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The gates of the Bifrost opened before them as they raced down the bridge. Loki kept one eye on Thor and the other on Heimdall’s observatory. If Father wasn’t there… If he couldn’t delay Heimdall opening the bridge… He could count on his brother to be one thing on Jotunnheim: irresponsible. Thor would not be content with answers (and likely half-truths at best, given how little the Frost Giants knew); he was spoiling for a fight.
As they reined in, Loki swallowed. Heimdall stood alone. Father was nowhere in sight. The guard hadn’t reached him in time. Loki stepped forward. “Good Heimdall--”
“You’re not dressed warmly enough.”
Possibly a good answer, possibly a bad one. But he still needed to stall until Father arrived. “I’m sorry?”
“Do you think that you can deceive me?”
“You must be mistaken--”
“Enough!” Thor said from behind Loki. “Heimdall, may we pass?”
Thor stepped beside Loki, waiting for an answer. Heimdall stared straight at Loki. “Never before has an enemy slipped my watch until this day.”
Shit. This, he hadn’t anticipated. Did he truly know what Loki had done, or was he merely saying it to a likely suspect? But Heimdall made no move to stop Thor, Sif, and the Warriors Three from entering the observatory. Loki swiftly followed them, not liking Heimdall’s gaze on his back. He frowned when the group ahead of him halted suddenly. Loki peered over Sif’s head and hid a relieved grin.
Thor practically shouted, “Father! So you have come to see us off?”
Odin stared at Thor. “No. I have come to stop you.”
“Stop us? We are simply looking for answers. Father--”
“Silence! Travel to Jotunnheim is forbidden for several very good reasons. They will kill you on the slightest excuse. It is irresponsible to travel with only five companions, one of whom is the other prince!”
“Loki can use magic--”
“Loki is the reason I am here to stop your foolishness!”
Loki gulped as Thor turned his head to level a glare at him. “I told a guard our plans and to fetch Father.”
“You were attempting to delay us when you approached Heimdall,” Sif said.
Heimdall said from behind them, “He was.”
Fandral said, “So you didn’t know the All-father would be here.”
Loki stepped around the group, angling himself so he could watch everyone. “I did not.”
“How dare you--” Thor started to say when Father said, “Enough! All of you have disobeyed my orders concerning visits to Jotunnheim.” Loki glanced at the five, how everyone save Thor looked at least a little bit nervous. Thor… still looked furious. “You four will wait by your horses while I deal with my sons.”
The Warriors Three and Sif hurried around Heimdall, who stood in front of the entryway on the Bifrost, facing Asgard. Thor drew himself up. “You refuse to do your duty to your people! We need answers!”
“We have them,” Father said. He looked at Loki. “We know how the Jotunn arrived.” Loki hardly dared to breathe. This soon? Father shifted his stare to Thor. “Measures have been and will continue to be taken to ensure that such a thing never happens again.”
Thor stared at Father. “How can you possibly know this? We need answers from Laufey! I can bring them back.”
“You will start a war if you travel to Jotunnheim. I will not see our truce upset, Thor. You have forgotten everything I ever taught you about a warrior’s patience.”
“While you wait and be patient, the Nine Realms laugh at us. The old ways are done, and you’d stand giving speeches while Asgard falls.”
“You are a vain, greedy, cruel boy!”
“And you are an old man and a fool!”
Loki winced. Things were bad enough already. Did he really have to insult Father on top of everything else?
Father said, “Yes, I was a fool--” Loki raised his eyebrows. “--to think that you were ready.” Father climbed the stairs to the control and plunged Gungnir into it. The Bifrost whirred into motion.
Thor stared at him as Father backed him toward the Bifrost. “What are you doing?”
“Thor Odinson, you have betrayed the express command of your king. Through your arrogance and stupidity, you would have brought the horrors and desolation of war to these peaceful realms. You are unworthy of them!” Father tore some of the armor off Thor’s chest. Loki stayed still, not daring to draw attention to himself. “You are unworthy of your title! You are unworthy of the loved ones you have betrayed.” If Thor was unworthy, what did that make Loki himself? “I now take from you your power!” Mjolnir slammed into Father’s hand. “In the name of my father and his father before him--” Thor’s scale armor fell to the metal floor around him “--I, Odin All-father, cast you out!” A blast of power sent Thor flying backward into the Bifrost, the rest of his armor scattering around the observatory. Loki barely heard Father whispering, “Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor” before he threw it after Thor into the wormhole.
Father turned around, climbed the steps, and drew Gungnir out of the Bifrost control. But as the mechanism circled to a halt, Father stopped in front of Loki. “I was a fool to ignore your attempts to inform me Thor was not ready to be king.” Loki’s shoulders slumped slightly in relief. “That does not mean I will overlook your actions. Well-intentioned they may have been, and worked exactly how you anticipated, but I cannot ignore that you committed treason.”
Loki inhaled sharply. “Father--”
“Too long have you had to resort to mischief to show others what you see clearly and they do not or choose not to. Most of the time, I can dismiss your behavior. But today, Loki? Today you leave me no choice but to punish you far more severely than I have ever wanted to do.”
Loki glanced at the opening to space. “Will you banish me?”
Father sighed. “Banishment will help Thor, not you. You, I have learned, think the ends justify the means, and that is not so. No, Loki, you will not serve the same punishment as your brother-- or your friends.”
Loki bowed his head and trailed Father out of the observatory. When the pair reached the horses, Volstagg stepped forward. “All-father--”
“The four of you, as Thor’s closest friends and council, should do more than give token protests. If things had gone poorly, you would be dead now. Once you return to the palace, you will report to your chambers, where you will spend a week in solitary confinement, on bread and water rations, thinking about your duties and how you will behave in the future when Thor returns.”
Sif said quietly, “Where is he?”
“Banished to Midgard, to return when he has learned how an adult in authority should act.”
The Warriors Three and Sif glanced at each other. Loki leaned his head against his horse’s cheek. That would take months, if not years. And now there was only one heir to the throne. One that few trusted. Loki looked down at the colorful bridge beneath him. One who willingly committed treason, even though it was to keep Asgard safe.
Father said, “Go.”
The five of them silently mounted their horses, Loki taking the reins of Thor’s, and headed down the bridge. About halfway back to the city, Sif said, “Why did you tell?”
Loki scowled. “You heard why. I couldn’t stop Thor from going, so I did what I could to minimize the damage.”
Hogun said, “You were surprised when Thor assumed you were coming.”
“Of course I was! Half of the time you talk about grand adventures and quests in front of me, you leave me behind when you go. What else was I supposed to think?”
They rode in silence for a few seconds, the only sounds the water rushing below them and their horses’ hooves on the bridge. Fandral said, “You manipulated us after that, by implying we were too cowardly to stand with Thor.”
“I did,” Loki easily admitted. “The more people who went, the better our chances of survival. I had to plan for Father not being there.”
Volstagg ran a hand down his beard as they left the bridge proper and turned onto a city street. “Why did he say ‘four?’ He was talking about us, Loki, not you.”
Loki looked down the street, to the palace looming in the near distance. “I not only manipulated you; I manipulated Thor into traveling to Jotunnheim. I knew how he would react to being told that everything would be handled, and I took advantage of it. The All-father deemed I deserve a harsher punishment than mere house arrest.”
Hogun said, “What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
No one spoke after that. The Warriors Three and Sif drew back slightly, distancing themselves from Loki. Hearing openly for once that he’d manipulated them hadn’t helped their opinion of him. Loki nudged his horse into a trot. No matter. He was more worried about what he faced.
When he reached the stables, he turned his and Thor’s horses over to the hostlers and hurried inside the palace, not waiting for his friends. They wouldn’t dare disobey the All-father, nor would they follow Loki to certain doom.
For doom it was. Treason was not a crime anyone took lightly. Father met him at the elevator to the royal chambers, so he didn’t even have a chance to see Mother first. Father said, “Loki,” and began walking down the hallway, to the second limited-access elevator. The one that went down to the dungeons.
Loki swallowed and trailed after his father. He’d known it wouldn’t be simple, nor anything he would consider pleasant. But to head to the bowels of the palace? It was worse than he’d feared.
Once in the privacy of the elevator, Father said, “You understand I am doing this not as your father, but as your king?”
Loki nodded and stared at the misshapen reflections on the golden door. “I’m sorry.”
Father sighed. “You are sorry you were caught sooner than you anticipated. You’re sorry Thor is banished. But not for your actions.”
“And this will make me regret them?”
Father shook his head. “Pain will not do that. Only time and knowledge of the consequences will. What occurs here will be only the beginning of your punishment.” He waited until Loki met his eye. “The rest should be easier on you.”
“But I need to survive this first,” Loki whispered.
Father nodded and the elevator came to a halt. Loki followed him out of the elevator and into a small round room. One door was directly across from them with two others placed at ninety degrees to the left and right. Benches were carved out of the stone walls in between the metal doors. But it was the three men in brown hooded robes who stood two-thirds of the way across the room that caught Loki’s attention. All of them had their hoods up, so not even their faces could be seen.
Father said, “Deliver him to a cell while we discuss the appropriate punishment.”
Father had to nudge his back to make him follow the man who moved to stand in front of the right-hand door. He held it open it long enough for the two of them to pass through. Two lanterns placed high on the walls lit the small, square chamber. Another metal door leading further into the dungeons was directly opposite of the one they’d entered. The hooded man gestured to a shelf carved, yet again, out of the rock. A set of plain white garments lay folded on it. “Change into these. Your armor and weapons will be returned to you when you leave.”
Loki nodded and did as ordered. Better that these clothes-- far from the best quality but comfortable enough-- be ruined. No one was stupid enough to leave a prisoner with weapons. And he wasn’t stupid enough to use magic to escape. Not without facing further consequences.
Once Loki was dressed, the man opened the second door and led him a short distance down a corridor lined with cells. The man unlocked one barred door and Loki didn’t need to be told to enter. He sat down on the bed (it thankfully had a thin mattress with fresh straw ticking rather than bare rock) and the man closed and locked the door. It didn’t make a sound, and neither did the man as he walked away. Soundproofing spell embedded in the metal bars, then. Simple enough, and unnerving.
Loki waited there, unmoving, for several minutes, before he backed up to lean against the cold rock behind him. He brought his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. He hoped Thor was doing well, because even he couldn’t be this miserable.
A short while later, probably no more than an hour, Loki looked up when his door opened. He couldn’t tell if it was the same man who had imprisoned him-- they deliberately wore identical robes to minimize possible retaliation from the prisoners-- but didn’t ask. It didn’t matter, and he wouldn’t be told.
He was led back to the round chamber and straight through it. Loki glanced at the elevator as he walked by. Right now, even though its magic was keyed to the royal family and those others with access, he had the feeling it wouldn’t respond to him, not that he was cowardly enough to even try.
The door opened onto another hallway, this one better lit with doors spaced further apart. There weren’t many of them, and only one stood open. The hooded man gestured for him to enter, and Loki took a deep breath before doing so.
The first thing to catch his attention was Father, standing next to a table. The second were the numerous leather whips on it. The third was the thin stone pillar in the middle of the room. Loki inhaled. So this was his punishment. Severe enough, but probably not crippling.
“Loki Odinson,” Odin All-father said, bringing Loki’s attention back to him. “For your treasonous activities, you have been judged and found guilty. The usual punishment is torture followed by execution. However, due to several mitigating factors, your sentence has been reduced to fifty strokes of the lash and a severe curtailment of privileges, which will be detailed when you have healed.”
Loki bowed in acknowledgment. Father nodded to one of the hooded men and left the room. Loki closed his eyes briefly. At least he wouldn’t-- or didn’t want to-- watch. The man who had led him here told him to take off his shirt, which Loki did, draping it on the table, trying to ignore the whips. He didn’t know which would be used on him, and he wouldn’t ask. They were all painful. Even with his high pain tolerance, there would be no ignoring this.
The man guided him to the post and chained his hands above his head to the pillar. Loki leaned his cheek on the smooth, cool stone and braced himself when he heard leather slithering behind him. Quiet footsteps approached him. And then pain.
Not a simple whip. The cat of nine tails. Loki swallowed back a moan when the second blow landed. Fifty of them. He could handle this.
Not without screaming, by the end. The men were good at what they did, and they knew how to cause the most pain. But the count stopped at forty-nine, and Loki opened his eyes, wondering what was going on. But he didn’t try to turn around-- his shoulders ached from both supporting his body weight and the flogging. He could feel blood running down his legs, his pants too sodden to absorb any more-- and he reclosed his eyes when he heard the footsteps moving again. One more blow.
A whip wrapped around his torso to leave behind a stinging cut. Why?
But it was over now, and the men released him from the bonds holding him to the pillar. Loki opened his eyes and tried to find his feet, but he couldn’t fully support himself. So they wrapped his arms around their shoulders and helped him from the room, down to the first door nearest the entrance into the round chamber. Father waited there.
The hooded men held him up long enough for Father to clean and fully heal with magic the cut on his abdomen. And then they helped him lie down on his stomach, removed the blood-soaked pants, swiftly washed his lower body, and pulled on a clean pair, before leaving him alone with Father. Who immediately began gently cleaning the wounds on his back. Which hurt, but then, everything did.
Loki didn’t know how long it took for Father to clean and bandage them. It didn’t really matter. The fact was, procedure demanded a healer-- which all of the hooded men were, as they studied the healing arts in order to be most effective at their work-- after any sort of severe physical punishment. But none had remained, and even with his pain-addled mind, Loki knew why. His father as king had punished him. His father as father was caring for him, even though his knowledge of the healing arts was limited.
“Loki?” Loki opened his eyes. “Can you stand?”
Loki considered it, and then said in as loud a voice as he could without further straining his vocal cords, “If you help me. Walking, though, I don’t think I can manage.”
“That is of no matter. I planned on teleporting you to your bedchamber.”
“Ah.” Loki shifted and managed to get to his feet, Father’s hands supporting him the entire time. And then a familiar twisting and they were standing next to his bed. Loki all but collapsed onto it, wiggling to get as comfortable as possible. He had no plans to leave it for the immediate future.
Apparently, Father agreed with his unspoken assessment. He lay a hand on Loki’s forehead and said, “Sleep.”
Loki did.
He woke up in agony some time later. His back felt like it was on fire and there was no way he would be able to return to sleep. He moaned and then opened his eyes when he heard clothing rustle.
Mother sat on a chair next to his bed. “I have medicine for you.”
Loki raised an eyebrow. “I’m allowed to take it?”
Mother sighed. “Your father brought it here himself. This is punishment, not unending torture.”
She helped him sit up and held the mug for him when his hands shook too badly for him to do it himself. It took little time for the potion to work, and he fell back asleep.
It was another three days before he was healed well enough to get and stay out of bed. Asgardians healed fast, but there was a limit as to how fast, and Loki knew not push it. It didn’t matter anyway; he was under the same restriction of not leaving his chambers Lady Sif and the Warriors Three were, though he didn’t (yet) have to suffer through bread and water rations. He had the feeling that would happen when he fully recovered.
Mother kept her visits to mealtimes, and informed him the day after the botched coronation that Father had gone into the Odinsleep. There would be no talking about his further punishment, then, or what led to it, until he woke up. When Loki was alone, however, it occupied most of his thoughts. About what would have happened had Father not arrived, or arrived too late. He imagined how the Jotunn would have reacted to their arrival-- taken them as hostages, outright killed them, sent them home, or a dozen other options. And if Thor would have taken insult from one of the Jotunn-- imagined or real-- well, Loki knew what would have happened. They would have fought and they would have died. Six people against an entire realm? It was suicide. Loki had been a fool to consider that a good plan.
Treason, certain death, a rift in the family when Thor found out (he would; he’d either figure it out on Midgard or Father would tell him upon his return), and no one trusting him. Oh, Father wouldn’t tell anyone what his younger son had done-- the risks were too great-- but people would wonder and the smarter ones would guess. And likely ascribe it to jealousy.
Which it wasn’t. Mostly. He didn’t want the throne; he knew too few people trusted him to make a good king. He’d rather be an advisor for Thor. It made better use of his talents. But he wanted to be out of Thor’s shadow. He wanted to be openly appreciated, not sneered at for using magic. He was tired of being the tagalong.
Loki sighed and put his head in his hands, resting his elbows on the table. Everything had gone right-- and yet, it seemed, that it had all gone wrong. Father now knew that people had been right to not trust him. Thor would learn that soon enough. His friends… that depended if they asked the right questions. He’d given them enough hints-- too many, now that he thought about it.
The door opened and heavy footsteps walked in. Loki lifted his head and carefully turned in his chair to see who it was, though he could guess by the tread. “All-father.”
“So formal, Loki?”
Loki stood and moved away from the table as the door closed behind Father. “I have little reason to expect informality at the moment.”
“How is your back healing?”
Loki chose his words carefully. “I have mostly healed. There are only a couple of cuts that need bandaging now. But I am sore and unable to move easily.”
“And?”
Loki sighed. “I remain curious as to the change in whip and why you outright healed that cut and left the rest to close naturally.”
“That scar will never fade. It is a reminder that your actions have consequences.”
Loki bowed his head. “What is the rest of my punishment to be?”
Father frowned. “Your magic will be bound.”
Loki let out a pained gasp. This was easier? “But--”
“You cannot be trusted with it. When you have fully healed, you will continue weapons training. No mischief. If you have concerns about people or decisions made, you must talk to me.”
Loki said, “You never listen. It’s as if you and I speak two languages that use the same vocabulary but mean two different things!”
Father glared at him. “You would do well to not interrupt me when I am listing your punishments.”
Oh. Right. Loki shut his mouth. “If you are insulted, respond within the usual rules. If at all possible, you are to remain in the palace and its gardens. No quests or adventures and certainly no travel to other realms.” Loki nodded. That only made sense, given what he’d done. “Every evening, we will discuss goals and the appropriate means to take in achieving them. What you did cannot happen again. I don’t know where you came to the conclusions you have about actions, but it will end now. I will no longer tolerate your behavior. Understood?”
“Yes, All-father.”
“There is one final aspect to this, one that you may come to enjoy.” Loki raised an eyebrow. He rather doubted that. “You will have, in two months’ time, a report on my desk about the Jotunn-- their realm, their culture, their technology, their military, and anything else you think relevant.” Father held up a hand when Loki opened his mouth. “I know this will be redundant knowledge for me. But I realized that you and Thor do not know most of it. You need to.”
Loki nodded. Write a report in such a way that Thor will actually pay attention. That was easy. “May I use the city’s archives as well as the palace’s?”
“Yes.”
Loki let out a breath. He needed to say this, hard as it was. “All-father, I thank you for your mercy.”
“Do not disappoint me.”
Loki saluted and stepped back the ritual one pace. Father sighed. “Why did you do it?”
Loki looked down at his hands. “You weren’t listening to me. Talking, minor mischief designed to illustrate Thor’s shortcomings-- none of it was working. You saw what you hoped to see. So I went with the most drastic action I could think of.” He looked at Father. “Which finally worked.”
“Stop mentioning that it did. It does you little credit.”
Loki snarled, “How else am I supposed to behave? I try to act properly, people ignore me. When I accomplish something, I get teased at best!”
“So you are a boy starved for attention?” Father snapped.
Loki shut his mouth. That wasn’t what he’d intended to imply at all. Deliberately calmer than before, he said, “I am tired of being simply tolerated. I was warned multiple times by dozens of people that my studying magic wouldn’t be easy. But it’s the one thing I’m good at! I can’t use a war hammer, or a sword, or an ax. I prefer knives, and even that is barely acceptable. My magic has saved our lives many times, and even Thor says it is merely tricks. Yet you use it.”
“Not to the extent you do, and nor do I eschew ordinary weaponry. But magic is not the only reason people fail to listen to you.”
“My mischief… The lies I tell to set people up… If they cannot trust that my everyday actions are truthful, why would they believe me when it’s urgent? Especially when there are ready-made excuses from my previous behavior to fall on.
“People saw my concerns about Thor as coming from the younger brother, the jealous second son. They didn’t see them as coming from the one who knows him best, the one who knows how he acts on quests and out of your eye.”
“Yet you are jealous.”
Loki closed his eyes. “Yes.” He opened them and met his father’s eye. “You understand him better than you do me. He is the son who grew up to be the epitome of everything Asgard celebrates.” Loki smiled bitterly. “I am the shadow, the serpent in the grass, the son you can never hope to understand and the one you gave up trying to.”
“Loki, no. Never.” Father stepped forward and rested a hand briefly on Loki’s shoulder. “I have not tried as hard as I should have in recent years. I stepped back and hoped you would figure things out on your own. You and Thor are grown men, and I assumed you learned and understood what I taught you. I was wrong. I did not understand Thor had ignored or deliberately forgotten what it means to be a leader. I do not understand why you feel driven to act as you do.”
“But you knew what he needs to learn, and the best solution for it. You don’t know what to do about me.”
Father sighed. “Loki, I never imagined that you would do what you did. You went from a boy who asked if Frost Giants still lived to someone who would use them for his own ends. What happened?”
“Learning that no matter what I do, I will never meet anyone’s approval. Working within normal channels got me nowhere. So I turned to unorthodox methods. It was then I learned that if my actions had a good outcome, fewer people cared about how they happened. Yes, I did get in trouble. But it was never enough to dissuade me from doing the only thing that worked.”
“Will this punishment?” Father said sharply.
“Yes.” Loki spread his hands. “I anticipated being caught, though not this soon. I thought it was worth it. I still do. Mostly. I hadn’t meant to break your trust in me, or to have Thor exiled. Would I do it the same way? No. I could have used illusions, or constructs, or thought of another plan.”
“Loki, beyond the immediate repercussions, do you know what your actions did and could have done?”
Loki shook his head. He had an idea-- of war between Asgard and Jotunnheim-- but he wasn’t going to say anything. No answer he gave here would be satisfactory.
“You could have broken our truce, which would cause thousands of our people to die and may have destroyed the Jotunn beyond recovery. As much as they are a dangerous people, genocide, even accidental, is never the answer.
“What you did cause… You humiliated Thor before the court, all of his people, and the Nine Realms. You forced me to confirm that he was not ready in one of the most public ways possible. You opened up doubt about my parenting, my teaching, and my fitness to rule. You cast aspersions on Heimdall’s fitness to guard our realm. You have worried our people and caused civil unrest.
“Loki, your actions may have been intended to help Asgard, but they also wounded it.”
“Yet all I receive is a flogging and the removal of my magic? How is that supposed to make reparations?”
“It isn’t. I leave that up to you.”
Loki stared at Father in shock. He wouldn’t be told what to do, or how to fix it? Loki mentally shook himself. Of course not. The point of this had been to prove that Thor was unfit to rule. Yet he’d also deftly proven that he himself was not fit, and that he too was little more than an unthinking child. He was an adult, and he needed to take responsibility. “How can I do such while keeping my actions private?”
Because to talk about them openly would, at best, cause further strife and may lead to his assassination. That was why the All-father had taken him to the torturers to be punished. They never talked, for if they did, they would face their peers for an extended amount of time before they were executed.
“You’re a trickster. I know you can think of ways. Remember, I said no mischief. You will have to work to regain my trust.” Loki nodded. “Is there anything else?”
Loki shook his head, knowing that speaking his question would only hurt them further, and Father made to leave the room. “Wait. There is one thing.”
Father turned around. “Yes?”
“Do you ever wish, with all the trouble I cause, that you never had a second son?”
Father stared at him, aghast. “Loki, whatever made you think of such a thing?” Father hurried forward and pulled him into a careful hug. “Never ever do I wish you weren’t here. You are my son. Nothing will ever change that. Nothing.”
Loki nodded against Father’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“Now, I think you are.” Father kissed the side of his forehead and released him. “Meet me at the palace archives in two days, after breakfast.”
Loki nodded and this time, Father did leave the room. Loki sank back into his chair, absently wiping a tear from his face. He had much to think over.
* * * * *
Father led him in silence to a room tucked in a back corner of the main chamber. He unlocked and pushed open the wooden door and the lights mounted on the ceiling flared into being. Loki stepped inside. It was small, barely large enough for the half-dozen bookcases lining the walls, or the rectangular table and its four chairs that took up most of the floor space.
“Loki, this is the sum total of our books about Jotunnheim and its people rather than its military. Here is where you will spend most of your time.” Father handed him the key. “From now until your report is complete, you will be the only one with access to the room. Lock it when you are outside of it; it does not lock from the inside.”
Loki nodded and slipped the key into a pocket. “No one else will need these books?”
Father raised his eyebrow. “Do you believe that other Asgardians are interested?”
Loki snorted and leaned against the table. “Of course not.”
Father reached into a pocket and drew out two slim silver cuffs, with small runes in gold scattered over the surface. Loki stiffened, lifting his head just a little. “This isn’t permanent, Loki.”
If it was, the runes would have been branded into his skin. “How long?”
“Until I decide you can be trusted with magic again.”
That could take years. But Loki didn’t fight or try to run when Father slid up Loki’s sleeves and placed the cuffs around his wrists. The moment the second cuff snapped shut, the metal of both warmed and a dizzying wave swept through his body, causing his vision to swim. He suddenly wished he hadn’t eaten anything. It was only through sheer willpower that he didn’t throw up, and the nausea and dizziness faded swiftly. Loki stared down at the cuffs and then up at Father. In a monotone, Loki said, “Is there anything else?”
Father looked as if he wanted to say something, but instead said, “No.”
He left the room, closing the door behind him. Loki sighed. He may as well conduct an inventory of the room and see what books would prove most useful. The sooner he started, the sooner he would be finished.
* * * * *
Fandral said, “We talked amongst ourselves, and realized that we found a security breach.”
Loki straightened in his seat. “Did you tell Father?”
“He directed us to you,” Sif said.
Hogun said, “A master of magic could bring three Jotunn into Asgard.”
Loki inhaled sharply. “The All-father blocked that way of entry, so you need not concern yourselves needlessly with the possibility it will happen again.”
Sif said, “Stop banding words about. You are the only master of magic Asgard has that would dare to do such a thing.”
“You’re accusing me of treason, Sif,” Loki said, standing. “Did you openly do so before Father?”
The four of them looked at each other. She said, “We did.”
Loki let out a snort of laughter. “And he sent you to me. I’m surprised you aren’t facing further punishment.”
“We wouldn’t if the accusation was true,” Volstagg pointed out.
“Yet I am not imprisoned.”
Sif glared at him. “You openly admitted to manipulating the situation to make us go to Jotunnheim. What other conclusion can we come to? You’ve always been jealous of Thor--”
“Father understood my reasons!” Loki rubbed his face. He hadn’t meant to say that. “Jealousy had almost nothing to do with it. Thor wasn’t ready, and it was the only way I could see to show everyone that because no one listened otherwise.”
“So you did let them in,” Hogun said.
“I did,” Loki said. Screw it. They’d more appreciate being shown than being told. He carefully pulled off his shirt and turned around to show them the slowly fading scars and the few still-present scabs. “I was flogged, and I am under fairly heavy restrictions.” He turned to face them, shirt balled in his hands. He hated the satisfied look on Sif’s face, but wouldn’t give her the pleasure of responding to it.
Volstagg raised his eyebrows when he saw the cuffs. “You cannot use magic.”
Loki sneered and pulled his shirt back on, mindful of the scabs. “Obviously. Is there anything else you need from me?” He gestured at the books scattered across the table. “I have work to do.”
“I’m surprised the All-father still trusts you even that much,” Sif said.
Loki glared at her. “I was protecting Asgard. I may have committed treason, but it was for the best of reasons.” Loki sighed. “This is for Thor, when he returns.”
Fandral said, “Who else knows you did so?”
Loki shook his head. “Apart from the torturers and my parents, no one. It will stay that way. And that is an order. Confirm it will the All-father if you must.” He sat down and pulled an open book closer to him. The four took the hint and left the room, Volstagg closing the door behind them. Once he was alone, Loki rested his elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands.
* * * * *
Loki closed the door. “They no longer trust me.”
“No, they do not.” Father gestured to the seat in front of the desk. “Sit down, Loki.”
“I would prefer to stand.”
Father sighed. “As you wish. But this will not be a short conversation.”
“I didn’t expect it to be.” He waited in silence before the desk, hands resting at the small of his back. But Father didn’t speak, so Loki asked something he’d been wondering about. “How is Thor?”
Father smiled briefly. “He has caused trouble for himself already. Mjolnir is being studied by the local government, and he decided that he would steal it. He was unable to lift it. His friends-- two scientists and an assistant-- helped him escape custody, and during his departure from the compound, he took the head scientist’s notebook. The same agency had confiscated her research and equipment in order to help them figure out where Mjolnir came from.”
Loki raised his eyebrows. “So he hasn’t changed a bit.”
“Not yet. The agency has, after some deliberation, hired them. Furthermore, the head scientist-- a woman named Jane Foster-- will be of much help to Thor.” Father eyed Loki. “She is both a woman in a hard science field-- in a realm where men dominate the sciences-- and someone who pursues theoretical research so far removed from the common understanding that she is ostracized for it.”
Loki sucked in a breath. “You deliberately placed him where he would be forced to confront the differences in realms, where he would be a simple worker taking orders and not leading, and with someone who would better help him understand me.”
“Precisely.”
“Does she know where he comes from?”
“She is the only one who truly believes him, though her assistant Darcy Lewis is willing to play along. Most others would have simply locked him up for being mad.”
“What about their… employer?”
Father let a small smile play on his lips. “They know more than they’re telling Thor. And, with his complete and utter lack of understanding of many Midgardian customs, they also tend to believe the basics of his story.”
“They don’t want to let him out of their reach. If he’s telling the truth, he’s valuable. If he isn’t, he’s too wrapped up in recent events for them to let him go.”
“Precisely.” Father leaned back in his chair. “Now, tell me why you didn’t think through the political issues of what you did when you easily recognize the ones surrounding Thor on Midgard. Why did you not bring the Jotunn into Asgard days or weeks before the coronation? It would have had a similar result for Thor, and much less turmoil for everyone else.”
“Would it have?” Loki gestured at the balcony and the city beyond. “People would still be concerned about the possibility of invasion and war.”
“No one would push for Thor’s ascension when a proven warrior sits on the throne, one who won the last war and took the Casket of Ancient Winters as weregild. Thor, if it came to battle, would have been able to prove or disprove himself a worthy leader without risking the whole of Asgard.” Father rose from his seat. “You were grandstanding. You wanted the spectacle, that Thor would have his kingship snatched from him. Your motivations were not driven by jealousy, but your immediate actions were.”
Loki looked away from Father. He could lie, of course, but he didn’t want to face further punishment for something that was already known. How could he have ever imagined that Father gave up on understanding him? “How have the other Realms reacted?”
“They are waiting-- and watching. I have already contacted Laufey, and the truce holds. For now. He wants no more devastation than I do, but if they are further provoked, there will be war.” Loki nodded. “Now answer my question: why did you not think through the result?”
“Asgard is powerful, the most powerful of the Nine Realms. I assumed that it did not matter what happened; we would survive. I did not realize that appearances out-realm matter just as much politically as actual strength.”
“Why? You work with illusions, and know how people react to them.”
Loki shrugged. “On the battlefield, yes, or as distraction here. They aren’t something I use on a daily basis, nor as something to make me look strong. There’s no point; people know my capabilities. But the Realm itself as an illusion had never occurred to me. But it does make sense: people see what they want to see, and now their faith is shaken.” Loki tilted his head. “I see no easy way to stabilize it save to act as we have been-- stepping up patrols, making a show of increased-but-carefully-balanced-to-avoid-an-appearance-of-paranoia visible security, sending out small fact-finding expeditions. The renewal of the truce was a good step. It let you paint the three Jotunn as rogues acting without authorization, no matter that they probably were.”
“You did not speak to Laufey himself.”
“Of course not! That would have given him far too much knowledge. Only an aide, and even then, I was disguised. It was simple: three scouts and a time of my choosing, with a promise of a chance to retrieve the Casket.”
“Laufey knew it was someone in the House of Odin.”
Loki spread his hands. “I am not the only sorcerer the palace has. What did you tell him?”
“That the sorcerer in question has already been identified and punished. He knows the way is shut.”
“Good.” He paused, reminded of something Father said earlier. “What is this Jane Foster working on? Why does she believe Thor?”
“Wormhole theory. She has data that shows him falling down the Bifrost.”
Loki’s jaw dropped open. “She’s trying to build one!” Loki laughed. “No wonder Thor won’t leave her side; he thinks he’ll be able to help her and come home without Heimdall!”
“Thor does not have the technical knowledge to help Doctor Foster. But his presence assures her that it can be done. She is determined to find a way, to prove herself and her theories correct. She no more likes being discounted than you do.”
Loki raised his eyebrows. “You want me to help her?”
“No. She is intelligent and capable of doing it on her own.”
“And you fear what I would do.”
“No, Loki. I fear for Midgard. They know so little about the universe that opening wormholes to other realms will be problematic. Even a few years more may make a difference in how they react to rediscovering they are not alone in the universe.”
“You want Midgard’s first connection to be here.”
“It is safest. We look physically indistinguishable from them, and we are powerful. A treaty made with us ensures their protection.”
“But only if we retain our position.” Loki rubbed his forehead. “I did more than hurt Asgard. I tangled your plans.”
“Not irreparably.” Odin gestured at the paperwork. “Some of it may yet turn out for the best, as Thor’s exile will.” Father met Loki’s eyes. “This was enough for one night. Same time tomorrow.”
“Yes, All-father.” Loki saluted him and left Father’s office. Halfway back to his chambers, Sif darted out of a corridor and grabbed his left arm. He stared down at her. “May I help you?”
“You’ve healed well enough to spar?” Loki nodded, hiding a wince at the thought of going against his former friends. He’d hoped to deal solely with the lesser nobility. “Tomorrow morning, then. The usual place and time.”
She let go of his arm and hurried back the way she came. Loki sighed. One more thing to worry about.
* * * * *
Loki snarled. “I am no coward.”
“Of course not,” he replied. “Just a traitor.”
Loki took a deep breath, reining in his anger. It would do no good to lash out first, when it would turn in a brawl he had little chance of winning. “How are we going to do this?”
Sif stepped forward. “Unarmed hand-to-hand combat.” She smirked at him. “It gives you a fair chance.”
Loki raised an eyebrow. A fair chance against her, yes. Not against the Warriors Three. But he piled his knives on one of the shelves scattered along the walls before joining her in the middle of the room. He let her make the first move, to see how much she’d restrain herself (she wasn’t), and then the sparring truly began.
It felt good to exercise again, more than just what he’d been doing in private. But it did hurt his back some, which was only to be expected. Healed enough didn’t mean fully recovered. And Sif had spent centuries training against men like Thor.
She had him in a headlock when he hissed, loud enough to carry to the Warriors Three, “What would you four have done had we not been punished, you didn’t realize what I had done, and I sat on the throne when Father was in the Odinsleep?” He managed to get a hand around her wrist and toss her halfway across the room. She rolled into a crouch but didn’t move. “Would you have tried to bring Thor back?”
No one answered, but the expressions on their faces told him everything.
Loki snorted. “So you hate that I committed treason, but you would have willingly done so yourselves. I am the current heir to the throne. And you wouldn’t have been able to live with me sitting on it for even a few days, with little reason to suspect anything.”
Loki straightened his armor in disgust and stalked over to his knives, sheathing them in said armor. He strode to the door, and turned around, meeting each of their eyes. “Don’t bother sparring with me again. Find someone else to practise with.”
Stalking down the hallway to his chambers, Loki desperately wished he could remove his armor using magic and have a tub of hot water ready for him. Even the servants would have no reason to start a bath at this time, if he bothered to order one to make it, which he usually didn’t. Even his practise sessions lasted an hour or two, not mere minutes. Once in his chambers, he threw a knife, shattering a vase he’d recently decided he didn’t want to keep. It helped a little.
* * * * *
Loki braced himself. “I need to travel to Vanaheim.”
Father looked steadily at him. “Why?”
Loki blinked, not expecting anything but a firm no. This may be easier than he’d thought. “The books on Asgard are not recent. The newest is five hundred years old, and comes from Vanaheim. Their universities are rather more focused on cultural studies than ours, and they should have better information.”
“Yet our societies change slowly. Asgard now is not overly different from the time of your birth.”
Loki sighed. “That does not mean Jotunnheim hasn’t. You only talk with Laufey and occasionally the upper nobility if in a larger meeting. They have numerous reasons to conceal things from you, just as we do from them. If you want this report to be accurate, I need to travel.”
“Any answers they give to anthropologists are just as prone to deliberate misinformation.”
“That is true. But that does not mean everything is inaccurate. It is, in fact, likely to be more accurate, coming from information gathered by the traders and others who have reason to visit Jotunnheim. After all,” Loki said with a wry smile, “Asgard would be unlikely to look to books written by the Vanir for information on the Jotunn.” He leaned forward. “Tell me, Father, how many of us have gone to Vanaheim looking for information on them? How many books or articles or papers have been published here that didn’t rely on the same few sources?”
Father sighed. “You present a good argument, Loki, but there are reasons for the restrictions placed on you. Just as there were reasons I placed Lady Sif and the Warriors Three under house arrest. If at least one of them were to travel with--”
Loki shook his head. “I would go in disguise, and they would cause comment. A prince of Asgard could not look for the information I need without causing even more. Word would travel here, and further upset the populace. It could be taken as a prelude to war, as it is information gathering. Furthermore, I should not be seen to leave Asgard at this time, as it would give the appearance of either my not taking current events seriously or, again, a prelude to war.”
“I will not allow you to have access to your magic. How would you disguise yourself?”
“I will need access to it only twice, in your presence, to shapechange. My cover story will be a poor scholar, hoping to catch royal patronage with new information on the Jotunn in this time of crisis. I will use the publicly available stacks as much as possible, and only read in the library itself rather than check out the materials. I will rent a cheap room, for no longer than three nights. I know what I am there for, All-father, and cannot be seen to pursue any of the usual entertainments I would find in Vanaheim.” Loki settled against his chair. “I swear to you that I want to travel there solely to complete the task you set me.”
Father rumbled, “Your word can be slippery. You say one thing and do another, twisting meanings and implications as you desire.” Loki clenched his jaw, hurt, but not denying the truth. “I will think over this.”
“I thank you, All-father.”
* * * * *
Loki nodded, picked up the worn leather pack and placed it on his back. “I will return in three days’ time, or sooner if I have gathered the information I need.”
The journey through the Bifrost felt a little different, the subtle hum in his bones missing. Loki grimaced when he landed, and swiftly made his way to the scholars’ accommodations nearest the central library. He rented a room for two nights with an option for a third-- maintaining enough Asgardian arrogance to demand a room he didn’t have to share-- and then hurried to the library. It was near dusk here, and Loki needed to start on his research as soon as possible.
He had been to this library often enough that he knew his way around, and he swiftly gathered the three most interesting books from the shelves before retreating to a small table tucked away in a corner, situated so he could see both the sunset and the nearby portions of the library. One book he discarded after flipping through it, being a collection of poetry interspersed with commentary rather more suited for the botanical section than the cultural. The second was a little more useful, covering an extra three hundred years. The third was published last year, and Loki read and took notes on it until a librarian kicked him out near midnight.
The first full day he did the same with other books, only stopping twice to buy food from the cafe on the ground floor. The second day… had a problem. A very large problem. Namely, one Jotunn-- from his uniform, clearly on leave from guard duty with one of the few caravans that traveled to Jotunnheim-- had seen Loki removing one last book from the stacks and followed him back to his seat, giving him just enough time to settle in before standing on the other side of the table, blocking Loki’s light. Loki looked up, ready to snap at the discourtesy, but he dared not speak first. Not to a Jotunn when he was so disadvantaged. The Jotunn said, “What does a scholar of Asgard want with this information?”
Loki looked down at his jagged handwriting and then back up at the Jotunn. “I wanted to know if what we were taught on Asgard about you being monsters is true.” He tapped the closed book to his left. “You are.”
“Why do you say that?”
Loki leaned forward, putting down his pen so he wouldn’t snap it. “You abandon infants to die because they are disabled or runts or for whatever reason you wish. How can you be anything but when you are so callous toward your own offspring?”
The Jotunn growled. “Some of them are adopted.”
“Oh?” Loki leaned back and raised his eyebrows in surprise. “None of the books ever mentioned that. So which is the truth? Given that you invaded defenseless Midgard, I rather believe the books.”
“My two nephews were abandoned by their birth families! Both of them are runts, and stand no taller than the princes of Asgard.”
Loki studied the Jotunn. He seemed sincere enough, and there would be no harm in listening. It was information. He just hoped Heimdall was listening to the conversation as well as watching it. “The legalities?”
“If a child is abandoned, the birth family gives up all legal claim.”
“Why? Why not just raise the child--”
“Some cannot afford to. Others would rather have their children die quickly rather than waste away a few years later because they cannot survive without more than can be given. Jotunnheim is a harsh place. We are only just emerging from an ice age.” He peered down at Loki, voice biting. “The one that near its height caused us to enter Midgard. The Casket your king stole from us made it so we could not even control our realm. People-- warriors in their prime-- have died who otherwise should not have because of Odin’s actions.”
Loki froze, suddenly wishing he was anyplace else. This was no longer a conversation to vent his disgust. This had become dangerous, and if he even implied knowledge that he shouldn’t have, it would be simple for the Jotunn to realize who he was speaking to: the younger prince of Asgard, well known for his disguises. And Loki was nearly defenseless, having only the basic knife all Asgardian males carried when they were of age. Even his hand-to-hand skills would prove difficult to use, given his unfamiliarity with his current form. Against a Jotunn, with their ability to give frostbite to anyone they touched-- something he’d been alarmed to discover, given no one had ever thought to mention it in all the years of training-- Loki stood no chance. “I am not responsible for his actions.”
The Jotunn peered down at him. “But you are gathering information to curry favor with the monster, I believe. You would do well, when you see him to give your report, to explain what I have told you.”
Loki spread his hands on his notes. “I am doing this so I may receive patronage. In all likelihood, he will never see this.”
The Jotunn laughed. “Then you are a fool.” He leaned down, bending at the waist so his face neared Loki’s. “You know the basics of politics, else you would not be researching us at this time. But you will be cast into the light. If you do not wish to become a target, then I suggest you stop now.”
Loki let himself blanch, playing the part of a scholar in a warrior’s society. “But-- but-- It’s cultural information I’m gathering, not military.”
The Jotunn smiled, showing his teeth. “It makes no difference in the end.”
Loki gulped and then nodded. “I’ll stop. I won’t publish anything.”
“Good.”
When the Jotunn turned and walked away, Loki slumped in his seat. He had half an hour, maybe less. He could not be here when the Jotunn returned to check on him, because Loki had no doubt he would. Magic would make this easier, to make duplicates of the book he had and to hide his presence at the table, but that wasn’t an option.
He spent the rest of the morning reading in a private study room, where he learned nothing new from the last book, but a sole sentence confirmed the abandonment-and-adoption law.
After he checked out of the scholars’ accommodation, eaten a swift lunch, and returned to Asgard, Father met Loki on the Bifrost, let him shift back to his original form, locked the cuffs back on, and said, “Heimdall told me about the conversation with the Jotunn. You did well.”
Loki bit back a sarcastic answer-- he was a shapeshifter; of course he knew how to keep in character-- and said, “Thank you. Am I in further trouble?”
Father shook his head and grabbed Loki’s arm to teleport them both to the palace. “It was not something you sought out. But the travel restrictions are still in place.”
“I hadn’t expected otherwise, All-father. If I may return to my work?” Father nodded and Loki left the royal chambers, stopping by his only long enough to drop the bag of clothing off and removing the full notebook from it before heading to his now-usual room in the archives.
* * * * *
Father looked up at him, his expression a strange mix of determination and fear. “Please sit, Loki. There is something we need to discuss.”
“So the report--”
“I will read it later. It is unimportant now.”
Of course. With Thor still gone, no one else would care. “What is it?”
Father sighed. “This is something that your mother believes we should have told you long before, but I wanted to keep you safe.” Loki froze. What was wrong with him? What didn’t he know about himself? “What have we told you about your birth?”
“That I’m just a little over a year younger than Thor, that I was a surprise. Did something happen during--”
“No,” Father said. “All of that is true. But it is not the whole truth.”
Loki let out a breath of laughter. “Are you trying to tell me I’m adopted?”
“Yes.”
The laughter died on Loki’s lips. “Adopted? How?” He waved a hand at nothing in particular. “We were at war with the Jotunn; you had Thor. Why would you take me in?”
“Because your parents abandoned you to die.”
Loki stared at Father. “How did you find me? Did you just stumble across me?”
Father nodded. “After the battle on Jotunnheim was over, I walked into the temple and found you. Small, for a giant’s offspring. Laufey’s son.”
Laufey. Loki mouthed his name. He… he wasn’t even Asgardian. “I’m a Frost Giant.” Loki stood up, resting his hands on Odin’s desk, leaning over it, fighting back tears. “I’m Laufey’s son. Why? Why did you take me? It’s more than just simple abandonment. You have layers of reasons for everything. You could have left me to die. Anyone else would have. Why didn’t you?”
“I had hoped to unite our kingdoms, to bring about a permanent peace, through you. But those plans no longer matter.”
Loki collapsed back into his chair, thoughts whirling, hardly able to think. “So I am no more than another stolen relic, locked up here until you have use of me!”
Odin frowned. “You are twisting my words again.” He tapped the report. “What did you learn?”
Loki snapped his mouth shut. “That by both Asgardian and Jotunn law, I am your son, not Laufey’s.” No matter his current turmoil. Loki buried his face in his hands. “That’s why you made me compile that. It’s not just for Thor. It was so I knew things that I should have been taught from the beginning.” Loki uncovered his face. “Instead, you taught me to hate the Jotunn. The monsters parents tell their children about-- and I’m one of them.” Loki stood up, mouth working. He paced toward the door. He couldn’t… He couldn’t-- He spun around to face Odin. “I look Asgardian. Why--”
“When I picked you up, soothing you, you shifted. It is an inborn talent, the same with your magic.”
Loki smiled bitterly. “Yet I look dissimilar enough to the rest of the family that there were rumors Mother was unfaithful. Apparently, I’m not good enough, and never have been.”
“Stop that.”
Loki shifted his shoulders. “Why? It makes sense now why you favored Thor all these years. You couldn’t have a Frost Giant sitting on the throne of Asgard!”
Odin shot him an exasperated look. “You are my current and sole heir. If you hadn’t needed punishment, you would have sat on the throne two months ago. You still may, depending on how long Thor is gone.”
Loki snorted. “It always revolves around Thor. You-- you can’t just take me as I am. No, I’m the sorcerer, the second son no one understands or likes, the Jotunn. I can never, ever do anything right--”
The door opened behind them, and Loki stopped, turning to see who entered. Mother, who smiled and shut the door behind her. “I heard shouting.” She stepped forward, opening her arms to pull Loki into a hug, but he flinched back. “Loki?”
“How can you stand to touch me?” he whispered.
Mother shot an annoyed glance at Odin-- Father-- and wrapped Loki in a hug despite his protests. “Because I love you. No matter your birth family, you are ours now.”
“But--”
“Hush, Loki. We kept this from you so you would never feel different. It was for your safety.”
“Because a Jotunn living on Asgard, raised as a prince, would constantly face death.” He pulled back, twisting to see Father’s face. “Who else knows?”
“Just us. You were quiet on the return, hidden under my cloak.”
Loki took a deep breath. “But you taught me to hate myself. Why?”
Mother pulled him closer as he crumpled into tears. Neither one answered him.
* * * * *
Wasn’t he?
He’d lived over a thousand years as an Asgardian. No one had known. No one had noticed. No one had suspected. People who should have realized hadn’t. Loki clenched his hands. How did they not?
How could no one have seen his pranks, his love of chaos, his predilection for mischief as anything but a symptom of his true nature? How could they not have realized? How could he not have realized?
Loki turned around, sliding down so he sat against the golden barrier, curling his arms around his knees. Couldn’t there be a mistake somewhere? He was too small to be a giant, too weak. He never had any particular love for the cold or for winter, nor any special tolerance. He couldn’t be a Frost Giant.
The thought was too horrible to contemplate.
But he had to be sure, and there was only one way to check. The Casket of Ancient Winters.
He still had full access to the Vault, as removal would cause talk they could not afford, and none of the guards questioned him. He’d always had a tendency to wander at night. He ignored the treasures and walked straight to the Casket. He stared at it for several long minutes, wondering if he was taking his life in his hands. The Destroyer, after all, was programmed to kill any Jotunn who tried to steal it. If he was one, maybe-- No. Loki shook his head. If he was, if this confirmed it, he’d prove to Asgard that not all Jotunn were monsters. Even if he was the sole exception, an exception no one could ever know about, he would still do it. He had to.
Loki reached out and picked the Casket up. It was lighter than he expected, and at first, he thought it was just the strange swirling light that tinted his skin blue. But it wasn’t. The blue was darker than the light would indicate, and his eyes… His vision shifted, the light from the Destroyer’s cage nearly blinding him.
Loki put down the Casket and stepped away, hoping he’d shift back now that he no longer held it. He should. He hoped.
It was with a shaky breath of relief that his eyes returned to normal, and his skin faded as well. But it meant that he was, he really was, a Jotunn.
If only it could be a curse.
Loki closed his eyes. Now what was he supposed to do?
* * * * *
Loki chuckled. “Alcohol? You know I am not one for overindulging.” But he sat down and drained the nearest glass. Mother poured him another without comment. Loki fiddled with the stem and finally set it down, the liquid untouched. He stared into it, the red flashing oddly in the flickering light from the sole lamp lit.
“Loki?” He looked up when Mother spoke. “I am sorry we did not tell you earlier.”
Loki closed his eyes and bit his lip to keep from snapping at her. Voice forcibly even, he opened his eyes and said, “Would it have changed anything? Would you have taught me to hate myself just as thoroughly? Or would you have done as you should have, and taught me that not all Jotunn are monsters?”
“There is only so much we could have done when our very society hates and fears them.”
“Me.” Loki wasn’t going to sugarcoat this. They didn’t realize what they’d done to him, and they never would if he was nice. “They hate and fear me. Not for anything I have done, but merely for existing. Oh, yes, I can hear your excuses now. ‘Society is what it is.’ ‘We just finished a war; we couldn’t suddenly teach that Frost Giants aren’t monsters when they recently invaded a defenseless realm.’” Loki tossed back the glass of wine. It was shame to drink it like this, but there was nothing stronger immediately available. “Congratulations, Mother. You have a son who hates himself through your actions. Be sure to tell Father the same.”
He strode out of the solarium and returned to his chambers. He collapsed onto his bed after he took his boots off. And then he started laughing, because otherwise he’d start crying again. Oh, what a mess he’d made. An Asgardian-raised Jotunn led three of his kind into Asgard. Father had to have pondered if it was a sign of Loki’s true nature coming out, if he was destined to betray Asgard because of what he is. That was the reason he had no magic. He never would again. A Frost Giant trusted with magic in the heart of Asgard? Unthinkable.
It was a wonder he hadn’t been executed.
That sobered him.
Father had planned, probably from the moment he’d realized that they’d nearly gone to Jotunnheim, to tell him. (Loki couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened there, if he’d somehow be exposed. Merely being there when arranging the coronation’s ruin hadn’t done it. Would a touch have, intending to burn but instead revealing? And if that occurred, what would he have done? If there was one good thing about this situation, it was the revelation happening at home.)
And how would Thor react? Thor, who, even as a child, called them monsters. Thor, who nearly traveled to Jotunnheim under guise of answers but wanting a battle. Thor, who considered them to be nearly mindless animals. Even before the report, Loki had a better understanding of them than that! Loki buried his face in his pillow. He could never, ever tell Thor.
But right now, all he wanted was his brother, the one who had loved him no matter what. Even when he chose to study sorcery, to use it in battle, to be other than what society wished. Now he truly was other and he would never be accepted or loved again. Thor wouldn’t love a Jotunn, no matter that they’d grown up together.
* * * * *
But his mind wouldn’t shut up.
He kept thinking about proving Asgard wrong, and Father’s original plan for him. Father said no mischief, but making plans to change society enough that a true peace was possible instead of a truce wasn’t mischief, was it? No, Loki eventually decided. It was politics.
A long game, longer than any he’d played before. A work of decades and centuries.
This wouldn’t be the first time he’d forged his own path, though. He was a sorcerer, for Asgard’s sake! He hadn’t let the comments and outright antagonism when he began learning or those made recently stop him. But doing his own thing, being his own man, was one thing. Changing Asgard was another.
First step: expand the report into an actual book. Publish it anonymously if possible (he hadn’t forgotten the Jotunn at the library, and what that complication meant on top of the obvious and more subtle political considerations). If not, publish anyway. Getting a new source of information out, getting people talking about the link between realm and society, was vital.
His second step? Getting Thor on his side.
No, make that his third. His second needed to be accepting himself, no matter how long it took.
Loki swung the covers off himself and stood up. He walked to the mirror and winced when he saw his reflection. Disheveled clothes he hadn’t changed out of, hair a mess, and dark rings under his eyes. A lie.
Or not. He’d lived in this form since the day he was born, though not the hour. This body was as much his by right. His Jotunn form, while of import, was not the defining shape. It was another shape he could shift into, one that would allow him to survive easier on Jotunnheim. It may be his birth form, and it may be one he could be forced to shift into, but his current form, his Asgardian body, was his. This was no lie.
Loki closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He remembered how it felt, holding the Casket and feeling his body change. He was a master of magic and a natural shapeshifter, going not into a disguise but into his other form. He could easily replicate it, though he was sure it wouldn’t work with the cuffs. But he had to try.
It didn’t. Apparently, the magic of the Casket overwhelmed them.
If he truly wished to see himself, then, he would have to take a mirror down to the Vault. But he could imagine, and extrapolate from his memories. But he didn’t. Memories meant nothing when he hadn’t seen his own face. He needed to know how wrong he looked.
He opened his eyes, relieved to see his Asgardian form reflected in the mirror. But there was still a lump in his throat, and disgust burned in his stomach. Making the decision to take a mirror to the Vault was enough for today. Tomorrow he would find out.
A hot bath drove the (imagined) chill from his bones.
* * * * *
Loki was not who he thought he was, and he needed to work out who he was on his own.
He spent the mornings sparring with the lesser nobility and, occasionally, Sif and the Warriors Three. None of them had much to say to each other now, but too long without training together would cause comment. All five knew there needed to be as little of that as possible. Their open break had caused rumor enough.
His afternoons, when he wasn’t attending court or council meetings (unlike Thor, he had always liked politics and saw no reason to be inactive even with his punishments and new reality), were spent writing the book, and only rarely wondering what he was capable of in his Jotunn form. The cuffs (thankfully) stopped any experimentation. While he knew the Casket would allow it, Loki wasn’t foolish enough to attempt anything in the Vault-- guaranteed to wake the Destroyer-- or to remove the Casket to try elsewhere-- guaranteed to anger Father. It allowed him time to come to terms with his heritage in his own way, and yet he knew he was not ready to truly face it. A few months was nothing to the lifetime ahead of him.
At least the hours he spent writing and editing meant the book was done sooner than he expected. He’d even found a publisher willing to publish it anonymously, and the woman running the company said she would have refused to put his name on it (she, too, did not know who he was; the conversation kept solely to letters) for his own safety. Loki had smiled to read that. At least someone understood the controversial nature of the book, and the very real dangers that came with being associated with it. She’d gone so far as to outline her plans for protecting her business in one letter. They were solid, too, and Loki would quietly give his support if it came down to it. (Even if Father condemned the book. Though Loki knew that he’d figure out the author if he read two pages, though Loki had tried as much as possible to disguise his writing style.)
The book sold out the first day it was available, nearly a year to the day of the botched coronation.
Loki laughed himself to tears when he heard that. The two nobles who had managed to buy a copy each were the centers of attention, and would be until more copies were printed. (It amused Loki when one of them revealed to him that even the head archivist was hounding him for it, as he had bought only one copy for the archives. Loki pretended disinterest.) That night, Father just raised his eyebrow when Loki sat down in front of his desk. “Are you ready to discuss it now?”
Loki tilted his head. “Discuss what?”
Father sighed, and obviously changed the subject. “Why did you expand and publish the report?”
Loki sneered. “Why do you think? If I must know the truth and have the ability to counter some of the more blatant stories about Jotunnheim, it would be remiss of me to not correct perceptions. I would like to feel just a little safer in this society.”
“Your mother and I are the only people who know.”
Loki deliberately shrugged nonchalantly. “And Heimdall.” He leaned forward. “This is just the first step. I will wait to see how the populace reacts in the coming months before choosing my next move.”
Father frowned. “I said no mischief.”
Loki smiled, genuinely. “This isn’t mischief, All-father. This is politics.”
“You want to change Asgardian society.”
“I will do it with or without your permission. You brought a Jotunn here and raised him as your son. You need to face the consequences of that.”
Father sighed, though a glint of humor shown in his eye. “You learned that lesson a little too well.”
Loki lifted an eyebrow. “It may have been better for you had I not turned out as different as I did. If I was more like Thor, I wouldn’t have thought to do this, not in this manner. But you know me and internal politics.”
Father had a wry expression on his face. “That is why I am warning you to be careful. I will not publicly support you or any effort you make.” He lifted a hand, preventing Loki from speaking. “I’d like to see how well you can do on your own.” He smiled. “This is the sort of thing I want to observe from you, Loki. You could have reacted differently, disastrously so. But you chose to change society. It will be a thankless task. Acceptance will not come easily or soon.”
Loki thought about his immediate plans, his counter-plans if one of the main ones failed, and his long-term strategies that spanned decades. “I know.” He smiled again. “It’ll be fun, for a given definition of the word.”
Father laughed. “But you are worried.”
Loki’s smile vanished. “Thor.”
“Ah.”
“Who will tell him?”
Father leaned forward. “Your mother and I think you should decide that. He is far closer to regaining Mjolnir than he was a year ago, but he isn’t quite ready. You still have time.”
Time to prepare to adjust his plans however Thor reacted. Time to work out how to tell Thor, and how to react if things went poorly. (Possibly altering Thor’s memory, which Loki knew Father would forbid, even if Loki had his magic back, or even fleeing for his life’s safety.) And if Thor reacted well, well, that was unlikely, but it meant Loki’s plans could spring into motion just a little faster.
“You may be surprised at how he reacts,” Father said, breaking into Loki’s thoughts.
Loki smiled, though he didn’t let it reach his eyes. “Learning to appreciate mortals does not mean he will be more understanding of the Jotunn.”
Father sighed and sipped his brandy. “You underestimate your brother.”
Loki shrugged. “He underestimates me.” Father looked steadily at him until Loki glanced away. “I don’t know what he’d doing on Midgard, or what he’s learning. I would rather underestimate him and be pleasantly surprised than the other way around. It’s safer.”
Father briefly closed his eye. “Maybe. Thor continues to work for the same organization. Nothing much has changed there, and it would not concern you if things had.”
“Unless they were for the worse.”
“If that happened, I would remove him from Midgard.”
Loki nodded. “Is there anything else we need to discuss tonight?”
Father shot him an exasperated look. “There are always things we need to discuss, as well as the one topic you refuse to.” Loki snarled, but said nothing. He’d pushed his father enough tonight. Father pushed a folder across his desk. “Read this and we’ll debate the best course of action tomorrow evening.”
Loki took the folder and stood up. “Good night, Father.” He didn’t wait to hear his reply before he left the study. He was not yet on pleasant speaking terms with him, and only barely less so with his mother. Neither one had yet given him satisfactory answers as to why they’d raised him as they did. It was a major reason he refused to discuss his adoption with his parents. He was tired of the lies.
* * * * *
Loki stiffened, but turned to face Sif when she ran up to him. “Yes?”
She peered around them at the crowd of servants, nobility, and guards. “Is there somewhere we can talk in private?”
Loki raised an eyebrow, but gestured her onward. Not to his chambers, but to a small balcony tucked near one of the waterfalls. It was the closest he could come to private without the use of magic. “What is it?”
Sif glanced around her, taking in the water flowing near the balcony and the gardens just thirty feet below them. “I don’t know how many other people have noticed, but you’re the one orchestrating the dialogue about the Jotunn.”
Loki smirked. “You decided to talk to me about this first?”
Sif grimaced. “We may not get along, and I hardly trust you, but I do know you. I don’t know what your goal is, nor do I know why you are doing it. Rather than spread rumor, I decided to ask.”
Loki stared at the falling water. “For the same purpose, as it happens. Father knows what I am doing, and he wants to see how I’ll succeed.”
“He wants you to?”
Loki glanced at her. “Don’t sound so surprised, Sif. He doesn’t want war, and if Asgard knows and understands even a little more about the Jotunn, it will help avert it.”
“He trusts you to do this?”
Loki clenched his hands into fists and then slowly opened them. “Yes, he does.” Loki turned to face her. “Sif, I am still being punished for my crime, a year and a half later. Why do you think I haven’t left Asgard? Why do you think I remain mostly in the palace? I have to prove myself to the All-father. Directing and controlling a large-scale societal change, especially without people knowing… I’m not sure I can do it. He isn’t, either. But he’s willing to let me try.” He stepped forward. “Sif, you can tell no one about this. It’s one thing for the palace to ignore the conversation to see where it heads before giving a response; it’s another for the heir to openly support it. People will be asking why, and the answers I can give will satisfy few.”
“Can you give me an answer?”
“I have little reason to trust you.”
She smirked. “You wrote the book. No one else has figured that out.” She chuckled, probably at the expression on his face. “Oh, come on, Loki. I know what your writing sounds like, even though you disguised it rather well. Putting that together with the report you wrote for Thor was simple.” Her smirk softened into a smile. “I begin to see the attraction you have from mischief. I won’t tell anyone; I enjoy the guessing far too much.”
“There are bets, you know.”
“You’re an outside chance, and I refuse to cheat. After all, why would a master of magic care about the Jotunn?”
Loki snorted and rubbed a cuff absently. “Why would one?”
Sif stared at him. “Joking about that isn’t funny.”
Loki shook his head. “I wasn’t. It was an honest question. Why would a master of magic wish to change Asgardian society to be even a little more accepting of differences?”
“Oh,” she said in a rather small voice.
“You understand now, a little. Not the whole story, Sif. There are other factors that influence my reasoning and actions in this matter. Rest assured, the All-father knows them.”
Sif stared at the skyline, worrying her lip. “This isn’t mischief. It’s… something else entirely.”
“It’s trying to make Asgard a better realm. We reign. But can we rule wisely without understanding?” Sif boggled at him. He shrugged. “It’s something to think about.”
He left her there, and she made no move to follow him.
* * * * *
Mother stood up and ran over to him when he entered the dining room, pulling him into a hug. “I thought you’d never return!”
He kissed her cheek. “I had things to do on Midgard. I still do, Father.”
“I know. Have you eaten?” Father said, gesturing at the laden table.
“I have not.”
Loki smiled at him. “Then tell us your adventures.” He hadn’t moved from his seat.
Thor and Mother came to the table, and Thor piled an abundance of fruit and cheese on his plate, with only two sausage rolls. That was a bit of a change. “Some of them are shameful, I fear to say.” Thor caught Loki’s eyes. “I understand why you let the Jotunn into Asgard.”
Loki looked down at his slice of half-eaten toast and then pulled up his sleeve to show Thor a cuff. “I was punished.”
Thor looked over at Father. “He has not yet earned--”
“No.” It was a firm tone, one they all knew not to question. Loki had known better than to ask in the first place. “Please, tell us of your adventures.”
Thor got a funny smile on his face. “I was tased not two minutes after landing on Midgard. When I discovered it was nothing but controlled lightning, I knew I had fallen. When I couldn’t lift Mjolnir, I realized how far. I didn’t know what to do at first or what you wanted from me, Father. It took weeks and months of learning, and then serious soul-searching.” Loki cracked a smile and Thor pointed at him. “Do not tease me, Loki. You thought the tales we heard about us were bad? One of my friends grew up with them, and knew more.”
Loki groaned, but let Thor continue without interruption. Halfway through a recitation of a sparring session he had with a man he called Captain Rogers-- sometimes Captain America-- Loki excused himself. He had a meeting with his publisher Arnleif; she’d requested it a month ago and he’d accepted. It had been nearly a year since they’d begun communicating, and he felt it was time to tell her.
He kept his cheap, worn hood and cloak on until they were in her office. Arnleif sat behind her desk and said, “I understand if you wish to remain hooded, but a face-to-face meeting… You’ve heard the rumors that maybe it’s just to protect myself, that I am the author, or a Jotunn is.”
“The fact that I even showed up at all, when there were far more people present than should be in your store and office space, lets me know there is a leak.” Loki made no effort to disguise his voice. Those outside the palace would place it as a noble’s accent, but most wouldn’t recognize him from it alone.
She smiled and leaned forward, eyes crinkling. “I cannot control everything, my lord. My assistants talk, and I do have a schedule to keep to.”
“As do I,” Loki said, lowering his hood. Arnleif gaped at him, hands flying to her mouth. “You understand why I wish to remain anonymous.”
“This is why the palace has no response to the debate.” She paused, clearly wondering how to phrase her question. “Does… does the All-father know?”
Loki graciously nodded. “At this time, no statement can be made. This is something we want the people to decide. We don’t want to force it on them.”
She nodded sharply. “Good. I suppose there is no chance of ever being allowed to put your name on it?”
Loki laughed. “That’s most of the reason you wanted to meet. It’s harder to say ‘no’ to someone in person. The rest of the reason being, of course, you wanted to know my identity, even if you can’t openly reveal it.”
“If I tell people now?”
Loki narrowed his eyes slightly, studying her. “You wouldn’t. You value your ethics and business too much for that.”
She gave him a small smile. “I’m glad you realize that.”
Loki smiled in return. “I would have never signed a contract with you if I hadn’t been sure you would keep your word. And you know people would laugh in your face if you didn’t. The public disinterest the palace has plays in my favor, though I do not anticipate being able to remain anonymous forever. I will let you know when that occurs, if it is not clearly evident.” He glanced at her clock. “I’m afraid I must leave. My brother returned this morning, and the only reason I did not cancel this meeting was because of the machinations that went into setting it up.”
“Of course! Go!” Arnleif grinned. “I’m glad you came, my prince.”
He let his smile sink into something impish. “So am I.” It was occasionally more fun doing mischief with a partner, someone to share the joke. And this played into his plans. He flipped his hood back on and slipped out of her office.
Halfway back to the palace, he pulled the cloak off, bundling it into a small package and tucking it underneath his arm. The rest of his clothing blended in with the citizenry, all the way to the service entrance to the palace. The guards let him through without comment, well used to him entering and departing through there, and in similar clothing. He returned to his chambers without incident and swiftly changed back into what he’d been wearing earlier.
He began the short walk to his brother’s chambers-- which were on the other side of their parents’ chambers-- but Thor called out to him from the entrance to their parents’. Loki stopped and waited for his brother to catch up to him. “Loki, I read your report--”
“Read or skimmed?”
“Read,” he said, a bit confused. “I learned, Loki, that I cannot ignore things just because I do not wish to hear them. I had questions, and Father told me you wrote and published an anonymous book that further detailed your findings. But he also told me you are trying to change the general opinion for the better. Why?”
“Why not?”
Thor reached out and grabbed his shoulder. “Loki, on Midgard, I learned that such prejudice is frowned on. I had to learn to examine my own beliefs, and I realized that I would need to research the Jotunn when I returned. Only to find that you had done so, and gone further than I thought Asgard ready for. Why?”
Loki looked around. The hallway was empty, and would remain so. Few people ever came up here. He met Thor’s eyes. “I was born on Jotunnheim. I am your brother by adoption, not birth.”
Thor’s hand tightened on his shoulder, and Loki’s throat closed. This was a mistake. He should have had Father or Mother tell him. He-- He stopped when Thor pulled him into an embrace. “You must have been so alone when you found out.”
“You don’t care?”
“You are my brother, Loki. Anything beyond that is trivial.” He pulled back. “Though we will discuss this in detail. Later. First you must tell me what you have been otherwise up to.”
Loki laughed, in both relief and sheer joy, as they walked down the corridor to Thor’s rooms, Thor’s hand never leaving Loki’s shoulder. “What makes you think I have been up to anything?”