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“WAIT! WAIT! THOR- WAIT!” Verity screamed, crouching on the edge of the floor where the wall had been smashed away, staring out at the street below as Thor dragged Loki into a goat-drawn chariot and flew away.
“Oh no oh no oh no...” she whimpered, cupping her hands over her mouth and trembling. Thor was going to kill him. He was really going to kill him. Loki’s whole stupid story didn’t even make sense and Thor was going to kill him over it. Verity hugged herself and rocked back and forth, trying to calm down- trying to think. She had to do something.
She pushed herself to her feet and turned back toward the living room. Loki’s phone was on the coffee table. He always took it out of his pocket when he sat on the couch because sometimes it fell out and got stuck between the cushions. She ran over and scooped it up, turning on the screen and biting her lip momentarily because what if it was locked? What the hell would his pin be?
It wasn’t locked. The god of mischief didn’t lock his phone? Verity shook her head and opened the contacts list. Lorelei and Sigurd were a no-go, and she didn’t know anybody else in the list except Thor. Her eyes scanned over the names, trying to remember any that Loki may have mentioned and one caught her eye. She pressed the call button and gingerly held the phone to her ear.
It picked up after three rings. “What do you want, Loki?” a voice sighed on the other end.
“My name is Verity Willis!” Verity blurted in a rush. “There’s- something’s- Loki said you’re the smartest person he knew and I don’t know what to do and Thor’s going to kill him!”
There was a shocked pause for a few moments. “I’m- Who are you?”
“I’m Verity Willis. I’m a friend of Loki’s. He was just- Thor was here and they were talking and Loki started saying some stuff about killing some other version of himself and the whole thing sounded like some kind of schizophrenic episode and Thor went ballistic and threw him through a wall and he fell like sixteen stories and then Thor grabbed him and dragged him away in a fucking goat-chariot and he’s going to kill him!” Verity could feel hysterical tears tracing down her cheeks as she babbled.
“... Oh shit.” Another pause and then, “Verity, where are you now?”
“I’m in Loki’s apartment,” she answered.
“Stay there. I’ll be there soon.”
“Okay... Thank you,” she whispered.
000
David cleared the last-call screen and opened his contact list, scrolling to the Ds and starting a new call. It picked up almost immediately. “Great timing, David. I just finished up my daily fight with a Lovecraftian horror-beast,” Dani answered, sounding a bit breathless.
“Funny you should mention Lovecraftian horror-beasts,” David said, grabbing his uniform out of the closet. “Remember the Loki-episode I told you about?”
“Aw, is he blowing up again?” Dani sighed.
“I don’t think so, but he apparently just told Thor about the ‘murder’ thing and Thor didn’t take it with a grain of salt,” David replied, pinching the phone between his shoulder and ear as he started to change. “I just got a call from Loki’s friend who saw it go down and is pretty convinced Thor’s about to kill him. I thought maybe Hela should know about this before Loki shows up on her door step with his skull split open.”
“... Shit.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said,” David agreed.
“Are you at home?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
“Thanks, Dani.”
000
Verity heard a weird series of thumps through the ceiling and then Loki’s phone started playing the Nyan-Cat song. “Hello?” she answered, eyeing the ceiling suspiciously.
“Hi, Verity. We’re on the roof. If you could come on up here, I think we should hurry,” David Alleyne’s voice said.
“O-Okay,” Verity stammered, frowning at the ceiling again as she grabbed her bag and stuffed the phone into it before stepping into the hall. She headed for the roof access and when she pushed out into the afternoon sunlight, as her eyes adjusted, her mind said ‘well of course’. It had sounded like there were hooves on the roof because there in fact were hooves on the roof.
“That’s a pegasus!” Verity exclaimed, staring.
“Well- actually, Pegasus is the name of a specific character in Greek mythology, but, yes, it is a winged horse,” the boy who must be David Alleyne corrected with a slight shrug, standing next to a beautiful, black horse with enormous feathery wings, which was being ridden by a tall, elegant Native American woman in an outfit that seemed to be some weird amalgam of Asgardian and X-Men styles. “He’s Brightwind and this is Dani Moonstar, Hela’s valkyrie here on Earth.”
“Hela, as in queen of the dead?” Verity asked, sucking in her lip and biting it nervously.
“Exactly,” Dani Moonstar agreed. “And we should get going. Asgardian justice is swift, brutal and doesn’t generally involve a structured trial.” She held out a hand to help Verity onto the pegasus.
“We’re all going to ride him?” Verity asked doubtfully, glancing at David and then back up at Dani.
“These horses are built to carry gods. Do you have any idea how much a god weighs?” Dani said with a grin.
“Loki’s probably somewhere on the order of a quarter ton,” David supplied.
“No shit?” Verity stared at him.
“Maybe a bit less, he hasn’t reached his full height yet,” David shrugged and then moved to help Verity up onto Brightwind’s back behind Dani.
Verity shivered and wrapped her arms firmly around Dani’s waist, trying not to think about the fact that soon they were going to be flying. On a horse. Possibly in space. David hopped up behind her (Verity wasn’t entirely sure how, but it looked very martial-artsy) and even if this horse could heft a quarter ton without breaking a sweat, three adult-sized people on one horse (even if it was a big horse) was still definitely a crowd.
“I hope this isn’t too weird and awkward,” Verity said as the Horse galloped off the building and took flight, “but I’m just gonna... this,” she mumbled, burying her face in Dani’s shoulder and hugging her for dear life. She could feel more than hear the valkyrie chuckle.
000
“Hello, sister,” one of the Dísir called to Dani as they arrived. “What brings you to Hel?”
“Hi, Glaumvör,” Dani waved as David slid to the ground and held up a hand to help Verity. “Loki’s gotten himself into trouble, apparently.”
“And what else is new?” another Dísir snorted, rolling her eyes.
“It might be a bit worse than the usual trouble,” Dani sighed, dismounting. “Is Hela here?”
“Of course,” Glaumvör answered, raising an eyebrow at David and Verity. “You are very cavalier about bringing the living to the halls of Hel.”
“They’re involved in this. And I think Hela’s going to want to be in the loop on this one,” Dani said, handing Brightwind’s reigns to the other Dísir and following Glaumvör toward the grand entryway to Éljúðnir Palace.
“Stay close,” David instructed Verity and gestured for her to follow Dani, then he followed her. He studied her gait, carefully watching the length and speed of her stride, the way her hips moved, the bend of her knees. He watched the way she was turning her head left and right, taking in everything with curious eyes.
David’s own eyes moved to the tattoos wrapping her arms, a chaotic mod podge of fairies and roses that looked like a page out of a six-year-old girl’s sticker-book. The art quality was excellent, the figures of the fairies proportional, the rose petals perfectly shaded, but the leaves were wrong. As perfectly as the roses had been rendered, it seemed incongruous that the artist hadn’t known or bothered to draw the right kind of leaf. David chewed his lip and frowned as he considered the greens mingled in among the red blossoms and twisting vines. The leaves were the right overall tear-drop shape, but they sported deep scallops around the edges; they looked like alder.
He caught Verity’s arm, hanging back as Dani approached the throne and started explaining the situation to Hel’s queen. “Verity, where were you born?” he asked quietly, only half paying attention to Dani’s address.
“Excuse me?” Verity frowned, turning to look at him, one eyebrow raised.
“Where were you born?” David asked again.
“Minnesota, why?”
“What city?” David persisted.
“Who cares? David, that’s not the issue he--”
“Verity, do you know what city you were born in?” David insisted.
“Well it’s not like I remember being born,” Verity whispered.
“What about your parents?” David asked. “What are your parents’ names?”
“That’s not important right now!” Verity raised her voice slightly and then covered her mouth, flushing and glancing up at Hela and Dani who had paused their conversation to look over at her.
“Verity,” David said in a calm, slow voice, “do you know your parents’ names?”
Verity looked annoyed for a few seconds and then her expression started changing, her eyebrows drawing in and her mouth forming a small, worried frown. Her mouth opened just slightly and a hint of panic came into her eyes; her breath speeded up. “... What’s wrong with me?” she breathed.
“... I’m sorry,” David whispered, looking away.
“Fuck you! What is this?” Verity demanded, keeping her voice down this time.
David shook his head. “... You’re right. It isn’t important,” he said.
“You’re lying. I can tell. That’s what I do. I can always tell when people are lying,” Verity hissed, glaring at him.
David looked at her for a few second and then nodded. “I’m not surprised. That makes perfect sense.”
“What?” Verity frowned, obvious frustration knitting her brow. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“... When you called me earlier,” David looked away again, swallowing uncomfortably, “you were talking about Loki’s description of ‘killing’ his ‘innocent-self’. You said it sounded like a schizophrenic episode. That’s because it was.”
Verity blinked, looking startled, then tilted her head to the side. “You’re saying Loki’s schizophrenic?”
“The mechanism is probably different- I doubt it has anything to do with dopamine, more likely some kind of magical or entropic issue- but the effect is pretty similar,” David sighed and shrugged. “He can’t differentiate reality from imagination... And thanks to his magic being not exactly under control, nobody else can tell reality from his imagination either.”
“... What does that mean?”
“... Last year, when he was first trying to deal with his ‘murder’ issue, he generated several mental constructs to act as representations of guilt and betrayal. But then his magic got into them and made them physical manifestations, which turned into a whole stupid thing,” David explained. “Running them puts a significant drain on his magic though. When he’s running one of his sim-people, it takes that amount of magic out of his toolkit so long as the sim-person is walking around.”
“So this ‘innocent-self’ he claims to have murdered was really just a mental construct,” Verity said quietly, nodding. “But it’s real to him because he’s magical-schizophrenic.”
“More likely he was the ‘innocent-self’. He picked up on some kind of trojan virus the original Loki put into his programming and personified it, like how the kid in The Shining treats his psi-powers as an imaginary-friend because he’s too young to understand them,” David explained carefully, tapping his fingers against his leg anxiously and watching Dani and Hela; how close was their conversation to done? “When the virus took over, so did the persona, and so Loki took on the role of the construct he’d made and created a new construct to represent the memory of who he had been before.”
“But neither of them were ever physical,” Verity pointed out.
“I don’t think he had access to that kind of magic until after the trojan modified him,” David replied, shaking his head.
“To me, my Dísir!” Hela’s voice suddenly rang out, seeming to vibrate the very walls of the palace. Instantly, the hall was filled with twelve ghostly death-maidens, rushing into formation in front of Hela’s throne and dropping to a knee. “Today, my valkyrie, I visit Asgardia on an errand. While I am away, Modthryð is my regent,” she announced. “Brün, Hlökk, Kára and Göndul will accompany me, along with Moonstar and my general.”
“Aye, my queen,” the Dísir chorused in perfect unison.
Hela rose to her feet and descended the steps of her dais. “We leave at once,” she announced, walking straight down the middle of the hall, with Tyr following a step behind and just to her right. As Hela passed amid her kneeling valkyrie, four rose to follow in her wake as well and Dani fell into step with them.
David lowered his head respectfully as Hela approached and could see Verity copying him out of the corner of his eye. Hela paused in front of them and considered for a moment. “Join me in my chariot, children,” she request/commanded and put her arms around their shoulders, pulling them into her entourage.
As they passed again through the palace gates, a chariot pulled by eight pitch black, glowing-eyed horses came careening through the air, slammed down against the road leading past Éljúðnir and drew to a stop right in front of the steps. The horses huffed and pawed at the ground impatiently as Hela continued tugging them along.
Dani and the Dísir were mounting their own horses as Hela swept David and Verity into the chariot (which, upon closer inspection, seemed to be made entirely of human bones) and then stood behind them as Tyr took up the reigns and urged the horses back into flight. Verity had her eyes squeezed shut and was gripping the rim of the chariot in front of her so hard her knuckles were white.
“David Alleyne, my valkyrie’s student,” Hela called out regally as the horses’ hooves pounded over nothing but thin air yet still managed to make a clattering sound. “How do you find yourself involved with Loki?” she asked.
“I traveled with him for several months last year,” David answered, watching the Niflheim landscape slide past below.”We saved each other’s lives a few times.”
“I see. And Verity Willis, how came you to be a companion of Loki?” she asked, looking down at Verity.
“Speed-dating,” Verity spat quickly and then backpedaled and stammered a bit. “I mean we- I bumped into him while he was chasing down Lorelei and we... just kind of started hanging out after that.”
“Indeed,” Hela rested a hand on Verity’s shoulder. “Do I sense a magic in you, Verity?”
“I- I can tell when people are lying,” Verity mumbled, cracking her eyes open and peaking hesitantly out at the worlds passing around them. “Or when something’s not real. Like an illusion.”
“I can see why you would be of great value to him,” Hela noted.
“That’s not- He’s my friend. I mean, yeah, he did get me to truthy-help him a couple times, but he hangs out with me because he enjoys my company, not because he’s using me as a tool,” Verity protested. “Maybe that sounds naive, but I’ve asked him point-blank, and he can’t lie to me, so I know that he’s my friend.”
“Yes child, I understand,” Hela nodded and sadness pulled at her face. “Whether he ‘uses’ you or not, you are of great value to Loki. Your presence is alleviating, for so long as your eye is on the truth, he is free to look away from it.”
Verity stared blankly ahead for a few moments before saying, “I don’t know what that means.” And this time David could tell that she was lying.
000
The Loki she remembered would have been spinning a lovely tale now, either a tale of misunderstanding, to explain that no crime had taken place, or a tale of great sorrow and regret with the promise of mitigation and redemption. This Loki said nothing. He knelt on the floor where he had been dropped, gripping his broken arm and crying silent tears which he tried to hide behind the fall of his hair. The tears would not be for his injury, she had known him to suffer worse without a whimper. The wound inspiring these tears went far deeper than flesh or bone. If it was an act, it was by far the best Sif had seen from any Loki before.
And Thor stood a few paces away, before the Hlidskialf throne, detailing to the All Father and Queen a crime for which evidence was impossible to ascertain. Loki so easily could have made a case for himself; Thor’s accusations were bizarre and outlandish, they made no sense and could have been dismissed with but a few words. And yet Loki said nothing.
“... This is wrong. Something is wrong...” Sif whispered.
“When has he ever been silent?” Fandral whispered back, nodding.
Odin held up a hand, halting Thor’s tirade, and turned his pale eye to Loki. “Loki, you have been very quiet,” he noted. “By your account, are Thor’s words correct?”
Loki clenched his jaw for a moment and swallowed. He didn’t look up when he spoke. “The word ‘murdered’ is not quite accurate,” he said in a subdued but clear voice.
“You lying--” Thor started, taking a step toward Loki.
“I cannibalized him,” Loki corrected.
The hall went dead silent. Sif’s blood ran cold. Though her feet felt leaden, she urged them to move, and was flying across the cobbles as Thor’s enraged scream shattered the shocked silence of a moment earlier. She lifted and braced her sword just in time to catch Jarnbjorn as Thor brought it slicing down, aimed for Loki’s head. “Thor, stop!” she shouted, her knees slamming down into the stone floor as Thor’s blow caused them to buckle.
The All Father was there a moment later, grabbing Thor’s arm and throwing him back several paces. “You will control yourself this instant!” he ordered, glaring at Thor warningly before turning to Loki again. He reached down, roughly grabbing Loki’s jaw and forcing him to look up. “Explain yourself, Loki,” he ordered.
“... I was nothing before, a creature without being. I did not simply end his life, I stole it for my own. His last breath preceded my first. I was born when he died. I... I didn’t know. I didn’t understand,” Loki’s voice broke and his face crumbled. He ducked his head again as Odin let him go.
The All Father sighed heavily and paced. “You claim to have committed a murder which took place before your birth?” he asked.
“It was my birth,” Loki answered. “I was made of it. I was made for it. It was all of it planned and the trap set and baited before either he or I existed. Our maker created me to end him. To replace him. I played my part because it was mine to play and I knew nothing else.”
“And would you not then say that this crime was committed by your creator rather than yourself?” Odin questioned.
“Father you cannot--”
“BE SILENT!” Odin bellowed, glaring at Thor again. “Do you crave justice or simply blood? Would you have me punish one man for the crimes of another who is beyond the reach of law? It would be very convenient to lay blame at the feet of this Loki because he is here, he can be punished. But I will not compromise my principals to what is convenient.” He turned his glare on Loki. “Answer, Loki. Were you the murderer or was your creator?”
Loki stared silently at the ground for a while before replying. “... If I am a murderer, then I should be punished. If I am merely a weapon, then I am a dangerous and insidious one. Does it matter then, which is the case, if either way I should be locked up and kept where I can harm no one else?”
Odin ascended the steps to Hlidskialf’s seat again and sat heavily, looking tired as he studied Loki. “... You care not for your freedom then?” he asked slowly.
“Freedom is a joke,” Loki spat, bitter anger abruptly replacing the mournfulness he’d exhibited up until that moment. Then his tone shifted back to melancholia and he murmured, “Whether locked and shackled in a cell or let to wander, freedom eludes me. I have no freedom here nor anywhere.”
“And you will happily submit to an indefinite term of imprisonment?” the All Father demanded.
“Happily? No. Of course not,” Loki shook his head slightly. “But I will submit if Thor wishes it.”
“If Thor wishes it?” Odin frowned. “Not if your All Father wishes it?”
“The All Father may will it, but Thor’s wish makes it my will,” Loki replied.
Sif looked to Thor again; he was glaring daggers at Loki, his jaw clenched tight.
“And why is that?” Odin asked. He was baiting Loki, leading him- whether he planned to absolve his son or humiliate him was less than clear.
Loki was silent again for a while and then swallowed hard before he spoke. “... My love and loyalty is for Thor, not you,” he said. “I care not if it is treasonous or simply impertinent, but both All Father and father’s regard mean little to me. Since drawing my first breath, I have coveted nothing so desperately as my brother’s smile, whether it belonged to me or not.”
“I SHALL CUT OUT YOUR POISONOUS TONGUE, YOU VILE COUNTERFEIT!” Thor screamed, running at Loki again, Jarnbjorn raised high and Sif knew she couldn’t catch him this time. But then someone was there, rushing forward, and Sif was blinded by a sudden, enormous shower of sparks before she could even discern who had interceded.
There were gasps all around the hall, and as the spots cleared from Sif’s vision, she could understand why. Because Tyr- brave, strong, righteous Tyr who had been lost to them- was standing over Loki, holding Thor at bay.
“Tyr?” Thor stopped baring down on his axe but didn’t step back.
“... Thor, you don’t know what you’re doing,” Tyr said softly.
“I know exactly what I’m doing!” Thor snarled, his eyes narrowing again.
“No. There are things here you don’t understand,” Tyr shook his head.
000
Huge-dead-Viking-dude ran ahead of them when Thor yelled, bowling his way through and disappearing into the crowd of apparently everybody in Asgardia. There was a huge clang, and sparks shooting up high enough to see over the entirely six-feet-plus crowd and Verity thought she felt a shockwave trembling through the flagstones under her feet. Then everybody started gasping and dozens of people were whispering huge-dead-Viking-dude’s name.
A few people in the crowd glanced in the direction he’d come from long enough to notice the Queen of Death walking into the room. They went pale and started nudging their neighbors and pressing toward the sides of the room, clearing a path, trying to keep as much distance between themselves and Hela as possible while she strode right through into the clearing where Tyr had apparently stopped Thor from axing Loki in half.
Verity gaped for second or two before running right past Hela (and that was probably a huge faux pas) and skidded not quite to a stop before flinging herself over Loki’s hunched back and wrapping her arms around him silently, a little too freaked out (by huge Viking dudes with huge very sharp weapons right over her head) to make a sound. “... Verity?” Loki whispered, his fingers barely brushing her hand.
“What is the meaning of this, Hela?” the king, demanded, his voice big and angry as Hela’s valkyries swarmed in and added their swords to Tyr’s, shoving Thor back a few yards and then forming a semi-circle in front of Loki.
“Why, I have been informed that young Loki was killed,” Hela sang happily. “Thus I have come to collect that which is mine.”
“Be gone, witch!” Thor roared at her. “I will suffer you not to mock my brother’s murder!”
“Will you not?” Hela asked haughtily, coming to stand next to Loki on the opposite side from Tyr. “It would seem from what I have seen that you intend to be his murderer.”
“Taunt me not, vile creature. This pretender is not my brother but a murderer and thief of corpses!” Thor spat.
“Well if the Odinson contends that his brother is dead, then I contend that his soul belongs to me,” Hela rebutted. “And as I have earmarked that soul- for it is a prize I greatly covet- some time past, I recognize it easily despite my fickle young query changing his face as his is so wont to do.”
“I care for your lies no more than his!”
“She isn’t lying,” Verity finally found her voice and lifted up her head, glaring at Thor through her displaced hair and the wall of valkyries. “She really did put a marker on his soul- and geeze that is creepy!”
“That makes perfect sense,” Loki shrugged slightly with his not-ruined arm. “Souls are valuable, more difficult and costly to come by than bodies. Of course I stole his soul as well.”
“Loki, shut up!” Verity barked, grabbing a handful of his hair and giving it a solid yank because he was really pissing her off right now with this stupid bullshit.
A haunted look passed over Thor’s face for half a second before it reverted back to mad fury and Verity could hear thunder rumbling outside. The valkyries all set their feet and raised their swords. “You have not only killed my brother, you have robbed him of an afterlife and relegated him to oblivion?!” he demanded.
“Yes,” Loki said and Verity seriously considered biting him.
“No.”
Loki jerked and sat upright so fast Verity almost toppled over backwards. “David?” he gaped, staring in total bewilderment as David stepped up a bit to the side of their huddle, though still behind the protective wall of the valkyries.
“Data can never be completely erased,” David said, looking totally calm despite being the second smallest person in the room and completely surrounded by huge magical Vikings. “Corrupted. Fragmented. Misplaced. Yes. But once something’s been made, it can never be entirely unmade.”
“Who addresses this court?” the king asked, eyeing David appraisingly and looking unimpressed.
“David Alleyne. Expert,” David answered.
“Expert of what?”
“Expert of most things,” David replied. “For today, I’ll be an expert of Loki,” he gestured with an open hand. “Perhaps you would like me to qualify my expertise by prefacing with ‘I may not have known him as long as you’, except that I have. I would even say that I have known him much longer, because he ran away from Asgardia after he was altered and the majority of you have interacted with him in his present state for hours at best.” David crossed his arms challengingly and looked Odin right in the eye. “He is not the original Loki. I don’t have adequate knowledge of the surrounding events to know exactly what happened to that Loki, but I know that this one is a simulacrum.”
“David, stop it,” Loki hissed. “Go home.”
The whole chamber was filled with whispers as gods leaned their heads together and watched David, some suspicious, some interested. The king raised an eyebrow, the unimpressed-look disappearing and being replaced with curiosity. “I would hear what you presume to know, boy,” he announced. “Continue.”
“Thank you, All Father,” David nodded. “This Loki was created by the original and placed for Thor to find. Why is difficult to know. The level of complexity involved in making a simulacrum of this quality would take an enormous effort even for the most powerful and skilled sorcerers. It is way too big an endeavor to just be a joke. But then, Loki was insane, so who knows,” David shrugged and Verity could see a lot of the gods in the room (maybe most) nodding in agreement. “The child-Loki that was placed to wait for Thor only had memories appropriate to his apparent age. Possibly a sanitized version of the record because he says that there are gaps in it.
“The rest of the original Loki’s memories were contained in a data-packet that was programmed to home in on the child-Loki after he had been collected by Thor,” David explained. Many of the audience members exchanged puzzled glanced whenever he used a computer-vocabulary type word, but the king seemed to be following. “It was programmed to interact with child-Loki on a limited basis at first, giving him pieces of information and guiding him but not giving him direct access to the memories. I believe that period lasted for almost a year?” he glanced down at Loki for confirmation.
“David, go home,” Loki tried again, looking back at the floor.
“Shut up,” Verity snapped, scooting next to Loki and giving him a stern glare. “You said he was smart. He’s got this.”
“I don’t want to be rescued.”
“Fuck you,” Verity slapped his arm, the not broken one.
“At the end of that time, the data-packet, which child-Loki had by then personified as a sort of psychic-pet, had been programmed to forcibly assimilate with child-Loki, giving him a selective copy of the original Loki’s memories, magical knowledge and abilities,” David kept his attention totally focused on the king, Verity noticed, he didn’t look at or acknowledge Thor through the whole thing. She wondered if that was a protocol thing or some psychology thing to passive-aggressively assert that this wasn’t his show. “But fragmenting Loki’s psyche created a problem, and it may easily have been a completely unforeseen and unintentional one- I don’t know, I’m not an expert of the original Loki or his motivations.
“I’m an expert of this one. And after the two halves that the original Loki created had assimilated themselves into this Loki, his mind failed to become ‘whole’. He is still fragmented and continuing to fragment,” David’s voice dropped just the tiniest bit and his previously expressionless face took a hint of sadness and apology as he looked at Verity. “His predilection for chaos-magic can sometimes cause these fragments to take on the physical form of a separate individual, sometimes a person who he has lost, sometimes one who never existed.”
“David, stop,” Loki demanded, looking up sharply, sudden panic crossing his face.
“... I’m sorry Loki,” David sighed, and Verity knew he meant it.
“STOP IT!”
“Verity isn’t real.”
“SHUT UP! YOU’RE WRONG!” Loki screamed.
“Loki... you know he isn’t,” Verity whispered, putting her hand over Loki’s for just a moment, before ceasing to exist.
000
Loki looked away from David just in time to witness Verity unraveling, dissolving into chartreuse smoke and drifting away like the constructs had in the Mother’s dimension. He was frozen and mute for a few seconds, until a cell phone clattered to the floor out of the fading wisps, breaking the silence, and Loki started screaming.
“VERITY! VERITY! NO NO NO NO NO! VERITY!” he shrieked, flailing at the last vanishing traces of mist and then clawing at the floor where she had been. “NO! VERITY! NO!”
“I’m sorry, Loki,” David whispered again.
“NO YOU’RE NOT,” Loki wailed, half turning and glaring at him. “SHUT UP!”
“... You know I’m being sincere... Just like you knew that that was always your power,” David said softly.
“SHUT UP!” Loki screamed again and then his voice dropped into a broken whimper. “... Verity... no no no no no no no no...”
“... Holy Hel, David...” Dani breathed, she was pale and shaken, as were many of the faces in the crowd. “How did you... when?”
“What bedevilment is this?” Thor asked, no longer yelling, his voice and expression were hollow, horrified. “I knew that girl. I drank with her. What sorcery have you wrought?”
“It’s Loki’s sorcery. And he can’t control it,” David answered, turning to look directly at the god for the first time since entering the hall. “He didn’t kill your brother, Thor, and he didn’t kill Verity. They’re all fragments of his own psyche, which was broken from the start.”
“... Why couldn’t you just let me have her?” Loki whispered, crouched over the last spot Verity had been, cradling his phone in his hands. Would Verity’s entry have disappeared from the contact list, just as she had from the world itself? “She wasn’t hurting anything. Why couldn’t you just let me keep her?”
“Oh my poor little fool,” Hela sighed, kneeling down next to Loki and gathering him up against her. “All you have lost is an illusion. She was and always will be of your own soul,” she murmured.
Loki stared at her for a moment and then whispered. “But I made you real.”
David started slightly; that was one he hadn’t seen coming. He could hear gasps and shocked, furtive whispers starting up all around the hall. “No, Loki,” Hela shook her head gently and stroked a hand over Loki’s hair. “You stole primordial magics to give me life. Surtur will not be so easily fooled a second time.”
Loki buried his face against her shoulder and wrapped his good arm around Hela’s back, clinging to her and trembling as she carefully took his broken arm between her hands and gave it a sharp tug. Loki only made a sound like a hiccup as she set the bone and David recalled that as many times as they had been chased through post-apocalyptic landscapes, as many times as he’d seen Loki take a pummeling from a lovecraftian horror-beast or an enraged America, he’d never actually heard Loki cry out from pain. But for Verity he had screamed like he was being torn apart.
David steadied himself and looked back up at Odin, straightening his posture again. “So then, Expert David Alleyne, do you propose that Loki is not, as he claims, dangerous?” Odin asked, studying David over steepled fingers.
“That is definitely not what I’m saying,” David shook his head and forced himself not to grimace. “He is very dangerous, but the greatest danger he poses is to himself. He has no direct control over the constructs, he doesn’t recognize them as constructs and their existence puts a strain on him. I have seen one beat the snot out of him because it was draining so much of his power he couldn’t fight back.”
“Idiot. Are you so accustomed to abuse that you must flog yourself if no one will do it for you?” Hela tutted with a small smile, petting his hair. “But I think you have not gone wonting today. Have you had enough battering for now, Loki?” Not bothering to wait for a reply, Hela shifted her arms and picked Loki up as she rose to her feet.
“Hey,” Loki protested without much vehemence, lifting his head slightly as Hela turned back toward the hall’s entrance.
“Where do you think you are going?” Odin demanded sharply.
“To Hel, of course,” Hela replied, glancing back to smirk at Odin. “I stated my intentions quite plainly when I arrived. I am taking Loki home.”
“You will not--” Thor started, seeming to come out of a trance and taking a step toward Hela as the valkyrie again raised their swords.
“Thor!” Dani snapped loudly, cutting him off mid-sentence and pointing an accusing finger at the god. “You threw him off a building. You don’t get an opinion right now.” Thor stared at her for a moment and then snapped his mouth shut and looked away, his shoulders slumping. “And put on a damn shirt!”
“It is not your decision to make either, Hela,” Odin announced, standing. “He is my son and--”
“No he isn’t,” Hela interrupted. “The child you stole from Jötunheim is quite thoroughly dead and gone. This child is of him, but he is not him. This child belongs not to Laufey or to Odin. This is Loki, Child of Loki, and Hela is the closest family that he has.”
There were a few seconds of stunned silence, and then Odin opened his mouth to argue again. “She can see them!” David blurted out, and then all eyes in the hall were on him again. He took a steadying breath and explained. “Hela can recognize the constructs. I mean- if you’re looking, you can catch clues with them after a while, things that tell you they aren’t possible- like there were some last year based on real people and one of them should have been dead, one of them was in the wrong time- if you pay attention, you can figure it out, but Hela can spot them on sight, before they do any serious damage.”
He noticed Queen Frigga’s eyes widen slightly and an ‘oh’ look cross her face. David filed that away for future reference; one thing at a time. “Queen Hela, you knew that Verity was a construct when you met her. Is that because of the marker you placed on Loki’s soul?” he asked, turning to the other queen in the room.
“There were many reasons. It is not a thing I can easily explain,” Hela murmured, looking just slightly wistful.
“Would be able to identify other constructs in the same way?”
“Yes.”
“In light of that fact, All Father, I would submit that Loki may be far more secure in the care of Queen Hela than any other,” David said, turning back toward Odin, who had stopped, halfway down the steps from his throne.
“Hel is a land of the dead. It is no place for a living god,” Odin said.
“To every rule, there are exceptions,” Hela replied. “I am only half-dead myself.”
Odin sighed heavily. “Loki, I would ask you state your opinion on this matter.”
“... Hel seems to want me,” Loki said quietly, his cheek still leaned against Hela’s shoulder. “Who am I to argue.”
“... So be it. Let them pass,” Odin commanded tiredly.
The Dísir moved to flank Hela and Tyr followed a step behind her. Dani put a hand on David’s shoulder as they took up the rear of the procession. “Good job, David,” she whispered when they had left the hall.
“Fuck you, David,” he heard Loki mutter followed by Hela lightly shushing him.
At the foot of Valaskialf Palace’s steps, where the bone chariot and a baker’s dozen of horses waited for them, Hela turned back toward them. Loki was still limp in her arms and looked almost like he had fallen asleep but his respiration rate indicated otherwise. “My valkyrie,” she said, looking at Dani, “Thank you for your service this day. You and your student may return to Midgard.”
“Thank you,” Dani nodded. “He’s not going to, I don’t know, die from eating the food in Hel or something, is he?”
“You are thinking of Hades,” Hela replied with an amused smile and then turned her eyes to David. “David Alleyne, Expert, you argued very well. Your mastery of elocution has impressed both Asgardia and Hel this day.”
David swallowed and let out a nervous breath between his teeth. “Queen Hela, it’s important for you to know that I am not entirely certain of everything I said in there. Half of it was hypothesis and extrapolation. I don’t know exactly what was done to Loki’s mind or whether there’s any possibility of fixing it. I have a lot of knowledge of magic and of dissociative disorders in humans, but as far as I am aware, Loki’s situation is unique.”
Hela smiled, looking amused. “You were quite confident in your knowledge when addressing the All Father,” she noted.
“I know how to sound like I know what I’m talking about,” David shrugged. “I am confident that Odin and Asgardia are only going to make him worse. And even when Thor’s at his best, he’s a bull in a china shop.”
Hela laughed. “Your council is heard and appreciated, Expert. You are welcome in Hel,” she said with what he supposed was a warm smile.
“No,” Loki hissed, cracking an eye.
“Hush, Loki,” Hela chuckled, turning away and stepping into her chariot.
Dani sighed and patted David on the back. “Come on,” she said, leading him toward Brightwind. “I’m sure he’ll forgive you eventually.”
“Eventually can be a pretty long time for a god,” David pointed out for the sake of rhetoric.
“Yeah well, he’s kind of A.D.D. for a god,” Dani shrugged, put a foot into Brightwind’s stirrup and hoisted herself up before offering David a hand. “Come on, I’ll buy you dinner. You were awesome today, David.”
“Even if I did unmake a perfectly nice girl?” David questioned, climbing up after her.
Dani shrugged slightly, giving Brightwind’s neck a pat and urging him into the air. “Once something’s been made, it can never be entirely unmade, right?”
“... Yeah,” David nodded, holding onto Dani’s waist and watching Asgardia give way to near-Earth space under them. “... He made a friend because he needed one,” David sighed. “I probably should try to visit Hel sometimes, since I guess I have an open invitation now.”
“You should. It’s not as bad a place as people make it out to be,” Dani agreed.