The Gospel of Loki

I tried a last, miserable tactic. ‘Please. I love you, Sig,’ I said.

That’s how pitiful I was. That’s how sorry I was for myself. That’s how wretchedly low I’d sunk – using the L-word to my wife . . .

Friendship is overrated. Who needs friends when you can have the certitudes of hostility? You know where you stand with an enemy. You know he won’t betray you. It’s the ones who claim to be your friends that you need to beware of.

Let there be light.

Preferably a sequel in which I rose from the dead, regained my glam, saved the Worlds, rebuilt Asgard and was generally welcomed by all as a hero and a conqueror.

But in this ocean of mangled dreams, what else was there to do but cling to even the smallest of straws?

Everyone dies, or disappears, or fades into oblivion. Let’s face it, that’s how all stories end, once you reach the final page.

EVERYONE THOUGHT I WAS DEAD.

That was what hurt me most, I guess; the knowledge that with my help, we could have beaten the prophecy.

Call it Destiny, if you like, or predetermination, but my path was written in runes of stone, even though I knew it would lead to darkness.

NO ONE SEES CLEARLY during a war. History gives perspective.