What's Past is Prologue

Synopsis: Loki's thoughts after his fight with Odin and Odin's collapse. Marvel universe mixed with a little bit of Norse Mythology. Sigyn/Loki.

Disclaimer: Though I have taken liberties with the characters here, Marvel owns Thor and Loki. Dialogue from a deleted scene from 'Thor,' features in the beginning. Enjoy.

01. No Secrets

It was his fault and he knew it.

No matter what feeble excuses the rest of his mind made, Loki knew that his explosion at Odin was the primary source of stress that had pushed him into the depths of sleep.

However, he wasn't going to delude himself that it had been entirely his fault. If Odin had been forthright with him from the beginning or, better yet, had just left him to die in that temple in Jötunheim then this whole regrettable situation could have been avoided. The guards had immediately carried the king to his chamber where a healer was summoned. Loki stayed by his side the whole time, a dutiful and concerned son to the end.

He didn't say a word, not when the healer made the pronouncement that Odin's immortal form needed the life-reaffirming rest the king had been depriving himself of for over a decade nor when his mother had arrived in the room. Loki's intense gaze had only taken in everything going on around him as it happened. During his lifetime, his father had been through numerous such resting periods. Some lasting days, others lasting months until the All-father was strong enough to rejoin his people. Odin's sons had never quite known how to react to seeing their father, asleep and immobile, Loki especially. As a boy, he had been more attached to his parents than Thor. Thor had always been more independent.

Like most older brothers and sisters, Thor had always chomped at the bit before the go ahead had even been given to do anything. It was his exuberance, his overzealousness in combat, and merrymaking that made him the prince the people of Asgard wanted. Loki had always been more unsure, more solemn, and calculating. His weren't qualities either his father or grandfather before him had exhibited and, as such, they weren't qualities praised in a child, especially not a royal child. Odin and Frigga had understood Loki's difference and his need to be different, because he was a child apart from all of his peers, though not even he knew why then.

Not until now.

Now, the blatant lie was like a pustule staring up at him from a peasant's back: so incredibly visible that is was hard to believe he hadn't noticed it himself.

Loki sat down at his father's bedside as the healer left the room, staring down at the ailing old man through the regenerating haze surrounding him. That war-scarred face—so feared and beloved by all in the nine realms—looked peaked, drawn, and frail in a way that didn't do justice to the king it belonged to. Nor to the father. The kind, but stern man whom had insisted that both of his sons were born to be king, only one of them would have to learn to live with disappointment. It was the way of things and only a king and a father would have been able to impart onto a prince such a fate and give it weight. Still, it didn't make that fate an easier to bear.

Loki looked up at his mother, the picture of the perfect wife: devoted to her husband even at his most vulnerable point. Loki's own wife—Sigyn—was very similar. She stood by him despite his ill-moods or tasteless tricks and loved him just the same. He hadn't thought about it until now, but he would have to tell Sigyn what his Odin had told him about his own parentage. How would his devoted and loving wife feel then? Knowing that she was married to a creature all of the eight other realms feared and repulsed? And worse yet—that his family had willingly allowed her to be wed to such a beast without warning first. How would she ever live it down? Sigyn was a beautiful woman, one of the most beautiful women in Asgard next to Odin's daughter Freyja. If she wanted to remarry after this debacle broke open, she would have no problem doing it on looks alone, only on reputation. Any worthy husband might not take her on the grounds that she had bedded with a Jotun for the better part of two years and was therefore unclean and unfit for a proper Asgardian.

Loki bowed his head and messaged his temples.

All in good time.

Frigga began humming an old Norse hymn across from him, holding Odin's hand as the soothing tune matured. Frigga's gaze drifted to him, eyes filled with a mixture of love and fear. Love for him or Odin, Loki couldn't tell, nor could he tell if she feared whether Odin would come back to them or if what she was really afraid of was the anger that had led her youngest son to corner his own father. What little of a heart Loki had nearly broke at the thought.

Both queen and prince's attention shifted as someone entered the room. The golden doors to the bed chamber creaked as they were pulled slowly open by two guards and Sigyn rushed in. Loki didn't stand, just observed her. His wife was a tall woman, the stature of a normal Asgardian: tall, straight shouldered with a soft sloping form that would make any artist weep for beauty of it. Her hair was brown and her eyes were dark—an uncommon thing among the blonde haired, light eyed upper crust of Aesir warrior elite. Like his mother, her gown was of gold thread, a symbol of her status as a member of the royal family and also like Frigga, Sigyn was kind and caring in a way that was uncommon among the unaffectionate Aesir. It was the reason, Loki had always theorized, that his parents had always insisted that they marry. In her own way, Sigyn was Loki's perfect match: she was emotional to match his own intense depth of feeling, kind to understand his fits of temper or envy, and quick witted enough to enjoy his tricks and motivations.

Sigyn was also inexplicably drawn to her husband's sense of injury. Since childhood, she had watched him linger in his older brother's shadow, unable to eclipse Thor's fighting abilities nor his popularity with their people. Loki had always expressed the sting of being second best like a mark upon his features. He could never hide it, not even from her. He also never bothered to hide that he felt as though his parents didn't love him as much as they did Thor or Frigga either. Why, Loki never said, but it was open knowledge that he had always felt different from his own family.

Sigyn hurried to Loki and stood beside him, taking notice first of Odin laying prostrate in his bed, then of her husband's drawn and stricken appearance.

"Hello, Sigyn," Frigga greeted, looking up at her. "It was good of you to come. Odin and I have always appreciated your extreme kindness and support of our family."

Sigyn curtsied slightly, "My lady."

Loki looked up at her as Sigyn resettled into her normal posture again and placed her hands on his shoulders. Her voice, as always, was soothing to his nature.

"Husband, what has happened?"

Loki cleared his throat and looked down at Odin.

"My father has succumbed to the Odinsleep. We had a disagreement and I fear the stress was too much for him," He confessed.

Sigyn's hands tightened their reassuring grip upon her husband's shoulders, "Your father is a great man. Great men suffer under burdens which they must shoulder off sometime or be crushed. With the slipping of peace with the Jotuns and the loss of Thor, it is little wonder that your father needs rest to recuperate. Do not worry, my love. He will be back thrashing us for being fashionably late to dinner in no time."

This last bit was said with a little bit of humor and Loki chuckled lowly in kind. The levity was short lived and very soon Loki's expression became solemn again. There was something he needed to take care of before he could decide what to do next.

"Sweetheart, could you leave us a moment? There is something I need to discuss with mother." Loki asked.

Sigyn looked taken aback at first. Her husband had never sent her away before, not in the two years since they had been married. He was always honest with her. They had no secrets. She was about to protest when his eyes met hers and she saw in them the raw determination to be obeyed. If she fought him, he would fight her and now wasn't the time of place for that. Sigyn restrained herself and squeezed his shoulders again. He would tell her later, she would make sure of that.

"I will have food brought to our chambers, so you can eat in peace." She said.

"Thank you."

Without another word, she bent and kissed his forehead, then turned on her heel and left the room. After the golden doors swung closed, Loki looked to Frigga. There was an urgent plea in his silence. The need to know.

"I asked him to be honest with you from the beginning," Frigga began in the face of her son's cold stare. "There should be no secrets in a family."

Loki's eyes never left hers, "So why did he lie?"

"He kept the truth from you so that you would never feel different. You are our son Loki and we your family. You must know that," Frigga continued, her tone pleading. "You can speak to him. He can see and hear us even now."

Loki's gaze flittered down to his sleeping father, then back to Frigga. "How long will it last?"

"I don't know. This time is different. We were unprepared."

"I never get used to seeing him like this," Loki confessed, still a boy in some ways, in awe of how much a father could miss a son. "The most powerful being in the nine realms laying helpless until his body is restored."

"He's put it off for so long now that I fear…you're a good son, Loki. We mustn't lose hope that your father will return to us and your brother."

Loki cocked his head, not expecting this turn in conversation. "What hope is there for Thor?"

"There is always a purpose to everything your father does," Frigga said sagely. "Thor may yet find a way home."

Loki looked down, the familiar void inside of him filling with the same anger it always did when Thor rode at the head of triumphal parades in his goat-driven chariot. The same envy he felt when Thor stood before their father and his court of warriors, the respected and honored future king of a glamorous era. Loki stood, lost in his own thoughts as he turned to go. Before he could, however, the doors opened to reveal a line of royal guards bowing before him. The guardian of the king's magic spear approached, gently cradling, Gungnir, the ancient symbol of the king's authority and power over the gods.

Gungnir was held out to him and Loki, confused; turn to his mother for clarification.

"Thor is banished. The line of succession falls to you. Until Odin awakens, Asgard is yours. Make your father proud, my king."

Loki reached out and lifted Gungnir, feeling the shear heft and weight of it as its power zinged through his arms and made his body thrum with a feeling he had never known before: pride.

The forgotten prince was now a king and the most powerful man in the nine realms.

Got this idea from watching a music video of Loki on youtube and watching documentaries on pagan culture. Combining the two seems to have been the most interesting thing I have done in a while. Please submit a review if you enjoyed my work and would like to have this pairing continued. :]