Work Text:
A Frost Giant runt.
How exquisitely ironic.
No wonder the fissure had always been there beneath his skin, a quiet fracture he tried so diligently to ignore. Every jest, every smirk, every theatrical gesture had been nothing more than a bandage over the void he carried in the hollow of his chest. And now the truth stood revealed, stark and unrelenting, sweeping aside every illusion he had once clung to to protect him.
Loki’s world did not simply shatter.
It disintegrated, splintering into innumerable jagged fragments too sharp to touch and too ruined to ever reassemble again.
The moment his father—no, the Allfather—spoke, the falsehood of his existence came undone. “I thought one day we could unite our kingdoms.” Loki knew it was a confession meant to soothe, to keep the monster at bay, yet the words pierced with surgical precision, carving apart the foundations of everything he had believed himself to be.
What is my existence, then?
He was not the prince of Asgard, not the equal beside Thor, (Though even before the lies were unravelled he was never the equal. At least now he knows why) not the beloved son at all. He was something altogether different, something collected, preserved, and hidden like a relic one does not know how to discard.
A lie.
A Jotun.
Loki moved through the gilded corridors of the palace with a gait that faltered between walking and falling– he was not sure which, his thoughts spiraling into an abyss he could not climb out of. Every memory he touched seemed poisoned now, tarnished by revelation. The promises, the carefully spun praise, the gentle hands that guided him as a child—each felt like a blade sliding between his ribs.
The lies they fed you, the one you embraced willingly.
He wasn’t Asgardian. Not truly. He was a creature of ice and shadow, a being shaped from a world condemned long ago. A monster, born with darkness in his marrow.
Every monster carried darkness inside.
He simply carried more.
He reached his chambers without any recollection of the path taken. His mind thrashed against itself, a storm of grief and disbelief and something colder, something far more venomous.
I cannot think. I cannot breathe. Please… Please make it stop.
He slammed the door shut, the sound echoing. Too loud, but not as loud as the storm raging in his own mind. His sanctuary twisted instantly into a prison, trapping him with nothing but the truth he had never wanted.
His pacing became frantic, his footsteps striking the stone in panic-laced rhythm. Why had Odin taken him from Jotunheim? Why raise him—nurture him, even—only to unveil this now? What role had Loki ever served but that of a tool? The Allfather never acted without purpose.
His race deserved death.
They were monsters.
He would have slain them himself.
Thor certainly would have.
And what now?
Would Thor do what he always promised? Would he slay the beast as he threatened to not so long ago?
Loki stopped abruptly, pulled toward the mirror as though by a spell. The reflection waiting for him felt foreign, almost grotesque in its familiarity. His eyes, once bright with mischief, now held a hollow sheen, pale green touched by a glint of red—Jotun red—that only he could see lurking beneath the surface.
His fingers curled around the vanity’s edge, knuckles blanching. A mask. His life had been a meticulously crafted mask. The prince, the brother, the dutiful son—all costumes draped over a truth too abhorrent to be acknowledged.
He was not family.
He had never belonged.
Odin was not his father.
Thor was not his brother.
Frigga… Frigga had never been his mother.
Because of what I am.
Unworthy.
Foul.
Weak.
Jotun.
The knowledge pressed into him with merciless weight, collapsing his chest, crushing breath out of his lungs. His own identity rose up like a noose around his neck. He was a creature born of rime and ruin, destined for obscurity, for hatred. There was no place for him beside Asgard’s golden throne.
His thoughts sharpened into a scream, though he gave it no voice.
Why… why… why…
He felt his sanity thinning, the fragile thread tearing under the strain. Rage surged—raw and blinding. He slammed his fists into the walls until his hands were a raging mess of blood and bruises. He welcomed the pain, clung to it even, let it anchor him.
Magic crackled uncontrolled at his fingertips, breaking free in jagged bursts. Furniture disintegrated under the onslaught, splintering across the room. A vase—Thor had given it to him, hadn’t he?—shattered into shards that glittered like ice under torchlight.
He grabbed a piece, then another, hurling them at the mirror with a guttural cry. The glass exploded, scattering remnants of his reflection across the floor like the remains of a life he no longer recognized.
“Why?” His voice came out raw, scraped bloody by emotion. “Why did you lie to me?” The words tore from him, shredded by anguish. “Why raise me as a son, only to reveal this now? Why hide me? Why not destroy me as you did the others?”
Why… why… why…
The question pulsed in his skull, relentless, deafening, drowning every other thought. He unleashed a final torrent of magic, obliterating what remained of his bed, feathers swirling like snow through the wreckage.
“I hate you!” His voice broke violently. “I hate you, Allfather! I hate this realm! I hate all of you!”
His breath caught. “I… I hate mothe—”
He stopped.
Shouldn’t he hate her?
She was not his mother.
She raised me as a mother would.
You do not have a mother.
She is a mother in every way that counts.
Not mother…
Loki stood amidst the devastation, chest heaving, hands shaking uncontrollably. His eyes burned, not with fury now, but with the humiliating sting of tears he refused to shed.
A lie.
A monster.
A Frost Giant.
No amount of destruction could alter that.
His body folded beneath him, collapsing to the shattered floor, surrounded by splinters of his own destruction. And for the first time in years—perhaps ever—Loki allowed himself to weep. He wept for the boy he had been, for the family he had imagined, for the illusion of love that had sustained him. He wept for the creature he believed he was destined to remain.
In the end, it all reduced to the same bleak truth.
He was alone.