"Hung on a windy tree nine long nights

Wounded with a spear, dedicated to Odin, myself to myself."

- Havamal

The element of surprise is as genuine as the element of lithium, and has pretty much the same potential for explosive consequences. On the periodic table it'd be over there on the left with all the other reactive alkali metals: potassium, rubidium, cesium, francium, surprise! Surprise, however, unlike its elemental compatriots, occurs freely and naturally all over the place, especially where humans are in evidence.

[If he wanted us dead -]

[we'd be dead]

Which really only leaves one logical conclusion. Death is the last thing he wants, for either of you. Later, when you have time, you'll think to question the grip on sanity of a man who thinks that torturing and shooting at people is an efficient method of preserving their lives: but you'll come to the conclusion, just as Odin likely did, that no-one, but no-one , is as committed to saving their life as themself. What he'd done was the equivalent of putting the job into the hands of the person most qualified. Like any savvy manager would.

Not even your Bandy's Burrito manager, however, would have taken his elegant brand of human resource wrangling to this extreme. Sacrifice. Surprise! Who'd've thunk it? Not you, not until about a minute ago, that's for sure. Not Loki, either, because like a cat he had absolutely no faith in your ability to do anything useful except not get killed [and now even that ability is rendered obsolete and inconvenient, isn't it -]

Not Odin, it seems, which for a guy whose name is practically synonymous with hanging and otherwise doing inappropriate and lengthy things to his own body at the base of trees is kinda dumb, if you do think so yourself. Maybe sacrifice to him is reserved for the strong. For those who really know what wisdom is worth and who aren't going to let a little thing like binocular vision stand in their way.

Sacrifice is all about ultimate power. The power of life and death. For those of us who live mortal lives, there's nothing greater. You remember learning about the Aztecs, long ago and far away, and remember those angular pyramids, with their grooves for blood and their carved skulls. There had been drawings of the victims in bamboo-style cages, some huddled and drugged, others scrabbling with fear.

Those people didn't look like they were in control of jack shit. But whoever had illustrated the textbook had it all wrong. The sacrifice had to hold all the power, or their death wasn't worth anything. If they were powerless, their sacrifice was worthless.

Ergo, to take this argument to its logical conclusion, you are not worthless. It's a new concept for you and is probably going to take a while to sink in.

For what feels like minutes but is in reality mere seconds, the sound of your feet on the floor is the only thing you can hear - the shoes that were really meant for fancy occasions and not running about like a lunatic are clattering and clamouring on the hard surface. Bits of drying mud skitter away from them as you speed up, your strides longer (if not more confident) with every step.

You don't even really know where you're going. Strike that. You have no idea whatsoever.

[Run!]

You're going away from Odin. That's all you need to know.

For a moment you think about the bamboo cage door swinging open and the victim looking up into the eyes of a well-intentioned would-be rescuer. The victim doesn't immediately leap up and hurl themselves into liberty, and the rescuer cannot understand why – but you think you can. The door is wide and they may go through it. On the other side, freedom and life and all the uncertainty those entail. But on the inside, captivity and death and utter, utter certainty. And all the power that control denotes.

You hate uncertainty almost more than anything else. Everything about your life has been uncertain until now. Your future. Your job. Your relationships. Your health. Always questions, always what-ifs every way you turn, and none of the pseudo-choices you've been offered have ever been good. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, and asked to choose which one you'd like most. The futility of choice and the lack of control in your life have been the points against which you've beaten your impotent fists many times.

Physically distanced now from Loki, you weirdly feel much closer to him. He's a constant in the link, perhaps now that all the attention's dropped from him and is focussed instead on your fleeing figure. For a brief moment, he gives you a flash of what he sees, and you get to see what you look like from behind.

Just as you suspected. You [run like a demented baby giraffe]. There'll be time to relive this horrible analogy at a later date.

[Giraffe?!]

Odin roars, and you can't help but turn, just fleetingly, to look. He doesn't even sound human anymore: Fury's mouth gapes impossibly wide and he flings out an arm, backhands Loki across the face like an affronted whore at the bar. He's obviously super-pissed that a mortal and a reprobate are daring to cut in on his act of making himself look big. Loki spins backward, his own expression shocked at the unexpected force of the blow. You reel sideways as the phantom of that hit gets through the link, despite Loki's obvious efforts to shield you from it.

Shield. The irony of it is worth a whole thought to itself. You stagger, almost falling. There's an abrupt roil of murderous fire that boils up through your gut and almost makes you feel as if you're going to throw up. Your vision turns green, and there's a moment where you think you're actually being sick, but then the whole room flares as green as the Emerald City and it's Loki stepping up to the plate with the remainder of his strength, fighting like a pro with whatever-the-hell the green fire is, and Odin –

Odin is about to perform a mighty Allfather-style smackdown on his second son, and you can just tell that Loki, in his post-torture state, can't withstand it. Your eyes start to burn again, as if there's acid dripping into them, and your body feels constricted in strands of thin, cutting wire. Your back is insisting that you're lying on jagged, volcanic rock.

[a rock and a hard place?]

You hear a tiny shred of laughter from him, but it's weak and there's no heart in it. The thin wires [a rope] and the rock [called Scream] are too much to bear.

This is what Loki's deepest fear feels like, given ultimate form and the benefit of his experience. It's also what finally confirms, somewhere deep inside you, that you're doing the right thing, however insane and self-defeating it might seem. It's a huge thing for you, that knowledge all tied up with Loki's pain. You almost turn, overwhelmed, and –

[RUN!]

You do as you're told. Pain floods the link. You don't look back. Later, much later, you're treated to Ibn Fadlan, and you realize just how much of an idiot play you made and how much of a shit Loki was for letting you make it.

The door in front of you suddenly slams open, and your rescuer stands before you. He's probably what every victim ever wanted to see. Big and blond and muscular and practically seething with righteous indignation. He doesn't quite have the full set of shining armor and you're pretty sure he prefers goats to noble white chargers, but otherwise he's the perfect Disney prince and if he wasn't so [unbearably simple], forthright and loyal none of this would work at all.

Uncertainty and life unfold before you. The cage door hangs ajar.

Thor looks into your eyes with recognition, and when you don't move, his brow furrows in confusion. He doesn't understand. His arms make a flinching, abortive motion to grip you, enfold you, protect you in all your vulnerable mortality. It would be so nice to be protected, to feel safe, even if it's only for a little while. But that would be the sting – it would only be for a little while. And giving it up would hurt so much more.

[Trust him, if not me]

So instead, you drop to your knees in front of a Norse god for what's probably the third time today.

"Kill me," you say. "If you love your brother."

There. You said it. You really can't believe it, but you did. And now you're going to -

[blota – it means to worship with sacrifice]

[I know. You know, so I know]

Loki's internal voice is almost a whisper.

[it also means "to strengthen"]

Thor, because he's a good man, hesitates for an abominably long moment.

And then he does.

It's something that with Loki in your head doesn't really seem odd at all, but you're pretty fairly aware that to a casual onlooker, this would possibly be the most horrific and unbelievable thing imaginable. There's still enough normal human reaction in you for that. It's the same sort of feeling you'd get if, while watching TV, the star of your favorite soap suddenly took a bullet in an unexplained drive-by shooting in their secure gated community.

This is not the world Loki and Thor are from. Asgard is one of those places where you can make viable boats out of dead men's nails, where you can wrestle bodily with old age, and where death isn't everything it was cracked up to be, especially in the part where it's any kind of surprise.

Viking warriors went into battle embracing death. They were dead already: it saved time and gave you a uniquely clear perspective on which to start smacking seven kinds of shit out of the enemy. Admittedly some of them were probably hopped up on mushrooms, but then that's just another way of transcending the mortal, the usual, of getting closer to [Valhalla] that place where the line between death and life was not so much a barrier as a mirror.

They come from a world where if you want something really badly, sometimes the only way to show how much you want it and to eventually get it is to give up something you prize.

Thor doesn't do it showily. You don't get smacked with the hammer, which you must admit you're glad about, as the idea was giving you the screaming horrors. He doesn't punch you with one of those meaty fists and then jump up and down on your neck with those size forty-six armored boots. Also glad. You've read enough kid's books about Vikings to know that their chosen methods of killing aren't always the tidiest – blood eagles, anyone?

Lucky you, your internal organs get to stay where they are. Thor's bright blue eyes for once seem to look through you and into you and see Loki there, wrapped around your soul like a snake curled into a pained, suffering coil. He exhales long and slow and as if he can't imagine taking in another breath to enable himself to do this. But then he pulls you up and into his chest with the most heart-wrenchingly sorrowful expression imaginable, simply turning your face into his body. And holds you there, his huge hand pressing warmly at the back of your neck just enough to make sure you can't move.

Or breathe.

The world slows. Blurs. That thump in your ears is back, the rhythm of your heart, that fluttering, erratic beat that hours ago you had been so frantic to preserve, and now you're calmly listening (thump-thump) to it ( -thump) slipping away. Isn't it ironic that the fear of death, the anxiety you've held so close about dying stupidly, accidentally, has been making you ill all this time? The very act of being frightened about losing control of your life and it slipping through your fingers has been stealing your natural rhythm away from you. You've been killing yourself for years by worrying about death. It's actually kind of funny.

Your amusement slips down the link to Loki, who is on the floor and in pain, and he acknowledges it, acknowledges you, and shares with you his experience of falling into the Void. It's weirdly intimate, sharing death. And there's never going to be anyone you can share that experience with because a) well, dying here and b) this isn't something normal human beings ever get to experience. Loki is so close in your mind that it feels as if his body is pressed to your back, pushing you between himself and the sorrowing presence of Thor. It feels right. It feels comfortable. You experience your moment of clarity (just as you're supposed to, it's good to know that humans got something right about the death experience) and all it contains is the knowledge that it feels good to have Loki there, after all, despite his being a grade-A despot and having more issues than TIME magazine.

[Dying was perhaps the most powerful thing I ever did. And - ]

Your physical body is going limp. It feels warm here, cradled to Thor's chest. Warm, safe and right [right] [right.]

You reach out at the last to Loki, querying gently.

[and?]

He chuckles.

[and it gave me everything I ever wanted because -]

And then you die. Your body still held so carefully by Thor.

[because?]

[Because it wasn't the end.]

And it isn't.

You die. And everything changes, but nothing stops.

Hi there ^^ it's me, bookmawkish. Fancy a Loki shortfic of your very own? Then PROMPT ME. I'm open for prompts! I can't promise to get to all requests but I will try my best.