Archive of Our Own

No one knows, Loki tells himself, the words pronounced carefully inside his head as he strides what he intends to be with authority through the main hall. No one knows. There is no way.

The illusion is in place. An absolutely magnificent one, really. Loki, after all, has had decades to perfect the impersonation of his father, each time with varying degrees of nefarious intentions behind. Although this particular case might just be the most nefarious one so far.

Nobody knows, he tells himself as he nods politely at a passing council-member.

“King Odin,” Commander Ullr greets. 

Loki is absolutely certain he imagines the dark gleam behind the other’s gaze. He acknowledges Ullr briefly, then proceeds to keep his eyes locked ahead, and greets back as he passes. As he’s seen Odin himself do so many times before, gaze already averted as he moves on to more important matters. 

“Ullr.”

The irony of it all doesn’t pass him, and it wouldn’t be the first time if he snickered out loud from thinking about it. That has awarded him some looks. Still, a Frost Giant on the throne of Asgard, posing as the Allfather himself. To think that it is truly possible. 

(Is it possible, though? Are you sure they are not simply fooling you, all of them, in on it and playing your game while you look the fool, believing you have them all under your thumb and really, it’s the opposite -)

The thought is ridiculous, he tries to convince himself. If anyone knew, they wouldn’t let him be. They wouldn’t let him walk the hallways like this.

(Maybe they’re speculating. They suspect. They do not tell you because they are not sure but they’re still watching your every move, they are everywhere and looking, watching, just waiting for a mistake ...)

He has already searched the private chambers thoroughly for hidden spells, scrying tools or magical sensors, and he found none. Still, every time he shifts his appearance in the washroom and sheds his clothes to wash the true form underneath, he feels so very exposed. Like every inch of skin, every mark on his body, every evidence of who he is and what he’s done and what kind of person Loki Odinson really is, is laid bare for the world to watch and judge.

But nobody is watching, nobody is judging because nobody knows Loki Odinson is even alive. Furthermore, they never would dare place spells in the private washroom of the All-Father even if they did suspect him of something. The possibility that they weren’t correct would be too much of a risk to take to invade the privacy of the king. It would never happen.

That is a thing to get used to, though, the kind of respect that comes with being Odin. Loki, being very much used to people feeling in the right to invade his privacy at the slightest suspicion, has to actively remind himself that things are different for the All-Father. Things are different, yes, for someone who is not perceived as a snake by default. Things are different for someone of true Aesir blood, perhaps, different for the true royals. Rather than unknowingly destined rulers of a pathetic, frozen realm. Maybe that’s it. Maybe people could always feel he was different.

The respect for the King gives Loki a pleasant degree of leeway, as such. The king is grieving, after all, if not particularly for his newly deceased not-so-much son then certainly for his queen. Loki personally tries to keep from thinking about that. Luckily, the funeral was in the past ( he didn’t attend, they didn’t let him out for it, he never even got to say goodbye - ) and so he only has to avoid her chambers, avoid speaking her name, avoid thinking of her voice. Her words, her face, the touch of soft, warm fingers on his cheek.

One time, she was mentioned at a council. Her name had sent a spike through Loki’s already literally pierced-through chest, and for several long seconds, he couldn’t seem to draw breath at all. It had just been so sudden, unexpected. He’d left the council with a meagre excuse, half-running back to the King’s chambers and didn’t remember anything else until he found himself curled up on his side under the desk. 

It was an overreaction, and he felt ridiculous, coming back to his senses. Things are shaky, lately, and it doesn’t take much at all to throw him off-kilter. Still, a name, just her name, and his mind had gone flying off.

The illusion had slipped off at some point, his own black nest of hair falling in greasy strands in front of his face ( you need to wash, you fool, you need to pull it together ), shaking in his own skin, tears drying in streaks on his face. He’d been grateful for the protective spells keeping noise sealed inside the king’s chambers because his voice had been torn and hoarse, and he dared not think of what kind of sounds he’d been making.

The queen hasn’t been mentioned by anyone, since that day. Only ever referred to, if absolutely necessary, but never directly. Never by name. Loki could almost pretend the grief wasn’t there at all.

A lot of other things are ‘ there ’, though, even if he manages to keep them suppressed quite well. The recent past, the far past, the life he used to live and how it had crumpled so suddenly. The fall into the Void, which could in lack of better be likened to an experience of one’s soul being sucked out of the body, chewed and spit back in fragmented, slippery pieces. The lovely time spent in the company of Thanos. It certainly is all both muddled and very confusing. Combined with living a life of pretending to be someone else all hours of the day, it can make reality feel extremely … unreal, at times.

It’s lonely, sure, but it’s been that way for a while. What worries him more than that is the fact that he sometimes feels like he might actually  disintegrate from the intensity of it all. A spontaneous disassembling of his cells. In the dungeons, he’d at least been something, if it had felt detached and distant from the world, nothing like the identity he used to have; he’d still been a ‘Prisoner’. The fallen prince. The not-son. The failure.

Now?

He is …well, he is dead, officially, which already makes his own reality that much more confusing. He knows that he is Loki impersonating the All-Father but if no one else knows about it …well, he’s the only one accountable to it. And anyone could tell him that he is not the most accountable kind of person there is.

There is, of course, the possibility of being found out. Odin breaking the spells. Loki didn’t design them with an out, no, he was thorough, he doesn’t mean to be found out … and yet, as the days pass, he becomes increasingly aware that the small part still keeping him connected to the world, is after all perhaps a wish for just that. Being found out.

The fantasy of Thor showing up, Mjölnir in hand, a storm brewing, a shout in such a familiar voice carrying with the furious winds,

“LOKI!”

‘Loki’. His name.

A person.

Living. Not dead.

…right?

The doubt makes daily life and keeping up pretences difficult, more difficult than Loki had expected. He knew he wasn’t well, but it honestly comes as a surprise just how bad it has gotten. 

It keeps him up at night and steals away his motivation, his thought-power, his appetite, his energy. Even his initial enthusiasm about having deceived Odin… it’s hard to feel like things matter. Even if they are as impressive as that particular feat.

He hasn’t looked at his true appearance in a mirror for a long time. Weeks, has it been weeks? Months, probably, in fact, since he banished Odin. For whatever reason, the thought of seeing his own reflection frightens him. Terrifies him, really, which is irrational but he still cannot get himself to do it. To look into the glass and see that face looking back. Such a familiar face, and yet so distant, so detached from … whatever it is he is, lately.

Hollow. He is afraid the hollowness is going to show through in the reflection.

Perhaps he is scared it won’t be there at all. Or won’t be as he expected, something about it wrong (it feels wrong, the world feels wrong and sometimes he doesn’t think he is actually here in it with everyone else). He’s not sure and mostly tries to just not think about it. Just goes through the motions, waiting for things to start to make a bit more sense.

There is not much else to do, really.

He lies in the bed they call his but which is Odin’s, that night, and tries to sleep but cannot. Unsurprisingly. There are too many thoughts, even if they don’t have much substance to them. He thinks his body might be crying for sustenance and can’t remember the last time he did eat something, but just the thought of that, taking in anything of real substance, makes his heart beat faster and his breath stick like glue to the inside of his throat. He doesn’t pursue it further. Later, he’ll do it later.

Tonight, it’s as if his thoughts have more sound than usual, loud inside his head and almost bleeding out into the air surrounding him. He’s not too sure, there in the candlelit semi-darkness, where the actual borders of his body are drawn. As if the dim light itself seeps in through the seams of his skin, seams of reality, the particles of air, dissolving it little by little. Maybe it has been happening for a while.

His eyes are open, which perhaps is counterproductive to the effort to sleep but he knows already it isn’t going to happen. Besides, there are things to watch. 

The dark has begun to move, lately. Increasingly much each night. Sometimes, it speaks, and he knows it is … mad, the dark isn’t actually speaking. However, madness has been somewhat of a defining trait in these later years especially, so again, not so surprising.

Intriguing, rather, if he is honest. The way the movement in the dark that’s supposed to be empty makes his heartbeat. Makes him fear. Like he is actually alive. Like he has a life to fear losing.

“Nothing,” the dark whispers, and Loki listens, heart beating, watching. “Nothing,” it repeats, not quite as insistent but still with an undertone, of some kind, a … demand. 

“Who are you,” Loki asks it. It isn’t the first time he has done so, and he hasn’t gotten a satisfying answer yet. He wonders sometimes if it is possible to get an answer, seeing as all this is made from his mind. If he doesn’t know the answer already, does it even exist?

“No… thing…” the dark says. The same as always. 

The shadow begins to creep closer. It moves, slowly away from the shade of the window where it could’ve been just a natural shadow, growing out of the curtains, and Loki thinks he begins to see features of a face, limbs.

The fear overtakes him. He closes his eyes. He feels himself trembling, cold sweat springing forth under his clothing for a few seconds of the quiet dark. He opens his eyes again, and there is nothing there.

The dark whispers again, “Nothing,” but it seems distant as if closing his eyes for a few seconds made him a bit more real, and the shadow a bit less. Increasing the distance between them. 

Loki isn’t sure what he wants more: for reality to return to the general consensus of what reality is, or for it to continue blurring out. He isn’t sure why, either. The same reason, perhaps, the cuts and burns on his own body and by his own hand keep multiplying. He knows he shouldn’t but sometimes the dark is just about the only thing that’ll make him feel that bit more real. Addictive.

He begins to regret his initial emotional wobbling on the matter when the shadows begin following him in daylight. In the corners of his eyes, in dim hallways, outlines hiding behind council-members. People begin giving him as Odin more looks than they did before, and he knows it must be showing.

Heimdall is still manning the Bifrost, and Loki knows he should get rid of him. He knows the king too well not to notice, eventually, that something is off. It would be easy, too, the trial of Heimdall’s mutiny having been extended due to Loki’s inaction. It could easily end in banishment from the lands, after everything.

He just has a lot on his mind, already, without having to confront Heimdall. The council members talk, huff at the king’s late indecision, but that is all in the end written off as grief and him getting old.

Heimdall keeps to his post, mostly, perhaps hoping he’ll be allowed to stay there. He won’t. Loki just needs to get himself together enough to do something about it, as he has scattered the warriors four over the lands.

 It is hard to get yourself together when everything is so fuzzy. It is no wonder. He cannot sleep, barely eats, and his mind is unravelling. Sanctuary did no good for his already shattered personality and nerves, and all of it, now, is … too much. It takes all his energy to keep the illusion up, and he has barely any magic left for anything else. For instance to faster heal the wounds he so cleverly acquires in the privacy of his chambers.

Loki is not sure what exactly it is that happens, that day. Things are really so blurry. 

There is a meeting but halfway through he feels as if he is going to faint right there by the table. He gets himself together somewhat and leaves with an apology. He staggers through the hallway, dismissing the guards offering to assist him. Halfway to his chambers, he collapses, vision fading as he collides sideways with a wall, crumpling pathetically to the stone floors.

Instead of guards and their rustling armour, a pair of gentler hands take hold behind his shoulders. Loki’s vision won’t focus, and his hearing is blurry. There is a familiar voice that sounds far away but isn’t, “I will escort the king,” they say. “His orders.”

Loki-as-Odin is grabbed under his arms and gets back on his feet.

“Let’s go,” Heimdall says quietly, adjusting his grip on Loki's arms. Loki leans heavily on the watchman as they move on, soon reaching the All-Father’s private chambers.

The shadow follows. “ Nothing, nothing, nothing,” it whispers behind them, and Loki can hear a grin in its voice.

Perhaps this is it, he can’t help but wonder. Maybe the shadow knows, the time has come for him to die, actually, this time. Maybe the wound in his chest has spread its poison further; it certainly hurts as if it has. Maybe it’s just everything put together. The thought of a possible near-death isn’t unnerving, which should be unnerving but it isn’t. Maybe it would be for the better, after all.

His awareness fades in and out. They go through the door to the chambers, it closes behind them. Loki wrestles out of Heimdall’s grip and falls to his knees, vision returned but blurred.

“I need to - to,” he manages to choke out, one hand on his stomach, and Heimdall catches the intent. He finds a dish, fruits rolling over the floor as he empties it in a swing to place it in front of Loki, just in time. He heaves painfully. There’s nothing really except liquid to throw up. 

Heimdall holds his hair back. Loki would perhaps notice that said hair is black and greasy rather than the white of old-age, had he the presence of mind. He is a little busy as it is and doesn’t notice.

The world blips out. Loki comes to, soaked in sweat, shivering violently, lying half on the carpeted floor and half in Heimdall’s lap. He feels cold. The smell of vomit stings in his nose. Everything hurts. He hears himself make a pathetic sound, vaguely registering it as his own voice rather than Odin’s but not yet connecting that to any conclusion of events.

“You had a seizure,” Heimdall says.

Loki finds himself nodding, eyes drifting shut. There are voices in the room but they’re blurry. He doesn’t think the voices are real, anyway. He didn’t see anyone.

“You will be fine, Loki,” Heimdall says. 

Loki’s eyes open. They manage to focus somewhat on the person above him.

“What?” he manages in a wrecked voice. Heimdall just looks back at him, expression neutral. 

“You will be fine,” he repeats.

Reality fades again. 

In short, Heimdall has known for a while. 

“I know your father well,” he says, sitting by the bedside of the couch Loki has been sleeping on, which he is now sitting up in, wrapped in two blankets. “It did not take me long to notice your missteps.”

Loki scowls. Everything in him is screaming to lie back down, exhausted and bone-chilled, but he stays put. “He is not my father,” he corrects sourly. It isn't a good response but he can't find anything better, right then.

Heimdall studies him for a long moment. “He would say differently,” he says.

Loki doesn’t want to have that conversation. Doesn’t want to have any conversation, really, but here they are. His ears are ringing, the room looks like its light and shadows are melting behind Heimdall. Loki does his best to ignore it.

“You are going to banish me,” Heimdall says suddenly. A guess, but a correct one. Loki finds himself frowning.

“So why have you not told them of my fraud?” he asks.

Heimdall gives a half-smile. “I have made my mistakes,” he says, “as have you. I think perhaps some time away from the observatory would do me good. Besides, with the state you are in, I hardly believe you are able to do much damage while I am gone.”

Loki looks away.

Heimdall brings him potions to help heal, makes him eat every now and again (with some definite fuss on Loki’s part), and when Loki is well enough to function and keep up his illusion, he banishes the watchman. 

He cannot take any chances. Heimdall will meddle if he stays.

Perhaps, although Loki will not admit to that, he even wonders if Heimdall will be able to keep the secret. If he might spill it over a drink at some bar in Alfheim, if the elves will locate the All-Father or perhaps inform Thor, and they will come back.

He doesn’t hope for it, of course not. That would be ridiculous. Why would he send Heimdall away in the first place, if he wished for someone to expose him? It’s a silly game of imagining, is all, a childish longing and loneliness. He can keep it in check to savour his victory.

Only, still, not a lot of savouring is going on. He is sick and getting worse. He concocts potions but they only help minorly. He cannot go to the healers, they would uncover the illusion, and when anyone suggests it, Loki as Odin cuts them off with a snap.

They think he is getting old. He wonders how long it will be before the healers decide to take action against his will. Even his illusion looks sickly.

The shadows have begun speaking in more detail. Loki can barely concentrate on his duties as king. It gets progressively worse. Nights are the most intense.

Thor comes back, out of the blue. Loki is on the throne, having just been left alone by a pair of ambassadors when his brother is suddenly making his way down the long hall. His heartbeat spikes, and he straightens.

“Good day, father,” Thor calls when he is close enough, and sounds concerned. There is a slight frown written on his forehead.

“My son,” Loki says in the old man’s voice. “You have returned so early?”

Thor walks closer, then stops in the same place Loki stood when he was trailed, that year or so ago. Thor’s eyes are sharp on him as he nods.

“I have.”

Loki raises his eyebrows, waiting.

Thor clears his throat. “I was told you were sick, father,” he says, carefully.

Loki barks an affronted sound he’s heard Odin make many times. “They make a fuss of nothing,” he says. “I am old, boy.”

Thor looks at him for a quiet moment. “And grieving,” he says, pursing his lips slightly. Loki looks back at him, and doesn’t say anything.

“Nonetheless,” Thor continues, eventually, glancing away. “I will stay for a little while. See that I am not missed too terribly.” He smiles. 

Loki, for some reason, cannot find it in him to smile back. Maybe he is too tired. Maybe his head is too foggy, everything heavy, maybe the shadows are whispering and he’s occupied enough as it is, without Thor in the mix.

“Yes, yes,” Loki says as Odin and looks away. “You are always welcome in your home. If you will excuse me, I think I shall retreat.”

Thor blinks. “Allow me to escort you,” he says, and Loki resists the urge to sigh.

Thor isn’t the only one that follows Loki from the throne room. So do the shadows, scurrying in his peripherals along the walls and ceilings, whispering. Loki walks gaze ahead, doing his absolute best to ignore them.

Thor is frowning at him by his side, so he must not be doing too good of a job. “Father?” Thor asks. “Are you… all right?”

“I am in need of rest,” Loki says, over the voices blurring together behind him. Mad mad mad mad, one of them keeps whispering , you are mad you are nothing, nothing nothing, the most familiar one whispers. It’s begun to use more words than it used to. It really is becoming very distracting. 

Thor apparently knows his place when it comes to meddling because he doesn’t probe further. Loki can’t help but feel as if he is failing some kind of test. Thor came to see how his father was doing, and Loki is doing a terrible job of appearing well.

“Please, let me know if there is anything I can do, father,” Thor says when they reach the king’s chambers. 

Loki waves a hand. “Yes, yes,” he says in Odin’s voice, “go have fun now, boy.” He goes through the door and shuts it behind himself. 

He blows out a breath, slowly, leaning back against the one-way sound-proofed door.

“You are going to get caught, little king,” someone says from over in the vicinity of the curtains. They’re casting a shadow behind the fabric, a dark hollow where something seems to be moving. The other voices have receded, Loki notices.

He sighs and allows himself to slide down against the door, to sit on the carpet. He lets the illusion slide off like a robe after a long day.

“I won’t,” he replies and isn’t sure who he is trying to convince.

“We have told you,” the shadow says from the curtains, or the ceiling, it’s s if the sound is moving around the room interchangeably, “ what you ought to do .” The hollow form is taking shape behind the heavy magenta fabric. Loki thinks he sees a hand and proceeds to close his eyes, leaning back his head.

“As I’ve told you,” he says quietly, “I am considering.” He huffs. “Seeing as you are a figment of my imagination, your ideas are already mine, yes?”

The shadow laughs. It’s begun to do that, sometimes. “ Nothing, nothing, nothing,” it says, “I am everything and you are nothing, you are nothing without me .”

It’s said in the sweetest of tones. Loki opens his eyes to turn them inside out for a second. “So you say,” he says dully.

“Nothing, nothing, nothing,” the shadow echoes itself, as it does, getting stuck in the loop of that particular word (name), once it has started. It is suddenly closer seeming. Loki’s eyes are closed again; he doesn’t want to look. “Allow us to take you, nothing, allow us, little nothing… ”

The voice fades, joining a static of whispery noises that have accumulated and started to rise in volume. Loki grimaces and lifts his hands to press against his ears, but the noise continues growing. 

“It’s in my head, it is only in my head,” he whispers to himself, his own voice joining the chorus of unintelligible noise, almost like a mantra for anchor, but the words have stopped holding any real meaning. They used to. He used to be able to differentiate somewhat. Now, it feels as if it doesn’t, truly, matter.

He is going to lose, whichever way one looks at it. At that moment, he is honest about it. That is how it is, and he knows underneath the attempts to act as if it’s not. He is going to lose.

Loki wakes up curled up on his side on the floor. It takes him some moments to register that is where he is, then he feels the soft carpet against his cheek, the cold air through his clothes. He’s wearing his own garments, the illusion of Odin still off, soft and loose, and he is cold. He always is, lately, but managing to pass out on the floor covered only by light clothes turns out to make it worse.

He sits up, head swimming. He is shivering, and can’t seem to stop it. He tries casting a spell of heat, but his magic is rough, inflexible like leather, and uncooperative. A small burst of heat spreads over his hands, up to his wrists, then fades out again like rings in the water. 

He manages to get the illusion back on for the evening, having spared a special reserve of magic for that particular thing. It really is quite clever, locking the reserve away in his cells like a box with a key, only to be used for a singular purpose.

There is one last council meeting. The shadows keep whispering advice as he sits there; they have been for some time. He takes some of it. After all, the shadows are creatures of his mind and so, yes, their ideas are his own as well. That is his justification for listening to their propositions, at least.

Thor walks up to Loki’s side after the meeting, as he is making his way back to the king’s study chamber. Right, he was at the meeting as well. Kept watching Loki-as-Odin with such a strange look.

“I have work to do, my son,” Loki tells him with a sidelong glance. Thor nods.

“I will help you with it, then,” he says. Loki resists the urge to groan loudly.

They sit by each their desk, Loki having occupied his brother with a stack of formulas to be filled out, himself trying to understand a document sent from a northern region. So far, he is not even sure what the query is about. It really is hard when there are constant whispers in your head, on top of just not being able to string coherent thoughts together. Did he eat, today? He definitely did not sleep very well, last night. Things move in his peripherals and he does not look at them. It’s all about not giving it too much attention. 

Everything is just so blurry and confusing.

“Father,” Thor says, and Loki realises he is being looked at. He’s been sitting for too long staring at the paper in front of him.

He clears his throat and looks up. “Yes, Thor?” he asks.

“Forgive me, but you seem… distracted. Are you well?”

Loki lets his expression tighten in a way Odin’s often would. “We are not here to discuss my well-being,” he says. “Continue your work. I am well.”

One of the shadows begins to laugh, starting as a soft snicker and growing to a cackle. “You are mad you are mad you are mad ,” it sing-songs over the laughter.

“Father?” 

It’s Thor again. Loki realises he’d stiffened, zoning out again as he listened. He goes for a softer approach and gives Thor a little smile.

“I am tired,” he says, “you need not worry.”

The shadows are still laughing. “You know what you must do. Nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing… ”

“You went to rest earlier,” Thor argues with a frown.

Loki waves a hand. “Yes, yes. Well, I need more.”

He can’t concentrate. There is too much whispering. The shadows are growing closer even though he deliberately doesn’t look at them, nearing from the corners of his eyes like water gliding in to drown him.

“Nothing nothing nothing, you know what you need to do, our little nothing, you know what you need to -”

“Be quiet,” Loki hisses, jerking his head towards the approaching most insistent shadow, and realises his mistake too late. 

Thor is looking at him with slightly wide eyes.

Loki gets to his feet. The room swims. The shadows whisper and laugh and everything is so loud.

“You ought to leave,” he says and closes his eyes for a second when it seems as if he’ll pass out if he doesn’t. He opens them again, and Thor is doing the opposite of leaving: walking closer, slowly as if Loki is a spooked horse to be tamed.

“Father,” Thor says again, starting to reach out a hand.

“Make him leave, you need only us, nothing little nothing make him leave, ” the shadows speak over each other, different sentences, Loki can barely make out what they say. There didn’t use to be this many of them. He can see their forms out to the side, faces and claws reaching out -

There is one behind Thor, and Loki knows instinctively which one it is. The first one he met, with its razor-sharp teeth, twisted face, long thin limbs moving like smoke through the room. It stretches out its arms to envelope Thor, and Loki feels his eyes widen.

“Watch out!” he barks in Odin’s voice. 

Thor jerks, whirling around but then appears to falter. Even though the shadow is right there, taking form, reaching for him, and Thor just stands there…

Loki throws himself over the desk and tackles Thor. They pass right through the shadow, and it moves like smoke around them. Loki feels it as they touch it, freezing… then they’re falling to the floor, the old man and his son rolling around and struggling to gain control of each other.

“Father!” Thor is shouting, taking hold of Loki’s wrists as he struggles. He manages to get on top, pinning Loki to the floor.

Loki thrashes in his grip. “We need to go, Thor, we can’t be here!” he shrieks, forgetting all about word choices that would match Odin’s. 

Thor is stronger and manages to hold him in place. He stares at Loki-Odin with wide, fearful eyes.

“You do not understand,” Loki says, stopping the movement to look at Thor, “they’re so convincing, they’ll get me to - do things, we can’t, we cannot stay here -”

He isn’t sure what he’s talking about, really, but it feels as true as anything could be. The shadows are pressing in. All he knows is his instinct that he needs to leave because they are too close, they’ll gain control like this, more than they already have. Loki feels wetness on his cheeks and realises he is crying, thrashing again in Thor’s iron grip. It should bother him more than it does, but he is rather occupied.

“Listen to us, listen to us,” the shadows chant.

“Father, father listen to me,” Thor is saying over it, “there is no one here, please -”

“You know what you need to do but he is in the way, nothing, little nothing, it is all that matters …”

“Guards!” Thor is calling. Loki howls in regret.

He is going to be found out. They are going to take him to the healers.

But does it matter, really? The shadows are right, it’s not like he has anything left. He has prepared the potions, enough of a dose to shut his magic down as the poison enters his cells to destroy them for good. It would be painful, but the pain would be temporary. For the greater good.

Really, what is left of him but the shadow he truly is? Is that important enough to keep alive?

He hasn’t yet had the guts to do it, but the thought of it calms him at that moment. He won’t be stuck with the consequences when they uncover his charade. The shadows are still with him. He won’t be alone.

His thoughts are a jumbled mess as he lies there on the floor. The door opens, people filter in. Loki glimpses them, and their faces are wrong, twisted, sharp teeth. He is no longer sure what is shadows and what is actual people. He stills to look at Thor, and Thor’s face mirrors the shadows: a twisted, too-wide smile cutting his face in two, with dark holes for eyes.

Loki screams. In a moment’s weakened grip on Thor’s part, he manages to get his hands free to plunge them up into Thor’s chest, burning with magic fire. Thor shouts in pain. Loki scrambles away in the moment's freedom, back meeting something - a wall. He looks up. The room is melting before his eyes.

The room is suddenly very quiet. The moment feels endless. Thor is staring at him, breathing hard, his hands hovering over the place Loki burned him. Staring, staring.

“Is that…” a guard says, in the moment of quiet. Loki looks down and realises it’s his own shaking hands bracing on the floor. He used the last reserve of magic. The illusion is off.

“The windows,” a voice says, insistent and loud in his left ear. Loki’s eyes locate the tall glass looking out over the city. They’re far up.

“Far enough, we reckon,” the shadow says. It’s the first one again.

There is a second of complete quiet. Then Loki gets to his feet, using all the strength he has to sprint across the room. The hasp on the window is difficult and he fumbles with it, feeling someone close in on his back. People or shadows, it doesn’t really matter.

“Don’t you dare!” Thor bellows behind him, running for the windows as well. Loki gets the hasp open, pushing open the glass door and leaping without thought, in thin air for a moment -

An arm wraps around his stomach, yanking him back inside. Another arm joins it, holding him close to their own body.

“NO!” he hears himself shriek, in his own voice now, thrashing to escape the hold. The strong arms are pulling him backwards, away from the escape, and his attempts are in vain. 

Things blur together. The shadows are shouting, they are upset at his failure. Someone else is shouting as well. Someone is shrieking like a wild animal. The arms holding him might be the shadows, or it might be a person.

They are moving through the halls and corridors. Loki is still trying to escape the grip holding him. He’s being held in their arms and realises his escape attempts are but weak jerks, not nearly enough to rattle the stronghold. He looks up. Thor’s face is normal again, and he is looking straight ahead with determination.

Loki finds himself in a bed. His wrists and ankles are bound, and he is struggling against them.

“Lie still,” Eir says, and pricks him in the arm with a needle. Things fade fast from there.