Corner
End of All Things
It hits me like the mother of all cliffhanger endings, and I'm amazed I didn't see it sooner. I'd assumed it had been simply a product of his imprisonment -- nothing quite changes a man like a thousand years in Hel -- but suddenly it's so obvious, and everything has been pointing it, shouting it, and I've been too busy to notice. Sigyn would have known, would have known it instantly, but she's gone, and Sigmund never knew Baldr from before. Except that's the real cincer, because...
"You're not Baldr!"
It's too late to pull the blow, and I don't think I would have tried even if it wasn't. Baldr or not this thing has still made my life hell, is still a raving lunatic, still has to be destroyed.
The blade goes right through his middle, leaving me right face-to-face with him, with golden eyes that in the strange light in this place suddenly look...
(... something's wrong something's not real what are you forgetting something I just don't...)
... green.
The death-confusion on his face is suddenly replaced by a strange kind of expression, strange and twisted and oh-so familiar.
And then he speaks the words I fear the most in a voice that is not his, "... and you're not the Fourth Seal, nephew."
The last thing I feel is pain pain like a thousand sun of pain or not the sun rather...
(... a wildfire...)
Somewhere a million miles away someone screams my name. And I open my mouth to try and correct them, but never get the chance.
Storks of corn sway under a golden sun. Corn and corn as far as the eye can see. Swaying in the breeze.
This is it, this is the End of all Things.
"It's a bit... black, isn't it? Personally I was hoping for something a little more flashy."
I spin and turn on that grating gravel voice -- the growl of a wonded animal, the roar of a mad mad fire -- and come face-to-face with the very last person I want to see.
Myself.
Except it isn't because... because...
"What the hell is going on here!" I roar, and that voice is not my own, but the one that answers is, except not in a way I've ever used it. But heard, oh yes. So often heard.
"Bit of a turnaround, isn't it?" says the not-Loki. "Your father always was a a canny one -- used to surprise me, a lot of the time -- and this--" he gestures to both of us, hanging in the black stillness of the End of All Things "--this is his last piece of work. The last bait-and-switch from the Father of All."
"Wha-what the hell are you talking about? Odin wasn't my father, I--"
"Oh do shut up, boy. I never could stand your useless nattering. Where was I... oh yes. The Fourth Seal and the the End of All.
"I suppose you remember -- and if you don't yet you will soon -- the Dreams? Horrible dark dreams of death for the one who would lead us out from the Twilight; and a world plunged into darkness and death, stripped of light and order. This is familiar to you, yes? Just nod or shake your head I don't need to hear your stupid voice."
I nod slowly.
"Good boy. Now, these dreams -- prophecies, whatever -- left the �sir with their panties in a bit of a bunch, you understand they didn't like to think about these sorts of things much. Cut into their wine, women and song, time, understand? So you mother got it into her vapid head to go extracting promises from everything should could find not to hurt your sorry ass. Now, even a small child could see the stupidity in this. Oh, it was very quixotic and all, but I mean really. Promises? Not to mention there was no way in Hel she was ever going to get everything to agree not to harm you; 'everything' didn't exist back then! Do you think she asked atom bombs? AIDS? The implosive power of the vacuum of space? We had no idea such things existed because they didn't.
"Anyway, I knew this just wasn't going to cut it -- mistletoe or no mistletoe -- and so did your old man, so we decided to tackle the problem oldskool style, if you'll pardon the expression. Vanished into the wilds for a few days, put our heads together and thought up a plan. The Plan, if you will. Now, your old man was a cold bastard and he knew it wasn't you that had to survive, per sei, just your essence. Not even soul, just the part of you that was you on the most abstract of levels -- the Good and Kind Dying God part -- so it could be reborn and lead us all to paradise, or whatever. He figured it would be best to put it somewhere no-one would ever find it, and then just kill off your body and let the prophecy be fulfilled that way. Except he couldn't think of a good place to hide it, which is where I came in."
I'm suddenly feeling very... still inside. Because I don't like this. Not one goddamn bit.
"After all, who would look for the soul of Baldr in the heart of his killer?"
His eyes gleam wickedley. I swallow hard; I can feel blood pooling in my palms from my tight-falled fists. I don't want to hear this. Not at all.
"So we made the switch. Obviously I had to go somewhere and that somewhere happened to be right into your now-dead body. That's the significance of the arrow, incidentally. The very moment of change.
"Now, before you ask, only the deepest darkest part of us was swapped; memories stayed the same, which was part of the illusion of it all. So suddenly you find yourself being me, and you've just killed someone and you don't really know why. The best part is, no-one does anything about it, which offends your sense of moral righteousness or whatever, and you go berserk. Cross the line, crash your own wake and lash out like a little kid in the middle of a massive tanty.
"This was the Flaw in my otherwise brilliant plan; you didn't know how to be me. You had all these modern sensibilities about justice and mercy and all that garbage and suddenly none of that fits anymore. Only the good and bright and pure can have thoughts like that and really believe them. We threw you right down the bottom of the trash-heap and suddenly you get to see how the world really works. And, that, my dear nephew, will always be my Greatest Prank. And to think he wasn't even intended!" He looks genuinley amazed at that, grinning that unhinged grin I'm slowly starting to remember but could never properley imitate.
He shakes his head, still amused, and continues. "Anyway, Odin realises that you're about to blow all our good work away with your own idiocy, so he binds you up. You gotta realise, suddenly you're double jeopardy, 'cause you're both the Bright God and the Fourth Seal, so he really can let you be killed now." He pauses for a minute. "The sanke was accidental, if you're wondering. Skadi was always a frigid bitch who never did forgive me for not calling." He leers.
"Anyway, the deal was I'd keep your soul safe until Ragnar�k, whereupon my body would die, releasing your soul, whereupon it would re-enter your reborn body, and everything would be peachy-keen and smiles-all-round again."
"Except it didn't happen."
"I always did forget Sigyn. Forgot she could see through me like glass, you know. Dangerous woman. I guess she would've known the second we made the switch that I wasn't me anymore." He shrugs. "So you didn't die, and suddenly Bladr comes back but he's got the wrong soul in him. My soul. I was like you, had no idea about any of this, only knew some asshole had killed me -- me, the bright, the beautiful, the loved -- and no-one had done a damn thing about it. I never was real good at forgiving grudges, you realise. Only was out to kill the one thing I saw as being 'wrong' in my worldview on Ragnar�k, which would have been your pansy-ass self. Or me, depending on how you look at it. Luckily we got each other at the same time, and, well, here we all are." He grins expansivley, hands-on-hips, waiting for my reaction.
Which is still... flat. It's hard to decribe, when someone lifts the veil on your entire life and suddenly you realise everything you ever thought you knew was wrong. It occurs to me that I don't want to be Baldr; the self-righteous, arrogant little brat. Roaming around �sgard all bright and shining and loved, frowning on any impurities. And I... Loki was the impurest of the impure. Jotun barbarian trash masquerading as one of the beautiful people; a cancer in our midst.
I look at him, really look for the first time, and suddenly realise exactly how tragic he is behind the mad mad eyes and twisted grin. Because I've been in that body; a great and terrible power locked down by wards and oaths. A jotun prince who sacrificed his power to become the least of the greatest; to serve in Heaven rather than rule in Hell. And because I've been him -- am him still, because now after so long it is this body that feels foreign to me -- I know why. And know why I could never have really been him; because he will always do what's needed, make any and every sacrifice, no matter how evil or great, to make sure that when the world wakes up tomorrow there will be something for it to wake up to.
The ends justify the means. Always. My... father was like that, too. They're the Old Gods, and they're dead for a reason.
And, because I have been him for so long, I realise the final thing about this greatest of all pranks that I don't think he realises. As Baldr I had never experienced pain, nor fear nor rage nor hate. Knew only the Good and Pure, thought only the thoughts of the Clean.
But sometimes Good is not always Right, and sometimes, you need to get your hands dirty.
Baldr's road was the Utopian road, a child's road. The world is infinatley more complex, and now -- as him -- I have seen that. The dark and the dirty, have taken pain and ridicule and suffered it with revenge and without.
Baldr was a child. But I have grown up. And I am ready.
I look at him, and my eyes are hard and flat and determined, and it think it takes him aback somewhat, because he looks uncertain. "What happens now?"
He regains composure quickly, grinning and gesturing expansivley. "Why, you are reborn, and the world is remade and set to rights, of course."
Like I said, I'm ready. Except...
"I don't want to be Baldr."
He blinks at me once, twice, then bursts out laughing. I really hadn't meant to say that out loud, and I think I'm blushing. How goddamn embarrassing.
He just claps me heavily on the back. "That's the spirit, boy!" And I know, because I am him, that he has seen something in me that he likes, and is reassured. But relieved, too, because he knows this means he is free.
"I am Loki Laufeyjarson," I say, because it's true. I am. I've had a thousand years to think about it.
He laughs some more. "Oh, your mother is rolling in her grave!" he cries. And I laugh as well; mother always hated him. Because of his relationship with father... and because she was perhaps the only person in the whole nine worlds he wouldn't bed. This information is... slightly disturbing to that part of me that remembers her as my mother still. But it all seems very silly.
I sobre. "What about you?"
"There is only one body to go back to," he says. "And it's yours. My time is done." He shrugs. Is doing What Must Be Done.
"You are me," I say. And that's true, too; we've been each other for an eternity. Father trusted this man for council, and kept him bound and gagged and leashed to do so. But I am not father.
He's looking at me sort of strangely. "This world has no place for me, boy."
Which is wrong; because he Does What Needs to Be Done. It's my turn to grin, now, and he looks certain and takes a step back, and I realise he is afraid. Afraid of being bound and gagged and leashed. But I am still not my father.
Before he can slip away I lean forward and kiss him -- good and hard and properley -- and at first he resists, but he's full of wanderlust still and relents.
I really am a damn good kisser.
It's the Beginning of all Things; an explosion of colour and light and sound, and we wear it like a crown. The Fourth Seal, the Shining One.
It is remade.
Corn, always corn. And sun, and wide, wide blue sky as far as the eye can see. Freedom.
My heart starts beating with a painful lurch, air rushing into lungs suddenley gasping once more. Circulation is painful; waking up to find you've slept with your arms above your head and now they're numb and useless, but on a whole-body scale.
"... fu-uu-uu-uck..." I manage, eventually.
"Loki! Oh my god! Oh god oh god I thought you died and oh god..." He grabs me roughly and is kind of shaking me, which really sort of hurts, and I don't have enough blood in me yet to move to hold him, but I want to, oh how I do.
(... behind my eyes in the deep and dark something stirs...)
("... see see what you have missed look with new eyes now and see...")
("yeeessss..." long and ancient and slithered and dark but amazed oh so amazed and...)
Oooh, I don't think I've got enough blood in me yet to do that.
Eventually I disentangle myself from the boy and manage to sit up on my own. Mostly. Sig moves to start rubbing my limbs down vigourously in an attempt to start circulation again.
My eyes slowly come into focus; we're still in the park, but the nightmare scenery is gone, replaced with, well, a park. It's very poetically, though none too-subtly, just on dawn, and I can see a few eager joggers with dogs beginning their laps. The world looks... exactly like it was. Good.
My view is filled with Sig again, looking panicked and surprised and relieved and dirty and smudged and all kinds of things all at once but above all very, very beautiful.
"God, Lain--" back to old names again "--what happened? I saw you get stabbed and then both of your fell and there was the kind of... flash or something and suddenly everything was back to normal and you were just sort of lying there, but you wouldn't wake up, but Baldr was gone and... where is he? Is, is everything back to normal?"
"Ooh, I think so," I manage. I still feel like utter shit, but that's not exactly abnormal, so... "Yeah, yeah it is."
"And Baldr? Is he... dead?"
With some help I manage to pull myself shakily to my bare feet, Sig gets under my arm to suport me.
"You could say that. It's... a bit of a long story. How 'bout we go somewhere with a nice, long, hot bath and I tell you about it." My voice is still lilting, woozy, and my head is spinning, and I don't want to think about explaining this all to Sigmund. But I will, of course. Because he is Sig, and that's... all he needs to be.
"... alright." He's looking at me kind of funny, right through me, has finally realised something is different. Wrong. "Loki," testing the waters, "Are-are you sure you'll alright?"
"... like glass, very dangerous," I mutter, in a voice that's not quite my own.
"Huh?" He looks a little alarmed at that, but I give him my best newly-resurrected smile.
"Oh yes," I say. "Very, very alright. Eveything is going to be very, very alright."
And he knows, because he is him, that I'm telling the truth, and so quiets.
Poetically, but none-too-subtly, we limp off together into the sunrise, and my mind is filled with sun, corn, and the wide blue sky.