[narrative: loki] Who: Loki (narrative) What: Loki heads home. Where: Stark Tower, then Asgard. When: After the Valentine's wish goes into effect. Warnings/Rating: None.
Perhaps Loki's story could be painted, in simplistic terms, as that of a man who would be king. It was more than that - it had always been more than that. But tonight he had the chance to see his wish play itself out to the full, to see what it was like to walk in his brother's stead.
King at last, and all he could think of was how good it was knowing Thor was somewhere shunned, disliked, unloved, unwanted. It ran through his veins with cold exhiliration, bright and icy as starlight. Even being dropped inside his enemy's stronghold could not touch him now.
He did not know why the Avengers tower chose not to attack him or treat him as an intruder. Perhaps it was because he had now so fully occupied the space his brother left in the world. He walked out onto the balcony and called for the Bifrost, rather than for the absent Heimdall. He was bathed in light in a matter of moments. As easy as breathing, fast and bright, so unlike the dark and quiet tunnels he had found into the darkest parts of the kingdom. This was delivery, the righteous pathway home.
Home. As he walked untouched past the guards outside the entrance to the Bifrost, down the long stretch of the rainbow bridge, he pondered at that word. Asgard had stopped being home to him when his true parentage came to light. He had not wanted to acknowledge it then, but his statelessness had been hammered home when he drifted in the void. Any home he found, he knew he must forge for himself.
Now, as he walked onto the streets of Asgard, the citizens treated him with an open warmth that he received with a strange cold.
This should be what he always wanted. To feel the embrace of the people, to have their children follow him as he walked through the streets to the palace, without guard, on foot, carrying the staff of state like a prophet. He was the same - royally outfitted in gold, yes, but his face and his darkness had remained unchanged. Yet every person on the street thanked him, or tried to ply him with kind words and gifts. Crowds gave him respectful berth, but still watched as he went, open-mouthed and admiring. There walked the golden prince, loved for his wisdom, his sharp mind, his innate capacity for rule, his fairness. There walked the son of Odin best loved.
The air by the market smelled of baking bread and strong dye and spices, as it had when he was young. These long and winding streets and hard-laboring people were the same as those he had known when he called this place home, and now they worshiped him. The love in their eyes was earnest and true, respect for a true leader.
When he reached the palace, the guards parted before him, and the doors to the throne room opened without hesitation. This was his home, now, again. He was its ruler, as he always should have been. This was everything had had ever wanted when he was a boy, dreaming of being grown, wondering what kind of king he might make.
A short, sharp gesture sent courtiers scurrying out of the room, and guards shifting to stand outside the throne room's doors. Soon the room was empty, and he was alone.
He stood before the throne. The people practically licked the ground he walked on, as they always had for Thor. A bard in the square had been regaling a group of children with tales of Loki's exploits, his cunning as a young man. A woman had pressed her daughter against his side, a hopeful glint in her eye. So why then did he feel so cold? Why then did nothing stir him? Why did he not mount the stairs, and sit as king over the land that had been granted his?
Because nothing was so simple, not with him. Because his wishes had grown more complicated than to simply be as good as his brother was, be as loved. Because none of it had been earned - not with wickedness or trickery, not with cleverness, but with a child's wish to have everything, and there was no challenge here, no reality. Just a dream, conjured to tell him something. Teach him something.
Outside the door, he could hear the courtiers talking in hushed tones. Perhaps he mourns the madness of his brother yet. They have locked him in the dungeon, as deep as he might go.
For the first time since the wish was granted, Loki felt a flicker of satisfaction.