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for: beworthy
Jul. 26th, 2012 09:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
treachery[ Loki, once called the Sky-walker. He sleeps with his mind half open, catching the distant after-images of the past. Here in the golden halls of Odin One-eye, there are rooms filled with tapestry after tapestry woven with the strands of time itself; where Queen Frigga has pricked her fingers and shed blood and tears alike for the remnants of the past and the shreds of the future that gift themselves to her.
Here, in these halls shaped by those unaccustomed to obeying the laws of time, Loki sleeps, and Loki remembers.
When the Other had stroked his fingertips through Loki's mind, the pain hadn't immediately followed. Colors faded first: the crimson of Thor's cloak, given to him after he'd been newly blooded; it sickened, turned gray. Sounds followed: his mother's voice once sweetened in song, now distorted by the blood rushing through Loki's mind. In the end, only the blood remained untouched: the secrets of the universe, splayed before him by Thanos's devotion to Death, and all Loki could bear to understand was the sharp, rich taste of his own blood in his mouth.
Thanos died without undue fanfare, as did the Other. Loki had cauterized the wounds upon his mind with forceful misrepresentation of what he had been shown. It should have ended with that.
But Loki chose a path that was paved for him long before he knew of his monstrous origins, and the Norns and their ilk do not easily offer prophecy without meaning. Each new act of violence spurred on the next, and the next, until Loki ceased to be Loki and became instead the embodiment of chaos alone.
Still, Death's secrets tormented him. Violence became mundane. Weariness knotted itself about his ankles, and his plotting grew more and more erratic. He had wandered the Nine Realms, searching for answers for questions he did not know how to pose. An eternity later, he carefully carved out his Jötunn heart, hid it under one of the great stones surrounding Mimir's Well, and traveled to the highest peaks of Jotunheim where the Völva Fjorleif made her dwelling. Fjorleif the Devourer, Fjorleif the Kinslayer, who feasted on the hearts of Frost Giants, and grew stronger and wiser for it. She whom even the Allfather feared, for her store of knowledge was outweighed only by her cruelty.
Loki had gone to her in the guise of an Æsir child, each step further away from his still-beating heart an unendurable agony. She had welcomed him, accepted his tribute — a chain forged in the heart of the star Guðmundr, cousin to Mjölnir and brother to Gungnir — and offered him the sight of her smile of shattered teeth.
At her table, settled upon a silver plate, rested Loki's heart.
You would ask me to cure you of the curse of Thanos's knowledge, she had whispered to him, as he clasped a hand over his own chest. And yet, there would be none whose life would be lessened by your deliverance, Liesmith. Why should I offer you my assistance?
None but one, Loki had replied, fear quickening his tongue. He had felt the cold brush of Ragnarök in that moment, and he had known true regret for the first time since the oblivion of the abyss.
And the Devourer had laughed until the wooden beams of her ill-constructed hall shook, and Loki had reached for her throat in his fear —
She had returned his heart to him, fortified as she had blessed it against the memory of Thanos, and she had willed him forth. Then go, Loki Silvertongue, before I change my mind and devour your heart as I have done with the rest, Prove that my mercy is deserved.
It hadn't been, Loki thought, remembering the flutter of Jane Foster's pulse. But he had taken the guise of a raven and flown until his wings could fly no more; he had remade himself under Njörðr's dominion in Vanaheim, strong once again. It had been a plan borne of desperation, and yet it had been sound — to prove Thor was, is, and will always be Loki's alone. To top it all, the throne of Asgard would be within his grasp, if he wished to have it.
He wakes now in Esja Njörðsdottir's skin, the Devourer's laugh ringing in his ears. Mjölnir hums with its star-magics upon the high table pushed up against the bed, and Loki draws in breath after breath, calming Esja's heaving breast with Thor's heavy warmth beside him. ]
Here, in these halls shaped by those unaccustomed to obeying the laws of time, Loki sleeps, and Loki remembers.
When the Other had stroked his fingertips through Loki's mind, the pain hadn't immediately followed. Colors faded first: the crimson of Thor's cloak, given to him after he'd been newly blooded; it sickened, turned gray. Sounds followed: his mother's voice once sweetened in song, now distorted by the blood rushing through Loki's mind. In the end, only the blood remained untouched: the secrets of the universe, splayed before him by Thanos's devotion to Death, and all Loki could bear to understand was the sharp, rich taste of his own blood in his mouth.
Thanos died without undue fanfare, as did the Other. Loki had cauterized the wounds upon his mind with forceful misrepresentation of what he had been shown. It should have ended with that.
But Loki chose a path that was paved for him long before he knew of his monstrous origins, and the Norns and their ilk do not easily offer prophecy without meaning. Each new act of violence spurred on the next, and the next, until Loki ceased to be Loki and became instead the embodiment of chaos alone.
Still, Death's secrets tormented him. Violence became mundane. Weariness knotted itself about his ankles, and his plotting grew more and more erratic. He had wandered the Nine Realms, searching for answers for questions he did not know how to pose. An eternity later, he carefully carved out his Jötunn heart, hid it under one of the great stones surrounding Mimir's Well, and traveled to the highest peaks of Jotunheim where the Völva Fjorleif made her dwelling. Fjorleif the Devourer, Fjorleif the Kinslayer, who feasted on the hearts of Frost Giants, and grew stronger and wiser for it. She whom even the Allfather feared, for her store of knowledge was outweighed only by her cruelty.
Loki had gone to her in the guise of an Æsir child, each step further away from his still-beating heart an unendurable agony. She had welcomed him, accepted his tribute — a chain forged in the heart of the star Guðmundr, cousin to Mjölnir and brother to Gungnir — and offered him the sight of her smile of shattered teeth.
At her table, settled upon a silver plate, rested Loki's heart.
You would ask me to cure you of the curse of Thanos's knowledge, she had whispered to him, as he clasped a hand over his own chest. And yet, there would be none whose life would be lessened by your deliverance, Liesmith. Why should I offer you my assistance?
None but one, Loki had replied, fear quickening his tongue. He had felt the cold brush of Ragnarök in that moment, and he had known true regret for the first time since the oblivion of the abyss.
And the Devourer had laughed until the wooden beams of her ill-constructed hall shook, and Loki had reached for her throat in his fear —
She had returned his heart to him, fortified as she had blessed it against the memory of Thanos, and she had willed him forth. Then go, Loki Silvertongue, before I change my mind and devour your heart as I have done with the rest, Prove that my mercy is deserved.
It hadn't been, Loki thought, remembering the flutter of Jane Foster's pulse. But he had taken the guise of a raven and flown until his wings could fly no more; he had remade himself under Njörðr's dominion in Vanaheim, strong once again. It had been a plan borne of desperation, and yet it had been sound — to prove Thor was, is, and will always be Loki's alone. To top it all, the throne of Asgard would be within his grasp, if he wished to have it.
He wakes now in Esja Njörðsdottir's skin, the Devourer's laugh ringing in his ears. Mjölnir hums with its star-magics upon the high table pushed up against the bed, and Loki draws in breath after breath, calming Esja's heaving breast with Thor's heavy warmth beside him. ]
