Chapter Text
He has always heard music.
When he first spoke of it, Lady Eir explained that he was hearing magic, hearing its form and breath, that magic was simply the lifeblood of the universe and when he manipulated those melodies that he was telling the universe what he felt. That it responded to his emotion and enacted it. That he was very lucky.
He did not feel lucky.
He could control how loud the music was by engaging in other things, so he did. When he read or played with Thor, when he talked, the music dulled, would quiet to just background noise and he could think. Sometimes, Thor's mere presence was enough to make the music quieten, or at least change into something softer. He began recognizing patterns, how everyone he dealt with had a leitmotif.
When he was eight and sick, some fever that made him burn and kept him weak and trapped in bed, coughing until he thought he might not have any lungs to cough with, he could not think, could not concentrate or focus on anything long enough to convince the universe he was too busy for its song. It pounded in his head, in his veins, made his heart stutter and thud with its whims; when people came to check on him their leitmotifs overlapped with what the universe sang into an unwieldy cacophony that made him weep in despair, which made him cough, which cycled into this spiral of wishing for silence, the silence his brother heard and took for granted. That they did, all of them, and for the first time he hated. Reached out and gripped and used his own voice to scream and tear and destroy, until his entire room burned; he did not know the universe's tongue then, but he screamed anyway, for it to stop, to just get the music out of his head, until he could do no more and lay in the burning, destroyed wreckage and wept, too weak to move.
The music did not stop.
He eventually began to work with the music, to try to understand it. He created the languages and symbols to describe the universe's sounds as he heard them; Lady Eir ever encouraged him, became a mentor. She knew, though she did not hear the same way he did, with the same depth—he knew that when he first showed her the alphabet he made, in how she looked at him sideways as he described the notations that indicated frequency and amplitude for each letter, the minute details each letter could convey. Understood, in crystalline detail, that she—the closest he had to mentor, the only one he could speak to about these things—could not pinpoint so precisely, that the words the universe spoke to her were derived and distilled into their own lexicon and language. So he did that next, made language and lexicon, grammar and dialect, so others could use his words.
When he first worked magic, he would have to speak, sing. He did not like being so restricted; he spent months and years honing it, making it so he only had to think, only had to reach out with his hand to conduct the sound of the universe into what he wanted. Sometimes, when he ached, when the world took from him(his son while he was gone, when he could do nothing, chained and sword digging into his jaws), when things reminded him of his never being king despite Odin's promises(Thor's shadow, Thor's "Know your place, brother"), when all he was was emotion ("So I am no more than than another stolen relic, locked up here until you might have use of me?!"), the words bubbled and welled in his throat and it was all he could do to not scream, to not unleash what welled up inside and let it out.
Odin knew. Knew that the music was there, tearing at him; knew if didn't necessarily understand that the universe whispered to Loki in song, whispered and coaxed and hummed and tried to get him to express. Loki was sure of it, when Odin passed his judgment. Very few in that court who watched him knew, but Odin did; Lady Eir's stricken features and eyes that welled with tears despite all that Loki had done; Thor's step forward (Thor, who did not know or understand, only remembered Loki sick and screaming to make it stop). Loki only smirked at Odin and stayed unbent.
It has been a very long time since he has been so alone, trapped with only his mind's amusement and the universe's song.
They leave him in blackness (even the fall from Bifrost had stars). His hands are bound in silk, so he cannot conduct the universe to his whims, but they do not gag him ("admit you were wrong, apologize and mean it," as if he would apologize at all!). Despite being able to feel the wall at his back and the floor underneath where he sits, he sometimes forgets, grows disoriented, loses sight of where Loki ends and where everything else begins. He does not know how long it has been, not in days or time that will make any sense to anyone else. It has been eight hundred eleven times he has fallen from Bifrost. It has been seven-hundred and eighty seven times that he has killed Laufey and been embraced by Frigga after. He has lost count of how many times he has hummed the song that twines in the wood of the mistletoe dart he carves, hands shaking in hatred ("Frigga will enjoy grandchildren she can hold without fear of them biting, eh?" and a golden smile for a golden god), or felt the tug of thread and pain as his lips are sewn shut. Scars and scabs reopen, fresh pain, new pain, old pain, pain that the universe feels and its responding requiem washes out all thought, for a while.
He digs through his memories, tries to find something he can interact with before he becomes little more than a shell the universe sings through. Mussed brown hair and fearless brown eyes despite being the most vulnerable of all; chest with its blue glow through the shirt and a witty retort. Tension that hovered in the air and laced it with a tense sexuality and danger all its own. He hums, casts his spirit elsewhere, and ignores the universe for a while.