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There is no such thing as a true story.
This is not a true story, but that the story exists is true.
There once was a mirror, fused by evil intent, that distorted the good and the pure in the world – if it bothered to reflect these things at all – and greatly magnified all that was flawed and hurtful. The devil (or demons, or trolls, for that matter) attempted to bring the mirror to Heaven and make a mockery of the angels, but, in carrying it ever higher, the mirror shattered into powder, each sliver as small as a grain of sand. These rained down upon the world and caught in the eyes and hearts of the people living there, freezing their hearts and distorting their vision so that they no longer saw the good and the pure, but lived every day with the darkest and the worst of the world.
Depression is a terrible thing to bear.
Rage, too, is distortion.
There once was a mirror, fused by evil intent, that distorted the good and the pure in the world – if he bothered to reflect these things at all – and greatly magnified all that was flawed and hurtful. This devil (or demon, or trickster, whatever) attempted to bring Hell to earth and make a mockery of the gods, but, in flinging shards of glass, each sliver as small as a grain of sand, distorting truth and magnifying flaws, he only cemented his position as little more than a reflection. This mattered not at all, he thought, as long as the powder fell into enough hearts, enough eyes, and into those of one in particular…
We might even live in the same building. You sound like a perfect neighbour.
Verity sat, knees drawn up, hands pressed to her ears although she knew it would do no good. She could block her ears or not, it didn’t mean a damned thing. There was nothing to hear. The building sat, eerily quiet, without even the sound of traffic to break up the atmosphere.
It astounded her, this lack of noise, in New York of all places, and yet she bit her lip and pressed her hands to her ears and repeated her mantra
I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t…
over and over again.
Willing the screaming to stop.
Not a sound filled the building. Not the merest peep filtered in from the hallways or down from the top floor that had so mysteriously become a part of her home. Not a shred of noise broke the almost perfect silence, but Verity heard it anyway.
Even the silence lied to her.
I can’t. Oh, God. I can’t, she thought. I can’t handle this.
But if not her, then who? Who else would know? Who else would hear?
It was all true, she thought, but she couldn’t fool herself. A piece of truth, without context, was not the whole truth and could not be termed the only truth.
And what will I do? she thought, and then realized it didn’t matter. What she did didn’t matter, all that mattered was the doing.
She made it as far as the hallway before the explosion shook the building and the real screaming started.
There once was a mirror who reflected all she saw and all she saw was truth.
People don’t like the truth very much.
There are reasons for this, of course. Utter truthfulness is not always kind and not always purposeful and so people lie and say they’re fine because, really, what can the idle person making conversation with them do about it? They say that dress is pretty, even when they dislike it, because the wearer likes it, and what’s the harm in having them feel better about themselves for a while? At the very least, it will get the complimenter out of having to explain just why they dislike it and save everyone some trouble and a slightly less positive day. They say they want to go places they don’t, or they like things they don’t, or they do things they don’t (or don’t do things they do), all in the name of keeping the peace.
When many people live close together, keeping the peace is essential, so they told the mirror to distort her vision.
But she could not.
Then they told her, at the very least, to cover herself up and not reflect what she saw.
But she could not.
So she withdrew and remained alone, reflecting only the truth, which was emptiness.
There once was a mirror who reflected all he saw and all that he saw were stories.
And there were fine stories, and not so fine stories, scary stories, and happy ones. Sometimes he told stories of things that he’d seen that got people angry for, though they reflected events that had happened, they were not entirely truthful.
This should not have been surprising, for there is no such thing as a true story. Stories have cadence and rhythm and structure, and facts must fit to conform.
People don’t like this, especially when the story is theirs, for they are not always cast in a good light, and this can cause embarrassment. So they told the mirror to distort his vision – more so because it was such an alien vision – but he could not. Stories are everywhere, and even when they are not truth, they carry within them a grain of truth.
He told them this, and they called him a tale-teller.
He told them this was natural, and they called him a liar.
They told him lying was bad and he was bad to lie. They told him until the mirror was ground to dust, to slivers as small as grains of sand to distort the vision of his eyes and freeze his failing heart.
And so, he lit a match.
The entire top floor was gone.
The building remained intact, apart from some surface damage on the outside, but the entire top floor lay exposed as though a bomb had gone off, blasting the roof into the stratosphere and peeling the walls away like a plate of Jiffy Pop.
Verity stumbled backward into the street, craning her neck to take it all in. She didn’t worry about traffic – the cars had all come to a screeching halt in the wake of the explosion, their drivers shambling around, stunned and disoriented.
“Ain’t nothin’ worth it, man,” one of them mumbled beside her and then, to her horror, picked up half a brick and slammed it against his forehead.
“Oh my God!” Verity cried and grabbed his arm before he could do it a second time. “What are you doing? Stop it!”
“Why?” the man said, calm, accepting. A hint of despair coloured his voice, but nothing more. “Fifteen years in a dead-end job for what? No one gives a fuck how hard you work. No one gives a fuck how much you do. I can barely feed my wife and kid. Fifteen years and you can’t move up and you can’t shift out. What the fuck’s the point?”
“I don’t know,” Verity admitted. “But smashing your own head in isn’t going to help your family…”
“Aw, fuck off, lady,” the man said and wrenched his arm away. But he dropped the brick as he did so and wandered aimlessly down the road.
Verity swallowed hard and hugged herself. Around her, the screaming subsided, giving way to moans of despair and shouts of anger.
“Why bother?”
“Why even try?”
“You never loved me! All you wanted was my money!”
“I hate you! I hate you! I bend over backwards to make you happy and all you give me is shit!”
“It doesn’t matter what I do—“
“Is that all I am to you?”
What was the point? Verity thought. Something needed to be done and part of her felt she should be the one to do it, but why? None of these people loved her. None of these people cared. Even if she helped, all it would take was the realization that they could never lie to her make them turn away. It was always the same. All of her life. She knew when a kind word was mere civility, when a compliment meant “I want to get in your pants.”
She had tried – and how she had tried! – to find someone, anyone, willing to make the effort not to lie to her face. She didn’t expect perfection, she only wanted some sort of acceptance and consideration.
And what did it get her?
People didn’t like the truth. They didn’t want to hear it. They certainly didn’t want to be called out when they botched it. She would never find anyone. Not a spouse, or a lover, or even a friend…
Verity stomped the thought down and spat on it. She had fought such feelings her entire life and she wasn’t about to let a shitty day give them the upper hand. Besides, she had shown them. She had found a friend.
Had.
From somewhere down the street came the sound of shattering glass and the screams and wails began anew.
Verity headed toward the commotion, even as the skies tore open with the blazing colours of a rainbow.
She started to run.
A dust explosion is caused by combustible particles mingling with oxygen and set alight.
Mirrors are typically made of glass.
Glass is generally not combustible.
Coal dust ignition is a serious hazard in the mining sector. A coal seam fire can burn for ages, smouldering and toxic.
In spite of reports of spontaneous human combustion, there is little evidence that the heart can be physically ignited.
The worlds as we know them are inhabited by carbon-based life forms.
Experiments rendering the heart to powder before ignition, each sliver smaller than a grain of sand, are considered prohibitive.
The kings assembled in the place of Harmagedon, each ahead of their army.
The hooves of the repentant thundered in the place of the one who could not hear.
The voices of the despondent raised in wails of anguish.
And Freyja, regent of bright Asgardia, rode ahead, crying: “Go forth, but do no harm!”
And Loki, king of a future earth, grinned and, with a gesture of the hand, said: “Eh… Just fuck ’em up.”
And in the clash of armies, the shining general of Asgardia saw the path of the final confrontation and so, too, the one who stumbled upon it.
The herald of the battlefield rode out.
Verity’s progress slowed despite her best efforts. Glass and debris blocked her path. The focus of the destruction seemed to move further and further away from her, no matter how she hurried, and the people around her fell into madness in waves, like ripples in a pond.
And everywhere, the screaming.
Looters smashed storefronts, removing the goods, not even with looks of satisfaction or greed, but merely grim determination, shouting at those who dared to impeded them, telling them they’d had enough, that they were taking what was theirs, that they’d been shit on for too long, that the entire world would see….
Bruisers bare-knuckled in the streets in a drop-down, drag-out, all-or-nothing fight for dominance. Howling that they were the top contenders. Daring others to try and take their place. First among them so far, a surprisingly petite woman of mixed race, with a length of chain wrapped around her hand and a mastery over centres of balance, screaming that she was worthy of respect, you fuckers, come and get me if you think you’re hard enough…
Weepers and wailers sang a haunting chorus of lost faith, lost hope, lost humanity as they stumbled through the wreckage. The lucky found each other and clung together in clusters of misery, their shared Hell one last shred of hope in a dying world. Someone understood. Even if their lives were worthless, pointless, directionless, someone understood…
The less lucky collapsed in doorways or in gutters, staring into space. Flatliners, bluescreeners, all devoid of thought or emotion. Those few with a shred of thought left to them turned on themselves…
And those who fell into none of these categories ventured away from the blast, back toward the apartment building, single-minded zombies answering a silent call.
Verity ignored it all and pressed onward, dodging, weaving, carefully making her way through the wreckage, thinking herself cold for dismissing the misery around her, knowing there was nothing she could do. Any help she offered now would be for naught; the solution lay at the centre. Find the vector, halt the disease.
And yet, amid this horror, she saw glimmers of hope: an old man wiping the faces of the despondent, offering bottled water; a middle-aged woman shouting down a band of roving toughs, not to threaten, but to calm them, listening to their complaints; a dark skinned woman in a low-cut dress ushering people into the safety of a cafe as she hauled wreckage off the unfortunate; a Hispanic boy, thirteen at best, standing on a street corner, playing a guitar, immune to the violence as every person entering his sphere of influence fell under the soothing sway of his melody…
And through it all… hoofbeats?
“Ho, Verity Willis,” called a woman in silvered armour, reining in her mount even as Verity stumbled to a halt.
“Do I know you?” Verity said. The woman dressed like someone’s Viking fantasy and Verity’s thoughts turned immediately to Asgard.
“No, but Thor has spoken much of you,” the woman said, confirming her suspicions. “Verity, of the red hair and spectacles. I am Sif.”
“Yeah, great,” Verity said, “but that’s not much of a description. How did you know I was me?”
“You are the only one running directly toward the source of conflict,” Sif said, offering a wan smile.
“Okay, I accept that,” Verity said. “But if you know I’m running toward the source, you know I don’t have a lot of time to chat.”
“And so I offer you a ride,” Sif told her, reaching out. “We will travel more swiftly by steed.”
“True enough,” Verity agreed, mindful of the obstacles en route. She reached up to grab the pommel of the saddle and struggled to get her foot into the vacated stirrup. She worried she would fall over backwards, but no sooner had she some leverage, than Sif hauled her up to sit in front and spurred the horse on its way.
Verity yelped and clung to the saddle, but Sif held her steady, even as she held the reins. They all but flew down the road, dodging debris.
“Oh God,” Verity moaned, willing herself not to close her eyes. She knew she had no chance of choosing her landing, should the horse decide to buck, but she preferred to keep that illusion.
“You are doing fine,” Sif said behind her and Verity could hear the sad smile in her voice. “You are a strong woman. You must be, to be the friend of Loki.”
“Not so strong,” Verity said. “Not strong enough.”
“Stronger than most,” Sif replied. “You will do what we cannot. I believe this.”
“You only think you do,” Verity said, “but thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“You will because you must,” Sif said. “The world is ending, Verity Willis. All worlds are ending.”
Verity laughed, a fluttery sound of fear and despair. “And you think I can stop it from happening?”
“No,” Sif told her. “No one can stop it. It is greater than us all, but…”
She paused a moment and Verity could almost feel nostalgia roll off of her in waves.
“But I should not like to face the end of all worlds and not have a single one tell me that everything will be all right.”
Verity smiled bitterly. “Even if it’s a lie?”
“No,” Sif said. “Especially if it’s a lie.”
conflagration
/ˌkɒn.fləˈɡreɪ.ʃən/
noun
1. a large fire; a fire spread out over a wide area that causes much damage
2. a violent event involving a lot of people; a war
Freyja the Radiant stood above New York. The sun was her sword and the moon her shield and stars crowned her, lighting her in silver.
Loki the Serpent, deceiver of the world, stood below, hands ablaze with foul magic, every movement tailed with green fire.
And Freyja, Mother of Kings, looked down upon him with disgust and said:
“Here, then, is the true enemy of Asgard! Let him be thrown down! Let him be dispelled! Let not his foulness taint the earth!”
And Loki, King at the End of Time, looked up at her and said:
“Yeah? Well, I see London, I see France…”
And unleashed upon her a flood of green fire, like unto a river, to consume her and sweep away the remains.
It took a while to find the centre of conflict.
Loki flickered in and out of existence, stepping through a breach in reality here, reappearing further down the line. In his wake, the world trembled. Every jump sent a shockwave down the line, raising fresh wails, fresh screams. Glass shattered, alarms blared, and everything erupted into chaos as people tore down the world around them. Makeshift weapons appeared (but far fewer guns than one would expect, Verity noted), fights started, fires broke out.
New York burned.
“Shall I stay, Verity Willis?” Sif said as the hooves of her steed thundered after the wandering god.
“No, I think I need to do this myself,” Verity told her. She wished very much that she could say otherwise, but this was a case of less is more and – considering what Sif had told her of Asgardia and the things that had happened there – Verity thought the fewer compatriots around, the better.
Even so, she would have given a lot to have Thor at her side. But she could not depend on him, or on Loki’s feelings toward him. She couldn’t even depend on his feelings toward her. Still, there was little for it but to try.
“Very well, then,” Sif said. “I wish you luck. I will return to the others and hold off the ghost of what was and will be.”
Sif dropped Verity off at the edge of the last wave, not wanting to signal her presence, and then turned back the way they had come. Verity watched her go with her heart in her throat and a plea on her lips – please, don’t leave me! – that she sealed with a thought and sheer determination.
And then she pressed on.
It took her a little while to catch up. Loki walked purposefully, if not especially quickly, fading out and then back in at random intervals. As she drew nearer, Verity heard him exhale in a breathy, broken sigh and she realized that he was laughing to himself. Not with the wild abandon of his future self, but with the tight bitterness of unwelcome realization.
He faded out. He faded in. And then Verity was alongside him.
“Loki?” she said.
He rolled his head toward her, offering the least possible acknowledgement. He grinned, a rigid, cold expression that belied the firestorm behind his eyes.
“Verity,” he said, a statement and no more. “What do you want?”
“I wanted to see you,” Verity said. “I wanted to talk.”
“No time to talk. Busy,” he said, looking back down the street. And then, “I’m right, you know. They do it all themselves.”
“What do you mean, Loki?” Verity said. “What are you doing?”
“Telling them the truth. The one they’ve always suspected, but never voiced because, well…”
Loki threw his arms wide and Verity scrambled to get out of the way. To the right of them, a window shattered high above the street, raining glass upon the screamers and the shriekers as fire alarms sounded. To the left of them, cries of terror and pain and the sound of fighting drifted out into the street amid curses and screams.
Loki faded out. He faded in. And Verity ran to catch up.
“I tell them behind the scenes, between the frames, and in the margins,” Loki said. He rolled his head back toward Verity and offered her a parody of a salacious wink. “It’s more efficient that way.”
“In the margins? What do you mean?” Verity said, but Loki turned away. He faded out, he faded in, and she scrambled to catch up. “Loki, please… Please stop and talk to me.”
When he wouldn’t look at her, she grabbed his arm, but he yanked it away and turned on her so abruptly that she nearly fell over in her rush to step back.
“Stop and talk?” Loki said, voice seething, eyes blazing. “Stop and talk? You left me!”
It is said that no one really knows what they look like because the only view they have of themselves is through cameras and mirrors. Cameras distort perspective, flattening it and thereby changing the image of all objects within that space. Mirrors do more. They can simulate depth, all other things being equal, but what they project is in reverse, altered by limitations of the light particles that deliver the image. The results are skewed, imperfect.
The mind is like a mirror, but, instead of a silver backing, what reflects the image is contemplation and experience. Contemplation and experience are skewed because one’s views of one’s self are skewed. This suggests that what is reflected by the mind is either reversed, and thus whole, or distorted beyond all possible comprehension.
Perhaps both.
Freyja stood before the torrent of fire, like unto a river, and felt her spirit drowning.
And her feet were rooted in the earth, and her hands stretched forth to the heavens, and in her ear a ghost from the past
your children love you all your children love you
whispered truth and lies.
“No,” Freyja breathed and she stood her ground against the fire, though it burned her soul, and she resisted the force of the torrent, though it writhed with the scales of the serpent and rent her flesh, and the blood poured down and dyed her garments red. Crimson robed and winged, she laid claim to her cup of suns and sons and females and fears and angels and abominations.
And the torrent died and the river dried up and Loki, King of Oblivion, ceased to laugh.
“A wise guy, eh?” he said, his mouth twisting into a snarl. “What I think we have here is a failure to communicate…”
“I know,” Verity said. “I wasn’t strong enough. I’m sorry. That I wasn’t strong enough, I mean,” she added when met with only silence. “Not that I left. I wish I could have done more, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t. It was too much at once. Why didn’t you—“
“Say anything?” Loki said, his voice in crescendo. Green fire skated over the waxy sheen of his skin, slick with sweat or something else, something Verity could not recognize, some magic residue, alien and etherial. “When? When would you have liked me to mention any of that? It’s not something that just comes up in conversation! You got to hear the one that mattered most and that’s because Thor asked. Did you think I was going to have you over for coffee one day and say, ‘Hey, glad you could make it. I need to lay down a list of all the reasons I’m a piece of shit. I’m trying to move beyond all that, but I feel it needs to sit between us like a festering dog turd.’”
She would have laughed at that, Verity knew. In any other place, at any other time, about any other topic, she would have laughed. But this was here and now and Loki’s voice, wild and reedy, lent his speech an edge of hysteria that chilled Verity’s blood. He loomed at her – menacing – taller, broader, and stronger than she remembered him, his skin glowing like alabaster, lit from within.
“It might not have been a bad idea,” Verity said quietly holding her position verbally, even as she shrank away. “Unpleasant, yeah, and really uncomfortable, but better than getting the news at all once. Having to figure it out all at once. You asked me to trust you, but you couldn’t trust me enough to listen. Don’t you know how that hurts?”
Wrong words.
Verity knew it the moment she spoke them. Loki’s eyes widened and his nostrils flared and his voice, while not raised, encompassed worlds.
"You think that hurts?"
“Yes, I do,” Verity said, though she cringed slightly. “The fact that something else also hurts doesn’t make it hurt any less. There is more than one kind of hurt in the world.”
For a moment she thought that he would kill her, but he clenched his jaw and turned away. He faded out, he faded in, he walked on, and though Verity expected the screams to be louder, the flatliners and bluescreeners won out, shambling from their homes, collapsing in the streets.
He didn’t know, she realized. He had never shared his pain and couldn’t see the pain in others, not while it consumed him.
Verity ran to catch up.
“Why are you doing this?” she said, hating the desperation in her own voice. “Why Earth… Midgard? Why New York? You loved this place.”
“They love it too,” Loki said, “and he showed me how much I’m worth. So they’ll lose it. They’ll lose everything. This is just the start.”
“What do you mean, what you’re worth?” Verity said. It pained her how often she asked that question – What do you mean? What do you mean? – but, trapped within his inner landscape, Loki could offer little. Perhaps he didn’t want to offer more.
“It doesn’t matter,” he told her. “Nothing matters. Nothing you do matters. Nothing I do matters. It didn’t matter then and it doesn’t matter now. It doesn’t matter how hard I try, I’m always Loki, God of Lies. How long did it take you to leave on the word of a complete maniac? Fuck everything, I’m done. They want a villain, they’ve got one. We’ll see how much they love the place when it’s burned to ash.”
“I’m sorry,” Verity said again. She understood a little, now, that aching isolation. She felt it herself, but she was young yet and could see it through. How would she feel about it in twenty years? What if twenty were a hundred and a hundred a thousand? How would she feel about it after millennia? “That’s why I came back. God of Lies? Why not? What’s wrong with that? You’re so damned good you could lie to me with the truth. And if you did it once, you could do it again. That’s why I came—“
“What’s wrong with that?” Loki snarled. He faded out, he faded in, and this time the bruisers emerged, smashing and shouting. “What’s wrong with that? No one likes a liar, Verity! No one likes the truth, but they look back and nod and say it’s a good thing, bunch of pricks. Tell a lie once, and you’re never trusted again. Be a god of lies and… What’s wrong with that? Apart from never being trusted, or wanted, or loved?”
“That’s not true,” Verity said, saddened because it was not a lie. “It’s not true. This whole world loves you and you’re tearing it apart!”
“Loves me?” Loki said, followed by that same breathy laugh, half a chuckle, half a sob.
“Can you really not see any of that?” Verity said, knowing he could not. He turned upon himself: abused and abuser, trying to heal his wounds even as he ripped them open again. “Do you think we get up in the morning because we tell ourselves we hate our jobs and our lives are going nowhere? We tell ourselves it’s worth it and then we get on with it. One guy lied through his teeth about going to the moon in a makeshift bullet and some people called it fiction and other people called it a life goal. Half our discoveries come from some idiot making up bullshit and a bunch of fiction nerds going out and making bullshit real. And yeah, there are downsides. There are the people who can justify any atrocity through sheer creativity. But mostly it works for the better. From the smallest lies that everything is fine to the big ones that let people believe in abstract concepts like justice, equality, and the human experience. If you’re the god of lies, then people are worshipping at your altar every single day.”
Loki didn’t stop, but he slowed a little, and though Verity expected it, now that they had walked a ways, he did not fade out to speak behind the scenes.
“Do you know what it’s like to always recognize a lie?” she said, pressing on. “You can’t make it five minutes into your day without being slapped in the face and there’s no comfort anywhere. You need cold, hard facts for everything. You believe in nothing. Humans are creatures of faith. They have to believe in things, but I don’t. I can’t. I’m almost less than human. But you can lie to me with the truth and I came to believe in you—“
“It doesn’t matter,” Loki said, cutting her off, but his voice wavered with uncertainty. “It doesn’t matter what humans do when your own kind won’t… Not even my own kind, just the ones I always thought would… But they label you and seal you up and put you on a shelf and safely dismiss you because you’re lying and lying is bad and you’re bad and you’re a safe thing to be bad because everyone knows what you are and every story needs a villain.”
On these words, Loki’s brow furrowed and he clenched his jaw and he shunted forward again and the screams shook the earth. Verity ran to catch up and tried again to take his arm.
“Loki… Loki, please…”
“It hurts,” he moaned. “It burns…”
“I know,” Verity said. “I know it does. But you can’t just… You can’t just destroy everything because… because you hurt. You can’t just…”
She had sat in her apartment and listened to the screams that weren’t there. She’d sat and listened because she could do nothing else. Because she was scared and because she hurt and because she couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t…
“Okay,” Verity said. “Just… Just please stop for one second.” She ran to get ahead and stepped in front of him. “Loki, please… Just one second.”
And Loki stopped.
“It’s okay. I get it now,” Verity said as Loki glared down at her, a soul on fire. “You aren’t strong enough and that’s okay. It’s okay to not be strong. I wasn’t strong enough to stay, so I don’t have a right to tell anyone else how much they can take. But we were friends once. Will you do something for me because we were friends?”
For a moment, he seemed to inflate – grow taller and broader with incensed fury – and then the illusion was gone and he simply said: “What?”
“Tell me it’s going to be okay,” Verity said. “Make me believe it.”
Loki seemed to relax, ever so slightly.
“And then kill me,” she finished, “because I’m not strong enough to watch what comes next.”
Loki looked down at her, a banked fire between gouts of flame, and then he cupped her face with both hands and schooled himself to smile.
“It’s all right,” he told her and she felt her eyes water in spite of a fierce determination to resist because it was not a lie. “I’m bringing everyone the truth. Stories can’t go on forever and everyone knows that revelations come at the end.”
He wiped her tears away with his thumbs and slid his hands around her neck.
Verity closed her eyes.
“Don’t think of it as dying,” said Loki, King of Dust and Bones. “Think of it as leaving early to avoid the rush.”
And the Serpent of the Tree raised his left hand, and there appeared a beast of rending claws and gnashing teeth and its name was Vengeance.
And the Serpent of the Tree raised his right hand, and there appeared a beast of many heads and many mouths that howled their grief and its name was Despair.
And Freyja, Queen of Cup, and Staff, and Sun, and Sword stood above the Serpent and raised her hand, and the host of Asgardia came down and clashed against the beasts, turning aside their claws, disrupting their howls, but staying their hand in compassion for the shattered remains of humanity.
Freyja raised her hand, and then she brought it down, and the Sword of the Sun and the Staff and the Cup came with it.
There once was a boy, his eyes filled with splinters, his heart filled with fire, who saw only what was flawed and hurtful in the world and distorted what was good and pure, if he saw it at all.
There once was a girl, who ran through the wasteland, and though she saw the good and pure, she could not deny the flawed and hurtful because a lack of lies was as bad as too many.
Sometimes the story varies, but the end is always the same.
Verity felt Loki’s hands drop around her throat and closed her eyes. It would be quick, she knew, for she was merely mortal and he was incredibly strong. She felt his fingers tighten, digging into her flesh, and wished that he would hurry before panic took her. If she could, she would prefer to go out with a shred of dignity.
Loki’s fingers tightened, and then loosened, and then tightened again and Verity had only time enough to hear her ears ringing and feel the pressure build behind her eyes before his hands dropped from her throat, to her shoulders, and down her chest, coming to rest around her waist as he fell to his knees with a heavy thud.
“I can’t,” Loki said, clutching her, burying his face in her shirt. “I can’t. I can’t anymore. I can’t…”
Verity opened her eyes and tentatively twined her fingers in his hair. She was not a gentle woman – she had never learned the art – but she pulled from her knowledge all the motions she deemed correct – hushed her voice, lightened her touch – as she listened to his words, dry and dead, and felt the heat of his breath against her abdomen.
“That’s all right,” she said, stroking his head. “None of us can… can all the time. None of us. You can cry, you know. Sometimes that helps the pain.”
Loki uttered a small sob and choked it back.
“No,” he said.
Verity traced small circles against his scalp. “Why not?”
“Crying is weak.”
“What filthy liar told you that?” Verity said, even as tears trickled down her cheeks.
Loki sat silent for several seconds.
“Me,” he finally said.
“Ah,” Verity said, smiling slightly. “Well. There you are then.”
Loki laughed at that – a shuddering, raspy swell and fall – and then he burst into tears.
“What a sad pair we are,” Verity said. “A human who sees through lies so throughly she can’t even lie to herself and the only thing she can believe in is a god of lies. And a god of lies so thorough that he can’t even tell himself the truth and only winds the story tighter until he chokes or someone – someone who can see through it – cuts him free.”
“Humans are flexible,” Loki said. “Humans can change. I’ll only ever be Loki, God of Lies.”
“Good,” Verity said, “because I couldn’t believe in magic, but now I can, and I couldn’t believe in fairies, but now I can, and I couldn’t believe in a million things, but now I can, and there’s literally no way you should be able to get anything by me, but you can, and now I have a better idea of what it is to be human because I couldn’t believe in anything until I believed in you, Loki, God of Lies, Teller of Tales, and maybe stories can’t go on forever, but you can always start another one.”
Verity stopped then and stood silently, playing idly with Loki’s hair as he cried into her shirt, saying nothing. And then…
“Verity?”
“Hmm?”
“Sit down. I don’t like being shorter than you.”
Verity smiled ever so slightly and sank down to the ground as best she could, for though Loki loosened his hold, he did not quite release her. The thought that she should say something as painfully cliche such as, “There’s the Loki I know,” surfaced briefly and then was drowned forever, cruel lie that it was. The Loki she knew was the Loki beside her and there was good, but there was also bad, and sometimes, she now saw, the bad could be very bad, but to deny it would be the worst betrayal of them all.
“This place is a mess,” Loki said, heavy with guilt.
“Sif told me the world is ending,” Verity said. “All the worlds are ending.”
“Did I do it?”
“I don’t think so,” Verity said. “I think maybe the end of all worlds is too big for just one person, even you.”
“Thank fuck,” Loki said, rubbing his eye with the heel of his palm. “Making up for this is going to be hard enough. Assuming I’m still around. You seem to be taking it well.”
“I only have enough energy for one emergency at a time,” Verity said, “and you came first. I imagine I’ll panic in a few minutes.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Promise to stay with me. I don’t want to be alone when whatever’s happening… happens.”
“Of course,” Loki said, taking her hand. “You’re my BFF, if you’ll still have me.”
“I will if you believe in me and accept that I’m not strong,” Verity said.
“Deal,” Loki said and they sat in silence a few seconds before he asked, “Did you really talk to Sif?”
“She called herself Sif,” Verity said. “She brought me to find you. Oh, and she said she had a message for you from… Freyja?”
“Yes?” Loki said warily.
“She said, ‘Your mother’s sorry and she loves you. Please come home,’” Verity said. “Does that mean anything to you?”
“Yes,” Loki said, and nothing more.
They sat in the middle of the street as the screams slowly died behind them, and then Loki stood and Verity followed, still grasping his hand.
“I guess I should get started,” Loki said.
“I’ll go with you,” Verity said. “Take me behind the scenes, between the frames, and in the margins. We’ll tell people the other truth: that it’s okay to lie to yourself if it gets you through the day, just as long as you hold on to your humanity.”
“Will it do any good, do you think?” Loki said. “I mean, the worlds are ending.”
“I think it will be comforting,” Verity told him, “and people need all the comfort they can get.”
“Even from the God of—“
“Stories? Yes,” Verity said. “I think it’s the best comfort they can hope for.”
They stepped forward and faded out, out from the street and into the margins.
Freyja, Mother of Asgardia, struck first and Loki, King of Midgard, deflected. She struck again and was deflected. She struck three times in all and the third time her sword pierced Loki’s body, thrust upward through the abdomen and through the flesh and through the vitals, catching in the ribs of his back.
And yet, one could not kill a god and less so a story that lived behind the scenes and between the frames and in the margins.
But it pinned him well in place.
“Alas, I am killed,” King Loki said, throwing his arm across his brow with excessive drama. “Oh, what a world, what a world. I coulda had class! I coulda been a contender. I guess I’ll have to settle for watching the world burn…”
Mother Freyja looked around her and saw her children falling back, unwilling to kill opponents burdened by madness as long as any hope remained. She saw hope fading swiftly and she saw the worlds crashing and she knew the end was coming and still she bade them hold.
And then, as one, Despair collapsed and fell into tears of gladness and commiseration, and Vengeance roared and then fell calm, pleading for forgiveness, and King Loki’s mouth twisted into the most terrible of scowls and he said:
“Well, this is embarrassing.”
“You are done, trickster,” Freyja said as the host of Asgardia turned their weapons upon him. Dashing Fandral took his left arm and put a knife against his neck. Grim Hogun took his right arm, and followed suit.
“Kneel before the lady,” Fandral said.
King Loki eyed them both and spat on Freyja’s cloak.
“It’s never over, Queen of Whores.”
Hogun pressed his knife and Fandral followed suit. A trickle of blood ran down Loki’s neck, but Freya raised her hand to stay them.
“I will own that, King of Lies and sometimes Truths,” she said, “for I am mother of sons and daughters and step-sons and step-daughters and realm sons and realm daughters… and foster sons, too, and we must all own what we create.”
She signalled to the blacksmiths of Nidavellir and said, “Bind him in chains forged in magic and fire, but leave the sword within him for he will not heal and will not die and the steel of bright Asgard will not pass between the realms. Perhaps one day we will find a way to undo what has been done, but, until that time, he will not run, nor hide, nor harm.”
And King Loki was dragged away, cursing.
Freyja stood silent and Sif stood beside her.
“He did not come,” Freyja said.
“He came, but briefly,” Sif replied. “He will return when he is ready.”
“Will we be here?” Freyja said.
“I know not,” Sif replied, “but I see no reason why we should not be. Stories seldom die and I… I have been told that everything will be all right.”
Freyja took her hand and, together, they watched the worlds crumble.