"Father, can I? Please, please, please! I'll be ever so good!"

Loki is young, fresh-faced and pink-cheeked, begging his father to be allowed to attend weaponry training with his brother, Thor, and Thor's companions, the Warriors Five.

Odin stands before him, calm and unwavering as usual. Frigga stands beside as his Queen, a silent support.

"No, Loki."

Loki's mouth falls open. He can't believe- no. This can't be happening. He was so sure-

Loki is so used to having his way that the sting of refusal burrows its way into his heart like shards of glass and stays there.

"Perhaps next time." Thor whispers to him as he turns to leave, hand clasped on Loki's shoulder. Loki shoves Thor away and storms to his room, face set in a petulant pout.

Looking back, this is the moment it began.

Loki never forgets the feeling of being told 'no'. It is something he will experience quite often in the years to come.

The next time it happens, Loki is not much older, but much wiser. He is rambunctious and loud no longer. That is Thor's job. A lot of everything is Thor's job these days. Thor is taught strategy and diplomacy, languages and weaponry training, riding and fighting while Loki stays silent and does nothing but watch him. There has always been a certain sadness to Loki, a melancholic air that never dissipates even when he smiles.

Loki is in the wayside while everyone's attention is caught by brave, dashing, brilliant Thor. But what they don't know is that Loki has magic. A magic unlike no-one else's. Something special that he can keep to himself, to practice with day and night. When he is alone, he amuses himself with levitating and animating objects, turning them a variety of colors.

He makes up stories and speeches that he recites only to himself under the cover of night, because people would laugh at him if he dared do it in public. But he imagines them clapping for him, cheering him on. He imagines them standing still in awe at his magnificence. He imagines them reacting to him like they do to Thor.

One day he performs magic when he thinks no one is looking, an imaginary person for him to mock-sword fight with. He is swinging and dancing and dodging the wooden sword from the blank-faced golem when it dissolves, sword clattering to the ground.

Odin is standing in front of him, a look of silent disapproval on his face. "Father," Loki swallows convulsively, palms sweating and heart pumping a fast beat.

"I can explai-"

"No, Loki." His father cuts him off, staring at him for a long moment edited striding away, his velvet cape making a soft 'swish-swish' on the ground.

Loki doesn't try magic again until much, much later. He buries it inside him until it burns.

"He is my son, father! I cannot simply abandon him in the woods like a wild animal. I bore and raised him! Fenrir is your grandson!"

Loki is begging on his knees. He has never so humiliated, so debased. There is only his mother, his father Thor and him in the room, but he feels as if a thousand eyes were raking over his kneeling form.

He looks to his mother for guidance, but she only sat there, silent. He knew that she could not go against his father in this matter.

Frigga is not pleased by her husband's silence. He thinks far too much and acts very little, and she knows that Odin's decision will hurt her son either way. But the legends of Ragnarok…

Frigga shivers in her seat. Odin will deem it far too risky, she knows. If only there was a way for Loki to keep his child with him…

"No, Loki." Odin's voice is gravelly with an emotion Frigga knows is heartbreak. But she knows Loki won't hear it. She hates to see her son like this, and Odin feels the same.

It cannot be helped…

Loki makes a sound like an injured animal. His sobs are muffled, but loud. "My son…" He whimpers desperately."Please…" His pleads are accompanied by a glimpse of tear-stained green eyes.

Those eyes are far too bright.

"Come, brother. What is done is done." Thor picks his brother off the floor, half cradling him, voice soft and arms gentle. Loki makes a half-hearted attempt at freedom, but settles for being cradled against Thor's breastplate.

"No, please!" The cry echoes through the room, bouncing off the walls and amplifying Loki's desperation. Odin's face is heart broken as he watches his son being hauled away by Thor, consoling him in his grief. There is nothing more that can be done for his boy.

Thor carries Loki to his bed chambers where he cries himself to sleep, Thor a silent support all through the night.

"No. You took me for a purpose. What was it?… TELL ME!"

He confronts Odin with eyes ablaze and suspiciously watery. In the light of the torches his face looks so lined, so grim, so old. There is a weariness to that face, a certain knowledge. Loki doesn't want to hear what Odin says next.

No more than another stolen relic…

Could never have a frost giant on the throne of Asgard…

And through it all, all that is ringing in his head is 'no, Loki.'

The glass shards in his heart multiply and dig deeper. He bleeding from the inside, slowly bleeding out emotion. One day, he thinks, one day I will lose the ability to cry.

I think I am fine with that.

He is hanging on for dear life, fingers grappling with Thor's for grip. He is crying, tears streaming down his face and gathering at the hollow of his throat.

It wasn't worth it. This false revenge, this play at being king. All of it useless. What would the crown give him that his father couldn't? It's Thor, always Thor winning. Giving Thor a taste of his own medicine backfired. It led to nothing but pain.

I only ever wanted to be your equal!

Let go, his mind whispers. Let go. Do you think that they will forgive you if you go back with Thor? Do you think they will sing songs about you that praise your bravery in facing the Jotun in battle? Do you think they will favor you over Thor?

Will you bend your knees again for Thor?

"No", Loki whispers this time. But he still looks towards Odin for guidance. "Father, please,"

Then louder, "I could have done it, Father! I could have done it! For you! For all of us!"

"No, Loki."

This time his heart shatters and he lets go, closing his eyes and falling blissfully into space, savouring every moment. Thor roars his name like the lion he is and Loki lets go. This is the end.

This is his play's last scene.

Loki is brought back to Asgard as a prisoner, feet in chains and muzzled. His head is bloody and broken, but unbowed. He will face this with dignity, if nothing else.

Thanos will be searching for him, he knows. He will be relentless. Thanos will search all nine realms for Loki in order to secure his part of the deal.

Loki shivers in his chains as e brought to face Odin, forced to kneel. Again. It seems like he is always kneeling in here, begging for something.

This time he is kneeling for forgives, salvation and redemption. He doesn't know if he'll get it- Odin's face is awfully hard to read even after the years of practice Loki's had.

Perhaps Odin will say no like usual. Nothing will change. He will be kept like a prisoner in the dungeons for all of eternity in penance for his sins. The sins committed under Thanos' watchful eyes and forceful influence.

The muzzle is removed as Loki is allowed to stretch his mouth, throat working slowly to stretch and speaking becoming less and less difficult. He doesn't want to croak, after all. That would be truly humiliating.

All the court's eyes are on him. He can feel Thor in the crowd, blending seamlessly despite his bulk. Perhaps he has learned a thing or two from Loki. He left Loki after depositing him on the ground, unable to look him in the eyes.

Look at me, he wanted to whisper. Look to me and see your sins.

"May luck be with you, brother," Loki thinks he hears Thor whisper.

'Luck, ha! What a farce of a trial.' People are already whispering about him, but he doesn't want to hear their cruel words.

"You have been brought here to seek refuge, am I not correct? And to atone for your crimes against the Midgardian Realm and the Asgardian throne."

"Yes." He is nigh inaudible.

Ad so it goes on. He doesn't know what Odin wants from this, why not throw him in the dungeons right now?

"I seen forgiveness," Loki finally chokes out.

The room goes quiet.

Loki dares lift his eyes to meet Odin's bright blue ones. His doesn't dare look at his mother, he thinks he knows what he will find there. He hangs his head.

The silence is painful. Silence could mean anything. Echoes of 'no, Loki' are reverberating through his head.

He doesn't want… He doesn't want-

"Yes, Loki." He jerks his head up sofast that he is surprised his neck doesn't break.

"What?" His exclamation is far too loud and too unexpected.

"Yes, my son." Odin's eyes soften and become gentle. "Yes."

Time doesn't heal all wounds, but merely softens them. In time, he is able to forget that he ever tried to take over Midgard, to kill and destroy the mortals that live there. The shadows loosen their grip on him and, eventually, fade away into nothingness.

He does have moments, though, when he is confused about where he is and what he is doing, but they pass.

Like everything in life, it always passes Loki.