A/N: This just popped into my head. Hope you all enjoy! Reviews are to me what mischief is to Loki! xxx

Disclaimer: Nothing but my feels belongs to me.

The clamour of mayhem has long since stilled, the guard has gone with a nod that said nothing and meant everything, but the war rages on within him.

The voice within spins a shield between breaths that he will not own to be broken. Your own plans, advanced. Why not? Grief will distort the reason of the All-Father, will raise in Thor directionless wrath—even from this prison, you can find a way to bend this to your will—

But instead of reveling, he clenches his fists and crushes everything around him.

The God of Mischief ought to laugh in the face of pain. But the God of Mischief is just another mask, a careful façade, and at the moment, Loki cannot bring himself to wear it.

And he is only Loki now.

The Queen is dead.

His mother is dead.

Not truly your mother, just another lie—but it was she whom he had conjured to speak to, during the lonely hours ebbing and flowing into desolate days, it was she whose smiles he had craved. Every realm will fall before he will admit as much to another being, but all illusions lose their potency within the vast confines of his own mind.

For the greatest illusion—the only one he has ever believed—died with her…the last piece of the mask he hated and loved the most.

Because Thor knows him and loves him, and his father knows him and does not love him. But Frigga—mother—

She was the only person left in his life who, despite everything, believed that he was good, who still loved the quiet boy who loved books better than battle, in the days when his silver-tongue had not yet hardened his heart.

Even when the truth was laid before her, she could not bring herself to truly know…and he was grateful for that. It has been a great comfort and a greater dread.

She will never know him now. The fear that she would discover him for what he is has been vanquished…

And so has the hope.