"I need to get out of here," Loki mumbled, his eyes wild, his face grey.
He stumbled backwards into the keep.
Sif raised her shotgun, but before she could pull the trigger the metal of the barrel suddenly glowed red-hot and bent downwards as the metal melted.
"You will not hurt him," I said simply, ice shards circling one hand, a ball of fire floating above the other.
"Stand down Sif," Thor rumbled at the same time. "She's more dangerous than she looks."
Sif angrily eyed me for a moment, her hand on the sword that was sheathed and attached to her belt.
I met her stare without blinking. I wasn't going to let her hurt Loki, no matter who she was or what she was suggesting about him.
I hoped I seemed as calm and collected as my voice had sounded because on the inside my thoughts were racing.
What had Sif meant by "I've been hunting your kind down for quite some time now. Which Loki are you?" I kept asking myself.
Loki was too distressed by her arrival and her words for me to believe he had no idea what she was talking about, this was about more than whatever bad blood there was between Sif and him.
Sif finally nodded. "You owe me a new shotgun," was all she said.
"Stay out here for now, please," I asked Thor. "I need to go and sort this out, I need to talk to Loki."

I locked the doors to the hold behind me. I felt bad about leaving Thor out there in the cold and the snow, but I didn't trust Sif and I didn't want a vengeful sister-in-law to destroy our new home with a rocket launcher.
Loki hadn't gone far. He was sitting in the hallway, back against the wall, clutching his chest, his breathing shallow and erratic.
"I think I'm having a heart attack," his eyes looked wild and scared as they met mine.
I already had a globe of blood in hand and I embraced my blood magic.
It was as I had suspected. "No, you're not, I reassured him. "You're having a panic attack."
I kept my voice calm and matter-of-fact, even though I was worried. I had never seen him this way before.
"Look at, me, just look at me. Breathe in through your nose, and out, slowly through your mouth."
I could see it wasn't helping, he was too focussed on whatever had triggered the attack in the first place.
I kneeled in front of him and took his face in my hands. "Listen to me. Start counting backwards, from 8476 in increments of prime numbers. So minus 1, then 3, then 5, then 7, and so on."
"What?" He asked breathlessly, eying me incredulously.
"Trust me, just do it," I said.
"8475, 8472, 8467, 8460, 8449…" Loki's voice and breathing became steadier as he counted, and I ran into the kitchen to get him a glass of water. He was still counting when I came back, colour slowly returning to his cheeks. He gratefully accepted the glass as I sat down next to him.
"That worked," Loki admitted with a sigh. "Why did you make me count backwards?" he asked curiously.
"Jess gets panic attacks sometimes, and I learned that counting backwards helps to keep her mind occupied instead of focussing on whatever triggered her. It stops the brain from spiralling further."
"Why in increments of the prime numbers?"
"Because you are too smart, just counting backwards wouldn't be enough to keep your brilliant mind occupied, I had to add a bit of a challenge," I smiled.
Loki smiled back as he drank from the glass of water.
"I really wish that was something stronger right now."
"I can make you tea," I offered, knowing very well that wasn't what he meant.
"No, just stay here for a while, please."
We sat together in silence. I didn't want to push him, he would talk when he was ready.

"I never meant for you to find out this way." He finally said. "I had hoped I would have a little bit longer, just a little bit more time for us to be happy."
"Find out what, Loki?" I still had no idea what was going on, what he was referring to.
His eyes met mine, sad and tired and old.
"Before the past caught up with me and you'd finally know the truth about me, would finally understand just how much of a failure I am, how unworthy of you I truly am."
He fell silent again.
"I can't help you if you don't tell me what is happening," I pressed him gently.
Loki rubbed his eyes and ran his hand through his hair.
"I had hoped you would never have to know," he said softly.
"I can go outside and get the story from Sif, but I can't help but feel she doesn't know everything. I'd much rather hear your side first and get the whole truth."
"The truth? What makes you think you'll get the truth from me?"
"I know you," I said simply.
"You don't know me. You don't know me at all." Loki said bitterly.
"Then tell me, trust me. Like you have before.
I've stood by you so far, I won't leave you now."
"I wouldn't blame you if you did after this."
I wrapped an arm around his shoulder and pulled him closer.
"That isn't going to happen. Tell me what I need to know, so I can help."
Loki leaned against me for a moment, then sat up again. His eyes didn't meet mine, he stared off in the distance instead.

"After that ill-fated day where I found out about my true parentage and tried to kill my brother, essentially burning my bridges behind me, I fled Asgard and eventually ended up in Midgard.
I wandered around Europe for a while, but I didn't think much of what I saw of humanity. Plagued by famine, disease and war, your ancestors rather put their faith in their Christian Church than turn to the older and more reliable ways of magic or the newer ways of science. The Templars were still firmly under the control of the church, and the sordid business of keeping everything in the Secret World a secret from common folk was already in full swing.
It quickly became clear to me that humanity did not hold the answer to achieving my ambitions.
There were others though, older and far more dangerous, that dwell in this realm. They hold the secret to magics darker and more dangerous than my education in Asgard had ever prepared me for. I ingratiated myself with them, thinking I could learn what I needed and then betray them and leave when I had learned what I needed to know.
I was young, arrogant, and in hindsight, rather foolish. I was a prince raised amongst gods, a sorcerer the likes the realms had rarely seen!
What could possibly hurt me?"
Loki sighed, his brows drawn together in a frown.
"Under their tutelage, I learned forbidden magics, dark and evil beyond even my imagination. And when the time came, I betrayed them and ran.
The first time I did that, they let me run. They let me find a place and settle down, they let me think I had bested them. Only to be dragged back when I least expected it.
Only then did I truly learn the price I was to pay for the privilege of standing in their shadow."
Loki's hands trembled, and he started dry washing them, as he so often did when he was nervous or upset. His eyes met mine, shimmering with tears and pain.
"They tortured me.
Debased and degraded me.
They brutalised me.
Until I begged for mercy. Until I realised exactly how weak, powerless and useless I truly was.
Until there was nothing left of me.
And when they had well and truly broken me, they built me back up in the full understanding that I was their creature from then on. Their pet god.
They did things to me, Sorcha, terrible things. And they made me do things to others, things that give me nightmares to this day. Things I couldn't begin to tell you about because I never want to relive that again."
"Who did this to you? Who were they?" my voice was husky and deep, trembling despite my effort to try and control myself. Tears burned hotly in my eyes. "Where do I find them?"
Loki sighed and shook his head, a wry smile brightening his tear-filled eyes for a moment.
"You are the only person in the realms who is told of beings so powerful they frighten even a god and replies with 'Let me at them!'.
I will never tell you how to find them, I love you too much for that."
I shook my head in return. "We'll take others, we'll take Thor! We'll take Cedric and our other friends, we'll…"
"No," Loki interrupted me. "We will not. There aren't many things I'm able to protect you from, but this is something I will take with me to my grave if I can.
I could not bear to watch you fall into their clutches, to watch you be broken. To be forced to be the one to break you the way they broke me."
I had never seen him so serious before. He meant every word he said. I took his hands into mine.
"I can't stand the thought of someone hurting you like that," I said, annoyed at the way my voice broke.
"I know. You'll have to learn to live with it, darling. I have."
Loki pulled me close and held me tight, comforting me as I cried over what was done to him.
After a while, I angrily wiped away my tears. I hated my own weakness, I should be the one to comfort him instead.

"I don't understand how any of that relates to what Sif was talking about," I confessed. "I take it those aren't the people she was talking about when she said she was hunting down your kind, and I don't think she was talking about Frost Giants either."
"She was not," Loki admitted, and continued his story.
"After a few decades, I managed to escape my new masters and fled to Asgard. I begged to be let home, tried to convince Mother and Father I had changed. They were hesitant, but I was allowed to return.
And changed I had.
I was angry and bitter, filled with jealousy and resentment. All my positive emotions had been burned away by the searing pain that had been inflicted upon me.
I plotted and schemed, failed at everything I set my hand to, my mind in too much turmoil to properly execute my own plans. Eventually, Father cast me out.
Thus a song and dance started that lasted for centuries. On Midgard, my masters would await, quick to find me and never hesitant to show me my true place.
And in Asgard I was regarded with suspicion and mistrust, never truly belonging, always an outcast.
It lasted until that cursed day I led the Fire Giants into Asgard, Mother died, and I was banished for good. "
Loki lifted up the glass I had brought him with shaking hands more out of habit than thirst, only to realise it was empty.
He smiled a humourless smile.
"It was then that my drinking problem truly started.
I had always enjoyed a drink, but it was different in the past. Now I drank to forget, drank until I passed out, drank until I didn't have to remember how weak and broken and without any true autonomy over my life I was.
You wouldn't have recognised me then.
I was gaunt and frail, a complete and utter mess both on the outside and within. I had nowhere left to run, nowhere left to hide.
There was no one who would help me, no one who would stand by my side.
I was alone."

"You aren't alone anymore."
It wasn't enough. It wasn't anywhere near enough. But it was all I had to offer. "I wish I had been there for you back then."
A flicker of a smile appeared on Loki's face.
"You weren't even born. But yes, perhaps if I had found you then things would have worked out differently. Or perhaps, and more likely, I would have simply dragged you down with me.
No, it wasn't someone like you who approached me, but Halja. Hel's daughter.
Our paths had crossed before and we shared a bond between us, both of us knowing what it was like to hate a controlling parent and yet always find ourselves seeking their approval.
She took me to her home and dried me out. After some rest, food and having achieved a modicum of sobriety, I was made an offer: my soul for a way out."
"Loki, surely you didn't…"
"Oh yes, but I did. What use was my soul to me? Tarnished and tainted as it was, I was certain I would have ended up in Niflheim no matter what.
I might as well get something in return for the suffering that would await me there.
The only way I would be able to escape my masters permanently was in death, and they wouldn't be convinced by anything but my dead body in their hands.
Do you know what a phylactery is?" Loki asked.
"It's a jar, urn or casket, used by powerful undead to store their soul.
It prevents their soul from moving on from the material plane after their death.
If you kill a lich, it simply materialises its physical form besides it. You can't destroy it unless you destroy its phylactery too." I answered promptly.
"Please tell me you know this because you are one of the realms' most powerful sorcerers, and not from Dungeons and Dragons or video games," Loki practically begged with a pained expression on his face.
"I know this because I am one of the realms' most powerful sorcerers, and not from Dungeons and Dragons or video games," I lied obediently.
Loki held his head in his hands and sighed. "Norns grant me patience," he muttered.
"But why would Hel help you make a phylactery when she wanted your soul?
And you aren't undead." I pointed out.
"Hel is patient, she is practically eternal, and she is a collector. She could wait until later.
For that moment, the certainty of acquiring the soul of the last living Jotunn was enough.
And you are right, I am not undead. The thought of becoming a desiccated walking corpse did not please me at all, I would miss the various pleasures of the flesh like food, drink and sex too much.
Do you remember the homunculi that were running around Innsmouth Academy?"
"The familiars?" I asked. Loki nodded. I remembered them, pink, lumpy, screaming monstrosities that were only vaguely humanoid. I wrinkled my nose.
"That's what you get when you have a brand new student attempting to create an artificial life form. I wasn't a brand new student, I had learned from those who were the best at creating various monsters and unlife.
Instead of an urn or casket, Halja and I created an artificial life form through the darkest and most evil kinds of magic.
Flesh from my flesh. Blood from my blood."
"You made a magical clone of yourself," I whispered.
"Oh yes. The result was such an exact replica you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. As a matter of fact, you haven't been able to tell."
"What?"
"My apologies, I'm getting ahead of myself." Loki dodged my question with a wry smile.
"The idea was that instead of tying my soul to a repository and having my undead body appear beside me, I would tie my soul to the homunculi, leave my own body behind and inhabit the replica instead."
"Can that even be done? I've never heard of anything like that before," I said softly.
I could only imagine the dark depths Loki must have ventured into to gain this knowledge. I had always known he was powerful, and he had done some terrible things, but I could have never even imagined he had gone this far.
"It had never been done before, and I wasn't sure if I could do it, but I felt I had no alternative. I needed to get out from under my masters' command. I couldn't spend the rest of my life as someone else's pet god, obeying their every command, running at their beck and call. I'd rather die than keep living like that."
Loki started dry washing his hands again, more and more frantic, and I took one of his hands in mine.
"The creation was more excruciatingly painful than anything I had ever been through and more than once I wanted to it stop, but once the formation had started it was impossible to halt.
In the end, it was successful. We created a living, breathing replica with my soul tethered to it.
I started making public appearances, making sure my masters would be able to find me and not before long I was dragged back into their presence.
I was tortured back into submission as I knew I would and I pretended to break before I was truly broken.
I had been through the process often enough to know how to fake it," Loki said bitterly.
I looked down, not wanting him to see the pity in my eyes. Loki had done a lot of bad things in his life, but surely he hadn't deserved this?
He must have felt so lost and alone to resort to such desperate measures.
"Once they were convinced I was a good little puppet again, I got a bit more freedom and promptly used that to ingest a poisonous substance, in essence killing myself.
The idea was that my lifeless corpse would stay behind as proof that I was truly dead, while my soul possessed the new body we created.
That, however, didn't happen as planned," Loki said softly, fidgeting with a loose string on the sleeve of his t-shirt.
"What happened?" I asked after a few moments of silence.
"I didn't die." Loki's voice was small and far away.
"But I must have been clinically dead for at least a while because my masters were convinced I had. After desecrating my corpse to make sure I was truly dead they dumped my body.
When I awoke it felt like there wasn't a bone in my body that hadn't been broken, and I was bleeding from multiple wounds.
I lay there for a long time, unable to move, while my body slowly began to heal itself."
"Oh, Loki…" a whisper was all I could manage. Loki's eyes didn't meet mine.
"Eventually I healed enough to crawl, and then to stumble, and I made my way to my Place of Power, a safe place where I could rest and regenerate.
A process that should have taken centuries.
I never got that luxury."

Loki was silent for a while, struggling to tell what came next.
"Whatever happened, I love you, and I won't stop loving you," I promised.
"Don't make that promise, you might regret it," Loki warned, looking miserable.
"I need to know what happened," I said again, "and I'd rather hear it from you."
I could see Loki struggle with himself for a moment. He sat up a bit, pulling his hand out of mine.
He steeled himself, and then his blue eyes pierced into mine.
"I was rather roughly awoken, less than a century later, in August of 2018. My hands and feet tied, a dagger on my throat."

August 2018. I had defeated him in November the year before that. If he was sleeping in a restorative slumber, how could that have happened?
"What? How?"
My hand flew to my throat, I felt as if I couldn't breathe. Loki eyed me almost defiantly, waiting for me to figure it out.
"I… I never fought you, didn't I? It wasn't you, on Solomon Island…"
My voice sounded strange and far away, my vision was narrow and I could hear my blood rushing in my ears.
"No, it wasn't. I slept right through that," Loki admitted.
"But how…"
"Being clinically dead must have been enough to trigger the spell. My soul left my body and inhabited the body that awaited it, giving consciousness to what before hadn't truly been alive.
He calls himself Beaumont now, but in every way, he is the true Loki.
Me? I am merely the soulless broken husk that was left behind."