Sorcery and lust

Asgard was absolutely beautiful in the spring sunshine, but if you ask Loki, he would answer that the sight of the golden city makes him sick. Asgard was the abode of light and strong magic, and each of its inhabitants possessed the same light magic. For example, their mother Frigga possessed healing magic that could save lives and even bring people back from the dead. His elder brother Thor had the gift of summoning and expelling rains, and was revered by everyone as the god of fertility. And Loki… Loki didn’t have any magical powers. Since childhood, he admired how his mother could revive withered flowers and made the most skittish horses docile and obedient. He admired and dreamed: when he grows up, he will also be able to revive flowers and pacify horses. No, even better — he will be able to create flowers all by himself. He had once seen Thor’s friend Sif who was bragging to their company by making a thousand different flowers bloom in the air with a single movement of her hand. Loki was dreaming of this moment! All his life he was preparing for his tenth birthday because, at this age, every child in Asgard showed their magical powers. Frigga smiled affectionately whenever Loki, flashing his eyes in anticipation and choking with delight, began to wonder again and again what kind of power was meant for him. Could it be healing, like a mother’s power? Or maybe the magic of light, like father’s one? Or rains and storms, like Thor’s? Or maybe he will be able to talk to animals and birds? Mother, mother, it’s going to be just wonderful, you know? And Frigga nodded, but there were troubles in her eyes. She often locked herself in their shared chambers with her husband for a long time and explained something to Odin, encouraged him to act, but the ruler of Asgard lingered as if waiting for something… Loki didn’t get any powers on his tenth birthday. He waited all day for this incredible feeling of omnipotence that would finally cover him (as Thor told him), but the day passed, night came, then the next morning and Loki didn’t feel anything special. Crying he rushed to his mother, buried his nose in her long-sleeved clothes, crying out all his childhood sorrows and tears. Frigga shook her head, stroking her son’s fluffy crown, and whispered, “My poor boy… That’s okay, don’t be sad. Everything will be alright.” Everything will be alright! Sure thing! Unless his mother meant by this phrase that the whole of Asgard would know that he was worthless! Loki’s peers didn’t like him — he was too quiet, timid, on his mind, unlike others, and therefore they rushed to tease him with joy, all together. And this crowd, Loki wasn’t even surprised, was led by his older brother. With Thor, they were… Well, they didn’t get along, probably. Everything was great until Hogun, Fandral, Volstagg and Sif appeared! Before meeting them, Thor always played with his younger brother, stole sweets from the kitchen for him, read fairy tales in the evenings and in general he was a very exemplary older brother, on whom Loki doted. And then… As if these “friends” had replaced him! And then hell broke loose. Starting with a quite harmless name-calling like “black otter”, ending with very painful kicks and punches. Loki, of course, couldn’t stand it — he went to complain to his mother, and very soon the fame of a tattletale was fixed on him. After that, the relationship with his brother deteriorated completely, and Loki tried his best not to catch his eye. Especially after his tenth birthday, eleventh and then twelfth, when it became absolutely clear that Loki didn’t possess light magic. When he turned sixteen, and magic never appeared, Thor laughed until his stomach ached, until colic, and Loki looked at him with a rapidly darkening face and thought about how he could admire this man at all. This… This! There was a loud bang in the hallway, and Thor dazedly pressed his hand to his cheek. There was a trace of Loki’s palm burning there, and… did it seem to him, or did the cheek burn with fire? It could be attributed to the sensation of the blow, but judging by Loki’s eyes widened in amazement, Thor realised that he hadn’t imagined it. “Loki, did you just.?” “I… I need to… Go to the library.” And went away. Thor looked after him and didn’t understand anything. Fire magic, if any lived in Loki, wasn’t light magic. Yes, the flame helped to warm up and cook food, but most often it burned, devoured, killed… In the library, Loki frantically grabbed book after book, but nowhere could he find any information about what could have happened to him. He felt it, he felt magic, primordial, raw, filling his whole being, and it scared him worse than the scary fairy tales that Thor told him as a child. His gaze fell on an inconspicuous book pushed somewhere completely into a corner. It was old and dusty, and Loki marvelled that the servants hadn’t put it in order, and then his gaze fell on the title, and he shuddered inwardly. The book was about the use of dark magic: the magic of fire and ice, the magic of darkness and death. About the magic that was forbidden in Asgard. Loki remembered his mother had told him and Thor about dark magicians. She said they were unhappy, unappreciated people who were killed simply because they were born with powers others didn’t understand. Thor then violently swung his fists, as if not hearing his mother, he promised to catch every dark magician and judge for dark sorcery. Frigga looked away from her eldest son and sighed. She quietly told Loki that dark magic was scary. That it has its price, son, remember it well. It’s tempting to possess the powers of darkness, and many frivolous youngsters have fallen into the traps of imaginary omnipotence. And then the magic appeared to take what was due to it, drink the carrier to the end, dry up the soul, turn the heart into stone. “Remember this, Loki. One thing is to be born with powers that we conditionally consider dark, for example, fire magic or night magic, but it’s quite a different thing to develop them. Walk the dark path. This is the only thing that light magic, reigning in Asgard, does not forgive. In the end, you have to pay for it.” His mother’s words were beating in his head, but the book in his hands made his heart flutter. He’s not worthless! He will be able to prove to everyone that he also owns magic! And not just some kind of useless, like growing flowers, like Sif, but dangerous, deadly… He could become all-powerful! He could bring everyone to their knees with just a flick of his hand. It was only necessary… It was only necessary to find more books. It was necessary to find every book about dark sorcery that was available in Asgard, study them all, try out every spell, and then… Loki rolled his eyes, and sweet images of him sitting on the throne of Asgard were already flashing through his imagination, and in front of him, kneeling, the strongest god, the god of fertility, the lord of rains and storms, his elder brother Thor, begging him to let him out of the fiery cage. Oh, then he’ll have a good laugh! With renewed vigour, he took up reading a forbidden book, and then another, and another, and another… Frigga understood that something was wrong with her son. Her mother’s heart whispered to her that it was worth intervening, it was worth talking, it was worth asking what was gnawing at Loki’s soul. But like every married woman in Asgard, she was too dependent on her husband, and Odin categorically forbade her to talk about magic with their son. All she could do was watch her child’s heart turn black, always quiet and timid, affectionate, gentle Loki leaves, and in his place appears a monster, a product of dark magic, something that was no longer her son. One day at breakfast, she looked into her beloved green eyes and was horrified: it seemed that a swirling dark abyss was looking at her from there, which threatened to drag her in as well. And then there was a fire in Asgard. The flame crawled, twisted, swirled, and seemed to have its mind. It devoured people, swallowed whole houses, and chaos, screams, and pain reigned everywhere. Frigga wiped her face with her hand, but only smeared more soot on it. But she was not up to it, not up to beauty, not up to hairstyles and not up to dresses, there, in the centre of this madness, her son was laughing no less madly. Loki was surrounded by a ring of fire, and it, obedient to his will, rushed from house to house, from god to god. Sif’s golden hair, the object of her pride, flared up in a second and turned into black dust, and then the girl herself screamed, falling to the ground when the fire began to lick her hands, leaving huge blisters. There was a smell of fried meat, and Frigga almost threw up. But… she had a task. She needed to stop her son, even if it cost her her life. “Loki, son, what have you done?..” the queen of Asgard fell to her knees in front of Loki, and all the sounds around suddenly ceased to exist. Loki turned around, looking at her and laughing convulsively. His eyes turned completely black. “Don’t you remember? You will pay for this dark magic with your soul! Is it worth it?..” “Mother,” Loki began ingratiatingly, dropping to one knee in front of his mother and lifting her by the hand. “I remember everything you said. Every word you said, mother. But what do I need a soul for if no one looks at me without disgust and ridicule?” it seemed that Loki was going to cry, and Frigga hoped that there was still at least a drop of humanity left in her younger son. But her hopes weren’t destined to come true: Loki didn’t cry, he laughed hoarsely, throwing his head back. “I don’t need a soul in a world where everyone considers my strength a danger! I don’t need it in a world where everyone will look at me and think that I must be a criminal if I own fire! I just brought their deepest fears to life, mother, don’t you see? They feared and hated people like me the most, they wanted those who possess dark magic to die. And I took it, and just 'poof! ' — killed them myself. Isn’t it funny, mother?” “Loki, do you think that taking someone else’s life is just a funny joke?” Frigga whispered in horror, and then stopped, looking at the mighty figure of her elder son growing behind Loki. Thor towered over them, unshakable, reliable as the ice of Jotunheim, and Frigga suddenly saw clearly what would happen next. Once, many years ago, an old fortune-teller told her that rain would always extinguish the flame. Then the queen was surprised by this well-known truth, but now she understood. She understood everything. Loki, sensing that someone appeared behind him, turned sharply and his fist, enveloped in greenish flames, crashed into the steel side of Thor’s weapon. The hammer instantly absorbed the fire, and Loki, not expecting this, retreated a couple of steps. “You’ve been playing with people’s lives long enough, Loki,” Thor said grimly, but Frigga saw how difficult it was for her firstborn to speak in such a firm voice. His golden hair scattered over his shoulders, and one eye swelled, but Thor only tightened his grip on Mjolnir, ready to repel Loki’s attack at any second. But Loki was in no hurry to attack: he looked dumbfounded from his palms to the hammer and back and muttered something to himself. And then suddenly he laughed, bitterly, painfully. “You’ve won, Thor, son of Odin. Wow! The rain! I completely forgot about it!” The laughter turned into howls, and Loki sank to the ground, shuddering. Frigga felt that there wasn’t a drop of magic left in him, everything was drunk by the insatiable hammer with which Thor created rains and thunder. “You won… And here I am again — a nonentity. Without magic. And I’ll be a dead man soon, as everyone wanted. No, truly… No one can compete with the laws of the Universe, and I am a fool, who tried…” It started raining. And the rain extinguished the flame.