Feel Something

Chapter 1: Let the Sky Fall

His hand was blue.

Not black and brittle with frostbite as Volstagg's had been. But the smooth, cool, cerulean blue of their enemies. Of the Frost Giants.

Thor and the Allfather were enraged with one another. Neither took any notice of the younger prince. Little Loki, always in the shadows. Always secondary to Thor's thunderous glory. Perhaps now he knew why.

"You are a vain, greedy, cruel boy!"

He could feel it, now that he knew it was there. It was like the feeling of ice cold water pouring down his throat and flooding his chest on a hot summer day.

"And you are an old man and a fool!"

Loki opened himself to it. Allowed the coolness to creep up his forearm. Through his veins. Overtaking him entirely.

"Yes. I was a fool. To think you were ready."

As the cold spread, so did fear. An anguished fear at what answer he may receive for the question he was terrified to ask.

"Am I cursed?" Loki's voice was a weak, trembling whisper amidst the booming voices of his kin, but it cut through the chamber like daggers of ice. At last, Thor was shocked into silence as Odin finally looked upon his youngest son.

"Loki, what trickery is this?" Thor sputtered, desperate to deny any truth to Loki's monstrous new form.

The Allfather took a step down from the dais, looking upon the young Jotun before him with more sadness and shame than Loki had ever beheld on the face of his father.

"I'm not your son, am I?" whispered Loki in a shocked monotone, "I'm...one of them. No more than another stolen relic."

"You are my son, Loki," insisted Odin, crossing the distance between them and gripping Loki's forearm, "I wanted only to protect you from the truth." The Allfather's warmth seemed to melt Loki's frozen exterior, fading away the blue to reveal the pale Aesir beneath. Or rather, it must be the other way around, Loki mused darkly.

"Because I'm the monster parents tell their children about at night?" Loki shouted, ripping his arm from his false father's grip and turning to face Thor, desperate for an ally in his feelings of betrayal. The god of thunder refused to meet his eye.

Oh.

A frigid fury began to build within Loki, and he found himself desiring nothing more than for the Allfather to hurt just as he did. And he had the perfect poison for the job.

"Thor is right. You are a fool. Who else would willingly let a beast such as I into their home? Who else could be so blind to the treachery within their very own household?"

Odin's eyes shot to Loki's with dismay as he realized the truth behind those words. Thor, never one for subtlety, demanded, "What lies do you spin now, brother? Speak plainly!"

"Very well, allow me to make it perfectly clear to you, brother," Loki didn't miss how Thor winced at the vitriol in his voice, nor that the god of thunder still couldn't meet his eye, "It was I who ruined your precious coronation. I allowed the Frost Giants into Asgard. I stopped the Allfather from allowing this realm to be ruled by such a buffoon as you, and it was my silver tongue that manipulated you into seeking vengeance on Jotunheim. Irony certainly is a cruel mistress, isn't she, Father?"

Loki stopped short as he turned back to look at Odin and saw the change in the Allfather's demeanor. Gone was the guilt. Gone was any hint of pain or sorrow. Gone was everything but the cold, distant gaze of a king preparing to deliver a sentence.

Loki had just confessed to treachery in the highest degree. Loki had gone too far.

"You have betrayed and endangered all of Asgard this day, Loki Odinson. Your mischief and lies have wreaked irreparable havoc on our people. You are unworthy of these realms you would claim to protect. You are unworthy of the loved ones you have betrayed. That which the Allmother nurtured in you has become a tool for destruction. I now take from you your power."