Chapter Text
“Guururrauuuuuugghhhhhaaaaa!"
The noise was all the warning Loki needed. He tossed his book aside and leapt to catch the curios that tumbled off of his chest of drawers once the ground began to shake, the way it only does in the wake of a natural disaster or an angry thunder-god. All and the same, really.
“Lokiiiiiii!!” Thor’s voice bellowed, coming towards Loki’s room so fast it was practically Doppler-shifted.
“What is it? Stop shaking the floor, for dad’s sake!” Loki carefully put the crystal statue of a horse back on the chest, followed by a delicate vase decorated with twining snakes and vines.
A blond eclipse shadowed his doorway. “Loki!!”
“Yes, I’m here, it’s my room.” Loki finished replacing the decorative trinkets, then turned to his brother with a sigh. “What is it now?”
“Do you have my hammer??” The vein pulsing on Thor’s temple couldn’t be healthy.
“Oh, yes, it’s right up my arse,” Loki said, brightly. He paused a moment to let the sarcasm trickle slowly through Thor’s brain, and added, “Of course I haven’t seen your bloody hammer! You probably got pissed last night and left it in the dining hall.”
“I checked the dining hall,” Thor said, sullenly, stepping into Loki’s room.
“Then ask Heimdall.”
“I don’t know where it is.” Both Asgardians whipped around, startled by Heimdall’s silent entrance. Loki cringed at the muddy bootprints the man was leaving on his floor.
“How did you know I was looking for it?” Thor asked.
“One needn’t have preternatural senses to have heard your screaming this morning,” Heimdall noted.
“Screaming? I was shouting! I was upset!”
“Yes… we know,” Loki sighed.
Thor sighed and flitted his fingers at Loki. “Well, if it’s not around here, go look for it for me, will you?”
“Oh, yes, I’ll just drop everything and go look for your hammer, won’t I. Here,” Loki pulled back his cloak, “here are my knives. And there,” he pointed at the wall, “is my spear. I didn’t lose my weapons; why should I look for yours?”
“Mjolnir doesn’t feel all that great, does it?” Thor asked. Loki reluctantly shook his head. “Now, imagine someone who doesn’t like you as much as I do hitting you in the head with it. Got it? Now go…” Thor flitted his fingers again, “turn into a bird or something, and find it.”
Loki rolled his eyes. “Yes, a bird. With a little bird brain and little bird claws. I’m sure I can not only find your hammer, but bring it back, while I’m a swallow.”
“You could borrow Freya’s feathers,” Heimdall suggested, face still impasssive. “That would let you fly in your current form.”
“Oh, that’s a brilliant idea!” Thor’s grin practically split his face. “Yes, go borrow Freya’s feathers.”
“No, you go borrow Freya’s feathers.” Loki irritably started to pull more flying-friendly clothing out of his wardrobe. “She doesn’t like me.”
“Righty ho, I’ll be right back!” Thor sailed out of the room like a frigate.
“You couldn’t have left well enough alone, could you,” Loki grumbled at Heimdall as he ripped off his comfortable clothing and donned too-tight trousers and shirt. “Volunteering me for a long, boring survey mission to find his damn plaything…”
“He broke my demitasse set,” Heimdall replied, eternally unperturbed. “I can’t have that sort of thing going on regularly – it’s going to be very hard to replace. I have heard slight disturbances in Jotunheim, by the way. Something in the earth sounds wrong. That’s probably a good place to start.”
“You’re not just saying that?”
“Trust me.”
Loki most definitely did not, but it was as good a place to start as any, and he had a certain blood-right to go visiting. Not that the Jotun minded drawing a little blood to prove that right.
“Here you go!” Thor thundered (of course) back into Loki’s room, carrying a cloak of falcon feathers. “Indefinite loan, so take as long as you need. Off you go!”
“What is that?” Loki asked, pointing at the fine golden chains with silver pendants Thor was now wearing around his neck.
“Oh, these? Freya gave them to me. She felt sorry for me, losing the hammer and all that.” He cocked his head as Loki put on the cloak. “How does that let you fly?”
“The cloak synergizes with my glamour to give me fairly serviceable wings,” Loki explained, demonstrating by unfurling them.
“I don’t understand any of that.”
“No,” Loki sighed, taking his spear and stalking out of the room, “you wouldn’t."