Author's Notes: Written (at least ostensibly) for the hc_bingo prompt of "nightmares." I had fun with it. I had...way too much fun with it. (I can't help it if I really like brutalizing Loki in fic okay) (and have a problem with my ridiculous amounts of anxiety disorder! and sleep issues!Loki headcanon)

With gratitude as ever to my beta zaataronpita, the best hawkling a girl could have.

He'd managed to avoid it for a while, but it caught up with him when it was over, when Thor dragged him away in chains. He was so kind as to remove the gag once they reached Asgard and looked at Loki as though he expected him to be grateful. Loki wanted to laugh, but he knew the sound would come out hollow.

He was tired (tired, tired, tired) and had been for a long time.

It was all he could think, even his thoughts too sluggish to spin in their usual restless circles. He wanted sleep, craved it, rest and oblivion and something as near to peace as he could have-

But you can't have it, can you? He kept his head up, forced his eyes open as Thor tugged him along like a wolf on a leash. You know what happens when you close your eyes. You know…

Weakling coward traitor wretch. Loki took three slow breaths through his nose. His eyes dragged toward closed, and he forced them open. Is this what it is to be now? You never rest again, never even for a moment, because if you do…

"Brother," Thor asked, invoking that hateful name. "Are you well?"

If I could rest. If I had any certainty that it would not be worse…

"Such concern," Loki forced out, his voice flat. He found a sharp, jagged smile. "His grace is too greathearted by far." Thor's expression spasmed, his jaw clenching, and he looked forward again. He could feel eyes following them as they plodded through Asgard, the traitor prince on display, and couldn't care for how they looked at him.

"You look tired – exhausted," Thor pressed, though, a moment later. "When we reach the palace-"

"I'm sure I will find my cell delightfully homey," Loki said bitingly. "Perhaps you can come by with some mushroom soup? I find I have a craving." Thor straightened a little.

"I'm sure I can-"

"Don't be a fool," Loki snapped. Every word Thor spoke rubbed raw on his nerves. "I am a prisoner, not your pet." He wanted to lie down and curl up and sleep for years. Dreamless, empty, restful sleep.

He knew he would have none of those. The only quiet he would have now was the final kind. Even the Tesseract's peace was…

It would not take him back again, not after his abject failure.

"You are my brother," Thor insisted. Loki snorted and forced his eyes to stay open. Thor was going on, spouting platitudes, everything will be all right, just roll over and submit and you can be our pet monster again. He started paying attention again in time to hear Thor say "-and mother's set up your room so you can remain there until the trial-"

"What?" His voice came out sharper and higher than he meant it to. Thor frowned.

"Whatever wrongs you have done, Loki…"

"Do not mock me," Loki said shrilly. "I am not – I will not-" He did not want to go back to that room. Did not want to go back to playing at family with these people he hated, would not allow them to soften him with false compassion. He could feel people staring as they passed by. Let them stare. Let them see a snarling beast and be afraid of what he might do-

"Loki, be calm," Thor said, sounding worried. "It is plain you are not well. We want to look after you, to help you-"

"You cannot help me!" His voice rose sharply, out of his control. "There is nothing you can do!" His head was spinning and his limbs felt so heavy. "I need to – need to-"

"Loki, please," Thor said, almost dragging him along, and Loki snickered helplessly.

"Please what?"

"Please, just…" Loki ignored Thor, as usual, shut out his prating, shut out everything. He didn't want to be here, but there was nowhere else…

He floated away a little, let Thor drag him along. Need to sleep. No. Fight it. All that waits there is- "Mother," he heard in Thor's voice. "Something's wrong, he's not…"

"Do not speak about me as though I am not here," Loki said, though his voice seemed to slur in an unnerving way. Someone laid a cool hand on his brow and he tried to shake it off.

"You need to sleep, my son," her voice murmured, and Loki couldn't keep back a shudder.

"No," he said. "No, I don't think so." He tried to drag himself upright. "I do not wish to-"

Thor was guiding him forward, still. "How long has it been?" Frigga asked, sounding so hatefully gentle. Loki scoffed.

"A month, two years, what does it matter? I will not sleep, I will not rest until I see all of you burn, so you may as well cease this charade and-"

"Mother," Thor said, sounding worried. Loki tried to pull himself off his burly shoulder and found that his legs were shaking badly. "Should I…"

"No need. Here we are-" Thor half hauled him through a doorway. He knew the room at once for his and began to fight, but Thor seemed to have gotten stronger where he'd only gotten weaker.

"I told you, I will not – lie back and – let me go-"

"Mother," said Thor, sharper, and then it was Frigga's hands on his shoulders, pushing him down. "All right," she said. "I understand. I understand." Loki subsided, for a moment, panting. She'd heard him. Someone had heard him. He swayed.

"I can't," he mumbled, not sure who he was speaking to. "I can't, I can't-"

"Have some water, my son." She pressed a glass to his lips, and he gulped it down thoughtlessly, desperately thirsty, his body aching and throbbing with lingering hurt, his mind feeling like it was starting to unravel. But if he closed his eyes – how much worse?

Frigga pulled the glass away and set it aside. "You are safe," she said, soft and quiet. (No. I am not. I am never safe, not anywhere, you do not know how long his reach can be.) "Lie back." It was Thor's hands pulling off his boots, though, and he tried to kick him away but his body suddenly felt very distant. Poison, he thought, dazedly. She poisoned me. He didn't mind, not awfully, not if it was going to be like this. Not when he'd known the probable outcome in Asgard might well be death.

He let himself fall back, almost relieved. It was better than he'd feared it might be; they might have chosen infinitely more painful ways to rid themselves of their mistake. "So it's over, then," he murmured, and Frigga's cool palm stroked his forehead again.

"Yes, Loki. It's over." She sounded so sad. Was this death? Loki wondered. It felt not so different from falling asleep. "We shall speak when you wake."

When you wake. "No," he said, faintly. Thor's hand clasped his and squeezed. He tried to shake off the fog, but the world was already starting to blur, his eyes dragging closed. "No, I don't…"

"It will be well, brother," Thor said soothingly. "All will be well."

No. It won't.

Not poison, then. She hadn't heard him. All of them, always thought they knew best, making his decisions for him. Drugged, he thought, the water was drugged, I should have tested it, as his thoughts began to fog and he sunk downwards into the embrace of sleep, sweet, seductive, kind. (A lie.) I ought to have…

"Sleep, Loki," he heard. Thor's voice, if unwontedly quiet. "You will feel better for it."

He wanted to believe that. Wanted to think that perhaps unnatural slumber would be deep enough to keep him safe. Wanted to…

His thoughts fragmented, spilled into darkness, and left him behind.

~.~

He woke curled on his side on a hard surface. His hands were bound now, behind his back, the muzzle clamped back over his mouth. So they'd thought better of their earlier gentleness, good, the ache in his shoulders would serve to remind him-

"So we have a deal?" Loki blinked. Odin's voice. He opened his eyes and tried to twist so he could see the other occupants of what he presumed was his cell.

"It seems we have," rumbled another voice, and Loki froze at once, his blood turning to ice. No. Impossible. He cannot – Odin would not –

"Any use it had to me is gone now," Odin said coolly. He heard the scrape of a chair pushed back, and the sound of Odin's bootsteps drawing near. His breathing sped up, fear prickling down his spine, rank and nauseous. "And Midgard is of little worth. This bargain suits you?"

"It does. I am pleased that we could reach an arrangement."

Please, no, Loki thought frantically. Anything else. Anything at all-

Odin's boots came into his view, and a moment later he crouched down. His expression was stern, remorseless. Loki tried to plead with his eyes, but Odin hardly seemed to see him. Frigga would never allow this, he thought, frantic. Thor would- but they didn't know. Likely Odin would claim he had escaped. No one would come, no one, and he couldn't even look forward to death.

The Allfather's hands grasped either side of the muzzle and it unlatched with a click. He pulled it away, trailing spit and blood, and the moment Loki could speak he fixed his eyes on Odin's and said, "Please."

His voice came out ragged, not sounding like his own. "Please, Allfather. Kill me. I betrayed you, I betrayed Asgard, strike me down with your own hands, please-"

"I no longer have any power over your fate," Odin intoned. There was no regret in his voice. "You chose your own."

"Have you no mercy?" Loki cried. He could feel the shadow looming behind him, waiting to take him and break him.

"All," the Allfather said, and rose, the muzzle in one hand. "But none for you." He turned his back.

"He'll never keep his word!" Loki screamed at his back. "Whatever he told you - the moment he can-"

"In truth," Odin said, not looking back, "being rid of you was enough of an offer."

Loki's words died on his tongue. Odin tapped the butt of Gungnir on the ground and stepped through a portal, vanishing into light. A dry, choking sound snagged awfully in his throat. That looming shadow drew nearer. No use in begging him. He would only find it amusing.

"You failed me, whelp." He couldn't keep his breathing from becoming rapid, ragged pants. "All your promises and vows, and you failed to bring me the Tesseract." Just death, he thought, desperately. Please, just death, a long, slow death, but please do not-

"Is it my fault if the force you gave me was insufficient to defeat mere mortals?" Loki forced out, making his voice light. He laughed.

"Are you trying to anger me into ending your pathetic existence, Loki Laufeyson?" Loki said nothing. "I will not. I still have use for you, I think."

Loki felt his whole body sag. Yes, his mind gibbered. I can be useful, I can still be useful, another chance, let me…

"Oh yes." His voice rumbled in Loki's bones as he stooped, hand lifting Loki by the chin, forcing his eyes up to meet his mad stare. "My servants need a reminder, I think. Of the price for failure." The faint flush of something like hope died an ugly death in his chest. "I think," Thanos said, "once you are bent and broken properly to my will, you would make a fine cupbearer."

He just had time to scream before Thanos ripped his mind inside out.

~.~

He woke up to filth and darkness. There was a throbbing behind his eyes, and it took him a moment to realize that it was not simply the dark around him. His eyes had been put out. Loki lifted his hands cautiously to his face and found sticky fluid under the sockets; remembered in a flash how it had felt when his eyes had popped under the pressure of their fingers. He must have passed out, after. His stomach churned, but he swallowed the bile down.

But Thanos...Odin handing him over to the Mad Titan, that had been a dream. What could be worse than that? His eyes would heal. Like as not they would only do it again, after, but…

Loki fumbled for a wall and found stone, dragged himself slowly to his feet. He turned his head from side to side, trying to hear a sound, any sound. Nothing. It was as though he was utterly alone in a black, sightless void.

The only proof that it was otherwise was the ache of his healing eyes. He had not gouged them out himself. His breathing sounded loud in the absolute silence. Where had they taken him? Even the lower cells under Asgard were not this quiet. Were there others, still deeper, where he was to be buried and forgotten?

His straining ears caught a sound in the distance and he stilled, holding his breath. It came again, closer. A clanking sort of noise, and the very low murmur of voices. A prickle ran down his spine. Something seemed wrong about those voices.

As they drew nearer, he realized what it was, and his heart stopped. No. It had been a dream. Odin had not – he had not come back here-

"Is the princeling ready for his supper?" One of the voices sang out, and the clanking drew nearer. He knew that sound now. Recognized it, and his stomach began to churn. He would not have thought – how did you justify this, All-Father? Or did you bother?

He tried to stand tall, listening for the door. He heard the key in the lock and lunged, knowing there was little to no chance, but unable to keep himself from trying.

The blast of energy took him full in the chest, slammed him back into the wall. He dropped heavily to the ground and tried to push himself up, but didn't get far before a kick in the side knocked the wind from his lungs and left him wheezing on the ground.

He could smell what they had brought. Never again, he'd promised himself, when he'd managed to talk his way out of this place. Never again will I let you touch me, hurt me, humiliate me-

"Best eat, princeling," one of them said. His chest burned where the blast had hit him. "Or we'll force it all down your throat." He hovered on the edge of refusal for a moment, but memory overwhelmed him and confused instinct took over.

He ate. Tried not to think or breathe and was distantly grateful for his lack of sight. He fought his stomach to submission and managed to swallow the last of it with only a dry retch and held very still, not moving.

He'd vomited before they left, once, before.

"Thanos," he forced out, when he thought he could speak again. Having his mind stolen would be better than losing it like this. Having it chipped away a little at a time until he was nothing but a crawling beast. "I need to speak with-" One of the Chitauri laughed, raucous and loud.

"He doesn't need anything from a whelp like you," it said. "You fell out of the sky into our hands, princeling. I'm afraid it's us you're stuck with."

Fell out of the sky. No. Loki could feel something approaching, understanding creeping up in his mind. The smell. "Thought you were gone for a bit there," said another voice, to his left, and something slammed into his ribs. "Have a nice dream?"

He wanted to howl. He wanted to howl and never stop. Vomit came boiling up his throat and he couldn't keep it down, couldn't fight it as he spewed on the floor to their jeers and mockery. Did you really think – did you really think it was possible, did you really think they would accept your word-

A nice dream. No, oh no. He hadn't come back.

He'd never left.

He was never going to leave, and it was that thought that broke his silence and let him howl like he could reach anyone here, like anyone would ever hear him but them.

~.~

He woke up breathing raggedly, and went limp with relief. Another nightmare. His sight was clear, his eyes unharmed, and he wasn't with them. Whatever they did to him…

Loki sat up slowly, warily. To his surprise, his hands weren't bound, and then he looked down at them.

And froze.

Blue skin, ridged with intricate markings, looked back at him, and Loki couldn't stifle a sharp cry as he jerked to his feet, staring in horror at hands that scarcely looked like his own. Shift, he willed them, shift, but they stayed stubbornly blue, stubbornly Jotun. What was this, what was – even without his magic, he should have been able to…

There was a knock on the door and he jerked around, a surge of panic tying his guts into knots. "Loki Laufeyson," intoned a voice he didn't recognize, before he could recover. "It's time for the procession."

"Processi," Loki started to say, and then understood. Understood, and desperately wished he did not.

Of course. What did you do with a defeated enemy? Humiliate them. And what better way to prove Asgard's might than to show them the monster hidden in their midst, duly vanquished?

The trial must have been held while he was lost in drugged sleep. Only sensible. Have it when he was not, and law would require that he be allowed to speak, and Odin was not fool enough to allow that. Afraid Loki would find a way out of it, no doubt.

This, though…

This was not the sort of prison he could escape. Not a punishment he could talk himself out of.

Another rap on the door. The voice was sharper, this time. "If you do not come willingly…"

Loki threw back his shoulders. There were no mirrors in which he might check his appearance – probably wise, given that Loki thought he might smash the first reflective surface in which he had to look at himself like this – and his clothes were appallingly low quality, but it would have to do. At the very least he would not give them the satisfaction of seeing him cowed.

He strode to the door and opened it. They hadn't chained his hands; no need, Loki supposed. In this form, and with his magic locked from him, he wouldn't get far if he tried to run. The attempt itself would likely be a death sentence from Asgard's people. The guard outside only flinched slightly to see him, expression otherwise remaining impassive, and something curdled awfully in Loki's stomach.

Had Thor seen him like this? he wondered suddenly, or would this be the first time he was truly forced to face the truth of his beloved brother's second skin?

"This way," the guard said, breaking his stare with what looked like an effort. Loki followed him, head up, held high. If pride was all he had, then he would make it be enough.

Another guard joined them, flanking Loki's other side, equally impassive and equally unfamiliar. Loki was half tempted to speak to them simply to see what they would do, but that seemed…unproductive. He kept his expression impassively blank as they walked down the hallway, opening his stride so he was just in front of them, they his entourage rather than his escort.

It didn't matter, though. The doors at the end of the hall swung open. He could hear the dull roar of a gathered crowd. As they emerged into the sunlight, it climbed to a fever pitch, and Loki could see them, Asgard's seething masses, spread out beneath him. A mass bleeding hate so thick he could almost smell it.

He burned.

The guards on either side each took one of his arms – there must have been some kind of shield on their armor, Loki supposed - and started to bring him down the stairs. His pulse thudded loudly in his head, all his summoned confidence evaporating as he began to descend into that gathered pack of wolves. Loki kept his eyes forward, refusing to look at any of them, and cast his mind distant, ignoring their jeers, their insults, their sneering insinuations- when I rise from this, he told himself, I will see them all die slowly in ignominy, even knowing that the when was like as not never. They marched him through the corridor, a trophy on display, a defeated enemy-

Sudden sharp pain bloomed in his head, and Loki couldn't keep himself from stumbling. One of the guards caught him, but said nothing. "Lying jotunn filth," someone hissed, and Loki forced himself to straighten and move forward, but as if a spell had been broken…

There had been hate, but there had been fear, too. Now it was gone. They'd seen him bleed. Loki could feel it trickling over his temple. More missiles followed, rotten vegetables splashing at his feet, stones striking his shoulders, his hip. Loki fought to show nothing, no pain, no feeling, but then a stone smashed into his jaw and his vision went dark for a split second.

They didn't stop. When his head cleared, they were almost dragging him along, heedless of his cooperation, glad, perhaps, to use him harshly.

Loki had meant to stand tall and proud, to let nothing they gave break him. He'd thought he could make them fearful. He'd underestimated their hate.

He caught a face in the crowd, twisted with rage, and recognized a smith he'd gone to for some of his blades. The man was screaming threats, a jagged rock held in his fist poised to throw. He bowed to me, once, Loki thought distantly.

He felt the last sutures holding him together bend, and give, and snap.

The laughter boiled up from deep in his chest, clawed up his throat and he couldn't hold it back, couldn't hold it in, was howling until he thought his throat might tear because it was all so unbearably funny.

~.~

He woke in the dark.

That wasn't right, though; dark implied that there was an absence of light, and this was not the absence of light, but rather its inversion, something that had never known there was such a thing as light and never would.

It took him a moment more to remember that he was falling, a moment more to remember why, and only then did he realize that he'd forgotten at all.

The endlessness pulled at him. Bled into him and he bled into it, the edges of his being blurry and indistinct. It all seemed so real, he thought, vaguely, all of it, but here he was, falling, and maybe none of it had been real, maybe this was all he'd ever been, maybe he was a piece of the Void given momentary thought, become self-conscious and self-aware and groping for something else. Maybe there was no him at all.

There'd been a name, but he couldn't call it now. I am- it had seemed important, once, to remember. I am – I am-

I am breaking open and spilling out into the dark. He could feel it happening, little by little. I am unraveling. For some reason that made him feel as though he ought to be afraid. But what did it matter? He had never been anything, and would be nothing again soon. He could feel himself bleeding out, bleeding dry, unspinning back into endlessness.

This was all there was, after all. There was nothing, there had never been anything, but this. All the rest a fever dream by something that had never existed, was without name. Soon to fade.

~.~

He woke with chest heaving and nails digging into his own arms. No, he thought. I'm not – I'm not-

I am Loki, and this is real. He sucked a deep breath through his nose. This is real, damn you.

Dreams nested within dreams nested within dreams. But he knew (how) that he was no longer there (how), no longer drifting through that vast nothing how can you be so sure-

He wasn't in his rooms anymore. Now it was the cells in Asgard, dark places he knew having explored them as a boy. This one was warded against the use of sorcery. He could feel the tendrils of it like wires digging into his skin, a slight, prickling discomfort that could easily turn to pain.

He sat up, hearing footsteps approaching, and saw Thor. His expression was grave, and he was carrying something that Loki couldn't quite make out. He stopped in front of the bars, his brows furrowed.

Loki pushed himself to his feet. "Thought better of your pampering treatment?"

Thor's expression flickered, but held. "I am here to execute the justice of the All-Father."

Loki glanced around them, let his eyebrows rise. "Here? I would expect him to want an audience."

"Not for this." Thor reached for the door and touched it with the palm of his hand, triggering a spell that opened only to the royal family and the guards, then unlocked the physical door with a key at his belt and stepped in. Loki took a step back, reflexively, and then cursed himself for it. Thor seemed too big for the space, filling up too much of it. Loki peered at the object in Thor's hand, but Thor moved it out of sight, and Loki felt a sudden twist of anxiety that he pushed down.

"And what is 'this?'"

Thor lowered his eyes, took a deep breath as though he was bracing himself. "Loki-" Thor swallowed, his voice rough as though this hurt him. "Loki – Laufeyson, the All-Father has judged you guilty of treason, of murder, and of – attempted fratricide." Thor's gaze pleaded with him. Loki didn't know what he expected, and met his eyes levelly and without feeling. "In accordance with the law," Thor went on, "you are hereby stripped of the title and rights formerly yours."

Unsurprising. They could not, after all, have the stain of a jotunn on the family tree. Now for the sentence, he thought, with a calm that startled even himself. There was one price for treason, and that Odin had stripped him of the shield of nobility first made it sure he intended to see Loki pay it. "Futhermore...furthermore, for these crimes, you are sentenced to slavery."

Loki jerked like he'd been slapped. What? For a moment he was sure he had misheard, or that this was some kind of test. His tongue was frozen in his mouth.

"Your magic will be bound," Thor went on, seeming to struggle with the words. "The laws that hold any other slave will hold you until…until the All-Father sees fit to release your bond." Loki felt dizzy. No. Oh no.

"That's absurd," he burst out. "No one has been condemned to slavery in an age, does Odin think he can simply-"

"No one has done as you have, Loki," Thor said, his voice hardening a notch, "in an age."

Loki gaped at him. His mind felt blank, empty, where it ought to be offering solutions, or objections but all he could think was that this couldn't be happening. A dream, he thought, however little sense that made. A dream, wake up, wake up, but nothing changed.

His false-brother cleared his throat. "You will – further, be bound so that you are unable to cause anyone physical harm." Thor hesitated a moment, and added, "Not even yourself."

His last choice vanished like a wisp of cloud. They'd left him nothing. Not even the ability to die. The taste of it was bitter ash in his mouth. They would not let him die, but that left a wide range of options, and there was little a slave's owner could not do to it. If the one to whom Odin gave him wanted a concubine – or merely wanted to humiliate a former prince…

There was a reason slavery as punishment had gone out of vogue. Too barbaric, even for Asgard.

But not, of course, for jotunn filth.

He lifted his gaze to Thor's, one last defiance before they prised that from him as well. "And who," he asked, forcing his voice to remain level, "holds my leash?"

Thor's expression was set, resolute. Grim. "I do."

No. No no no no no. Be grateful, some small part of his mind whispered. He will not be needlessly cruel. Loki's breathing came ragged and quick. Thor's pet. Thor's slave, and all would see it and know it and snicker behind their hands- "I refuse," he said, almost frantically. "By the right given me-"

"Rights you no longer have," Thor said. It sounded almost gentle, and Loki hated him more for that. "The sentence was already passed. I'm only here to inform you of it, and to…" he made a gesture with his right hand, made visible what he'd been holding. A collar. A simple iron collar, dull metal, magic woven into it that he could feel despite the bindings.

He bared his teeth, feeling like a feral animal caught in a trap. "I'll make you regret this every day of your life. If you put that on me – if you do this to me-"

Thor's eyes fixed on his, and if he'd been grim before, now he was resolute. Set. Loki knew that expression, and knew too that there was little changing it. "Say what you like, Loki. But it is done." He took a step forward, and Loki took a step back, only to meet the wall. He brought his hands up defensively, but he didn't have the room to move. His chest felt tight, the air strangling in his throat.

"You are mine, Loki," Thor said, and Loki could hear the thunder in his voice. "And now I shall see to it that you never forget it." Thor's cur. In five years, ten, a century – that would be all he'd ever been.

Thor's hands were absurdly gentle as he closed the iron band around his throat, the metal cold against his skin.

~.~

He woke huddled under the roots of a great tree ripped out of the ground by some great tempest, the vivid nightmare burned into his mind, the cold metal almost palpable around his neck. He hadn't meant to sleep. Shouldn't have. The caw of a raven sent his head spinning around, but it was only a bird, and no other sound followed. His stomach gnawed itself with hunger, and his tongue felt swollen and dry in his mouth. He couldn't stop, though. Not yet. Not ever.

Loki dragged himself painfully to his feet. He wavered slightly, but held his ground – a test of his left leg sent pain shooting through him, but it would heal, probably. In time. Damn Sif. She'd slashed his leg open from hip to knee, and if she'd barely survived that skirmish…still. He would kill her for that. If he got the chance.

Testing the leg once more to be sure it held, Loki called his magic to him. For a moment his head spun and he thought he might faint, but then power was running smoothly through his body, steadying him. He spoke a few words and focused his will, melting into the shape of a slightly ragged wolf, and set off at an uneven lope. A spike of pain shot up his leg with every, step, but it faded quickly to a dull ache, and his stride devoured ground.

Where are you going to go? The question floated into his mind, no matter how he tried to push it away. Where do you have to run? They'd been hunting him for almost a year. Four months ago they'd managed to catch up, and since then…

He caught the faint scent a moment too late and wheeled, snarling, but the whine of a crossbow bolt already in the air warned him just before it slammed into his flank with enough force to knock him off his paws. He struggled to rise, his left hind leg dragging limp behind him, and gathered himself enough to lunge, sinking his teeth into the throat of the horse rushing him. He bit down until blood filled his mouth and the animal screamed and fell, thrashing, and he just managed to push away from its fall and land in the snow, supporting himself on three legs.

The rider rose unharmed, eyes blazing with anger. "Thor!" a voice cried – Hogun, he thought, likely the crossbowman – but Thor threw up a hand in a forbidding gesture.

Loki bared his teeth and crouched low in the snow. He couldn't focus well enough to call his magic, and wasn't certain he could transport himself safely away. It seemed this was to be the end of his running.

So be it.

Thor didn't strike at once. "Face me as a man," he said, almost a snarl. There was nothing of affection left in his voice, and for a bare moment Loki felt cold – but of course, that had always been the truth. Now Thor no longer fought to hide it, that was all. "Face me, Loki!"

He forced himself to concentrate and let his body shift back into its usual shape. An easy bit of magic, but he still felt himself sway for the effort, and locked his knees, reaching down to break the bolt in his side. The tip itself would be barbed, and would have to be extracted more carefully.

If he lived long enough to do so.

He bared his teeth. "So," he said, and his voice sounded rough and uncouth in his own ears, unused for so long. "It seems you are upset, brother. Whatever could I have done to deserve your wrath?"

Thor's eyes blazed and for a moment Loki thought he would simply fling Mjolnir and finish it then, smash his chest to an empty ruin and leave his corpse to rot in the snow. "You know," he hissed, though, and such rage. Loki wondered what it was like to feel so much.

He himself simply felt…hollow.

"You murdered her," Thor said. "Or as good as – your treachery, your betrayal – because of you our mother lies dead!"

"Your mother," Loki said, and felt nothing at all. "Not mine." There were memories, perhaps, of a woman touching his hair and soothing his fears, but they were another's. Not his. Some boy in a tale, perhaps, half-forgotten.

Like the time when he'd believed that Thor had ever loved him, or believed that he could ever be anything but this hollow creature full of hate and malice. He knew better now.

Thor's eyes filled, but the tears didn't dim his fury. "Do not. She loved you. She cared for you. How can you – how can you simply-"

"Because I am what I am," Loki said, and his voice sounded dead.

"You leave me no choice, Loki," Thor said, and his voice was heavy like the footfall of a mountain. Loki spread his hands wide, his face stretching into a grin. He didn't feel that either. No satisfaction. Just an empty hole, full of nothing.

He couldn't remember why he'd betrayed them in the first place. It just seemed…irrelevant.

"Then do what you must, Thunderer," Loki said, and lifted his head, summoning his daggers to his hands. One last burst of magic. "And do it now."

Thor's howl of rage vibrated in his bones, echoed in his heart. What would it be like, Loki thought again, to feel so much?

He thought he might remember, somewhere far away, and that was why this had to end. He didn't want to remember. He didn't ever want to remember.

Thor won. He always had.

~.~

He woke to the glare of sunlight on his eyelids. Something felt…odd. He opened his eyes slowly, cautiously, but it was Midgard's yellow sun looking back at him, searing like a bolt into his brain so he slammed his eyes closed again, his head suddenly pounding. What had been a dream, and what was real? He was beginning to have a hard time distinguishing the two.

When he rolled over and began to push himself to his feet, though, he understood quickly enough. His head spun. He felt hot, and his throat was parched. His stomach gurgled for hunger. And he could feel the new heavy weight of different flesh on his bones. Rotting flesh. Aging flesh.

No.

He felt cold horror crawl down his spine, but as he pushed himself laboriously to his feet – there was no mistake. He could feel it now, the oddness, the oddness that was death coming, minute by ticking minute-

You always wanted to be like Thor.

His stomach knotted painfully. Cast out. Exiled. Stripped of everything that had made him – his hands were pink flesh, so he wasn't even a jotunn. Mortal. Human. Trapped in a withering husk and he highly doubted there was any escape clause for his exile.

There was a dull whine by his ear, and an insect landed on his shoulder to suck his blood. Loki moved to swat it, but it was gone before he could finish the motion, his limbs dragging, everything so slow. The sun was beating down on his shoulders, and he could almost feel his flesh burning. His headache was only growing worse.

Where was he supposed to go? What was he supposed to do? Any little mistake could kill him, now, and on Midgard – they knew his face. Most would probably shoot him on sight, and like this…

A single bullet and he would die choking on blood. One wrong step and he could shatter bone that wouldn't heal for months.

This is a dream, Loki thought, or a sending. A dream, most likely, like all the rest-

Or else not. Or else this was to be his life now, scurrying from shadow to shadow, a creature hiding from other creatures, crawling in the mud of Midgard, and Asgard could watch and laugh at the prince who'd thought himself a king, the jotunn who'd thought himself one of the Aesir.

His ears, straining, caught the sound of a motor, coming in and out, and Loki tensed, but he didn't have time to move before the vehicle was cresting the road he was standing on. He drew himself up, instead, trying to summon every scrap of pride.

The car, boxy and ugly and covered in dust, pulled up to him and stopped. After a moment the window rolled down, and a man poked his head out. He didn't seem afraid.

"You need a ride, fella?" he said. Loki stared at him, confused.

"Do you know me?"

The man shrugged. "Nah. But s'too hot to leave anyone standing out in it. Hop on in." Loki stared at him, his heart thudding hollowly against his ribs.

"You don't know me," he said, blankly, feeling like a fool. The man gave him an odd look.

"Should I?" Perhaps he hadn't heard what had happened. Perhaps…his face was the same, he could see it in the reflection in the window. But the blankness in this stranger's eyes…he already knew. Nonetheless. "Are you getting in or should I keep driving?" The man asked, sounding a little impatient.

Obscurity. That's your sentence, Odin.

"I'll kill you," he said, with sudden savagery. "I'll kill all of you."

The man drove off in a hurry. Loki swayed. His tongue felt thick and heavy in his mouth, and he was dying, dying by degrees, a little at a time. In an unknown realm he would rot slowly into the grave, and no one would glance askance at him even once.

The sun beat down and seared his skin, and for a moment, Loki wished it would burn him out of existence, here and now. Wished that the instinct to survive was just a little bit weaker. Wished…

Another car was approaching. He stared at it blankly, and when it rolled to a stop, it was another man leaning out the window. "Want a ride?" he asked, and Loki could see him leering and wanted to kill him slowly, wanted to strangle him with his own intestines, wanted to-

He couldn't. His head throbbed. Agreeing, Loki suspected, would be unwise, but if he stayed…

And this, he thought, tasting bitterness, is the All-Father's mercy.

Wake up, screamed a voice in the back of his mind. Wake up!

He did, eventually.

It was just to worse.

~.~

He fought it.

Only a dream, he told himself, over and over. It's only, it's only, even as it felt incredibly, awfully, real, even as he bled and suffered and died-

And woke. And woke. And woke.

~.~

He woke in his bed with a gasp, the familiar smell of his room as sweet as lavender to his nose. Over, he thought with relief. At last. And she was there, sitting by him. "Mother," he said, before he could think better of it, and his voice sounded small and weak and broken in his own ears.

"Shh," she said, gently. "It will be well."

It wouldn't. He knew that; nothing was or ever would be well. But he let his eyes fall closed and believed the lie, a sound that was not quite a whimper slipping from his lips. He wished he had swallowed it a moment later, but Frigga did not comment, only sat there, watching him, her hands in her lap.

He tried to gather his thoughts. "I told you," he said, trying to make his voice hard, but it came out petulantly accusing. "I told you not to make me sleep."

"You needed it," she said, calmly, but bowed her head, looking down and slightly away. Loki felt a twinge.

"How long…"

She knew what he meant to ask. "You have slept for just over the cycle of a full day. I have been here for all of that time." Her gaze was calm, full of sadness that made him want to look away. Made him almost want to feel remorse for all he'd done. He would not.

"Does the All-Mother not have duties to attend to?"

"None more important than this," Frigga said, quietly, and then unfolded her hands from her lap and leaned forward to kiss his forehead. "You were always special to me, Loki," she said, still so soft. "When Odin All-Father gave you to me, as a babe, it seemed like fate; like the Norns themselves had delivered you into my hands, the second child I always wanted. It was not easy – you were sick often, and I feared that perhaps we had done you a wrong, that the summer of Asgard would defeat you as the cold of Jotunheim did not."

Loki felt his heart clench. "My queen," he said, and she hushed him, her gaze far away.

"You were always a quiet child. Even when you were sick, you were never loud, not like Thor. You just looked at the world with your wide, wide eyes, like you wanted to see everything at once. And when you grew older – when you began to show your magic, and began to seek after it, and I could teach you what I knew in ways I could not teach Thor…"

"What is the point of-"

"Hush." Frigga's fingers combed through his hair, and Loki managed to hold onto his tension only a moment longer before he went limp with relief, unable to help himself. At last. Even if it was a torture all its own, this was better, this was…tolerable. At least.

"It always seemed as though you were meant to come to me. Meant to be mine, as Thor in many ways was Odin's child. I watched you grow, watched you learn, watched you become a young man." Her touch was so gentle. After the onslaught of dreams, Loki wanted to close his eyes and just accept it. "My little cuckoo child," Frigga murmured.

Loki opened his eyes. There was something strange about her tone. Her eyes still just looked sad where she bent over him, though. He tried to push himself up, and she pushed him back down. He still felt too weak to fight. "Do you know what cuckoos do, my love?" Frigga asked. "Of course you do." Loki frowned, feeling a prickle at the back of his neck. "I never understood why the songbirds didn't realize," she murmured, thoughtfully. "How they didn't see the difference. I never realized how hard it is to see the monster in your own nest."

Her eyes locked on Loki's, and his breath froze in his throat.

"I see now," she said, and her voice hardened. "I see what you are, how you stole and cheated your way into our hearts, into our family." Her hand in his hair tightened until it hurt. "I told the All-Father that there was only one course. There is only one way to get rid of a bird like the cuckoo. And I would not have any hands but mine do what must be done."

His voice was gone. Utterly gone. There ought to have been words, but they'd vanished into ether, and all he could think was no. It wasn't even surprise. Just blank, cold, empty horror. "Mother," slipped from him, and he tried, "Frigga-"

"Do not speak to me," she said, her voice turning savage. Frigga had been a shieldmaiden of the Vanir once, he remembered. He could see it in her now. "I have seen the poison, and I will draw it out." Her voice vibrated with conviction. With fury, and all he could do was stare at her, blank and helpless.

Her fingers wrapped around his throat and squeezed. His hands remained limp at his sides and he let his eyes close. Let it end, he thought, wearily. Better this way. You knew how the cards would fall. You just didn't know it would be her.

Still, it was all too much, and he didn't want to see the way hatred twisted her face.

~.~

He woke slowly, and shrank back from his mother's face, but relief swept across it that was so complete and genuine that he froze again, and she straightened. "He's awake," she said. "Go fetch Eir, my son."

His chest ached, Loki realized. Inside, like someone had been sitting on it for too long and compressed his ribs into his lungs. He stared up at Frigga, waiting for the axe to fall. "Mother," he heard. Thor's voice. It sounded strained. "Can't I…"

"Fetch Eir, Thor." Her voice brooked no argument, and something about that tone made Loki sure, at last. He let his eyes fall closed again, holding in the sound that wanted to escape. After a moment longer, he heard the door open and close, and then Frigga's expression changed, her shoulders seeming to slump.

"Loki…"

He forced his eyes open. "What," he said flatly. He felt more tired than he had when he'd closed his eyes, but he didn't think he would ever sleep again, as long as he could possibly keep it at bay. As long as he could.

"You stopped breathing," Frigga said, her voice sharpening. "If Thor hadn't been here…" Loki felt himself shudder. He remembered the feeling of her fingers around his throat. Could he have died from that alone?

"Don't make me sleep," Loki said, trying to keep his voice level.

"Loki," she said again, sounding faintly reproachful, and Loki squeezed his eyes more tightly shut before he made them open.

"Don't make me sleep," he said, and felt himself start to shake. "I cannot – there is no rest for me in sleep, only – please, do not, do not-"

"Oh, my son," Frigga said, and it sounded like her heart was breaking. He cringed away from that. "My son." She reached for him, pain written in her forehead. The sound that escaped his throat wasn't quite a whimper, and he hated it, hated it, would not reach for her comfort-

"I'm sorry, my boy," Frigga said, softly, and he flung himself forward into her arms. Thanos the Chitauri Jotunheim a thousand deaths, a thousand pains, her fingers around his throat- "I'm sorry I wasn't there. I'm sorry I didn't…" Her arms wrapped around his shoulders. There were tears on his face, and he hated those, hated her, hated himself most of all.

But he didn't pull away. "Just tell them to kill me. Tell the All-Father…"

It took him a moment to realize what the dampness on the back of his neck was. Her tears. He'd made her weep. (Again, a thought reminded him.) "Never," he realized she was saying, after a moment. "Never, Loki. Whatever it takes to give you peace, I will do, but not that. Never that." Her arms gathered him closer, and still all he could feel was her hands around his neck. My cuckoo child. "I will find a way to heal you. I swear it. I will."

She sounded so sure. How could she be so sure?

Just for a moment, though, he let himself believe it.