There is something you need to understand about gods, and that is their unrivalled hatred of boredom. They will do anything within their not inconsiderable power to keep things fresh. Plagues are an old favourite. Nothing gets the people praying like a good old fashioned plague.
Another thing you should know about gods is that they get bored very, very easily. You have probably been bitten by fleas with longer attention spans. The old gods are not so bad in this respect; gods that lived in the rocks and trees and wild animals before the invention of time are good at patience, if nothing else. It is the new gods you have to be wary of; gods of war and wealth and wisdom, and of all other things born out of the chaotic hearts of Men. Because, like all things born of chaos, gods love mayhem.
None as much as Loki, however, nor in quite the same way. If chaos were Loki’s wife, he would sleep with her sisters. And their husbands. And their sisters. Loki was fire and mischief in their purest forms. He was wild laughter embodied. He was a child hyped up on artificial sweetener, with his father’s lighter in one sticky fist and pockets stuffed full of firecrackers, on a cosmic scale. And he was always in motion, never in one place for longer than it took to topple a building or set a dog on its master.
Being stuck in one place, therefore – even an infinite place like Chaos – was something of a drag for Loki. He craved more, or rather, he craved less. He missed the simple things that only a physical realm like the Worlds could provide. While the other gods built their imaginary palaces and waged their imaginary wars, Loki dreamed of burning cities. What is destruction without creation, after all? And women. Gods, how he missed women. Men, too. Just sex in general, really; it was the only thing that mortals had ever gotten truly right.
All of this had driven Loki to the very edge of Chaos, not in search of a way out but a way in. And, after a hellishly long time even by his standards, he had found it.
Whatever the mortals had been doing in the gods’ absence, it had caused the metaphysical barrier between Here and There - the Firmament - to come awry. Not enough to be particularly troubling for those on the other side, but just enough to give Loki something to latch onto. And as he worked on widening this tiny pull in the fabric of the universe, smaller than the smallest space between atoms, he had found something else as well.
Or rather, She had found him.
Infinity was a surprisingly small space once it was packed with infinite beings, and Loki had encountered all of them at one point or another, even the ones who hadn’t been worshipped since before the invention of time. Yggdrasil’s existence had always been a matter of some debate, and even now, with Her hovering over his shoulder in an amorphous chaotic omnipresence, Loki was not entirely convinced. She must have been lurking around the borders of Chaos longer than he had, an estranged mother trying desperately to get back to Her children. Perhaps She had seen a kindred spirit in Loki; more likely She had recognised the opportunity he represented.
They made an unlikely pair, the Trickster and the Tree of Life, but the arrangement worked well enough. Loki worked on widening the loophole and Yggdrasil hovered, making sarcastic comments and generally being unhelpful. At times Loki wondered if She knew more about this whole business than She let on, but anyone who has ever tried to interrogate a tree will understand why he saw no point in pressing Her. Her wants were his wants, more or less, and that was enough for him. Together, they were packing their metaphorical bags and heading for greener pastures.
Well. Pastures that had been green the last time Loki had seen them, anyway. If the mortals were managing to rip holes in the Firmament, gods only knew what they had done to their Worlds. There was no way to tell how much time had passed since the mortals had pulled the plug on the gods and sent them spinning home to Chaos, and no way to look in on things to make sure that the aforementioned pastures were as green as he remembered. Not that it mattered particularly; Loki was nothing if not adaptable, and as long as the Worlds kept spinning there would always be tricks to play, rules to break, cities to burn…
You’re doing it again, said Yggdrasil.
Loki blinked, hands frozen mid-gesture. ‘Doing what?’
Monologuing.
Loki scoffed. ‘Villains monologue. I don’t.’
You do. She almost sounded amused. It’s cute.
‘Please don’t use that word.’
You had that vacant look in your eyes, she went on, ignoring Loki’s pained expression. I bet you do it in third person, too. You do, don’t you?
‘Would you be quiet? I’m trying to concentrate…’
Are you? If you spent less time on your internal angst-wanking and more on the task in hand, you might have worked it out years ago.
‘If you’re not going to be quiet,’ said Loki, delicately, ‘could you at least put on some skin? You know I hate talking to thin air.’
Of course I know. There was a sound like bark bending and cracking, a rush of air, and Yggdrasil materialised with an audible pop. Loki gave Her a crooked grin.
‘Much better.’
Yggdrasil’s expression did not change. I don’t know how you stand this, She said. It’s so… constricting.
Others might have been disconcerted by the way the goddess spoke without using Her mouth, but not Loki. At least She didn’t have a penchant for tentacles. He ran an approving eye over Yggdrasil’s dull silver skin, lingering, as they always did, on Her breasts, which lacked nipples. In Her physical form Yggdrasil always appeared naked, but despite Her womanly figure She was as featureless as a doll. Wryly, Loki wondered how many mortals had fallen in love with Her alien beauty, only to be sorely disappointed by Her lack of holes; looking at Her, it was easy to forget that was as much a Tree as she was a Mother. Her hair, woven with flowers like tiny white stars, fell down Her back in a motionless cascade of ashen green roots.
Loki shrugged, still gazing intently at Her breasts. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I like it.’
Yggdrasil folded Her arms. We are infinite, Loki. We were never meant to be confined by skin.
She almost sounded sympathetic, and maybe She was; Yggdrasil with a face was only slightly less inexpressive than Yggdrasil as an amorphous chaotic omnipresence.
‘Maybe you weren’t,’ Loki said, and turned back to his work.
He had always enjoyed the grounded feeling that came with wearing a human skin. There were so many sensations, so many experiences, that gods missed out on simply because they could not feel, and Loki had never been in favour of letting mortals have all the fun simply because they could. His current form was one of his old favourites, a deceptively youthful man with fiery red hair, tanned skin, and a lively sprinkling of freckles. His eyes, the only aspect he could not change, were Loki’s own shade of electric green.
Bit of a special snowflake, are we?
‘I always hated snow. Shut up, would you? I’m almost there.’
If you say so.
Loki gritted his teeth and tried to remember what he had been doing. His hands were still poised exactly where they had been when Yggdrasil had so rudely interrupted. It was a precaution he had learned to take the hard way; being flung halfway across infinity by broken spellwork was a decidedly unfun experience. Think snapping a very, very, very large rubber band made entirely of very large, very angry wasps. After some thought, Loki picked up the spell where he had left off. His fingers blurred, picking apart the threads of the Firmament and weaving in new ones of his own. Widening, strengthening. Heat radiated from the space in front of him, and his nose filled with the smell of burning cinnamon.
Slow down, Yggdrasil warned. You’re going to-
‘Oh, fuck me,’ Loki swore, as he felt something break in his hands. With an ear-splitting crack, the loophole tore open, and Yggdrasil watched dispassionately as Loki was sucked, still yelling obscenities, into its ragged maw.
I told him so, She said to the maw, and jumped after him.
*
There is something you need to understand about the universe, and that is its unrivalled hatred of change. Moments after Loki and Yggdrasil disappeared into the Between, the ragged edges of the loophole snapped closed, and nothing but the lingering smell of burnt cinnamon remained to tell that it had ever existed.
A few moments later, that, too, had vanished.
*