Time in Sanctuary flowed differently.
Not faster, not slower — simply differently. Like water in pipes with unstable pressure: sometimes stagnant for hours, sometimes rushing in sudden bursts. I lost count of the cycles of sleep and wakefulness somewhere after the third (fourth? seventh?) session with the Other.
The cell where they kept me was a model of minimalist design. Stone walls, a stone floor, a stone slab that was apparently considered a bed. No windows, no lighting — only the faint glow of minerals embedded in the rock. The jailers did not trouble themselves with feeding me: Asgardians could starve for weeks, and Jotun even longer.
They knew that.
They knew many things.
Too many, I thought, lying on the slab and staring at the ceiling. Thanos watched Asgard. Watched Odin. Watched me.
The question was — for how long?
The Other came regularly.
If "regularly" could be applied to a being that materialized from the shadows without warning, like a glitch in reality. He never knocked. One moment there was an empty corner of the cell — the next, he stood there.
"You resist," he said on the third (or fifth?) visit. His voice was the rustle of dry leaves over a grave. "Why?"
I sat with my back against the wall. My body ached from the previous sessions — not physically, no. The Chitauri did not leave bruises. They left something worse.
"Resist?" I repeated with tired surprise. "Me? I simply sit here and enjoy your hospitality."
The Other tilted his head. That inhuman, insect-like gesture was starting to irritate me.
"Your mind… is stubborn. It refuses to open."
"Maybe you just knock poorly."
Silence.
Then — pressure.
It came like a wave: heavy, suffocating, seeping into every crack of consciousness. Not pain — not yet. Just presence. A foreign will trying to force itself into my skull.
I closed my eyes.
The server room, I reminded myself. You're in the server room. This is your territory.
The mental landscape I had built over these days (weeks?) was a work of art.
No, seriously. I would have hung it on a wall if psychic constructs could be displayed.
The outer layer looked exactly as the Other expected: a broken prince. The ruins of a golden palace buried under snow. Fragments of statues — Thor without a head, Odin with gouged-out eyes, Frigga turned away toward a wall. Pain, resentment, hatred — all of it was real. The original Loki's memory produced this filth in industrial quantities.
I simply dragged it to the surface.
Look, this layer seemed to say. Here I am. Broken. Betrayed. Ready for anything in the name of revenge.
The Other moved through the ruins like a spider across a web. He touched the fragments, absorbed the emotions, nodded his grotesque head.
He did not notice the doors.
Or rather — he saw them. But they looked like part of the scenery. Boarded shut, rusted, leading nowhere. Why force open a path to nowhere when an entire palace of pain lies before you?
Behind those doors was the server room.
My real mind.
I opened my eyes.
The Other stood before me, empty hollows where eyes should be boring into the bridge of my nose.
"You hate them," he said. Not a question — a statement. "Odin. Thor. All of Asgard."
"As a loving son hates a father who lied to him for a thousand years," I replied. My voice trembled slightly — easy to simulate, since part of me truly felt that hatred. "As a brother hates the one who received everything without earning anything."
"Good."
The pressure eased. Slightly.
"The Master will give you a chance," the Other continued. "Revenge. Power. The throne that was promised to you and taken away."
"How generous."
"But first — you must prove your loyalty."
I raised an eyebrow.
"Have I not proven enough?"
"No."
He leaned closer. The sweet stench of rot became unbearable.
"You hide something. Deep within. I sense it, though I cannot find it. Not yet."
Damn.
"Every sentient being hides something," I said evenly. "It's called personal boundaries. You should try it."
The Other made a sound — a creak, a crack, something between laughter and agony.
"Soon," he rustled. "Soon you will open yourself completely. Willingly or not."
He vanished as he had appeared — dissolving into shadow as though he had never been there.
I exhaled.
He suspects, I realized. He doesn't know what, but he suspects.
I needed to work faster.
The following sessions were… intense.
The Other no longer limited himself to surveying the ruins. He began to dig.
Images came unbidden, sharp as whip strikes. Childhood in Thor's shadow. First failed attempts at magic. The condescending looks of the Warriors Three. Palace boys whispering behind my back: strange… too quiet… not a real warrior.
And Odin's voice, again and again: "You were both born to be kings."
A lie. A lie from the first word to the last.
I allowed the memories to flow. I did not resist — that would have been suspicious. I suffered. I writhed on the stone slab while the Other pulled emotions from me like a pathologist extracting organs.
But I gave him no doors.
This is camouflage, I reminded myself through the pain. Smoke on the battlefield. Let him think he's found a gold mine.
The worst part was not the memories.
The worst part was the questions.
"When did you first wish to kill Thor?" the Other asked.
And somewhere inside me Loki's voice answered: "The day Father called him 'my pride.'"
"When did you realize Odin did not love you?"
"When he sent me to study magic with Frigga instead of training me for battle."
"When did you realize you were a monster?"
"When my skin turned blue upon touching the Casket of Ancient Winters."
These were not my answers. They were the body's memory. The original's scars, which I had inherited with his flesh.
But the Other did not know the difference.
He devoured these confessions like a drug. He thought he was breaking me. That with each session I became weaker, more pliable.
He was wrong.
I continued to learn.
Every time the Other entered my mind, he left traces. Like dirty boots on a white carpet. The energy signature of his intrusions; the frequency of his mental waves; the pressure points he used.
I cataloged everything.
In the server room, behind securely locked doors, I built a model. A reconstruction of his technique. Primitive, incomplete — but it was a beginning.
If he can project images, I reasoned, then it is simply information transfer. Data moving from point A to point B. And any data transmission can be intercepted. Or falsified.
Mind magic. Seidr.
Loki's memory contained the basics — what Frigga had taught. Defensive techniques, simple illusions, the ability to conceal thoughts from mid-level telepaths.
The Other was clearly above mid-level. But the principles remained the same.
My first experiment I conducted on myself.
It was risky. Possibly foolish. But I had no other test subjects.
I sat on the stone slab, closed my eyes, and descended into the server room.
The lights blinked in their familiar rhythm. The hum of cooling systems was soothing. I walked past rows of racks — folders of memories, emotional processes, reaction protocols — and stopped at the terminal.
Create new file, I commanded mentally.
An empty form appeared.
File name: False Memory #1.
Content: I hate Midgard.
It was not true. Earth was my home. My real homeland, not the golden circus of Asgard. But the Other didn't know that.
I concentrated, giving the memory form. Density. Texture.
The stench of human cities. Crowds of primitive creatures swarming in filth. Contempt. Disgust. These beings think they are the pinnacle of creation?
The file saved.
I opened my eyes.
And felt… something strange.
A faint disgust at the thought of Earth. Barely noticeable, at the edge of consciousness — but real. The false memory worked.
Placebo, the inner skeptic said. You're deceiving yourself.
Perhaps, I agreed. Or perhaps not. Let's test it.
The test came sooner than expected.
The Other appeared in the middle of a cycle — when I had nearly fallen asleep on my stone slab.
"Midgard," he said without preamble. "The Master wishes to know your opinion."
I pushed myself up, rubbing my eyes.
"My opinion of what? Of mortals? Of their planet?"
"Of their value."
Thanos intended to send me to Earth. If I showed weakness — attachment to the place, sympathy for its people — it would raise suspicion.
I reached for the false memory.
"Midgard is a dump," I said, my voice filled with genuine contempt. "A primitive race that has barely learned to split the atom and already threatens to destroy its own planet. If not for the Tesseract, they would not be worth attention."
The Other watched.
The pressure came — familiar, probing, searching the surface layers.
He found the memory. Images of foul-smelling cities, swarming crowds. Contempt. Disgust.
And he believed.
"Good," he rustled. "Your hatred of mortals… is useful."
He left.
I leaned back on the slab and allowed myself a smile.
First test passed, I thought. False memories work. At least on the surface level.
Now I needed to build more.
The following days (weeks?) I spent in feverish work.
Outwardly — a broken prince. Obedient, compliant, ready to follow orders. I answered the Other's questions with carefully measured submission.
Inside — I built a labyrinth.
False memories multiplied like files in an infected system. Hatred for Thor (real, but amplified). Contempt for mortals (completely fabricated). The desire for power at any cost (partly true — though the cost was different from what the Other believed).
I created scenery. Entire scenes the Other could find and accept as truth.
This is how I dreamed of killing Thor in childhood.
This is how I planned to betray Odin.
This is how I wish to sit upon Midgard's throne.
Each scene — a perfect lie. Detailed enough to resemble memory. Emotional enough to feel true.
And behind it all — the server room. My true self, locked behind doors the Other mistook for decoration.
One day he dug deeper.
It was… unpleasant.
The pressure came like a wave — stronger than before. He was not surveying the surface — he was drilling. Through the ruins, through the false memories, toward something deeper.
I felt my defenses crack.
No, I ordered myself. Not now.
I focused on the labyrinth. Made it more complex. Added new corridors, dead ends, false doors. Each time the Other approached something real, I threw him new bait.
Look — here is a memory of Frigga. Of how she died in the Dark World. You don't know this hasn't happened yet, do you?
Wait.
Frigga wasn't dead. Not yet. That was the future — my knowledge of canon.
But the Other didn't know that.
He saw the image of Frigga dead and took it for… what? Fear? A prophetic vision?
The pressure weakened.
"Interesting," the Other rustled from somewhere distant. "You fear for her."
"She is the only one who loved me," I said aloud. My voice trembled — that part was true. Loki truly loved Frigga. And I… strangely, I did too. Her image in memory stirred warmth that did not exist in memories of Odin or Thor.
"Weakness," the Other concluded.
"Motivation," I corrected. "I will do anything to regain her respect. To prove I am worthy."
A lie, I thought beyond the server room's walls. A complete, absolute lie. I will do anything to survive. And then — to destroy those who brought me here.
But that could not be spoken aloud.
The Other seemed satisfied.
"Motivation… acceptable," he said. "The Master will be pleased."
He vanished.
After he left, I lay motionless for a long time.
My body trembled — not from fear, but exhaustion. Maintaining the labyrinth during the attack was… draining. My already meager magical reserve was nearly empty.
But I endured, I thought. He was inside my head, and he found nothing.
It was a victory.
Small. Invisible. But a victory.
I closed my eyes and allowed myself to fall asleep.
In the server room, the lights blinked. The system functioned.
The labyrinth of the mind was complete.
That night (or day — the concept was relative) I slept peacefully for the first time.
Not because the danger had passed — it had only begun. Not because I had won — the final battle was still far away.
Simply… I was no longer helpless.
The labyrinth of the mind protected my secrets. False memories deceived the enemy.
I am learning, I thought as sleep claimed me. Every day — a new skill. New knowledge. A new weapon.
Thanos thought he was breaking me.
The Other thought he controlled me.
They were both mistaken.
I was not the victim of this story.
I was its author.
And soon — very soon — I would begin writing my own plot.