nine_realms | Welcome To Asgard

Choosing to do as his alternate had requested, Loki sprawled a little in the chair. Despite the pain of seeing it all again, it was somehow good to be home. To be sitting again, upon his own chairs.

"Where is everyone? You'd mentioned it was quiet."

"This place is... well, special. But I cannot explain it. People come and go. People not from Asgard... They do not know how they get here, or why... Such as yourself. It is very... random."

His voice is measured and careful, watching his twin.

A long pause, then. Concern was the most visible of the myriad responses that Loki had, for that explanation. "Can you not leave it?"

It would be a terrible curse, to be trapped in a land of his past, without anyone there for very long. And to mention it having been quiet...

"I do but I do not always know when that will happen." This is like a way place for him; a crossroads. A waiting room of sorts.

How long has it been, since anyone you wished to see, has been here? Loki wondered.

Wait. Hadn't his alternate mentioned that Heimdall would have warned him of an intruder? So they were getting along, now. And apparently both frequented this place often enough, that this alternate thought to rely upon Heimdall's presence, here. At least that was a good sign. Though it might not help with the quiet. But it would mean that existence would be far less lonely.

His alternate was being honest about such things, and Loki began to wonder if he should speak honestly, in turn. Until he knew more, though, he considered it too much of a risk to take. "Were you... on good terms with your family, when last you parted?"

His mention of Heimdall had only been an assumption. He hadn't actually seen him, let alone spoken to him. It wasn't exactly a lie, he thought. He expected Heimdall was somewhere around and if he had seen something, somebody would have been told...

"I have seen none of them here directly but... in other places. I have not seen Odin but my mother and my brother...., yes. We have been on better terms."

He briefly paused. "What about yourself?"

Fidgeting a little, Loki admitted, "They think I'm dead."

"Oh. I... do know something about that. Svartalfheim?"

Tilting his head to reconsider his alternate, Loki nodded in surprise. "Yes."

It shook him doubly -- both that this alternate knew so much, and that he was being so compassionate. Every previous alt that Loki had ever met, had hated him.

"They think you're dead... Did you think that you died and came here...?"

One thing this Loki doesn't know is what happened next. He assumes that he did die there. He has no memory of afterwards.

"No, I... I knew I lived." For however long that might be, between his own death wish and having failed Thanos on Midgard.

"You lived? You survived the Dark Elves' blade?"

"I did." He paused. Looked away. He did not wish his alternate to see his eyes. "For what it was worth."

Loki frowns a little in thought.

"And what was it worth?"

Did he honestly have to explain? "You weren't there for that?"

Giving a surprised scoff of a laugh, he questioned, "Is that why you thought I'd died?"

"I... Yes. So what did happen to you?"

Ow. How could he explain this? Would his alternate turn on him, knowing the truth? "...I think you are better off, not knowing."

"Ah, but now I am curious and I will not let you go until you tell me," he may be teasing.... or maybe not.

His alternate's cheerful grin, drew a more rueful smile out of Loki. He needed to speak to someone, without illusioning himself, anyway. Too long had he used Odin's guise while interacting with all others. While the subject matter was disheartening, Loki craved the social time.

"He left me on Svartalfheim, and wandered back to Midgard to bash his way to glory."

"My chest hurt viciously. After a long while, I managed to heal myself. Then it was easy to find a path back to Asgard."

Now they were getting to territory that was unnerving. Well, if this alternate hated him too, so be it. Loki would speak his tale. He was tired of hiding. Never had he imagined that stealth could be this aggravating.

"You went back to Asgard? Why?"

But he thought he already knew. He thought it was what he would have done, if he'd recovered...

"...I wanted ...to know the truth." Loki admitted in a tone both brittle and tentative. This was clearly a topic of great pain.

"Thor had said... the Allfather had mourned, when we were upon Midgard. Yet Odin himself had always favored Thor, before he abandoned me entirely."

This subject hurt. Loki didn't like addressing it. Both because it gave his alt ammunition against him, and because Loki would rather look away from this pain. "I wanted to know the truth."

His tone turning quietly seething, Loki continued. "I wanted to see just how much the old butcher gave a damn. If he'd lied to me... or to Thor."

Loki listened quietly, trying not to show his own emotions.

His voice was quiet and a little tense.

"And what did you discover? What was the truth?"

"Not an answer enough, only further questions," Loki snapped, clearly distraught over what he had learned.

"I played the part of an Einerjar, just returned from Svartalfheim to break to him the news of Loki's death."

"He found me out. I don't know how. I don't know where my mistake lay. But he knew. And I could not allow myself to be recaptured. If I failed Thanos again, then what was left of my family would pay for it."

Fidgeting in earnest now, Loki looked shaken. His cheeks sunk as he pursed his lips, displeased with the retelling of this tale.

"We fought. I did my best not to kill him, which was a mercy he didn't deserve. And he toppled to the floor, anyway." Frustration and a bit of helpless bemusement line his tone at that. The whole fiasco had made no sense, and Loki was flummoxed in the fallout.

"The Odinsleep," the Trickster seethed. "He fell into another Odinsleep. Because not once can he manage to stay awake for matters of importance!"

Well, it felt good to get it out, anyway. Loki was crying before he'd even noticed. He scrubbed at the tears angrily.

"I thought he was faking. I bided my time, expecting him to rise, but nothing happened. He just... lay there. Still, and I was afraid I had somehow killed him..." Loki drew a labored breath, clearly under a great deal of strain.

"Until I checked him, and he was asleep, and Thor was on Midgard, with no one else to take the throne." Loki's jaw clenched in anger.

"There were no witnesses. The throne had to fall to me. And it would be easy, to utilize it to send the Aether to Thanos, keeping myself out of his clutches until I had appeased him."

Loki almost mirrored his twin's emotions now as he spoke. Anger and annoyance and concern, although in milder doses since he had not lived it. But he could imagine it going that way and Odin's avoidance yet again when confronted by his younger, wayward son.

Loki gritted his teeth.

And Thanos... That was a name he didn't want to hear again.

He closed his eyes briefly, then sighed when the other Loki finished.

"So you... have the throne there," was all he said for now, but he sounded weary and not all that happy about it.

"Technically." Loki's voice held the sort of serious, measured calm that it usually bore when he was anything but calm.

"I bear the throne beneath Odin's guise. The power is mine, but not any acclaim. I am merely a figurehead, until he awakens and I... find some method of escape."

Right now, Loki wanted an escape from living itself, sadly. The gaining of the throne, in spite of all its annoyances, had still prevented him from further attempts at suicide. He had to save Asgard, and Thor. While he swore that he had no care for Odin, this was his mother's Realm, and he could not let it fall to ruin.

He felt bad for his brother, though. Watching him mourn was guilt-inducing, whether or not Loki planned on being dead by the end of all this, anyway.

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