Chapter Text
Odin Allfather’s justice is as swift and terrible as it is wise. Odin Allfather’s justice is a law of the universe, an immutable fact. When Ragnarok comes and all the worlds burn, Odin Allfather’s justice will prevail. Loki knows this. For a thousand years he has known this.
When that lurching, unstable, Tesseract-powered journey back to Asgard is complete, Loki expects to be taken immediately to the throne room, to face the court of the Aesir, to face the Allfather’s justice. At first it seems like this will indeed be the case; Thor wastes no time in dragging him from the jagged remains of the Bifrost into the heart of the city. Thor’s face is set and hard, blue eyes cold, laughing mouth tight with unhappy lines. Loki could interpret a whole history from those lines – a history that begins in Jotunheim and ends on Midgard. Loki’s treachery can be mapped out on Thor’s skin. When they pass two stoic members of the king’s guard standing watch at the gates, Thor does not grin at them, nor clap them on the shoulders, nor ask them about their wellbeing, their families, as is his wont; instead he sweeps past them as if they are mere shadows, sparing each of them a single, terse nod.
Despite himself, Loki is a little unsettled by his not-brother’s behaviour. He doesn’t know what to do with this stranger that has claimed him, this tired and saturnine creature that shining, gold-bright Thor has become. This is not the Thor of his childhood, the boisterous boy who believed wholeheartedly that eating vegetables would cause carrots to grow out of his ears, because Loki had told him so; nor is it Thor the kicked puppy, the injured and persistent sibling intent on repairing something that was never there; nor is it Thor the warrior, Thor the Avenger. This is Thor-the-something-else. This is a Thor entirely alien to Loki, Loki whose knowledge surpasses every being in the Nine Realms, Loki to whom nothing is alien.
Distracted as he is by his not-brother’s uncharacteristic behaviour, it takes Loki longer than it should to notice exactly where Thor is taking him. Thor does not take him to the Allfather, despite the fact that Odin must already have been informed of their presence in his realm, by Heimdall, or by his ravens, Huginn and Muninn. The word will have spread. The court must already be clamouring for Loki’s blood by now.
And yet Thor does not take him to the Allfather. He takes him to the Healing Room.
As they walk through the wide white doors Loki stumbles in surprise, and even as he curses himself for the brief moment of weakness Thor bundles him into the arms of the waiting healers. Snarling and spitting around the gag, kicking and scratching to no avail, Loki is callously manhandled into the nearest available bed and strapped down to be examined. They do not remove the gag or the cuffs – likely they are too wary of a Loki in possession of all his powers – but rather work around them, casting their feeble magics in tandem, attempting to diagnose what ails him. They will have no luck; there is no diagnosis for monstrousness, nor any cure, and Loki knows now that he has been monstrous all his life.
Thor watches from the doorway and his face betrays nothing, not anxiousness, not relief, not any kind of joy or dismay. Loki is unaccustomed to an unreadable Thor, and it only adds to his unease. Punishment he can handle – punishment he was expecting – but this is not punishment, not yet, and he doesn’t know what to think of that. His not-brother usually wears his emotions plainly on his face and in his body, his gestures. Loki has spent a whole lifetime learning to read those gestures and now it is as if he has suddenly become blind, blind and utterly impotent. He cannot fathom why Thor would have brought him to the Healing Room rather than to the execution block, or even to a prison cell. All of his physical wounds from the matter in New York had been seen to by mortal healers; surely this is only a delaying tactic, some way of confusing or postponing Odin’s justice. But to what end? What could Thor possibly hope to gain from this?
After what seems an age the healers finally retreat, gathering in the corner to confer amongst themselves in hushed whispers. One of them, a woman with a sharp nose and salt-and-pepper hair, peels off from the crowd and goes to Thor. From the bed Loki bares his teeth, though nobody can see it beneath the gag. If they try to take blood from him he will bite them, gag or no.
“Your brother is physically recovered, apart from a little malnutrition and sleep deprivation,” says the healer, speaking in an undertone that nevertheless still carries to Loki’s ears. “There is a faint psychic trace still clinging to him – I presume from the Chitauri – but we’re not too concerned about it, it should clear up in a couple of days so long as he maintains distance. And from what I hear that shouldn’t be a problem.”
At that Loki sits up, straining to hear more, but Thor only thanks the healer and bids her return to her post. Scowling, Loki falls back into the bed, tugging half-heartedly at the straps and cuffs binding him. Is this how the Allfather means to punish him, by leaving him in suspense as to his fate, while every puling commoner seems to know all about what is in store for him?
At least he can be fairly certain, now, that they aren’t going to kill him. What would be the point of taking him to the healers if they were only going to decapitate him afterwards? Unless of course they are only trying to torment him – in which case they have succeeded merely by inflicting Thor on him.
“Brother,” says Thor softly – and when did Thor move to his bedside? When Loki was lost in thought, apparently. He must not let his guard down again. “Brother, are you comfortable?”
Loki stares at him. His eyes flicker down to the cuffs on his wrists, and then back to Thor’s pleading eyes.
Thor coughs. “Yes, well. Under the circumstances... I’m sure you, brother, with all your vaunted intellect, can understand why Father believes that keeping you restrained is the safer option. At least for now.”
Thor pauses as if to await a reply; Loki says nothing, which might have something to do with the gag stopping up his mouth. He would not have said anything even if he had the capacity to – Thor has been in contact with Odin? Thor brought him to the Healing Room at the request of the king?
“You will spend the night here,” says Thor, “resting, and recuperating. In the morning I will take you to Father and you will face his justice. You must understand,” he adds, somewhat desperately, “we have only your best interests at heart – you have been poisoned, brother, and we wish to help you heal.”
Loki snorts and lets his gaze drift away, staring up at the ceiling. The only poison within him is Laufey’s blood, and he can hardly be rid of that. If it pleases Thor to offer platitudes and false sympathy then that is his business – Loki will have no part in it.
“Brother?” tries Thor, but Loki does not give him any sort of answer, does not even glance back at him. Even in the face of Loki’s blatant disdain Thor does not falter, but only pulls up a chair and settles in, waiting. Eventually his breath slows out and is replaced by a familiar deep rumble, echoing through the Healing Room. Something clenches within Loki’s chest, and he closes his eyes. Somehow the sound of Thor’s incessant snoring is more painful than anything that his not-brother could say to him.
Loki does not sleep that night, and in the morning he has not rested and he has not recuperated. What need has he of rest? He is Loki Silvertongue, Loki World-wanderer, Loki Realm-breaker. He is Loki Nobodyson. This may be the last glimpse he ever has of Asgard’s walls, whether he is destined for death or a prison cell, and he will not waste it sleeping.
Dawn breaks, and the bells ring out. Thor startles into wakefulness, a trail of drool emerging from the corner of his mouth. Loki scowls beneath the gag.
“Hrghmm,” says Thor, which resolves itself into, “Good morning, brother!” after he has had a moment to gather his (admittedly few) wits together. Loki does not know what he is so happy about – morning means that he is to be sentenced. Morning means that he and Thor are to be separated for good.
Thor yawns and stretches hugely, then wriggles in his chair; with a certain unkind glee Loki recalls that his not-brother has never slept well outside of his own bed, regardless of the many quests and adventures that have forced him to find sleep wherever he falls. Sure enough, as Thor stands he gives his buttocks a little shake, as if to waken them from numbness. Loki stifles a snort.
“Servants!” Thor booms, and as if he has called them into being merely by wishing it, a small flotilla of servants immediately scurries up to bow and scrape and offer their services. “My brother and I require sustenance!”
Within moments sustenance is provided: a veritable feast of eggs, bread, meat and soup, with a few plates of fruit and mugs of mead to top it off. Mead for breakfast – Thor has not changed. Loki gnaws on a hunk of bread and tastes nothing but ash. There is a cold, queasy feeling in his stomach, and he cannot help but look to the window, to the rising sun sending rosy fingers whispering over Asgard’s golden spires. There is very little time left. Soon the waiting will be over and Loki will know what is to become of him.
“Calm down,” says Thor. Loki starts and inadvertently meets his gaze. There is a strange tenderness within his eyes, and when he places a hand upon Loki’s shoulder he does so gently, as if soothing a skittish animal. “You have committed great crimes, and you will be punished. I cannot change that. But your punishment will not be unreasonable – we want your rehabilitation, not your destruction. Father loves you. We all love you, and act from love.”
Loki feels as if he has been stabbed. There is a sharp pain beneath his breast, and for a moment he finds it hard to breathe; a moment later he finds his equilibrium and turns away, unable to meet Thor’s unwavering gaze. His not-brother is a naive child, still innocent to the horrors of the world, still resistant to the reality of Loki’s treason.
They walk to the throne room in silence.
The gathered court is exactly as Loki remembers them, exactly as he had imagined them to be. His and Thor’s procession up to the dais is an ugly mockery of Thor’s would-be coronation – only instead of cheering them on, the gathered crowds are eerily quiet, but for the occasional muffled whisper or insult. Atop the golden throne sits Odin Borson, Odin Allfather, Odin War-merry, Spear-shaker, Shield-breaker. Odin the Deceiver. Odin Sure-of-victory, mover of constellations, lord of the hanged.
Odin is not dressed for battle. Loki’s mind is buzzing too fiercely for him to make anything of that.
There is a silence, and then the Allfather speaks.
“Loki,” he greets him, and then pointedly: “Odinson. You know well all the ways in which you have transgressed. You have acted in anger and carelessness, caused untold deaths, ravaged Jotunheim and Midgard alike. And yet in part these crimes are also mine. I am to blame for keeping the truth of your origins from you for so very long, and for not being there to guide you through the discovery. I deceived you and led you to deceive others in turn. No longer.”
Loki’s lip curls beneath the gag. Odin’s prattle might have been a balm to him before he had fallen from the Bifrost, but coming after the Chitauri, after the Other, after the chaos in New York, it is too little and too late.
Standing beside the throne, Frigga’s eyes are filling slowly with tears, though there is a wobbly sort of smile on her face. She gives Loki a look that is probably meant to be reassuring. Loki does not feel reassured. Beside him Thor’s hand tightens on his arm; he shakes it off, unable to bear the hypocrisy of his not-brother’s attempts at comfort.
The assembled court is entirely silent, waiting for a verdict.
Loki’s skin crawls.
“For your crimes,” continues the Allfather, “you will be banished to Vanaheim, and stripped of your powers until the time comes that you are worthy to wield them again. You will be free to roam Vanaheim, as Thor was free to roam Midgard during his own banishment – save that you will have a companion, where he did not.”
There is a roaring in Loki’s ears, and he cannot tell whether it comes from the gathered crowds or from the chaos of his own mind. Banishment? To Vanaheim? And with a companion – what companion? What Asgardian would deign to accompany Loki in his banishment, after all that he is done? The royal family have their own duties, as does every member of the court, including Sif and the Warriors Three. Loki has acquaintances among the commoners, but none that he would call friend. (This is not any kind of slur upon Asgard’s commoners – after his recent stint as attempted conqueror of the Nine Realms, there is not a single being across all the roots of Yggdrasil that Loki would call friend.)
Thor steps to the side, leaving Loki alone in the centre of the throne room. His not-brother nods to him, encouragingly, and then bows his head.
Odin lifts the Tesseract in its gilded cage, and places his pale, wrinkled hand upon it. The soft blue light glows brighter and brighter until it is burning Loki’s eyelids, until he feels sure that his eyes will boil out of his skull, and his whole body is hot and cold and lurching and rushing and burning, the gag and the cuffs melting away into the ether – and then suddenly it is over, and Loki falls to his knees in the grass, entirely spent.
He opens his eyes.
The throne room has disappeared, replaced with the lush forests of Vanaheim.
Above him the sky arches out forever, bright and burning with an eternity of stars. And within him – it feels as if his whole skeleton has been ripped out, as if Odin reached inside and scooped out the core of him. His power is gone. His magics – gone. Odin might as well have stolen his lungs, his heart, his mind.
He stares at the sky, and then down at his hands. It takes a moment for him to comprehend what he is seeing.
His hands are Jotun-blue, tipped with sharp black claws, and beneath his skin blue blood throbs lazily through spiralling veins. Jotun blood. Traitor’s blood, proof of his monstrousness. Loki suppresses a gasp, and then realises that he has nobody to suppress it for. He lets out a choked cry, and his hands fly up to his face, feeling the thick raised lines webbed across his cheekbones, across his forehead. His eyes, he knows, are a poisonous red, redder than blood, redder than Thor’s ridiculous cape. The illusion that he has laboured under all his life is gone, and in its absence he does not know what to do. Thor had made a life in Midgard – how is Loki to make a life in Vanaheim, when all who meet him will know him for the monster that he is?
There is a soft whicker from behind him, and Loki freezes in place. He knows that whicker – he would know it anywhere. The sound of it is as familiar to him as his own heartbeat. He turns, slowly.
Standing tall and proud in the shade of a linden tree is Sleipnir, Odin’s warhorse – that is to say Sleipnir Svaðilfarison, child of Loki. His eyes are dark and knowing, with trails of his mane hanging down around them like spun silver, and his hide is a ghostly white.
Sleipnir whuffs, quietly, and Loki walks to him as if in a dream, resting his own forehead against his son’s, tangling his monstrous hands in that shining mane. Sleipnir does not move away from him. Loki’s eyes feel hot and itchy, and it takes him a long moment to notice that he is crying.
Three hundred years ago, a giant had asked a terrible price in return for building the wall that circles the whole of Asgard. Loki, ever the trickster, had devised a plan to prevent the Aesir from having to pay that price: he transformed himself into a mare in heat, and lured the builder’s great stallion away, so that he could not haul the rocks to build the wall, and could not finish the wall in time for the wager’s terms to be met. Loki had fallen pregnant and the product of that union had been Sleipnir, an eight-legged, gangly, beautiful thing, born of deceit, but as gentle and honest a creature as Asgard had ever seen. For the past two centuries Sleipnir had been in service of Odin, the man he thought to be his grandfather. In that time Loki and his son had seen each other only occasionally, and spoken rarely.
Sleipnir has three other siblings by Angrboða, but they are spread all across the realms; Hela in Helheim, Fenrir trapped in the caves of Svartálfaheim, and Jörmungand ensconced in the seas of Midgard. Loki has not seen them in decades. In all the chaos of Thor’s derailed coronation, the ill-fated trip to Jotunheim, the revelation of his parentage, Loki had never once stopped to think of how that might reflect on his children – and after that it had been too late. There is a lump in his throat, as if he had tried to swallow one of Idunn’s apples whole, and it became stuck on the way down.
If Loki’s blood makes him monstrous – and that same blood runs through his children’s veins – he does not want to follow that thought to its logical conclusion. His children are perfect, the sole perfect thing that he has done in his life. And yet he knows that Asgard does not agree with him – why else would Angrboða’s get have been exiled, and Sleipnir reduced to the work of a common animal?
“What do you think you are doing in Vanaheim?” Loki asks, pressing a kiss to his son’s furred nose. “You know that forests don’t agree with you. If I catch you eating whortleberries again I won’t be pleased.”
Sleipnir snorts loudly, blowing hot, moist air over his face.
“No, don’t be like that,” Loki tells him. “Need I remind you of Odin’s last hunting trip? You were ill for days. Imagine what Thor would say if you ruined my banishment by having indigestion all over the place.”
His son adopts a look of exaggerated innocence, bobbing his head and widening his eyes sweetly. It’s a look that Loki has been unable to resist since Sleipnir was a colt. Sleipnir is the largest stallion in Odin’s stables, now, but in Loki’s eyes he is still a gangly foal, tripping over his own hooves and constantly making trouble around the palace.
“Don’t give me that look, it hasn’t worked on me since you were a babe,” lies Loki blatantly. “Did Moth – did Frigga coerce you to come with me? I am banished, you know, it’s not exactly temporary. What could you possibly have been –”
Sleipnir interrupts him by pressing his head against Loki’s chest, insistently, until Loki staggers backwards, falling on his arse in the middle of the clearing. His son soon follows him, rolling around on his back in the grass, with all the glee of Thor confronted with an opportunity to stealth-bearhug someone, or Volstagg surrounded by desserts.
“You overgrown toddler,” scolds Loki, amused despite himself. “You’ve been wanting to do that since we got here, haven’t you?”
Sleipnir snorts happily, and spits a tuft of grass at him.
Loki sighs, and surrenders, falling on his back and staring up at the glaringly bright sky. The stars here are brighter even than the heavens of Asgard. He has not been to Vanaheim in a very long time; the last time he was here there was an unfortunate misunderstanding involving Thor and some goats, and Loki had not been foolhardy enough to return after that. He had not exactly missed it, but there is something comforting and nostalgic about lying here in the heart of the forest, with dappled, golden light spilling through the leaves and painting Sleipnir’s hide with shadows.
He tries not to think about whether that was Odin’s intention in sending him here, with his son to accompany him. Sleipnir is the blood of Loki – the only true blood of Loki in the whole of Asgard, now that he knows he is the child of Laufey and Fárbauti, and not of Odin and Frigga. Perhaps sending Sleipnir with him was an attempt at comfort, or perhaps it was only Odin seizing the chance to rid his palace of every last trace of Jotun influence. Sleipnir shares in Loki’s punishment, now, though he has done no wrong.
“Come on then,” he says, rolling over and facing his son. He stands up, brushing grass and dirt from his clothes. “Let’s see where we are.”
Sleipnir rises to his feet, like a landslide in reverse, all rippling muscles and cascading soil. Loki insinuates a hand into his mane, and uses it to swing himself up onto his son’s back. Sleipnir cranes his neck back to check that Loki is safely in place, then sets off at a light trot, winding around exposed roots and occasionally ducking to avoid low-hanging branches. Loki hums a quiet tune to himself, an old ballad from the mead-halls of Asgard.
It turns out that they are in a part of Vanaheim that Loki has visited before, though he does not know whether this is intentional or merely coincidence. There is a river nearby that he recognises from its bright violet waters – if he remembers correctly, the water is drinkable, but has a tendency to turn his tongue purple – and when he climbs to the top of one of the enormous old oak trees, the terrain laid out before him looks vaguely familiar. In the distance there is a city, which he resolves to avoid, and scattered throughout the forest there are several squat little domiciles. There are a few trails of smoke that probably belong to campfires. The nights on Vanaheim are long, and the days short; though it is only a few hours past midday, the sun is already beginning to sink below the horizon, heralded by hot orange light spreading out behind the mountains.
He clambers down from his tree, snagging his sleeve on a twig and tearing it slightly on the way down. Sleipnir neighs anxiously when he leaps from a height rather than climbing the remaining twenty feet, but Loki lands lightly, like a cat. Even without his powers he is not without agility – it seems that in his frost giant form some things are innate.
Night falls swiftly, and the night-chants of the Vanir begin to echo around the mountains. Wary of predators, Loki insists that he and his son find some kind of shelter for the night. Any predator that would target a frost giant and a gigantic warhorse would be a very foolish predator indeed, but Loki does not have access to his magics or to any of his weapons, and he is – quite reasonably, he thinks – feeling somewhat paranoid.
He is torn as to whether he should start a fire or not. He would need a fire to cook anything, but Sleipnir has already filled up his belly with grass, and Loki himself has no plans to go hunting tonight; he does not want to separate himself from his son (who is, while very sweet and enthusiastic, also a galumphing great stallion and not the stealthiest of hunting companions). Besides which, right now the thought of eating makes him feel sick; he does not even know what foods might sustain him in his Jotun skin, and he has no wish to accidentally poison himself because his Asgardian stomach can handle something that his Jotun stomach cannot. He would need a fire for warmth, but what need has a frost giant of warmth? And a fire will very likely attract unwanted attention. If Loki must be banished to Vanaheim, then he is determined to make the experience as painless as possible, and that includes eluding the Vanir to the best of his ability. The Vanir are very similar to the Aesir, except in a few aesthetic qualities, and in that they are on the whole even more airheaded than those who dwell in Asgard, which is a difficult feat indeed. And they like to sing.
They like to sing a lot.
In the end he does not light a fire, which is just as well, considering that he realises later that without his magics or tinder he hasn’t the slightest idea how to go about lighting a fire anyway. He curls up in the cradle of his son’s eight hooves, lying among the roots of a knotty, sprawling willow, lulled to sleep by the slow rise and fall of Sleipnir’s chest.
That night he dreams of falling through infinity, until all the worlds pass him by. As he falls, his hair grows longer and longer, and his beard grows until it reaches past his toes, and it wraps around his throat and chokes him. He cries out but there is nobody to hear him. He falls forever.