Chapter Text
Loki hadn’t meant to do it.
That was what he always said, true, but he really hadn’t meant to do it this time.
If he had truly intended to work mischief of this magnitude on Thor, he certainly would have picked a trick far more embarrassing or amusing to himself. As far as surprise transformations went, turning your brother into a dragon certainly was no mean feat, but turning him into the most ferocious and feared dragon known to Asgard surely spoke of carelessness and at the very least, a marked lack of planning.
It was Thor’s fault, Loki thought, sulkily, most of these things were. Thor wasn't going to be King for a long time yet, but that didn't mean he could act like an idiot. If he hadn’t spent so much time sparring with Sif, Loki would not have had to cut off her hair to make his brother notice him again. If he hadn’t made it abundantly clear that weapons held his interest like nothing else could, all that business with the dwarves would not have happened. Loki winced at the memory; that had not been a particularly pleasant or amusing time.
It had been a bright beautiful morning, and Loki had secluded himself in a grove of trees not far away from Asgard’s Keep to practice his magic away from the prying eyes. His talents were not looked kindly upon by the people of Asgard, who were largely warriors like his brother.
But Thor, with the unerring instinct of older brothers whose company is manifestly not desired, chose that moment to seek Loki out, more surely and swiftly than any hunting dog of Asgard could.
“What are you doing?” Thor had demanded, as if Loki owed him an answer.
“How is it any of your business?” Loki had asked, testily – he was never fond of interruptions, particularly when they came from Thor. Then of course, an argument was in order, as it always was. But none of their arguments yet had resulted in anything that Loki couldn’t undo.
Eventually Loki had had quite enough, and that was when the trouble started.
People would say that the trouble always started with Loki, but their problem was that they thought they knew Loki, and they definitely didn’t know Thor when he was with Loki.
Loki had hurled magic at Thor before, of course; brothers were always such a convenient target practice for one’s latest tricks. This time should have been no different.
It was supposed to be a simple spell. One easily cast, and easily undone (whatever he would later claim). But Loki had been interrupted from his work, then riled into a temper, and arguing with Loki when he had been practicing in a spot of the woods known for its strong residual natural magic was not by any stretch of the imagination a good idea.
It was the work of moments: Thor had but to unleash a particularly ill-timed remark, once again about magic and its place in Asgard. Loki always felt that these were the best times to show Thor what he could do when he puts his mind to it. He cannot help but wonder sometimes if the root of all their fights really is in how different they are, or if it lies deeper, in a place neither of them is willing to give a name to because that would mean admitting it exists.
Loki had let his magic speak for him, and when the dust had settled, Thor was a dragon.
The first coherent thought Loki had when the air had cleared was that Asgard was going to say it was his fault again.
For Thor was not just any dragon. He was bristling forest of spines swathed in scaly scarlet skin, towered over Loki. He caught sight of horns and a mouthful of extraordinary teeth the length of one of his throwing knives. Thor’s wingspan alone easily dwarfed the Keep’s Great Hall.
Thor looked like an enormous amount of trouble, and he was Loki’s immense amount of trouble right at this moment.
Then Loki had no time to think, for Thor had turned, suddenly aware of his presence.
Loki had the barest moment to consider staying absolutely still, before Thor was upon him, and staying absolutely still was the only thing he can do.
Great liquid golden eyes gazde into Loki’s own, and Loki barely had the presence of mind to stutter his brother’s name when the dragon that was his brother roared, and Loki felt the mountains around them shake.
If he survives this particular mistake, he will remember that he really shouldn’t cast magic when he was in a bad temper, if only because magic clouded by emotion was an unpredictable creature. But if Thor could get under his skin like no one else in Asgard, it was only because Thor had so much more practice at it than anybody else.
Then Thor inexplicably releases him, and makes a break for the mountains beyond the Keep.
His first thought is to follow after, but after noting how quickly Thor is outdistancing him, and his own exhaustion after (unintentionally) performing a transformation of such scale, he is forced to admit that he is not equipped to commence pursuit of a dragon, particularly one of Thor’s size. He forces down the thought of what he will do if Thor decides to fly away, for those great wings were certainly meant for a purpose, and if Thor exercised them to that end, finding him could be a tale worth telling indeed.
+
On his way back to the Keep, he decides that providing a reason for Thor’s conspicuous absence is also in order.
His first stop is, accordingly, Thor’s quarters. Loki needs no magic to stay unseen, and so it is that he slips into Thor’s quarters unnoticed by the people of the Keep. He conceals Thor’s weapons, and pens a note in Thor’s sloppy hand, excitedly claiming that he has sighted tracks of a massive beast and decided to investigate. This, he hopes, will serve not just to explain away Thor’s absence, but also to put the minds of Asgard’s people at rest when they do sight Thor’s tracks.
He only hopes that Thor’s legendary recklessness will not be reason for the Warriors Three and Sif to come after him.
Then Loki carefully leaves the room in disarray, just as if Thor has come in and left chaos in his wake in his excitement to commence the hunt. He hopes that this deception only has to last a few days.
Some part of Loki hopes that the magic will fade shortly, and with it, Thor restored to his original self.
But Loki’s life would not be Loki’s if it were that easy.
+
Loki’s next stop is the library. He identifies the dragon Thor has become quite easily, as the Keep library has an excellent collection of dragon literature, mostly dedicated to the identification and vanquishing of said dragons, and has to restrain himself from laughing when he does discover what Thor has been turned into.
The wingspan of the dragon before him touches the tips of the pages on either side of the book. Its artist clearly favoured embellishment over accuracy, but there are the spines, the scarlet scales, the unmistakeable features of the dragon that had pinned him to a rock barely hours ago.
The Monstrous Nightmare, the book declares, is one of the most aggressive, powerful, and stubborn breeds of dragon known to Asgard: quick to anger, and can be counted on to be the first to arrive and the last to leave in a fight.
In other words, very like Thor.
Even if this had been a conscious choice, Loki could not have made a better one.
He searches through all the books the Keep library has on transformations and shapeshifting, desperation driving him to race through the pages with manic intent, and is forced to admit when the dawn rises that he can find no answer in them; that there is no precedent for what he has done with Thor. The shapeshifting the books speak of is inborn or controlled; nothing like the wild magic he unintentionally worked with Thor. All the books speak of the sorceror's will shaping a transformation; he knows he had no conscious thought when he worked that spell. Most unhelpfully, the library has only informed him that workings performed on a site of power can have unpredictable effects, but has not seen fit to detail or even speculate on what these might be.
Loki makes another unpleasant discovery in the course of that long night when he tries to light a candle and finds he cannot.
It is then that he realises that Thor is not the only one affected by the spell. The shock of yesterday’s transformation, and his instinctive desire to conserve his energy, had kept him from noticing , but it was now undeniable. While it was not uncommon for his magic to require restoration after particularly extensive use, it had never before been silent for such a long period of time.
After Loki tries and fails to light his candles, lift his books or open doors without touching them, he is forced to admit that he cannot work any magic now. Which leaves him to suppose that his magic is bound up entirely in the biggest working he has ever done in his life: turning his brother into a dragon.
He holds out slim hope that he has merely exhausted his reserves, and that they will return with time, but hat since Thor is still a dragon, it is likely that his magic is bound up in Thor, and will not return until he finds a way to unbind it.
He knew he would have to do so, but now he knows he must, for his own sake as well as Thor’s.
He must seek Thor out.
Loki is used to cleaning up his own mistakes and that of Asgard’s as well, but this is the first time that Thor himself has been a mistake that Loki has had to fix.