Loki fiddled with the hem of his right sleeve. No matter how he pulled at it, the sleeve was half an inch too short and the shirt itself, for what had to be the first time in his life, sat too tight around his shoulders. It was his fault. He had wanted to make a statement on this day, but had no idea what that statement was supposed to be.

He certainly had no intention of turning up in his familiar green and gold; today was supposed to be the start of a new era after all. Nor did he want armour. He wasn't a warrior and wasn't about to become one. Something red? That had been Thor's favoured colour. Blue - too evocative of his Jotunn heritage. Purple - he looked ludicrous in purple. In the end, he had decided on black. He was in mourning; there was nothing more appropriate.

The trouble was, by the time he had made up his mind, there had scarcely been any time left for the tailor and his assistants to do their work. They had laboured through the night and, well, the results were obvious.

'Loki?' came Fandral's voice from somewhere behind him. A few moments later, Loki heard the man's boots saunter across the parquet floor. 'Lo... your highness? Your -'

Loki spun about so sharply, Fandral jerked to a stop. After a momentary awkward silence, he cleared his throat and offered a courteous bow. Loki motioned for him to straighten up. He could have directed Fandral not to address him by his title either, but there seemed no purpose to it. The relations between them were about to change and Loki had to become accustomed to hearing his name less frequently. The idle ceremonials had irked his patience as a prince, there would be no chance of escaping them now.

'Your father bad me to tell you that everything is ready,' Fandral said. 'It is only you they await.'

Loki leaned until he had a good vantage of the crowd down in the Great Hall. He stood several floors above them, hidden from view by a gilded panel in-cut with semi-abstract flowers - an innocuous feature to help the ventilation in the palace, but also an excellent hiding spot. No one below could see who stood behind the panel, not that many people ever glanced up.

No one was looking up today either. The crowd, although as finely dressed as at the last coronation to take place on Asgard, was smaller and more sedate. Loki couldn't summon the energy to despise them for this lack of enthusiasm - he too wasn't in the mood for any sort of celebration.

'Shall I return with an indication of when you will be ready?' Fandral asked.

Loki shook his head, only now realising that he had failed to respond to Fandral's previous remark, then pulled down the shirt sleeves as far as they would go. 'No. We'd best start before anyone collapses from the fervour of their anticipation.'

Fandral's lips curled up momentarily, but then he seemed unable to decide whether Loki had been joking or not. Loki didn't see a reason to enlighten him. He moved past Fandral and headed towards the back stairs down to the Great Hall, trusting that Fandral would follow. Sure enough, the drum of Fandral's heeled boots soon matched his own footsteps.

'I don't think I ever thanked you for lending me the rapier,' Loki said as they trudged down the stairs. 'I would've returned it, but it snapped in half when I was up against Laufey.'

'Then the weapon served its purpose,' Fandral replied and flashed Loki that same smile that made all the young women in the palace swoon. When they reached the narrow ante-chamber at the bottom of the stairs, however, he schooled his expression once more. 'I'll tell your father you are ready. Best of luck, Loki.'

He ducked through the side door and would no doubt skirt the edge of the crowd in the Great Hall until he got to the dais. Loki, on the other hand, had to take the long way around and enter through the main entrance. Sneaking through the side door didn't befit a king. He trudged, pausing every few feet to acknowledge the palace guards standing watch, but eventually, he ran out of soldiers to divert his attention to and the doors waited before him.

I could be on Sakaar right now, enjoying the undivided attention of a downright mesmerising set of Widlic triplets.

Loki took a deep breath and motioned for the guard at the door to draw them open. The moment he stepped through, a roar went up through the hall. Not cheering, but the sum of thousands of people frantically whispering. He didn't linger his gaze on any of them. His task was to get to the dais. Not too quickly though, he didn't want to look like he was running there, either out of anticipation or out of fear. But with every step, the wrongness of this moment weighed heavier on him. By the time he reached the dais, his chest felt tighter than his shirt.

The two years he had spent impersonating Odin had disabused him of any notion that he could enjoy the day-to-day duties of a king. If not for his reluctance to leave the Tesseract unwatched, he would have abandoned that charade. But back then Loki had at least been able to blame any mistakes he made or flights of fancy he insisted upon on Odin's advancing years, as well as the grief of having lost both a wife and a son. Loki wouldn't have any such safety buffer now. He would rule in his own name. Every mistake made would be his and his alone.

'Here I am, father,' Loki muttered under his breath. 'For a change, your dutiful son.'

He halted at the base of the dais and peered up. His mother and father waited at either side of the throne, while the high-ranking officials of the realm had spread out on the stairs. Many were new faces. More than half of the king's council had been replaced and Thor had ordered a great number of other appointments over the past year. The Warriors Three were there too. Thor had given them some official positions; Loki had forgotten what those entailed.

Odin took a few steps forward. Loki sank to one knee and the gathered throng behind him fell silent.

'Loki Odinson,' his father began. 'Born among the frost-bitten forests of Jotunheim...'

He couldn't bear listening to the speech. Although he consciously knew that his father had to have a point to make and had the rhetorical skill few in Asgard could match, the best Loki could manage right now was not to visibly cringe. The people of Asgard had just lost their beloved young king, they didn't need to be reminded that his replacement was an impostor and the blood-son of their enemy.

'Loki Odinson,' his father said sharply. Loki had a feeling Odin had a sharp enough eye to notice his youngest hadn't been listening to his oratory. Like a chastised schoolboy, Loki jerked and stared up at his father with widened eyes. 'No one loved your brother more dearly than you and you walk this day bearing the burden of immeasurable grief, but you too were born a prince and raised to be king. Are you ready then to take up the mantle of kingship?'

'King Thor named me his successor,' Loki replied softly, too softly for many in the crowd to hear. But he was speaking less for their benefit than to console himself. 'To reject his will, would be to spit upon the bond of brotherhood we shared since our earliest days.'

Odin nodded, the very picture of composure for the crowd, but Loki was close enough to notice his hand tighten around Gungnir's shaft 'Then, as king, do you swear to guard the Nine Realms?'

'I swear,' Loki said.

'Do you swear to preserve the peace?'

'I swear.'

'Do you swear to cast aside all selfish ambition and to pledge yourself only to the good of the realm?'

Loki clenched his eyes shut as he offered his final response. 'I swear.'

'Then, on this day,' his father went on, his voice gaining new volume. 'I, Odin Borson, proclaim you king of Asgard!'

The crowd broke out into applause and a few high-pitched hollers rose above the general cacophony. Loki rose up and squaring his shoulders, turned to face them. He waited for the noise to fade, all the while his eyes darted from one spot in the crowd to another, trying to get the truth of the sentiment. He was here because it was his duty to be here, how many of them were here because when a new king took his oaths, he was supposed to have a crowd at his back? How many were actually glad to bear witness to this ceremony?

He couldn't take it anymore. Letting them settle on their own, Loki climbed the stairs up to the dais, to the comforting presence of his family. His father smiled warmly, which Loki appreciated although he wasn't comforted by the gesture whatsoever. That sense of appreciation faded when Odin offered up Gungnir for him to take.

It's already too late. There's no unsaying those oaths.

Loki lifted the great spear out of his father's hands; the weapon had never felt more cumbersome than in this moment.

'You have already made us proud, my boy - me, your mother and your brother,' his father said, his voice low so no one apart from Loki and Frigga could hear him. 'And you will only make us prouder yet. Now, this is done. Take what is yours.'

'Thank you, father,' Loki replied reflexively.

He sucked in a breath and walked the three steps over to the throne. As he shifted the weighty material of his ceremonial cloak aside and positioned himself into his seat, all the previous times he had occupied this same seat ricocheted through his mind: his brief regency, the two years he had worn his father's face, his three days as king after Thor's punishment and that time, centuries ago, when he had first sat up here.

Back then, Thor and Loki had snuck out late at night in search of jam tarts leftover from the evening's feast, which the brothers had been too young to attend. On the way back from the kitchen, they had gotten side-tracked and ended up in the Great Hall. Loki couldn't remember now who idea it had been to climb onto the throne. He remembered well, however, that after the excitement of examining the elaborate back-panels and arm-rests, the late hour caught up to them. Yawning, the two of them ended up seated comfortably side-by-side in the great seat and feasted.

Father wasn't so pleased to find crumbs and smears of jam all over his throne the next morning.

Loki bit down on his lip to stop himself from chuckling, but when he raised his head and was once more confronted with the crowd gathered for the coronation, all mirth in him fled anyway. There was no exhilaration here, no excitement. Was it because their grief was still too near? Or was it him they objected to? Tyr and Agnar hadn't been alone in believing Loki's rule was an affront to every true Asgardian.

It wasn't him they should be concerned about, of course. The Conversion approached and with it, the Dark Elves. Hela too wouldn't remain bound forever. In time, other threats would emerge and it would be Loki's duty to tackle them all.

'If they despise me, then so be it,' he told himself. 'At least, this time around, they still live.'

And as long as I'm around, that's not going to change.