Chapter Text
Loki sits at his desk.
It’s been a long day, but he finally managed to get Frigga convinced that he should get to borrow this book on illusionwork from her library.
He’d told her it was because the information could be useful to know, but he actually just thinks magic is really cool and wants to learn more about it. It’s not just for the pranking potential.
He would’ve tried to steal the book earlier, but since his birthday he’s now considered an adult, so if he gets caught stealing from her magic books he might actually get legally punished and even if that’s just a ‘might’ he really would rather not find out.
Can princes even be put in prison?
Loki banishes the thought and opens the book up, flips over the contents and starts reading.
Chapter one is just an introduction to what illusions are. It’s boring and he already knows what illusions are ; the name is pretty self explanatory. He skims over it and jumps to chapter two, which is about creating basic illusions. The examples given are of fruit and stationary objects. Loki tries to pay attention, he really does, but… the theory is sounding really easy .
Magic is all about willing things to happen. It’s essentially a manifestation of want. And not to brag, but Loki is pretty good at it, what with it being great for fooling people, and mischief being a part of his domain, and, generally speaking he wants a lot of things; mainly to mess with people, but also to watch them trip over invisible chairs.
He finishes on chapter two and makes himself an illusory apple to celebrate.
It dissolves into gold dust when he tries to take a bite, but that’s the point.
Chapter three goes over how to dispel static illusions. Boring. Biting works. Skip.
Chapter Four is where things start getting interesting.
It’s about dynamic illusions, which is exactly what would make the perfect disguises. The potential there is limitless. Frigga was a fool for giving him this book because now Loki is going to use this power for so many different pranks .
As he goes through the chapter, he gets up every now and then to make sure he’s doing it right.
He loves having a full-body mirror in his room sometimes.
Since the next chapter is about dispelling the dynamic illusions Loki just gets rid of the Thor, Sif and Fandral illusions on himself the only way he knows how at this point: biting the illusion away.
Chapter five is short, and when he dispels the illusion the ‘proper’ way he doesn’t know what he’s done wrong. Maybe he was thinking about snow since winter has only just begun and those are so short compared to how long the hotter weather stays for? So, anyway, he’s somehow managed to do it wrong and now he looks like a Jotun , which is interesting because he thought he needed to know what things look like well enough to cast illusions…?
So, anyway, he maybe freaks out and tries to bite his arm, and then freaks out more when he tries to bite his arm again and it doesn’t go away .
He rereads chapter five. And again. He bites his arm again. And again. The illusion should be going away, but it just… isn’t?
He started off avoiding looking at the mirror, but when you’ve bitten both arms through your shirt a whole bunch of times and only seen your hand you start to get curious about things, and, well, Loki had known Jotuns have red eyes and blue skin, but this is actually so cool because the nails are black and there are markings all over the skin and literally all of it’s blue and there’s light frost appearing on the floor and the entirety of the eyes are red and… and there’s no way this is an illusion that he could’ve made.
If not for only knowing one type of people with blue skin and red eyes he likely wouldn’t have even recognised the species.
Which… means things.
And the things this means has implications.
But, more importantly, who knows about this?
Odin must know, surely. Frigga too. The both of them are basically famous for their strong magic. Heimdall? He who sees all must know all, right?
Dispelling the illusion isn’t working, and that can only be because this is his actual skin.
Huh. Neat. Loki gives himself a wink in the mirror.
Then he closes the book and rushes out the door. The only chapter left in the thing was probably on something boring like safety or warnings about what not to use illusions for.
Well, whatever. Loki is busy. Things to do. People to prank. All that kind of stuff.
Loki, like any young, juvenile, menacing, mischievous person, takes this revelation in stride, and proceeds to look for his brother, so he can use his newfound appearance to prank Thor.
He decides to put the illusion of looking Æsir back on himself, first. It would be funny to walk through the halls and scare everyone, but he would rather not be attacked because he isn’t recognized.
Loki quickly walks through the halls and into Thor’s room. Thor, of course, is sleeping, despite it almost being noon.
With a wave of his fingers, Loki uses his seiðr to pull all the curtains open, flooding the room with light.
Thor groans, saying something that he can’t make out.
“Thor,” Loki loudly whispers.
Thor mumbles something and turns over and goes back to sleep.
Loki does the logical thing and uses his seiðr to fling Thor out of his bed.
Except he overshoots and almost sends Thor flying through the window. Well, that certainly works in waking Thor up, so at least there’s that.
“Brother?” Thor asks, yawning, “Why did you wake me up so early?”
Loki decides to strike when Thor is still half asleep and lets the illusion on himself fade away. The expression on Thor’s face is comical as he yelps and stares slack-jawed at him.
“What — how?!” Thor stutters.
“Mother lent me a book on illusions,” Loki says, resisting an urge to make a face at calling Frigga his mother.
Is she actually his mother? Is she secretly Jotun? Is Odin Jotun? Would that make the Jotun/Aesir war a family spat? Loki decides he doesn’t need to know. They’re still his parents, even if they’re adopted and conveniently forgot to mention it to him thus far.
He puts an illusion on himself to look Æsir again and then to look like Thor. He even adds Thor’s hammer into the illusion.
“I am the mighty Thor!” he says, imitating Thor’s booming voice.
“I do not sound like that,” Thor pouts.
Loki lets the illusion fade away so he’s in his Jotun form now. Thor jumps again, but he looks fascinated rather than disgusted.
Loki is sure that’s only because he thinks this is an illusion, and not what he actually looks like.
“How does this work?” Thor asks, he reaches out to grasp Loki’s arm and Loki quickly backs away.
“Touching the illusion will mess it up, brother,” he says in a teasing tone so that Thor isn’t suspicious.
Burning Thor with his touch will give away the facade and he’s not ready for the fun to be over so soon. It’s barely begun.
“You should show this form to Father,” Thor says, still looking fascinated.
Yeah, no . He doesn’t want to have that conversation with Odin. Odin probably doesn’t even realize that he’s figured out that he’s Jotun…
Loki smiles wickedly, Thor has just given him the best idea.
“I’m going to convince Father I’m Jotun,” Loki says.
Thor looks confused, “How will you do that, Brother? I have faith in your skills but — ”
“I’m adopted,” Loki cuts in.
It’s necessary for Thor to know this to go along with him, so he tells him that much.
Thor looks even more confused, “Adopted? Brother do you jest — ”
“I figured it out a little while ago, mostly because of my stunning green eyes and black locks,” he flips his hair and winks at Thor. “We can convince him that I’m secretly a Jotun!”
Thor doesn’t know he’s actually Jotun, but Odin must. Which will make it amusing to watch as Odin thinks he’s figured out the secret. But he won’t go and confront him about it.
Watching Odin, Frigga, and Heimdall sweat will certainly be amusing. And Thor has the subtlety of a dragon. He’s sure Thor will over exaggerate whatever plans he comes up with, adding to the fun.
Yes, this is going to work out perfectly, he thinks, smiling in the way that always makes everyone in the vicinity ask what he’s up to.
They won’t know what hits them.