rip to him but im different

by victortor

Summary:

Thor is about to be crowned king. I pretend I see no problem with any of this, and do entirely nothing about it. It is simply not my problem. Self-insert/OC.

Chapter 1: A woman is a changeling, always shifting shape

The first decade was the most confusing.

Not that I knew it had been a decade, back then. All I knew was hazy lights, distant noise, the murmurings of people around me. My mind was— it knew things, yeah, but it was so hard to think through it all. I was just sleepy most of the time, or hungry, or both. 

Something shifted, after the first decade. Not that I had known back then, but looking back now, I could time the moment the air around me had— had gone from comfortable chill to mild warmth, and the lights and shapes of people changed color. The walls of the rooms changed, the make of fabrics different.

By the time I really understood who I was again, it had been quite a few years since then. Thor was watching me take my first steps, cheering me in his small, childlike voice, while my mother clapped her hands with joy. And I beamed too, because that wasn’t hard to do when people praised you. I let myself baby babble, not comfortable with the slurring words that my mouth couldn’t quite pronounce yet— I wouldn’t want to speak legibly until I could understand myself, at the very least.

But it was probably that moment, looking back now, that I realized: this really was me. I was here, wherever Asgard was supposed to be. I was still a younger sibling, but Thor was unlike any older sibling I had ever known— golden hair, loudly exuberant in a way boys just were. I was a boy too, as evidenced whenever Thor would try to talk to me. “Brother,” he’d say, “I bet you would adore a sword. Mother, we should get him a play sword, then he and I can spar! No, he’s not too young, I shall be gentle!”

Mother was not like any mother I had known, either. She was all soft touches and maternal warmth— the stereotypical image of a white housewife, I thought a bit judgmentally, but it wasn’t meant with any meanness. I liked it. It was a lot better than a bad mom, after all. 

I rarely saw my father in those years. It didn’t take long to realize that he was royalty of some sorts, or at least people referred to him as king. I tried not to think too hard about what that made me, and instead reasoned he was probably a very busy person. When I did see him, he was a very somber figure— he watched me, and I watched him in a very copycat way. I didn’t really know what to do around him, anyway.

The names, of course, were familiar. I was no mythology buff, but it was hard not to recognize names like Thor, Frigga, Odin. And me, apparently— Loki, the god of mischief. I had no idea how to deal with that when I first made the connection in my brain, and in the end decided to simply not worry about it. Not my problem, I thought firmly, and believed it. So what if I wasn’t ambitious and didn’t like chaos? And so what if I was an awful liar? Pottermore still always put me in Slytherin (even though I contested it every time). And I still lied all the time, even if I was bad at it. It’d probably work out.

The only story I actually remembered from Norse mythology had been from those child abridged versions of legends that I had read in elementary school. It was the one where Loki had done some bullshit (who knew what) and ended up chained to a rock(?) with snake venom dripping on him. His wife would catch the venom in a cup, but every time it filled and she had to empty it, the venom would hit him and he’d writhe and shake so hard he caused earthquakes… and also maybe one about Thor crossdressing to steal Mjolnir. That one was hazier.

But that didn’t sound hard to avoid, really. I was a goody-two-shoes, a people-pleaser. I hated breaking the rules. If I didn’t cause any trouble, then nothing would be my fault, I thought to myself, pleased. Not only that, I was the second prince of Asgard, apparently. That meant wealth and privilege, but without the expectation to ever inherit the throne. That sounded great, objectively. Yes, realizing I had been reborn as goddamned Loki from Norse mythology had been upsetting. I was not the person to be put in a place of power. But thinking it through, it could be a lot worse. I could just mind my own business, and I would have no guilt on my conscience.

Yeah, that thought lasted until I started history lessons.

—

Thor was a couple decades older than me, which really wasn’t much when you were Aesir. He was the exact opposite of me, in both appearance and personality. I liked him a lot for it, even though children were always… weird to talk to. But kids who were outgoing were so funny. They just said things, and they didn’t realize what a riot it was to hear it. And Thor basically never shut up. I could basically just let him jabber and pipe up to encourage a joke, and we’d both lose our minds over it. It was pretty amazing. So yeah, he was great. And I was clearly the only person around him his age, so he obviously came to hang out every day. Probably also because I was his brother or something.

I didn’t bother trying to hide my unusual, unchildlike demeanor, because again— I was no good at faking things, especially long term. But it wasn’t hard to be— not charming , because I wasn’t a charming person— just a kid who liked chatting about anything. I didn’t enjoy strangers, and I didn’t start conversations with people, but if someone came up to me and initiated, then yeah, I’d answer honestly and with elaboration. People found it funny, precocious even, that a kid would think so hard about his answers. That’s it— I was a precocious child. 

People had always said I was precocious before I was Loki, so that tracked.

So my first two centuries passed like that; as soon as I could speak, I would try my best to be as precocious as possible. People liked bluntness and weirdness in kids. It ended with Thor making fun of my overly elaborate explanations, Mother giggling as I described in great detail why I thought one of her flowers was objectively more aesthetically pleasing than the other, and Father occasionally asking me piercing questions during meals. He was like all fathers, when he asked questions that were clearly a… not a test, because that would imply a wrong answer. An assessment of my opinions. His way of trying to know me, I assumed. 

And I— I had liked Asgard back then. I missed my old life, the same way I had missed my parent’s house when I moved for college. But the homesickness had eventually faded, and it wasn’t hard to forget about it entirely sometimes. Two centuries was a long time, compared to the twenty years I had on Earth. I didn’t want to forget it, and I didn’t forget the important things. But the details faded in time. Because I had liked Asgard back then, and I had liked my new family back then.

I still like Asgard now, and I still like my family now. It’s just all different now, like all things get when you grow up. It’s all different and wrong, but it’s all the same as it was back then, somehow. The uncaring laugh of my mother, the unnerving stare of my father, the nonstop, selfish needs of my brother. It’s all in the same timbre as before; I’m the only one who’s changed since then, probably.

—

Asgard is the sort of place that changes very slowly. Even back then, that made sense. If everyone aged more slowly than humans, then they’d take their time. When I started my lessons, I really felt it— this was nothing like the fast-paced education of Earth. It certainly wasn’t slow by any means, but it was interspersed between years as opposed to months. There was time to spare. 

It was around the time things began to change, and Thor began to grow up. Lady Sif came into our lives in a way she came into everything at the time— angrily swishing her dresses, bunching them up in her hands angrily like she’d been wrapped in chains. 

I had even liked Sif at the time. I really don’t now, because Sif is the sort of woman who’s… she thinks she’s not like other women, sometimes. And she doesn’t like me either, because she thinks that I’m not like other men. I can’t help it, I sometimes want to tell her. I want to tell her that there’s a difference between her wanting to be different and me failing to conform, but I don’t because I know she’ll probably just punch me in the face or something. That’s another reason why I don’t like her; none of Thor’s friends like using their words.

But I liked Sif at the time, because personalities that clashed with mine were cute when we were all babies. That’s why Thor and I got along like a house on fire, and that’s why Sif joined us with a similar voracity and electric connection. Back then they were explosives, I was the safety guidelines label. They got into so much trouble, and it wasn’t like I could stop them. So I joined in because it was fun, and I tried to— I don’t know, minimize the accidental casualties. I was technically an adult, I felt vaguely responsible for it all. Even though I wasn’t an adult in numbers or years I had lived, or in physical form.

That was why I didn’t tell anyone about— about my time as a normal person on planet Earth, I guess. Because Asgard wouldn’t have cared— twenty years as a mortal, twenty years of nothing. They wouldn’t consider it important at all. Maybe I just didn’t want me-back-then to be disregarded; to be considered nothing.

When Sir Fandral became the newest residence in Asgard’s palace, things were already beginning to be different between Thor and I— though I guess none of us could quite figure out why. Thor got more impulsive as he grew up, and his antics got less funny to me the less he resembled a toddling baby. He was already the height of our mother’s elbows when he finally got mad about my useless fretting.

“We’re not going to get caught, brother, so why are you worrying?” He’d demanded, and Sif put her hands on her hips. Fandral, still new, had just nodded in support of his prince. “You said it yourself, the guards aren’t out and about at this time! It’s the perfect time to sneak in.”

“It’s not that, Thor,” I replied carefully, because I could tell Thor’s patience was growing thin. “Have you considered that maybe I just think this is a bad idea? I think Master Asger forbade us from touching those for a reason.”

‘Those’ being a couple sets of beautifully forged swords, sitting in our swordmaster’s quarters. Thor had lit up the moment he saw them, and Master Asger had told us they were to be gifts from him to us when he felt we were ready. But his emphasis on ready made me uneasy, and I saw no reason to go touch something that was going to be mine eventually.

But Thor didn’t share my reasoning. He was impatient, which was another trait that was beginning to grind my gears. He wanted to try it now , and nothing was going to get in his way.

“Thor,” I said, “I’m not going to stop you, and I’m not going to tell anyone. But I don’t want to go with you. I don’t want to see it.”

Thor narrowed his eyes. “Coward,” he declared, like the insult meant anything to me. “What does mother mean, insisting that you’re to be the god of mischief? More like the god of cowardice.”

It was our mother, Frigga, who had latent seer abilities, who had declared our domains. I had never had a say in it. I already knew I wasn’t one for mischief, I couldn’t change that. And I couldn’t change Thor’s childish idiocy, either. I tried not to be annoyed, but it was hard. No older sibling ever listened to their younger one, but that inevitably still rankled at me. I replied with genuine truth after Sif and Fandral had stopped laughing at Thor’s insult, “You might just be right, Thor. I’ll see you at dinner.”

Only Thor never showed up for dinner. I found out the next day, when Master Asger stormed into the training halls, snarling my name. It turned out the swords were enchanted, much in the manner Thor’s Mjolnir was, and things had not gone well when he had tried to wield one of them. He was now in the healing quarters. Master Asger was beyond furious, and demanded to know what had happened.

So I— so I told him, naturally, about how Thor wanted to go touch it, I told him he shouldn’t, but he did anyway. It wasn’t a long story, and mostly I was still thinking about how— how Thor was hurt, and maybe I should have distracted him into doing something else, or taunted him into waiting. “Is he alright?” I asked Master Asger when I was done.

“There will be no lasting damage,” Master Asger told me coldly, and I nodded. I didn’t like it when people of authority were angry— it made me uncomfortable. “But that foolish boy will never again be my student. I told the both of you that trust is essential in our exchange as student and teacher. He’s broken that trust. And you, Prince Loki,” he turned to me with a heavy frown, and my heart plummeted, “for what reason did you not try to inform anyone?”

“I… I didn’t wish for my brother to be punished,” I said, trying not to let my voice shake. “I’m sorry, Master Asger.”

Master Asger frowned harder. “So you chose to let him get hurt, and avoided going yourself for him to take the full blame?”

What? At the time, I had reeled from the accusation. Even now, I don’t understand the standards for honor that Asgard functions under. The Aesir are so honest and proud, and I’m a liar with a hopefully healthy amount of humility. The Aesir value selflessness and displays of emotion, and I’m self-centered and closed off about my feelings.

“No,” I denied immediately. “I just— I didn’t want to go, Master Asger. It’s not my responsibility to manage my brother’s actions.”

“It isn’t,” Master Asger said, and looked down at me in disappointment. I wasn’t even meeting his eyes, and I still felt his scorching gaze. “But it’s your responsibility to do the right thing, my prince. You could have gone with him to make sure nothing happened, or you could have told someone about his plans. You chose to do nothing. And because of that, your brother is now injured.”

It was so— so unreasonable . That didn’t make any sense, but it also made perfect sense. And being reprimanded for being selfish was so familiar, I didn’t even have to think about it to feel ashamed. Even though I knew Master Asger was probably just taking out his frustrations on me, I was still ashamed. 

Yeah, that was probably the turning point.

—

When Lady Ragna comes to see me, I can already tell from her regretful expression what she’s going to say.

“Greetings, Lady Ragna,” I say anyway, because I’m polite like that. “What is the Tower’s verdict?”

But at this point, Lady Ragna has been teaching me magic for centuries, since I was just a wee lad. As soon as I dropped Master Asger’s sword lessons, I latched onto Lady Ragna’s private magic lessons like I could find salvation in another mentor figure. She knows me well enough to look at me drily and say, “I’m sorry, my prince.”

I shrug, and pretend it doesn’t sting, as if knowing the result was practically inevitable staves off the hurt. It really doesn’t. “I understand,” I say, because I do. I wouldn’t have accepted myself as a candidate. “I’ll find something else.”

“I’m sure you will, my prince,” Lady Ragna says. She sits beside me, puts her hand in mine. Her wrinkled face is benevolent. “You are a very intelligent man of many talents, Prince Loki. And it isn't a lack of potential that made the Tower reject you. You know as well as I that you have no intrinsic love for any of it.”

I didn’t. She and I had many discussions about it, about how I insisted on pursuing more and more magical theory even though I didn’t even like it; just because at least studying and reading was familiar, and I knew I could do it with the right sort of motivation. Lady Ragna was that motivation— I was always desperate to please mentors. I hated letting people down. 

“I know,” I say. “I found magic to be a useful tool, though.”

“Which is enough for your knowledge in applied magic, but not magic theory,” Lady Ragna says, then coughs delicately. “And for the other reason…”

“Ah,” I say eloquently, because it had almost slipped my mind. “Because I am a man?”

Lady Ragna replies regretfully, “The council fears that the Allfather may not take it kindly if his second son joined the Tower of Magic.”

I nod, because that’s also a reasonable concern. Magic is a woman’s talent in Asgard, for the most part. The Aesir think it too indirect, and not hands on enough to be considered a masculine art. And it does make sense, when you apply that worldview to your values.

Thing is though, is that everything makes sense on Asgard if you think hard enough. Everything had made sense on Earth if you thought hard enough, too— black people in America need to be racially segregated because who else harvest the crops? Women can’t have abortions, because how else will men control their wives and daughters? Things like that. It all makes sense, whether or not it’s right or wrong. 

I’m not usually in the habit of thinking too hard about rights and wrongs, these days, because I know somewhere in me, for some unknown reason that probably boils down to the age when ideals become fixed, I’m still holding onto my irrelevant ideals of a human girl, and they’re not going to help me in any way. I try not to have too many opinions these days. It just all has to make sense.

I say goodbye to Lady Ragna after a couple of minutes, and leave the library in a daze. No one pays me any mind in the halls, and I think about how everything is still the same here, the same as it was when I was still three hundred, and not 876– by the Norns, almost three times the age. I’m already an adult here, and I’m still as stupid as ever. 

I end up wandering to the training grounds, where Thor and the Warriors Three are sparring. They’re here often, and if they aren’t, I can usually ask around and the warriors on break will point me in the right direction. I watch for a moment as Hogun defends against Fandral’s spear, and Thor hoots and hollers from the side. It is fun to watch skilled people performing their skill, and I even clap politely when Hogun gives and the match is over.

“Brother!” Thor beams at me, and I smile back automatically. “There you are!”

“Hello, Thor,” I say, in a very normal voice. “Here I am.”

“Where have you been all day?” Thor asks, slinging his arm around me playfully. “Skulking about in the library again? No matter how long you spend there, the only women you’ll catch the attention of will be that old hag, you know.”

My smile disappears, as it always does, because Thor is only wonderful to be around for about three seconds before he opens his mouth. “I know,” I reply neutrally, because I don’t want a fight.

I’ve fought with Thor with these sorts of things before. One time I got mad, told him that he didn’t stop insinuating that I wanted to fuck Lady Ragna, I’d beat his ass. I came out of that one with three broken ribs and a black eye. I still cry about it now, because I’m a baby when it comes to pain, and good lord has Thor gotten rough with the roughhousing. He’d apologized later, in the muttering way that means mother or father made him, and I shrugged him off. I pointed out that he did the same thing to his friends all the time.

Thor was all sunshine at that, knowing I wasn’t mad. (I was never mad at him.) He laughed and said, “That’s right, it’s not my fault you’re so delicate! Master Cadan must be taking it easy on you.”

After Master Agden had resigned, Master Cadan had become our new instructor. And he was good at his job, just like Master Agden. He took one look at my skittish fear of fighting and directed my attention to long range weapons— throwing knives, arrows, and even the staff and spear. I was grateful for it.

But I was never, ever going to win in a fight against Thor. And if that meant not arguing with him, so be it. He was easy enough to ignore.

The Warriors Three always find everything Thor says funny, though. Probably because they rehearse it beforehand. Or at least I hope they do, because I don’t know how people can be this callous without thinking about it first. They’re laughing, though. It’s good that they don’t expect me to laugh with them anymore.

This is what I mean by— I like Thor. That’s why I smile every time he smiles at me. But I also don’t like Thor. I don’t like being around him, and I think we get along best when he’s on the other side of the room, distracted by anything and everything, and I’m out of his path.

I try not to be judgmental, or at least not overly so, of his behavior. He’s the mortal’s equivalent of twenty, or something close to it. He’s just being a stupid boy. I try not to think about how I never would have been close to someone like him before, because douchebag fuckboys like Thor were just tiring to be around. And at the same time, I now get why people like that were always popular. Thor is charismatic, he’s funny, he’s charming when he wants to be. He’s even smart if he tries, which may be the worst part. In a lot of ways, he’s wiser and more creative than me— our tactics master has always given Thor higher marks than I for his out-of-the-box solutions. Thor always lords about it. But if that’s the one book-related thing he wants to be good at, so be it. He’s the one who’s going to be king, anyway.

I’m so glad I’m not the firstborn. I wouldn’t even want me on the throne— I’d be an awful king.

—

Our father becomes more involved in our lives, now that we’re of age and Thor is beginning to learn more about his duties as crown prince. Sometimes he even comes to teach us personally about his experiences and duties. I don’t know why I’m always taken along for the ride as well, but I don’t really mind. I’m genuinely interested in the things he has to say.

Thor is always the one with questions, though. I’ve never really been good with having questions. He’ll ask father about everything and anything, sometimes silly obtuse ones and sometimes questions I never even would have considered. Thor’s amazing like that.

I stick to just listening. Sometimes I’ll pipe up about things I remember from our history lessons— I was always good at history. And sometimes that’ll make father nod approvingly at me. That’s more than enough. 

The parent whose affections I crave more is the one I know will actually give it to me. Mother is as unchanging and lovely as ever, as wise and motherly as ever. Sometimes I’ll go to her gardens just to chat and have tea. I try to learn from my human mistakes of confessing too much of my life to my parents, but something about my mother this time around makes me want to do it anyway. 

But just because I want to doesn’t mean I do it. It helps that mother is— caring, but she can’t ever take sides. I can’t tell her about how I got rejected from the Tower partly because of my father’s policies on women’s magic, because then she’ll just tell me to talk to my father about it, and that he always has a reason. And I can’t tell her that of course he has a reason, but how do you expect me to be the one to change his mind on it? I’m just his son. He’s not going to take me seriously about anything. And I can’t tell her that sometimes Thor is an ass, because then she’ll talk to Thor about it and he’ll take it out on me. It helps that I can anticipate her responses, so there’s no point in asking out loud. I just talk to her in my head.

Things I can talk to her about: things I’ve learned in my lessons. Whatever caught my interest that day. I can talk to her like I’m a child; I can tell her my opinions on anything and everything. 

Today is a day of bad news though, and uncomfortable conversations. I don’t even know what I’m thinking, what I’m doing, when mother looks at me and starts talking.

“I love that you come visit me so often, Loki,” she’s saying, and I look at her calmly. “But I worry about you, sometimes. Thor spends so much time with his friends, and he says that you don’t care to join them like you did when you were all young. And to me, it seems as if you spend all your time in lessons or in your room.”

I reply back calmly, “Well, I suppose I don’t spend time with Thor and his friends because we don’t share many interests.”

“And that’s perfectly fine,” mother is quick to assure. “But that doesn’t mean you have to spend all your time alone, you know. I have a cousin in Alfheim whose son is similarly interested in books and magic, you know. If you’d like, I can ask for a contact. You need someone your age to confide in, my son.”

And I’m replying calmly, my usual glamors and charms cast to hide my shaking voice and shiny eyes, to hide that I react like I’ve been brutally insulted, or I’ve been rejected by the one academic circle I bet my entire future on, or Thor is being an awful person in front of me. “I appreciate the thought,” I’m saying, trying to make my voice sound genuine. I’m not lying. “But I think I shall be fine without it, mother. Thank you for worrying.”

Mother nods to me understandingly and moves on, and I’m still stuck there. I don’t visit her much, from then on.

—

I’m not really good at making friends. I hate strangers, and they’re even worse to talk to when they don’t look at you like you’re just a child who can say whatever he wants and get away with it. The period where you and the stranger have to circle around each other carefully, gauging each other to see if you’d get along— I hate it. I’d rather speak candidly from the get go. 

I used to just steal my friend’s friends. I thought it would be easier this time around because Thor is outgoing and always willing to share, but his friends are unbearable and he’s unbearable. And people here think I’m strange, with my too-pale complexion and aversion to combat. I’m also the second prince, something I wish wasn’t true. I don’t like it when people bow at me like I’m above them because of the circumstances of my birth. Monarchies on earth really were abolished for a reason. 

And it’s so easy to be alone when I’m so used to it. I even like it, and I like lazing about doing nothing by myself. So I do it a lot now, because I’ve got nothing else better to do.

Sometimes I travel on my own, when I get a bit too bored. The only realms of which are under Asgard’s jurisdiction, I avoid Midgard and Jotunheim— both for obvious reasons. They aren’t usually prime areas for travel, anyway.

I don’t make friends on my travels, and I don’t talk to people. Instead, I plan out places to explore, and food to try. I always wanted to tour like this before, but I had no time or money. Even if I had, I don’t think my family would have let me travel alone. I’m grateful for that luxury and privilege, at least. I should be grateful for a lot more. 

I try to get into people-watching, but I usually end up getting bored and restless. I read a lot of books. Sometimes I even write for fun, but the lack of computer typing irritates me, and voice dictation via magic is just embarrassing. I record music and play it on loop. I stare at scenery and go on guided tours that tell me minute trivia about the land I stand on. It’s a good time.

Then when I go back to Asgard, it’s like everything comes crashing back down. It’s easy to tell mother about where I went, but Thor will hound me about being gone for so long, even though he never talks to me when I am here— not unless I approach him first. Father will ask me to derive some sort of political importance about the things I learn on my trips, which always makes me panic, because it’s not like I wrote everything down and I only remember odd trivia, now.

And I’m bad at telling when I’m in a low mood, I realize. I was bad before Loki, and I’m still bad now. My face is almost always schooled into a nonchalant expression, and I don’t give things away easily to others. But just like I’ve always believed in the saying fake it till you make it, that nonchalance becomes real to me, too. From the bottom of my heart, I feel nothing about things I don’t like objectively. 

One of the first things I ever learned was how to illusion-cast my body’s reactions away, so Thor would stop making fun of me for being a big crybaby, and mother wouldn’t have to fret over me in a way that always made me uncomfortable, and I wouldn’t start crying when father was disappointed that I didn’t know the answer to one of his questions. And father never seemed to understand why I was sad, which made sense because I couldn’t really explain it either. I didn’t want to deal with any of that. So now that I can hide it successfully, even though it still happens, it’s like— it’s like cutting onions. It happens, and I simply must move on. It doesn’t really have to mean anything unless I want it to. Fake it until you make it.

I simply just don’t know why I would tell my family about it— just to be laughed at, or smothered, or stared at like an exotic animal in a zoo? For them to console me with words I can already play in my head? I don’t want any of that. I keep to myself. The decades march on.

—

It’s twenty years before Thor’s coronation as the new king. Father has the date set, and the entire kingdom looks to the date in a sort of simmering anticipation. I’m anticipatory too, but more with dread than excitement.

Thor is over one-thousand years old now, as am I. He’s— he hasn’t changed much. It makes me nervous, and that fretting looms every passing day as the date draws nearer. Twenty years is nothing. If Thor can’t grow up in centuries, nothing will happen in two decades.

But no one seems to care, that he’s still thoughtless in all the wrong ways. And I still don’t understand Aesir values, even after so long. All that matters is that Thor is brave, valorant, and is headstrong. That’s all anyone cares about.

I’m in no position to protest it. I can’t say a thing without sounding like I also desire the throne, which I absolutely don’t. I don’t want to sound jealous, and I reason that at least when Thor becomes king his mistakes will be on him, not me. Not me. It won’t be my fault. 

Then I remember what the king is supposed to be, and think about if being faultless is worth the millions of people Thor’s mistakes might affect. The number of realms, even. I know I’m catastrophizing, but there’s little else to do when the subject is brought up. I start thinking about whether or not it would be my fault if I didn’t do anything. I start thinking about how even if I did do something, it wouldn’t matter anyway. I start thinking about how maybe it’s the attempt that matters, and want to throw up.

I think about throwing up a lot these days.

It stresses me out so much that I take another vacation, somewhere I know will make me feel even worse than ever. It’s stupid and toxic, but I feel like there’s nothing better than feeling like a piece of garbage about Loki, except maybe feeling like a piece of garbage about before-Loki.

Obviously, I go to Midgard.

I point to the location I want to go to and tell Heimdall to drop me off near there. I have no idea what to expect. I don’t even know if Midgard is the planet I remember, or if Midgardians are something completely unrelated to humanity. The planet looks the same, at least, and I point to roughly where I remember New York being. “Here please, Heimdall. Thank you.”

“It’s my duty to serve, my prince,” Heimdall replies, like he always does. Inscrutable as ever.

An Aesir’s lifespan is so long, I’m expecting to see something— primitive, maybe, or undeveloped, pre-industrial countryside. I associate Loki and the Norse gods with ancient times, after all. 

I’m not at all expecting it to be 1988.

I end up by some unmarked country road in Maine, but the paving tells me this isn’t the 1600s or something. I use magic to find the nearest gas station, magick myself a plain t-shirt and slacks, and walk out with a newspaper.

1988.

I get to New York City by train, because I want to be on a train. I spend the whole time staring at the window. I walk out of the train station into the midsummer heat, already sweating. 

I spend the first day in the public library, because the date terrifies me and I crosscheck historical events with my own very sketchy recollection of high school history. It’s almost a relief to read about World War II and its events, not because I’m glad it happened, but because the events are entirely different. 

Who the fuck is Captain America?

Then the relief comes crashing in, because if history is different, then I don’t know the earth’s future. It means I’m not responsible for telling anyone about events I remember. I don’t have to do anything.

This is what I mean by I’m selfish.

I’m so dizzy with relief that I almost faint. I don’t, though.

The next day, I’m a bit braver. I walk around in… not familiar clothing, because I’m trying to match what I see on the streets, and it’s certainly not the fashion I’m familiar with, but I’m wearing a constructed face and figure that’s crafted with the best of my abilities, resembling someone who I used to be. It’s not a perfect recreation, because I can’t remember all the details of my old face, or what my voice used to sound like. It’s close enough, though.

New York is as unfriendly as ever, which I’m happy about. Again, I never know what to do when people try to talk to me. I buy myself vanilla ice cream in a waffle cone and eat it in Central Park, even though I don’t like cones because they’re messy. I just want to remember eating one. 

I walk around the park carelessly, until I spot a gathering of children and parents and young college students on a lawn. They’re blowing bubbles, I realize, and watch as large, iridescent spheres float and pop. I suddenly want to make one, too.

So I do. Someone hands me a wand when I approach, and I dunk it in one of the buckets of soapy liquid and wave the stick around until the bubbles separate from the plastic. I stare at them until they land in a kid’s hair and pop. 

Then I make some more. I keep doing this for fifteen minutes, until I’ve appeased the urge and all the children screaming get on my nerves for too long. 

And I’m walking away, reading to meander some more until sundown, until someone calls me over. 

“Hey! Miss in the white dress!” A woman, college-aged. “Yeah, you! Can you take our picture?” She’s waving her camera— it must be a polaroid of some sort, I assume. Not the cute aesthetic ones from the twenty-first century, that’s for sure.

“Of course,” I reply automatically, because you never say no when someone asks that. I forget to code switch the accent though, from default All-Speak to my native American. She startles from the European tinge, and I cough and take out the American.“Oh, sorry. You and your friend?” I gesture at the blonde girl behind her.

“Yeah,” she says, blinking. “Can you get the tree behind us, too?”

“No problem.”

I have the irrational fear that I won’t know how to use her camera, but she’s one of those people that tell you how to do it beforehand— “Just look through here, and press this to take the picture,” she instructs, and I’m genuinely relieved about it. 

There’s no resulting picture— I’m distantly remembering my dad’s old camera, where you had to develop the film or something. I hand the camera back to the woman, and they say thank you, I tell them it was no problem again. And it’s almost— nice, to have to go through these social niceties like I’m a normal person, and not Loki Odinson.

That is, until they both start chatting with me. “I’m Barbara,” the first woman says, then points at her blonde friend. “This is Alison. We’re students at NYU. I haven’t seen you around before, but it’s a big city. You live here, or just visiting?”

“Just visiting,” I answer, and I don’t even have to lie about it. Any of it. “I’m Mimi. It’s nice to meet you both.”

“Where are you from, Mimi?” The second girl— I’ve already forgotten both their names, which I feel very bad about it— asks. “That was an interesting accent, earlier.”

“Oh, umm. I spent some time in Finland,” I lie blandly. “But I’m from California.”

She raises an eyebrow, like she doesn’t believe me. “You don’t look very Finnish.”

Since when had I said I came from Finland? I’m about to reply that confusedly, but the first girl elbows her and says, “What Alison means is, where is your family from? Like your ethnicity.”

Oh. I remember why I hate talking to white girls. I reply very normally, “I’m Chinese.”

“Oh, like Bruce Lee.” And what the hell is that supposed to mean, I think irritably as I nod politely. “Your English is really good.”

“Thanks!” This whole thing is bullshit. 

They don’t even let me go, afterwards. I forget to lie and tell them I’m busy, so they drag me to a nearby shopping mall and make me eat dinner with them in the food courts. It’s almost fine once they drop the whole Asian thing, because they just gossip about things and I do enjoy hearing the sordid details of people that have nothing to do with me.

And they think I’m funny, I’m pretty sure, because when they tell me about douchebag Henry in Organic Chemistry, I point out that guys are really dumb about these things, and if he’s been heckling Barbara so much about homework, he definitely has a crush on her. “It’s not your fault his brain is so empty; you should just give him all the wrong homework answers,” I point out, but for some reason they think it’s just hilarious that I said it. I don’t know; I’m not pretending to understand 1980s white women.

“Aw, you’re a riot, Mimi,” the first girl says, who I’m pretty sure is Barbara. “We should hang out more often while you’re still in the city! Are you free next Wednesday? You should drop by our campus.”

“Sure,” I say, because you never turn down invitations like that, even if you don’t want to go. And it… wasn’t awful, talking to them. I haven’t talked to people like that in a while. “What time?”

That’s my only mistake in New York, 1988: actually showing up.

—

White women may be crazy, but guess what? White men are even more insane. 

I hadn’t thought in terms of human ethnicity in a long time. In a lot of ways, Asgard has the same skin color disbursement across the population, but no one had ever really cared about it. They were much more occupied with discriminating against aliens. It was nice (not really) to know that people are always people.

But now that I’m here, Mimi Chang in all her short, not-white Asian American-ness, I can’t help but think about it. White people are impossible. At least Thor follows the standards of our society; he can’t help that Asgard likes his type of asshole. White people simply just do not have to follow the rules sometimes; they simply do not care.

I get to the NYU campus after asking around for directions a few times and staring at the address Alison had scribbled on my tourist map of Manhattan. But once the girls catch sight of me, they drag me over the Washington Park nearby, chattering about comforting daily bullshit. I like it.

Then someone tries to rob us at gunpoint. Because it’s New York City, and apparently those things just happen.

The guy catches us in front of the alley, and then pushes us into it when we all— understandably— freak out. “Don’t scream and walk in there,” he demands, and Barbara goes white. She grabs both of us by the arm and drags us backwards into the alleyway. “Thanks, Barbara.”

“What the fuck, Robert,” Alison manages, her voice shaking. “Are you serious? In broad daylight?!”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the guy snaps, and it looks like they’re— classmates, maybe? White people. “Do you think I wanted to do this? I don’t have any other choice, okay? Just hand over your credit cards and all your cash, I know your daddies give you all the allowance you could possibly want.”

I’m freaking out too, even though I really shouldn’t. A gun shouldn’t mean anything to me, but somehow the image of one is so deeply associated with fear in my brain I just freeze anyway. I manage to get my wits about me only after Barbara hisses out, “You’re not getting out of this one, okay Hansen? You think, what, you’re gonna rob us and then we won’t report you? You could have at least robbed someone who didn’t know your face and name.”

Robert doesn’t answer, just hoists his handgun higher. Now that’s ominous. Alison and Barbara are smart though, so they both pale further. I look at the three of them with trepidation, then say, “Just put down the gun, please.”

He moves it to face my forehead. “Or what?” He demands. “Keep talking and I’ll shoot your Japanese trap shut.”

I fucking hate white people. This is just unreasonable, impossible, and so terrifyingly possible. Why would anyone kill three people just for— just for cash? It has to be some sort of personal vendetta, if he’s threatening people he knows. I don’t know why I’m thinking about this right now. I look at him in terrified confusion. “I’m not Japanese,” I say.

Then I cast my seidr around him. It doesn’t take much for him to pause, for his eyes to roll up into his head as he suddenly collapses. My shoulders slump. Alison shrieks.

Barbara rushes forward, kicking the gun away from his hand and further into the alley. “Alison, call the cops,” she demands. “There’s a payphone at the corner, I know you know what I’m talking about.”

Alison rushes out clutching her purse, then turning left. Barbara and I watch her go, and I’m about to turn and as Barbara if she’s alright, because that was fucking terrifying and my heart is still pounding. But she looks at me, her blue eyes narrowed, and she says, “What did you do to him?”

I pause. My heart starts pounding in earnest, because I never know what to do when people catch onto my lies— even lies of omission. “What do you mean?” 

“Don’t play stupid, Mimi,” she says, and she puts her hands on her hips like a girlboss. I don’t like girlbosses. “I know you did something. You had your hands behind your back where only I could see them, and there was— something green.”

I freeze. Again.

This is what I mean by I’m bad at lying. Maybe I can lie, given time and preparation. But I’m always going to slip up when I’m not thinking about the lie. I always slip up. I inevitably get in trouble.

But it’s… it’s not the end of the world. There’s no reason why I can’t tell her about this. I say resignedly, “Okay. Fine. I knocked him out. With my magic powers.” 

Barbara seems to take it in stride. There’s a spark in her eyes now, and she demands, “Then do something, right now.”

I shrug. I raise my hand and produce a single daisy out of nowhere and hand it to her. She stares at it like it’s Satan reborn. I stare at her uncomfortably.

Then she looks up from the goddamn daisy, and the light in her eyes has only grown bigger. “Mimi, that’s… that’s amazing.”

“Thanks,” I tell her with a large amount of discomfort. 

“You just… you just knocked him out! Just like that! You saved me and Alison!”

“Umm,” I say. “It was no problem.”

“Exactly,” Barbara says, and puts her hands in mine. “Listen, my dad’s the chief of police for the NYPD. You should come home with me tonight, he has got to meet you. Imagine all you could do if you helped the police force.”

“What,” I say blankly for a second, then repeat again with more force, “ What? No, Barbara, don’t tell you dad. Are you crazy?”

But the rejection hardly bothers her. She pulls me in closer. “Listen, Mimi,” she tells me, like she’s known me her whole life. “There are so many problems in the world, and most people can’t do a single fucking thing about it. We’re powerless women in a world ruled by men. But you. You could make a difference for all of us. What’s the point of having your gift if you aren’t going to use it?”

I swallow a hysterical laugh, because maybe I’ve changed my mind— maybe I do hate white women more than men. “You don’t even know me, and you want me to… to—”

“To make the world a better place.”

I pull my hands away. “Barbara, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say firmly. I have to put the auditory illusion up though, because my voice is shaking again. “I can’t do that. Please stop asking about this.”

This time she’s not as nice. “Mimi,” she snaps, as sirens begin to wail, “don’t you hear the cops coming already? What are you going to do when they come and I tell them everything? If you didn’t want anyone to know, then you should have stuck to your rules and not helped us.”

What does that even mean? My ears are ringing from the siren. Is this girl insane, or am I the one going crazy? I’m not even a woman. My name isn’t even Mimi. “What I’m going to do?” I exclaim incredulously, because she’s no Thor— I’m allowed to be mad at this… this stupid, insane white lady I don’t know. I might be crying again, I don’t know. I can’t even think. My eyes are hot, though. “I’ll show you what I’m going to do.”

I turn around to face the entrance of the dead-end alleyway. I take one step forward.

Then I land back in Maine, back on that road in the middle of nowhere, no cars or people in sight. I look up at the sky.

I think about Heimdall, and his all-seeing eyes. I used to ask about them a lot as a kid, because when I first learned about his job I had many privacy concerns. And since I could afford to be precocious and nosy as a kid, I went up to him and asked if he watched people go to the bathroom all the time or something.

What I learned was that Heimdall could technically see everything, but only had one pair of eyes. So he only functionally saw one thing at a time. You could flip through a lot of television channels in a minute, but you couldn’t watch more than one channel at once without another TV. As I grew up, I learned from Lady Ragna that there were a lot of ways to make sure Heimdall didn’t focus his sight on you, too— to make it seem like you weren’t there at all, unless he deliberately tried to force through the enchantment— which would require for him to realize there was an enchantment at all.

I hope he hadn’t found mine. The past hour had been— embarrassing, even without him spectating.

I lift the Mimi-glamor, then the anti-detection spell, and call out, “Heimdall,” and the light from the heavens pierces down on me.

I promise myself that I would never go back to Midgard. I had come to feel like a piece of garbage, and it had worked— but in all the wrong ways.

Barbara was an insane woman, and I don’t understand her. But she was right about— about trying to make a difference. About trying to right wrongs to the best of my abilities. It’s my responsibility as prince, even, to try to fix things around me.

I’m a piece of shit, I think to myself as the Bifrost roars to life. I wonder how long I’ll be able to continue hiding it.

—

Thor’s coronation day comes in just a flicker of a moment. I try to make myself vomit the day of, because as expected, I haven’t stopped catastrophizing about the fallout. Even worse is father’s looming Odinsleep— meaning there will be literally no one managing Thor. He’s not going to listen to mother’s counsel, that’s for sure.

I even bring this up, a few weeks before when it becomes that father will be sleeping for quite a while. I ask him if it’s really ideal if Thor’s coronation lines up with it, because then his first few months as king will be without father’s guidance.

And father had just raised a single, unimpressed eyebrow at me. “I am not his advisor, Loki,” he’d said in his reprimanding voice, and I didn’t shrink. “You are. I know you will not fail.”

I want to kill myself. I want to jump out the window the moment he says that, except of course I don’t, because that would hurt immensely and I fear pain. But I wish desperately that I misheard, and I don’t let my mouth fall open in shock. 

I’m Thor’s advisor?

Since fucking when?

And I can’t tell father that there’s no way Thor’s going to listen to me, because I’m his weird little brother who doesn’t like anything and is a bore that holes up in his room. Father’s not going to take that for anything except for confounding self-deprecation; I can already see it. I can’t tell him that sometimes self-deprecation and the truth are sometimes the same thing. I don’t tell him that it’s inevitable that I’ll fail, because he’ll tell me that of course I will, when I’m going into it with this mindset. I just nod and drop the subject.

The day of Thor’s coronation, I stand in my washroom and try throwing up in the washbasin by making retching noises for twenty minutes. I’m too much of a pussy to make it actually happen though, and it’s not like my stomach has anything in it anyway. I settle with staring at my reflection in the mirror and making myself cry instead. It’s not very cathartic.

The coronation itself goes fine and dandy, everything today goes without a hitch. Father retreats into Odinsleep after an extravagant, festive dinner which I devour miserably, because the food is good and I really haven’t been eating enough, not when I keep trying to avoid the great halls where Thor and the Warriors Three are always eating.

Thor even claps me on the back, after he’s been crowned. His eyes are sparkling merrily, and he’s not even drunk yet. “Brother,” he tells me, “father says that you are to my counsel. I will trust in your guidance.”

You won’t, I don’t tell him. I just smile and dip my head.

—

I can’t stop thinking about it, and I don’t stop thinking about it. It’s why I never wanted to be king— I never wanted to be responsible for an entire kingdom. I would never be able to rest on good conscience.

Being an advisor to King Thor is almost worse. It’s like— it’s like how I’ve always been able to know what people will tell me if I talk to them, because they’re so constant in their character. I can already see how Thor and I will be, when I tell him my thoughts.

“I don’t understand,” Thor is saying, even though I know he only doesn’t understand because he doesn’t bother to. It doesn’t interest him. “The people are suffering from the high taxes! It would be wrong to keep the tax rate constant. I agree with Gaidar.”

“And that’s fine, to agree with Lord Gaidar,” I say, even though it isn’t, and father has gone over the noblemen in his council before— and Gaidar has never had the interests of the common folk in mind when he makes a move. “But you have to understand, brother, that taxes are not just— the nobles stealing from the poor. It’s not the taxes that are causing suffering this decade, it’s the heat wave. And yes, you could lower taxes to ease their burden, but the ones who benefit from it the most will be nobles like Lord Gaidar. Not a farmer. And we’ll have to solve the deficit in our treasury afterwards.”

I’m trying to be reasonable, and rational. Thor just looks at me like I’m stupid. “So you agree,” he says, annoyed, “and you’re just saying a bunch of words to be difficult.”

No, I don’t fucking agree. “I’m not going to be able to stop you either way,” I say neutrally. “It’s just not how I would personally solve it. That’s all I meant, my king.”

And every day goes like that— Thor getting annoyed at me trying to— to politely change his mind about something, even though I know I’ll never be able to. I don’t know why I’m trying, I think hysterically more than once, and then remember that father put me here, not expecting me to fail. Not expecting either of us to fail. And that there’s more at stake here than Thor getting mad enough to punch me in the stomach.

Every night I go to my room and want to die for being an objective failure. It’s the worst three months in the world, those first three months.

It’s just three months, though. Then I do something really awful.

—

Thor wants to put more money in our army. This time it’s Lord Padraig who’s convinced him that it’s necessary, that we have to show off our military strength to fend off other powers in the realm. When he says that out loud, I imagine getting up and stabbing myself in front of him just to see how he would react. Outwardly, I blink.

And all these guys know how to play Thor like a fucking fiddle, by now. He’s easily impassioned by nationalism, he dislikes simple solutions to moral wrongs, and he doesn’t consider concessions as anything but a loss. The word compromise means nothing to him. 

In my opinion, the best options to things are never wholeheartedly positive, which is why I know Thor will never take my advice. He wants an easy way out. He wants the pretty picture the noblemen paint for him, because that’s just how he views this world. He can answer all the questions in Odin’s talks with us, but that doesn’t mean he’ll ever use that knowledge. He just doesn’t believe in any of it.

Thor wants to put more money in our army, and he wants to slash the support the monarchy gives to the Tower annually— the Tower that manages the entire magical infrastructure of Asgard. And Asgard is a kingdom run on magic— every sliding door and glowing light runs on it. The baths are kept warm by magic, the food is prepared with magic. And he wants to slash their funds. Slash. Their funds.

I want to kill myself. With magic, this time, just to spite Thor. 

“I’m not sure if that’s the best course of action, my king,” I say more stiffly than I should, because it’s hard to pretend this isn’t making me incredibly furious and despairing. “The Tower performs many a task for Asgard.”

The barely-hidden bitterness grates at Thor, who turns at me and glares. The past few months have been wearing him down as well— he’s not suited for politicking. “Why are you never on my side, Loki?” He demands. He’s also dropped the brother recently. “You always have to find a problem with my ideas. Why are you being so difficult on purpose?”

Because they’re not your ideas, I want to say. They’re badly thought out schemes other people put into your head because you let them. But then he’ll really raise that hammer, and I’ll just be the casualty. I stare at him for a long moment.

Just what in the world am I supposed to say?

I want to kill myself.

“Sif claims that you’re doing this because you’re jealous,” Thor snaps, and I startle. Less because he’s accusing me of the same thing he always accuses me of, and more that he and Sif were talking about me. “She claims that you’re trying to undermine my authority.”

And what am I supposed to say to that ? Does Thor want me to— to admit to it? Admit that I’m jealous, that I want his position? I don’t even realize that I’ve wondered this out loud incredulously until Thor gapes at me, like he can’t believe I dared to say it out loud.

I stare at him blankly. Is that what he wanted me to admit? Does it make him feel victorious, if he wins in an argument against me? I don’t understand that. He wins every argument against me because I drop it every time, so why would this situation be different?

Thor’s tone drops from angry to low and serious. “Do you mean that, Loki?”

“I don’t know,” I reply calmly, and very honestly. I don’t know how I feel about anything anymore. I want to kill myself. “Do you think I mean it?”

I’m being difficult and I know it. I’m being passive-aggressive and I know it. I can’t help it, this is what happens to someone who’s not allowed to be mad about things. I’ve only ever yelled at Thor once in my life, and that has nothing on now, where he— he doesn’t even realize that what he’s doing will most definitely fuel a revolt. He’s got no checks or balances. I hate monarchies so much. I want to kill myself.

Thor says, “Loki. You are my only brother. Don’t play games with me. Do you mean it or do you not?!” He’s getting agitated now. I realize that my brother only understands truths. That if I’m really trying to undermine him, it must be mutiny-levels of lawbreaking. It’s always all or nothing for him.

I’m freaking out and I know it. “What are you going to do when the Tower protests?” I ask him. “Are you going to tell them to make more gold with magic?”

Thor snaps back because he can’t understand sarcasm, “That’s the only helpful thing you’ve said all these months! Now I answer my question, Prince Loki. I command you.”

Well, who can deny a royal decree? I’m crying again. I say insanely, inanely, without a single wobble in my voice, “Of course I’m jealous, Thor. Every day I’m terribly jealous that you’re a better king than I would ever be, and I’m just trying to make your life difficult but irritating you. You should lock me up in the dungeons for a couple of months. Maybe it will clear my head for a while.”

That’s my biggest fuck-up, the last two sentences. I already know Thor doesn’t understand sarcasm unless someone points it out. I already know he only views things in 1 or 100. I say it anyway, just to make him mad.

Thor’s eyes narrow in anger. I try not to flinch.

—

Here’s the truth: being in prison is so much better than not being in prison.

No one talks to me, the guards outside of my door stay out of my sight, even though I know I’m always being watched. I don’t mind. Heimdall was my guard outside of here, so it’s not much different.

Prison is even nice if you’re a prince. I get three meals a day, I’m given books and whatever entertainment I ask for. The door is magic reinforced so I can’t escape, but I don’t even want to escape. Maybe this was all a blessing in disguise. If I’m imprisoned, then nothing King Thor does will ever be my fault. I’m just the collateral. I’m just a nobody in jail.

Mother even visits, because she would. She asks what happened, and that Thor won’t confide in her. I shrug calmly, pretending that even mentioning Thor doesn’t bring me to tears. I tell her while the invisible tears trickle down my face that I was trying to sabotage him. She clearly doesn’t believe me, but I don’t expect her to. That’s not the point. 

She doesn’t tell me what Thor is up to out there, and I definitely don’t ask. I’ve cried myself to sleep about it more than enough, thank you very much.

I spend two months in there. It’s a very well-rested two months.

Then Odin Allfather strides into the prison and stops in front of my cell on day 72. I look up from my book and gape, because I’m certainly not expecting to see him. He looks down on me with the haggard expression of someone who has woken up far too early, and the rage of a father who has woken up to his sons’ disaster.

“Loki Odinson,” he intones, and I can hear his fury from here. I’m reminded of Master Agden for no clear reason. “Guards, get him out of his cell. Then come with me.”

—

“A full scale revolution,” father intones, and Thor and I both wince. He’s sitting back on the throne, Gungnir back in his hands. I have no idea what has happened in the two months that I lazed about in my cell, but I have an awful feeling I’m about to find out.

“The treasury, depleted,” he continues with seething rage. “Our people dying from the heat with no relief sent, and the entire magical community in a rage. The wards failing, the Bifrost magics unmaintained, the women shouting in the streets, and for what, boy?! More swords? More spears? More toys for your men?”

“I—” Thor begins, but father has no interest in what he has to say right now. 

“To the point where you were dethroned and I was forcibly awakened by your mother?” He demands. “Just went through your mind, boy, that this is what you chose to do the moment I handed over the crown? Just what were you thinking?”

He hadn’t been thinking at all, I thought, because all men like Thor were like that. They didn’t like thinking through things. Adrenaline junkies. I tried not to feel bad for him, because technically Thor deserved more than a tongue-lashing. I failed, though. I hated it when authority figures yelled. He hadn’t even started on me yet and I was already crying.

“I assign your brother as your advisor, and you ignore his voice of reason and toss him in the dungeon,” father snaps. He gestures an angry hand at me, and I stand up straighter anxiously. “Did you seriously think he would want the throne? Do you even know your brother at all, Thor? Haven’t you realized that it’s the one thing he’s never wanted? You’re a cruel, callous boy that doesn’t use his head.”

Thor jolts, and I try not to. I’m surprised though, but not in a bad way— I. I never realized I was obvious about it, though. That my reticent father knew that about me. 

“And you,” he rounds onto me, and that feeling disappears immediately. “You knew Thor was going to be bullheaded and difficult, so what did you do? You tricked him into chaining you up, so you wouldn’t have to be involved in the whole mess.”

I didn’t know he was going to do that, I want to say but I don’t, because father wouldn’t want to hear it. I stare at him instead, feeling my face redden even as more tears slide down. Thank the Norns he can’t see any of it.

“I made you advise your brother because your caution balances his impulsiveness, and your insight balances his moral compass. But your ‘advice’ was nothing but platitudes.” Father grimaces like he tastes something sour. “You would stand and let your brother burn Asgard in his earnestness with nothing more than a mild discouragement. You’re cruel, Loki. In many ways, you’re just as cruel as your brother. You never want the blame to fall on you, and you’ll put everyone else in harm’s way first.”

That’s not fair.

It’s not fair, and it’s not true. My face crumples, even though no one can see it. I didn’t want this to happen. I just knew that it wouldn’t have mattered, if I tried to tell people about Thor. Father always saw potential I couldn’t, and mother wouldn’t have cared either way. Politics was never in her scope of control. I didn’t want to be the one scapegoated. I never asked to be the prince of Asgard. I never asked for the responsibility. I want to kill myself. I even almost mean it this time.

Father moves back to yelling at Thor. I stare straight ahead. I feel like the world is ending, even though nothing has happened at all. I feel like I’m probably already dead— again.

—

Thor is banished. I hadn’t even known it was something father could do— turning an Aesir into what was functionally a human. I watch the whole thing blankly, politely, obediently. I don’t look at Thor.

Then father turns back to me, and I’m at attention. “What is my punishment, your majesty?” I murmur. My voice is so blessedly calm.

Father stares at me for a long, long while. I get comfortable, standing there blank-faced and blank-minded, waiting for a verdict. I stare at Muninn, perched on Gungnir and staring back at me.

“My Odinsleep will resume for several months yet,” he finally says roughly. “Before I return to my slumber, I will crown you as regent.”

I imagine vomiting all over him.

“You will fix this mess to the best of your abilities,” he commands, like it’s my fault that Thor did this. “I will have your mother revoke your regency at any moment she deems fit, but I suspect she won’t have to wake me. You’ll fix this, Loki.”

I can’t even understand if that’s an expression of faith, a command, or something else entirely. I’m already dead, but somehow I plummet further into hell. I stare at my father and dip my head, because I haven’t learned a thing. I know if I tell him if he does this to me I’ll die, he’ll take it as a dramatic threat. That’s all it is, really, because I could never kill myself on purpose. Mom ingrained that into Mimi, at least. A dramatic threat, and a childish one. So is “I don’t want to do it”. He’ll call me selfish again. I have the responsibility to fix my mistakes, at the very least. And I hate being called selfish because it’s true.

I say calmly, “As you command, Allfather.”

I’m crowned in front of a restless crowd, leagues away from the celebratory mood that encircled Thor’s coronation. I imagine how funny it would be if I used Gungnir to electrocute myself as soon as father gives it to me. I obviously don’t do it.

The four months that span the time father finishes the rest of his sleep are the worst four months of my life. I’m not being dramatic about this one— and it makes sense that it would be bad, because the economy of Asgard is unstable, the people are unhappy, and the nobles who already didn’t like me when I was just an advisor are now openly hostile to the point of incredulity. They’re like bloodhounds when it comes to weaknesses— and mine is clear enough, just like Thor’s. I’m a goddamned people pleaser. I’m so glad they don’t see me cry every time a voice is raised, and it’s not like I bend to their unreasonable demands. But I never yell back, and I don’t defend myself against the unreasonable insults. They can tell just because of that, that I have no backbone.

One week after I’m crowned regent. The Warriors Three come to seek an audience. They want to go see Thor on Midgard.

“I forbid it,” I say, because no way am I going to go against father’s word again. “The Allfather has decreed that he will have no contact with Asgard in any way until he can find his way back here.”

And yeah, I’m expecting Sif’s reply. The way she glares at me like I’m the one at fault, the way she protests that it isn’t fair that he doesn’t get any help. I tell her that I wasn’t the one who made that rule. “I’m simply upholding my father’s ruling,” I say neutrally.

Then Sif looks at me hatefully and says something I don’t expect. “You don’t even care about him,” she declares, and I’m so shocked I let her keep talking. “You knew he was making the wrong decisions, and you let your own kin ruin your own kingdom. You don’t care about anyone and anything. You just make decisions with that smug look on your face, like you think you’re better than him.”

I’m staring at her with— what must be what Sif considers my smug face, because I do have a resting bitch face, I know. I can’t help it. I’m crying. I hate being called selfish, and I hate being told that I don’t care about people. Fake it till you make it. 

I let the accusation settle, and Fandral and Hogun are looking at her like she’s crazy, trying to insult me. I don’t know why. It’s not like I ever get mad. “So you say,” I say to her. “Is there any other concern you would like to bring my attention to?”

Sif storms out. Fandral and Hogun stammer out apologies to her and scamper off too, after I wave them away.

I think it would be a bit too pathetic, I think, to wail on my father’s throne, even if the guards wouldn’t hear it. I’ll save it for bed.

—

I stop eating regularly a week in, and I’m not eating at all by the end of the month. I hole up in my room— Prince Loki’s room, not the king’s chambers— any time I’m not needed. Here’s an interesting tidbit about the Aesir— they don’t need to eat, not really, if they have alternatives available. I feed myself energy through magic instead— just enough to get through the day, so that I can land in bed at night and knock out immediately. I’m tired of the anxious, restless nights that plagued me before Thor’s coronation. I don’t have the luxury for that right now.

The Warriors Three go to Midgard anyway. I don’t even know why I’m surprised, because it makes perfect sense. I’m always surprised when people break rules on purpose. It rarely ever occurs to me. 

They use another sliphole, to distract Heimdall and be invisible to his eyes just long enough for them to get to Midgard. Heimdall reports the infraction to me by then, though, and I’m sitting there on my father’s throne, thinking about how funny it would be if I just let it happen. It’s not like they’re actually going to be able to help him. 

“How is Thor?” I ask Heimdall instead, and if he’s surprised that I’m finally asking him after so long of pretending his name is taboo, he doesn’t show it.

“Well,” he replies, and I guess I’m relieved about it. I don’t want him to suffer unduly. “He has found refuge in a mortal’s home, and they are bonding.”

I nod. I tell Heimdall, “Don’t let them get past you again. But I think I will let them get away with it for now.”

Heimdall arches a brow at that, and something about that makes me defend my decision. I also hate criticism. “Thor must miss home,” I say, knowing how stupid it sounds. “It’ll just be once.”

I remember when I went to college, how stupid and alien I felt there. I imagine it must be at least a little similar. How glad I was when my high school friends visited.

Heimdall says, “I hear and obey, no matter the reason.” And he leaves, as obscure as ever.

By the time four months are up, things in Asgard are— they’re not really better. But I don’t think they’re any worse, which was exactly my goal. My father, looking much more well rested, sits and has me explain all the major declarations I’ve announced, and he doesn’t even look mad at the end.

He also doesn’t tell me my regency has been extended, either, which is a relief. I don’t think I could fix this even if I wanted to, and I’ve already lost a tenth of my weight and can’t think about eating without wanting to wrinkle my nose. I hate it here. I don’t even imagine killing myself for fun anymore; it’s for pretty much any reason except for fun now.

And finally, when I’m done, I take a breath. I think about it. Then I say, “Father. May I… may I visit Thor, on Midgard?”

I don’t even know why I want to see him. I’m nosy and have to know, I guess. Even though I told myself I would never go back to Earth. I’m a liar, I guess.

Father says no without even thinking about it. I try to pretend that the rejection doesn’t make my stomach flop.

—

Because I don’t learn from my mistakes, and because there’s no appealing to my father’s pity by begging— he’s not a king who listens to pleading if he already thinks it’s a bad idea— I pull a Warriors Three.

They’re the ones who inspire it all in the first place. I never would have even considered sneaking past Heimdall if it hadn’t been for them. But they did it, and even though they were caught, and even though I just finished my punishment, I— think about it. I fantasize about doing it, getting caught, causing my father to lose his wits again. I remember this awful cycle of course— it’s the same thing that made me tell Thor he should lock me up. It’s what got Mimi killed, probably. I know it’s not a good thing, for anyone. No one benefits from it. 

I still fucking do it. It helps that I had— asked, and I was rejected. That there’s a clear line for me to cross, one way or another. 

I fear authority. I don’t like criticism. I’m selfish and don’t care about Thor. I still fucking go to Midgard to see him.

The same trick the Warriors Three used won’t work on Heimdall twice, so I put my anti-Heimdall enchantment back up, and spend my time in the library learning about ways the Aesir traveled across Yggdrasil before the Bifrost. I’m suddenly, deeply grateful for my focus in applied magic when I was young, because some of the technical instructions actually make sense from what little I remember. I don’t know why I’m trying so hard, trying to break my father’s rules. But all of a sudden I’m obsessed, and I spend my waking hours looking at how long-distance teleportation works.

About three days into this endeavor, someone takes a seat next to me in the library. That never happens, so I look up and blink.

“Oh,” I say, mildly surprised. “Greetings, Lady Ragna.”

Lady Ragna regards me inscrutably, peering through her glasses knowingly. “Hello, my prince,” she says, like she and I hadn’t spent the last four months sitting across from each other and renegotiating the relations between the Tower and the monarchy. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you research so frenetically.”

I had never liked research. I reply truthfully, “Something caught my interest, and I have time to waste now, I suppose.”

I go back to my book when she fails to reply immediately, but then have to look back up when she says, “Did you know, your highness, that when you two were young, I resented your brother?”

She’s speaking unspeakables so casually that I almost drop my book. “No, I wasn’t aware,” I say carefully, but it’s almost relieving to know. I like knowing things.

“I did,” she nods. “I knew, you know, that he would always torment you for learning magic. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t want to understand you. I was biased, of course, because I was your mentor. But you were always a well-behaved boy.”

I try not to feel inordinately pleased about it. It’s not healthy to base your self-worth on compliments. I smile anyway. I don’t think I’ve smiled in a while— not since Thor’s left, for sure.

The smile drops when she doesn’t smile back. She keeps going, “But when your brother was crowned king and he decided that Asgard had no need for magic, I suppose that resentment became two-fold.”

I already know what that means. Again, it’s so unexpected I just let her keep going. She says, “I don’t pretend to know your life, my prince. I don’t pretend to know what’s the right thing to do.” She looks at me sadly. “You’re no Tower member,” she says. “You’re royalty. But to me, it simply meant that we had a prince who understood us.”

“Lady Ragna,” I say slowly, calmly, and clearly, because she’s always been a sensible woman. “Even if I had taken a stand, my brother hardly would have listened.”

“I know,” she nods. “It’s why I’m here, my prince, because I know my resentment is unfounded. It’s unreasonable. We’re all unreasonable people. I can’t fault you at all, my child. The terms you renegotiated are far better than what we started with. I’m here to give you my deepest thanks. And I’m sorry, Loki, for what happened to your brother.”

I stare at her. I still can’t stop crying. “No thanks necessary,” I tell her remotely, because Lady Ragna hates me and I’m dying. “I was only doing what was right.”

—

It’s 2008, according to the human calendar. The United States is in a recession, and someone called Tony Stark is making tech I definitely don’t remember from my hazy memory.

I’m standing in Arizona, in the middle of the goddamned desert. I’m staring at an all-American diner-and-bar in a small town in the middle of nowhere. I’m wearing the same stupid white dress that made Barbara-from-NYU call out to me. I feel like a pathetic napkin.

Thor’s in this diner. It’s dinnertime, so he must be out eating— maybe drinking— with whoever he’s crashing with. I look at my purse, pull out my wallet and driver’s license. None of it is real, but it’ll be real enough to pay for food and drink and tip, and it’ll stay real. I don’t disrespect the service industry by cheating them out of hard-earned wage; it’d be hypocritical.

I walk in, and I’m assaulted with warm air and the ringing of Thor laughing. It’s only been months since I last saw him, but I almost burst into tears from the sound. 

There’s only a few people here, this early in the evening, but they clearly all know each other. Makes sense, since it’s a small town. Two women, Thor, an older man, and the bartender and waitress. They all turn to look at me when the door jingles as I open it, and I have to force myself to not freeze and walk straight out.

“Oh hello, fellow traveler!” Thor beams at me, and I almost smile back on reflex. “I’ve not seen you around before, are you just staying for the night?”

“Something like that,” I force out, and it’s almost easier to talk to Thor like I don’t know him. “How could you tell?”

“Lucky guess,” he informs me, and gestures to come sit with them. I hesitate, but one of the women flashes a smile at me warmly, so I seat myself on the barstool at the end, by the woman.

“My name is Thor,” he introduces himself loudly, then starts pointing, “and this is Jane Foster the astrophysicist, her intern Darcy Lewis, and the wonderful Doctor Erik Selvig.”

“Nice to meet you,” they all echo, and it seems that Thor has a habit of dragging in strangers to eat with them. The other woman seems amusedly resigned to it.

“Sorry about Thor,” she says, and yeah, I’ve forgotten her name like I always do. “He’s too extroverted for his own good.”

“It’s all good,” I’m quick to assure. “It’s nice to meet you all too. I’m Mimi Chang.”

“Oh my god,” the woman who smiled at me earlier says. “Jane. I’m naming my firstborn that.”

“Uh huh,” the other woman says, pointedly sarcastic. “Cool.”

The first woman turns to me, completely serious. “I am so jealous,” she informs me. “If I was called Mimi I would literally have a tattoo of my name. It’s so cute, what the fuck!”

“Sorry about Darcy, too,” the older man says. “She’s already a bit tipsy.”

I laugh, and it’s only a little bit faked. “That’s okay,” I say. “My sister has a matching name, you know. Her name’s Momo.”

Darcy gasps— it’s loud and drawn out. “I’m going to cry,” she says, and she certainly sounds it. “Jane. Jane, I’m crying.”

“Uh huh.”

The waitress comes over to hand me a menu, but I already know what I’m going to order the moment I look at it. I hand her my ID for a bottomless mimosa order, and all the while Thor is enthusiastically chattering to me. 

“That is cute,” he tells me excitedly, and I blink, because I certainly hadn’t expected that. “It makes me think maybe my brother’s name should have matched.”

I blink some more. Jane— it must be Jane— elbows him playfully. “Okay, Thor, enough about your extraterrestrial family.” She leans over to me and fake-whispers, “Thor claims he’s an alien.”

I actually laugh for real at that, because that is pretty funny. I pretend to glance him over. “I believe you,” I tell him seriously while nodding, and everyone giggles at that. 

Thor’s laughing too, even though no one’s taking him seriously. I don’t even know how or why. “How about you, Mimi?” He’s asking. “From where do you hail?”

“California,” I answer. “Near San Francisco. I’m taking a road trip right now, so yeah, just passing through.”

“Oh, fuuun,” Darcy says. “I fucking love road trips. Just driving out in the wilderness. Shitty diners! Middle of nowhere. Love that for you, girl.”

I laugh. Darcy must be a Tumblr girl. She has to be.

The waitress comes back with my omelette and mimosa, which I inhale like I’m starving— I’m not, but the sight is so nostalgic to me it actually makes me want to eat it. “I fucking love omelettes,” I tell no one and everyone, and Darcy actually tries to high five me for it.

It’s so easy to play it by ear right now, because these people aren’t expecting anything out of me. They’re just a drunk bunch of people who’re chatting up the new girl in town, just because it’d be fun. I’m willing to drink too— I finish the first glass easily, I get refilled in no time. I don’t usually drink on Asgard because the Aesir don’t understand the concept of mixing drinks, but orange juice is easy. As long as it doesn’t taste like alcohol, I’m good.

It gets even easier when I get tipsy, which I knew it would. It’s always easier to talk to drunk people when you’re also fucked up. Thor gets even louder and happier the further into the night it gets, and for once I’m even laughing with him. I don’t even understand who I’m talking to, this strange mortal Thor, but at this point I don’t even care. It’s not like he has any idea who he’s talking to, either.

“Oh bitch, no way,” I’m saying to him incredulously, after Jane and Erik explain Thor’s first breakfast here, where he smashed a cup to ask for seconds. I look at him, wide-eyed, while he laughs sheepishly. “I’m so embarrassed for you,” I tell him earnestly. “I would literally kill myself if that happened in front of me.”

The self harm joke slips out on accident, and for a moment I’m afraid I’ve overstepped, but then Darcy— I knew she was a Tumblr girl— howls with hysteria, and Jane and Erik and Thor must be used enough to her type of humor to shriek with her. I also start guffawing, and my stomach actually hurts from laughing. I need to get under the influence more often. None of this is even objectively funny, I bet.

It’s only five when I walk in, and it’s only seven-thirty when I pay and walk out with the rest of them. The sky isn’t even dark yet, but we’re all decently hammered and Thor is giggling about whatever meme Darcy is showing him on her phone. 

“We’re going home,” Jane says cheerily, and herds Erik in the right direction. “Thor’s been staying with us since I hit him with my car, so. Wanna come with? It’s not so far.”

“ What,” I shriek, because Thor getting hit with a minivan or something is so funny to me I can’t breathe. “Girl, you shoulda told me that earlier! And sure, I can hang out a bit longer.”

It doesn’t end up happening, because the walk back to their place is just them explaining in a very chaotic way of the three’s meet-cute with Thor— Darcy quite literally calls it that. I piece it together from there— Thor landed nearby in a field while Jane was doing research, they took him to the hospital, then hit him with their car, the feds found Mjolnir and Thor got arrested for trying to steal it back, and now here they are, four months later. 

The longer they explain it though, and the more Thor interjects, still giggling— “My father banished me from the realm!” 

“Jane has been very welcoming and accommodating. You all have! I am eternally grateful and thankful.”

He even talks about how he’s working at the town’s general store now, and I don’t even know what to think about that— that this town has a goddamn general store, or that my brother is working there.

That’s where I stop though.

I’m not that drunk.

I stop in the middle of the sidewalk. I look down at my scuffed converses. Thor almost tore Asgard apart when he was king. And maybe— maybe some part of me would be grateful if he did, because Asgard is a country built on colonization and racism and everything awful in the world, but maybe that’s how every country is made. I wouldn’t be grateful for everyone caught in the struggle. Thor was supposed to— was supposed to suffer for it.

The way I suffered as regent, because I’m the one who let him fuck up. The way I woke up every day wanting to die or throw up or both, and I cried through every fucking conversation with anyone, the way I felt like I was at the bottom of a dirt hole and nothing would ever get better. I knew I deserved it, for being selfish. That’s why father made me regent.

But Thor was supposed to suffer, too. He was supposed to struggle on Earth, unfamiliar with the customs and people. His arrogance was supposed to get him in trouble, and he was supposed to be miserable and unhappy and—

And I was jealous, because Thor was living like he was a normal human in Bumfuck, Arizona, with a normal job and a friend group, and that was his punishment. And he wasn’t even suffering. He was— he had everything I could ever want, here. He didn’t even have to come back to Asgard. He could just live a normal human life, and no one would ever bother him ever again. He wouldn’t even have to think about any of it.

I don’t realize I’m crying until Jane turns around to call after me and gasps. “Mimi,” she says, so heartbroken I think she saw a dead cat on the road or something, until she says, “You’re crying. Are you okay?”

I realize with a start that I’d forgotten to use the glamor. I rarely get drunk, I just— forgot. I wipe my eyes hurriedly, open my eyes to assure everyone staring at me like a death sentence that I’m fine, just a bit drunk— when my anti-Heimdall enchantment breaks.

I snap my mouth shut. The jig is up. Honestly, I was lucky enough to get two hours out of this.

I’m so sad and drunk, and now new tears are welling up because I don’t want to go back and face my father, and I know he’ll be mad. I don’t want to go. 

Thor approaches me, and I step back. Alarmed by that, he also steps back. “Mimi,” he says, like we’ve known each other our whole lives, “it’s alright. Why don’t we just go to our place? You can wipe your face and refresh yourself.”

Everyone’s nodding, gesturing at me encouragingly, but I shake my head. “Thanks,” I say, and because I can’t think of anything worse to do but admit it, to confess to a crime no one had accused me of, I do it.

Thor’s so much taller than Mimi, but Loki? They’re almost the same height. I stare at the ground as he stumbles back now, genuinely alarmed. “Brother?” He cries out, and the others can’t even comprehend magic, so they’re just… I don’t even know. I’m staring at the ground.

I put the look-like-a-smug-bitch blank face back on when I look at them. I tell them all uselessly, “Thank you for taking care of my brother. Goodbye,” before looking up at the sky and shouting, “Heimdall!”

The last thing I see is Thor stumbling forward, shouting my name.

—

I don’t need Heimdall to lead me to the Allfather— I walk straight there myself, my game face on and completely useless. I still thank Heimdall for walking me to the audience chamber anyway. He doesn’t judge me visibly, at least. He’s just as polite as he always is.

The moment I walk in, I know it’s going to be awful. The more I walk, the fatter my tears get. I feel dizzy from the alcohol and dehydration. By the time I’ve knelt down in front of my father, I feel like falling over and staying down.

“Loki,” he says, and boy oh boy is he mad. There’s a tremble in my throat. “Look at me.”

I look up. He takes one look at me, sneers at disgust (I flinch) and flings his hand out.

I sometimes forget that my father is a master in magic, as he’s a master in so many things, and he rarely shows off this particular talent. I hadn’t thought through what it would mean to be detected by Heimdall, for my enchantment to be ripped away. Heimdall’s no curse-breaker. The Allfather must have done it himself.

I forget in the moment that most charms can be detected with eye contact, and he— he can tell I’ve got illusions up. He rips them away, furious that I’m still trying to hide something. I don’t blame him, I would be too.

Then he sees my stupid blotchy face, my clown-like shaking, and he stops completely.

I’m so horrified I don’t even know what to do. Even that doesn’t stop me from gasping involuntarily, and having insane thoughts about the Allfather walking me out shaking and crying like a dog so everyone can see the stupid prince sobbing his eyes out as my punishment this time— but that doesn’t even make sense. It’s not even a helpful punishment.

He and I stare at each other, similarly wide-eyed. Then I hiccup. I force myself to not cover my mouth.

My father puts down his hand. “Loki,” he says again, but in an entirely different voice from before. Now he just looks tired. “Why did you go to Midgard?”

I stare at him and don’t utter a peep. The thing is, I can’t actually talk while crying, not without the auditory illusion. I get incoherent too fast, I panic. I don’t like it when people watch me cry. Because I cry all the time, even when I’m not sad or hurt. I cry at the slightest provocation, for things that can’t be explained. As soon as I learned how to fake it, of course I used it. It was better than my— than mother looking at me like she’d done something, my father looking at me with no comprehension, like he’s doing it now, and Thor laughing and laughing.

Father doesn’t seem surprised by my silence, at least. He rummages around for something, then seemingly pulls out— a rock, from midair. It takes me a moment to parse that he’s pulling from his storage space, the one all reputable mages have. 

He holds it up. “This was enchanted by myself, personally,” he tells me, and it’s so non-sequitur that I hiccup again. “Whoever holds it will feel the urge to confess the truth. It’s not a painful urge, and you can resist it if you so desire. Would you like to hold this, Loki?”

I stare at him. And it’s probably because I’m drunk and already fucked up in front of him, that I actually consider it. I just don’t know how my father would know that I would— need something like that. That a lot of times I just need a push— I can’t bring myself to speak out.

Father sighs. “I notice more than you think,” he says to me, evidently noticing my confusion. “But not enough, at the same time. Do you want to hold the stone, Loki?”

I nod mutely. He tosses it over. I fail to catch it and have to pick it up from where it clatters on the marble floor. I examine the casting on it for a moment. It’s honestly very impressive.

My father asks me again, “Why did you go to Midgard, Loki?”

I answer shakily, “To see Thor.”

“Why did you want to see Thor so badly, that you would disobey my direct command?”

I’m already shaking my head. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

My father switches tracks. “But you thought it through, didn’t you? You thought about what would happen if you got caught.”

I say, “I knew I would get caught. I’m not smart enough to go under Heimdall’s nose for too long, especially when he’s looking at Thor so carefully.”

“Did you miss him? Is that why you went to see him?”

“What’s there to miss?” I shrug. “Thor and I aren’t close.”

My father stares at me like he can’t understand me at all. I also can’t understand me at all. “Will you tell me?” He asks finally. “Why do you think you and your brother aren’t close anymore? It was hardly the case when you were children.”

I say slowly, because no one’s ever had me put it in words before. “It’s because… we grew apart because our interests diverged. He had no interest in hearing about my studies in magic, and I could only stand hearing him telling me about whatever he and his friends did that day so many times.”

“You are not an impatient person,” my father observes. “Why were you unable to stomach stories of your brother and his friends?”

That question, at least, was easy. “Because sometimes, the things he does make me horrified,” I say. “Thor thinks that painting Jotuns on the castle walls and then using it as an excuse to go knock the whole wall down is funny. What am I to do when he tells me that? I can hardly stop him. So when he tells me what he did, I have to either pretend it’s hilarious or tell him to knock it off. And I can’t do the latter. And I hate pretending things are funny when they’re not.”

Father is quiet at that one, even though I know he knew about the whole thing. Thor had to write a whole manifesto on it in repentance. He says after a pause, “Why do you think you can’t stop him?”

This is what it’s really about. I wonder what the stone will make me say, because I don’t even know at this point. Then I hear my mouth say, “Maybe I can, if I try harder. I’m just scared he’ll kill me.”

Father pales considerably. Even I pale considerably, because I wasn’t expecting that at all.

Then my father asked, still ashen-faced. “How did you find out?”

I stare at him, visibly confused. “I— find out what?”

“Why do you think Thor would want to kill you, Loki?”

I don’t know the answer to that one, either, but the stone makes me say readily, “He wouldn’t want to. He’s not a killer. But he almost did anyway when we were younger. He always accused me of— of wishing to bed Lady Ragna, and that my desire for older women was the only reason why I had learned magic. It’s the only time we’ve ever fought. I woke up three days later, and the healers told me— they told me I might have died, if Thor had aimed his hits a bit higher.” Fat tears are back, because I haven’t thought about this in a long time, because why the fuck would I? And I don’t regret bringing it up, because I’ve— I’ve always wanted to, but no one had ever asked, and there was never a good way to bring up something that was done and buried.

Father says, “I know of the incident. I was not told your condition was near fatal.” I open my mouth to tell him I couldn’t lie right now, but he interrupts me. “I don’t disbelieve your tale, Loki. I just want to know why I was never told.”

“I asked the healers to keep it confidential,” I said. “I— I didn’t want anyone to know.”

Father is quiet for a moment again. “Why did you never contest it, when I made you the king’s advisor?”

I say, “Was I allowed to contest it?”

My father replies, “You knew that you weren’t able to stand up to your brother. I don’t say this to tell you that it was wrong not to inform me, but I would have listened, had you told me this.”

I try to think about— about what I’d been thinking back then. “I didn’t even consider the possibility that you could change your mind,” I tell him. “I was— I think I was too busy catastrophizing, and trying to brace myself, to try and think about changing any of it.” And isn’t that embarrassing to realize.

My father changes the subject abruptly. “How long have you been using your illusions?” He doesn’t need to clarify which ones.

“As soon as Lady Ragna described the use of glamors to me,” I reply. “I was… perhaps five hundred, at the time.” Roughly half my current age. 

“When you stopped crying so often,” father finishes wearily. I try not to feel embarrassed about getting caught. I fail epically.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him, which mortifies me because nobody likes apologies from me, not if I have no way to prove my sincerity. It’s why I never apologize about anything, even if I feel like stabbing myself over it. “I was— embarrassed about it. I don’t like it when people look at me when I cry.”

“And I doubt it would have helped, that Thor kept making fun of you for it,” my father mutters. I startle, because it’s another thing I didn’t know he knew. I need to stop underestimating Odin. He rubs his forehead. He’s not mad at all anymore, and I can almost see why— except none of… nothing I’m saying makes anything right. I’m still— cruel, like he said. And broke his command deliberately.

Then my father asks, “How often do you use your illusions?”

I reply, “Not often these days, because I don’t talk to anyone. When I was regent, I never took it off unless I was sleeping. Before that— anytime I was criticized, constructive or otherwise.” I add somewhat involuntarily, “Anytime we speak to each other, father.”

Father looks at me heavily at that one. I look down meekly. Somehow my voice says like an idiot, “I like this rock, father. Can I keep it?”

My father sighs. “Yes, Loki,” he says. “You can keep the rock.”

—

Father sends me off not long after. He lets me put the illusion back on, then tells me when I’m presentable, “We’ll continue this at a later time, if you’re amenable. And yes, Loki, the rock is yours now.”

“Of course I’m amenable,” I say, still holding my very fascinating rock. “ And thank you. Have a good evening, father.”

I go to my room and slump on my bed as soon as my shoes are off— I have no idea what’s going on. The dizziness from the alcohol is beginning to dissipate, too, leaving me just normal-tired. I still have— no idea what was up with my brother, why he was… like that. A normal human guy. I don’t know what it was my father got out of the conversation, or the way he had insinuated— that there was a reason Thor would want to kill me. That was not a good insinuation in any way, and I try to pretend I simply did not hear it.

I go to sleep like that, wondering just what in the world father will start probing me about tomorrow. Only that doesn’t even happen, because the next morning, Thor Odinson is sitting in his usual seat in the dining hall.

I’m not the only one who stares— the Warriors Three break into a resounding whoop, and everyone cheers— Thor may have been a bad king, but everyone here has known him since he was a child, and he’s always been well-liked for being charming and sweet when he wants to be.

I turn straight back around, because no way am I ready for whatever the fuck is going to go down during breakfast, and I’ve already sped-walked almost back to my chambers, before Thor grabs my arm.

“Loki,” he says, just a bit breathless from running after me. “Brother. May we speak?”

Here’s the thing— I’m still holding my favorite oversharing rock of all time, so I obviously reply dubiously, “We’re speaking right now.”

Thor rolls his eyes, and who knows when he learned how to do that. “Ha ha,” he says, and Thor speaking sarcastically is so fucked up I start thinking about killing myself again, just to distract myself. “I just wanted to talk about— last night.”

“Okay,” I say, because I’m not going to— I’m not going to say no. “Could we at least talk in my room? I’d love to sit down.”

Thor nods, and I take him inside. It occurs to me that he hasn’t been here in— who knows how many centuries, as he looks around in clear interest. There’s not really anything worth pointing out about it, though— it’s just a slightly messy bedroom. I don’t bother decorating. I imagine his room doesn’t look too different.

We sit at the table. Thor steeples his hands and says, “I— Brother, why did you come last night?” He doesn’t sound accusing, just lost.

“Father asked me, that too,” I note. “I told him I don’t know. I still don’t. There wasn’t any logical reasoning involved.”

Thor nods, looking confused. I rarely ever do things without having an explanation for it, after all. “You were crying,” he says, staring at me like he’s worried. No, he is worried. I don’t know what to think about that. “Are you alright?”

Now, normally, the correct reply would be yes, of course, the same thing you would reply with when you get asked how you’ve been. No one really wants to know the bullshit you’re dealing with, but my wonderful rock makes me say, “No, not at all. Why do you ask?”

Thor blanches, and I wince. He says, “I’ve been— thinking a lot, of what happened when I became king. Loki, I— I don’t pretend to know what it was like for you, but I know I blamed you for many things that weren’t your fault at all. I just— I suppose I wanted to apologize for it.”

Thor doesn’t lie on purpose. I stare at him. He stares back. I say, “Alright,” and then shut up, because I really don’t have anything to say to that. I don’t recognize the man in front of me.

“And I’ve been thinking a lot about when we were young,” he continues, “when everything was alright between us, and then how it wasn’t after a while. And I know— I’m not the best brother in the world. I did a lot of things that I regret.”

Why is he  talking about any of this? I tell him honestly, “You were just a child, Thor. I don’t blame you for any of it.”

He stares at me the same way our father did, without recognition. He doesn’t understand me. 

I say, for lack of anything better to say, “I liked your friends.”

Thor brightens. “So do I,” he agrees, leaning forward. “I’ve asked our father to extend my exile on Midgard, in fact. I’ll be heading back in a few hours. I think there is much I can still learn from Midgard.”

My stupid ass mouth says to that, “Swag.” I fucking love this rock.

Thor nods solemnly. “Very swag,” he agrees. “And I was thinking— brother, would you like to come with me?”

I’m even more boggled by that question than everything else combined. I stare at him some more. He continues earnestly, “They all liked you too, you know, and I wouldn’t want to take you away from Asgard if you didn’t wish it, but. I was just wondering, if you’d like.”

I want to say no, because it’s always safer to turn down suggestions that you can’t plan for. I’m at my best when I can prepare for things. I’m not good at ad-lib. Instead, I consider it, and ask him, “Did you even ask them if I could stay with them?”

Thor nods eagerly. “Last night, when Mjolnir accepted me, I informed Lady Jane of my plans for the future. I brought you up as well, and she told me to say it’s fine, as long as you don’t mind sharing a room with Doctor Selvig. And you could leave whenever you like.”

I had never minded roommates— not really, at least, as long as I liked the person. I would still miss my own private room, though. But that was an easy concession. I think about it some more. Thor waits for my answer, and I finally tell him, “I’m not opposed. When are you departing?”

It’s not like I had anything to do, anyway. And I liked Darcy a lot. I even want to see her again. My father and I weren’t done talking, but maybe we could— wrap it up, before I left for Earth.

“Not until tonight,” Thor answers happily, which works out. “I must meet with my friends on Asgard. It has been a while since we reunited.”

I nod. “Alright. I’ll meet you at the Bifrost after supper.”

—

I meet father in his chambers— the chambers that were once mine for four months, even though I never touched it. It was always my father’s room in my heart. And it’s weird to sleep in your father’s room for no reason.

“Good morning, Loki,” my father greets me, sounding much more normal than he did last night. Not that he was the one out of sorts between the two of us, but he was certainly nonplussed about the whole thing.

“Good morning, father,” I reply, and take a seat across from him. His one eye scans me as inscrutably as ever, searching for who knows what. “Thor has asked me to return to Midgard with him. I’ve accepted. Is that alright?”

If he’s surprised at that, he doesn’t show it. He just replies, “It is well within your allowances as prince.” A weird way of saying yes, but who am I to judge?

He changes subjects. “I only have one matter I wish to discuss with you today, and then you are free to see yourself out,” he tells me. “And it’s not a question, really. I would like to point out an observation.”

“Alright,” I say, and I already know whatever observation my father’s observed about me is going to catch me by surprise.

And it does, not because I wasn’t expecting him to have caught it, but because I had never considered it in that manner. He says, “I’ve noticed that you often consider your actions as a cause and effect. You always have to reason through whether or not you think others will approve of your actions.”

I reply cautiously, “Is that not reasonable?”

“Of course it’s reasonable,” father says. “But not to the point where you allow yourself to suffer for it. And you suffer often, for the sake of your causes and effects.” He leans back. “What would you have said, Loki, if I had told you I didn’t wish for you to go to Midgard?”

Well, the rock doesn’t even need to help me with that one. “I wouldn’t have gone, of course.”

“Even though you want to?”

I shrug. “I would rather not go than leave without your blessing.” And that’s a perfectly filial reply. I can’t see anything interesting about it.

“Do you know what I think?” Father says. “I think that even if you did truly desire something from the bottom of your heart, if I told you that it wasn’t for you, then you would convince yourself that you didn’t want it at all. You’re not one to exercise your will against others. You’d rather convince yourself that there was no difference in opinion at all.”

I nod at that, because that’s even true. “I suppose.”

He steeples his hands. “It’s why you didn’t protest when I made you the king’s advisor. You didn’t want to be his advisor, and I’m sure you would have told me that politely had I asked. But you didn’t even try to protest it, even at fear of your own life in Thor’s rages. Do you understand why this alarms me, Loki?”

The word alarm alarms me. Father chooses that word on purpose, I’m sure, and I’m shaken to think that I did something— alarming, worth being scared about, when I… when I what? Kept my head down? Was a coward? But at the same time, nothing he says is unreasonable. I reply, “I understand. I just never thought about it that way.”

Father stares at me. He looks a bit tired. “It scares me Loki,” he repeats, “because I think you would rather hurt yourself repeatedly and spectacularly than go against my words. No one can be correct all the time, not even I. And when you get hurt, you don’t tell people. You try to contain it. You’re so skilled at it that I can’t tell when it happens. That’s what scares me, my son.”

I look down. I know I’m tearing up again. But his description does sound like me. “Yes,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say. Sorry for making you sad? Sorry for being a bad son? I settle with— the best explanation for myself I’m able to muster.

“It’s not that— that I don’t want to tell anyone,” I explain hurriedly, shifting anxiously. “Or maybe it is. It’s more about… about people getting angry. When you appointed me advisor, I knew that if I tried to protest it, you would— you would definitely grow angry, first.”

Father gestures to me to elaborate when I snap my mouth shut, thinking I’ve overstepped. I continue meekly, “Because I would have to begin with— with something along the lines of, ‘well, I don’t want to.’ Or ‘Thor won’t listen to me.’ And they sound like excuses even in my head. I thought— I didn’t want you to think I was complaining. It was why I didn’t— air my concerns about him before that. Everyone thought he was going to be a great king. Voicing my single opinion would only encourage dissention my way.” I dip my head more. “I don’t like to be scolded, father. I get— I get sad, when people don’t like me.”

“What if voicing your opinion is the only way for things to change?” Father asks me.

I say readily, “But I won’t know if the change is good or bad until it’s already happened. You could have listened to me, and it could have been good. But you could have gotten angry, and it would be bad. And if that’s the case, then… then I’d rather do nothing, and change nothing. Because at least I already know what to expect with the status quo.”

Explaining all this stuff I thought through every day of life makes it seem all so… so childish, like I’m a kid explaining why he’s afraid of getting hurt, and no one can explain to me that getting hurt is part of growing up. But it makes sense, even outside of my head. At least there’s that. At least I can’t be faulted for being irrational.

Father looks at me. I don’t even have a clue what he might ask next. He says with great sorrow, “Loki. Just who taught you that everyone is out to hurt you?”

I definitely start crying at that one. It’s a bit useless to keep up the illusion when father already knows what I’m hiding, so I just wipe my eyes and pretend he hasn’t accused my life of being miserable and awful, even though there’s objectively nothing worth being miserable and awful about. “No one on Asgard,” I say. And it’s even the truth. I had always liked my family. And they hadn’t changed. It was just me who was fucked up over things that were already long gone. The person who taught me to feel like the world was ending anytime I did something wrong was never from Asgard.

Father flinches at that, just like he did last night when he asked me how I “found out.” I still can’t make sense of it. 

I don’t pry.

—

I don’t see Thor until dinner, and by then his cheerful, celebratory mood from the morning has washed away, leaving a sour man who insists on sitting by me, picking at his roast pig with unusual grumpiness.

I’m almost content to let the elephant lie, but eventually he stares at his plate so pathetically I take pity on him. “What has the meal done to offend you, brother?”

He looks at me pitifully. I stare back bemusedly. “Loki,” he says sorrowfully, uttering my name like I’ve personally stabbed him, “why did you never tell me Lady Sif detested you so?”

Both my eyebrows shoot up, mainly out of incredulity. I stare at him in blatant incredulousness. “I’m sorry,” I say after a moment, and yeah, this silly little rock is still my favorite guy. “Did you just ask me why I didn’t tell you that Sif doesn’t like me? Thor, perhaps it’s because she’s your friend.” Also, how the fuck has he not noticed?

Thor stares at me. “You don’t consider the Warriors Three your companions, Loki?”

“Of course not,” I reply. “You don’t see me speaking to them for fun, do you?”

“You hardly speak to anyone for fun, brother,” he replies earnestly.

I look at him. I cannot believe I have to spell this out for him. “Thor,” I tell him kindly, “That’s because I don’t have any friends.” I am a certified loser.

Thor gapes at me. I stab a roasted vegetable and put it into my mouth. It has nothing on that Denver Omelette from last night. I say with my mouth full, “Thor. What in the world did you talk to your friends about, to have you in such a mood?” And to have him sitting next to me, of all people?

Thor replies quietly, “Lady Sif began telling me about your venture to Midgard last night— how you disobeyed father for it. I was going to tell her how happy I was that you came to visit, but she began to spit vicious words on how hypocritical it was, that you would forbid her and Fandral and Hogun from visiting, then do it yourself. She told me that it must have been your way of spiting them. She told me she was glad that you were caught and they weren’t.”

I reply, “They were caught. It’s just that I’m not father; I pretended I never saw it.” Thor’s staring at me again. “I figured you would want to see them. They helped, I hope.”

“They did,” Thor agrees. “Thank you, brother.”

I shrug uncomfortably, not knowing what else to do. “It was no problem. Why were you so surprised that she said those things about me?”

Thor replies, “Because it was all so— ludicrous. You’ve never done anything just to make Sif angry. You never would.”

True enough, because I don’t spend my time thinking about her unless I’m annoyed. I reply curiously, “She was the one who told you that I was jealous of you when you reigned. And you believed her back then. Why not now?”

I never could have asked that without the rock, the glamor that hides my shaky voice, and the fact that this Thor— I can’t recognize him at all. It all helps. He replies just as straightforwardly and honestly, “Because I was— frustrated, Loki. Nothing was going the way I wanted. I could tell you were trying to sidestep around me like I was— a raging beast. Like I wasn’t to be reasoned with. It made me angry. Lady Sif gave me a reason to focus my anger on.” He stares at me somberly. “I’m sorry, brother. It was wrong of me. I don’t even know how I can make it up to you.”

“It’s all good,” I shrug, because who knows what I can say to top that. And it’s good to know Thor isn’t actually stupid enough to think I ever want to usurp him. “I can tell you why I think Sif and I don’t like each other, if you’d like.”

“I would be interested to hear it.”

I set my knife down. I begin, “Sif and I were friends when we were children, surely you remember. I liked her a lot because she was very headstrong, and very outspoken. But those traits are ones I only find admirable in children. After a while, it became clear that we didn’t have very much in common at all, in both interests and values.”

“Interests, I can understand. But values?”

I look at the wooden table. “Sif… Sif considers herself a woman,” I say slowly, “but not like the other ladies of Asgard. She thinks that because she doesn’t dress in skirts and she knows how to wield a sword, and all her friends are warriors, she’s a special sort of woman. It’s not… wrong to think that, because it’s true by technicality. But I think the reason why none of the ladies of the court are especially fond of her is because she looks down on them, for not being different like her.”

Thor replies confusedly, “They were the ones that insulted her when she began to pursue the path of the warrior in the first place. If they did not want her scorn now, they would not have insulted her pride as a child.”

“And that was their mistake,” I agree. “But I don’t like it, the way Lady Sif disregards other women as inferior.” I used to be a girl, at some point. Everyone had their pick-me girl phase at some point, but it felt like Sif never grew out of the attitude.

Thor is staring at me in confusion, and I’m struck with a moment of genius. I say slowly, “Thor, she thinks she’s not like the other girls. ” Darcy, please pull through.

Enlightenment pierces his thick brain. “Ooooh,” Thor says, like he finally understands the meme. “Like the main character from Devil Wears Prada.” What the fuck have those girls been making my brother watch.

“Exactly.” I nod vigorously. “And she doesn’t like me because when we began to grow up, I cried every time I got hit when we sparred in lessons, I didn’t like go along with your misadventures, and every time father got mad at you all he would always point to me and say, ‘Look at your brother, why can’t you be like him!’ It made all of you angry, but her especially. Because she thinks I look down on you all for being boyish, and learned magic because I hated masculine activities as a concept.” I look up at Thor. “I don’t, you know. It’s just not for me.”

Thor still looks somewhat heartbroken. “Why didn’t you ever tell me any of this, brother?”

I stare at him again like he’s stupid. “Again, she’s your friend,” I tell him. “Why do I have to explain her thoughts to you for no reason?” I’m only doing it right now because he visibly can’t figure this out.

He shakes his head. “No, I mean. Why didn’t you ever tell me that she was cruel to you?”

Why the fuck would I have done that? The idea is so funny I ask him almost laughingly, “Why would you listen to me about this, when you never listen to me about anything else?”

Thor flinches. I hadn’t meant to make it sound so mean. “I would have listened,” he says anyway. “And I’ll listen to what you have to say, from now on. I promise.”

I shrug again. That has nothing to do with me. “Okay,” I tell him, because it’s no skin off my back either way. Thor doesn’t seem very heartened by the agreement.