~Loki’s Prison Cell, The Desert~

This desert, this lonely sterile rock was one long unending stretch of time.  Time without daylight, thus rendering Loki’s ability to track the time he’d been there nearly impossible.  

When he’d first been stripped of his Asgardian rags, Loki had assumed the grey man would return eventually, but after losing his mind by counting seconds and minutes and hours, and deciding that it had now been a month since his fall, he’d not had a single visitor.  He’d not heard anything.  No scuffles or footsteps or strange voices out in the hall.  He’d not seen anything either.  No shadows passing the glass door, no change in the dim starlight seeping through the holes in the wall.  Nor had he received any food or water.  

If he’d been mortal, he would have long since been truly dead.  What he wouldn’t give for the sweet release of death right now.  Unfortunately, his body would require much longer to starve.  He understood now why the room had no toilet or bucket or hole in the ground.  He had nothing to empty from himself.  And after all this time, he still had no garments.  No blankets.  Nothing.  For thirty fucking days he’d been without food, clothes, water, light, visitors, or a bath.  

He couldn’t practice magic because it required energy, of which he’d been completely drained.  If he’d been able, he would have conjured a double of himself.  At least then he might have had the illusion of company.  If he’d simply been on one of the nine realms, of which this desert clearly was not a part of, he could have conjured any living person he’d desired.  Sighing heavily, he pictured creating Sigyn’s replica.  Shaking his head, he scolded himself silently.

Just stop, Loki.

But this place, wherever it was, was somehow different.  It transcended his usual forms of magic.  It clearly wasn’t just the fact that he was tired and starving.  Something else was confusing his insides.  Sleep and the accompanying dreams were his only reprieve from slowly becoming more corpse than man.  It was uncomfortable with only a rock surface to lay his head on, but he’d grown used to the lack of amenities in this sterile prison cell.  His brain was still able to dream, thankfully.  Whether they were pleasant or absolute nightmares, he welcomed them.  For a few hours during a decent REM cycle, he would see something other than darkness.  The dreams, the memories, they were the only things that made him aware of himself as an actual person rather than a beast without any thoughts other than hunger or painーboth of which never ceased.

He sat upright, his back to the wall filled with tiny holes, facing the door.  His head hung, his hair tangled and at his shoulder blades.  Ankles crossed, his hands lay protectively in his lap, shielding his nakedness.  Not that it mattered.  No one had been here in a month.  Eyes heavy, stomach still agonizingly empty, he succumbed to blessed sleep, hoping the images that flashed across the backs of his lids would be of Sigyn.  Over the course of the month, his dreams had ranged from memories of Odin, Frigga, and Thor, to imagined battles and spells, and really any of the smallest most insignificant moments of his life.  But if he’d dreamt them, he supposed that they must not have been so insignificant after all.

---

Odin was seated on a plush blue and yellow armchair in front of a roaring fire pit within his personal chambers.  Thor on his knee and Loki at his feet, they looked up at the grey brown of their father’s beard.  The king addressed both boys, though his eyes were trained on his eldest. 

“Your grandfather, my father, Bor, was a mighty warrior and king.  Did I ever tell you that he abolished the dark elves?”

Aqua eyes wide with boyish delight, Thor thrust his fist into the air. “I shall be even mightier than he!” 

Odin laughed heartily at the gesture, and turning his cheery gaze to Loki, he questioned the quietly smiling raven haired boy.

“And what of you, my son?  Shall you be as mighty as your brother?”

Loki pursed his lips before grinning widely. “Mightier.” Loki’s eyes danced at the happy chuckle from his father.  

Piping up, Thor spoke pointedly to his little brother. “Nuh uh!  Look how small you are, Loki!  You’ll never be as mighty as me.”

Face falling, Loki stood to his feet and made for the door which transformed suddenly into one of the stable gates.  Looking down at his feet, he noted they were much larger now and much further from his head.  He’d grown from a young boy to a man over the course of two seconds.  To his right, his father stood before one of the stalls, arms crossed, peering in.

Swallowing, Loki called out to him, “He is for you, Father.  I discovered him in Vanaheim, half dead without his mother last year.”

Odin turned at the sound of his voice, a puzzled look on his face before taking the reins of his new eight legged steed and pulling him from the stall.

“You’ve been raising him ever since?” he asked, stroking the horse’s muzzle.

Loki smiled. “Away from the city, yes.”

“He is…odd,” Odin said, the extra four legs on the animal clearly bemusing the king.

Chuckling softly, Loki shrugged, “Yes, I suppose he is, but he shall certainly be the fastest horse in all of Asgard.  Probably in the nine!  A king should have no less, don’t you think?”

Nodding in agreement, the king placed his boot in the stirrup, and mounting the grunting horse, he offered Loki a small smile before taking off at full speed.  After a few minutes of riding, grinning ear to ear, Odin returned to his son.  

“Indeed, he is fast!  Odd gift though he may be, he is truly mighty.”

Odin dismounted and clapped him on the shoulder before turning at the sound of Thor’s voice.  The king hurried to his eldest and embraced him in a tight hug.  Genuine smile faltering, Loki grabbed the reins of his mighty gift to Odin, and pulled him back to the stables.  The wrought iron gate of the stall melted under his grip, the stables fading entirely, and sudden heat overwhelmed him as the dirt ground of the stables became grass and the sound of clanking metal rang in his ears.  Sweat beading on his face, eyes adjusting to the bright light of a hot summer day, he realized that he stood in the training arena.  His own voice sounded in his ears.  He hadn’t meant to speak, but when he did, the sound was breathless.

“Exhausting day,” Loki gasped, walking to the arena’s main fountain.  Breathing heavily, he rubbed an ache in his shoulder as blood seeped from a wound that Sif had dealt him during their sparring, which had lasted two hours, at least.  

Seemingly out of nowhere, Thor, smiling hugely, appeared and punched him in the arm. “Very exhausting indeed!  But you fought like a man, finally!  It was about time that you bested Sif!”

Kneeling over the edge of the fountain, Loki splashed water on his face, ignoring the slight dig.  Across the arena, the Crimson Hawks cheered.  Looking up at the sound, Loki watched as Odin descended the steps, eyes fixed on his sons, and crossed the field quickly to meet them.

“Father.” Bowing, Thor and Loki had spoken in accidental unison and turned to each other chuckling.

“Loki, I’m glad to see you here.  The library is for women, not princes of Asgard,” Odin said flatly.

Loki fought a scowl.  He didn’t want to show disdain for the comment lest he receive a sound verbal lashing, of which he’d had at least ten in the past two days alone—Hadn’t he?  He shook his head.  Time was a bit….fuzzy….at the moment.  Looking around, confused, he pinched the bridge of his nose.  He wasn’t sure how he’d ended up in the training arena in the first place.  He’d been in the stables not two seconds ago.  

Frustrated and thoroughly addled with his surroundings, he couldn’t help but glare at his father.  Odin was such a misogynistic prick, and he’d insulted Loki’s interests…again.  He just didn’t understand his father.  Whatever was wrong with studying?  With reading?  With improving one’s mind?  He was nearing the end of his schooling and was at the top of his class at the academy, but all his father wanted was a battle hungry brute like his brother.  

Chin raised, Odin pursed his lips before continuing, “Álfar informed me that you are keen to use daggers, Loki.  More importantly, that you are talented with them.”

Odin then produced a set of twelve of the sharpest throwing knives he’d ever seen, their silver glinting so brightly in the daylight that he had to shield his eyes.  Smile spreading across his face, Loki took the knives and pocketed them within his armor.  His father had given him a gift.  An actual gift.  He couldn’t believe it.

“Thank you, Father, they’reー”

Odin waved his hand, cutting him off, and turned to Thor. “It was nothing.  Thor, take him to the gymnasium.  Those boyish muscles of his need work.”

Loki never made it to the gymnasium, though.  The scenery was changing… again.  The brightness of day dimmed until his pupils dilated in the abrupt darkness of the weapons vault.  Oh no.  Not here.  He didn’t want to see this place—Never again.  He wanted to run, but his feet were heavy as lead, paralyzing him in front of an ancient blue box.  He knew his next words, and he hated them.

“Just do it.”   

No!—his mind clawed at the wretched command.  He didn’t want to do anything.  He’d been here before.  This was not something he wanted to relive, but he couldn’t stop himself.  His hands moved of their own accord.  Cold rushed through his veins, power along with it as he wrapped his fingers around it.  His heart ached as he screamed silently.  

Please stop!!—he tried to pull his hands away but couldn’t.  

Somewhere behind him a voice echoed in the stone chamber. “You are my son, Loki.  I raised you.  You are my own.”

Lies! “Am I born of Frigga?”

Silence. 

“No.”  It was his mother’s voice that had answered him.  That wasn’t right.  It should have been Odin.  Then her hands came around his, which still clung to the casket.  Pale skin over blue, he wept at the sight.  Frigga’s voice sang to him, “Shhh.  There there, love.”    

It was the same melody she’d always used when he had nightmares.  He was in his childhood bed.   

“You were dead, Mother.  It was just Father and Thor and me.” His voice was far too high-pitched and trembling for his liking.  

Ohーhe was just a little boy again.  Why couldn’t he stay in one spot?  Or at one age?  All this flip flopping and moving around was entirely disorienting.  He couldn’t keep up.

Eyes narrowed in jest, Frigga poked his nose. “Tut!  Impossible.  There exists, in the nine, no reality where your father survives me.”

Arms tightening around him, Frigga winked at Loki’s slight smile and chuckle as her fingers combed his hair away from his tear stained face.  She was coddling him.  She had always coddled him.  The part of his adult consciousness that knew he was walking through some sort of lucid dream scowled at the squeaky weepy little boy.  Why did he have to cry so much?  It was humiliating.

“Now what shall we do to get you back to a nice dreamless sleep, hmm?”

Loki sat up straighter, his grin widening as he swiped the back of his hand across his wet cheeks. “Magic? Would you conjure for me?”

Nodding, she laughed. “Of course!  What shall I make….ah, yes!” Frigga held out her hand, palm up and a small yellow kitten with blue eyes appeared just above her fingers.  Loki scowled at the furry creature. “What’s wrong, dearest?  I thought you liked cats.”

Rubbing his palms together, Loki shook his head, his tongue running along his lips. “I love cats, but I do not like this one at all.”

Eyes squinting, he rubbed his hand over the creature’s back, and smiled.  Under his touch, the fur became black, the eyes green.  Nodding, pleased with his work, he picked the purring cat up and sat it in his lap.  The furry little thing changed then, morphing into several heavy schoolbooks.  Upright suddenly and a good three feet taller, shoulders slumping, adolescence having just taken over his boyish skin and bones frame, Loki closed his hand around the strap of his black leather school satchel.  Walking into his room, he tossed the bag onto his bed along with the books.

“Something vexes you.”

Loki started and turned at the sound of his mother.  He responded, his voice warbling somewhat.  Ah yes.  His voice was changingーdeepening.  Reluctantly leaving childhood behind, fearing what adulthood held for him.

“Just the idiocy that surrounds me at the academy.”

Head tilting sideways, she frowned, “Your brother and his friends, I presume?”

Snorting, he nodded, “You presume correctly, Mother.”

Walking to him, Frigga smirked, bringing a hand to his shoulder, “I would that they had even a quarter of your intelligence, Loki.”

Shaking his head, he pulled a face, “Well, today had nothing to do with intelligence.  We were lifting logs, Mother.  Actual ash tree logs.  Five feet in circumference.”

Frigga sighed loudly and cupped his cheek, “You have your strengths.  They have theirs.  One day their biceps will fail them.  But that mind of yours?  It will be sharper than knives all your days.”

She seemed to slide out of the room, and in her absence, he looked in his floor length mirror.  His features grew sharper, cheekbones hollowing further, jawline tightening, black hair lengthening to fall just below his chin, muscles growing and becoming leaner, body stretching to the full height of manhood.  Boy to man…. again.  A breeze ruffled his hair as he found himself suddenly dashing through the corridor that led to his mother’s chambers.  Leather armor clinging to his oddly soaking wet body, he beat Thor to her room.  Running had always suited him, and he loved that it irked Thor to know his little brother was faster.  Laughing, the brothers bent over, hands on their knees while they caught their breath.  Their mother had summoned them while they’d been swimming in the Silver Lake, miles away, with their warrior friends.  

“Did you forget to take towels with you to the lake, boys?” Frigga frowned at the puddles they were creating on her granite floor.

Thor pointed at Loki. “He thought it would be funny, apparently, if they vanished into thin air.  Along with our clothes.”

Holding up one finger, Loki smirked at him. “Not our clothes.  Just Sif’s.”

“Oh Loki…” Frigga whispered under her breath. 

“Oh Loki?  Oh Loki what?” Showing his palms, he quirked an eyebrow, feigning innocence.

Rolling her eyes, two objects materializing in her arms, Frigga stepped behind Thor, and she fastened one of the objects to his shoulders.  A red cape.  Loki scowled.  It was a cape fit for a king.

Her voice was like a bell, chiming with pride.  “Thor, I have fashioned this for you.  You are a man and a warrior now.  Red is the color of passion, my son, and you are filled to the brim with it, but do not let it turn to rage.”

She eyed him pointedly before handing him the second item.  A silver winged helmet.  He tried it on to see that it fit properly, smiling when it did.  Loki had to turn his head to hide the roll of his eyes.  As though Thor didn’t already have a hammer that could make him fly, now he had wings, too.  Tremendous.

Thor’s gruff voice grated on his skin. “Thank you, Mother.  I feel quite… kingly.”

She nodded as Thor kissed her hand and strutted happily from the room leaving his brother and mother alone.  Turning to her second son, her watery azure gaze meeting his, she retrieved two more objects from somewhere behind her back, and Loki peered curiously at them.  She swept up a green cape and draped it about his shoulders.

“The green matches your eyes.”

Loki rubbed the fabric between his fingers and sighed, “What?  No symbolic meaning for me?  It just matches my eyes?  Honestly, if it wasn’t from you, Mother, I’d be a bit insulted.”

Frowning, she pursed her lips. “Green is the color of life, my dear god of mischief.  My little prankster.” She poked his nose earning a small laugh from Loki before she continued. “And do not pretend that it isn’t your favorite color.”

“I never said it wasn’tー” he started only to be shushed by her finger on his lips.

All amusement gone from her tone, she spoke in earnest, “As I said, green is for life, and I want your life to be so beautiful, Loki.  I want you to know love.  I want you to be happy.  Do not let your little tricks become more than thatーmore than something playful to bring a bit of joy.  Do not let them become something darker for darkness does not befit happiness.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, so he remained silent, only nodding at the words.  Smirking, she placed the other item, a golden horned helm, atop his head.  

“Now that, my dear Loki, that befits a king.”

Loki smiled, white teeth glinting in the afternoon light. “It is a bit more intimidating than feathers.”

Her smile turned to a frown as he removed the hornsーall joy abruptly gone from the room.  Her chambers became dark and Loki sat at the foot of a bed, Frigga next to him.  His father’s chambers?  Why did he have to be here?  He hated this place.  He knew the words that were about to leave his mouth.  He’d said them to his mother, and he’d broken her with them.  

“Mistake?  Mistake?!  That’s a fucking huge mistake!  How could you?  How could you?!”  

Clutching the hand of her husband, guilt writ on her face, she didn’t respond.  His eyes then slammed shut as the walls exploded and burst into the brightest daylight imaginable.  He choked and coughed violently having accidentally swallowed a mouthful of lakewater.  Looking up, he winced at the booming voice of his brother ten feet above him, far too loud after all that quiet in the royal chambers.  

“You cannot fathom it, brother!”

Naked save for his mid-thigh length under armor pants, Thor swung from a tree branch and crashed into Silver Lake, huge waves rippling out from the massive weight of his body.  Loki, in a similar state of undress, dodged the splash, swimming quickly to the shore.  He laid flat on his back, one knee bent, the water droplets on his exposed torso evaporating in the intense heat, and throwing an arm over his eyes, he groaned, annoyed.  Pushing inky wet strands of hair behind his ear, he laid the snark on thick.  

“I know you aren’t familiar with many adjectives, Thor, but do try to explain the sensation.  I ache with anticipation.”  

Rubbing the water out of his eyes, Thor grumbled, “Shut up, Loki.”  He paused, floating onto his back. “She was so soft underneath my hands.”

Loki snorted, “Yes, she probably adored those big calloused hands of yours rubbing her delicate breasts raw.”

Shooting a glare at Loki from the water, Thor spat, “Oh you think she would have preferred your soft little feminine fingers?”

Waving a hand, Loki laughed humorlessly. “Just continue your unimaginative drabble for fuck’s sake.”

As though lost in his own dreamworld, Thor sighed, “Moving inside of her, by the norns.  She was unbelievably tight.  And hot.  The heat.  And so incredibly slick.  I practically finished before I’d started.”

“Oh dear gods, please tell me that you did!” Loki cackled unabashed, the force of the laugh causing his shoulders to shake uncontrollably.  

At Loki’s amused outburst, Thor swam to the shore and punched him in the stomach.  Squirming, Loki curled in on himself protectively, but he continued laughing as Thor growled at him.  

“You would not have lasted any longer!”

“I did last longer, you giant virginal oaf,” Loki couldn’t stop laughing.  

Thor scoffed, “What do you…do you mean to say that you have already…?”

Eyeing him, Loki tilted his head to the side. “What do you think?”

Plopping onto the ground by his little brother, Thor shook his head, scowling. “Well that is certainly disappointing.  I’m older.”

One eyebrow raised, Loki smirked. “And I’m told that I have a rather talented tongue.”

Thor couldn’t help but laugh at the insinuation. “I do wish you would stop using it and shut up sometime.”

Squinting up at his big brother, Loki smiled smugly. “Not likely.”

He sat up, the tree above them having morphed into a pillar, one of many pillars in the academy’s lecture hall.  Thor was still there, though he was now fully clothed in his red tunic and navy pants, and his once full beard looked more like day old whiskers.  He snarled angrily, throwing a heavy tome against the wall.  

“It doesn’t make any sense!”

Sighing, Loki walked to the battered book on the floor and bent to retrieve it.  Dusting off the cover, he stood.  

“It makes perfect sense if you’ll actually read the instructions, Thor.”

The blond prince crossed his arms, huffing loudly. “You speak as though I can’t read, Loki.  I can.”

Throwing his hands up, Loki snapped, “Well then, do!  I tire of tutoring you when you refuse to put any effort into your studies.”  

Slamming his fist on the desk, Thor shouted back. “You know how frustrating arithmetic is to me!”

“I’m done,” rolling his eyes, Loki tossed the book down on Thor’s desk, “Figure it out yourself.  If you do not pass the exam, it will be your own fault.”   

Loki made to leave the hall.  He’d stayed two hours after dismissal already to help his brother prepare for their final exam the next day.  Two wasted hours.

Swiveling in his seat, Thor called after him, “Father will not be happy with you if you refuse to help me!”

Loki stopped abruptly, turning on his heel to face his brother. “I fail to see how your studies are my responsibility!  How can Father put this on me?”

Glaring at Loki, Thor scoffed, “I help you during training, do I not?”

Frown creasing his brow, Loki paced the front of the room, a hand running through his hair. “That is hardly the same!  I actually try during our arena matches!  And I have improved vastly!  Just last week I bested Sif!  You do nothing but whine about this being too hard.  Why does he hate me so?  What did I ever do to him?  This is absurd!  It matters not what I do or don’t do.  Somehow, in his eyes, it’s wrong.  And yet youー” Loki, coming back to his brother, shoved his finger into his chest “ーcan do no wrong!”

Stomping to the exit, hands fisted, he shouted over his shoulder. “Go ahead and fail for all I care!  Father will hate me either way.”

His feet took him through various halls and corridors, and he found himself in the throne room.  He and Thor stood on either side of their father as a stunning black haired young woman approached them behind that wench, Freya.  Oh this woman.  He knew this woman.  He adored this woman.  Why wouldn’t his feet move?!  He wanted nothing more than to run to her and comb his fingers through that glorious obsidian hair of hers.  Freya said a nameーSigyn.  It was the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard.  That is, it was the most beautiful sound until Sigyn spoke.  By Hel, her voice.  He loved her voice.  

“Your majesty.”

He opened his mind to her thoughts, which very clearly said his eyes were familiar and beautiful.  Smoke pooled at the hem of her dress, and just as soon as he saw it, it disappeared.  Someone, maybe it was his mother, said that this Sigyn was a sorceress, and his breath hitched as she sauntered back to the regal doors, turning her head to give him a smile over her shoulder.  Finally his feet decided to function properly, and he jumped from the dais in a single bound and ran after her.  He chased her all the way to the dining hall.  He was at her side immediately, snaking his hand around her waist and telling her he’d read her mind.  She blanched under his heated gaze, her voice echoing through the empty hall.

“Forgive me for my lurid thoughts.”

The table disappearing, the granite floor becoming snow covered grass beneath their feet, he gaped at her as black mist flowed from her fingers and fell over the burning body of Sif.  The snow melted under the flames, becoming a stone floor where he sat alone.  A door opened, the sound ringing in his underused ears loudly, and someone placed black hair, a silver ribbon binding the shining strands together, in his hands.  Grey green eyes pierced his, small hands wrapping around his arms, pulling him to his feet, and then they were flying through the rainbow beams of the bifrost.  One hand gripping her waist, the other in her hair, his mouth bruised under her kiss as the beams faded to dim green flames burning in the huge fireplace of his chambers.  Hand still in her hair, pushing her further and further into the black sheets of his bed, his body moved over hers, the heat of her skin making his blood boil.  Her legs encircled his hips, blood trickling from his back as black nails scraped down his spine.  They rolled, her face above his, thighs on either side of his waist, and she smiled as he gripped her hips.    

Then her beautiful mouth turned down, and she was speaking, but he couldn’t hear her.  He tried to push up to hear the words, but he couldn’t.  His arms weren’t working.  His core muscles weren’t working.  Nothing was working.  He was exhausted and weak, and her body was pulling back from him.  Abruptly, her silent words became so loud that his ears bled. 

“PULL UP!!”  

Below him, the bed disappeared, leaving nothing but deep black space underneath as he fell from her.

---

His cry echoed in his stone prison cell. “NO!!”  

Sigyn’s ear piercing scream had jarred him awake, and looking around, feeling the solid floor beneath him, he relaxed slightly, knowing that he wasn’t falling again.  Of course that also meant that he was still imprisoned on a so-called desert with no hope of release or escape.  He hated the dreams, tinged with sadness and pain as they were, but he needed them nonetheless.  They reminded him that he had been someone.  That he’d had a lifeーhow did the humans say it?ーonce upon a time.  Frigga’s words echoed in his mind.

“Green is for life.”

Despite her wishes, his life had rarely been anything near happy.  Odin and Thor had made sure of that.  Well, mostly Odin.  The old man in and of himself was a nightmare.  With each passing second in this Helhole, Loki grew more and more certain that Odin had never cared for him.  Not truly.  There had been rare moments when something resembling affection would pass between himself and his father.  Giving him the daggers.  Thanking him for Sleipnir.  And his father, or ex-father as it was, had congratulated him upon receiving the highest academic honors of his year group, which was Thor’s group since Loki had skipped several years ahead—No one ever thought to mention that.

Odin had even toasted him for his success at the graduation feast, but not before praising Thor for his less than stellar achievements.  It was as though Loki had been an afterthought.  Rolling his eyes, Loki shoved his nose in the air, mocking the old man’s voice, though the sound was a bit rough considering he rarely used his vocal chords anymore.

“Oh, Loki, I heard you like daggers, so I bought some for you even though they are a rather feminine form of defense.  I’m pleased that you finished at the top of your year group, Loki, though you might consider taking your nose out of those books and into the training arena.  Look how much bigger Thor is than you!  Thank you for the fastest horse in the nine, Loki.  Even if he is positively hideous with those legs of his.  I think I’ll go challenge your brother to a race.  No need for you to come, Loki.  Go practice magic or whatever it is that you do.  Oh, you kissed a girl?  Well, I must say that I’m relieved.  I assumed you’d prefer kissing boys.”  

Shaking his head, he sighed.  On the opposite end of the spectrum of love and hate, stood his mother.  Frigga had adored him.  He knew that now.  Without her, he would have jumped from the bifrost long before he’d reached adolescence.  Had she known that?  What had his last words been to her?  He tried to think back, but his memory was unhelpful at the moment.  Had they been good words?  He knew he’d cursed at her when he’d discovered his true parentage, and she had apologized profusely.  When had he last seen her?  At Odin’s bedside.  When Sig had roasted Laufey.  Frigga had clung to him, and he’d held her, too.  Good.  Even if he couldn’t remember the last words to pass between them, his actions had spoken well enough.  

And then there was Thor.  He’d loved the fool, despite his hatred, but since that fucking cretin had all but killed him and destroyed everything, the blond dolt was dead to him.  Not that Loki would ever see him again.  Not that he would ever see anyone again.  Maybe Thor had secretly harbored jealousy for him, too.  Frigga had shown a preference for Loki, after all.  Come to think of it (he had all the time in the nine to think now, didn’t he?) Thor had other reasons for hating him.  Loki ticked off the reasons, petty as they were.  

Thor was a slower runner.  Loki had been the champion, much to his father’s dismay, at every track meet.  Thor was also a joke of a pupil at the academy.  Well, not a complete joke.  He’d fared quite well in the end, but he hadn’t come close to Loki who had excelled to the point of putting their professors to shame.  But really, Dean Rafnar continually confused quantum chromodynamics with quantum electrodynamics!  There was no way in Hel that Loki wasn’t going to correct the supposed ‘theoretical physics’ professor for such an elementary slip.

Even more vapid was the possibility that Thor might have been envious of his hair, too.  It was understandable.  The black had always stood out, turning heads everywhere he went.  Not to mention he’d had just as many offers from men as he had from women to visit their beds, and if he were to be honest with himself, he’d been more flattered by the former.  Not that he’d entertained the offers, but it was impressive that he was capable of causing a sexual identity crisis in so many supposedly heterosexual men.  What was wrong with them just admitting that they were interested in both genders?  Or the same genders?  Or maybe they weren’t.  Maybe it had just been him they were interested in.  

He smirked at the thought, but it turned to a frown quickly.  It was a good thing there were no mirrors here.  His appearance was probably monstrous at this point.  Rolling his eyes, he rubbed a hand down his face.  As though his looks mattered in the slightest now.  He’d become far too vain over the years.

What else might have caused a twinge of jealousy in his brother?—Oh right.  Loki smiled.  He’d had been the first to bed a girl.  Now that, sharing that news with Thor, that had been worth dreaming about.  He’d wounded his arrogant brother’s pride, and it had made for a grand afternoon.  Not that his first experience with sex had been especially memorable.  The event itself had been his first taste of physical pleasure, outside of his own hands obviously, but the girl had been nothing more than a good solid fuck.  He’d lost count of the sexual partners he’d had long ago.  He was nine hundred years old, after all.  

He’d never developed an emotional attachment to any of them, but along came Sigyn, and once he’d had her, gods, nothing could compare.  Fucking was a far cry from what he’d done with her.  Love.  It was most incredible and the worst imaginable emotion in the entire universe.  He felt hollow.  She’d filled him.  She’d made him whole.  And now she was gone.  Loving Sigyn had left him completely and utterly hollow, and sadly, he knew he’d done the same to her.  Now they were just two heartbroken creatures, separated for eternity.  

Did the strange alien creatures living in this desert know that leaving him alone with only his memories and dreams would torture him this way?  Did they know that no blades or whips or other forms of physical torture were necessary to torment him?—Of course they did.  Why waste their time physically torturing him when he could do it himself?  But why the Hel did they want him to?  What were their intentions with him?  How much longer before he would finally starve?  Months?  Years?  He couldn’t remember the time it took for Asgardians or Jotuns or half-Jotuns (whatever he was) to starve to death.  How long had he been here?  

Oh yes.  That’s right.  One month.

Much to his surprise (shock and absolute terror, more like) the glass door suddenly slid open.  Bright light flooded the room, and Loki thought his eyes would explode in their sockets under the garish haze.  He threw his arm over his eyes and pulled his legs up as that same damned grey man entered his cell.

“I see that our little Asgardian magician is still alive.  Good.  I have a proposition for you.  And I imagine you will like it.”

FALLEN CONTINUES IN CHAPTER ELEVEN: I DON’T MAKE DEALS WITH MONSTERS

Visit the Trilogy main page HERE.

Fallen Chapters: ¹ Come Back to Me, Sig. ² I’ll Protect You From Everything ³ Let’s Just See How This Plays Out ⁴ When Did I Get So Soft? ⁵ Bring Me Home (But Not to This) ⁶ Death is Everywhere ⁷ The Bridge ⁸ The Desert ⁹ Remember Remember (It Hurts Like Hel) ¹⁰ Green is for Life ¹¹ I Don’t Make Deals With Monsters ¹² Rain Rain, Go Away ¹³ Are You Ready? ¹⁴ I Will Find You

CHAPTER TEN THEME SONG:

“Punching in a Dream (Stripped)” by The Naked and Famous

What Readers Have Said

About CH 10 “Green is for Life”

“So far you have not disappointed. Every time we reach a point in the narrative when writers tend to do the same routines, you keep going through another path. I’m impressed.”

-Pixelerante, on CH 10 “Green is for Life”, 30 July 2017 (AO3)

“I’m forming the official ‘Odin is a dick and a pisspoor father that fucked up both of his sons’ club. Who wants to join?”

-Ferbette, on CH 10 “Green is for Life”, 13 Jan 2021 (2^nd reading review AO3)

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