Lovely metaphors...you pictured the ramblings of an almost-insane mind perfectly.
I especially like the part after reality faded and Loki "fixes attention on truth" and the clock part after that. It shows how desperate he was, while yet still containing the Loki practicality.

Awesome job!

Hi RandomCelt! I thought this fic was beautifully written. It did have that deep strangeness about it. It definitely reached into the insanity genre, but you wrote it in a way that made it understandable for your readers. Also, I thought the candles and their figurative meaning was rather creative. They added a deeper meaning to the story, which I found very interesting.

[The one he no longer sees is -was- love] This line was rather sad. The first thing Loki loses is love, or the feeling that he is loved.

[holding back the darkness until his spider-web sanity shatters] Nice description!

[Truth stings his eyes and his mind.] I thought this line was interesting, and I'm hoping I interpreted the meaning correctly. I understood it to mean that Loki found the Truth painful, perhaps referring to the truth of who/what he is and what he's done. Very creative.

[Love's candle breaks into the darkness, spluttering and flickering back to life.] I thought this was a great way of showing that, upon seeing the concern in Thor's eyes, Loki felt loved again.

[The simple words pierced straight to his bruised heart] Great description of how Thor's words affected Loki.

[for the four candles are burning there, shining gently and softly into the deepest darkness] Beautiful line to finish of the story with! I think it tied everything together nicely. Loki is rescued from his despair, and his sense of Reality, Time, Truth and Love return once more.

I didn't come across any spelling, grammar or punctuation errors, so well done for that.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this story. Honestly, it's not like anything else I've read before. It was deep, meaningful and very well-written.

Well done! Keep up the excellent writing!

Awwwww. This is adorable. I love what you did I with the candles.

The Truth candle rather reminds me of Maedhros and Maglor's tragic realization that they are not, in fact, worthy of their father's jewels. Then again, everything reminds me of the Silmarillion. Another question: if the candles aren't real, then would that mean he couldn't see the Reality candle? But then if that wasn't reality, he could be seeing an illusion of a candle that he thinks stands for reality...Great story, though!

Hi! Hi!

I was hoping to find a Mihi written fic so I pressed CTRL and F and searched for Loki for the tag. Anyways, I'm reviewing as part of ANHT's Review Tag and though I've watched Avengers and Thor, I do consider myself just a bit fandom blind. I love the character Loki ridiculously, but to a certain degree, I am FB because of a lack of knowledge of his character from the comic and so on.

Anyways, I really loved this. The story was well-written despite it being a bit slow in the beginning, but I love the idea of this piece. I'm assuming that he's serving time inside of the abyss... The candles and what they represented was also interesting to me... and how he could no longer see me. It reminds me of a part from an old fic i made a long time.

What was especially interesting to me was the idea that I was never sure if there were really candles and flickers of flames within the place. He obviously hasn't lit them up in himself? Is he mentally going insane?

The best part to me would be when Thor came in especially because he had that fright before. I also loved how seeing him had been enough.

Good job. I saw no grammar errors. I keep falling asleep... _ I'm so tired and sick.
See ya around,
Until Next Time,
Neo

Yay, another Loki fic! I love that clever, insane, vicious little woobie, lol.

I'm not sure “insanity” actually should make sense, though, so now your A/Ns have me a bit worried. :P

So poor Loki all alone in his cell is hallucinating candles that stand for things. That actually makes some sense (and I hope this doesn't mean I'm insane myself, lol), because it's like the sort of stuff I think about when I'm either slowly falling asleep or slowly waking up. It's sad that the first candle to flicker and die was Love, but I don't believe that means that Loki actually stopped loving, just that he believes he has stopped or perhaps that he believes that others have stopped loving him. It seems that second interpretation is plausible, given how he feels as though he'll never again feel the warmth of an embrace. I know Loki brought this fate on himself, but I can't help but feel sorry for him anyway.

I love the line about belief being an abyss, and how Loki has fallen into enough of those already. It's a powerful call back to the end of Thor. I also think it says a lot about his character that he is so reluctant to believe anything. He really took it hard when he discovered that everything he'd always believed about his family and even himself was a lie, so it really makes sense that he'd be wary of believing anything now.

I love how he notices that the shadows are never fully drained away but neither do they overwhelm the lights. That speaks to a very universal truth. It also seems as though it's an intentional reference to the Biblical line, “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it.” It might seem a bit strange to reference to the Bible while writing about Norse mythology, but I think it works.

Oh, and I think I understand (at least part of) the reason why Truth stings Loki Liesmith's eyes and mind! ;)

This was probably entirely unintended, but the crack in the wall reminded me of Doctor Who, lol.

Anyway, this crack in the wall seems as though it's important, because as soon as he starts paying attention to it, “Reality” flickers and dies. It seems to suggest a “break with reality.”

There's a somewhat famous comics!Loki quote where he says he dreamed of Thor dying – is this dream an intentional reference to that? The details are different, so it's probably just a coincidence. But either way, Thor dying would definitely be a disturbing dream for Loki, never mind that he may have tried to kill Thor himself, heh.

The reminders of what Loki has in fact done, the people he has killed are powerful. And quite fitting that he sees this after focusing his attention on Truth.

I am unsure if they even have clocks in Asgard, and if they do how many hours they normally would have. It seems to me that the 12 hour clock might be a very specifically human idea, so a clock counting to 13 doesn't seem so strange in such an alien place. I get that Loki sees it as strange, but I'm kind of unconvinced as to why such a clock could only exist in a “non-reality.” In all the 9 realms, is something like that really so bizarre?

It would seem Loki loves darkness rather than light, because his deeds are evil. ;)

Is it perhaps a typo here: “For he is of darkness, and it does not under the light”? “It does not under” seems really strange, and I can't think of what it could mean. My brain is telling me it should be “understand.” Of course, my brain could be wrong, heh.

So the Truth candle doesn't flicker out like the others, but Loki is able to stop seeing it. It would seem that candle is unique among the others, and I suppose it always was, since it was the one that hurt him.

That Loki feels a sense of wrongness that Thor should submerge himself in darkness for Loki's sake really speaks to how Loki sees himself as well as how Loki sees Thor, and also to the unequal nature of their relationship.

The happy ending here is somewhat dampened in my mind, because I can't shake the feeling that perhaps it is yet another illusion. After losing Reality, Time, and Truth, it's not surprising that Love is re-kindled - Loki must want his brother's love and forgiveness, and perhaps he wants it so badly that he conjures it up. The four candles burning again at the end could be yet another illusion. Sorry, I probably should be happy at this ending, but I can't really trust anything that happens after Loki loses Reality. And even if Thor truly is there and Loki's sentence is truly done, it doesn't seem as though Loki is truly “okay.” He was partially crazy before he spent time in the cell, and now he seems well and truly broken.

Wow this is very painful and dark. I can't say whether it’s in cannon or not. I don't think we have ever seen Loki so down and alone, suffering in the dark. (Though I suppose in Thor 2 he was smug when he was in his cell) It was great to read and to see another side of him, an almost human, caring side. (even if it was mostly only concern for himself, and a little about Thor being alive) He wasn't playing tricks for a change (pretending to care), it was all real. The suffering, the pain. I think he was even going a little mad as he was locked up there himself.
It was a nice end to the one-shot to see Thor come and rescues him from his misery. That Thor was concerned and worried about his brother. Though I have no doubt that it wouldn't take Loki long to return back to him old self.

awesome

This is wonderful! I absolutely love the symbol of the candles; the different images and ideas associated with each as it goes out are so fitting, even down to the order in which they're dimmed. (How splendidly, perfectly ironic that Truth would be the last thing lost by the god of Lies.) The whole story explores such deep themes.

And the ending is delightful! I love how Thor's coming restores the candles, and I love how Loki sees them for the final time. It feels as if they and his mental struggle have been left behind in favour of the real things they represent. :)

Lovely job!
-Crackers

This is really good! I like how you wrote this. It was a different style then what I usually read. And the clock with the number thirteen on it reminded me of "Alice in Wonderland".

Nice :)