Chapter Text
Prologue :: Dead Souls Dreaming
The land was desolate, abandoned. He knew not where he was; but it suited his sensibilities quite well. The smog-colored sky that stretched to infinity, the bedrock charred by fire, and the forest of gnarled trees framed uninhabitable land; only ravens circled overhead, as if they too could sense their kin in god-flesh, which was only rouse after all.
For he was neither god nor giant; he was only darkness. Darkness given a solid, physical form; he, the harbinger of death, the prophet of mayhem; and mayhem he brought. He could still smell the blood in his nostrils, could feel rivulets trickle from his fingertips and onto the jagged earth that strained to pierce the soles of his leather boots.
The elements, however, could not penetrate him. His armor and leathers, onyx and the dullest of silvers that was almost black, encircled him in a fervent embrace; it clung to him, and became an extension of his body.
His helm rested beside him, the same dull silver as his ornaments; its horns sloping forward harshly until they curved backwards at a deadly angle. He recollected a similar helm that he once possessed, and having lost it to mortal hands. But he hadn't an affinity to gold any longer; gold was light, and he knew no such light.
Everything was to be dark; there would only be madness in his wake. His only desire was to satiate the wicked beast that slumbered within him now. And oh how it purred, as the blood colored his hands, as he had taken the life that had been his since birth!
His twin was no more; he had extinguished that flame, which had always been his right. Had he not been sought after so fanatically, mayhap he would not have come to such an epiphany; mayhap the truth would remain locked away beyond his grasp until his final breath.
It had been the will of others to contain his darkness. It was the All-Father, such a cowardly fool, who tried to deter the inevitable. But fate did not fancy being deterred; fate only fought viciously until its purpose was fulfilled. Fate fought until the levee could withstand no more, and the flood of its will was brought forth upon its retractors.
Fate did not like to be delayed; darkness could not remain forever enslaved either. Darkness could not meet death, without an understanding and a compromise that both agreed to. He could not die, not until the flames licked and danced across every realm; not until blood coated him from head to toe, and the sweet essence of death for every living creature had been fulfilled.
The art of war had to be mastered, before the restoration of peace could be fulfilled. Peace was only achieved through evil; although he found himself disinterested in anything beyond his blood lust, his need to seek and destroy. He only desired to see destruction, for every realm to fall apart. And he would cause it; he would gladly see to the chaos that coursed through his veins.
But he would bid his time; the Aesir were certainly in a panic, all-consumed to have his head. He did not underestimate them; he knew they would come for him, and that could not be. Not until his children were free to do as they pleased.
Indeed, there was a method to his madness. He hadn't lost his higher faculties; he was keenly aware of what would cause optimal destruction, and what inevitably would bring forth his goal sooner than through sheer, blind chaos.
The Aesir would remain safe from his wrath for now; the other realms, however would not be so lucky. And if he were to listen to the perpetual cacophony in his head, the rhythm of the war drums, he knew which realm that should receive his attention.
His personal vendetta, a slate yet unclean, from his previous lifetime (although it was not so long ago) urged him to Jotunheim. The frost giants' dwelling, which birthed him and abandoned him; it was the place of reckoning. It was the birthplace to the darkness that had consumed him; the darkness that defined him, unlike the terms of old in which he was known for.
Lifting his helm between his gloved hands, he smiled grimly and looked above at the still circling ravens. He watched their flight, the trajectory that was graceless and mathematical. Even in places of unknown origins, abandoned by the living and dead alike, he was still found.
"Huginn and Muninn," he enunciated darkly, before raising his right hand to trace their flight pattern; his fingers swept the air inelegantly, before he closed his hand into a fist.
The twin ravens abruptly ceased their movements, bending and contorting into themselves with a sickening crack of bone. With a twist of the hand, he tore them asunder; squawks of anguish echoed along the barren land, which was eventually painted by blood and feathers.
The mangled forms of Odin's cohorts followed the pathway to the bedrock, and moved no more. They would not say a word of his whereabouts; not when his plans had been decided upon. He would take and he would give, and he would no longer be a relic for the All-Father to use or to abuse.
He walked leisurely to the point of impact, and observed how easily they had broken; much like how Brother Baldur had broken. His lips twitched at the memory, before crouching down for a better look. He set his helm aside, reaching for one of the ravens and taking it into his possession. He turned its body to and fro curiously; the fragility of such creatures was beyond compare, and he was incapable of not testing it further.
His fingers twitched, only stopping once he wrapped them about the raven's neck and twisted until it let way. Blood dribbled from the neck and spilled across the leather of his trousers and boots; but he was much too interested in the head that now was a separate entity from its body.
"How easily they break," he uttered, before smiling. "But it would do me no good if I allowed you to reveal my whereabouts. I have much to accomplish, and I cannot have you sullying my plans! Jotunheim awaits its rightful king!"
Without further ado, he dropped both head and body, and took up his helm once more. He fitted it onto his head, consumed by the need to maim and destroy. The beast roared for satiation, for mayhem on a grandiose level; it would not be satisfied by the deaths of birds.
Oh no; it craved genocide, and it would not quiet until Jotunheim had fallen and the frost giants' heads were erected on pikes. He would not be satisfied until he accomplished such a feat.
His lineage would no longer deny him; no one would ever deny him again. Chaos was a force to be reckoned with, and he was the bringer of it; he would make every realm fall, terrorizing them until they sobbed brokenly for a savior that would never come.
Brother Baldur was dead, after all. And he was the only one to remain; he that was once called Loki, but no longer had a name or any purpose beyond the mayhem that consumed him entirely.
He would see to the fall of many, and he would watch the world burn.