![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
003 - Loki Laufeyson - Twilight of the Gods
There is a clever dichotomy in prophecy, so clever and so sublime that Loki wishes he'd thought of it himself. Had the art -- if one may call it such -- not predated him, he likes to think the idea would've come to him anyway. It's a simple one, so very simple for all its insidiousness: tell a man that something, whatever it may be, will come to pass, earn his belief, and he will see it everywhere he turns, work towards it in any way he can.
For all its age, Asgard is no exception, and therein lies among the greatest of their crimes, crimes for which they must suffer as surely as they have told themselves they must -- though never once, never once did they think to avert it, not once the madness had set in, not once years of subtle neglect and a propensity towards megalomania had collided. Matter and antimatter. The explosion had been impressive, a chain reaction as any other, culminating, deliciously, in fratricide -- they'd asked, and he had delivered. Baldr was to die by Loki's hand, and so he did; the foolishness of belief outlined in excruciating, bloody detail. Or so Loki had intended. So he had meant. Somebody had missed the joke.
They'd had to craft the serpent themselves, an arching thing of stone, bound with magics old and clever; impressive, even given their aim. Loki admitted as much out of spite. Nobody wishes to be complimented by the man they doom to centuries of torture. It is a pin well-aimed, a fishhook, narrow and nigh-harmless save for how it pulls aside the curtain of hypocrisy to expose the heart of barbarism that lies within any old and foolish man, bound up in tradition, bathed in the blood of those who refuse to be.
It had been a foolish gamble, to take up that mistletoe and nurture it into something deadly, and Loki had lost. Again, always; that is his lot, surer than any prophecy might foretell. It would be comforting to know that the clockwork of the universe ticks on more predictably than it seems on the surface; perhaps that is why they work so hard to secure what is, he is still certain, an optional fate. Their own undoing -- perhaps they desire it as surely as he does, and as ardently as he will come to during his long years in the dark.
Brother at one side, father at the other; a touching scene, to be sure, as both stare down at him with grim faces, matching faces, on the beast not of their blood after all, the beast who spilled their blood and would again, a thousand times over, until it is diminished to the nothingness it wholly deserves.
"Why do you not smile, Allfather, Odinson? You pluck the thorn from your side; this is a day for rejoicing." He grins a wide grin that Thor, he knows, wishes he could smash in; perhaps he will. Perhaps they will all see the Thunderer's true colours. That would be a sweet victory, so of course it will not come.
"Silence." Traitor, unspoken. Sadly. Such a delicious word, from these two mouths.
"Silence? And would you deny yourself the satisfaction of hearing me scream, then, father?" He laughs, he sparks, he gazes a mad gaze up at Thor, at that familiar face, loved and hated, but these days more the latter than the former. They may not be the antithesis of one another, but disgust outweighs warm feelings by incalculable amounts.
"You side with this old fool, brother dearest? This cruel old man who would torture me nigh unto dying? Even your precious humans are kinder, the filthy, creeping things; and you coward, you cling to your mother's skirts and bear in him what you cannot elsewhere. They say I will see you dead, the both of you; I anticipate that day, I tremble for it. Nothing will please me more; do you know that, Thor? Father? This is what you have made of me. I am your monster, I--" Not a fist but the back of a hand, yet still sweet; he laughs, laughs helplessly as they bind him and lock him away, as they leave him in the dark, already breathless when his chest spasms to force out a scream.
For all its age, Asgard is no exception, and therein lies among the greatest of their crimes, crimes for which they must suffer as surely as they have told themselves they must -- though never once, never once did they think to avert it, not once the madness had set in, not once years of subtle neglect and a propensity towards megalomania had collided. Matter and antimatter. The explosion had been impressive, a chain reaction as any other, culminating, deliciously, in fratricide -- they'd asked, and he had delivered. Baldr was to die by Loki's hand, and so he did; the foolishness of belief outlined in excruciating, bloody detail. Or so Loki had intended. So he had meant. Somebody had missed the joke.
They'd had to craft the serpent themselves, an arching thing of stone, bound with magics old and clever; impressive, even given their aim. Loki admitted as much out of spite. Nobody wishes to be complimented by the man they doom to centuries of torture. It is a pin well-aimed, a fishhook, narrow and nigh-harmless save for how it pulls aside the curtain of hypocrisy to expose the heart of barbarism that lies within any old and foolish man, bound up in tradition, bathed in the blood of those who refuse to be.
It had been a foolish gamble, to take up that mistletoe and nurture it into something deadly, and Loki had lost. Again, always; that is his lot, surer than any prophecy might foretell. It would be comforting to know that the clockwork of the universe ticks on more predictably than it seems on the surface; perhaps that is why they work so hard to secure what is, he is still certain, an optional fate. Their own undoing -- perhaps they desire it as surely as he does, and as ardently as he will come to during his long years in the dark.
Brother at one side, father at the other; a touching scene, to be sure, as both stare down at him with grim faces, matching faces, on the beast not of their blood after all, the beast who spilled their blood and would again, a thousand times over, until it is diminished to the nothingness it wholly deserves.
"Why do you not smile, Allfather, Odinson? You pluck the thorn from your side; this is a day for rejoicing." He grins a wide grin that Thor, he knows, wishes he could smash in; perhaps he will. Perhaps they will all see the Thunderer's true colours. That would be a sweet victory, so of course it will not come.
"Silence." Traitor, unspoken. Sadly. Such a delicious word, from these two mouths.
"Silence? And would you deny yourself the satisfaction of hearing me scream, then, father?" He laughs, he sparks, he gazes a mad gaze up at Thor, at that familiar face, loved and hated, but these days more the latter than the former. They may not be the antithesis of one another, but disgust outweighs warm feelings by incalculable amounts.
"You side with this old fool, brother dearest? This cruel old man who would torture me nigh unto dying? Even your precious humans are kinder, the filthy, creeping things; and you coward, you cling to your mother's skirts and bear in him what you cannot elsewhere. They say I will see you dead, the both of you; I anticipate that day, I tremble for it. Nothing will please me more; do you know that, Thor? Father? This is what you have made of me. I am your monster, I--" Not a fist but the back of a hand, yet still sweet; he laughs, laughs helplessly as they bind him and lock him away, as they leave him in the dark, already breathless when his chest spasms to force out a scream.