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coldsongI am the Trickster. I do what the other gods dare not do: out of fear, or out of conscience, or out of dignity. Just as no iniquity is beyond me, neither is any sacrifice. I cross lines, I break boundaries. I transgress.
As surely as I am born of ice and darkness, I am born of that.
Blue creeps up my arms, the chill ascends, my eyes burn red.
I am Ice and Fire in the darkest time of the year. Night swallows the sun, until the sun burns through Winter’s bones. There is assurance in that, in the steady cycle, the heartbeat of the universe. But in that one moment, when darkness smothers light down until no more than a spark, there is despair. There is grief. There is desperation. There is death.
I am born of that.
Because I, I am the monster that parents tell their children about at night—-
We never had much of a chance against Thanos. It took me some time to realize that. It took months of slow, insidious torture, under the guise of education, while I laughed and screamed, wept and bargained to no avail. It took the culling of three planets, watching Thanos’ children sow slaughter and leave numbness and grieving in their wake.
A simple calculus, he explained. The Black Order’s blessing to the Universe. In a generation, the scars will heal, the planet will prosper and become a paradise. I do not want a paradise. I do not belong in a paradise.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
All things die. We all march singly into darkness and crushing cold. If there is a spring after that final Winter, I do not expect to see it. It is not for me.
But it is the prerogative of those that exist to cling to existence, to grip until fingernails shred. And so have I done, grasping blindly at loopholes, hiding, playing tricks that were not games, but in fact desperate gambits for survival.
I’ve failed. It’s time to accept that. Whether I am dead, merely in stasis awaiting Thanos’ pleasure, or whether some stranger phenomenon is at play, my plans have come to naught.
I can still make new plans.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.
I have seen the tapestry of the universe bent, turned and twisted wrong-side-up until the knots and tangles on the underside show. And I am myself a web, a tangle, a knot. I will reach between those threads. I will pluck at the knots and yank out wayward fibers by the handful. What Thanos would burn wholesale, I will tear and braid and retangle; I will stitch it into a shape more pleasing to my eye. All on the wrong side of the tapestry, where no one looks. Beneath the slippery fabric, where neither eye nor needle pierce. And none will see the pattern until I give the word.
Asgard is Mine. Thor is king, by rights; he looks the part. He acts the part. He is sunshine where I am shadow. I concede. I am done with the throne. But I am not done with Asgard—it is a people, not a place, and they are Mine.
I remember their names, every last one, and here I write them, here I carve them into ice, the ones who fell at the Black Order’s hand, who fell where even the ravens could not bury them.
I remember you. I burn for you like a memorial pyre, and I will come for you.
Hela had an army of undead warriors. I do not desire that. I want the voices of the Aesir raised behind mine, shrieking in the cosmic wind until Thanos and his ilk abandon hope of rest. I want to harry him to the ends of time. I want him broken, harmless, destroyed, and I want him to live into eternity like that, solitary and humbled, bound, with his own venom dripping into his face and none to spare him the sting.
Spite? You do not know spite, Titan. You do not know Loki.
I am a god. I am the god of petty disaster, of humiliation, of mockery. I am the Trickster, and I transgress. There is no consistency in the Multiverse but that the mighty shall always be brought low, in time.
The meek, too, will be brought low, but they don’t have quite so far to fall.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down
My people, I reach for you. Those who loved me and those who did not. Those who were pure and those who were not. The young, the old, the brave and the cowardly. You are mine, you are mine, you are mine, and I am yours. I defy death, I defy fate: the threads the Norns have cut will be respun between my fingers.
The mighty will fall. Thanos will suffer. My brother will live.
And Death Shall Have No Dominion.
As surely as I am born of ice and darkness, I am born of that.
Blue creeps up my arms, the chill ascends, my eyes burn red.
I am Ice and Fire in the darkest time of the year. Night swallows the sun, until the sun burns through Winter’s bones. There is assurance in that, in the steady cycle, the heartbeat of the universe. But in that one moment, when darkness smothers light down until no more than a spark, there is despair. There is grief. There is desperation. There is death.
I am born of that.
Because I, I am the monster that parents tell their children about at night—-
We never had much of a chance against Thanos. It took me some time to realize that. It took months of slow, insidious torture, under the guise of education, while I laughed and screamed, wept and bargained to no avail. It took the culling of three planets, watching Thanos’ children sow slaughter and leave numbness and grieving in their wake.
A simple calculus, he explained. The Black Order’s blessing to the Universe. In a generation, the scars will heal, the planet will prosper and become a paradise. I do not want a paradise. I do not belong in a paradise.
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
All things die. We all march singly into darkness and crushing cold. If there is a spring after that final Winter, I do not expect to see it. It is not for me.
But it is the prerogative of those that exist to cling to existence, to grip until fingernails shred. And so have I done, grasping blindly at loopholes, hiding, playing tricks that were not games, but in fact desperate gambits for survival.
I’ve failed. It’s time to accept that. Whether I am dead, merely in stasis awaiting Thanos’ pleasure, or whether some stranger phenomenon is at play, my plans have come to naught.
I can still make new plans.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.
I have seen the tapestry of the universe bent, turned and twisted wrong-side-up until the knots and tangles on the underside show. And I am myself a web, a tangle, a knot. I will reach between those threads. I will pluck at the knots and yank out wayward fibers by the handful. What Thanos would burn wholesale, I will tear and braid and retangle; I will stitch it into a shape more pleasing to my eye. All on the wrong side of the tapestry, where no one looks. Beneath the slippery fabric, where neither eye nor needle pierce. And none will see the pattern until I give the word.
Asgard is Mine. Thor is king, by rights; he looks the part. He acts the part. He is sunshine where I am shadow. I concede. I am done with the throne. But I am not done with Asgard—it is a people, not a place, and they are Mine.
I remember their names, every last one, and here I write them, here I carve them into ice, the ones who fell at the Black Order’s hand, who fell where even the ravens could not bury them.
I remember you. I burn for you like a memorial pyre, and I will come for you.
Hela had an army of undead warriors. I do not desire that. I want the voices of the Aesir raised behind mine, shrieking in the cosmic wind until Thanos and his ilk abandon hope of rest. I want to harry him to the ends of time. I want him broken, harmless, destroyed, and I want him to live into eternity like that, solitary and humbled, bound, with his own venom dripping into his face and none to spare him the sting.
Spite? You do not know spite, Titan. You do not know Loki.
I am a god. I am the god of petty disaster, of humiliation, of mockery. I am the Trickster, and I transgress. There is no consistency in the Multiverse but that the mighty shall always be brought low, in time.
The meek, too, will be brought low, but they don’t have quite so far to fall.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down
My people, I reach for you. Those who loved me and those who did not. Those who were pure and those who were not. The young, the old, the brave and the cowardly. You are mine, you are mine, you are mine, and I am yours. I defy death, I defy fate: the threads the Norns have cut will be respun between my fingers.
The mighty will fall. Thanos will suffer. My brother will live.
And Death Shall Have No Dominion.