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Endless plains of white, glowing softly in the unhospitable darkness of Jotunheim. When Loki had first come here, bearing honeyed words dripping with false promises, this wasteland had seemed hardly promising. Still, the Jotnar played their role to perfection.
If only the guard had been swifter to bring my words to the Allfather, this would have been avoided. Thor would have been punished -naturally- probably less severely than he would have deserved. Perhaps the coronation would have been postponed as well, Loki thought with a manic sort of glee. Alas, the triumph of victory did not last long. Thor has outdone himself in his idiocy as usual.
Thor was snarling at Laufey, but the Jotun King merely smirked, gazing meaningfully at Loki. For the first time, it occurred to him that Laufey might have ambitions other than simply regaining the Casket of Ancients Winters.
“Thor, stop and think. Look around you. We are outnumbered,” Loki murmured in the biting wintry air, hand resting on his brother’s arm imploringly.
“Know your place, brother,” Thor said unthinkingly, all ego and anger, like Loki was barely an afterthought.
Loki bit the inside cheek to keep from screaming his rage to Thor’s ear, until the oaf saw sense. It wouldn’t do to start a fight, to appear more like children, unable to self-discipline.
“You should listen to his counsel. You know not what your actions would unleash.” Laufey’s voice echoed on the icy surroundings, the gigantic, crystalline structures comprising his palace. “But I do. Go now, while I still allow it.”
Thor visibly seethed, and Loki studiedly ignored him. “We accept your most gracious offer,” he said, wondering if this was the last he would see of the Jotun King. He hoped the answer was yes. A renewed meeting could only spell a lot more unpleasantness.
Thor swallowed his pride, and nodded once. A sense of relief swept through Loki, and judging by their comrades faces it was a shared sentiment. The plan was back in place.
Thor turned to leave and Loki followed suit. When Loki caught out of the corner of his eye a beastly Jotun guard, who bared his teeth in an ugly smile, it was too late.
“Run back home, princess,” he hissed mockingly, ignorant of how his stupid, stupid words teared apart a perfectly executed scheme– for a brief moment, there was only silence.
“Damn,” he murmured, frozen in place, heart beating faster. Loki hoped that for once, Thor would let an insult drop.
His brother’s smile would have been charming had it not carried with it a tinge of violence.
Mjolnir flew, and Helheim broke loose. Father won’t be pleased at all, was his first thought, followed by a twinge of anxiety in his guts, a tell-tale reaction in the face of potential disappointment. He would have to twist it somehow, make himself look the innocent, even if he was anything but. The King would do anything for Asgard. Was it wrong if he’d do the same? He hadn’t betrayed his people. Thor did not deserve the throne, he wasn’t ready for such a burden.
Is that all? The envy nestled beneath his ribs murmured venomously. Yes, it is. That’s all there is to it, he insisted.
The ensuing battle was a blur of adrenaline and exhilaration, a dance on the edge of the blade that was as deeply familiar to him as breathing. Illusions, blasts and daggers, up until a large blue hand encircled his forearm. Loki braced for the pain that never came.
Instead of blackened, deadened flesh, a shift that he could feel even beneath the skin. Loki blinked, at first not realising what he was seeing. Blue spread over the pale skin, no, underneath it, whatever this curse was, it was rooted somewhere deep within him, what could it be, how...
The Jotun soldier appeared equally stumped, as though he had expected Loki to scream and recoil, and he should’ve, every Aesir would- no. No.
Loki stabbed him, fast and vicious. Then allowed the body to fall, uncaring, all his attention focused on the arm, where the paleness returned, fighting the blue and the ridges, which were awfully reminiscent of the marks on a Frost Giants skin.
This was impossible.
It was a curse. It had to be.
He shook himself. If he did not regain his composure, he would die in this cold, forsaken land. That, he refused to.
The roar of the beast proved an adequate distraction from his inner turmoil. Survival instincts took over, and Loki ran, until the pillar of colourful light descended from the heavens, and the Allfather appeared, astride Sleipnir in all his godly glory, Gungnir in hand, exchanging words with Laufey. Words that didn’t make any sense when stringed to sentences, not with the sound of his heartbeat in his ears, a loud and steady thrum that could not be ignored.
Then a swirl of colours swept them over, and the Realm Eternal was under his feet again, steady and reassuring in spite the wrongness -the taint- within him.
He barely registered the Warriors Three and Lady Sif leaving, Volstagg and Fandral injured, supported by their compatriots. Heimdall was nowhere to be seen as well.
“Why did you bring us back?” Thor hissed.
“Do you realise what you’ve done? What you’ve started?” Odin’s voice was low and measured, and it sent a shiver down Loki’s spine.
“I was protecting my home.”
“You cannot protect your friends. How can you hope to protect a kingdom?”
“There won’t be a kingdom to protect if you are afraid to act!”
Odin stared at Thor, as if he couldn’t comprehend his words. “That’s pride and vanity that talks! Not leadership!” he shouted, patience gone in a blink of an eye. “Have you forgotten everything I taught you? What about a warrior’s patience, cunning?”
This was worse than he expected, so much worse. He hadn’t anticipated any of this to go that far, but Thor was brimming with anger, and he would say something idiotic soon, and Father had clearly lost his temper, and for all he wanted to see Thor fall, a part of him yearned for the exact opposite.
“Father!” Loki blurted out, before his mind caught up with his tongue.
A lonesome, icy blue eye turned to him, and now that he had his chance to speak, he did not know what he should say. Perhaps it was better this way, he reasoned, for his deceit to be uncovered sooner rather than later.
“I let them in,” he murmured, raising his chin high, as if he was not afraid.
Father’s mouth fell open then closed. Thor’s eyes were trained on him as well, and he studiedly ignored the intensity of the glare. He could already feel the scorn that the Warriors Three and Lady Sif would throw his way when they’d inevitably learn.
“What?” Odin asked lowly.
“The Jotnar. I let them in.”
Odin’s eye sparked with something really unpleasant, something that made Loki’s heart flutter in panic and bile to rise at his throat. Father wouldn’t listen-
“You wouldn’t listen!” Loki found himself yelling, hoping against hope to be heard, fingers digging in his palms. “You would’ve let him become King, Thor who is reckless and arrogant! You and all of Asgard are blind to his faults, you only see the golden prince, the fierce warrior, you only look at him and see what I could never become, no matter how hard I try, I’ve always did and you were never pleased-”
Odin’s expression darkened. “You led our foes in the Vault, you betrayed your kingdom and your kin, all because of your childish jealousy?”
It wasn’t like that. He hadn’t-
“I should’ve seen it sooner,” the Allfather muttered, then his lone eye shimmered with power. “You are both unworthy,” he said louder this time, and though Loki had managed to finally drag Thor down with him, he felt barely any satisfaction at all.
The Allfather moved, an imposing King in all his glory, and Loki took a step back, suddenly afraid. The armour melted into a simple tunic and breeches, as Asgard’s King drawled on. “Unworthy of the crown, unworthy of this Realm, unworthy of your titles.”
Each word hurt like a knife between the ribs. He hadn’t wanted that, he had wanted to be heard, to be understood-
“I hereby take from you your powers, and cast you out,” Odin said, with dreadful finality.
A powerful shove, and the colourful swirl of the Bifrost was soon replaced by the darkness of a sky with no stars, as he landed on his back upon the cold, hard ground.
In the darkness, he blinked a few times, until he made out distant motes of light, like small faults in dark velvet from which the light shone through. Stars? But they are brighter, aren’t they more colourful, more-
Thor groaned beside him, and Loki knew not where he was, only that he was in pain, alone and afraid.