid and stony.

But whether it is false or not, it is a comfort, and I lean into the hand, imagining, for only a second, that it is hers. That it belongs to Natalie Frost, the girl with the feverish skin and the defiant eyes. I take Shay's hand and breathe in her scent, pretend that the metal and rust smell of my general is actually the scent of sunlight and parchment, I pretend and pretend and pretend…

"It's all right," Shay whispers soothingly, running her other hand across my back. Under her fingertips, beneath my garments, are my scars, scars that this woman wouldn't understand, scars that mark me as Fraye's.

(Scars, undoubtedly, like Natalie's)

"Everything is all right," Shay continues with her dishonest consolation. "I'm here for you, my king," she says the words like they are her possession, as though my regality belongs to her. In a way, I suppose it does. Certainly she has more authority these days than I.

"Ugh. Barf-o-rama." At the other end of the room, April makes a gagging gesture, glaring an evil glare towards Shay Whitacre. She has long stopped holding resentment towards me for having my general share this bed, but she still does not like the woman in the slightest. These days, I share the sentiment; I hardly care for Shay.

She is merely… convenient.

Still, it would not do to let April know this, and so as Shay creeps closer to me, I take her chin in my hands and press my lips to hers, as I have done many nights before, both the assure Shay of her place and to irritate my Ghost.

"It's all right," I murmur against Shay's lips, but these are lies, just as her comfort was, all lies, always lies. Our relationship is nothing but lies, nothing but an empty shell. There is no life between us, no love lost. Just twin snakes, circling together in mutual alliance.

But it seems that these occasional illicit kisses have done nothing to reassure Shay, for after a long few moments, she begins along the natural progression of things, pushing her hand underneath my shirt and slowly beginning to lift it.

"There she goes again," April says. I can practically hear her eyes rolling. "Always trying to seal the deal, eh, bitch?"

Immediately, I break away, pushing her hand away. "Shay… Shay, no… Please. Don't."

She blinks once in shock, but immediately falls into the act, turning away as though embarrassed. "I'm… I'm sorry, my king, I just…" Her eyes flick back to me, filled with hurt. As with all things regarding her, it is fake. Her pain is as plastic as her smiles, as dishonest as her love. "What's wrong with me?" She asks, a pleading question.

I resist the urge to sigh. I don't want this. I don't want this conversation. I don't want things to change. My life is miserable enough as it is; what if I should lose one of the few things that keeps me… together?

What if I were to lose even this false love?

(After I already lost the real one…?)

"Why don't you ever… I mean, is it me?" She bites her lip, as though torn. "You never want to… go anywhere with this… relationship. Am I… that unappealing? Am I…?"

"Shay, enough." I find myself growling out the words. She looks, for a brief moment, genuinely stunned, truly scared. She pushes it away, forces her features into hurt once more. "Enough of this." I push her aside, breaking her hold on me and mine on her. April smirks in the corner of the room.

"Enough of what, Loki?" Shay asks, using my name in a tentative tone, as though she is honestly confused.

I sigh heavily. The illusion breaks. It is a stone that I speak to, not a living being, not a kind person, not someone who loves me. Not someone like her.

I speak to a serpent, not to Natalie.

"Isn't it enough?" I whisper out the words, staring at the wall, away from Shay and her lies. "Haven't I already given you everything you wanted? The respect of your fellow generals, the gifts that come with being the king's lover? Do you not already have the position of Queen in your future?" I turn back to her, weary from my dreams, weary from these lies. Shay has turned her expression to shock. Only some of it is genuine.

"I've given you everything you wanted. You don't need to try to seduce me, Shay; whatever you want, it's yours." I sigh heavily. "All I ask… all I've ever asked… is that you stay here. In these dark nights."

"You think…" She stares at me. "You think I'm trying to seduce you?" she asks, as though her pride has been wounded. I silence her with a long, dark stare.

"Do not insult my intelligence, Shay Whitacre. I knew what you were from the first night you came to my chambers. I went along with it for convenience. With you at my side, there will be no other suitors, no others with nefarious motives. Your motives, I understand. And I have given you everything you want." I turn away again. "So enough, Shay. Leave well enough alone."

There is a long moment of silence, in which April laughs. "Ooh, that shut her up, didn't it?" She cackles, rubbing her hands together like some comical supervillain.

"I see," Shay says at last, not knowing of my Ghost's triumph. "You've got this all figured out, haven't you?"

I turn back to her. The façade has dropped entirely, leaving only the serpent in its wake. "Well, well, bravo, the mad king has some brains after all." She claps twice, sarcastically. "And you're right. You're using me, and I'm using you." She looks away. For a second- only a second- her eyes show genuine… pain. "That's how the world works, isn't it?" She whispers.

I wonder, then, who hurt her. Who made her this way, who made her think like this. Who made her into what she was, what circumstances forged my fellow snake. Natalie would've wondered. She would've asked. She would've found out, in the end.

If I hadn't killed her, that is.

I sit back in the bed, next to Shay, who laughs dryly. "So now what?" She asks. "What do we do next?"

"We carry on," I reply, my voice dead, my mind dead, my soul dying. "And we pretend."

It's getting worse.

I am getting worse.

The darkness, the numbness… it swamps me. I can barely even pretend to be a king anymore; my duties have been passed off to my generals, to Goldsclove and Whitacre and Murmur, who all handle the kingdom with a firmer hand than even I could manage. Oh, I still rule. I still give orders. I still pretend to be king. But I rarely remember the orders I give.

The times I do remember, the things that manage to pierce through this haze, happen around the Avengers, more often than not. I visit them almost every day; at least one of them. Because they remember her, yes, but also because they hate me. They hate me while I am unable to. So I make them hate me, just a little bit more, because I cannot feel enough hate of my own… I deserve more hate then I can feel…

"Don't you understand yet?"

Rogers doesn't look at me. His eyes are vacant and cold, locked on the ground. I force my numb lips into a smile. It is worth it, to smile, to make him hate me. Maybe that hate will make me feel something. It hasn't yet. But maybe.

"She's not even dead," I say, and keep smiling. "She's alive, Rogers. She's still alive. And no one can save her."

He doesn't respond. He seems… apathetic. I know it is a lie; there was always a very special place in Natalie's heart for the Soldier, and I'm sure the feeling was shared. He was always protective of her; to know that he failed to protect her, failed to save her from me, from the man whom he had always warned her against… it must kill him.

(So if it can kill him, then can it kill me?)

(Maybe. If he just hates me enough)

"No one can save her, Rogers." I repeat. "No one. Not even me."

For the first time, life stirs in his eyes. He looks up to me. It is confusion on his features, not spite. Of course I cannot save her. I can't even try. I laugh, softly, and stumble back a few steps. I run into the wall and lean against it. I can barely breathe, but I am still smiling, still trying to provoke him into reacting, into despising me.

"Even if I tried," I say, throwing the words at him. "Even if I tried to save her, I couldn't. She would be bleeding there, Rogers, she would be dying. And there's nothing I can do. I can't save her." I laugh again. Surely this will make him realize. Surely this will make him see. Her situation is hopeless, and it's my fault. Surely that will make him furious. Surely he will realize-

"Do you…" The Soldier seems hesitant. Unsure of his own words, he holds them back and watches me cautiously. "Do you want to?" He asks.

Why… Why is he looking at me like that? That… that isn't loathing or pain… that is…

What is that? Pity? Is he trying to pity me? Why?

"Natalie is dying because of me!" I shout, trying to drill it into his head, trying to make him understand, trying to make him see sense. But the sound of her name reaches my ears and unexpectedly makes me drop. A lance stabs through my heart, the shaft of ice that melts into acid and poison, and I clutch my chest, trying to breathe. I slide down the wall that I am leaning against, screwing my eyes shut tight, holding my chest until I am sitting on the floor. Today is one of those days. Those days where her name hurts. Sometimes I have these days, and sometimes the days are different. Sometimes, her name becomes a drug; and if I am not saying it at all times, saying it until my throat is hoarse, then I will remember just how numb I am… but those days are few and far between; for I can never forget this numbness.

"Loki…?" Rogers asks. There is almost a hint of concern in his voice. I glare up at him. No, why can't he understand? If he doesn't hate me, then I've broken my promise. My last promise to her was a lie. I told her that I would leave the Avengers alive, alive so that they could kill me, so that one day, they would slaughter me. And if they don't hate me, then why would they do that?

They have to hate me… I promised her…

"Do you want her back?" Rogers speaks to me as though addressing a child, or a person with of questionable mental clarity. But my mind- what is left of it, after Fraye tore it in two- is perfectly clear. It is he who does not understand. He who is confused, who does not realize what I am saying. "Do you want to…" And then he seems to reconsider. Slightly angrier now, he demands, "Didn't you want this?"

I look at him. His blue eyes are questioning, pleading… hopeful. The faintest glimmer, the slightest sheen, brings life where there was once only death and apathy.

Of course I wanted this, I try to snarl at him.

"She said I didn't." I think that's my voice. It sounds like my voice, albeit small and distant. I have lost control of it again. It says things that I don't mean to, says things that are not lies. My voice only speaks truths when I am not in control of it. I can only speak falsely.

"Natalie did?" he clarifies.

"Natalie," I agree, and the name makes me close my eyes, makes me tremble. "And the Ghost."

April watches me say these truths. And she smiles sadly.

"Then if you didn't want this… if you want to get her back…"

"I can't!" At last, I find my voice again, it belongs to me again, and I am on my feet again. "I can't! No matter how loudly she's screaming, no matter what I say or do, no matter how much of her blood Fraye is covered in when she appears by me, I cannot save Natalie Frost! No one can! She isn't dead and she's as good as a ghost and she's screaming and screaming and screaming! Don't you understand, yet, Rogers, I did that to her! It was me! It was my doing and my fault and… and…"

And you should want to kill me for it.

(Because I do)

But I can't say this. I can only watch as the words that were meant to turn him against me instead only make him look at me in a new light, look at me in pity, look at me as though maybe, just maybe, Natalie was right all along… maybe we really couldn't live without each other…

"Realms' sake," I snarl at the man bitterly, as I see this in his eyes. As I see that he understands, now, that Natalie was always right; at the very least, about this. About our connection. "Why couldn't you have realized that before she had to die?"

And then I turn away from this hopeless cause, walking out the door, and into another prison. I enter the home of another Avenger, and attempt to try again.

The days pass as they always have, but I am left scrambling to understand them, to make sense of the time that passes by me and leaves me behind. To me, it skitters and stops, halting, slowing, then speeding past when I least expect it. I go to places without remembering how I arrived and realize where I am only after I am deep in conversation with someone.

It is only made worse by the dreams; for they have become so real to me that I no longer know whether I am awake or asleep. But I have no more dreams of her, no more dreams of her being beside me, no more dreams in which another decision was made and we are somehow happy together. I do dream of what is being done to her.

I do not know who I tell these dreams to. I say things without recalling why they are said, and in many cases, even what was said. My generals begin to fear me ever more, and I do not realize that I am casting them aside, pushing them away, until one day they are gone from the Tower. I know I did not kill them; my ghost tells me as much.

I have memories of burning April's house to the ground, only to return and find it safe and free of flames, with her mother back inside and her Uncle helping her to return to her former self. Anita and Kevin Blackthorn become closer as I become more distant. Detached from the world around me. The world that I 'rule'.

That is truly the greatest of jests. I am no king. I am not even the king rat.

(I am not even a lesser rat)

I have memories of killing Cameron and Anna Rose Frost, only to find that their rebellion is surging again.

And how many times do I find myself before one of the Avengers, saying things that I barely recognize, speaking truth, lie, and utter nonsense? How many times do I converse with my ghost whilst standing before them? A king would not speak with a specter that no one else could see. But then, a king would not visit his prisoners so frequently, even if they were once friends.

And I certainly do not remember giving the order to release the Avengers into one cell, allowing them to speak with each other. And yet, I am here, watching them on the cameras nonetheless.

Common greetings, it seems, have already been passed around, for they are already deep in conversation as to what they are meant to do now.

"Why did he do this?" Romanoff asks, glancing around the room, certainly noticing the cameras watching her every movement. Barton stands close beside her. "Why put us together? He knows it's dangerous."

"I don't think he's exactly running on all cylinders, here," Stark says, twirling one finger around the side of his head, the mortal gesture for 'crazy'. "Have you seen the way he's been lately?"

There is a general sweep of consenting nods throughout the room. Most are heavy, pained. For a moment, there is silence.

"He really did need her, didn't he?" Rogers says quietly.

"That," Thor says in a low growl, pulling Jane Foster closer to his side, "Was never in doubt."

Everyone becomes quiet at this… and then Thor looks down. "Though even I did not anticipate… this."

(Why do you still care brother?)

(Do you?)

(Please, never stop)

(I love you, you fool)

(And I…)

I close my eyes. And I loved her. (Yes, I will say it. I loved her. Because she was right. How else could she have broken my heart?)

I know it now, know it for certain: I want her back. I want to be whole again.

"So do it," April says behind me. "Stop being a coward and save her."

(I'll die)

"Dude, I'm dead. So believe me when I say that you'd be a hell of a lot better off than you are right now."

"Whatever he is, crazy or not, we need him off of the throne," Natasha says, with great resolve. "We need our planet back."

Bruce Banner speaks for the first time since the start of my reign. I find myself startled to realize that I had forgotten what the man's voice sounded like. "Do we?" He asks quietly. "Do we need to do anything? He sent Whitacre away. He sent everyone away, just about. The palace is running on its barest bones. Soon enough… I think he'll give up the crown without any interference."

I did? I sent Whitacre away? The other generals are gone? I do not remember doing so, but if Banner says so, I will believe it. I do believe it. I trust these Avengers more than I trust my own mind.

"We can't afford to rely on that," Steve Rogers replies, speaking with the voice of a leader. A Captain. "This is our planet, not just…"

"Not just one girl?" Banner asks, turning sharp eyes towards Rogers. "Not just Natalie?"

The Soldier swallows. "I didn't say that," he answers darkly.

"Enough," Romanoff says quietly. "We have no time for this. We don't know when he'll separate us again."

Barton, beside her, snorts. His eyes go to the camera. "He's not going to separate us again."

He sounds so extraordinarily confident that all eyes turn to him. He smirks, and his eyes are so exact on me through the camera lens that I find myself oddly… trapped by them. As though I must do something, because he knows that I will do it. He looks back to the others. "And Banner's right," he goes on. "We don't need to do anything." He sits on the ground, crossing his arms, the greatest of self-assurance on his face. A frown tries to pull at my lips.

(What, precisely, did I say to him when I went into his prison?)

(I do not even remember that I did so in the first place, though clearly I must have)

"How…?" Natasha looks at him. Before she can complete her query, the Captain steps forwards. "We can't just sit around doing nothing," he protests.

"Do something, then," Barton grins. "But you'll just be wasting your time." His smile dies down, and for a moment, he thinks… and he looks down. "It's… It's breaking an unspoken promise," he admits. "But I'm not going to do anything. I know that I don't need to."

An unspoken promise. The one he gave to Natalie. The promise that he would destroy me, when his chance came, so that the Earth would be free and all of the realms safe… He has given up on it.

Why?

"Clint…" Banner says slowly. "What did he say to you?"

Barton doesn't answer. He just keeps grinning.

My memory blurs. And suddenly I am sitting before the cameras again. The conversation has changed. They have assessed all weaknesses of their shared cell and determined that they cannot break away from it.

A glint of light catches at the corner of my eye; I turn, and realize that something else has changed since my mind was last able to process the world around it. There is a table behind me, and on it rests the Avengers' respective suits, armor, and weaponry. I stare at it in silence. Why would I have gathered this? Why would I have done this?

Why is the Tesseract sitting next to it?

Why is Fraye here?

Her face is cold, her black eyes… even more dead than usual. She leans against the wall. "Project or not," She says tartly, "You're becoming a pain in my neck, Laufeyson."

She takes a step towards me. I stare up at her. I do not know why she is saying these things. And yet of course I do, for my Ghost has the most triumphant of smiles on her face, and she stands beside me with her hand on my shoulder.

She gives it a gentle squeeze. "You can do this, Blue," she promises. "Just remember why you want to."

Why I want to do what?

(Why I want to get her back)

(Why I want Fraye to die)

(Why I do not care if I die as well)

I look up at the Shadow Child. Why do I want to?

(Because it doesn't matter if she is mortal)

(It doesn't matter if she will die)

(It doesn't matter if I am a Frost Giant)

(I love her)

(I've loved her for so long now…)

Fraye scoffs. "Sweetie… darling, listen to me. You do not love her. Your link is just trying to give you some kind of justification… any justification, to get her back. Your own mind is playing tricks on you. I've been there before, honey. You just have to bear it out. You'll see; it gets so much better. It gets beautiful."

"It was already beautiful," I whisper. The words are out of me without my intent, but the words that she said are now rolling down my shoulders like magma, burning and searing. I do not love her? I've told myself that lie since I first created the connection between us.

And I am damned sick of lies.

"It was already perfect." I stand, advancing towards her. She holds my gaze steadily, not moving back. My tattered, ragged mess of a heart is beating again, pumping fire through my veins. I welcome it; it is something other than agony, and it burns away all traces of fear I may still have for this woman. Because what can she do to me? I could not feel the pain of torture. I could care less for the finality of death. Anything is better than this. Anything. Because my life is numb, my head is silent, and my heart is broken and I will not live like this any longer.

I reach out and grip Fraye's arms tightly. Were she human, her pale skin would have bruised. I lower my voice.

"You are so keen on making deals," I tell her, almost gently. "So here is mine." My eyes narrow on her. There is an arctic-yet-volcanic ire inside of my lungs, pouring out in my words. "Whatever agreement we made… it is now void. You do as you wish to the nine realms. You do as you wish to the Avengers, and to us." I grip her arms even tighter. "But you will give Natalie Frost back to me. Or I will take her from you."

She sighs, brushing me off casually. "She's not yours to ask for. Not anymore." She gives me a disgusted look, which clashes with her candy-sweet features and sickly syrup-coated voice. "You know… you could have had everything. Everything. You could have heard it." She shakes her head quickly. "And now you'll just die with the rest of them."

"Perhaps," I answer coldly. "But I will not die as you."

She turns to me. For a brief second… there is pain on her features. Her eyes tighten. Her fists clench. And then she smiles a smile so grim that I think her teeth will bleed.

"Don't you get it yet?" She asks. "If you were me… you would never die." She shakes her head, laughs, and calls the shadows to her. "If you want her so desperately," she trills, "I'll be here!"

A flash of an image invades my mind at the words, of a world turned to ash and cinder. Fraye's world. Fraye's home. I see a building in the distance, a ramshackle prison, made sturdier and stronger by the shadows that hold it together. I know without asking that Natalie is in there.

The shadows swallow Fraye whole, and she blinks off into nonexistence. I do not hesitate. I do not know how long this anger, this fury, this hatred for her will last, though at the same time I feel as though it could never die. I stalk out, call a guard to myself and order him to return the Avenger's suits, armor, and weaponry back to them.

"But… but sir!" He protests.

I give him a dark look. Immediately, he bows. "Of… of course, sir."

"When you've done that, you are to leave. Immediately. You and everyone else."

He bows again and does as told. April is smirking as she has never smirked before, looking incredibly pleased with herself. I return to my room and open the Tesseract's casing, gently running my fingers across it. Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes and allow the magic to scorch through me, to singe my veins and set my blood ever more aflame. My eyes have turned blue by the time I set it back inside of its casing and close it once and for all.

April hums to herself, a cheerful tune for someone who is in the grave. I look to her. The solemnity in my eyes causes her face to become more serious. The tune dies in her throat.

"I'm sorry I cannot save you," I tell her in a quiet whisper. "And I am sorry for what I did."

She shrugs. "It happens."

I lift an eyebrow. She grins. "Okay, so it doesn't. But you're wasting time apologizing to someone who really isn't a ghost." She steps forwards. "And you're wasting your time trying to reconcile yourself with the dead. They don't talk back, not when you're not… you know. Loco." She twists a finger around her head, as Stark did before. "The past is the past. The present's the present. Go out and fix the future." She grins. "And yes, I am fully aware that I sound like a fortune cookie. Your point?"

I smile softly at her… and I extend a hand. She studies me, then accepts it.

"I don't know how the real April would have felt," She admits, her image fading, until she becomes the faceless shade she first appeared as. "But I know Natalie just as well as you do. And if she's still anything like what she once was… she'd be proud of you."

The other eyebrow joins the first. "For making a decision I should have made long ago?"

She shakes her head. "For realizing that it could still be made. For realizing that there's always a chance."

And then she fades, once and for all. Back to the grave. Back to the silence.

I grip the Tesseract in both hands and note that the Avengers have all, in their terms, 'suited up'. They all look intensely puzzled, save for Clint. The Archer grins, flicking his bow out so that it extends to its full, proper length.

I wait until the guards have been evacuated.

And then I wave a hand; and the shadows that confine the Avengers disappear.

I am waiting for them in my throne room. Waiting for them to arrive. And when they finally do, they seem more surprised to see me than I am to see them.

I sweep my eyes over them once. Six in all; Jane Foster was left behind, told to leave, to keep herself safe, for Thor did not know what type of battle there was to come. The Avengers have all clearly noted the absence of any guards; not that a human sentry would have been able to stop them.

As they enter, they all look to me, aiming respective weaponry towards me. Every one of them is tensed for battle. Everyone but Barton.

I am certain that I must look a strange sight; sitting on the steps, for I tore the shadow throne to shreds before their arrival. It is not the shadow's helm on my head, not any longer, but my old, golden-hued one. The one that Natalie secretly liked and hated all at once. I know that there are dark circles beneath my eyes, that my skin is pallid, pale. I know that I do not look like a king, but now, I no longer claim to.

The Tesseract rests in my hands. I look down at the blue cube as the Avengers all watch me. Waiting for me to set the stage, to tell them what is happening. My spear rests beside me, and I make no move towards it.

I look up to them. Romanoff seems to register the change in the color of my eyes, seems to recognize that something has changed, that whatever plans that were in place have been altered without her knowledge. She notices every detail, as she always has. I run my hand across the glass casing of the Tesseract as I watch her, watch them all.

And then my eyes dart away. For some reason, I find myself wishing that my Ghost were still here, that she could tell me what it is I need to say. And then I realize that I already know.

I take a deep breath and let it out in a slow sigh. The Avengers are tensed, every nerve stretched taut as they watch me, and yet, I have never been more relaxed, never been more serene. The decision has been made. Dead or alive, it no longer matters.

I will not exist without her.

"I know what you must think of me," I tell the Avengers in a quiet voice. "And you have every reason… every right to think it." I do not look at them as I say this, but rather study the floor with a distant, empty gaze. I am still trembling. There is still fury inside of me. There is still desperation. But everywhere else, there is numbness.

Except for the shadow behind my heart.

The shadow of her heart, still beating.

She's still alive…

(For now)

I swallow tightly and force my gaze to the Avengers. "I have imprisoned you. Enslaved your world." I meet every last one of their stares. Most are watching in shock and suspicion. "I make no excuses, no apologies. These are my deeds and they are done, and any attempt to rectify them would be futile."

I look down to the Tesseract in my hands, the glowing blue source of energy. "All that I can do… is offer you a choice." My voice lowers, but I know that it still reaches them. The room is far too silent for even the slightest of noises to not be heard. "The same choice that I have already made."

I stand, sweeping my spear into my hand, the Tesseract in the other. Immediately, everyone tenses again, raises weaponry… but Barton has set his bow beside him and now leans against the wall, arms folded. He seems… bored.

"You can stay here," I announce. "You can stay with your world-or return to it-" I add, glancing towards Thor, "and help the Earth to rebuild. You can stay, confident in the knowledge that I will likely be dead before the next sunrise."

There is no fear inside of me as I say this. There is no more fear of death. For I have been dead for months now. But a vast majority of the Avengers seem… stunned, by the flippancy in these words. I ignore this, continuing on.

"Or…" I swallow, "Or you can join me." I look up to them. I know that it is foolish to ask. I know that it is pointless to ask, that not a single one of them will, that I shall walk onto this planet of ash alone. But I can only hope that, perhaps, they care enough for Natalie, care enough for stopping Fraye, that they may just be able to look past their hatred for me. "Because I believe that… I am certain that… Natalie Frost still lives."

Rogers stiffens. Banner's hands clench. Thor's eyes tighten. Romanoff looks down, just briefly, before her eyes flick back to me. Barton still seems intensely uninterested. I have taken to ignoring him; it is far too unexpected. I am more comfortable with the other Avenger's reactions, for these are what I anticipate.

"And I…" My throat is dry and my world is spinning, because there is so much fury inside of me, so much hate, that it is all I can do to keep myself here, now, to not go immediately to Fraye, to not rip the throat out of the person who ripped the heart out of me. "I am going to save her. And if I am wrong, if she is gone, if she is lost, if this is nothing more than another fragment of illusion…" I am babbling again, the words rushing out of me, strung together, making no sense to those who are not aware of her heart still beating behind mine… I take a breath, closing my eyes, sorting out the convoluted thoughts of my numb mind.

"If I cannot save her," I say slowly, articulating each word very, very carefully. My eyes open, sharp as blades, a cutting stare lancing through each and every one of them. My voice is trembling and so sincere that it cannot possibly be mine… and yet, it must be, for those words are spilling out of my lips, and it is everything that I intend on doing…

"Then I am going to avenge her."

Clint smirks. He smirks. The others, I only now realize, have been lowering their weapons. Natasha's gun is already in her belt, though her hand still hovers above it. Thor's eyes are wide, filled with a guarded hope, for it is too much to hope for, too much to believe. And yet, it could just be possible. It is possible.

"Join me or stay here," I conclude. "The choice…" I hold out the Tesseract. "Is yours."

There is a beat of silence. For a second, no one in the room moves.

And then Clint Barton snorts, sweeps his bow off the ground, and throws it over his shoulder. "Well it took you long enough."

He strides towards me, and, without even the barest second of hesitation, wraps his hand around the Tesseract's handle. There is another moment of pure silence before he turns back to his partner. "You coming, Nat?"

Romanoff studies him with narrowed eyes, scanning him, trying to find what has convinced him. Her eyes flick over to me briefly. And then she steps forwards and wraps her hand around the Tesseract.

Banner and Thor exchange a look. The two of them step forwards together. My heart is already in tatters, but now it does something odd; it… twists. Wrenches itself into a knot and jams itself up in my throat. I had not expected any of the Avengers to step forwards. And now Rogers and Stark are following without comment, without a word, after Banner and my brother.

"What the hell," Stark says with a shrug that I can hear in the joints of his armor. "Not like everyone else in this group isn't drop-dead insane, anyway."

I do not react to that. Clint looks to me. "You know where we're going?"

I nod once. Thor's hand wraps around the handle that I hold. He says nothing to me, and does not even look towards me. There is no one around who meets my eye, save for Barton.

"Fraye will not release her easily," I warn. "She intends to fight."

"So do we," Steve answers, in a voice of leadership that sings throughout the air. It is a trait he has, this innate ability to lead, so that everyone else will follow. It is a trait my brother shares. It is a trait that I do not.

But I no longer care.

I twist the handle of the Tesseract's casing; the world fades and flashes and crackles in blue, brilliant and shining, the universe twisting about…

We land in ash. In darkness. I can see the prison that Fraye showed me, the place where I know, where I am certain, that Natalie is being kept.

And between me and that prison stands Fraye.

She sighs deeply. The shadows are crowded around her, wraiths of black mist that swirl out of her fingertips and bleed out of her hair. And then she shakes her head and smiles hugely.

"Too bad," She says with a maniacal grin. "I was half hoping you'd change your mind." She shrugs. "Guess I'll have to start all over again."

She spreads her hands out at her sides; and suddenly the world explodes into darkness. Shadows of a thousand shapes-Hounds, crows, empty wraiths- flare out on either side of her, building and restructuring, spreading across the land like a plague. The shadow sickness flows out in the form of darkness, shapes and non-shapes building, until there is an army, an army of shadows, between the Avengers, myself, and Natalie Frost.

For a second, we all stare at the wall of an army before us. I think Stark is the one who accurately summarizes everything. And amazingly, he does so in two words.

"Well…Shit."

Thor's hand falls on my shoulder. "Loki, the Tesseract," he orders. I look to him. In that second, I know precisely what my brother plans; I hand the cube over to him without question. He takes it in both hands and twists it, vanishing from sight.

"Where's he going?" Clint asks, loading his bow, aiming it at the nearest Hound. The army of shadows has yet to move forwards.

"Asgard," I answer. "Or Jotunheim. He is gathering our allies."

"We're going to need them," Romanoff says grimly. She looks to the Captain. "Orders?"

"Kill everything that moves," Rogers answers, tightening the straps of his shield. Fraye is now hovering in the air, the shadows still spilling all around her, pure power flowing out from her fingertips. She is barely looking at us any longer, and her army does not attack without her command. Rogers looks to me. "Find Natalie," he instructs. "Get that link back in your heads, and if she can fight, make sure she does. We're going to need her." He looks towards the building. The distance is not very great; but the foes between myself and that prison certainly are. From the determined look in his eye, I can tell Rogers has ascertained that is her location. "We're going to need everything we can get."

"We'll cover you," Stark promises, taking to the skies. He launches himself upwards, our only current aerial fighter. Thor will return soon; if we can survive long enough for it to matter. Death is now Fraye's ally; Death always has been.

But now that she's made me into her… will her ally waver? Will it become mine?

I advance forward, spear aglow with energy in my hand. I do not believe Stark when he says that the Avengers will 'cover' me. I do not believe that they will bother to do so, not even for her. But it does not matter. Finding Natalie is my priority, regardless of whether or not I am following Rogers' orders. I will find her whether the Avengers protect me or not. And I will cut down anything that gets in my way.

Even Fraye.

No.

Especially Fraye.

(For every scar that you carved into me. For every nightmare. For every sleepless night.)

(For every scar you carved in her. For her every nightmare. For her every sleepless night.)

(For all of these things, I am going to kill you, Fraye Burns)

I advance, walking forwards with a strength and determination that could never be known to the living; only to those who have died. Only to those trying desperately to come back to life. I see Stark above me, repulsors firing, fighting valiantly, like a warrior I've never before seen. I can hear the other's cries as they, too, charge our foes.

And then we clash.

My spear meets the claw of a Hound, driving upwards into its paw. I curl it around its leg, drawing black blood, and cut my way up into its heart. It is not even half a minute into our battle as it falls into nothingness, dissolves into shadow with a keening howl. Fire sparks to life on my hands as a crow drives itself towards my eyes; I set it aflame before it can touch me, before it can come near me.

I hear Rogers still giving orders behind me. Hear, over the howling and low, guttural growls of the hounds, a louder roar and the shedding of a human guise. Banner transforms, his skin darkening, becoming even larger than I remember. He slams into the nearest Hound and tears it in half.

Barton is the closest to me, firing an arrow deep into the heart of a Hound. Electricity crackles around it, and the Hound whimpers and whines, stumbling back. I see a misting, curling tendril of smoking darkness curling back to whip towards him; I lurch in front of it and block with my spear, cutting it across the curl of shadow, blue energy burning across the edge of my weapon and slicing through the shadow with ease. It dissipates, reforming a distance away, as though assessing the situation. Barton gives me a look and nods.

Stark, far above me as I lock tooth-against-spear with yet another Shadow Hound, tries to dive towards Fraye. She waves a dismissive hand that brings a roiling wave of darkness up to intercept him, throwing him off course. I see blood on Romanoff's lip as she sends one of the 'stingers' on her wrist into the throat of a crow, slicing blades across the leg of a Hound moments later. We are overrun and overwhelmed by shadows, but there is determination in all eyes. Not just mine.

I charge forwards through the mass of blackness, the shadows that swarm and struggle to hold me back. I cut them aside or control them myself, but I do not allow them to hold me for long. I struggle and fight and battle, not realizing until I am halfway to my goal that my left arm and shoulder are bleeding. Not realizing that the world is on fire.

But I am not fire.

I am ice.

A thought occurs to me. A magic I have always had. Something that I have so seldom used. The innate power belonging to one species before any others: that of a Frost Giant.

I brace myself as a shadow curls around my ankle… and recedes seconds later, hissing, as though in pain. Frost gleams on its surface, freezing it to its core, and with one strike I shatter the frozen darkness into a thousand pieces.

The ice spreads away from me, coating the ground, coating the darkness. It trickles down my fingertips and forms a weapon; something large, heavy, unwieldy. Almost a knife, almost a mace, but I cannot bring it to a thinner sliver, cannot force it into something more… subtle. I strike out with it, noticing only now that my skin has turned blue once again, that my other form has shown through with this new application of ice…

But that does not matter. Nothing matters. Nothing but Natalie. And if this helps me to save her, then so be it.

The ice chokes and takes hold of the darkness, and, spear in one hand, ice-blade on the other- I cut and stab and thrash my way through the darkness. Barton is on one side, eliminating anything that threatens me in the air, and Rogers is on the other, keeping anything from striking me from behind. I can hear the Hulk, thrashing through an army that tries to overwhelm him. We are utterly surrounded, choked on all sides by the darkness…

"Thor better show up soon," Barton grunts through his teeth, stabbing a crow in the throat with an arrow before firing that same arrow towards a Hound's throat. "Cause we're not going to last much longer."

On that, we can agree. Even with the unexpected assistance of the ice temporarily managing to break apart the shadows, the path to Natalie Frost has only been shortened, not breeched.

I cut down another shadow tendril. The world is lost into the haze of battle, and all I can think, all I can feel, is the next strike, the next blow, every lash of shadow and every cut of magic that brings me just one step closer to my inevitable and unwavering goal.

That brings me one step closer to her.

She is scared. I know that she is scared, because I can feel her heart fluttering behind mine. She must be hearing this battle, so close to her. She must think that it is Fraye, that Fraye is trying to frighten her. She must be waiting for Fraye's fear tactics to end, and for the pain to begin anew.

I won't let that happen to her again.

I am seeing blood and I am painting the world with it as I cut my way through Fraye's army; for Fraye herself is an army, and these are mere extensions of herself. I can feel the Child of Shadow's eyes on my back as I tear her warriors to shreds, but I no longer care, I am no longer afraid, I could never feel fear again…

I am so lost in my every swing, so abandoned into my every strike and block, my attack and defense, that I do not realize where I am until my spear strikes at the stone wall. I stare, looking at the shabby building…

(Natalie)

My breath halts and skips. My heart stutters once, and hers follows along, just the barest shade of life in this echo behind my own heart…

I gaze around. As suspected, this building is so very similar to a prison that Fraye kept me in, all those years ago. Shadow-and-stone walls, some pure rock, some pure shade, and some a twisted blend of the two. As usual, the stone walls are the weakest; I close my eyes, pressing the spear tip against the rock…

A flash of blue energy sends the wall crumbling, shattering, exploding all around me in a cascade of blue flames. I look ahead; the place is larger than expected, and I race inside, away from the war between the shadows, Barton covering behind me and Stark swooping down to cover everything that is above.

"Hurry it up, Frosty!" Stark grunts, gripping the snapping jaws of a Hound on either side and firing his repulsors directly into the thing's skull. "We don't have all day!"

I ignore him. It is difficult to breathe already, without the ash around me infiltrating my lungs, and I couldn't respond if I wished to. There is no air in my lungs to speak with. I know that she is here, as much as I know that the shadows are beside me, as much as I know that I am inside of my own skin… more so, perhaps. She is here, she is just inside, somewhere…

I race through the tunnel of a room, not knowing where it will end until suddenly, it does. There is nothing ahead but two doors; one is open, the room empty, and inside is a bed and a tray of food. My throat goes dry. I recognize Fraye's pattern in this; recognize the room that she kept me in when she was doing other things, when she was bored of me, or waiting for my wounds to heal so that I did not bleed out…

I turn to the other door, knowing what I will find on the other side. The room filled with blood, the room where she would drag me when I was too powerless to fight back… where she has now dragged Natalie… where her sick and twisted games would begin…

I close my eyes. I do not know if I can face whatever is beyond that door, though everything in me is screaming to wrench it open and be certain she is there. Now I will know. Now I will know the truth, I will know everything that has been done to her, once and for all, and I can never forget it, can never forget each and every gash and bruise and burn that I sentenced her to suffer through…

I am frozen in front of the door, eyes still shut. Will she hate me for this? I am all but certain that she will. But if she lives, then I can bear it. Just as she bore my hate for her. Because she'll be alive and I will be whole…

(She will hate me forever. How could she not?)

(Natalie, I am so very sorry…)

A hand falls on my shoulder. I turn to see its owner. The shadows have retreated from this hallway, held back by the roar of the battle outside. Barton meets my eyes steadily.

"She needs you," is all he says. It is all he needs to say.

I nod once. Carefully, taking a deep breath, I turn back to the door. One more charge of blue energy shatters the wood into nothingness, throwing it inside, where it clatters and crashes in a cacophony of sound.

But even above that explosive noise, I hear the high-pitched, frightened cry.

I tear into the room. It is entirely dark, pitch-black, save for the object at its far end. I freeze once again as I catch sight of the golden glow, a faint and trembling light at the farthest end of the room. Her glow. Natalie's glow.

For a moment, I am not me. For a moment, I am watching my life unfold before me as though it is the events in a story, some terrible and twisted fairytale. For a moment, it is someone else, not Natalie Frost, not my other half, that I see in that room, strapped to that chair. It may be her face and her brown hair and her glow but those wounds, those injuries, and that fear do not belong on that face, and so it cannot possibly be her…

As I swallow tightly, and as she tentatively, warily opens her eyes to peer at me through the darkness, I become myself again. And she becomes Natalie Frost again. And all of these things… they are things that I have done.

In all, at first glance, it is not as terrible as my dreams have led me to believe; nor as past experience has made me imagine. But it is still… horrific. There are bruises on her neck and jaw. Her left eye is swollen and black. A cut oozes dark red into her hairline, up by her forehead, and there is a twisted pattern of half-healed shadow gashes on her shoulder. She wears long but battered shorts and a t-shirt that likely covers other wounds, but they show enough; show me her legs, the right of which has a line of horizontal cuts in ladder rungs by her ankle. They show her forearm; her wrist is strapped to the chair she sits on (as is her other wrist and both of her ankles) and so I cannot see a majority of the injuries that are on the inside of her forearm, but I can tell from the amount of blood and the creeping shadow infection that this is quite possibly the worst of it. I take this all in quickly, silently, in utter horror.

(What have I done to you?)

As I stand there, she peers up at me, cowering in on herself. I know that she expects Fraye. That she expects nothing but more pain. Her eyes land instead on me.

I can see her breath catching in her throat, as mine has. I can see her eyes widening in pure shock. After months (it must have been at least four by now) of being subjected to such terrors, of having nothing but the silence in her head where I once was and pain everywhere else, to see me standing before her…

It is a moment filled with tension, with horror, with agony, with… with everything. I take half a step towards her, wishing to explain myself, wishing to apologize, wishing to say something, say anything to her… but none of my words can make the past disappear, none of my words can erase the scars she will forever bear, can ease the pain she must feel…

Should I try, regardless? I swallow, but realize that my mouth and throat are both too dry to speak. Natalie still watches me with a stunned expression. There is nothing but the shock, the surprise. No hate, no joy, no anger, no fear.

It has only been a few seconds since I first laid eyes on her. But it feels as though a thousand lifetimes have passed. What can I say? What could I ever tell her?

(How can I tell you that I love you, when it is I who has done this to you?)

My eyes meet hers. They are still that perfect, perfect shade of brown, so deep, so dark, having seen every horror the world has to offer but staring resolutely back, staring defiantly back. I try to speak again, to open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

In fact, it is she who speaks first, and only in a breath; a cracked, dry, pained breath that shows no emotion; only disuse. "Loki…" She whispers, as though trying to make sense of my name with the face before her. I try to place all of my apologies in my eyes, try to say everything while I can say nothing at all…

But before I can even do so, the corner of her lip begins to rise upwards. And then it spreads, the smile taking over her entire face, lighting her dead eyes as a disbelieving, ecstatic laugh slips out from her lungs. She laughs again, and then her mouth closes, but she still smiles, she is seeing the face of the man who sentenced her to this and she smiles…

Tears start to stream down her cheeks. They cut paths out of the blood and grime on her face. And then, still grinning as though there is no tomorrow, she demands in a shout, "And where the hell have you been?!"

A/N: …I couldn't be evil forever, now, could I?

Bonus points to anyone who guessed who the child ghost Loki saw really was. ;)