Warnings: Graphic violence, drug abuse, self-harm, suicide attempt, past torture, past child death, brief mentions of rape, mental health issues, and some really damn questionable Asgardian morals.

If you have a trigger you're concerned about running across, feel free to shoot me a message or hit up the ask box on my tumblr, aconitine-apothecary (probably a bit more reliable), and I'll let you know if it's anywhere in the story.

When he'd first been forced to his knees and sentenced, the gilded halls and gleaming marble floors mocking the once-and-should-be king, he had been afraid. He never showed it, staring as calmly and impassively as ever at the (once) father before him as the prophecies played out. The sun was setting, casting long shadows as its golden face sank beneath the horizon and throwing a rainbow into the sky to match the Bifrost's glory. And wasn't that just the most suiting metaphor? The beginning of the end. The bringer of twilight. The pieces were being gathered for the last great acts of chaos and fire—the terror of a monster scorned.

Thor advanced toward him, his eyes colder than Jötunheim's cruel frost, and for a fraction of a second the silver in his hand caught a sliver of light and shone brighter than the Tesseract. That cruel and torturous cube which he had never truly meant to take, only ever borrow for learning's sake… Knowledge had always been his one great weakness, and education his drug of choice. The jewel of Odin's many conquests—how could he have ever resisted?

But then he fell. Cast himself into nothingness in the hopes it would finally end, except that freedom never came—he just kept falling, dropping through Yggdrasil's branches and the horrors of the abyss. Still he kept his mind intact, his one treasure even as terror gripped him all the stronger, but it was not enough.

Not when he was gripped tight by Him and landed on that place between realms.

He can't remember how it happened, or when—his memory is hazy, as if his body knows that to remember would be worse than death—only remembers the strangled scream. A pain so great that it shattered him, the feeling of being torn apart as his very essence was stripped from him. It was as though every molecule was rent in two and his body razed to the ground with the loss.

His magic, the treasure that made him Loki, was gone.

It should not have been possible, to take such a thing from him. Not even the Allfather in all his power could have done it. Perhaps the emptiness of the abyss had already begun to claim and unravel him. If only he could have kept falling. Surrender. Die.

When He asked him to find it, he somehow managed to resist. Days, months, years, who knew in that poisonous berry on some strangling vine of the world tree.… But when the staff was placed in his hand, its power a soothing balm to the searing void within him, he could fight no more. With a suggestion planted and a madness growing, not even for a realm of innocents could he struggle against Him.

So he had stumbled into the darkness of a new realm—that awful thing He had slipped into his mind twisting every seed of grief, and fear, and rage into a blazing flame of murderous intent—and burned the world to the ground.

(Never had Thor noticed. Not the way he hesitated, the way he drew together the perfect team to stop him. Not the way his once shining green eyes had slipped to the hazel that had been gone since he was barely five hundred years old, nor the way that he was careless in each and every action, all a show and no subtlety. He'd never looked. Never seen. Never cared.)

Thus was he forced to nearly kowtow to his kidnapper—the man who had dared to call a monster son—condemned to eternal torture without so much as a word in his defence. Thor, who had so desperately called him brother even when blinded to the truth of his motivations, held him to the ground and pulled the leather roughly through his skin with no glint of remorse in his eyes. Not even when the first tears his younger brother had shed in front of him since he'd gained his magic traced paths down his cheeks. The prince had sewn his mouth shut and silenced the truth on the liesmith's tongue.

Oh, he'd thought that was pain.

He'd balked at the dankness of the cave, the stone like ice against his back as he was held roughly against it, and seen the snake and known terror as he realized what was coming. Never had he dared to imagine true horror. Now the acidic venom that seared its way across the bridge of his nose, over his eyes, and down his temples became the sweetest relief. Without even knowing it, He had been right.

He welcomed this pain.

(His sons, his beautiful youngest sons, twins with curling hair that shone like the palace itself… hardly five hundred years themselves. Váli, his saintly child, starved and turned into a wolf. Narfi, quiet and confused until the painful screams rang out. Their entrails turned to iron bindings, their only crime his name. Yes, pain was a merciful boon.)

Time passed and nobody came—out of fear or of apathy he couldn't say—until one day he had struggled enough. In the purest form of agony he'd slipped his bonds, fallen to the frozen dirt, and dug shallow graves in the snow to give what small amount of respect he could for his innocent boys. Only then did he tear the stitches from his mouth and howl like some wild thing in absolute grief.

Light never welcomed him back into her bosom.

He'd walked for days, constantly tripping over brush and falling headfirst into trees or stone, and the descent of winter brought with it a chill great enough to tear down his Ás glamor. Still he'd struggled onwards until he'd found a hidden path, long forgotten and unmentioned in the ancient texts he'd poured over for so many centuries, whose warm embrace seared like fire even as the glamor reclaimed its hold.

–

He wakes into darkness, rough brick at his back and the rancid smell of half-burnt oil hanging in the air. It takes many dragging minutes before he can parse the cacophony of noise into its pieces after so long in silence, but slowly he manages to pick out the grumble of motors, din of conversation, and wailing cry of a siren somewhere in the distance.

Midgard. A city.

Yet still, there is nothing but a smothering blanket of nothingness—different and less painful than when his magic was torn from him, perhaps, but tragic nonetheless.

Someone calls angrily, and again. Another voice joins it. Male, he thinks? The words are mangled, and spoken with a strange accent that he half-remembers as if from a dream.

English, his mind supplies after too long a pause. He's shoved roughly back against the grating rasp of the building and feels frantically for anything he can use to get his bearings, but finds nothing. One of them grabs him by the shirt, but even emaciated as he is they cannot lift him. Instead they punch him in the gut, yelling, but his mind cannot translate quickly enough to make sense of the sounds. It's been centuries since last he used the Allspeak, longer since he did so for any length of time, and translating spells are useless without power to back them with so everything is just incomprehensible noise. They punch him again, this time in the jaw, and his instincts finally kick in. He grabs the person (man?) by the throat and holds him against the wall, snarling back in his native tongue a threat to break his neck, but three sets of hands not weakened with starvation and pain pull him back, beating him until he slumps to the wet ground and stops struggling.

It feels like an eternity before they leave him, broken and bruised in a world he can neither see nor comprehend. He gives into sleep there.

A hand on his shoulder, gentler this time, wakes him.

"Sir, are you hurt?"

He manages to push himself off the ground to look toward the source of the sound. He tries to talk, to respond, but his throat is like sandpaper and he only manages a pained choke.

"Woah, easy there," the voice tells him. "Take your time. What's your name?"

Swallowing a few times does little to soothe the burn. "L– Loki." His mind isn't functioning quickly enough to realize that on Midgard, perhaps it is wiser to keep his identity concealed. Hopefully the voice won't make the connection.

"Can you walk?"

He forces his back to yield to his will, and stifles a moan as it screams in pain. His legs fare hardly better, but he manages to stand. He reaches for a wall, entirely disoriented, and has to take a few steps before the uneven edge of the brick scratches his fingertips.

"Where–?" He doesn't quite manage the rest of the sentence but the voice answers anyway.

"Forty-seventh street, New York City."

He hisses. Could that wretched path have led anywhere worse than the home of his enemies? But no matter, he holds little fear of them anymore—after all, what else can they take from him of consequence? He takes a few uncertain steps forward, his hand following the bumps in the brick, and runs his foot into something before stopping short. His heart speeds as he realizes he has no way to navigate, not with his two strongest senses stripped of him. The voice seems to catch on.

"You can't see?"

An off-balance laugh forces its way through his cracked lips. "Not unless the veil of darkness has suddenly wrapped this world in her embrace."

"Is this what took your sight, then?"

A shaky breath that threatens to break into a manic giggle. "That depends heavily on your interpretation of 'this.' It was not those foul wretches, as I assume you mean." He runs his fingers across the slick surface of the object he nearly ran into. Plastic, wet with rain; a seam runs along the side and there's a ridge below it. One of the boxes the mortals put their refuse in? It hardly matters.

"I'm to your left. Take my arm, above the elbow, and stay about half a pace behind me. I can lead you."

He's got no other option, really. Follow a voice he cannot identify, or stumble blindly about until he dies or is killed. The voice (man? Man.) leads him out of the alleyway and into the chaos of the crowd. He follows nervously, starting at every brush of an arm against his, but the man is patient and warns him about potential obstacles in his way.

"There's a street here, and the crosswalk doesn't have any aural cues. You have to listen to the cars traveling perpendicular to you to stop, and try to be aware of anyone turning right. When it stops, you can cross. Small step down," he warns, then leads him across the street.

"My name's Matt, by the way. My place is a ways away and I was already going to work, so I hope my office is alright. It's pretty small, only two other people and there shouldn't be anyone else for a few hours at least. That alright?"

He stumbles, tripping over his feet and tightening his grip on the man's arm.

"Woah, easy there. I'm not going to let you get hurt, don't worry. Here, building's on your right. Three steps up. Door pulls out, the hinge is on your right." He hears the jingle of keys and the solid thunk of a deadbolt turning.

"Follow my arm to the handle."

He does, and turns the knob to pull it open.

The man steps through the door, allowing him to follow before taking his arm again, and locks the door behind him.

"Not business hours yet, and Karen won't be in for a bit longer so it's just me and Foggy. Hey! Foggy!"

Heavy footsteps, then a pause. "Where the hell did you pick him up, Matt? What the hell happened?"

"Two blocks down in the alleyway. Can you grab the med kit? I think Karen moved it under the sink."

A rustle of fabric. "Yeah, sure. Just a sec."

Loki staggers and the man steadies him with his other hand. "Hey, come here. There's a chair a pace and a half to your ten o' clock."

It takes him a moment to figure out how Midgardian clocks look and in his moment of hesitation the man's already helped guide him. He sinks heavily into a high-backed chair that's the softest thing he's felt in what have literally been years. He sighs in relief.

The heavy footsteps return. "Here you go. What the fuck happened to him? He looks like he's been to hell and back!"

He chuckles darkly. "Oh, if only. I would welcome the relief and the reunion with my daughter and sons."

The second voice (Foggy, had he said?) doesn't respond for a second. "Are you blind? I'm just going by the scars here, but honestly I don't see how you can't be."

He just nods. His throat hurts too much to waste his voice on trivial things.

"Matt, I'm not really sure how to respond except to say that I never thought the blind leading the blind would be quite so relevant."

Something that sounds metal is set down and a latch clicks open. Papers rustle and glass clinks against something else. His attention is only vaguely drawn, the rest of it lies with the previous statement.

"You–" he coughs and his throat makes its protest known, "You're blind?"

"Sure am. Have been since I was a kid. I'm guessing it's new enough for you that you haven't adapted much yet?"

He coughs again, harder this time. "That depends on your meaning of new. If you mean when the acid first started to burn then it was some time ago. I don't remember. If you mean when I woke up in the streets in total darkness, then it was not long before you found me."

"Foggy, go grab a glass of water, would you? And, Loki, was it? I'm not sure what you're implying and it doesn't sound good, but for now I'm going to try and focus on getting you fixed up. Judging from Foggy's reaction it's a lot worse than I can tell, because he's seen me pretty beaten up before. What's the worst of your injuries, do you know?"

"My answers to all your questions are most likely conditional, so I will do my best to follow the meaning I believe you intend. I apologize in advance if I fail to do as such, my mind is in... other places at present. As for physical injuries, I believe the acid burns have mostly healed, although they still sting. My eyesight is most likely the largest issue, but there's nothing to be done for it. A bone in my arm feels out of place, and the rest is minor injury from the Hel-hated miscreants in the alleyway." He hisses as something cool and damp stings at one of the deeper cuts. It smells like alcohol. "I haven't eaten in some time though, so if it would not be too much of a trouble I would appreciate a meal. I'm afraid I have nothing to pay with."

"Not a problem. You have a place nearby?"

Another sting at an open wound. "Not as such. I highly doubt I have anywhere, now. Do not fear I will impose on you, whatever my current state I was still taught manners." Heavy footsteps return, a little slower this time, and a rustle of fabric.

"Hold out your hand? The non-broken arm."

He does, and a glass is pressed into it. He sniffs at the liquid inside.

"Don't worry, it's just water. Drink, slowly."

He complies, and it's the closest to Valhalla he'll probably ever get. He wants to drink it all down, he's not had a drop of water on his tongue since the Battle begun and who knows how long ago that was, but if he does he know's he'll likely throw up and make things worse. So he sips at it measuredly, savoring every drop. "Thank the norns."

He drops his head back against the chair with a sigh.

"Who did this to you?" the heavier one asks.

He laughs brokenly, grip on the glass nearly hard enough to shatter it. Realizing this he feels beside him and finds a wooden surface where he sets it down with a clink. "Many hands. The worst my would-be father and brother, although I believe the bone was originally broken by the beast and they only served to worsen it. There were others there, but I forget all but two of their faces. Others from this place, yet another from a place between. I should not be so surprised, I have known for a long time now how this ends."

"And how's that?" the first man asks.

"Twilight." Not that they will know the meaning, the old ways have fallen to obscure legend on Midgard. No longer do they remember their gods, not even the benevolent. Perhaps it's suiting.

"I can set your arm here, or we can go to the hospital if you prefer. I don't have plaster here so I'll have to makeshift a cast."

"No–" The water helped but his throat still aches in protest. "No hospitals. They'll find me." Another rustle of fabric, a single light footstep.

"The people who did this to you?"

He nods. People or monsters, what's the difference? They'll find him anyway given enough time, but he has no desire to aid the process.

"Give me just a moment, I'll be back in a sec."

There's a quiet pause, and the other voice speaks.

"More water?"

His body aches with want. "Half a glass, if you would, with a spoon or two of sugar and a bit of salt if you can spare it. You have my thanks." A tiny ring of fingers brushing on glass and the footsteps retreat, leaving him alone. He readjusts a bit, trying not to further injure himself before he realizes it's a pointless pursuit.

Light footsteps return.

"Loki. I feel like I've heard the name. Should I know you?" Something metal is laid on the table with a thunk. "Hold out your arm. I need to find where the break is, but I'll do my best not to hurt you any more than necessary."

The man's fingers ghost over his arm, slowly searching for the injured area. "I have few doubts you have heard my– ah! That's it, there."

"Yeah, it's pretty swollen. How long's it been broken?"

He can't remember. The time all began to blur into a never ending darkness. "Months? I lost track of time. It won't need to be re-broken, though, my bones will not heal much out of place."

"Okay, I'm going to try and reposition it, this is going to hurt."

He clenches his jaw and grips the arm of the chair, stifling a whine of pain as the bone clicks back into place. His next breath is shaky, but the pain has already started to subside. "You no doubt have heard of me. It would not benefit either of us, I don't think, if you were to think too hard on where."

A pause.

"I suppose that's fair enough, as long as you don't try to kill me or anything."

Soft gauze is wrapped around his arm, up over his thumb and around his hand to keep it in place. A tear of fabric, and some sort of adhesive, he assumes, is used to hold it. The object on the table is removed with a scrape and pressed under his arm, bending slightly under his palm.

"Don't ask why I have arm splints laying around, you'd be surprised how many bone's I've broken. Long story. Hey Foggy!"

The man returns and sets a glass back on the table.

"Sorry, you know how I am about stuff like that. Not exactly a fan of watching."

"Can you call Karen and see if she can pick up some plaster on her way here?"

"Sure."

Footsteps retreat. He feels for the glass, fingers closing around its cool surface.

Another light pressure on his arm, more gauze he guesses, to keep the splint on. A rustle of plastic and something else, and a cooling weight is lowered onto his arm.

"Hold that there for now, it should take the swelling down a bit. It's a bit early in the day for delivery, but the Chinese place a block down should be open. Is rice okay? It's probably good if you don't eat too much to start out if you haven't for a while."

He has no idea what rice is. It's not like he's spent an overly large amount of time on Midgard recently, but it's food so he nods.

"Cool. I'll have Foggy order some when he's done talking to Karen. Want some Tylenol to help the pain? Assuming you're not allergic."

The name sounds familiar. Some sort of Midgardian medicine. "What's it made of? Elementally?"

"Acetaminophen? I don't know the chemical formula, but I can look it up. Just a sec."

He nods. There aren't many of Midgard's chemicals that are poisonous to those of Asgard, but in his state it's probably best not to risk it. There's a light tap and the man speaks.

"Chemical composition of acetaminophen."

A pause.

"Chemical composition of acetaminophen is C8H9NO2," a strangely stilted female voice replies.

He thinks for a moment, converting the Midgardian terms into ones he is more familiar with. "That should be alright. What's the dosage?"

"Two five hundred milligram pills, every six hours."

"Triple it."

A rattle and a click. "I don't know if that's a great idea. I didn't just fix you up to have you overdose on Tylenol."

He rolls his eyes in exasperation. "I could probably take four times the human dose with no side effects. Three times is playing it safe."

"You're not human?"

He laughs, then winces as the movement sends a sharp pain down his side. "Not last time I checked."

"Guess I'll trust your judgement, then. Hand?"

He holds it out and six pills are placed in it. He swallows them dry.

"Give it ten or fifteen minutes. I'm not sure how much it will help, but it should take the edge off."

The pill bottle clicks closed again. The heavier man returns and is sent back to the phone again with instructions to order food from the Chinese place, and he complains that he's not an errand boy. The other man says something but he's stopped bothering to translate. Between the effort of doing so and the pain that still burns through his body like flames, exhaustion takes hold and he slips into sleep. Some time later a gentle touch on his shoulder wakes him and he blinks awake slowly only to remember that he can't see. The man says something, he hears the word 'rice.'

Ah, yes, food. He straightens up and takes the warm box that is handed to him along with a fork (flexible, made of plastic? Midgardians are strange creatures).

"Slowly, remember."

The warmth of the food is even better than the water, he thinks. He chews carefully and does his best not to over-indulge and make things worse later on—it's not the first time he's been starved, he knows how it works and how to eat afterwards. This time is more acute, having gone so long, but the principle is the same. When he finishes some time later, the man speaks.

"Karen's here and brought plaster so I can finish up on the cast. That okay with you?"

He nods. The sound of water, something hitting the side of glass (a bowl, he thinks), and the bag of ice is removed in favor of spreading plaster over the gauze. "You are practiced at this. Not in the way of a healer, but in the way of a warrior who must mend his own wounds."

"I have my reasons."

He doesn't push, just as the man has not pushed about anything he has said no matter how strange his words must seem. "You have my thanks. It is not often that I am offered aid without the promise of... considerable reward."

"Well, technically I expect you not to kill me, and I think my life counts as a considerable reward," the man jokes.

He allows himself a small smile. "I suppose so."

"You said you don't have a place to stay. I've got a spare room, if you want, and my place is probably easier for you to navigate since I set it up for, well, me. To be navigable in the dark, I guess you could say. I can help you get used to blindness too, if you want, I've certainly got the experience."

His instinctual distrust kicks back in at last, thank the norns, at this rate it's a miracle he hasn't gotten himself killed yet. "I don't think that will be necessary. It would be a burden to you and I dislike being in another's debt. I can find my own way."

"Right. What are you going to do when you walk out that door into the crowd that you can't see? How do you cross the street, or know which door is which?"

Oh. Right. Norns.

"Look, you don't owe me anything. I want to help, and I know what it's like to go blind. I can teach you how to get around, how to cook and read, how to make sure you don't put a blue plaid shirt with red striped pants..."

"Owning either of those would just be in poor taste."

The man laughs. "True, but you get the point. Don't worry about inconveniencing me because it's not a problem."

There's is one problem, though. "Any prolonged contact with me puts you in danger."

"I can handle myself."

Humans. Thinking they're so invincible even when their lives are barely long enough to have evolved at all. "I do not think you understand the gravity of the situation. It would be a shame for you to die because you were feeling kind."

"Like I said, I can handle myself. If it comes down to it, I know how to fight, and hopefully it won't anyway. You need the help, I can give it. It's that simple. Come on, I can take you back there and teach you the basics if you want. There are only a few clients coming in today and Foggy can pick up the one or two who were mine. Let me grab you a sling for your arm and we can head out."

Author's Note:

My general headcanon is that Old Norse is an offshoot of the Asgardian language, assimilated by the Norse people during the Æsir/Jötunn war, and as such when Loki speaks in his native language that's what it'll be based off of. I'm actually going to use Icelandic, since it's incredibly well-preserved and for the most part lines up with Old Norse, but is much easier to translate back and forth from.

By the way, I'm not going to demonize Thor too much here, things will make more sense as the story moves forward.

(also, I know that "twilight of the gods" is a mistranslation, but the metaphor is fitting so i'm using it anyway)