Chapter Text
No, Loki.
He’d stared up at his father as he said those words.
No, not his father.
Never his father.
As Odin said those words, he’d realized he was right. It didn’t matter. Nothing he did was going to change the fact that he was a frost giant. Not wiping them out, not being more powerful than Thor, not being the perfect prince, and certainly, not being a king. Nothing. No matter how hard he tried to escape it, he was always going to be a monster. It didn’t matter whether he fell or not because he was always going to be what he was, so why not fall? isn’t that how this story ends? The beast is slain and the heroes rejoice. At that moment, he let go. He did not know what would happen next. He did not care. The void, cold and dark, swallowed him whole.
Loki fell for an awfully long time. He could not breathe. He could not cry nor scream. He wasn’t sure if he was dead or alive.
He woke up surrounded by trash. A fitting metaphor, he’d thought. He spends an hour laughing maniacally until a crazy woman glues a disc to his neck and shocks him unconscious. When he wakes up, he’s strapped to a chair. Loki has woken up strapped to the chair in the past, but the heavy metal clasp attached to his wrist and legs made him think that such a warm welcome was unlikely. He was zipped to a being known as The Grandmaster. Loki didn’t care. The Grandmaster had asked him if he was a fighter. He did not respond. He asked if he was a lover. He did not respond. He asked if he wanted to be melted. He’d laughed at that. It matters not whether I live or die, nothing I do matters. The Grandmaster had laughed at that. The woman next to him had shocked him. That made Loki laugh even harder. The Grandmaster had released him and moved him to a room dressed in yellow and purple. The yellow reminded him of Frigga. It made his heart ache until he remembered that it didn’t matter, nothing did.
The following weeks were a blur. His swirly attitude somehow wins him the grandmaster’s favor. He allows the being to feed him, clothe him, and even show him off like a prized treasure (something that seems off considering how many others he showers with similar attention). Loki can’t really find it in him to be mad at the attention. It’s nice. it’s on one of these nights that the party turns into an orgy. He’d been to several of the Grandmaster’s orgies before and had always refused to participate. However, being on Sakaar, Loki had found out that pleasure, no matter how fleeting, made forgetting easy. It made forgetting his brother’s angry face, his mother’s terror, and his father's disappointment, easy. Why shouldn’t he indulge? He finds an interesting-looking alien to distract himself with. He starts to take him. but he can’t stop staring at The Grandmaster. Watch him take the top off the curvy woman in his lap. The Grandmaster can’t either. No sooner than the man underneath him takes his cock into his mouth. Arms swaddled in gold pull him back and fucks him instead. Fucks him until he’s barely legible. When he wakes up, he’s in a new room, colored a mix of turquoise and gold. A mix of their colors.
It’s around this time that he figures out why he’s called The Grandmaster. He’s very good at games. The game they start to play is very dangerous. The wrong move could have him melted like many of The Grandmaster's pets. Of course, that shouldn’t be a problem. The man is easy to please. He shows up when asked, smiles at the right jokes, and asks for all the right things. if a part of him enjoys the being’s company, warms at his presence, it’s not hard to push it down. He just reminds himself he’s just playing along to get power and status, to keep himself safe and happy (as happy as he could be). Though occasionally, a voice, one he’d thought died when he fell from the Bifrost, whispers to him, he could be happier if he ruled. The traitorous part of his mind, harder to kill than a cockroach, schemes for it. it never gets far. For there’s another voice, one that whispers ‘no, Loki.’ Reminds him there is no other place for a monster than on Sakaar. He stays, and he continues to play The Grandmaster’s game.
Loki cheats. Of course, he does. He’d been on Sakaar for almost a decade. In that amount of time, he found that the things that made him odd or wrong on Asgard were appreciated, even celebrated here. if not by the Sakaarians, then definitely by En Dwi (he’d whispered to him his real name one of the nights they’d laid together). He likes when Loki cheats. The cleverer, the more delight he seemed to take in it. He liked when Loki played pranks on Sakaar’s elites. Especially one that ended with public executions. He even likes when Loki turns blue, showing his red eyes and heritage lines. En Dwi could be blue too. It’s then that he realizes that En Dwi is very powerful, and very clever despite his outward appearance. I don’t have to be clever on Sakaar, he whispers into Loki's ear while he pours a drink down his throat. He’s wrong. There’s a coup. The challengers are poised to succeed, to kill En Dwi. Loki helps. He leads them to a trap. He helps En Dwi. He cheats and he lies, and En Dwi looks at him like he made the stars shine. It makes his heart hurt.
En Dwi fucks him all night, after. Whispers to his promise of being a king or a queen, a consort, whatever he wanted, and he finds that he doesn’t want any of it. He was done with titles and conquest. But there was something he wanted. Of course, he lied and told En Dwi that he required nothing. That was his role after all. En Dwi hadn’t believed him. He was a smart man despite recent lapses in judgment. He edges him for hours until Loki, delirious with desire, tells him the truth. it was then as he reached climax, his mind lost all reason and he’d answered his question honestly.
You, he’d said.
En Dwi had smiled and told him he could have it. the next day he was moved into his room. En Dwi split his title with him, even though he hadn’t asked. At that moment, he had a strange warming feeling in his stomach. It was nice. he tucked it into the back of his mind to keep. After all, he was a frost giant, and this could not last… except, maybe it could. He’d been on Sakaar for almost a century now. There were no secrets between the two of them. All of the things that had made him a monster on Asgard, in the nine, were just another list of reasons En Dwi loved him.
One day, En Dwi made the strangest suggestion.
A child would be nice, he had said.
Loki had shrugged. She’d never thought about it. Still, didn’t, so she pushed the strange sentiment to the back of her mind. En did not. At first, it was subtle clues about having a child. As the years went on, it became full-on asking, and later, at Loki’s continued refusal, begging. After years of begging, she’d finally agreed. She would give him one child, and that was all. She’d told herself the child would guarantee her safety on Sakaar, because En Dwi could get bored of her, then what? The child would be good for them. The worst part had been being pregnant. Loki resented anything that made her feel trapped, and while she was pregnant, she could not shift as much as she liked to. Regardless, she gave birth to the child. The birth was painless and easy. If Sakaar was good for anything, it was for dulling the pain.
When the child was born, she did not think she would care for her much. After all, she told herself, the child was an arrangement made for security, not love. The baby, a girl, looked like the carbon copy of En Dwi with stark white hair and pale blue skin (if there were tiny ridges etched on her, he pretended not to notice). Her tiny fingers had reached for him, but he felt no need to reach back. Then, she opened her eyes. Loki saw himself in the way her large blue eyes had stared around the room with an expression so curious it should be impossible for a child so small to make. She’d stared at him, seemingly looking over her face before closing her eyes and going to sleep. She did not cry. It was at that moment that he felt something in his chest stir. The same feeling he’d gotten after En had split his title with him. It was a nice feeling. He tucked it into the back of his mind. It hadn’t been too hard to convince En Dwi to let him name her. Freyja, after his mother.
The second child had been a gift to him. He’d been asking En Dwi for another for a while. He wanted a child to be his. For no matter how much he loved Freyja, En Dwi had chosen her to be his heir. The way she stood by his side, hair brushed back, and hands crossed. So similar to how he had stood so many years ago. She was his heir before she was his daughter, so he’d asked En Dwi for another. Loki thought it only fair that he should have a child for himself. Eventually, En Dwi agreed, but only if he carried her as well. She agreed. Her second pregnancy went horribly. Everything with the second child had seemed more than it had been before. She had less impulse control, seemed moodier, and angered easily. She’d spent many nights fearful that En Dwi would melt her, despite his reassurances he would not. She hadn't felt so helpless, controlled by her emotions and fears, since she was a child. (And then later on the bifrost.) Giving birth had been a relief.
Looking down at her second daughter had been as strange. She’d given birth to herself. Bright green eyes, and curly black hair. Unlike Freyja, this one cried. A lot. The only time she stopped is when she looked at him. Her tiny green eyes frozen on his own. It was as if she felt the same strangeness that came with staring at oneself in a different form. Then she looked away and began to screech again. Loka, he had decided to name her.
The third, again, was a gift to En Dwi (or maybe an experiment?) He didn’t really know. En Dwi had asked him for another child, and after Loka’s birth and unruly first years of life, he told him no. He didn’t think he could survive a third pregnancy in mind or spirit. When En Dwi asked him to let him carry their child, he’d agreed. He’d fallen victim to his own curiosity, eager to see what her pregnancy would be like. He’d never been given the luxury of acting as the father of their children. He thought it would be easier than being pregnant. It was not. En Dwi was always a little unstable, she was even worse while pregnant. Loki had to put down several attempted rebellions in the months that followed. Even Loki, sure of his position, was unnerved by her random fits. He (all of Sakaar, really) was grateful when she’d finally given birth. He only thought it fair to let her name the child she’d carried.
Edwyn, she’d said.
He thought it was a horrible name, but En Dwi had looked down at the child after saying it with such finality, that he knew it wasn’t up to debate. Holding Edwyn was a strange affair. With Freyja and Loka, it was obvious who they belonged to. This one, Edwyn, was different. He knew as soon as the cooing baby in his arms laughed who he belonged. This one would be shared between the two of them. This was his family. En Dwi was his. As was Freyja, Loka, and Edwyn now. these were his children, and this was his family. Sakaar was his home. The thought creates a strange clarity that shouldn’t shock Loki as it does. Edwyn laughs in his arms, seemingly thrilled to see him. He should panic, and feel sick at his rouse becoming irreversible. Yet, he can’t. There are worse families to have- the cold of the shadows he'd learned to live in. There are worse places to live- golden palaces with dark corridors, hiding horrors underneath. He hugs the child close.