Chapter 276: Trickster
11th February 2013, Royal Palace in Asgard
(Odin Borson POV)
Odin went through the energy shields as if they aren’t even there and touched the prince’s necklace. It was a gift that he had given the boy when he was younger. It was charged with his Odinforce, along with a fragment of Bifrost energy. It was supposed to be an escape, a quick way to Asgard’s healing chambers in case of emergency, one that should manifest itself when he was only mortally wounded. But now, Odin was altering the enchantments slightly, like he had done to Thor’s a few years back to travel to Midgard to stop Loki during his foolish invasion.
Smirking at the shocked look his son had, Odin asked again, “Do you accept your mission, Loki?”
The boy nodded and Odin continued, “Travel to Midgard and meet with Thor’s teacher. Give your brother this box, and stay with them,” Odin handed Loki a small box with runes on it, “Everything will be explained when you arrive. Good luck, my son.”
Before Loki could say anything, Odin activated his necklace, sending the boy to Midgard. The energy projection faded away into nothing, leaving an empty prison cell and a missing prince.
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(Loki Odinson POV)
If anything, Loki was just confused about what just happened. He knew for a fact that the guard he had just met wasn’t your regular Asgardian. For one, he had never seen this guard before in his life, and he had made a point to familiarize himself with his wardens. It’s not like there were many things to do with his time, considering his imprisonment.
No regular guard would ever know how to use the pendant around his neck. Its magical nature was hidden from even himself, and he was one of the most experienced users of magic in the nine realms. The only other powerful magic users that might be able to rival him were the All-Father and his mother, no matter how Amora and her sister might pretend to be his superior because of their gender.
Loki’s mother couldn’t be the one to cause his departure; she regularly visited him and would have easily put things into motion then, not in the middle of the night. Truthfully, Frigga’s visits were one of the few things that brightened the dark pit that was his prison cell. At least once a week, she would come down to his cell and just keep him company. Sometimes, they talked about the happenings in the Asgardian court, but they mostly discussed magical theory, and interesting spells. She had been delighted when he described his duel with the Morrigan, marveling at the woman’s mastery over magic.
They never talked about his failures, from before and after his fall into the void. That was the best thing when it came to these visits. Loki knew that there was no judgement in the eyes of the woman he once called mother, only unconditional love. He may have renounced Odin as his father, but Frigga will always be his mother. He could never forget her warmth compared to his father’s coldness; her love compared to his father’s disappointment. Loki regretted nothing more than the pain his disappearance had given his mother.
She had even been kind enough to convince the All-Father to remove the anti-magic wards from his cell and replace them with ones fully separating the inside and outside of the prison cell. Odin had warded the cell himself, using his runes, no less. It was flattering in a way, to see the King of Asgard himself deign him worthy of using his runes to contain his power.
Most people thought that Odin’s power lied in his physical might, his martial prowess, or even his spear Gungnir, which was an impressive weapon without a doubt. They are all wrong. Odin’s runes are his main source of power; he could use them to change the fabric of reality. He became a God among Gods. There was a reason that the nine realms rarely rebelled when the combination between Odin’s runes and Odinforce would destroy their entire races with barely more than a thought.
There were no doubts that Odin was a great king, but he was not a good father. He never congratulated them for their achievements, he was just there, judging Loki and his brother from afar. And the trickster was fine with that. But there was always a hint of warmth in the King’s unageing eyes when he looked at Thor, and a hint of contempt when he looked at Loki. Sure, the trickster was always reassured by his mother’s warmth, but sometimes, he hated Odin’s confidence in Thor as his successor.
Thor was a heroic sort, reveling in the countless stories of battle and glory. He did not understand the delicacy of ruling, the intricacies of politics. After all, Thor’s personality could be summarized in his weapon, a hammer. He was a brute, and while Loki would admit that Thor’s skills as a warrior were impressive, he had no skill as a ruler.
As such, there was no reason why Odin had so much faith in Thor. The trickster just didn’t understand why Odin always chose Thor over him. Wasn’t he his son, as well? It was why Loki interrupted Thor’s coronation in the first place. It was both to stop the realm from being set on fire from his inevitable mistakes, but Loki also knew that Thor’s arrogance and impulsiveness wouldn’t stop him from doing something stupid to nurse his bruised pride. He had expected Odin to finally realize Thor’s flaws, but he did not expect the brute to start a war and get himself banished as well. He didn’t want that. The God of Mischief only wished that Thor fully understood the weight of the crown and for Odin to realize that Thor wasn’t ready to rule an entire kingdom.
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Perhaps, once Odin had realized how impulsive his decision was to crown Thor, he would thank Loki for his intervention. He hadn’t expected to lose his brother as well. Unfortunately, the All-Father still hadn’t treated him any differently even after his brother’s banishment. It was like he expected Thor to return, and when he finally found why, he had been filled with nothing but rage.
Loki was a Frost giant, one of the monsters that scared the children of Asgard. He was a monster that Odin thought to use as a pawn. Odin wasn’t his father, and Frigga wasn’t his mother. It was then that the doubts started to settle in. Had his mother ever truly loved him? If she did, then why didn’t she ever tell him? Why had she hidden his true nature from him? Was Loki a hostage, a prisoner, a trophy of Odin’s victory over the Frost Giants?
And so, as Odin fell into the Odin sleep, Loki found himself as the ruler of Asgard. It was what he dreamt of happening and yet he found no joy in it. He did not feel victorious, only disappointment. And that was when, in his grief, that his insanity grew. He was more rash, more vicious, when it came to the threat of being abandoned by his mother. Would Odin send him back to Jotunheim after he wakes up?
He needed to make himself invaluable, and how invaluable would he be if he proved his loyalty to Asgard by destroying Jotunheim by himself. This way, he would prove that Asgard was his true home, and he could go back to pretending that nothing had happened.
It was a mad thought, but one that wouldn’t leave his head. He ended up going with it, and almost committed genocide, before being stopped by his brother. It was remarkable how much his brother had grown in just a few days, but Thor seemed like a completely different person. Odin was right. He had found a true heir, worthy of the throne. Thor grew to the man his father thought he would be which meant that he was also right about Loki. In a moment of clarity, he had found how much suffering he caused to his family, how much he would keep causing, and thus, he let go and fell into the void.
He expected to find himself in Helheim, or Valhalla, if he was lucky. However, he found himself at the mercy of the Mad Titan. He had thought that Odin was a monster, but he didn’t even come close to Thanos’ cruelty and pain. The Titan flayed his mind apart until he broke and sent the remains to Midgard for him to conquer.
The worst thing was the Titan’s constant voice in his head, coming from the cursed scepter that the monster had given him. It kept whispering promises of false power in his head, telling him to destroy the planet and return to the titan’s side as a conqueror, with the Tesseract in tow.
The God of Mischief wasn’t an idiot though. He was mad, that he would freely admit, but he wasn’t prone to foolish mistakes. He knew that the scepter contained the Mind Stone, nothing else would have gotten through his mental protections, which were developed by Frigga herself. He also realized quite quickly that the Tesseract contained the Space Stone. That meant that the mad Titan was planning on collecting the infinity stones, which wouldn’t bode well for anyone.
And so, Loki resisted the whispers as much as he could. He tried to manipulate them back and was promptly defeated by the Morrigan, something he had thought to be nothing more than a children’s tale.
‘The Morrigan is going to get you if you don’t listen to your mother’ ‘The Morrigan is going to turn you into one of her ravens if you don’t eat your vegetables.’ These were what Asgardian parents said to their children and it worked. The Morrigan was a boogeyman, a terrible witch that lived in Midgard that would harm misbehaving children. If only he knew that the woman existed.
In the end, Loki was imprisoned and yet was ironically freed from the scepter’s whispers. He was surprisingly well treated in his prison. He had his mother back, and Odin did not even try to kill him for his sins, which was the usual punishment for his crimes.
And yet, here he was in the middle of a forest at the All-Father’s prompting. It had to be him, there could be no one else who would do this, who could do this. The necklace was a gift from Odin himself, so it makes sense that only he would be able to use it. Additionally, it was a known fact that only with the permission of the All-Father could anyone use the Bifrost without the specially enchanted materials used in the fabrication of the rainbow bridge.
Long ago, Loki had found some of the enchanted material in one of the caves and enchanted them so that he could use them to sneak into other realms without anyone noticing. It wasn’t very specific and there were still dangers involved, but it was something that no one except the All-Father had been able to do.
Alas, Loki had been given a chance at redemption, not that he understood why Odin had given him one, in the first place. He was supposed to find Thor, and a teacher of his. When did Thor get a teacher, and who could possibly be adequate enough for Odin himself to think that they’re suitable enough to train his heir? And what training did Thor even need? Perhaps it was in politics? He hadn’t even known that Thor was even outside of Asgard.
Loki started to sense the energies around him and concluded that he was in Midgard. Yeah, he could feel the foreign ambient magics everywhere around him, not unlike Asgard that was surrounded by the All-Father’s Odinforce.
But what was he doing here? He kept walking until he bounced off an invisible shield, sending him flying back. What in the nine hells was that?
Before he could get up, he heard an amused female voice speak up around him, “Well, if it isn’t Loki Odinson. What a delightful surprise.”
The God of Mischief could do nothing but shudder from the voice of the woman who haunted his nightmares. Why did it have to be her? Why did it have to be the Morrigan?
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