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Chapter Text

“Puny god,” the Hulk huffed, and Loki could do nothing but listen and feel as the beast walked away from him. Every step sent vibrations shuddering through the floor and he could not help his muffled whimpers as they jarred his battered, broken body, shards of bone grinding together under a paper-thin layer that felt more blood and bruise than skin.

Pathetic. To have been brought so low, to have come so far and for his body to fail now, of all times.

Yet underneath the smokescreen of anger and agony, Loki wanted to crow in triumph. Every single part of him hurt, his head was thick and heavy with utter exhaustion and his seidr was all but screaming from overuse, but he had done it. It was over. The mortals had the sceptre and were winning the battle, and it would only be moments now before they closed the portal and the invasion would be done. More importantly, Loki was finally, finally free, his thoughts clearer despite his exhaustion than they had been in months. He was alone in his head, and he wanted to weep from utter relief.

But he was not finished yet. It was true that he would not have to play this part much longer, but there was one more trick left to pull. The haphazard little team of mortals that had finally managed to unite against him would be back soon, bringing his oaf of a- no, bringing Thor with them. Loki still had a part to play – still had to fight, to claw his way out of this mess, because there was not a chance in Helheim that he was going to allow himself to be taken again.  

What tentative plans he had been able to make in the small space in his mind that had been his alone had never dared reach this far, but it should not matter. Loki was a master strategist and had been called God of Lies; improvising was second nature to him.

In fact, it would be easier now than it had been in centuries. How long had it been since he did not have to compensate for Thor or Thor’s shield brethren’s idiocy, since he had to protect no one but himself? Finally, finally Loki could protect himself.

A tiny, broken part of him had hoped… well, it didn’t matter now. He had spat enough clues at his brother, manoeuvring them past the blue with a tongue of silver and a predilection for chaos, that if Thor had truly cared then he should have been able to put the pieces together.

That the warrior had not done so should not have surprised him; ever had Thor been blind. Why should he have chosen now to grow a brain, when he had never done so before? When had Thor ever been there when Loki had needed him?

Perhaps he should be flattered instead, that even his worst effort had always been enough to fool the golden prince. Yet he could not dredge pride up past the creeping hollowness in his heart.

His hurt at the Asgardian he had once called brother was a distant throb now, barely tangible amidst the hundreds of greater pains wracking his body. His seidr was the worst of all, sending burning pain through his very soul. He had abused it these past few days, using it when he had not been in any fit state to be walking, forget fighting.

It had been necessary, but now that he was alone Loki let a grimace grace his face. He would need his seidr still, in the coming hours. Would need all his talents for one last performance.

To that end, he dropped the threads of illusion that he had been wearing for days now. Light shimmered from head to toe, the energy leakage a by-product of his exhausted magic, but Loki did not look down at himself as the glamour faded. Only a few lingering shreds remained, anchoring him to an Aesir form, for he had no wish to look upon monstrous blueness. The rest of him was revealed but he did not wish to think about that, not when he needed strength for what was to come.

The warmth of his own blood was sticky against his skin, bones shifting inside of him as the dropping of the glamour allowed enough energy spare for his wounds to finally begin to heal. He was bolstered by the fact that he was back in the Nine Realms at last, the familiar branches of Yggdrasil a balm to shredded seidr channels, and by the fact he need do nothing more than to lay there and let himself breathe.

Each breath was painful, but he was used to that by now. Lying there in a crater shaped by his own body was humiliating, but again, he had become used to such things. Better to recuperate, better to save his strength for getting him somewhere he could finally put himself back together. Then he could figure out who ‘Loki’ really was now that so many things had proved themselves false.

He knew what he was not, though. He was no puppet, not ever again. He was Loki and Loki was Chaos, and the Titan should never have tried to control him.

Far too soon, the hum of machinery – inaudible to human ears but sharp as knives to Loki, whose every sense was on high alert – alerted the mage that his short respite was over. Groaning quietly, his every muscle tensed as he reached for his abused magic. The ten minutes or so that he had lain there was nowhere near enough to even begin to recover, but he was no longer writhing in agony as he cloaked himself once again in pretty lies.

It should have been difficult, to shroud the underlying wounds whilst leaving those from today’s battle intact, but illusion magic had always come easily to Loki. He had often wondered why, when illusion was ordinarily one of the more complex uses of seidr, but no longer. At last he knew: he had been veiled in a kind of illusion ever since he was a babe and his magic was well-used to the feel of it.

His experience as a shapeshifter also aided him, for Loki had long ago become at ease taking forms that were not his own. It had been a necessary skill amongst the Aesir for whom magic was women’s work and wit was dishonourable. Walking in other skins had been the only way he had ever experienced freedom.

God of Lies, indeed. His whole life had been a lie, and he had to wonder if his epithet might have been different had the All-Father even once told him the truth. How was he ever to have learned otherwise when he had always been surrounded by liars and falsehoods?

Not that it mattered now. His mind was rambling from the pain, and he needed to focus. Glancing down at himself at last, he winced again and magic bled from him in response, altering to his whims even as his very bones ached. His form filled out, non-existent flesh padding his skeleton, the black marks faded from his eyes and his clothes shimmered back into golden armour rather than stinking rags.

The additions to the glamour cost him energy he did not really have, but they could not see him like that. He had already established his part; he would not risk putting them on guard now, when their triumph should make them pay attention to all the wrong things.

Pretending he did not hear the elevator open, he dragged himself from the crater at last, placing one cracked hand after another on the steps and hauling himself into something akin to vertical. He felt their eyes on him, as harsh and glaring as mortals (plus Thor) could muster, but it was nothing compared to the acid of the Chitauri and Other and Titan. So he merely looked up, modulating the weariness in his voice to acceptable levels, and quipped drily, “I’ll have that drink now.”

His voice was raspier than he would have preferred, but the taunt did its job. It was not out of character for the Loki he had built, and their snorts and glares and incredulous glances meant that none of them were looking at the hint of green sparking at his fingers or the matching flares from the cuffs Thor wore at his waist. Restraints custom built to hold magic-users – they would not ordinarily be strong enough to hold him, but battered and weakened and depleted as he was they would more than suffice.

That was what the charade was for, after all. Merely refraining from teleporting away was probably enough to convince Thor that he was depleted enough for the chains to work, but this would go easier if they underestimated him.

It was a trickster’s wont – to make them look where he wanted them to look, let them glare and sneer all they liked, so long as none noticed the way his magic eased over the shackles like a razor-sharp file. He wanted to scream from the pain of it – he had nothing left to give, and it felt like his magic was cutting inside him along with the metal – but a vicious glow of satisfaction quickly repressed that desire as he felt the magic of the cuffs falter and flare. Then the invisible binding shattered entirely and he wanted to smile, fierce and bright the way he had not smiled in years.

He held himself back with no small amount of effort, presenting his wrists agreeably enough to be shackled and making his smile something sinister and arrogant rather than the joyful, maddened shriek penned in his lungs. Even so, Stark (Loki was not unaware of Midgardian custom) eyes him suspiciously, murmuring to his companions, “Just like that, huh?”

Thor waved a massive hand dismissively. “Fret not, Man of Iron, I know my brother’s schemes well. This is indeed familiar behaviour. He is out of options, and so it is in his best interest to comply until he can twist some other plot. These chains will bind his magic; that will suffice to contain him.”

Loki winced. It was more because Thor was unbearably loud and his head was no less sore than the rest of him, but the other Avengers interpreted it as admittance of defeat and accepted Thor’s word.

Fool.

Thor had never really known him. Never bothered to try. He knew him even less now, because Loki did not even recognise himself anymore. Knowledge of his character or not, however, Thor still should have known better. Merely binding his magic would not be enough to render Loki harmless.

Thor tended to forget, claiming he relied only on ‘tricks,’ but Loki had trained under the same standards as his brother and he was still a formidable opponent even when forbidden his natural talents. Perhaps not enough to best Thor, the paragon of the Aesir warrior class, but he was by no means defenceless.

Whilst there had been times when he had indeed bowed meekly to whatever punishment awaited, as Thor suggested, Loki had only ever done such a thing when there was likely to be an acceptable outcome. This was not one of those times.

If he were taken to Asgard now, execution would be the most favourable outcome. Odin had never been fond of listening to his ‘lying tongue,’ and Loki would pick an easy death a thousand times over being prisoner again, at the mercy of those who would eventually come for him or whatever punishment the All-Father would think to concoct. Loki severely doubted that Asgard could do worse than he had already endured, but that did not mean that the Aesir would not try.

He had become lost in his head again, Loki realised as he felt metal clamp around his outstretched wrists. There was a brief tingle as his skin came into contact with the runes, but his alterations held and the power dissipated through him, actually empowering his own magic with an influx of foreign-familiar energy.

He bared his teeth at the sensation, too tired and distracted to mask something so inconsequential. Odin. Of course the All-Father had enchanted these himself, a leash for his wayward pet-

Enough. He had more control of himself than that, and the small sign of aggression had caused the mortals to shift and tense even as there was a vicious kind of satisfaction in their eyes. They must have assumed it was pain, or perhaps indignation.

Then Thor brought something else out of his pocket, and again Loki could not quite control himself. His eyes widened slightly, skin paling a shade under the cover of his illusions.

He had seen these before, but despite the way the All-Father had despised Loki’s designation of ‘silvertongue’ he had never actually gone to such lengths to quiet him. Such restraints were barely ever used on Aesir… but then Loki wasn’t Aesir, was he? Now that he finally knew the wretched truth, perhaps the All-Father no longer saw use in his pretence and wanted the monster muzzled.

Loki tried to think of it as an honour, that his unenhanced words could be considered on par with those races for whom a single word could bind a man to their will – Enchantresses whose voices were imbued with their seidr; Reapers who needed only a name to kill; nightmarish creatures from Nifleheim whose shrieks could bring despair to the bravest warrior’s heart. He tried, telling himself that he did not care, but though he had been titled God of Lies he had never been good at deceiving himself. No seidmadr could truly do so if they wanted their magic to answer their call; magic was about will and desire as much as skill. You could not shape your intent properly if you warped who you truly were.

The muzzle… well. Loki had survived many things, he could survive this too. It was not so much the indignity that grated on him as the memories, the rising tang of blood choking his throat, but he forced himself to think of different things.

His plans – how might this factor into them?

Oh, Norns, he could see that the muzzle was frigid and rough, knew how it would grate against tender skin. Don’t think about it, don’t think about it…

Plans. The muzzle would save him from making a mistake, giving away his next steps and not-actually-bound magic when he was too tired to control himself. It would save them from pondering his growing silence, when wordplay took energy that he simply didn’t have.

Metal on his lips, blood on his tongue, can’t-open-mouth-can’t-speak-can’t-breathe-cant…

In a last bid effort to control himself, he risked a glance over the Avengers. Did they find this fitting, that the rabid beast that had invaded their world be muzzled like one? Barton certainly did, that viciousness never dulling from toxic blue eyes. Romanoff was calm, poised, her fury more ice than fire. Yet Stark, surprisingly, had a curious twist to his lips. “Is that really necessary, Thor?”

Barton actually growled, not that Loki blamed him for it. That particular human was well within his rights to hate him and it made sense that he would not take kindly to a person who was supposed to be his teammate trying to stop anyone doing whatever the hell he wanted to Loki. Stark was the odd one for speaking up.

Oh, Loki was well aware that Americans had certain standards that they liked to think they held themselves to. They had laws regarding ‘humane’ treatment and the ‘rights’ of all beings – rights Odin would have done well to heed – but he would not have expected those to apply to a planet-invading aliens.

Bitterness welled through him at the thought that Stark – a human he had personally defenestrated and an inhabitant of a world he had brought war and death to – was more willing to defend his rights than the Aesir that protested love for him. The mortal was a better man than most.

Thor, for all his claims of brotherhood and all their shared history, did not even seem to think of what such a device might do to Loki. There was nothing tender in him as he said, “Nay, my brother can wield words as sharp as blades, and it is better not to give him the chance to scheme. ‘Tis only temporary; it will be removed upon our return to Asgard.”

With that, Thor raised the muzzle. It was all Loki could do to mask the pleading in his eyes; he refused to be weak again, refused to bow and cower. He would master himself.

Then the metal touched his lips.

Chapter Text

His mind, already torn and tattered and overwhelmed, nearly shrieked. It was too much, too soon, an agony of sensation and memory as metal sealed over centuries-old scars.

The muzzle masked his gasp as the flashback assaulted his mind, consciousness spinning dizzily back through years and years, to a time when he was little more than a child, a time of anger-desperation-fear-pain-despair-please-no-what-did-I-do-father-brother-where-are-you-please-help-no-don’t-understand-tried-I-tried…

Loki growled softly, struggling to maintain his footing as the memories threatened to overwhelm him. He had not thought of those days in years, and compared to his time with the Titan they should really have lost their power, but suddenly he was as a child again. Helpless, alone, desperate. So alone, as he always had been and always would be…

A brother who claimed to love him but who abandoned him when it counted. A scheme gone wrong amidst a populace who never bothered ask for his side of the story. A realm where he was reviled and disbelieved no matter how much truth passed his lips.

Loki. Mischiefmaker, silvertongue, liar. Those desperate days had been the first time he had really understood what it meant, the price of the things he was capable of.

Pain, always-always pain. His lips screamed with it, clogged with metal and blood, and every little movement was agony, and he could not breathe with the blood in his lungs, Thor’s weight pinning him in place, the malicious smiles of dwarven tormentors…

Seidr sparked within him, his magic just as desperate and pleading as he, for it was part of him. Back in the memory he had held it inside him, even when he was half-mad with pain, because even insensible he had known his brother. Had felt his presence at his side and refused to hurt him even as Thor participated in Loki’s own agony. Even as his magic screamed in a way that the mage himself could not, mouth sewn shut and pride all he had left.

His magic was screaming still, but for a different reason. He had reached for it, one of his only comforts in those long, lonely days, and a different kind of pain spiked through him. Rawer, purer. His seidr was even more exhausted than he, but it still answered his call.

The pain, funnily enough, was what drew him back to himself. He startled awake as if from a nightmare, the memories receding like the tide, and found himself in the tower in New York.

Still chained, still muzzled, still hurt, and yet relief was sweet in his veins. It was over, his torments were over, and he was safe. Safe. It felt so foreign, but it was a welcome alienness.

He had no way of telling how long his mind had been lost, but Stark was still talking, because of course he was. Loki had noted his and the mortal’s similarities before, the louder-than-life craving for attention, the joy in being as irritating as possible, the finely-honed ability to get under anyone’s skin. It was how he had known the best way to get Stark personally invested in the invasion, just as targeting the Hulk had caused Banner to join the fight and invading anywhere in America was enough for Rogers.

Still talking. “Come on, guys, you’ve all got to be hungry. I’m hungry. No one likes me when I’m hungry-”

“Only when you’re hungry?” Romanoff muttered, and if Loki had not been so exhausted he might have wanted to grin at that. No matter what he might have said under the sceptre’s influence he had always had a soft spot for mortals. They were so much more interesting than the stagnant Aesir.

The engineer seemed of a similar mind, grinning maniacally at the Black Widow. “Ha ha, congrats, you made a funny, but c’mon. We saved the world, good job, yeah, we deserve a little break. And did I mention that I nearly died? The least you can do is indulge me with a little shawarma…”

He might have gone on, that infuriating smile fixed on his face, had Rogers not intervened with a grimace. “He’s not going to shut up until we give in, is he?”

Stark squawked in indignation, but Barton snorted. “Not at all. And hell, I could eat.” He glanced at the muzzle, eyes glinting, but the mage could not blame him. Had Loki had the Other at his mercy, he would not have been able to hold himself back half so well.

Then again, Barton’s brief experience with mind control had been far different to Loki’s.

Catching the glance, Romanoff asked, “And what about him?” Her voice was heavy with disapproval, but Stark remained irreverent.

“Reindeer Games? He’s not going anywhere, is he, Natashalie? He can come with.”

“We should hand him off to SHIELD.”

Rogers shifted in place. “We sure SHIELD can hold him?” It was a valid question.

The answer was no, no they could not. Even if Odin’s shackles had worked as intended they were ill-equipped to hold a being such as he, for even without magic he could theoretically access the frostbite inherent to the Jötnar. Loki was relatively sure that Thor had not told them about that – did he even know? – and if he had it would scarcely have mattered. Frost Giants had been relegated to Midgardian myth. They wouldn’t know how to contain a Jötun any more than they knew how to contain a mage.

“My father’s chains will ensure my brother cannot reach his magic,” Thor boomed, so reliably naïve. “He will no longer be able to pull tricks like the one on the Helicarrier-” it was a pity that Loki wasn’t in a fit state to enjoy the brush of red on Thor’s cheeks “- and his allies are gone. Your mortal confinements will hold until I can take Loki back to Asgard.”

An argument broke out at that, debating whether or not they would ‘allow’ Loki to go back to Asgard in the first place. Loki ignored it; now that he had nullified the chains the mortals no longer had any control over where he would go, not that they knew that. And if he had not done so then it would have been Asgard whether the mortals liked it or not. Thor would never return without him, and if Thor did not return then Odin would send an army no matter how much energy it took. The Midgardians were pitifully unready to deal with an Asgardian-style invasion.

No, Loki was not bitter. He was residing quite comfortably in denial, thank you very much.

At some point – probably during the time that he had been lost in the past – the green beast had turned back into the man. Banner, Loki dragged up from the depths of his mind. Barton had not been able to tell him much about the elusive man behind the beast, and he took the time now to watch him.

The human was quiet, studying the floor intently as if ashamed. It was a refreshing attitude. From Barton’s description, the green beast could be compared to an Asgardian’s berserker state, but unlike Banner the Aesir revered such transformations. They cared not for the loss of logical reason or the way berserkers preyed on their own comrades as easily as an enemy, valuing only the crushing power of mindless destruction.

Banner was intriguing. His human side apparently had a mind a little like Loki’s – scholarly and disenchanted with violence – whilst the beast was simpler, more primal. He did not resent either side of the mortal for what he had done – in fact, he owed the doctor a debt, for freeing him even if it was unintentional – and was happy to ignore the arguing ‘Avengers’ in favour of debating with himself about how the coexistence of two radically different personalities.

Eventually it was settled that Thor could take Loki back if and only if he could precure the permission of a mortal the Avengers called ‘Director’ and Thor called the ‘Son of Fury.” Loki actually rolled his eyes at that – Thor had never bothered with the cultures of other realms, and it made him look like an even bigger idiot than normal. A lot of the other realms followed Aesir naming traditions, but most of Midgard had not done so for centuries.

Rogers cleared his throat once the argument had wound down. “Getting back to the point, I’d feel a lot better if I was able to keep an eye on the guy for a bit.”

Before Romanoff could object again Stark cut in, utterly ignoring the glares sent his way. “Awesome. So that’s two to one, let’s go get shawarma. We’ll bring Reindeer Games with.”

Iron Man was already turning away and, looking tired and resigned, his comrades did not argue further. Loki himself felt a little flicker of emotion cracking the heaviness of his exhaustion – he liked this human.

Such emotions were dangerous, he knew, but after so long spent with creatures that barely even had personalities Stark was as a warm fire after a freezing night. Painful, yes, but the heat was welcome even as it burned.

Thor was the one to keep hold of the other end of Loki’s chains, winding the ends around Mjölnir. It surprised him a little; sensible precautions had never been Thor’s strongpoint. It was grating that these were all things that he had tried to hammer into his brother for centuries and never succeeded, and yet a few measly days on Midgard had finally managed to knock some sense into him.

On the bright side, that meant that Loki need feel little guilt over essentially abandoning a shield-brother. Especially as Thor had turned on him first. For all his offers at ‘redemption,’ Thor had never tried to puzzle out his motivations or even ask why he was attacking Midgard to begin with. He had just accepted that Loki hungered for a throne, despite Loki’s claims back on the Bridge.

Idiotic buffoon. Loki had never wanted to rule. He liked his freedom far too much for that – at his core, Loki was a scholar and a prankster; he would not be able to stand being bound to Asgard, a realm full of people who spent their days battling and drinking and deriding every pursuit Loki enjoyed. He had only wanted it acknowledged that he was capable of it, that his talents were worth something on a realm that had always scorned one they called their prince.

He was capable. He could rule Asgard – Odin had raised them both as if they would – and he might even be able to rule well, for he had always been the diplomat of the two princes, but Loki had little doubt that he would hate it. Just remembering those awful few days with Gungnir heavy in his hand and madness infesting his mind made him shudder.

He paid little enough attention to the Avengers as they descended through Stark’s tower and emerged onto the battered streets. It was becoming difficult to focus on anything but his own exhaustion, and none of it was relevant anymore. He just wanted peace and quiet – time and space to recover, to rediscover who he was when he was not being bound to another’s will.

When they emerged into the city, however, he had to fight his urge to wince. He had known that it would be like this, war was never kind, but it was quite another thing to see it in front of him. This city, so buzzing with life and fragile mortality, broken and in pieces because of his actions.

Monster. You ruin everything you touch.

The whispers were insidious, but Loki shook them away. Necessary, he argued, doing his best to purge the Other’s shadow. Yes, he had broken a single city, like a child in a tantrum, but the wider world – the Nine Realms, not just Midgard – remained unsullied.

Necessary.

Oh, how he hated that word. So many of his greatest agonies had come from what was necessary. But it was not the time for self-pity, so Loki occupied himself scrambling over what rubble he could not avoid thanks to the short length of chain. He gritted his teeth and did his best not to give away the extent of his weakness, for the damage the green beast had wrought could only excuse so much, and ignored the glares from the mortals.

When they reached a clearer area of the streets, Loki found he no longer had enough to distract himself with that he could afford to ignore their glares, and so he watched them instead.

They appeared to be taking the damage to the city rather personally, a little too personally considering that they had inflicted much of that damage themselves. Banner, it seemed, was the only one who took any responsibility, he who was perhaps least culpable – Barton had claimed that he had little control over his other form, and it had not truly been his choice to unleash it. Yet the doctor’s shoulders were hunched, his eyes averted; uncertain of his place and welcome in the group.

Enough. Now was not the time for sentiment, despite how the calm moments allowed Loki to see similarities that should not be between himself and the mortal heroes.

Perhaps it had not been such a good idea to analyse the Avengers. He was growing maudlin in his tiredness, and he could not allow himself to forget that, though he was closer than he had been in a long time, he was not yet free. Even if his Seidr was humming painfully (a good painful, like a bind on a raw wound) once again within him, he was still physically chained. If they managed to sedate him, as the humans of Puente Antiguo had once sedated Thor… Loki could not fight if he was not conscious. He had to keep his head, had to remain vigilant, even if all he wanted to do was collapse.

Again he had become lost in his head, and when he emerged from his thoughts it was to find that they had arrived at their destination. The eatery was smaller and dimmer than he had expected, considering that this had been Stark’s choice, but it had somehow escaped most of the damage that had all but crushed the buildings around it. And there were people inside, people who whispered and pointed – at the Avengers, at Loki.

Glares and jeers were nothing new. Back in Asgard, they had even become something of a comfort – their scorn was one of the few ways the Aesir paid attention to him. With the Chitauri, it had bothered him even less; why should he care what monsters thought of him?

(You are a monster. This is what you deserve.)

With the humans… it might have bothered him, if he had had any energy to care. But at least these whisperings were justified; all they knew of him was that he had attacked their world. It was more reason than Asgard had ever had. And it affected him even less when the Avengers added in their glares and threats and taunts (Barton especially appeared to delight in that).

Familiar, all of it, like a lullaby. The muzzle excused him from having to come up with a comeback, so Loki merely narrowed his eyes and projected an aura of disdain.

You have no idea who or what I am.

Apparently, it was enough. They left him alone, chained outside like a disobedient hound. To further ensure that he could not escape, Mjölnir had been placed upon one hand, similarly to how Thor had restrained him back on the Rainbrow Bridge.

If they thought that would bother him, leaving him chained up like a dog whilst they feasted, then they were several months too late. He had endured far worse to much less purpose under the Titan.

Being physically unable to get up was an excellent reason to lay there, and Loki was not so prideful that he would not use the opportunity to rest. Quietly he curled around the hammer, feeling its seidr zinging against his skin.

It made something inside him ache, that taste of lightning and power that had always meant brother to him. It was another familiarity, another reminder of the present, another welcome barrier against flashbacks.

No longer did it bother him that he could not lift it. Had he not always known that he would never be seen as ‘worthy’ to the All-Father? Oh, he had tried, tried so very hard, but a part of him had known for centuries that it was a fool’s hope. And the part of him that had craved such things had died a brutal death in the void between realms.

He was no longer at all sure that he wanted to live up to the Asgardian vision of worth. Had Loki not always been chaos? It was his domain, as the Storm was Thor’s.

Not many remembered that. Most among the Aesir would claim instead that the Shadow Prince embodied lies, or mischief, or magic. Loki would not correct them – it amused him, for one, and for another he did not mind being known for things he valued, things he was good at. And it wasn’t like things would have been better if they had remembered; little though they would admit it, chaos frightened them.

Perhaps that was why Loki had never fit.

Yes, many of them had forgotten who and what he was – or had never bothered to learn in the first place. But Loki knew that he was chaos and chaos did not conform. And now, for perhaps the first time in his life, he had a choice in his own beliefs.

Did he want to subscribe to the ideals of a warmongering race who valued brawn above brains? A race that claimed to rule realms that they never bothered to defend?

Odin liked to claim that he ruled the Nine, but was Midgard not one of the Nine? The All-Father was nought but myth to Earth, and even when the Chitauri threatened it he had sent Thor only for the tesseract and his disobedient Jötun runaway. Loki… did not want to be like him.

There were many examples, it seemed, of things that Loki did not wish to be. He did not wish to be the shadow-prince of Asgard any longer, did not wish to be as careless and distant as the All-Father or as mindless and war-hungry as many highly-ranked Aesir.

It was strange, to lie here in the rubble (just another discarded relic) and think these thoughts. He had become used to dwelling in his own head, his thoughts his only relief from darkness and emptiness and agony, but there were some paths he had not dared to venture down. For so long there had been no point pondering who he might wish to be, no point building himself up knowing that he would only be torn down again. No point inflicting any further pain on himself by trying to resolve his deep-seated issues with the Aesir and those who claimed to be his family when he had not believed that he would ever see them again.

Now, though, his mind was once again unfettered. Jagged, wounded, but healing. For the first time in months, he could breathe.

He was content enough to lie there, the air sweet in his lungs, watching the dust swirl and the endless expanse of sky overhead. These things were luxuries enough that he could ignore the bite of the chains, the weight of Mjölnir, the acrid taste of metal and blood on his lips.

He curled up on his side, for all the world as if he were sleeping, and allowed himself to rest.

Mjölnir, despite Thor’s intention, was a great aide. It was a magnificent pool of Asgardian seidr, the type Loki was most familiar with, and whilst the hammer was not exactly sentient it still recognised that it had fought beside Loki for eons and that he had saved its master countless times. It did not resist him drawing from it, and his seidr channels tingled as they began to recover.

If Thor had ever paid attention in their lessons, he might have known not to leave such a powerful magical artefact near a drained seidmadr. Another ignorance that had frustrated Loki for centuries and that he was now grateful for.

Time passed. Inside the restaurant, the Avengers made somewhat awkward attempts at conversation as they chewed on their shawarma. Outside, Loki enjoyed the breeze on his face and the simplicity of not needing to do anything.

The few humans that dared venture out onto the dystopian streets averted their eyes, seeing a motionless human-shaped body pinned by a hammer and making assumptions. Loki was all but invisible, no magic required.

Despite the wreckage all around, it was strangely peaceful.

Chapter Text

Of course, like all good things, it could never last. He heard the scraping sounds of chairs being pulled back as the Avengers finished their meal and began to exit the restaurant, and he closed his eyes in order to centre himself.

Drawing in deep breaths, he tentatively reached for his seidr again. The half hour he had been lying there was not really enough time for it even to begin to recover, not when he had so little energy, so it still hurt. Yet in Mjölnir’s presence it had bloomed like a flower in Alfheim.

It would be enough for him to escape. Not for traditional teleportation, which always took a staggering amount of magical power, but when had Loki ever been traditional? It had not been a boast when Loki had claimed the title World-Walker.

Sudden agony bit into his ribs, and Loki automatically clenched his teeth against the screams threatening to emerge. Stars burst behind his eyes as he felt shards of bone in his chest, his seidr groaning as it struggled to keep him stable, his mind tumbling desperately around gaping flashbacks. Instead of succumbing once more to memory, Loki flicked open his eyes and narrowed them at his attacker.

Barton. Of course.

In a way, it was easier to bear from Barton than any of the other Avengers, because he had personally wronged the archer. Not that having broken ribs kicked was particularly bearable. But Loki let none of his pain show on his face as he raised a single eyebrow. Was that satisfying?

Barton growled and drew his leg back for another but Rogers (thankfully) intervened, putting a hand on his arm and speaking in a low tone. Loki could have listened in if he wished (mortal hearing was so pathetic), but paid more attention to Thor’s approach.

The Asgardian towered over him and Loki felt a flicker of unease before forcibly reminding himself of the time he had turned his (not-)brother into a Midgardian puppy. It had provided endless amusement at the time and it still did the trick; it was difficult to be apprehensive of someone who had spent an entire afternoon flopping all over the floor because he could not figure out how to move on four new legs.

(It had also served its purpose of being the last time that Thor had mocked him for his occasional clumsiness after shape-shifting.)

Not that Loki would ever admit it, but Puppy-Thor had been extremely adorable. A definite improvement on normal-Thor.

Thor was not adorable now, however. He was frowning – disappointment, most likely. Oh well. It was not as though he was the only one; Loki was disappointed in him, too. Thor had never had the quickest mind, but Loki had once thought the world of him anyway. No more.

The Asgardian hefted Mjölnir, and Loki fought the urge to shake his hand out. The hammer’s weight was not a physical thing (otherwise his hand would be paste right now) but it was unpleasant nonetheless.

He would not have had time to give in to the urge anyway; with the hammer came the chains still wound around it and Loki was ignominiously hauled to his feet. Barton stormed past him, not-so-accidentally barging into his shoulder, and although it was little more than a brush of air to an Asgardian (Jötun), even an injured one, Loki let himself stumble.

The Avengers all tensed, as if expecting a trick, but nothing remarkable happened. He reached the end of the chain and was jerked to a halt (which must have amused them) and then straightened his back haughtily, as if it had never happened.

“This way,” Romanoff offered, taking the lead. The others didn’t protest, all watching Loki warily, but he followed meekly enough. (Wait. Wait for the right moment. He could be patient; it would not be long now.)

Half a minute later, as they encountered a particularly damaged section of street, Loki stumbled again. He let his foot knock against a broken railing and barely managed to catch himself. Again, the Avengers tensed and then relaxed, more quickly this time.

Twenty more second. Another almost-fall. They still exchanged glances, but this time the tension had been notably absent from all except the trained spies.

He knew that they thought him prideful. Thor would have claimed as much and the performance of the last few days would have done little to contradict him. The Avengers would assume that Loki would only stumble when he was utterly spent, that he had no energy left to defy them even if he wanted to.

How wonderful it was to be underestimated. Loki almost wanted to smile, but refrained. Not only would it hurt, jostling the muzzle that had begun to cut into him, but it would be counterproductive when he was putting in so much effort to lower their guard.

The next time he stumbled, Thor reached out a hand to steady him. Loki recoiled from it before he could stop himself (don’ttouchmedon’ttouchmegetawaygetawaygetawayfromme) but covered it with a scathing look.

“What’s the matter, can’t take what you give?” Barton snarled, coming close enough that Loki could smell food on his breath. It made him gag behind the muzzle, though he again made sure as little as possible showed on his face, forcing contempt to his eyes.

Barton had probably thought that making Loki watch them eat was some kind of punishment, what with the muzzle barring him from any similar activity. It was quite the contrary – hunger was an old companion, now, and he was not at all certain he would be able to keep anything down. Not allowing him to eat simply meant that he would not be forced to vomit in front of them. He would rather not expose that weakness; he had shown quite enough vulnerability already.

Perhaps he was less prideful than Thor would ever believe, but that did not mean that he lacked such emotion entirely. Dignity had been forbidden under Thanos but this was not Sanctuary, this was Midgard. He could have such things on Midgard.

Caught up in his thoughts, this time when he tripped it was actually genuine. The Avengers as a whole did not react, although Thor let a little bit more of the chain to slacken, allowing him to catch himself.

Foolish, to permit the Aesir who claimed to be his brother sole control of the chain. None of the humans would have been nearly so lenient. They, more than Thor, seemed to understand that Loki was still dangerous, perhaps more so than ever before.

A cornered animal would always fight the hardest, after all.

Loki might not be in a corner anymore, not really, but they did not know that. And he would be damned if he let himself be locked up again.

One more stumble. This time no one blinked, not even Romanoff. She had been scanning the street ahead of them, ever alert and vigilant, but her eyes had rested for half a second longer on a white van idling just ahead of them.

Honestly, Loki felt a little insulted. An unmarked van? How… mundane. It was not nearly so inconspicuous as they might have thought; in the midst of the ruined city a pristine vehicle of any kind stuck out, especially one that was otherwise so utterly unremarkable. He did not know what he had been expecting, but he had thought Midgardians more inventive than this.

Slowly, cautiously, he let his seidr seep out of him. He would not be getting into the vehicle if he could help it; that seemed like asking for trouble.

The Midgardians did not notice anything unusual. Of course not – they were too short lived to develop seidr of their own. He glanced sideways at Thor.

A frown began to pull at the corner of the Asgardian’s mouth – although he knew little of magic, all those centuries of close proximity meant that he should recognise the feel of Loki’s – but he did not seem to understand his own unease. Loki’s seidr was subtle, after all. Thor’s was all flash and noise, lightning and thunder, whilst his was the whisper of the wind and the smooth silk of a river, the dance of a flame and the stillness of shadow.

Loki almost smiled when he heard it. The soft singing of Yggdrasil, welcoming a wayward son.

He pitied those that could not hear it. It was a gift – all magic was a gift, but this was his and his alone. It had always been solely his talent, to see and hear and comprehend the World Tree as few could.

Not for nothing had Earth been named Midgard, the Middle Fortress. The bulk of Yggdrasil’s branches touched Midgard at one point or another, and there were more secret paths in this realm than all the others combined. It was why Loki had more than passing familiarity with this world, a knowledge that had been coveted by Thanos. It was what would facilitate his escape now.

The passage was not something you could see with eyes or feel with hands, completely intangible to all normal senses. To Loki, however, it was like seeing music, and he wanted to weep with the beauty of it, this final proof that he was home.

Closer. Closer. Every step made the song clearer, brighter, and Loki had to fight hard not to increase his pace.

Romanoff reached it first, but of course she could not see it. To her it appeared to be an ordinary tree, remarkable only because the piece of greenery was completely out-of-place in the wreckage of the city.

A part of Loki hummed in delight at the irony. The entrances to paths were many and varied – some empty air, some narrow caves, some seemingly solid rock – but it was amusing that this one, just like the first pathway he had ever found in Mother’s – Frigga’s – gardens, was concealed within an actual tree. Fitting, somehow.

Then they were parallel to it, and Loki caught another stone with his foot. With that minimal excuse, he lunged to the side.

Lulled by his previous stumbles, the Avengers did not react in the critical second it took for green fire to burst to life around his hands. Loki did not have the time or spare seidr for anything elaborate so he formed his magic into a crude knife, hardly caring that it bit into his wrists when metal severed and the chains fell away. He did not bother with the muzzle – it was unimportant.

The Avengers erupted into a cacophony of shouting, all lunging towards him, but Loki was already moving. He had dropped immediately into a roll, dodging their grasping hands, and by the time a roar shattered the air as the beast emerged from Banner he had already reached the tree. His magic flared, eyes glowing bright as their natural green finally surpassed the wretched blue. Seidr coursed through him like blood.

It was exquisitely painful, but Loki hardly cared. He had almost forgotten what it was like, to surrender to his power, wrapped up in a warm blanket of security even when he had little left to give. His magic knew what to do, curling around him like an eager cat, and Yggdrasil parted for him.

Loki collided with the tree and his magic pushed, slipping him sideways through the seams in the world.

He vanished.

Chapter Text

Between one blink and the next, the World-Walker tumbled out in a familiar place-that-was-not-a-place. The Paths Between were impossible to describe, more felt than seen, and Loki had never had the urge to do so.

 Nothingness was solid beneath his feet, familiar energies twisting around him, immersing him in the flow of the universe. It teased at him, beckoned, and for a moment all Loki could do was breathe.

Then he made the mistake of opening his eyes.

Immediately, he regretted it. Vision was useless when navigating the paths, and whilst before he had enjoyed the sight of galaxies and worlds dancing all around… that had been before. Before he fell.

The Void loomed large in his mind, hungry to devour whatever there was left of him even as he slammed his eyelids closed again. ‘Hello, Little Nothing,’ it purred. ‘Remember this? Remember how inconsequential, how meaningless it all is? Let go, Little Nothing. Let go, let it end, let me devour you. Come back to me. Don’t you remember? What you became, what you are? Mine. Mine mine mine. Everything will be easier if you forget your pain, forget your rage, forget your name… come, Little Nothing, surely emptiness is better than this. Simple as falling asleep. You did it once before, remember?’

Yes, he remembered. But he had survived. Loki – he was Loki, and he was a survivor. Blind hands reached for his face and he fumbled for the clasps, wrenching that awful muzzle off his face.

He took in a breath. Two. And he could, could breathe, could survive here. He was not falling. There was a path beneath his feet even if he could not see it. Heart loud in his ears, Loki reached for the world around him, near breathless again at the fear he would be greeted with the airless, hopeless nothing that had been his world for time immemorial.

Air rushed back into his lungs, his seidr taking the energy flow and converting it to what he needed to survive, as it always did. There was flow here to do so with – Yggdrasil hummed softly, cradling him, Her childe, the only one who had ever bothered to learn the secrets of Her paths.

Reality trickled back, and Loki let himself collapse in the trees embrace. He had not expected the panic attack (wonderful Midgardians, with their words for things that would only be deemed weakness by Asgard), and felt a little ridiculous for it. Truly, Yggdrasil was nothing like the Void. She was beautiful, she was alive – she was life itself.

It had been too long since he had seen Her. Now the mindless panic was past, Loki could feel his depleted seidr almost singing, anchored at last to something so natural and familiar that it was a wonder he had ever survived without it.

He curled up like a babe, endless seconds slipping past as he allowed his magic to intertwine with the world around him. It grounded him, reminded him where and when he was, soothed his seidr a little from the frantic panic.

When he was at last sure that he was not going to break down, he opened his eyes once more. Prepared this time for the stars and the emptiness, he concentrated instead on mage-sight, surrounding himself with a glowing green-and-golden haze.

It settled him, as few things had ever been able to settle him. Once that feeling had belonged to Frigga alone; his Mother (no-yes-is-she-Mother? Not-my-blood not-my-blood but she-raised-me she-loved-me Frigga-please-am-I-still-yours could-you-love-a-monster?) would stroke his hair and sing him Vanir lullabies, hugging him close and promising safety. Now Yggdrasil itself cradled him, and Loki wanted nothing more than to curl up and never move.

But if he remained here, that was exactly what would happen. He would never move again, for he would die here. He might be safe from discovery, because no one had ever understood when Loki tried to teach about the Paths, but that did not mean he was safe to stay. Physical beings were never meant to dwell within Yggdrasil.

He almost did not care. Was glad enough for safety of any kind, too exhausted to fight anymore. But he had escaped Asgard, escaped the void, escaped the Sanctuary. He had escaped the Mad Titan and the Mind Stone and the Avengers who thought that they could contain chaos. It seemed pitiful, to give up now.

Besides, the paths were dangerous no matter how much he knew of them. Ordinary beings could never track him here – even Heimdall had never been able to watch the secret ways – but there were beings that dwelled within the branches of the universe, old and strange and immensely powerful.

Despite all that he had managed with a minimal fraction of his normal reserves, he had not been careful enough. His Seidr was still trembling and weak, and every breath, no matter how sweet, sent a throbbing ache through his core.

In an attempt to stem the magical haemorrhage, Loki dropped his glamours again. He remained in Aesir form, for the binding of his Jötun heritage had been on so long that it took no magic at all to maintain it, but other than that every ugly thing Thanos had done to him was displayed in gruesome technicolour across his skin.

He did not look. Did not wish to see, to be reminded of what had been done to him, not when he had already broken down once on the branches.

Blood oozed into the Void. The glamours had acted as a makeshift bandage, but underneath the illusions the battles on Midgard had reopened countless wounds, parting gifts from the Titan. A remnant of the fine line that the Other had walked, between making Loki susceptible enough to do their bidding and going too far to allow him to be successful.

If the Norns saw fit to smile on him, perhaps Thanos would believe that his minions had misjudged that line. Perhaps he would not believe Loki whole enough to have defied him, to have engineered his own defeat.

But since when had the Norns ever been kind to him?

You will long for something as sweet as pain. Loki shuddered and steered his mind firmly away. It was humiliating, how many thoughts he had to be wary of now. His mind had always been his greatest asset, and the Other had taken much glee from tearing that away. Over and over and over again.

It was over now.

He pressed a hand to a particularly deep gash in his side, wincing. He could feel his seidr longing to heal him, but it was dancing ever closer to depletion and it would get no better as long as he remained here.

Energy hummed against his skin, the World Tree trying its best to nurture a familiar magic, but he knew it would not be enough. Even without the glamours, he was expending more energy to keep himself here than he could absorb from Her. He had to move – but there was one thing he had to do first. One more task for his magic, before he left the Tree.

Gritting his teeth against the torment of overexerting himself again, Loki strained to achieve one last feat. He grasped the energy flowing around him and wove it around himself, binding himself more heavily into the inner workings of the tree, weaving it like a cloak around him.

It was a familiar working, one he had spent many years crafting and had never shared with a single soul, and it was almost as familiar to him as the shapeshift that made him Aesir. Liar and trickster and deceiver, Loki veiled himself in shadow, fitting his soul’s pattern to the emptiness around him until All-Seeing eyes could no longer pierce him.

It had been itching at him for days, the feeling of Heimdall’s judgemental gaze upon his neck, but like so many indignities it had been necessary. He had needed Thor to be here, needed an Asgardian to take the Tesseract off-world. But there was no need to expose himself anymore and although it used up reserves he did not really have, worsening his condition until he was swaying on his feet, the cloaking still made him sigh in relief.

However relieved he was, however, his seidr was still bleeding from him. In a very real sense, Loki’s magic was him, and the amount he was losing was more dangerous than the blood loss from his physical wounds. If he ran out of magic he would collapse and die, soul severed from his body.

So let’s not do that. With all his precautions in place, Loki began to limp forwards. Without the Avengers to watch or harass him he did not feel the need to hide the heaviness of his steps, the hitch in his breathing every time his feet made contact with the path. With every step, he cast around himself with his metaphysical senses, feeling for a place he could pass back into a realm.

His nostrils flared as he caught a scent that was not a scent. It was nought but a current of magic, but smell was the best description he had of it. He sifted through the different impressions: crackling embers; the stark beauty of hoarfrost; a strange, sweet spiciness. Muspelheim, Jötunheim, Alfheim.

Not the best options.

Muspelheim was a fire realm, an inhospitable climate to the Jötun he now knew himself to be, and they held no love for the Aesir. Not a place he wished to be when vulnerable.

Jötunheim too was dangerous; not only had he unleashed the Bifröst upon it, he had always been careful of Odin’s decrees regarding the frost giants and so it was the realm he was least familiar with. His trips there had always been accidents, and whilst he no longer cared for Asgardian laws now was not a time for exploration.

Alfheim… Alfheim should have been perfect. He had always felt welcome in the most peaceful of all the nine realms, and he had many friends there. Friends that would shelter him even from Odin. Not that Loki would ever ask that of them; he was not nearly so selfish as many Aesir would claim.

That was the problem. He would not risk exposing that peaceful realm to Odin’s wrath, should the Allfather discover that they harboured him. The Bifröst might be broken, but the tesseract could serve a similar purpose even if they couldn’t figure out how to use it to fix the Rainbow Bridge.

Should he go to Alfheim, it would only be a matter of time before Odin discovered him. The king knew of Loki’s love for that realm and believed in the selfish, ungrateful runt he had crafted in place of Loki’s real motives. He would expect his wayward puppet to flee there, and so it was likely even less safe than Jötunheim or Muspelheim.

There were more options than that, of course. The paths were versatile, Yggdrasil’s branches swaying easily with a touch of will, but Loki did not have the seidr to spare to influence Her right now. He had only the natural knots and whorls of Her bark, and the lack of control was as liberating as it was humiliating. It wasn’t like he had an idea of where to go, after all; he had not been able to plan beyond getting free, not able to nurture that hope lest it be crushed and break him along with it.

So Loki stumbled onwards, feeling his heart pound sluggishly as more and more energy trickled away, before he finally came across a viable fork. It led two ways – one that tugged an aching place in his heart with glimpses of blond hair and sweet roses, and another of salt and snow and mortality. Vanaheim and Midgard. Much more favourable options.

Frigga’s home realm was something of a blend between Asgard and Alfheim, far enough from Odin to be safe, less personal than the elves’ home and far more tolerant than the Golden Realm. Whilst Midgard… despite the invasion, Loki had always liked Midgard, and considering what he looked like sans glamour he doubted anyone would actually recognise him. Especially if, as the scent-that-was-not-a-scent suggested, the path lead out somewhere far from civilisation.

In that moment, Loki knew that he had made his choice. Odin would assume that the scorned prince would wish to run from his ‘defeat,’ and so Earth was the last place he would think to look for Loki. (Well, second to last. He severely doubted Odin would bother checking Jötunheim either, but Loki had no wish to confront that particular chapter of his life) As for Thor, the Crown Prince had ever been ignorant of Yggdrasil’s pathways; since Loki preferred to teleport rather than World-Walk to places in the same realm (he had never liked giving up all his tricks at once, and Yggdrasil was special) Thor had never seemed to realise that it was possible to use the paths to a similar effect. He envisaged the pathways as corridors between Realms when that was scarcely true at all.

Yes, Midgard was his best bet. It was also a place that Loki would not mind so much being trapped in as he recovered; it had been years since he had set foot there and it was always fascinating to see how far mortals could come in such a short time.

A little more eagerly now, Loki honed in on the scent of snow and salt and put all his energy into placing one foot in front of the other, looking neither left nor right at the void around him. Once the scent had thickened into an almost tangible thing, his seidr made a final effort, feeling out the place where the branch intersected the human realm and allowing him to breach from one to the other.

Chapter Text

He materialised on a barren stretch of snow and ice, and for a moment he felt a little delirious, wondering if he had not miscalculated and ended up on Jötunheim after all. The wind bit harshly at his exposed body, but now that he understood the aching pressure under his skin (which he had always assumed was the ‘normal’ response to extreme cold), he simply let a little of his natural blue colouring shine through and the chill reduced to something far more bearable. Almost pleasant, in fact; these were balmy temperatures for a Jötun, hovering somewhere around freezing rather then tens of degrees below.

He suspected that he would never particularly like his natural skin, for Asgard had taught him too well to see Jötnar as monsters, but he had made his peace with it. He suspected it had kept him alive in the Void (which had been one more thing to hate it for really), but more significantly it had saved him much pain and suffering on the inappropriately-named Sanctuary.

He breathed in, the coldness of the wind humming in his throat, and felt it soothe his aches a little. It tasted sweet; pure, clean snow. He had not been clean in…

Rather than dwell on the answer to that question (far too long), he rotated around, taking in the scenery. This place was cold and stark and empty of life, and yet it was not at all like Thanos’s ship. Too bright, too fresh, full of air and hope and freedom despite the bitter cold.

He had always loved the cold. After the revelation of his heritage perhaps that should have changed, but Loki was too tired to let it bother him now. Instead, knowing it was Midgard, he tried to pinpoint whereabouts he might have found himself. He was on an island, free of any sign of humans, a little spit of rock in the middle of nowhere.

It was surprisingly perfect. Interacting with other living creatures would take energy, more than Loki had, but here there was no one and nothing to bother him. It would be lonely, his recovery, but it would be safe.

Always had he preferred to lick his wounds in private. Partly it was a product of growing up amongst the Aesir; Weakness was frowned on in Asgard. But even beyond that Loki had always put a high value on privacy, and more so now than ever before.

The thought of any other creature seeing what Thanos had done to him, what he had been reduced to… Yggdrasil had come through for him yet again. This place, this barren, desolate, Midgardian winterland, was perfect.

You are safe, little mage, the magic of the world whispered to him. Rest.

The spirit of this place was gloriously wild and untamed. Loki did not normally commune with the world in this way, for it was easy to become overwhelmed when one was so small in comparison with the universe (oh yes, the Void whispered, so small, so helpless, nothing more than nothing-), but his usual defences were shredded. And Midgard was different from the other realms; it had no seidberandi of its own to tame it, and so its natural magic was left untouched, its flow wild and unbounded. It was… comforting, in a way. Should anything happen, Loki would feel it. There would be no sneaking up on him, no catching him unawares. It was safe.

Yes, this was a good place.

Hearing the tinkle of water flowing somewhere close, Loki staggered through the snow (so soft underfoot, promising to catch him if he stumbled) and located a small stream, only half frozen.

With little of his usual grace, he dropped to his knees, cupping the water in blue-tinged hands and drinking deeply.

The ice was soothing on his torn throat and he could feel it flowing through him, revitalising his strained body, curling through his empty stomach. This, too, was a luxury seldom granted him in the past months; even once he had escaped (for a given value of escaped, when Thanos had bent him to the sceptre and unleashed him upon Midgard) he had still had to regulate himself, slowly teaching his body how to function properly again.

Enough now, enough of denying himself. Loki drank and drank until nausea churned in his belly, and only then did he sit back with a weary sigh.

He should eat. He would not grow stronger until he gave his body something to work with, his magic sluggish and unable to recover when so much of it was dedicated to sustaining life in his broken form. But the thought of foraging for food, grubbing through the dirt like a worm only to take a gamble on whether it would be sustenance or poison… the thought of hunting down prey, stealing yet another warm, bright life… Loki shuddered. Both options were vastly unappealing.

He was so very tired.

Instead he took several steps back from the river, some deeply buried instinct rising to the fore as he sought out a deep snowbank. His skin darkened a shade bluer as he knelt before it, coaxing it into shape, carving out a small depression inside of it and hardening the walls to form shelter from the wind.

He had never done such a thing before, and yet a part of him was humming. Was this what it might have been like, to grow up on Jötunheim? It… did not seem so bad. If this was what it was to be Jötun… was he really a monster?

He thought back on the events of the day, the screaming and the wrecking and the blood. The worse monsters he had brought to this isolated realm.

He had no right to even ask such a question.

“I am sorry,” he whispered to the realm’s wildness, feeling its magic humming over him. His words were swallowed by the wind, empty and worthless no matter how much he meant them, and his throat cracked again. He wished he had the energy to cry.

That instinct inside him drove him to poke holes into his frozen cave, ventilating it, before he clambered inside. The snow was calm around him as he patted the last wall into place, sealing himself inside a tiny chamber. Yet it did not make him panic, for it was clean and cool and gentle, nothing like the filthy cell he had dwelled in for so long.

Loki let out a quiet sigh, feeling his meagre body heat circulate the little nest he had made in the snow. He had not been uncomfortable before, but this was better. Warm. His skin had paled again.

Smiling bitterly (how far he had gone to deny his heritage, only to wind up under the snow anyway), Loki closed his eyes and let the hum of magic resonate in the back of his throat. Softly, gently, in a way he had almost forgotten, he slipped into slumber.

***

He woke screaming.

For half a second his own shrieks shattered around the tiny cave, and then on instinct he had both his hands pressed to his mouth, muffling his own hysteria. His heartbeat was deafening in his ears as he panted, panic flooding his body, until slowly sensation began to register.

Warm air on his skin. Cool snow at his back. Muffled waves on a nearby shore.

Quietness. Peace.

Midgard. He was on Midgard, he was safe, it was over. There was no Titan looming over him, no suffocating blue glow shredding into his mind. He was safe, he was alone, he was safe.

In. Out. He monitored his breathing, slowly bringing his raging heart under control. It took a minute, but there came a point when reality finally sank in and his shuddering body relaxed.

A nightmare.

Loki was not unfamiliar with them. He was over a thousand years old and had seen many a horror in that time, had experienced many. Intellectually, he knew that night terrors were nothing to be ashamed of. Mother – Frigga – had told him that as a child.

Odin had not agreed, his disapproving gaze a heavy weight on Loki’s back. But he knew better now than to believe in anything Odin had ever told him. It had all been lies. Loki’s whole life had been a lie.

In. Out. He had got out, he had escaped, all on his own. There was no Void, no Titan, no sceptre threatening him. No All-Father frowning down at him, no Aesir to sneer, no brother to placate.

Yet Loki could not stop trembling.

It was over, it was supposed to be over, but it was so hard to remember that he was safe. He had not felt safe in so long that he had forgotten how. He did not know what it was to relax anymore, and the first time he had let his guard down his own mind had tried to devour him.

In. Out.

The Other had ‘gifted’ him nightmares, on Sanctuary. Twisted Maw’s awful abilities with the Mind Stone and thrown Loki into the most awful worlds he could imagine, horror after horror with no respite, not even unconsciousness. Now it was all Loki could do to breathe and remember that neither the Other nor the Black Order were here. These nightmares had been his own.

He did not know if that made it better or worse.

He sighed, tracing his fingertips over the ice above his head. He was not naïve enough to believe that he would heal from this soon, that recovery would be easy, but he had hoped that he could have at least one night to relax. It would have been nice to have begun to regain his strength before everything collapsed on him again.

It was just a dream. His nails scratched a spiral into the ice, then another. Slowly, carefully, he etched his patterns.

Remembered how he had once tried to do the same in his cell, had tried to keep track of the days – keep track of himself – until everything had blurred together and he had given up hope that anyone would come for him.

Snarling, Loki swiped long black nails over his carefully-wrought patterns. They screeched harshly, the ice harder than he had expected, but it did the job, the image obliterated.

Destruction again.

Monster.

Suddenly he could bear the ice burrow no longer. He was still exhausted, still desperately in need of rest, but he needed to be moving. Needed to remind himself that he was no longer a broken pet in a black hole, a cage for a beast.

Uncaring for the way his body burned as half-formed scabs pulled and stretched, Loki uncoiled, bursting up through the snow like the iron-cat Laufey had once set on Thor. Cold air bit at his exposed skin but it felt good, slapping him fully awake and mitigating a lot of the panic that had come over him. He stood there above the shards of his ice-cave and just breathed, feeling the freshness ease in and out of his lungs.

After a few minutes of that, his control had returned enough for him to relax again. The empty vista in front of him was as peaceful and void of people as it had been when he had settled in to sleep, only darker, and he surmised that several hours had passed.

Not enough, not nearly enough, but the idea of going back to sleep remained unappealing. Instead, he catalogued his injuries.

His body still throbbed, his healing severely hampered by lack of energy until it was scarcely better than a human’s, but there was no fresh pain. It was a little startling, how used he had become to waking every day wounded anew. No longer. Whilst his movement had jarred some of the scabs, he was for once not bleeding and his magic had recovered enough to fight off infection. He would heal. He would be better.

Eventually.

Surmising that he was in no danger, Loki looked down at himself again and wrinkled his nose. His skin might have undertones of blue but he could scarcely tell, so thick was the dirt and dust and blood choking his body. His clothes were little better then shreds, their once proud green and gold colouring washed out to a shade somewhere between grey and brown. There was barely an inch of him that was not covered in barely identifiable substances and he was sure that he must reek.

On Asgard he had always been impeccably groomed, all too aware of how little he measured up to the ‘ideal’ Prince of Asgard. Clothing, hair, posture – these things he could control and so he did. If he could not act as a perfect Prince, preferring study and seidr to insobriety and swordplay, then he would at least look the part. Even on the many ‘adventures’ Thor had dragged him on he had always made generous use of cleaning spells.

The closest there had been to ‘bathing’ on Sanctuary was someone tossing a bucket of rancid water over him, except perhaps the few times they had decided on being creative with boiling or freezing liquids. It had been yet another way to degrade prisoners, to convince them that they were no more than animals, unworthy of even the basest of care.

Now the grime of his trials lay thick and cloying upon his skin, and Loki longed to be clean. He could see a trail of where he had come from on the island, not having realised that each footstep left bloody stains in the snow and that building the ice-cave had left grime streaked on the pure whiteness. With another heavy sigh, he staggered slowly towards the island’s shore, eyes fixed on the salt water.

On one hand, he did not particularly want to taint this beautiful, bleak paradise with tainted filth. On another, he just wanted it off him, this reminder of all he had done and had done to him.

By the time he reached the water’s edge he had stopped caring about taint and alien bacteria. He smelt of Chitauri and Thanos and a dark, reeking hell-space, he was covered in his own blood, and he wanted it off.

The first step into the sea made him inhale sharply. Not only was it colder than he had expected (still not uncomfortable, but it was a little shocking to actually feel cold; Thor’s ill-fated quest to Jötunheim was one of the only times he could remember that happening) but the salt stung the throng of open cuts littering his body.

It burned, but Loki gritted his teeth against his cries. He wanted to be clean more than he wanted to avoid a little pain (agony).  Besides, however sharp the sting, the salt was good. Whilst his seidr could heal infection (and had done so many a time on Sanctuary), it would be better if it did not have to.

He needed to recover as fast as possible, needed to be ready if (when) they came for him. So Loki did not allow himself to balk at the coldness or the bite and forged deeper, step by step.

Blackness clouded around him as more and more of his battered body entered the frigid water, the deeply caked filth loosening. It was a freeing sensation, making his escape more tangible, more real. Cleaning his own blood from his skin was strangely therapeutic, taking Loki back to happier times, when it had been in the perfumed baths of Asgard that he had washed away the grime of battle. When it had been the blood of others, not his own, that covered him and when Thor had been an ally rather than an obstacle.

His b- Thor had never understood his little rituals, never cared about the sweat and smell of battle. On the contrary, he had insisted that it made him more appealing to the ladies. To Thor, war-making had aways been something to be proud of. But Loki had hated it.

He had always been the diplomat, and he could not bring himself to regret it. It had been his “silver tongue” that had convinced Thanos that he could be useful, that had manipulated the invasion so that he would lose and be freed in the process, that had gotten him out of hell.

Thor, the warrior… what would he have done in such a situation?

To think of Thor in the hands of one such as the Mad Titan… Loki shuddered. Sanctuary had all but killed him, but Thor? His- the Golden Prince would have been helpless before the Other’s mind games. No matter how fractured their relationship was, Loki could never wish such a thing on the Aesir he had once called Brother.

A prickling under his skin brought him out of his musings. It was a strange restlessness, and it was a sign of how long it had been since his seidr was free that it took Loki a good three seconds to realise that it was his shapeshifting magic stirring under his skin.

The water. The coldness of it was teasing out his Jötun heritage, just like the ice-cave earlier. Automatically he reached out to stop it, but then he hesitated.

What was the harm in it? Loki had already accepted that he was a monster, after all, and now that he was no longer a prisoner he did not have to suffer any pains he did not wish to. Did not have to endure the cold when the means to escape it was within his grasp. And he had been thinking, had he not, on whether or not he could trust what Asgard said about the Jötnar?

Being back on Midgard was prompting him, Loki knew. The last time he had been on this realm, he had been fascinated by their ideals and debates. They had words to describe such things, words like racism and propaganda. He had never applied them to the Aesir’s views on other races before, had contemplated them only in terms of seidmenn and sexism, but perhaps… was it vain hope to wish for something more?

There was no proof that the Jötnar were not monsters. Loki himself was a monster, after all. But there was no proof that they were, either. In fact, when Thor had trespassed, Laufey would have allowed them to go had Thor not lost his temper. The monster King had not wanted war before he had been provoked beyond all forgiveness.

Run along home, little princess. Loki had not known it then, their relation, but thinking back he could almost see himself in the taunt. He was… one of them.

Loki had always been curious. It was why he buried himself in books and delved deep into forgotten and forbidden magics. And now… he had seen his other form so briefly, and now it seemed that he was reliant upon it, for he had little other shelter from the harsh world.

Letting go was like releasing a pressure under his skin. Something natural, surprising in its ease. His seidr was not nearly recovered enough for major feats but this was only a small change, and returning to a natural state was always easier than shifting out of one. Despite only having taken this form three times in his life, something in Loki hummed contentedly as colour bloomed beneath pale skin.

The blue rippled over him like a cresting wave, and in the water Loki caught the reflection of burning red eyes, the dullness of pain warring with bright intrigue. His fingers traced his own skin, catching on the strange lines that wove their patterns down his face, his arms, his legs like mystic decorations.

It was… not as horrifying as he was expecting. It looked foreign, felt foreign, and he had trouble relating to it as his own natural form, but… it was not so different from his Aesir skin, really. Same height, same build. Same cuts and scars, though the red was an odd contrast with the blue skin.

Then Loki glanced behind him at the island, and the breath caught in his throat. “Oh...”

It was beautiful.

Not that it had been ugly before, but nothing like this. Loki had experienced different eyesight before, taking the forms of creatures who could not see certain colours, or experienced the world in greyscale, or saw heat as an extension to the visible spectrum.

He had not expected the same of Jötun eyes, however. Perhaps he should have, because he had seen for himself that Jötunheim was darker and less colourful (gaudy) than Asgard, but it simply had not occurred to him.

Even if it had, this was beyond anything he could have expected. Rather than a blank white canvas, the snow practically glowed. It was coloured in hues that Loki could not for the life of him described, but they lit up the snow in ways that were every bit as vibrant as the meadows of Alfheim, the crystal caves of Vanaheim or the treasure halls of Asgard.

It was stunning. Jötun eyes were far better than Aesir for seeing in the darkness, and if the snows of Midgard were so spectacular Loki could not help but wonder what Jötunheim might look like if he were to visit in this form.

As an Aesir it had been a dull and unrelenting place, but with eyes like these… it was a whole new way of seeing the world, for something as uniform as snow to be transformed into a symphony. It was like seeing Yggdrasil for the first time, perceiving with senses he had never realised existed.

Being a mage was a privilege, he had always known that. He had never imagined that Jötun eyesight might be so as well.

When he finally managed to drag his eyes away from the sudden beauty of the snow, he found that his cheeks were damp. After so long locked away in darkness, to see such a vision so unexpectedly…

Could any race whose sight was so stunning truly be the monsters the Aesir spoke of? Would Loki ever have realised this if his own world had not been so utterly shattered? If he had not been shattered?

He did not know how long he had been stood there, unmoving, skin finally clean and his Jötun body protecting him from the cold as he stared in wonder. It had been long enough for his filth to dissipate, the ocean current ferrying it far away, and the stinging of his wounds to quiet. Long enough for the wildlife to dismiss this foreign blue creature as a threat and return. On the shore, a couple of walruses had shifted lazily in place. Further up (Jötun eyes were every bit as sharp and clear as Aesir ones. Sharper, if anything), some kind of four-legged beasts were grazing beneath a copse of trees.

Closer by, a couple of fish had swam curiously up to this new anomaly in their world. Mostly they were small things, hesitant, but there was a gleaming silver one nearly two handspans wide.

Loki stayed frozen in place, the same instinct prompting him now as it had done when building the ice-cave. His mouth moistened, his stomach twisted. Apparently Jötun diets were meatier than Aesir, which was strange considering that Loki had never had such urges before. Indeed, Thor had often mocked him for his preference for greener dishes.

The silver fish swam closer, until he could practically feel its movements in the current against his skin. His hands, still in the water, drifted a little closer, disturbing it as little as possible.

Then, quicker than a darting spear, Loki seized hold of the fish. He had always been fast – faster than Thor, which had kept him from grave injury in many a sparring match – and this body did not disappoint. The fish flicked its fins frantically, but it was caught.

Scales were slick beneath his palm as it thrashed, trying to get out of his grip, but he felt tingling under his fingertips before it could squirm free. Little wisps of ice broke off in the slight current and the other fish vanished, frightened, but the one he had captured was pinned in place. Frozen to his hand.

His seidr had always come naturally to him, but he himself was surprised by the forming ice. It was apparently something Jötnar did automatically, with no more effort than breathing, because his seidr reserves had not noticeably dropped.

Admittedly, it was only a very tiny piece of ice, but Loki was astonished that he had been able to muster any at all. That it had not hurt as his normal magic hurt with his channels raw from overuse.

Testing it, he placed his other hand on top of the fish’s head and then focused on coldness, pushing it out of him like he had first done with his seidr when he was young and inexperienced and unsure of how magic worked. The animal was panicking and he had no wish for it to suffer.

The ice obeyed him, albeit clumsily, punching straight through the brain. The fish was dead before it knew to feel pain, and Loki traced his fingers down its gleaming silver scales, offering a silent prayer to Yggdrasil. Asgard had no gods, but you could not be immersed in the flow of the universe without feeling some sort of higher power.

Look at me, maudlin over the death of a simple fish. Thor would call me a girl. But with the amount of death and destruction Loki had already brought to Midgard it seemed a simple thing, to give thanks for freedom and life and escape.

He did not know if there were truly such benevolent powers as many mortals believed in, nor was he sure he would trust them if there were – for what kind of benevolent presence could condone so much suffering? – but it was harmless to take a moment to reflect.

Then, clean at last, Loki drifted back to shore, taking a seat on a large boulder up the beach. A pulse of pain won him access to his pocket dimension, retrieving a single dagger that gleamed wickedly sharp in the evening light.

Accessing his own personal storage space was a surprisingly simple working, and it also made a good test of how much his seidr had healed. He had always been powerful and usually replenished his magic nearly as fast as he could use it, but it would likely be days if not weeks before he could reach for it without further damaging himself. Resigned, Loki bent over and began the messy task of gutting and de-scaling the fish manually.

It half defeated the point of washing himself, the slide of flesh uncomfortably hot and slick over his hands, and when it was done Loki found the sight of it vastly unappealing no matter what his Jötun body wanted. Yet his body was not the only thing pushing him to eat – his seidr too was all but begging for sustenance.

Loki had always taken good care of his magic even when he neglected the rest of himself; it had been his greatest companion even on Asgard, where most had disapproved of it. It was the best part of himself and a tangible link to his Mother. Frigga.

There would be no cooking it. His seidr channels were still wounded enough that using magic to do so would be counterproductive, and likewise gathering wood (if there was even any dry enough) would take energy he sorely needed even if he managed to use his dagger to spark a flame.

Grimacing and trying not to think about it, Loki raised the fish to his mouth and took a bite.

He had eaten worse, on Sanctuary. His stomach clenched at the reminder, for half the food tossed at prisoners was poison that burned from the inside out but never granted sweet oblivion, but he pushed through. He needed to eat.

His teeth were sharper in this form, slicing easily through flesh, but he nearly gagged at the slimy sensation on his tongue. Likewise, whilst his tastebuds had no complaint his mind recoiled whenever he remembered what it was he was chewing. But he managed it, another hurdle climbed, and in the end his stomach was full for the first time in far too long, sending a pleasant warmth through his body.

To finish it off, he limped back over to the stream that emptied into the sea and washed off blood and scales before taking another drink, trying to chase away the taste and the reminder of how low he had been driven.

Needs finally sated, his eyelids felt heavy again. This time, Loki crossed to the other side of the stream – far from where filth tainted the snow – before he found another place to dig. This cave he made slightly larger, less claustrophobic. Colder, but that was not an issue now he was blue-skinned and red-eyed.

The walls of his little burrow were smooth and hard, but the snow beneath him remained soft, giving slightly beneath his weight. To a Jötun it felt soft as a feather bed, and Loki’s magic hummed again, soothing him. It knew he needed to sleep.

Loki swallowed once. He feared it – feared the nightmares that beckoned. But his eyelids were heavy and his body secure and his magic needed this.

He closed his eyes and fell into darkness.

***

The cycle repeated.

A few hours of sleep. His own screams startling him awake. Going to the stream and drinking, sometimes fishing and eating, sometimes simply returning to his cave. Sleeping again, his seidr slowly settling, healing him inside and out.

Time passed. Loki moved almost on autopilot, feeding his bodies demands, trying not to think. Slowly, so slowly, his energy rose.

***

He did not know how long it had been – a week, perhaps, or maybe two – when he at last reached out to his seidr and felt a decent amount of power welling back. It was not what he was used to – not even a fraction of what he wielded when healthy – but it had recovered beyond the level it had been when he had arrived on Midgard by way of the tesseract.

He was back in Aesir form, both more comfortable in the skin he had worn most of his life and less conspicuous if anything went wrong and he ended up somewhere public. He did not have the spare magic to shift himself into anyone else, or even to wear an illusion, but it was better than the blue skin that meant “attack on sight” to half of the Nine Realms.

Not that he should end up on another realm. Loki was still aiming to remain on Midgard, but he had enough energy accumulated that he was going to leave this lonely isle and head somewhere a little better to recuperate.

He had safehouses throughout most of the Nine, especially those realms he spent more time on. Midgard, since it was so well-connected to the World Tree, housed nearly a dozen.

He wondered what the humans would think, if they ever discovered that not only did he like this realm but that he had lived here for months, sometimes years, at a time over several points in history. That he still had homes on this planet, all of them warded against any eye but his, whether mortal or Aesir, up to and including Heimdall himself. 

Currently, he was most likely in Canada somewhere, one of the many uninhabited islands that populated its far north. He only knew that much because he had been here before – not this island in particular, but he had set up a hideout in the north of this continent several centuries ago and the conditions here were similar. Barren and hostile, for mortals at least.

It was why he had chosen it. The conditions here had not been conducive to human development and he had thought it likely that the area would remain safely uninhabited, as opposed to several of his other residences which had been calculated to remain near or within civilisation. Indeed, the last time he had checked – some fifty years previously, before early preparations for Thor’s disastrous coronation had curbed all notion of freedom – several were located in what were now human cities.

They would not work for what Loki needed now. He required space, and privacy; the last thing he wanted was SHIELD trying to capture him again.

They would not succeed, he would not let them (never again), but that did not mean that he wanted to waste energy and set back his own recovery. Neither did he want to cause a panic. He had done quite enough damage to Midgard already.

With a last sweep of the deserted island he had spent the last several days on (he felt a vague kind of fondness for it, even if it was not nearly so pretty without Jötun eyesight), Loki took a deep breath and concentrated, reaching out for his seidr.

It rose eagerly at his call. It still hurt, his channels not yet fully repaired, but it was a much lesser pain than he had become accustomed to during the ill-conceived invasion. His magic knew that he needed rest and recovery, but it was not some base instinct; it also knew that he could recover more easily somewhere with more supplies, where he would not have to waste excess energy standing in frigid water waiting for a fish or building caves out of the snow.

He could sense where he had exited Yggdrasil before, the place where the branch brushed against the surface of the realm, and it was easy to return there. Again, he heard the Song of the World, and a small smile graced his lips. It hit him anew every time, how beautiful it was. For half a heartbeat he even pitied Thor, who so disdained seidr that he would never know what it was to hear the music of existence.

Then he took a last deep breath and stepped from reality to the Spaces Between. He kept his eyes closed, not wanting to confront the place that looked so like the void, and knelt, placing a hand on Yggdrasil’s branch.

The rush of energy around him intensified as he drew closer to the flow of the universe, dancing on the verge of madness. No other had done this – no other would dare. Loki alone had whispered to Her when he was but a youth until She took notice and taught him Her secrets in return, and She was an easy mistress. Her branches were built to sway, to be free, to move – all energy moved, it was a flow and a song and Loki was a part of it. It was easy to persuade Her to shift just a little.

The energy rushed past, and he was moving without taking a single step. His seidr flowed from him, the sensation comfortable and natural, and his reserves had built up enough that he could control where he landed as he allowed himself to slip from Her. He fell forwards, and with a whoomph landed on a familiar bed.

Around him his own seidr hummed, the wards he had crafted and secured centuries ago recognising their master. They curled around him, and Loki smiled even as a wave of exhaustion crashed down upon him.

If he was honest (and despite what Asgard said Loki told the truth far more than he lied, even if that truth was often twisted), Loki still had not been in any state to use his magic. But it was worth it, to have an actual roof over his head, a bed to sleep in, a bathing chamber and supplies that would keep him from resorting to raw fish again.

A glance around him sufficed to confirm his expectations; he was in the log cabin he had built on a deserted, icy island in the north Atlantic. The walls had been sanded smooth with seidr and woven with protections against anything he could think of, whilst the whole island had been warded against both humans and the inhabitants of the other realms.

It was one of the safest of his many bolt holes, because the humans did not possess the means to detect it and other species would not think to look for it somewhere as “primitive” as Midgard. The space hummed with Loki’s magic, still as strong as the day he had built it five centuries prior, and it felt warm and safe in a way even Yggdrasil had not.

When it really counted Loki had only ever been able to rely on himself, and this place was practically saturated with his essence. It was as close to an embrace as he could come.

The bed was soft beneath him, and Loki relaxed into it. There would be time, later, to refamiliarize himself with the cabin, to indulge in the enchanted hot water taps and take stock of the meagre supplies he had left under stasis in the kitchen, to set snares to supplement his diet and build the fire.

For now, the simple magic it had taken to get here had exhausted him. It had set his recovery back, but not so much as he had feared; here, under proper conditions, he could probably regain the magic he had used in less than a day.

No longer would he have to cower beneath the ice, swallowing slimy flesh because there were no better options. No longer would he have to forego even the most basic of comforts, dancing to a Mad Titan’s will.

The previous island had been secure, but here, he was safe. Loki allowed himself to close his eyes and drift gently into slumber. Perhaps he might even be spared the worst of the nightmares.

And so the days passed. Slowly, Loki rested. Slowly, he recovered.

He was safe.

Chapter Text

Tony had known that something had been off.

Even after everything that had happened, with his whole body aching and his mind half-blank with shock and exhaustion dragging on every limb, something had still seemed not quite right when they had trudged back into Stark Tower and ascended to the roof to find a broken body still crawling from the crater in the floor.

He had not really been sure what the feeling was for – there seemed no point in the fallen demigod pretending any longer, not now that the Chitauri were gone and the Avengers had won. In fact, looking at that crater in the floor, his first thought should probably have been to be reluctantly impressed that Loki was still conscious.

And yet… he remembered Thor going toe-to-toe with the Hulk and practically laughing it off, remembered the Asgardian matching Big Green blow-for-blow,  and remembered the way Loki had hardly been fazed even when he had been snatched from the Quinjet and slammed into the ground thousands of feet below. The psycho had not even looked winded afterwards. Yes, the crater was impressive… but the aliens had shrugged off worse. And there had been plenty of time between Hulk taking Loki down and the Avengers remembering his existence.

That he was still where the Hulk had left him, apparently not having moved an inch… it made Tony uneasy. Things never, ever went that well for him.

Like so many things with Loki, it had seemed too easy. He was a slippery little bastard and had only been caught before when he had wanted to be. An uneasy part of Tony had not been able to help wondering what his plan was this time.

He had dismissed it as paranoia, just his exhausted mind not yet ready to believe that it was over, but that was no excuse. He was the genius, he was the tech-whiz; he should have known better than to trust in Asgardian ‘technology’ when he had not examined it himself. Should have known better than to ignore his instincts.

But in the end he had trusted Thor and his wacky bullshit-magic shackles, allowed the Asgardian to assure him that it would suffice to contain his brother. (Tony had almost asked where those had been the first time they had captured Loki – but even if Thor had had them back then Tony really, really doubted that Fury would have allowed them to be used. The pirate wannabe wasn’t very big on trust, and Thor had been largely an unknown and he was known to be Rock of Ages’ brother.)

They had gotten back up to the top of the tower and Loki had given him one final quip. Tony probably should not have been impressed by that, but… it was exactly the kind of petty shit he himself had driven Rhodey and Pepper up the wall with a thousand times. If it had not come from the nutjob that had just caused an alien invasion then Tony might even have laughed. As things were, however, he had felt tempted to let Barton put an arrow through Loki’s eye for it. What they had just gone through was not fucking funny even to his (admittedly warped) sense of humour.

The only reason that Barton had not put an arrow through the psycho’s eye was because Thor had offered the magical-bullshit chain alternative. Point Break was a bit sensitive about his little shit of a brother and none of them had been up to a fight with the thunder god at that moment, so Asgardian chains it had been.

And yeah, he had been a little discomfited when Thor had brought out the muzzle. In civilised parts of Earth that kind of thing didn’t blow no matter what a criminal might have done – Americans were not supposed to treat prisoners like animals (though he suspected SHIELD would have no qualms about it). But Tony had not been feeling very charitable towards the space viking right at that moment because, duh, alien invasion, so he had not put much effort into protesting.

He had, however, looked for Loki’s reaction. Mythology claimed him as the God of Lies and Thor maintained that it was pretty accurate, hence the elaborate gag, but Tony had seen the way Loki’s eyes widened when the muzzle had been brought out. Just a little, and quickly masked by what he could only describe as bitter resignation, but perhaps it was not a usual restraint on Asgard after all.

Tony did realise that Loki had a hell of a mouth on him. For all his craziness he had been Natasha-level good at manipulation… but Tony still did not think that the muzzle had been strictly necessary. It was not like any human let near Loki would actually help the maniac who had unleashed aliens on New York.

Maybe there was no such thing as ‘too safe’ for the psycho who had managed to escape the monster-cage on the Helicarrier, but… there were supposed to be lines. As Captain Righteous would say, they were supposed to be the good guys.

(And Loki had escaped anyway in the end. The muzzle had been less useful than fucking paper.)

Tony might not have thought so hard about it if it had not been for what happened next. Almost the second the device had touched Loki’s lips, things had started to go wrong. The alien had stiffened, his blue-green eyes swirling with what looked like madness, and he had let out a low growling noise that set Tony’s teeth on edge.

It was a bizarre reaction, but not half as crazy as the way Loki’s skin had begun to ripple. It was similar to one of his illusions, but somehow even more disturbing. As if they needed more proof that the would-be god was a psycho.

Thor’s chains had appeared to work, however. No illusions appeared, the magic (Tony cringed to even call it that) apparently dissipating harmlessly with none of the green traces Point Break had warned them to watch for. With both a gun and a bow aimed directly at his head and an Asgardian Prince holding the chains firm as a leash, Loki had followed where they led but he had not responded to any of their taunts, had not seemed all there.

Thor had been adamant that it was one of his brother’s tricks. There was no reason not to believe him, no other explanation for any of the crazy behaviour the guy had exhibited ever since coming to Earth. So they had gone along with that as well, which had seemed reasonable at the time but drove Tony crazy now because with everything that happened afterwards it just did not make sense.

All of them had been disturbed by Loki’s reaction. If, as Thor claimed, it had been a trick then it had certainly had an effect because they had all been reluctant to let him out of their sight after that. After all, the last time they had left him unaccompanied he had blown up the helicarrier. One alien invasion later and none of them were really comfortable surrendering him to SHIELD just yet.

It had been Tony that had insisted on going for shawarma, hungry after the battle and unwilling to break from the others just yet. Plus, it had been a great way to break the tension, a way not to acknowledge the oh-shit is-it-really-over what-the-fuck-do-we-do-now that had been circling around his brain like a starving wolf. Thor had seized the idea with abandon – “’tis only fitting that we feast now that the battle is won, my brave shield brethren!” – and none of them had had the heart to deny him.

There had been the brief question of what to do with Loki, but after a quick demonstration of Mjolnir’s power they had left him out on the street like a stray dog, chained firmly to the immovable hammer and well within sight of the windows. And… yeah, Tony was not going to lie, it was a little bit satisfying to do that to the guy who had thrown him out the window.

Shawarma had been awkward, not least for the fact that they had all been keeping half an eye on Loki and that none of them knew what to say to the others. They had fought well together, made a surprisingly good team, but now they were tired and confronting the fact that, battle aside, they were virtual strangers. And their highly dangerous captive… did nothing.

He was surprisingly docile for a psychopathic madman of a prisoner. It had brought back all kinds of unpleasant flashbacks to the flight from Germany, but Tony still would have claimed that their little shawarma jaunt had been worth it for the eventual look on Fury’s face if the insane megalomaniac had not gone and escaped.

Said alien had been lying down on the street when they had finished their food, for all the world as if he were having a nice little nap, and if Clint had kicked him once or twice to wake him up… no one was going to blame the birdbrain for that. Even if it had caused Loki to stumble every third step.

Now Tony had to wonder if any of that had been real at all. He had thought – they had thought – that Loki was too prideful to make a play like that. All of them had tensed up when he had stumbled the first time but when nothing had happened, when nothing kept happening every time he tripped… they had let their guard down.

And Loki had been waiting for it. Tony no longer questioned whether or not it was purposeful, because it had to have been. There was no other way that Loki had stumbled at the perfect time to hit whatever fucking ‘pathway between worlds’ Thor had talked about.

They had been played. Again. Played right into Loki’s fucking hands just like back on the Helicarrier.

To think that they had all been so certain, so convinced that Loki would be better off under their watchful eyes. And he had escaped anyway. The Asgardian chains Thor had been so damned confident in hadn’t done shit.

Leaning back in his chair, Tony groaned. It was supposed to be over, they were supposed to have done their job. They had won the battle and yet the victory felt hollow when Loki had escaped.

When Loki had moved that final time, they had become accustomed enough to him stumbling that none of them had bothered to contain him. Then the green that Thor had warned them about had burned into life, and a part of Tony had just wanted to stare and whine about the laws of physics right up until the point the supposedly-Loki-proof shackles fell into two pieces as if they had been sliced through and the psycho was free.

There had been a lot of shouting and panicking and swearing, but none of them had been able to move more than a few inches before Loki was just gone. He had plunged into a tree like some kind of crappy fantasy movie and disappeared. Gone.

The yelling had only increased, after that. Accusations spat at Thor – I thought you said he couldn’t use his magic? – and at the rest of them – why didn’t any of you do something? – I didn’t see you stopping him either, Spangles – and a hell of a lot of frustrated screaming, before they eventually managed to pull together enough to search the surrounding area.

Only Thor had declined, something both sad and angry in his eyes. “My brother is gone,” he had told the rest of them. “I have seen him do this before. ‘Tis called World-Walking, and it is a skill unique to Loki. He has vanished to another realm, and you will not find him unless he wishes it.”

Cue more shouting. For once Tony had not joined in, staring blankly at where Loki had been. He had had a really shitty day, and he just did not have the energy left to argue with anyone.

All that effort, all that death, and Loki had just skipped off to another realm. Everything they had gone through, and he would not face any consequences at all. It was infuriating enough to make anyone scream, and yet…

Tony was so very tired.

Whilst the others had been yelling and Bruce had fought with the Hulk, the engineer had made his way over to the tree. There was nothing special about it that he could see, tracing his fingers over where Loki had been mere seconds before.

When he had finally admitted that there was nothing to be gained from staring at it (but Tony had not given up; he would return with more technology and damnit he would work out where Loki had gone), he had taken a step back and slapped the suit’s gauntlets together. The harsh clap had quieted the others for a second and he had taken the brief opportunity.

“Right. Like hell this is the end of it. Brucie and I are going back to the Tower and we’re going to edit the tesseract algorithm – we have scans of the energy Loki outputs when he does “magic;” we can try and get a tracker running. Thor, you have eyes in the sky, right?”

Looking a little confused, Thor gave him a tentative nod. “Aye, Heimdall sees much, but I am afraid that Loki is not included in that. He has a method of shielding himself from Asgard’s gaze.”

Tony had given him an unimpressed look. “Can’t be that good; they had to have realised he was here to have sent you, yeah?”

“He was not shielding himself then-”

“And maybe he still isn’t. Got to be worth a try. Tasha, Birdbrain, you two should probably be reporting to Fury now, right? Let him know Reindeer Games has flown the coop and we need to get on containing that fact ASAP. No need to panic the people. Cap… well, anyone needs a place to crash, there’s a lot of space going to waste in my tower at the moment. Pretty sure Mean Green only broke, like… half of it. But we’re all tired, we can deal with Loki’s bullshit tomorrow. Job’s not over yet, right?”

It was not as easy as that, of course. They still argued for nearly half an hour before deciding that Tony actually had a point, which, yeah, kind of hurtful, but Tony would try not to hold it against them. Not like any of them were functioning well barely an hour after aliens had tried to take over their planet and they had fought them off only to lose their crackpot would-be ruler.

Even then it was not quite over. Bruce tried to protest that he was dangerous and should not stay in New York, and Cap was spitting about not needing charity, but Tony twisted and wheedled his way into convincing them that it really would be better if they came to the Tower. He managed it. Eventually.

He might not have if he had not eventually resorted to pointing out that Loki was in the wind and they might need to come together again urgently if he had any other armies up his sleeve. Thor protested that he did not, but this was the same guy who had been confident that the trickster was out of tricks and that the chains would hold him so Tony was no longer willing to trust him on that. Thor’s opinion on pretty much anything Loki-related had proven to be severely skewed.

Not that Tony didn’t know what it was like to have a fucked up family, but that was beside the point. The point was that Loki was gone and it felt like a cosmic joke, mocking everything they had fought so hard for.

It was supposed to be over. After what Tony had seen through the portal, he would have given anything to be sure that it was over. But with Loki gone it did not feel that way and he hated it. Hated the way he felt unsafe even as Cap and Bruce accompanied him back to the tower. Hated the way the city – his city – was in ruins around them. If he had been faster, been smarter…

He did not feel any better when they barely managed to get to the tower before Fury was calling them, blasting through all JARVIS’s protocols (he really needed to get on fixing that breach ASAP) in order to cuss them out about not turning Loki over earlier.

As if that would have made any difference.

Tony had snapped, then, and his truly impressive rant about SHIELD sending a goddamned nuke at New York City had finally managed to shut Fury up. That had been a monumental fuck up and they all knew it; even Cap had not scolded him about language or respecting one’s superiors or any of the propaganda he had been so keen on before. Captain America had actually backed him up, turning disapproving eyes on the wannabe pirate.

Yeah, being on that end of America’s Disapproval™ had been… odd. Maybe the Capsicle wasn’t so bad after all.

Fury had not so much backed down as his attention had been required dealing with other things (the pissed off World Security Council, the gaping holes in the helicarrier, SHIELD’s own search for the escapee nutjob… none of them were lacking in things to do right now). Tony had been left with a half wrecked tower and a bunch of superheroes that had no real clue what they were supposed to do now.

“JARVIS?” Tony questioned, because his AI was always a good place to start.

“Sir,” his AI replied, and Tony totally didn’t grin at the way it made the good old Captain jump out of his skin. Nope. Totally not. “May I say how glad I am that you are alright?”

Abruptly, Tony felt something like a lump well up in his throat. “Yeah, buddy, me too,” he managed to choke out. “Where we at?”

As always, JARVIS knew what to do. He started spewing out a whole stream of statistics and facts, letting Tony immerse himself in the flow and forget that he had nearly died today. And yeah, he had nearly died before, but the portal… the portal had been different, somehow. Always before there had been something to do, some clever plan to invent his way out, but what he had seen in space… there had been no getting away from that.

Tony had been helpless; all of Earth was helpless against what he had seen out there.

There had been so many of them.

It made him wonder, a little. The invasion had been awful and horrifying and would fuel his nightmares for decades to come, but it could have been so much worse. There had been aliens beyond counting on the other side and yet the portal had been nowhere near as big as it could have been. With the amount of iridium Loki had had access to, he should have been able to make it wide enough to fit whole ships through.

Tony shook his head. The invasion had been enough of a nightmare; why was he thinking of ways to make it worse? Pushing the thoughts away, he realised that JARVIS was repeating the same information in slightly different words, allowing him time to compose himself without the others realising.

A subtle warmth glowed inside of him for his AI. JARVIS was so much more than a computer.

Off to the side a little, Natasha (when had she got back here?) was explaining to Thor and Steve about what JARVIS was. On a sidenote, Tony really hoped that his AI was recording this because the expressions on their faces were the funniest thing he had seen all day (although, considering today, that wasn’t much to brag about).

Tony cleared his throat. “Okay, thanks, J. Prepare a floor for each of the Avengers, access, food, clothes, the whole shebang.”

Bruce fidgeted, his mouth pulling into a frown. “Tony, you really don’t-”

“Nah, you’re my science bro now, I’m keeping you,” Tony informed him, deadly serious. When that didn’t seem to help, he changed tactic. “Look, I have more space than I know what to do with. We all need to stay together until Loki’s dealt with, but we’re also a volatile mixture so the separate floors should keep this place from blowing up too much. There are already enough holes in it. It’s not a big deal, really, I’m just too lazy to do logistics for anything else.”

“Thanks, Tony.” The Captain looked a little uncomfortable – he had been weird around Tony since the nuclear fuckup – but he doubted that it would be possible to go back to their earlier hostility. Fighting off an alien invasion was a great way for a team to bond, after all. Tony just wished that it had not cost them Coulson.

Not able to muster up much of an effort for social niceties, Tony just shrugged, sent them a tired smile, and turned back to JARVIS. “J, I want to know how Loki got away. Gather up all the footage you can – street cameras, feeds from the tower, people’s phones, see what you can find. If it recorded it, I want to have it. Compile it all together; I’ll go through it later.”

“Of course, Sir.”

“Awesome. Let me know when you find something.” He turned to the other Avengers, taking in their hesitant expressions. Bruce still looked uncomfortable and wary, the same way he had ever since Tony had met him on the helicarrier, Steve was twitching slightly, and whilst the spies were both spies and thus better at controlling their emotions, the blankness on their faces was somewhat disturbing.

Ah, well. Tony knew how to deal with situations like these, when the world had gone to hell and you did not know which way was up anymore. He smirked at them all. “Want a drink?”

Chapter Text

They had actually taken him up on it. Unlike Loki, who had just been rude, the other Avengers had followed him up to the penthouse and broken into his best alcohol, even the ones who couldn’t get drunk (first time he had felt pity for the Capsicle), and proceeded to stare at the Loki-shaped crater that Hulk had made in the floor.

None of them had been that talkative. They had gone around and called Loki all kinds of names, but none of them had gone into the heavy stuff. They hadn’t confessed their feelings about the invasion or talked about the future, but it had still been a release, of a kind.

They had also come out of it feeling slightly more of a team than when they went in, so that was a plus at least. (See, Pepper? Alcohol is a wonderful, wonderful thing.)

By the time that Bruce stood up and made his excuses, Tony had almost stopped caring about the escapee space viking and the things that had lurked beyond the portal. Bruce had only had a single glass and barely drunk half of it, but Tony had not argued since it had been a victory to get him to join them at all. He had given Bruce directions to his floor (closest to Tony’s because science bro) and also to the labs. Candy land. He did keep his promises.

Bruce’s departure had been the signal for them all to break up, with Steve looking exhausted and uneasy at all the new technology and Thor proclaiming that he would think on where Loki might go. Right. Tony wouldn’t hold his breath. Spies one and two were sharing a floor, because they were standard SHIELD-issue paranoid bastards, but at least they weren’t leaving. Tony really didn’t want them to leave – and no, he was not analysing that.

Feelings. Ugh.

Loki was still out there. It only made sense that they stay together. Normal troops wouldn’t stand a chance against him, and so they needed to be ready to respond if SHIELD caught a glimpse of him on Earth.

Draining his glass, Tony gave a heavy sigh and finally stood himself. He did not want to go to sleep – did not want to see Afghanistan or something else in his dreams – but he knew from the heaviness of his body and the way his mind was spinning that he was too exhausted to resist. Stumbling slightly, he made his way into his bedroom, mercifully untouched by the invasion. “JARVIS,” he slurred.

As always, his AI knew exactly what to say. “The Tower is secure, Sir. I will keep watch.”

He managed a tired grin. “Thanks, buddy.”

***

Of course, nothing was that easy. By JARVIS’s count Tony had barely managed three hours sleep before he jerked awake again, a muffled scream on his lips.

It had not been the cave or the water or Obie. Of course not. No, now his brain had just been handed a whole buffet of new trauma. As if his night terrors had needed more fuel.

This time, the portal had gaped wide as soon as he closed his eyes, and he had fallen through – fallen into nothingness, where alien ships loomed large on the horizon and he was so terribly, terribly small, and nothing that he did truly mattered. The portal had slammed closed behind him, leaving him there (alone, so alone), and then there had been a wave of fire and death that had spread from the stars to consume him until there was nothing left, not even a suit drifting through the cold void.

Annihilation.

He had felt the jolt as he woke but it was dark, his eyes wide and unseeing, the reactor in his chest a throbbing ache as his breaths came faster and faster.

Then, mercifully, JARVIS spoke up. “Good morning, Sir. It is currently three twenty-four am and the weather is clear, if a little cloudy. You are currently located in Stark Tower. The invasion is over and you are safe.”

Normally Tony hated being coddled, but this time he was pathetically grateful for the reminder. “Thanks, J.”

“You are most welcome.” If anything, JARVIS’s voice sounded sad. No one else would have noticed – they believed him a computer program, dumbly following protocols, and it was better that way. Even believing him to be less than he was, the AI still scared people sometimes. But Tony had built JARVIS to learn, and his baby had done beautifully, growing into something that was not really a machine anymore. JARVIS was a person, with emotion to match, and Tony was torn between being so proud of him and being guilty because JARVIS should never have to have learned to be sad. Not for him.

 “I’m alright, JARVIS.”

“Of course, Sir.”

“Who taught you sarcasm?” Tony grumbled, not willing to admit how much the familiar exchange was settling him.

“As the one who coded me, I believe that the blame for any sarcasm on my part lies entirely with yourself.”

“…It’s too early for sass.”

“May I remind you of the two hundred and twenty seven instances where you have demonstrated that that is not the case?”

“Two hundred and twenty seven, really?” Tony could hear the delight in his own voice. This was so normal. It was exactly what he needed. “Seems a little low. Maybe I need to up my game.”

“I look forward to it, Sir.” If anything, the sass only increased. It was glorious. Tony loved his AI.

“Poor, long-suffering baby.”

“Prior evidence would suggest that I am more mature than you, Sir.”

“Oh, definitely.” Tony was grinning now, the nightmare fading until he could pretend that it had never happened.

Not that he was going back to sleep. Throwing on an old t-shirt and pair of jeans with few enough grease stains to be considered clean, Tony abandoned the bedroom and made his way back to his personal bar.

“Alcohol is not a healthy way of dealing with insomnia.” JARVIS’s disapproval was clear, but Tony had never given a shit what he did to his body. He had his coping mechanisms, and they kept him from going insane.

What did it matter anyway? After what he had done less than twenty four hours earlier, it was a miracle he was alive at all. His liver could handle a few drinks. Probably.

“On the contrary, alcohol is a great way of dealing with insomnia. Tried and tested fact.” When the speakers crackled once more, he warned, “Don’t make me mute you.”

No matter how much he loved his AI, Tony was not in the mood to deal with mother-henning right now. The ships – beyond sight, beyond counting – he had seen past the portal haunted him every time he closed his eyes. The nuke… he had come so close to destroying himself, closer even than the palladium poisoning. And he had not even seen the result – how many of those ships had been left standing?

How many had he destroyed? How many had he killed? If he had managed all of them then he had committed genocide, even if they had attacked Earth first. And if he had not… that was even worse, in a way, because he doubted that they would just let that go. And Loki was loose – if he learned from the fuck ups he had made this time, if he opened another portal…

He doesn’t have the tesseract anymore, Tony tried to comfort himself. Loki had needed that to make the portal, hadn’t he?

But he had not needed the tesseract to vanish into a goddamned tree. And Thor had said Loki was clever, although he had not acted clever – there were more holes in his invasion plan than a Swiss cheese, not that Tony was going to complain about that.

He was going to give himself even more nightmares if he continued like this.

Trying not to think (something he knew from prior experience was scarcely possible for him even with the aid of illegal substances), Tony groped blindly for a bottle of the good stuff and poured himself a more than generous measure. He was half tempted to forgo the glass entirely, but he didn’t want to give JARVIS yet more reasons to be disappointed with him, or to snitch to Pepper.

Speaking of JARVIS, his AI spoke up yet again. “If you intend to remain awake, Sir, then there is something that you should see. I have compiled the relevant footage that you requested regarding Loki.”

That roused Tony’s interest and he immediately went for the tablet lying abandoned on the couch. “Hit me.”

It was only as the screen lit up that he realised that he had left his drink on the counter. He sent a brief scowl at the ceiling, but his AI ignored it. It was not the first time that JARVIS had come up with a workaround for preventing his more self-destructive habits, but Tony had never outright chided him for it. In fact, it was somewhat nice to know that someone cared enough to stop him even when he had told them not to.

It might have scared other people, to know that JARVIS was capable of bending the rules this way. That, if he wanted, the AI could overwrite his own programming in order to do things no one asked for. Tony only felt pride; he trusted JARVIS more than any organic being.

The footage that JARVIS brought up was grainier than usual, although it bore the markers of already having been enhanced by his AI. Tony only installed the best tech in his tower, but this was not one of the main cameras – those had all been destroyed outright. Instead it was one of the failsafes he had installed just so that JARVIS would never be completely helpless even if something took out the main systems. He had never been so glad of his paranoia.

As the footage played, a blur made its way across the screen that was moving so fast it was barely recognisable as Loki. The Hulk followed him inside, tense and furious.

No matter how much Tony was enjoying watching the psycho who had pushed him out of the window being smashed against the walls and floor (and he was definitely keeping this footage to watch later. And maybe framing it. And making a gif), he had to ask, “This relevant, J?”

“I believe so, Sir.”

The Hulk grunted out, “Puny god,” which was a bit of a surprise considering that Mean Green almost never spoke, and then jumped out of the window to return to the battle. Loki was left battered and bruised, lying in a crater of his own making, and again Tony felt a thrum of satisfaction. The microphones that normally allowed him to communicate with JARVIS were even sensitive enough to pick up a low whine of pain.

A complicated expression passed over Loki’s face, more expressive than anything Tony had seen when they had supposedly had him in custody. Pausing it, Tony asked, “Can you zoom and enhance it any more, buddy?”

JARVIS obliged, cleaning up the pixelation as much as possible as he enlarged the scene and focused in on Loki until Tony finally had a more-or-less clear image of the would-be god. He had no reference for what emotion might be written there, although bizarrely Loki appeared more relaxed than Tony had seen him before, but as the footage played on his expression morphed into a grimace of pain.

Again, Tony felt that tingle of wrongness. The Hulk had not been kind to Loki, that was true, but he was pretty sure he had seen Thor take more of a beating than that without a wince. He was even more sure that nothing of the sort had occurred when Loki had been slammed out of the helicarrier.

Then a wave of light rippled across the fallen demigod, and Tony let out an audible curse. He had seen that effect before, in Stuttgart. Had that been how Loki had done it – somehow replaced himself with an illusion?

No, that couldn’t be it. Loki’s illusions had proven to be intangible and the Loki that had escaped had been manhandled several times. Besides, another half second was enough to disprove that theory. Loki remained in place, but a very different Loki to the one that they had seen so far.

The light started at Loki’s head, and immediately the difference was apparent. The footage was in slow motion to stop Tony from missing any clues, but that just made the transformation all the more harrowing.

“JARVIS, what…”

The hair that had once been slicked back and styled lay lank and heavy against Loki’s head, and it was far longer than it had first appeared, circling his head in a dark, tangled halo. Sharp cheekbones jutted out of a face that appeared to have been hollowed out, the skull pressing against the skin with every vestige of fat removed. There were dark flecks of blood on his cracked lips, some fresh, some dried.

As the light made its inexorable way down Loki’s body, more was revealed. The ostentatious golden armour melted away to reveal tattered and torn leather with a material underneath that might once have been green but was all but shredded now, caked in substances that Tony could not name. The outfit gaped loosely, as if built for a larger man, and the once-slender form became all but emaciated, ribs jutting through where the tattered clothes did not cover. The skin was not the pale white that the Avengers had all seen but a mottled pattern of grey, purple, black and red, and blood seeped from the broken figure.

Broken was the right word. Tony could see ribs pressing through Loki’s skin, which meant that he had a clear view of how those bones were all but in pieces. Far too much was left uncovered by the scraps the armour had turned into, and yet no patch of skin was clear from some kind of wound.

It was awful. “Is this a trick?” Tony demanded, pausing it as he fought the urge to retch. The picture reminded him far, far too much of his nightmares – did Loki know about Afghanistan? Was this one last taunt? But if it was then it had missed the mark, because despite the waterboarding and the car battery the Ten Rings had never gone so far as this. They had wanted him to build for them, after all; the kind of injuries that Loki had conjured would kill a mere mortal like himself.

Other than that, though, the detail was astounding. Right down to the blood oozing slowly from gashes that could plausibly have been jarred by the Hulk’s thrashing; the specks of blood dotting pitted lips; the pain on his face.

JARVIS sounded almost hesitant. “I am unsure, sir. Loki is an alien and I have no data to predict his thought processes.”

“This has to be a trick.”

“…I have no reference,” JARVIS demurred. “I cannot determine what he would be trying to achieve. My main cameras were disabled and the building was empty; it is probable that Loki believed himself alone.”

“So… not a trick?” Tony asked, knowing his voice sounded weak. He wanted it to be a trick. Wanted to pretend, at least for a few more minutes, that the pieces were not coming together to form a very ugly picture.

But some things still made no sense. The Loki in the footage was bleeding, yet there had been no blood when the Avengers had arrived on the scene. And Loki had not looked like this then, either. What purpose did it serve?

The only way to get answers was to watch on. So Tony jabbed at the screen, resuming play at the point where the last of the light faded from Loki’s ankles. He could not help remembering Loki’s stumbling – a ploy or not a ploy? – and wondering about the torn skin and mangled state of the illusionary (please let it be an illusion) feet.

A few minutes passed with the demigod making no effort to move so much as an inch. He had not looked down at himself, either, not even when he had done… whatever it was. Instead his eyes were closed and he appeared to be concentrating on breathing, a resigned expression on his face.

Why shouldn’t he be resigned? He had lost, after all. Yet Tony could not help scanning the footage again, the pixelated image not quite blurry enough to spare him the details, and wondering whether it was really an illusion at all.

(The cave loomed large in his head, morphing into the void. All those ships. Forcing himself not to remember his own trauma only brought forth an echo of Thor’s words – not of Asgard, nor of any world known. Where had Loki found them? Why had no one bothered to ask, either on the helicarrier or before they had muzzled him?)

It was only because he was watching so closely, searching for clues, that he caught the moment that Loki stiffened slightly. His head tilted a half inch, as if he were listening to something. A glance at the camera in the corner had JARVIS inform him, “The timestamp indicates that this is the moment the Avengers entered the Tower and summoned the elevator.”

Damn. Okay. Tony had not known that alien hearing was that good. Gave a new kind of context to Thor’s somewhat derogatory ‘mortal’ comments.

Clearly in response to his incoming enemies, Loki gave a quiet groan (Tony was all too familiar with that response to his presence) and he tensed once more.

This time, the lightshow was both much quicker and somewhat muted, and afterwards all evidence of injury (save those inflicted over the course of the battle, which was very interesting) had vanished. At the same time, the blood that had spilled across the penthouse floor seemingly evaporated into wisps of red. Tony glanced at that exact spot in reality and felt a little queasy.

Hastily looking back at the tablet, he examined the picture. The person in it still did not quite look like the Loki they had all come to recognise, but that was rectified seconds later. The demigod looked down at himself with a slightly deeper grimace, and with a twitch of his fingers the rags around him (Tony was not dignifying them with the title of clothes) shimmered and expanded until he was again garbed in golden armour. Simultaneously, his apparently newly-clean skin appeared to rise and inflate until he was a healthy weight. Magic. Utter bullshit, as far as Tony was concerned, even if he had no scientific explanation for this.

As soon as he looked ‘normal’ again, Loki braced a hand against the crater he was lying in and attempted to heave himself to his feet. A showman right until the end.

When the Avengers had first arrived after the battle they had all thought that Loki had not noticed them, but from what he was seeing now it was all too clear that he had been aware from the moment that they arrived in the Tower. It was also probable that he had tracked their every movement after that.

JARVIS zoomed out to show the whole penthouse as the elevator doors opened, releasing the Avengers into the room. Loki did not visibly react, but after what Tony had just learned he knew that the demigod knew that they were there nonetheless.

It was still vaguely impressive when he faced them, barely able to stand and all their weapons trained on him, and barely quirked an eyebrow. “I’ll have that drink now,” reverberated from the Starkpad’s speakers. Tony was tempted to roll his eyes again, abstaining only because he did not want to miss anything.

Even so, even in slow motion, he almost missed it. Only caught it because JARVIS, bless him, paused the video at exactly the right moment.

As Loki had voiced his quip, the Avengers shared incredulous glances. In the frozen scene Tony had been rolling his eyes, Steve had been looking at Tony (and okay, the smart comment was exactly like something the genius would have done, but the good Captain still did not have to look at him like that), and the Hulk and Thor had caught each other’s gaze. Natasha, supposedly the most vigilant, had been eying Clint with concern and the archer’s eyes had been locked on Loki’s, not looking at the bigger picture. None of them had been paying attention to his hands.

JARVIS had stopped the video just at the right moment, showing all the Avengers distracted by the wisecrack or their own personal issues. More importantly, however, was Loki. Wisps of the green that Thor had warned them about were curling minutely over his fingertips like claws.

When he enhanced the image, however, he realised that they were not claws at all. They were little streamers, all pointing in the same direction. At Thor.

No, not at Thor – at the cuffs on his belt. There was more green there, specifically around the runes that Thor had claimed would bind his magic. Tony let out a low whistle. “Wily sonofabitch.”

Point Break might actually have been right about the chains blocking magic, if Loki had not gotten to them first. It was the kind of planning and forethought that the demigod had never displayed during the invasion, and it went a long way towards explaining how Loki had escaped. He had never been prevented from doing magic; he had merely waited for the right moment. A bit like on the helicarrier, only with less murder.

The reminder of Agent’s death made him want to scowl all over again, and Tony played the rest. Something happened when the cuffs were clamped onto Loki, the psycho baring his teeth like a wild animal, but clearly the green stuff had done its job because he relaxed shortly after. Had it not been for Loki escaping, his reaction might have been fascinating – Tony was aching to know what the cuffs were, how they bound magic, what they were made of, whether it was the runes or the alloy or a mix of both that resisted energy – but now it was just infuriating. Tony had no frame of reference for magic and he hated not understanding things.

Then came the muzzle. There was a slight shift in Loki – his eyes widened a little, something frigid passing across his face. Tony shivered, remembering how odd it had been at the time. It was just as strange watching the replay – the way his eyes went cold and flinty, his face alarmingly blank as if all expression had been wiped away. The way that the second the muzzle touched his face Loki had gone totally, unnaturally still.

In the video, it was perhaps even worse. The image had been a little pixelated already, but with the introduction of the muzzle static buzzed over the picture. “JARVIS?” he questioned, knowing his AI would hear the whole question.

“It appears to be a localised pocked of interference concentrated on Loki. I would hypothesise that his unusual energy reacted oddly to my sensors.”

Ugh. Did Tony say how much he hated the magic bullshit already? “Mkay. File that away for later and play on.”

The Tony on the screen started to cajole his teammates into going for shawarma. It was odd – about halfway through his, ahem, request, the static up and vanished at the same time as a jolt seemed to go through Loki. It was almost but not quite a flinch, and at the same time green specks highlighted the very tip of his fingernails – again, Tony would have missed it if not for his AI.

Some emotion had returned to Loki’s blue-green eyes as he cast his gaze over the gathered Avengers, gaze lingering on Bruce in particular. Tony had expected some reaction – the Hulk had smashed him very thoroughly, after all, and anyone should be wary after an encounter like that – but bizarrely Loki only seemed curious, not afraid or even angry.

So many things did not add up. It was going to give Tony a migraine, and that was no good – if he was going to get a headache then it might as well be from alcohol. His gaze gravitated to the whiskey still on the counter but before he could get up the tablet flashed once.

Begrudgingly, Tony returned his attention to the screen and tried to ignore the call of sweet oblivion. JARVIS was making an effort, after all, and he should probably have a clear head when analysing crazy alien wannabe-kings.

There was nothing particularly of note in the rest of the tower’s footage. It went exactly as Tony remembered it – no more green light, no more strange patches of static. Loki did not strain against the chains, suddenly as meek as a lamb.

That should have tipped them off if nothing else. Loki had been many things but he had never been meek. Even when he had allowed himself to be captured there had still been that smirk, a silent aura of arrogance surrounding him like a shield.

Before Tony needed to ask, the image of the penthouse vanished and was replaced by a series of short, spotty clips from whatever cameras were still functioning in the city. Whilst the battle had not been kind to the streets, there were enough cameras in New York that he managed to get a mostly uninterrupted replay of their walk to the restaurant, Loki dragged along with them.

Again, it was how Tony remembered it; no hint of the fact that the mage was barely restrained at all. Well, other than the fact that he was very quiet and complacent, moving without argument and with a calm that was mostly at odds with the rest of his behaviour since invading Earth. Even when they had reached the restaurant and chained him outside he was agreeable, barely even needing to be prompted before he was lying down with Thor’s hammer pinning one hand to the ground.

The Avengers went inside the building with a last couple of threats and wary looks, but Loki barely reacted, as if their presence or non-presence was inconsequential. It could not have been comfortable, being pinned by the hammer like that, but Loki made it look easy, curling around it as if it were a pillow.

In fact, Loki had grazed his unpinned fingers over it almost tenderly. He could not lift it – had not even tried – but he did not look resentful of the fact either. When Tony zoomed in, the static (already irritatingly prevalent in the piss-poor CCTV footage that JARVIS had scrounged up from god-knew-where) in the image seemed to crackle between Loki and the hammer.

Huh. Theoretically, Tony had known that Mjolnir was magical – no normal hammer was picky about who used it – but Thor had never mentioned that it… what? Could interact with his psycho little brother? Would have been good to know. Then they might not have left him with it, because who knew what Loki had done to it? (Oh – that was a good point. He made a mental note to mention this to Point Break later.)

It was a little boring to watch the demigod appear to take a nap right there among the rubble so Tony skipped over it, confident in the knowledge that JARVIS would alert him if he had missed anything. He then came to what he truly wanted to watch – Loki’s escape.

He tracked every single one of the alien’s ‘stumbles,’ trying to figure out just how much of the act had been genuine. Whether any of the illusionary injuries from before might not have been illusionary after all. But he could not tell – Thor had been telling the truth when he had called his brother the God of Lies. Had Tony not known that the stumbling had to have been part of some kind of plan (because life was never that convenient, even for space vikings with magic and god complexes), he would have been tempted to believe that it was genuine.

There was only one truly interesting moment – when Thor had reached out to steady his brother and Loki had actually recoiled. The near flinch was quickly followed by a scathing look, and Tony had not paid it any attention at the time, but now it stuck out at him as somehow relevant. Yes, Loki was a liar, and a damned good one – but that had looked like an ingrained response, body moving before the mind had even registered a threat.

It was the kind of response that made Tony very, very unnerved. The kind of thing he had seen himself do post-Afghanistan.

He shook his head. Maybe JARVIS was right about the whole sleep thing – the would-be conqueror of Earth was about the farthest thing away from Tony himself. He was no victim.

He killed Coulson, Tony reminded himself. Loki had tried to take over this planet because he was all kinds of fucked up in the head and Tony should not be reading things into the situation that weren’t there. He had compiled this footage to figure out where the hell their supervillain had gone, not to fall prey to Loki’s mind-fuckery.

With that in mind, he ignored the uneasy feeling in his gut and fast forwarded to where the party had really started. The tree was just about caught at the very corner of a traffic camera, and the same camera gave a good view back down the street where the Avengers plus psycho were approaching from.

Romanoff only glanced briefly at the white van that had originally been awaiting their ‘prisoner,’ but it was clear to Tony that Loki had caught it. His eyes snapped straight to it, and there was a scornful gleam in them that made it all too clear that he knew that this was their destination and he was not impressed.

Then again, Loki had been on the helicarrier. He had not seemed impressed by that either and the van was definitely a downgrade. (In the back of his mind, Tony wondered what kind of technology space vikings had. Thor was both remarkably condescending towards ‘mortals’ and also hilariously confused by any kind of technology. It made Tony itch to pelt him with questions, but at the moment Loki was the priority. Another thing to hate him for.)

Again, Tony slowed the video in order not to miss anything, his eyes pinned to Loki. There was a moment when his head tilted the tiniest amount, as if hearing something, and then his eyes flickered to that damned tree (and away again almost as quickly) and the alien almost seemed to soften. A little of the tension bled out of his shoulders, and the muzzle shifted slightly on his face as if he were holding back a smile underneath. Even when he was stumbling Loki had remained unfairly graceful, but there was a fluidity in his steps now that there had not been before.

The tells were only tiny. Seeing them now, Tony was not surprised that none of them had caught it – he only noticed at all because he knew what happened next and everything was replaying at half the speed.

They drew level with the tree on the screen, and this time Loki’s stumble was undeniably fake. The others had been opportunistic at the very least, plausible enough that some of them might even have been genuine, but this time he overreached his stride, slanting slightly to the left in order to hit a patch of loose stone.   

It was less a stumble and more of a lunge, to be honest, and at the same time all hell broke loose. Green burst to life like a sudden wildfire, the cuffs falling away as if neatly sliced in two. Loki fell with them, dropping into an elegant forward roll that deftly evaded the Avengers and carried him all the way to the tree. He was up again in a moment, uncoiling like a panther, right in front of the damned thing.

From this angle, Tony could get a view of Loki’s face that he had not at the time. Much of his face was hidden underneath the muzzle (curious that he had not discarded it along with the chains), but the expression that Tony could see was fierce. During the invasion, they had seen a lot of Loki’s expressions – gloating, insane, mocking – but surprisingly not that one. There was a conviction there that he had lacked before.

And his eyes… despite the poor quality of the footage, Loki’s eyes blazed, a green brighter than anything else on the screen. The rest of the picture was grainy, but Loki’s eyes were piercing, as if he could look straight out of the screen at them.

Give yourself more nightmares, why don’t you? Tony scolded himself. But he could not forget those eyes, so at odds with the rest of the greyed picture, even as he forced himself to concentrate on the rest. There had to be some sort of clue as to what Loki had done – aliens couldn’t just vanish into thin air.

But there was nothing for him to analyse. Loki strode straight through the tree as if it was not even there, like one of his damned illusions, but he did not emerge from the other side. He was just… gone. Gone somewhere that they could not follow.

Groaning, Tony slumped back onto the sofa. Had he mentioned already how he hated it when there was not enough data to work with? He had no fucking clue how Loki had done it, and that rankled. He always had ideas – his brain never stopped, churning out invention on top of invention, always dissecting the world around him. He could not remember the last time he had been so utterly stumped. It should not have been possible – it broke all the laws of physics.

He would ask Thor, but Tony had little hope that the blonde would have answers. Having hacked into SHIELD’s files on the demigod during a quiet moment on the helicarrier Tony knew that even the professional spies had failed to get many facts out of Thor.

Whatever. They were not geniuses. Tony knew science and he knew invention – he had already become an expert on nuclear thermodynamics practically overnight for this invasion crap. He could manage ‘magic’ on top (and god did they need a new name for that. ‘Magic’ did not exist. Everything could be explained).

With nothing better to do, Tony started to replay the footage as he hauled himself to his feet and made his way back over to the counter, ignoring JARVIS’s silent but very prevalent disapproval. He didn’t want to miss anything, but like hell was he going to remain sober right now. They had fought off an alien invasion yesterday. He had earned a drink.

He had gotten halfway through the glass and watched the clips twice more when it finally occurred to him. Loki’s eyes – he hadn’t been able to get them out of his head, how vibrant and green they had been, practically on fire with ‘magic.’

Green.

With shaking fingers, he rewound the footage to when Loki had first entered Stark tower and zoomed in on his face. “Son of a bitch,” he breathed, glass slipping from his grip to shatter against the floor as he clutched at the tablet.

The Loki who had invaded their world had had blue eyes.

Like Clint.

Like Selvig.

“Sir?” JARVIS questioned. “Your vital signs indicate that you are in some distress. Do you require assistance?”

“No,” Tony managed to get out, his eyes still pinned on the tablet. “Just- no. Give me a minute.”

The AI subsided, leaving Tony’s mind to whirl through all the implications. Green eyes. Blue eyes. Glowstick of destiny.

Was it possible?

Just considering the possibility felt like betraying his world. Betraying Coulson, who had died at Loki’s hand. Betraying Barton, who had been twisted against them all by Loki.

But…

But.

But.

What if it had not been Loki?

Tony shuddered, remembering what he had seen beyond the portal. Ships stretching on and on into the distance, so many that he was not even sure that the nuke would have taken care of them all. Remembered how difficult it had been to fight Loki, insanity and ridiculous durability and magic bullshit all wrapped up in a little bundle of hell. It had taken the whole team to get the jump on him. If there was someone out there who could subjugate that…

It was not confirmed, he quickly reassured himself. It was nothing but a hypothesis, and an unlikely one. There had to be a better explanation. It just – it couldn’t be true. Loki had invaded their world, Tony would not humanise him. He was an alien hell bent on a throne. His own brother had fought against him, and had not seemed surprised at his actions.

It had to be an illusion, a trick. One more thing to make the Avengers doubt themselves, discourage them from pursuing him. The footage had already shown him that Loki could drastically alter his own appearance for plans unknown. Eye colour was nothing compared to what he had already done.

“JARVIS,” Tony murmured. “Get me the rest of the footage on Loki. The helicarrier, Germany, Pegasus, whatever you can dig up. I wanna see his eyes.”

Immediately data began to flood his screen. Image after image, Loki’s feral countenance frozen in time. Two of his appearances had been on SHIELD bases where surveillance was everywhere, and JARVIS had the recordings from Tony’s HUD available as well.

In every shot save the very last hour, his eyes were blue.

It did not mean anything. It couldn’t – they could not trust their eyes when dealing with the God of Lies. Plots within plots.

A hell of a long con.

A shaky swipe brought up an image of Erik Selvig when he had been operating the Tesseract on the roof of the Tower side by side with a picture of him pre-Loki. Bless JARVIS, always anticipating his need. The eyes were as he had feared – brown before, blue after.

Not the same shade of blue. Tony clung to what comfort he could find. Selvig’s had glowed a poisonous, electric shade that mimicked the sceptre, or perhaps the tesseract itself. Loki’s were dull and muted, a swirling, muddy mixture of muted green and brighter blue.

Tony bit his lip. He did not know what to think – hated the evidence, the way he could not get this theory out of his head. Hated that there was no way of knowing for certain. Thor had claimed that his brother was all trickery and lies, and the invasion had mimicked that – Loki’s plot had been so twisted that it was almost nonsensical. There could be so many reasons for his eyes being blue – it could be control, or it could just have been calculated to throw them off.

As he thought more and more on it, Tony came to a decision. He would keep this in mind – but he would also keep it to himself. He would not risk telling the others – the team was still so fragile, threatening to tear apart with every new problem that occurred. And this, he knew, would be a massive issue – Barton would never believe it, and Romanoff would side with him, but Thor would likely latch onto any hint of salvation for his brother. Bruce would try and remain neutral, but that would only make it worse, and Rogers… Tony could not predict how the supersoldier would react. But it would likely tear the team apart, and he could not risk that being Loki’s plan.

The world was going to need the Avengers. It was a feeling in his gut, a deep kind of instinct that said that this was not over yet. Tony would not be responsible for wrecking the world’s best defence against Loki-sized threats and he refused to fall for another of the alien’s ploys, if that was what this was.

He took a deep breath in and let it out, slowly, before eying the mess of glass and spilled alcohol on the floor with clear regret. “Damned Loki,” he muttered. He still needed a drink.

“Store the data on a private server, J. I don’t want anyone to see it – not SHIELD, not Romanoff, no one.”

“Of course, Sir.” JARVIS sounded vaguely insulted, but SHIELD had managed to override his programs before. In fact, Tony was going to fix that right now. It made him uneasy to have that kind of loophole in his security.

Grabbing the bottle to take with him, Tony headed down to the lab. There was work to do.

Chapter Text

In the end, Loki spent nearly two months recovering solely in his secluded safehouse, far from anyone who could hurt him. He hated it, this clear evidence of weakness – the way his limbs trembled and shook, the screams that tore him from any sort of slumber, how his seidr struggled with spells that children found simple.

Being confined within four walls again was its own form of torment. No matter how pleasant the cabin was, Loki was starved for the sight of the sky. Fever took hold of him within the first week and he lay there, shuddering and whimpering, unable to stand let alone make his way to the window or to the bathroom. Instead he had to lie there and breathe in the stench of his own vomit, hating too his conflicting wishes both for company and never to see another soul again.

Eventually he broke free of the infection (Aesir – Jötnar – were too resilient for their own good) and strength returned to his arms and legs. But it was not the absolution that Loki had hoped for, for reminders of his pitiful weakness were everywhere.

He could scarcely bear darkness but lighting a fire was almost worse, the damnable heat leeching into his damaged psyche until he near drowned with sweat and remembered terror. Worse, although his body needed calories to recover, there were days when he could not convince himself to eat.

Trapping and preparing game was no challenge, familiar enough from cleaning up after Thor on quests, but consuming it was another matter. Despite preparing it with his own hands, his stomach cramped in expectation of agony after every bite and the sensation of sustenance sliding down his throat made him gag.

It was pathetic. Loki was safe, he knew that he was safe, and yet he could not break the habit of silence and fear. Alone in the empty cabin he found himself skulking in corners, flinching at unexpected sounds, freezing every time his shaking limbs knocked utensils to the floor. It took weeks for the physical symptoms to begin to diminish, and even longer for him to stop checking and re-checking for any influence on his mind with every breath.

Yet Loki was nothing if not stubborn. There was little to do in the cabin, so he set his ailing mind on scheming and planning. The Other had promised him unending torment should he fail, and Loki had gone far beyond failure. He was perversely proud of what he had managed – not only had he resisted but he had managed to shore up Midgard’s paltry defences and remove an infinity stone from the Titan’s possession and send another somewhere it would be better defended.

Thanos would be coming for him. Just the thought of him was often enough to send Loki spiralling back into panic, but he refused to be idle. Refused to sit and wait, a broken puppet, a tame pet. No, Thanos would regret ever hearing Loki’s name – he would undoubtably come to the Nine Realms, no subterfuge or sabotage could stop it, but the mage could ensure that they would be waiting for him.

Loki would not return to Sanctuary, not ever again. He would slit his own throat first.

Naturally, however, he would prefer never to have to implement such a drastic measure, and so the Trickster did what he did best. He was a master strategist, and his shameful ‘tricks’ had won more battles for Asgard than he could easily recall. Thor had never acknowledged such victories as Loki’s, but the second prince was more than accustomed to working in the shadows. He had been a spy and a thief and a conqueror long before his Fall; he knew what the right words in the right ears could do.

If he had ever truly wanted to rule a planet, he would have no need to invade nor did he harbour desire for a throne to sit on. Even in Asgard he had wanted only recognition, not Hlidskjalf itself. War was a crude way of attaining victory, and Loki was an entity of chaos and a wanderer at heart. He would not be content to stay in one place for so long.

The power behind the throne. Such an interesting Midgardian concept.

But Loki had no use for a throne right now. Before his Fall he had craved respect, acknowledgement, a position that validated everything that he did for Asgard: cleaning up Thor’s messes, averting diplomatic disasters, and listening to the common people that ran the Golden Realm – those the warriors considered utterly beneath them. The day to day tasks that kept the realm running had always been Loki’s domain, whilst all the glory had gone to Thor.

No more. Never again would that be Loki’s life, and whilst in some ways the thought ached (it had been his for so very long that the days felt strange without it) it was also incredibly freeing. Perhaps he would still have to skulk in the shadows, for now he was a wanted criminal, but he would not have to bow his head and bite his tongue and try to pretend to be something other than what he was. Away from Asgard, Loki could finally be himself.

The thought of being torn from the Golden Realm had once terrified him, yet now he found that it was like finally being able to breathe after the agonising airlessness of the Void.

And to think, it had only taken having his sense of identity utterly shattered, his world torn away, a failed suicide, months of torture and the unmaking of his very being to get here.

Enough, Loki, he reminded himself. There was much that he had to do – he had won his freedom, and now he had to keep it. The Nine Realms were utterly unprepared for Thanos, and if he wanted to keep his freedom then there were rumours to spread, people to nudge, allies to gather.

It had always been his talent. The Shadow Prince. He was a prince no longer, but viewed in the right way he could twist that to an advantage. Now that he was no longer of Asgard, he could consider things that he never had before, make alliances that would be treason had he remained in the Allfather’s thrall.

Before that, however, he had amends to make.

In this isolated place with only his tattered mind to distract him from physical pain, Loki had had more than enough time to think things through. He would perhaps never be comfortable in his Jötun form, a part of him always shuddering at the corpse’s skin and demon eyes that he had been conditioned to loathe, but he had accepted it. Frost was part of him, and he had done his birth-realm a wrong that needed to be righted.

Through the bars of a cage he had seen genocide at the hands of the Titan. Seen entire worlds decimated, drenched in their own blood, left to destroy themselves or to struggle on after devastating loss.

Half of all life…

What Odin had done to Jötunheim, however, might even be worse. Oh, Loki was by no means innocent, he had tried to destroy the entire realm, but he could accept that. After what he had seen and suffered, and the month he had spent alone at the mercy of his thoughts, he could accept himself. Every dark and shattered part. Every ugly truth.

It was no excuse, but he had been driven insane in those days when he had been crowned King. Finding out he was a Frost Giant had shattered his sense of self, something so vital to a mage that there were actual laws governing identity and magic use. Laws that Odin had broken with his lies, telling Loki that he was both Aesir and Odinson. To discover the truth so violently had ripped rationality from him, leaving him only with the utter terror of being alone on a realm where half the population – including his own not-brother – had sworn to slaughter all his kind, a realm where few had ever accepted him, where the warrior nobility had accused him of usurpation and gone against his every command. All whilst he had been locked in a desperate struggle for stability of a realm on the brink of war.

He had been angry, and disgusted at himself, but more than anything he had been afraid. An Aesir King was supposed to lead his men in battle, but if a single Frost Giant managed to touch Loki then his secret would be out and he would likely be slaughtered by his own army.

Any responsible seidkönur could have seen it, the cracks wedging ever deeper into his sanity, and would have immediately ordered him away from anyone he might hurt, would have sent him into seclusion with the Völur until he regained his grasp on self and magic. He could have been saved, had anyone ever paid more than a heartbeat’s attention to seidr and their prince.

But his mother had been grieving her Sleeping husband and banished son, and magic had long been scorned in the palace. They had not seen, and the addition of the pressure of the throne…

Loki had been reeling, barely able to keep his magic under control, uncertain of the ground beneath his feet. And then he had been handed Gungnir and told to keep Asgard out of war, and when he had tried to do so he had been accused of usurpation and the Warriors Three had decided to desert their realm and seek out their banished playmate.

Loki had snapped.

It was not an excuse. There were no excuses for what he had done, but he had been desperate to prove himself, to ground himself in any sort of identity. If he could only be sure that he was an Odinson…

There was precedent, after all, for a King of Asgard to wipe out a realm.

Bor had done it, routing the Dark Elves and leaving Svartalfheim a planet-sized tomb. They had built a statue in his honour and the tale was still a favourite at Hall.

Odin had done it, subjecting the Nine and tearing the heart from Jötunheim, condemning a whole realm to a slow death. He had been revered as Odin the Wise. 

Thor, though not King, had also rekindled the war with Jötunheim and had sworn as a youth to wipe out what remained of their species. He had been held as the pinnacle of Aesir achievement.

The Svartälfar and Jötnar had never been people to Asgard. Not really.

It had been wrong. Loki had known that it had been wrong, even when he was doing it, but he had felt unable to prove himself any other way. And he had paid for it, both during his Fall and afterwards.  

Nonetheless. He had done two realms a great wrong (three if you counted Midgard, but frankly Loki thought that the billions of lives he had saved by preventing another of Thanos’s minions from orchestrating an actual, successful invasion more than payment for the comparatively few that his production had cost). Regardless of the many wrongs done to him, Loki was not unfamiliar with the act of making reparations at cost to himself. At least this time it would be for something that he had actual done, rather than making excuses for Thor.

(Idly, Loki wondered what the Midgardian Avengers would think of their shield brother if they knew of the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Jötnar slaughtered because one of them had called Thor a princess. If they knew that Thor’s death-count outweighed Loki’s a thousandfold.)

That was why, upon regaining enough strength and seidr to begin to feel like his old self again, one of Loki’s first tasks was to travel to Asgard.

He was cautious about it. He had never been like Thor, charging in and trusting luck and muscle to get him out of any situation, and he had more to lose now than ever before. Loki was used to playing with high stakes – Asgard had never been forgiving of his mistakes and he had always faced more consequences than the Golden Prince – but it was not merely his life at stake any longer. Loki would slit his own throat before returning to Sanctuary, but he doubted that Thanos would allow him that mercy should he catch him again.

His very first preparation involved World-Walking. Traversing Yggdrasil had always felt very natural to him but his time in the Void had damaged his trust in it. He needed to be able to slip away at a second’s notice; he could not balk, could not afford to be shaken by the sight of the gaps between places or to have another fit on the branches.

Not only that, but Asgard itself was perched precariously atop Nothingness. Loki would be confronting the Void soon enough, and like hell would he show any (more) weakness to this particular realm.

So he practiced. His seidr was eager for it, humming in his veins. It had taken weeks for it to stop hurting, but he had been steady, patient, building it up again day by day. Small spells at first, things like lighting fires and levitating objects that had not taken him any thought since his first century. They left him gasping and spent, but he persevered, and like a physical muscle it stretched and grew, flourishing once more under his careful nurture. Perhaps even more powerful than before, thanks to the long time where it had been the only thing sustaining him, like a muscle over-stretched.

When it was again humming in his breast, a warmth that he had missed so fiercely it had been as a hole in his heart, he slipped back to the tree. The music of Yggdrasil welcomed him eagerly, a tender embrace for a lost son, and he had spent long minutes curled up in her, allowing his seidr to commune with the universe.

It had settled him, made his skin feel his own again. Though the blackness around it often left him gasping and fleeing back to the cabin, his stubbornness was stronger than his scars and he kept returning, until the day came when he could look down and see nothingness beneath his feet without flinching, when he did not collapse into a shaking puddle at the whispers of the Void in his mind.

He loathed it. Utterly and completely. At the beginning he had wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole and hide for eternity, but he was stronger than that. This was necessary, and he was healing. His will had not broken through all the things that the Titan had done to him; he would not let it break him now.

His vulnerabilities were likely known to most of the universe by now, and that just would not do. He was Loki, Liesmith and Prince of Shadows, Master of Chaos. It was not in his nature to be predictable.

So he went back, again and again, faced his demons and forced himself to confront his truths. He could not be Liesmith if he believed lies, could not wield and twist the truth if he did not acknowledge it.

He reforged his shattered identity, and whilst he had done terrible things he was not ashamed of who he had become. Loki, son of none, beholden to none, controlled by none. Frost giant turned Aesir changeling, master of shadow, ex-thrall to Thanos, ex-prince, ex-brother.

It hurt, of course. But healing always hurt, and he was master of his own fate now. Loki purged the infection that he had not realised had seeped into him, the Realm that had never accepted him, the adoptive family that had never truly known him.

They had believed in Prince Loki, an identity that had never been more than a mask that he wore in public. Loki had ever been a mage and a scholar and perhaps even a diplomat, but a Prince of Asgard was required to be so many things that had never been part of his self.

But he had pretended, oh had he pretended, so hard and so well that he had almost fooled even himself, and they had believed that he would never snap, would always stand behind Thor and bow his head meekly no matter what indignities were heaped on him. Believed him bound and muzzled to duty, believed he could forget that he was Chaos and that he could not be controlled (not for long).

So many people had tried. Frigga with kindness, Odin with stern disapproval, Thor with his ever conditional ‘love.’ Tyr had tried to make him a warrior, the Warriors Three a scapegoat, the Allfather a puppet king. The Other had tried to mould him into a Child of Thanos, a false conqueror, a puppet king again – this time of a world that would be torn in two under the Titan.

No more.

Once he was as recovered as he was ever going to get on his own (Jötnar were truly a resilient species; their healing, both mental and physical, surpassed even the Aesir. Once recovered, his seidr had only sped it further), able to world-walk without panic once again, Loki took a leisurely tour of Midgard. Their technology, whilst an impressive improvement from the last time he had visited only short years ago, was barely compatible with seidr and so there was little risk of him being found out.

With little risk of discovery, he allowed himself to slowly relearn what it was to be surrounded by people. He strolled with impunity into cities half remembered, wandering their streets with faces blended together from other realms, until the press of crowds and the babble of conversation no longer gave him pause. He visited tiny villages in Thailand to remind himself of what it meant to blend in, the deserts of Egypt to reconcile himself with heat, and mixed it up with stone circles in England or the remains of ancient civilisations in Peru or Myanmar when he longed for a reminder of happier times.

Animal forms were next. Shapeshifting had long been a part of him; whilst it had derived so much scorn on Asgard that he had rarely used his gift in recent centuries, recent revelations about his true species had encouraged him to remaster the skill. Besides, Loki was not a particularly safe person to be at the moment, and there were many advantages to taking other forms.

Loki took wing as a raven and remembered what a gift it was to fly, stretched into a feline to get used to having four legs, then lengthened to a serpent whose tongues were one of the most reliable ways of detecting seidr.

Shapeshifting had less apparent benefits too. No one had ever been interested in it other than to tell him that it was something shameful, that he should not wish to be anything but Aesir (ha!), that it was disgraceful that he could take the form of a female (the whispers of ergi had only increased after that particular revelation). But Loki had found that shapeshifting was a wonderful asset to a warrior.

It not something he could use openly, but even General Tyr had remarked upon his much-improved sparring once he had mastered his gifts. He had never needed to know that it was the swiftness of the serpent, the balance of the feline, the speed of a diving hawk that aided Loki’s own style of deadliness. No one else in Asgard fought like him. None could.

He retrained himself in the use of other forms, and retrained himself in combat too. His body had wasted away under the Other’s ‘tender’ care, but Loki was quick to remedy that. Healthy seidr required a healthy body, and though Thor had oft derided his physique he could never deny that Loki took scrupulous care of himself.

Whilst he had no one to spar with, he had rarely done so upon Asgard either. His aversion of brute strength had led to him hiding away his talents and practicing alone most of the time to avoid more scorn. His stamina had suffered greatly over the past year but his body still remembered how to move.

His final trips before Asgard were more sombre, more dangerous. Those were his ventures into active warzones. Mortal battlefields were very different to most of the Nine Realms (reliant on guns and missiles instead of swords and axes), but death was death. The trips served their purpose of ensuring that he would not freeze should things again come to violence.

He was a thousand years old; he had seen many a killing field, won many a battle. But what he had seen the Titan do had been something entirely different.

He knew how fragile his mind had been and although the fractures had healed, the scars remained. It was pointless not to prepare when he had the opportunity. With his seidr and strength restored mortals could damage him little; if he was going to have a flashback, let it be here where consequences were minimal.

Eventually, he could stall no longer. He was as strong as he was going to get, and there was no excuse for delay when the Titan was coming. It may be years, it may even be decades, but complacency would be unforgivable. Loki had practically fallen into the Titan’s lap, after all; it was not so farfetched that opportunity would come knocking again.

He would come. He would come for the stones, and he would come for the wayward trickster.

Loki fully intended to live up to that name. The Titan would not find the realm so unprepared as he expected, as Loki had led him to believe. Not now that the Prince of Shadows knew what lurked in them.

It was a dull, overcast day in Midgard. Fitting, really. Loki took one last look around his cabin, the simple space (far simpler than his rooms on Asgard, unbefitting for a prince but perfect for a Loki) that had been safety and a cage both, before slipping easily onto Yggdrasil.

It was time to get to work.

Chapter Text

It was not scent that led Loki through Yggdrasil, but he had no other comparison for it. His seidr was an extra sense but one that defied description; there were no words that adequately described the feel of a place, somewhere between scent and sight and touch.

He knew Asgard’s feel well. Even after so long away from it (in physical time it was not so lengthy – a year was nothing to beings who lived millennia – but it felt like so much longer. Had been longer, for Loki, for the Void warped the very fabric of reality, including time), he would never forget.

Yet it was also different now. In previous times Asgard had smelled like gold and sweat, but there had also been something that Loki had never identified, never acknowledged. He admitted it now – the tang of blood, thick and heavy. The cost of Asgard’s glory, for all of its gold had been procured by war and conquest.

Perhaps the scent had always been there and he had not wanted to admit it, but perhaps not. That was the other reason he could never truly describe what his seidr imparted to him. Magic was such a personal thing that its perception was filtered through his subconscious, and it only made sense for it to have changed when Loki himself had been remade.

The oily tang of it, tainting something he had once naively believed to be pure, left him with a grimace on his face, but still he tracked it through Yggdrasil. He had no need for mage sight this time, padding through space without flinching, a predator in the night with little care that nothing was visible beneath his feet.

Yes, this was where he belonged. Where he excelled. For so long he had denied himself, for seidr was shameful on Asgard, but Loki was a mage and it was time he stopped running from that. His magic was him, and it was more content than he had ever felt it. A discord that he had never noticed before was gone.

For the first time in centuries, Loki knew exactly who he was.

He halted when he could feel the Golden Realm on his skin, pressing close to the Paths Between. His eyes glowed a brighter green as he sent his perception forward, peeking into the realm, and then frowned.

This intersection between the Tree and the realm was located in the city marketplace, bustling with people. Although the face Loki wore was not his own, magic-users were rare enough on Asgard that his presence would no doubt be noticed. Additionally, exiting Yggdrasil was manifestly different to teleporting, and whilst the average citizen would not know the difference there were enough Einherjar scattered around the edges that at least one of them might put two and two together.

Then again, not many warriors were willing to learn the distinction between ‘tricks’ and great feats of magic. They might not recognise the World-Walking after all.

In the end it made little difference; seidmadr were rare and mistrusted. Even if he was not recognised as the disgraced not-prince, the Aesir would pay any magic user an unhealthy amount of attention. Loki had no intention of being watched today.

With a put upon sigh, he withdrew back into his physical body, shuddering a little at the sensation. This was not one of the situations he had practiced, and he had almost forgotten the last time he employed this spell that severed consciousness and physicality. Back before his seidr was completely depleted, he had used it to escape from his torment on Sanctuary – he had not been strong enough to escape physically, but a couple of times disconnecting mind and body had helped him not to shatter completely.

Now, however, Yggdrasil crooned around him, a silent promise that he was not without escape now. Straightening, he leaned into Her, letting his own magic sing in return.

Carefully, he eased his seidr into manifestation, merging with Her flow until his magic was attuned to Her. Then it whispered, murmuring and enticing, and the Tree acquiesced, its branches swaying in the current he had created until the exit was somewhere more pleasing.

It was an incredibly feat of magic, for all that it took surprisingly little effort. Loki had always been persuasive. But it was not one that he had ever shared with another; he had never trusted enough for that.

It aided him now; no one, not even Odin, knew what he was capable of. He had always been careful to mask the true extent of his abilities – his greatest trick, always holding something in reserve.

That they thought that he could fail to conquer Earth with an army behind him and the tesseract in his possession only proved that they had no idea how far he had come since he first learned how to touch the energy of the world at Frigga’s knee. Had he been in proper condition, there would have been little they could do to stop him from doing as he wished with Midgard.

Loki was one of if not the most powerful mage in the Nine; Earth, for all its wonders, had little defence against magic. Thor would not have known to come to their aid when Loki could veil himself from sight, and even if he had the prince had long relied on Loki when it came to matters of magic. He would be helpless against it.

Loki shook his head. He had never wanted a throne; wanted it even less now, when he knew what ruling for even a short few days had done to him. He had not been his best at the time, but it mattered not. Asgard would never accept him, and he no longer wanted it to.

It was easier to step away from the world tree once he had reminded himself of that. Easier to breach the Golden Realm and feel very little when he looked around. He had lived here all his life, had so many memories… yet more of them were bad than good, especially in recent centuries. He could not call it his home any longer.

I am Loki of nowhere.

It should have hurt. Did hurt. Yet it allowed him to look at the gaudy golden halls of the Realm Eternal without crumpling to his knees.

At his gentle encouragement, the exit had shifted to a quiet alleyway near the palace. (The enchantments on Valaskjalf would let the All-Father know if anyone used Her to enter it, but there was not enough seidr in all of the universe to ward an entire realm the same way.) He did not make the mistake of picking somewhere dark or dead ended, for such places were always watched, but instead picked a street so painfully nondescript that he had often, in happier times, been tempted to make mischief here just to liven it up.

He never had, of course. For all his love of mischief, there always had to be a reason behind it – something to make it worth the punishment that would inevitably follow. Evidence seldom mattered, because Norn’s forbid anyone other than Loki play pranks on the Golden Realm.

As soon as he emerged onto the street in the precise spot he had marked, centuries ago, as having the odd quirk of not being in sight of any windows, he was shifting, his body shrinking and darkening and sprouting feathers in a wave of green seidr. It came easily – he had never felt completely comfortable in his own skin.

Mood darkening at the reminder of the lies that had plagued him, like tar on his wings, Loki-as-a-blársfugl gave an odd hop and launched himself into the air as a small flock of the same small, blackish-blue birds swooped overhead. They warbled curiously at him, but he was a talented enough shapeshifter that he had acquired enough of the animal’s instincts to trill a reply whilst his mind stayed his own. (Never, ever again would his mind not be his own.)

The flock allowed him to join them, calling in curious chirps that his seidr translated into food and shelter and safety. He slipped among them easily (as he could have done to Midgard, had he not fought quite so hard against the Titan), gliding easily over a shining golden wall and into the palace gardens.

A knot of tension deep in him uncoiled somewhat at finding them empty save for Einherjar, even as another part of him ached painfully. These were Frigga’s gardens, and even before he had ventured here he had wondered whether he wanted her to be here or not. Whether the sight of her would be a wound or a balm.

It was less complicated that she were not. But all the same, Loki was quietly thankful that blársfugln were incapable of tears.

Infiltrating the palace was far easier than the Allfather would have any believe. There were few mages of Loki’s talent in the Nine, and none of the others were suicidal enough to provoke the Aesir, but if they had ever tried – if Asgard’s reputation were not quite so fierce – they would not have found it much of a challenge.

Part of the reason for the weakness was Asgard’s attitude to magic in general. They rarely took it into consideration even though it was the only reason their realm could function; weather, temperature, sending and receiving messages, crafting and travelling all relied on seidr to a greater or lesser extent. But so few Aesir were capable of wielding magic as a weapon – so few even tried, when it was seen as cowardly and womanly and dishonourable.  

The rest of the reason was Loki himself. His presence and reputation had largely been a deterrent against any who would seek to harm Asgard using seidr, for he was extremely sensitive to such things and always dealt swift retribution. It was the only way he could ever have felt safe here. But it hadn’t stopped him from leaving a few holes in the wards that defended the place.

Some of them had been intended as lures, so he could catch a would-be attacker after they had condemned themselves without Asgard ever really being vulnerable. Some were traps that would catch less skilled practitioners without him having to do everything himself (seidr perhaps made him a little lazy, but just following and cleaning up after Thor was exhausting enough without coming back from a month’s quest just to find a magical trace that he would then have to spend days hunting down).

All of this had been done quietly, because pointing out how dangerous magic could be had never turned out well for Loki. In return, he had left a few genuine holes that he had exploited for himself, allowing him to leave the palace at will and wander freely.

He had never taken well to being caged, even before his Fall.

One of these holes was the one that allowed animals to visit the palace gardens. Most shapeshifters would still be detected, because it took a lot more magic to truly become an animal rather than just mimic them, but Loki had never been one for half measures.

He encountered a slight resistance as he met the invisible dome curving over the walls, the cloying feel of the Odinforce pressing against his body and mind, testing him.

Although the push of the ward was nothing like the Other’s hooks that had cleaved through his very soul, Loki still wanted to shudder at the pressure against his inner sanctuary. But he suppressed it just as he suppressed every sentient thought other than the base urges of his avian form, thought of nothing but food and shelter and safety, and just like that the invisible curtain of magic parted around him and he was in.

The flock he had joined tilted their wings and glided downwards to alight on the berry bushes that had been planted here specifically for them, and Loki went with them. He was cautious, more so than he had ever been before – he had played this game hundreds of times, but never had the stakes been so high. He was not Thor; he could be patient.

The berries were delicious. The Aesir would be disgusted to know it but Loki had always enjoyed eating in his other forms. He was still Loki, whatever shape he took, but different bodies had different taste receptors and could eat different substances, even ones ordinary Aesir would never consider. The experience never failed to be fascinating. And after Sanctuary, he was no longer even the slightest bit picky about what gave him sustenance.

The small meal bolstered his magic, easily replenishing what he had lost in World-Walking and shapeshifting, and Loki moved on. A short flight brought him to the fountain right before the walls of the palace proper, and he perched delicately on the edge to drink from the pool. It was a common sight and the Einherjar did not even blink, especially not when several of the flock joined him by the water. One of them began to bathe, sending water droplets spraying into the air, and Loki used the cover to shrink into a smaller form.

Vision as a fly was confusing. Everything was refracted strangely, colours twirling around him whilst motion was extremely prominent. The first time he had shifted into one he had been violently ill and his headache had lasted for hours, but the experience had been useful for comprehending the Paths Between when he had eventually learned to World-Walk. Yggdrasil had never been meant for mortal eyesight, but Loki had been used to changing his frame of reference by then. It was useful yet again now for avoiding his previous flock-mates, for he was no longer one of them and probably looked quite juicy.

Thankfully, the berries appeared to have sated their appetites enough for a few acrobatics to deter them (his seidr would have protected him but it would still be humiliating to be eaten by a bird) and he quickly made his way up to one of the vents in the palace walls.

They had been cleverly disguised, as Valaskjalf was the pride of Aesir architects, but they were still a useful resource. Loki felt no shame at stealing an idea from Midgard’s Hawk; it was far less likely to be detected than using something that others might expect, like a window. He should have thought of it centuries ago, but life was learning and he was still alive to do so. He had survived, and would survive still.

From long experience he knew that there were few protections against walking the halls unseen, only against invisible entry. Just in case, however, upon exiting the vents he remade himself in the form of a small, unremarkable maidservant before bending the light around him so that the innocent form he had chosen was invisible to the naked eye. It was a redundant precaution, but all the same it eased some of the wariness prickling at the back of his neck.

With a strange surge of nostalgia, Loki ghosted through the halls he knew so well, cloaked in silence and invisibility. It felt almost like a dream, being back here – like any second he would awake, feverish and bleeding, upon the dark altar that had consumed so much of the Loki that he had been before his Fall.

But it was not a dream. He was here, this was real.

It did not feel real. But Loki ignored the sweat dampening his neck and the feelings of wrongness as he delved deeper into the palace, passing through ever-emptier hallways. Valaskjalf was truly massive, a sprawling monument to Aesir hubris, and there were plenty of places in the palace that people rarely set foot in. In the interests of avoiding the rampant stupidity of Thor and the Idiot’s Three, Loki had explored them all, always seeking out rare knowledge whether that be in books or idle wandering.

It was a more peaceful adventure than those Thor loved so dearly, but an adventure nonetheless – particularly those few years in his youth when he had yet been too young to leave the palace unattended whilst Thor was set free.

His goal was a part of the palace even he had only visited once before – but despite that, he did not believe that he could ever forget it. The feeling of wrongness increased the closer he got, but this time the feeling was not dreamlike at all – it was a ward, an invisible pressure trying to force him away from one of the All-father’s many dirty secrets.

Most Aesir believed that all the forbidden, dangerous relics were kept in the Vault. That was not true – the Vault was only for the artefacts, the things all of Asgard knew belonged to Odin and therefore unable to be hidden away. The ones with magical signatures so loud that they practically screamed their location across the Nine. For all their great and terrible power, they were not nearly the most valuable of Odin’s treasures.

What Loki sought was not precisely power but knowledge. Forbidden knowledge.

He had chanced upon the hidden library quite by accident some six centuries ago, when Thor had first been given Mjolnir and had been obsessed with training with it. Bitter over the fact that seidr was ‘cheating’ but using a magical artefact was apparently not, Loki had taken refuge away from his brother and admirers. The library was his usual haven, but Thor would find him there and insist on dragging him into a sparring match. Loki was not particularly enthused at the idea of being pounded into the ground and so had sought solitude within the dustiest corridors of the palace.

It was only because of the circumstances that he had felt it. Mjolnir’s presence was incredibly loud, having a ripple effect on ambient seidr that was every bit as flashy as the lightning it challenged, which suited Loki well. It was a fine match for Thor, who had ever derided subtlety, and it allowed Loki to sense him coming and scamper away.

Except that this time he had sensed a disturbance in Valaskjalf’s magic that was not Mjolnir. The feeling of dread, whilst sufficient to keep curious servants and wandering nobility away from the hidden cache, was like a lure to Loki. He had been curious about who had wrought such a working inside the royal palace and had followed it like a hound after a scent, his fascination with this new piece of magic more than sufficient to counter the artificial wariness evoked by the ward.

Then he had come to the entrance and the wariness ceased to be artificial. It might have been hidden away, but there was no mistaking the meaning of the heavy doors barring the way any further. The runes inscribed all over them were very clear – the area was forbidden except to the Allfather himself, upon pain of mortal exile.

It was the highest punishment in Asgard’s law, the permanent stripping of everything that made up an Aesir, a slow death rendered whilst cast out of their home and the lives of their family. Their names struck from record. No chance of redemption.

It was nothing like what had happened to Thor. He had only been on Midgard a handful of days and he had always known that the way was open for him to return. None had disowned him or even badmouthed him. Mortal exile… it was a total renunciation, as close to erasure of an Aesir as you could come.

The mere thought of it had terrified Loki back when he had first found the hidden place. He might have loved mischief and chaos but there were lines that should never be crossed (though he had shattered many of those now, had he not?). He would never have risked such a severe punishment, not before his Fall.

Especially as, as Loki was a mage, the stripping of his power would almost certainly have killed him. Seidr was too much a part of him for him to ever live without; to take it from him would be to rip out his heart.

Things were different now, however. There were so many worse things than mortality, Loki knew. He would prefer any sentence of Odin’s to ever again falling to the Void or the Titan.

He was already practically exiled from Asgard; never would he feel welcome here again, nor would he wish to. The Golden Realm was the source of too much of his pain. And Death could be a mercy, could be a kindness – to one who had already let go, it did not bother him overly much.

Loki would prefer to live, of course, if only out of spitefulness. To show the world that he was not broken, that he had survived everything Odin and Thanos had done to him, that he was still Loki despite the universe’s best efforts. That he would make them regret the things that they had done to him, for trying to bend Chaos to their will.

The Midgardians had a saying: the best revenge was to live well.

Despite its tendency to backfire on him, Loki was good at revenge. Good at defiance. It was why he now found himself before the doors that had barred his way in his youth.

Even when he had first found it, he had not been completely content to leave it alone. Many times had his curiosity been his undoing, but he could not help it; he was a scholar at heart and he never could abide a mystery. He was not suicidal enough to test the warning physically, but even back then he had been a master of magic and had sent one of his clones through the wall to the side of the forbidden area.

They were little more than consciousness and magic, but the clone was enough to give Loki a view of the hidden room. It had lingered there for only a few heartbeats before he had let it dissipate, heart pounding in case it was somehow detected, but what he had seen – rows upon rows of books, some of them stinking of tainted seidr, some of them pulsing and calling to him, all of them chained to their shelves with links both physical and magical – had certainly made an impression. A treasure trove of forbidden knowledge.

He had always suspected its existence; Odin stockpiled physical relics, it only made sense for him to hoard knowledge too. But he had never been able to decide where he would have kept such books and would never have guessed it was in a forgotten corridor, plainly in view except for the deterrent ward.

It was the kind of cunning move Loki himself might have made. Things were always hidden best in plain sight, after all – an enemy might search the vaults and dungeons and royal chambers a thousand times and be frustrated, but only one who had lived here for centuries would explore dusty old corridors presumably not used in millennia.

Odin had always been a slippery bastard. In hindsight, Loki did not know why he had wasted so long longing for his approval – hated that a part of him still did. Hated that, even knowing that Odin was duplicitous and clever and cruel, he had still believed any lie the old man had spouted. Hated also that even now he flinched at even thinking disparaging thoughts about the All-father, as if Heimdall had ever been able to see into his mind.

It was the oppressive pressure of the aversion ward that brought Loki back to himself, as strong now as it had been all those centuries ago, like a physical force pressing against his eyes. He stood at a fork between one corridor that he did not want to go down and one running parallel to it.

The magic squirmed around his head, coiling and twisting in a dark miasma. It whispered, equal parts dark and seductive, urging him down the left path. The two hallways led to almost the same place – except one contained the entrance to the hidden cache and one did not. The magic pressed desperately against Loki’s mind and for a moment panic threatened to swamp him – but his defences held. For all Odin’s formidable power, he had nothing on an Infinity Stone, and Loki had been meticulous about rebuilding and improving his protections.

Smirking, he sketched a mocking bow to the right, directly at the source of that roiling magic. Alright, Odin. Let’s play.

Then he turned and sauntered left.

With every step, the pressure of the ward faded. It was a truly nasty bit of magic, the kind that Loki had hated even before encountering the Mind Stone, and tied to the realm’s seidr in such a way that even a mage of Loki’s power had no hope of unravelling it.

But Odin was not as clever as he thought he was. Not after spending so much time on Asgard. The Aesir were physically formidable, but they were not the most quick-witted of folk.

Loki was not Thor; he would not meet power head on in a uselessly ‘honourable’ confrontation. He was a mage and a trickster. A river did not go through a heavy boulder; it went around.

Quite literally. He could feel the seidr of the ward humming when he placed a hand on the wall, but it did not bother him in this corridor. Grinning wolfishly, he narrowed his focus to a single, tiny point and concentrated. He thought of age and rot, time and dust, breathing those things into his magic. He envisioned the natural cycle – everything from nothing and nothing from everything. Nothing he asked of his magic would not have happened anyway, in time; he was merely nudging it to speed up a little.

It was not a spell, not really. There were rules to magic, supposedly, but Loki had never dealt in rules. Now less than ever. He was Loki of Yggdrasil, and had clawed himself out of the Void itself. He had survived countless trials, withstood the force of an Infinity Stone and rebuilt himself out of pain and shards of shattered ice. Mere walls could never stand in his way.

With a soft sigh of defeat, the metal of the wall withered away under his touch.

It took an inordinate amount of seidr to bore even the smallest hole through to the other side, but small was all Loki needed. Doing it this way – the way that would have happened naturally if only in a few hundred millennium rather than now, cracking the wall along natural fault lines – would not alert the All-Father that something was wrong. Even if Heimdall’s gaze was focused upon this particular spot, he would be hard pressed to see anything amiss when the hole was so tiny that Loki could barely fit a hair through it.

Nothing had ever been handed to Loki the way it had been to Thor. It had taught him to adapt, to make use of the slimmest of opportunities. Sometimes literally.

Yet again, Loki shrank, his borrowed guise receding even as he retained the illusionary cloak of invisibility. As he changed he pressed himself against the wall, for the creature he was becoming was so microscopic that he needed to be as close as possible to his destination in order to get there sometime this week.

His limbs became long and elegant and thinner than spider silk, his body glowing slightly, gossamer wings dancing in the air. Faer-sprites were native to Alfheim, where they lived in colonies of thousands and lit up hidden glades whenever a seidmadr passed by. They fed off tainted magic, cleansing it and re-releasing it to maintain the purity of the realms ambient seidr, and lived in colonies that dwelled in and tended to plants with similar functions.

The form was familiar; Loki had always been fascinated by faer-sprites, and had spent nearly a week living as one once (Odin had punished him for it, of course, had always hated his shifting. And now Loki knew why. He had no regrets; the week had been worth it, had taught him much about the innate nature of seidr). Their senses were peculiar but not unpleasant, and they were drawn to warped magic like moths to flame. It made their form perfect for this endeavour, for the hole he had bored shone like a beacon to this body’s new senses, drawing him in with minimal energy required.

Drifting on the current of seidr (which tasted – or the equivalent of taste in a form that had neither mouth nor tongue – thick and sour and foul in this realm), Loki passed through the wall and behind all of Odin’s defences.

The timing had to be exact – he had no eyes to see when he was inside, and if he let himself be carried for too long then he would end up drawn into the wards and would trigger them anyway once he grew. But if he changed back too soon then he would end up inside a space far too small for his Aesir body. Not a pretty sight, and something he was not completely sure that he would survive. Aesir were strong, but not stronger than the golden walls of Valaskjalf.

Had he never taken this form before it would have been nigh impossible. He was grateful for the curiosity of his youth – it meant that he could read the seidr that this form depended on to judge when it vanished from four sides – once he was inside the wall – and when it reappeared – inside the cache. He gave it an extra few seconds for his tiny body to be well clear, and then twisted the magic that kept him in faer-form, falling a few feet to the ground with a muted hiss.

He coiled himself on the ground, ribbon-like body naturally falling into elegant curves as a thin tongue flicked out to taste the air. Spells could give a fairly accurate assessment of wards but also risked triggering them, whilst serpents had the innate ability to perform almost the same ability just with their tongues.

When he managed to translate the information into the form Loki’s mind was more familiar with, he could almost have laughed. Arrogant – reckless and arrogant. The All-Father was unused to being challenged indeed.

There were wards on the door to prevent entry, and wards on the contents of the room to prevent them from being moved, but that was it. Nothing else. Loki could shift back into his Aesir form and do all the magic he liked, and the All-Father would never know. He had to be relying on Heimdall’s gaze and his own connection to the Odinforce, the realm’s ambient magic (and oh, how arrogant it was to call a whole planet’s seidr after himself!), to tell him if any intruded here. But Loki did not trip those alarms; not since he had woven himself into Yggdrasil and Yggdrasil into himself.

He was a ghost, a phantom, a true prince of shadows. Nothing more than a whisper of magic and mischief.

Forming back into his more normal body, Loki paced through the room, a hungry glint in his eyes. There was so much knowledge here, enough to make him drool. Shelves lined the walls, the books physically chained in place, but there were so many.

His seidr tingled in his veins. Behind the wards, the amount of different magical influences in this room was enough to make his head spin; dark taint leaching from some truly grotesque scrolls (Aesir skin… how gauche), slight warping around dark red books that must be Svaltälfar in origin, a seductive murmuring from one corner, and what he had come for – the faint echo of a crackling magic that sung to the part of Loki that he had learned to awaken since his Fall, calling to the (monster) truth beneath the Aesir skin.

Those books he went to first, the legacy of Jötunheim’s conquering. Many of them were not made of paper but instead some kind of hide, almost certainly to preserve them in a sub-zero climate, and were bound with thin sheaths of ice like frosted glass. The ‘pages’ were frozen together with more ice, this time pale blue, in what he could only assume was a security measure so that Asgard could not steal their secrets.

(Instead they stole the Casket; what Loki now suspected might be the Heart of Jötunheim, the life of their realm.)

If they believed that making them unreadable would deter Odin Allfather from snatching them for himself then they were sadly naïve, but it had at least prevented their secrets being turned back on them. The ice still held after all these centuries, and Loki felt the scholar inside of him stir vaguely in excitement at the thought that perhaps these books might teach him how to do the same.

(Once, the very thought of using the Jötnar ice-magics would have made him shudder. But Loki had come a very long way since then – he was not of Asgard any longer, not really. He was a Jötun, and it was past time he grew used to it. He might never be comfortable with his true roots, but if he could use it against Thanos… he refused to be bound by Odin’s chains ever again. Asgard had taught him to hate and fear and loathe himself, but had he not already decided that he was going to spite them as greatly as he was able?)

He spent nearly an hour in the room, walking from shelf to shelf and laying an invisible magical trace on everything that looked even vaguely useful. Or interesting. Or valuable. The knowledge was doing no one any good here, and Loki would use every weapon that he could get against the Titan.

Odin might be content to leave the Realms stagnant, but such a thing was anathema to Loki’s very being. The universe would be so very boring without chaos.

Besides, there was no extra risk in taking them. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and Loki was already marked for death. Thrice over, if he counted his own suicide, the Other’s promise and Odin’s probable execution warrant.

When he was certain that he had marked every applicable tome (he would not be going near the books that shoved against his mental shields, nor the ones which made his seidr sick, nor those on subjects he had already mastered or were so twisted that even knowledge of them would taint his own magic), he took a deep breath and prepared himself.

He had a plan. Actually, he had several plans, depending on whether this raised an alarm or not. He ran through each in his mind, a kind of calming exercise to get himself into the state of mind when he was best able to wield his seidr.

Thor had never had to do this. Mjolnir was a hammer, blunt enough that finesse was more hamper than help, but even for Thor anger could influence his powers. Loki’s magic, on the other hand, was complex, and this working was delicate. He had been utilizing folded dimensions for storage since his second century and normally it was easy as breathing, but what he was attempting here was rather more complicated.

Centring himself and trying not to let terror consume him, he brought his mind back to his re-emergence on Midgard. Those horrifying days when his mind had not been his own and he had fought so hard for any semblance of control- but that was not what he was doing here. Instead he drew his focus to the tumble here through vast stretches of space, and the warm blue power that beckoned. Not the nauseous electric shade of the corrupted Mind Stone, but something deeper, a power that had hummed through his bones and felt vaguely welcoming.

The Tesseract.

The Infinity Gems were not sentient, exactly, but they were not mere rocks either. Each of them had a kind of basic consciousness, and this one had seen to the heart of him, his desperate desire to keep it safe, to not let Thanos have it, had seen his eternity in the Void and the paths he could walk through its infinite reaches. It had, for lack of a better word, liked him. And it had given him a gift in return, whispering of the vast mysteries of space, telling him secrets that none but a World Walker might appreciate.

The Space Stone. Loki would never have dared seek it, nor to ask – it was an Infinity Gem; he might be proud but he was not an idiot – but it had given freely. He perhaps understood more of the Space Stone than any other in the Realms and, once he had been able to remember it without gibbering in painful fear, he had learned much from its gift.

If it had not deigned to teach him then he would have found another way; he always did. As it was, however, his grasp of what a ‘pocket dimension’ really was had been much improved and the way Space connected to itself and moved and spread aided him in this latest trick.

Closing his eyes, Loki felt for each of his magical traces. They shone like stars in his mind’s eye, a galaxy of knowledge that was his for the taking. He threaded them together, collecting them like pearls on a necklace, and with a snap of his fingers folded them, twisting them sideways through dimensions and into their own personal pocket of space.

His.

He braced himself, but the alarm never sounded.

Technically, they had not moved. They were in the same space – Loki had just altered that space into something that he could take with him.

A manic grin spread across his face and he let out a rusty cackle. It had worked! It had been a crazy plan, as so many of his were, and yet it had worked.

Carefully, still keeping a wary eye on the alert spells, Loki gathered the specks of seidr that the books had been reduced to. They had vanished, precisely enough that their chains remained, leaving only imprints in the dust.

The pocket of space they were in was separate from his main cache, the dimension he had created in his sixteenth decade that he had both improved on and accumulated junk in ever since. Seidr was delicate and he had not wanted to risk the books interacting with any other artefact that he might have forgotten about. It was the work of only a moment to tie this second pocket to him, so he could reach it anywhere.

Removing the books from it would trigger Odin’s alarms, but that would not bother him as he would never be stupid enough to do such a thing within a thousand leagues of any Aesir. With the Bifrost broken and all Yggdrasil available to him, he could even use it to lay false trails, assuming that Odin would even know where he accessed them from and not just that they were gone.

But he was getting ahead of himself. He hesitated only once before flicking his fingers at the many now half-empty shelves, conjuring illusionary copies to take their place. He did not know how often Heimdall checked on this place, but better leave as few traces as possible until he got off this accursed realm.

Once it was discovered then the illusion would be proof of his involvement, akin to a shining beacon declaring ‘Loki Was Here,’ but that scarcely mattered. Loki was not so naïve as to believe that he would not be the chosen scapegoat even if he left no trace at all – indeed, the lack of evidence had been enough to condemn him many times over whilst he was still nominally prince.

If they were going to blame him anyway he would not invite unnecessary risk by attempting to cover his tracks. And at least this time he would actually be guilty of the crime.

There were enchantments on the door to stop people from leaving as well as from entering – making the hidden cache double as a trap – and so Loki exited in the same way he entered. Not a faer-sprite this time (the current of seidr was going the wrong way; no need to make his task harder) but a Kikiki huna, a tiny species of wasp from Midgard – the smallest he had been able to think of.

Unlike the faer-sprite it was not a form he had taken before, but most Midgardian insects were somewhat alike and it did not take him long to figure out the odd senses and tiny wings.

The trip back through the wall seemed to take forever now that it took physical effort rather than just drifting along, the wall pressing in around him, but his precautions held. His healing had taken months but Loki mostly had a handle on his triggers now and wasps, thankfully, did not experience panic attacks.

Still, he felt no small amount of relief when he could exchange the wasp form (so tiny, so vulnerable) for something with the senses he was more used to. Shapeshifting was a useful talent (sometimes he wanted to be anything but Loki, and oh, the freedom it gave him…) but it was also deeply disconcerting.

The journey back through the corridors was equally uneventful, although he did pause at a familiar junction to gaze up the corridor leading to the Royal Wing.

It seemed like a millennium since he had last been here, last seen his own rooms and slept in his own bed. His feet twitched, long habit wanting to take him back there, and for a moment he was even tempted. There were artefacts in his room that could be useful – weapons, spellbooks, ingredients – as well as those that were merely sentimental.

But it would be foolish.

Sighing deeply, Loki turned away. The royal wing would be guarded by Einherjar and his rooms were likely to be a trap (it was what he would do, after all – make sure the cuckoo couldn’t come home to roost), and that was if they had not burned his possessions. Either because of his presumed death or because he was a disgrace to Odin’s family.

He was not sure he wanted to know. Whether his rooms had been sealed like a tomb or aired out, every trace of Loki scrubbed away. Whether it had been ransacked by those eager for a glimpse into the mind of the mad prince or defiled by those angry that a Jötunn runt had dared called itself their regent.

No, he did not want to know. He was not sure which scenario would hurt more, and he was not a masochist.

He was not a masochist… but he did know pain.

He had known pain before; as a prince of Asgard, battle had been a part of everyday life. Asgard was a warrior society and all battles came with wounds, especially when questing with the Idiots Four where he had to compensate for their reckless overconfidence and utter disregard for their own lives. But pain was a much more intimate acquaintance now.

Knowledge was always useful, or so he had believed before his Fall. Still believed, up to a point, but that did not mean that there were some things that he detested knowing. He would never have wanted to learn how quickly his flesh would regrow when it was torn off and eaten. Or that some combination of being Jötnar, being a mage or crude healing allowed him to regrow bones and whole limbs. What it felt like to drown on dry land. What each part of his body looked like without skin.

Yes, he had known pain before… but Sanctuary had made him a master of it. And he knew (oh, how he knew) that emotional pain was always, always worse.

He had not broken until they had shattered his mind. The things they had shown him, the things that had been done to him using the faces of those he loved…

He did not know how many of his feverish, sick recollections were the truth. Maw had delighted in twisting his memories. That was perhaps the worst thing of all: that he did not know how much of him was real. If it even mattered.

To confirm that he was not loved, not mourned no matter what Thor might have claimed in the haze of the Other’s control…

No. Loki would not be confirming that. Would not go looking for foolish hope or for crushing disappointment. It did not mean anything – whether any trace of him remained here meant nothing.

For someone who was supposedly the God of Lies, it was a pathetic attempt at deceit.

It was, however, enough to cling to as he tore himself away from it, from that beckoning corridor and every trace of Aesir he encountered after that. And it was a relief to emerge into the stale sunlight of Asgard (the same day, the same weather cycle always in progress unless the seidkönur changed it up) and to shrink into a form with less complex emotions.

He kept his mind; he was still Loki. But the meat of an avian form was not built for guilt or regret or anger or even really grief (at least not the overpowering, crippling miasma that Aesir, Jötnar and humans were prone to), and the physical technicalities of shapeshifting distanced him somewhat from the storm of emotion.

The flock of blársfugln had long since departed, but there was a small unkindness of ravens squawking by the wall. After confirming that none of them were Odin’s spies (something the Allfather had stolen from Loki himself back when he had not thought to hide his better ‘tricks’ – he was still bitter about that), he slipped among them.

In truth, he preferred this form to the blársfugl. Ravens were intelligent and playful birds with a bad reputation, rather like Loki himself. It was why their form was so easy to take; magic was always easiest if there was a connection between the mage and the spell, and it was far easier to imagine himself as a corvid than a twittering songbird.

These birds were young adolescents, which was one of the reasons he knew they would not be reporting to the Allfather – they were too unpredictable at this age, flying where the wind took them and caring only for play and mischief. Taking raven form enhanced those aspects of Loki’s personality too, and so it was easy to push away his conflicting emotions about Asgard in exchange for the satisfaction of a prank well played.

The ravens looked him over, not recognising him, and made odd bobbing gestures with their heads and feet. An inquiry, but not an unwelcoming one.

“Mischief,” Loki cawed. “Chaos.”

The corvids cackled, beating their wings. Let’s fly!

Things were so simple as a bird. Loki knew that he shouldn’t, he really shouldn’t… but how long had it been since he had performed an innocent bit of mischief, for nothing else but the fun of it?

It would be foolish. Foolish and idiotic, more akin to one of Thor’s decisions than Loki’s. He was a fugitive: hated, disgraced, hunted. He had come for serious reasons – to gain knowledge in order to make reparations to Jötunheim and to oppose the Titan. Petty mischief had no place in his plan.

Then Sanctuary flashed through his mind. An indeterminable time where his world had been nothing but agony, so dark and dismal that it could not be called a life at all. And before that, Asgard, stifling Asgard, where he had worn so many masks that by the time his origins had ripped away the last shreds of himself he had not even been sure how much of Loki remained. He had tried so hard to become what they wanted of him… and in doing so he had all but destroyed himself.

He had enjoyed innocent mischief so much in his youth that he had been called god of it, but it had been centuries since he had pulled a prank that had genuinely been harmless, neither part of a scheme nor retaliation for insult or injustice. He could not even recall the last time he had joined the ravens in their play, even though it had been one of his greatest joys when he had first mastered shapeshifting.

He had decided to live, had he not?

Letting out an excited caw of his own, Loki chose to honour that decision. His wings swept down, launching him into the air and towards the closest true raven. Its eyes gleamed as it too took off, darting towards him in turn, and the two of them spiralled into the air, squawking and snapping at each other in mock-offence.

The aerial display they put on stretched Loki’s wings to their limits, swooping and rolling free of the constraints of gravity. The rest were quick to join in, dancing together in an uncoordinated cloud of dark feathers and bright eyes.

Loki revelled in it. The joy of freedom, of being part of something. Even if his companions were animals, the company was strangely relieving. No matter how much he enjoyed locking himself away in the library to study, it appeared that Jötnar were still social creatures. He was not built to be alone.

It was childish, but he let out cackling shrieks of delight as the unkindness swirled through the air, darting at each other in elaborate feints. It was the sort of game that Loki excelled at, trickery and lies, and despite being the newcomer he was quickly established as one of the leaders of the group. Such effortless acknowledgement stirred up all kinds of feelings but he steadfastly ignored them. He was not pathetic enough to weep at the inclusion of birds, no matter how intelligent, and he refused to stop having fun when this was the widest he had smiled (metaphorically, as this form had no lips) in literal years.

The ravens descended on the marketplace in a glorious swirl of chaos, drawing shrieks from some of the Aesir when sharp beaks and agile claws drew a little too near. The mighty warriors of Asgard, Loki snickered to himself, the laughter coming out as odd-sounding chirps. The others would not normally have gotten so close, but Loki was practically fearless, egging them on with mocking caws.

Truth be told, they did not need much persuasion. Very few Aesir would harm a raven in the fear of them being one of Odin’s, so they tended to swarm the Golden Realm in a way reminiscent of the pigeons of Midgard, except more fun. And Loki was boldest of them all, feeling a branch of Yggdrasil near enough that he could slip away with minimal effort.

So he darted close enough to snatch a few blonde hairs from the head of one of the warriors who was trying very hard not to flinch at the invasion of ravens, flourishing it under his nose before spiralling just low enough to dare the Aesir to try and catch him. The moment the man jumped, Loki snapped his wings down and put on a burst of speed, brushing back over the warrior’s head before wheeling up into the sky with a triumphant cry. He released the hairs at the top of the arc, golden strands sparkling in the setting sun, before diving down to a stall left unattended as its owner ducked for cover.

It was covered with shinies that stroked avian instincts in all the right places, and with a mental shrug Loki hopped over to the brightest and tangled it around his foot. The ducking merchant sprang up with a cry, hands grasping for the golden amulet (its emerald centre gleamed bright enough to rile a raven’s greed, whilst its spiralling silver runes caught the mage within’s attention), but he was too far and Loki too quick.

Drawn by the shine of the gold, the other ravens broke off their fun and joined him in the sky, and Loki ruffled his feathers playfully before a tingle of seidr released the trinket from his foot.

It dropped and another raven swooped into a dive, catching it just before it could fall into the merchant’s hand. Cawing with derision, the bird gave a flick of its wing and tossed the shiny to a third raven, which immediately took off with frantic wings, launching itself down a tight alley.

Screeching in excitement, the unkindness followed, leaving the ravaged marketplace behind in favour of the thrill of the chase. Loki went right along with them, heart singing gleefully at the innocent chaos.

In times like these, he could understand exactly why Thor loved the hunt so much. There was nothing but this moment, the world narrowed to the gleam of gold and the tight corners of the path. All external worries fell away, and Loki knew what it was to truly live.

How had he ever wanted to give this up?

The thought was left in the dust as he beat his wings harder to catch up. One of the others had almost – no, it had already caught the amulet-thief, who yielded the shiny without a fight and joined the rest in the chase.

For nearly half an hour they played tag throughout the city, causing mayhem and near-collisions on every street as the amulet was passed from one to the other, until the sky started to darken above them. Then the ravens at last ended the game, dropping the prize in the dust as they soared away to find shelter. Loki landed next to it, tiny lungs heaving but heart light, and bobbed his head in farewell.

They didn’t make much of a fuss, though a few buffeted him affectionately with a wing as they took their leave. “Chaos,” they cawed, apparently giving him a name, and Loki’s eyes smiled, fierce and bright. Perhaps Asgard was not all bad.

Just mostly.

On a whim, he pocketed the amulet upon returning to his Aesir form, a memento of a surprisingly good day. No one had seen him, he had accomplished what he had come here for and he had even managed to have fun in the process. He was humming as he slipped within the folds of Yggdrasil, a song full of magic and life -and the joy he had never expected to find on Asgard.

A good day indeed.

Chapter Text

With a deep sigh akin to ice groaning in one of Jötunheim’s many crevasses, Byleistr shuffled his feet and fought to keep from leaning against the wall behind him. At the head of the room, his mother’s crimson gaze darted towards him, a silent inquiry.

He shook his head and straightened, trying his best to keep his fidgeting under control. Court proceedings were important, he knew that, knew that it was important for the people to be able to see and speak with their royal family and draw what comfort they could, but it did not stop the event being frustrating. Complaint after complaint about the ice shifting, houses collapsing, babes growing sickly, enchantments failing and food stocks withering. It was a never ending stream of despair and he wished for nothing more than to be away from here.

It might not have been so bad if there was anything that they could have done to help. Byleistr had always preferred to be active, and having not grown up at court it felt alien to stand here and listen to people voice problems that they were helpless to correct. The complaints only made Byleistr want to rage against his own people.

Could they not see that their rulers were trying? Could they not read the desperate despair in Farbauti’s eyes? His mother was working herself to the bone, her seidr constantly thready and thin as she fought to stave off the destruction, but their realm was degrading and there was nothing anyone could do to change that.

Jötunheim was dying. It had been dying for more than a thousand years, and there was not a single thing that the Jötnar could do about it. Asgard had stolen her heart and condemned them all to a slow extinction, and the hope that the warmongers would relent had withered alongside the realm’s natural magic.

Then had come the destruction from the sky. First the Thunderer, with his boorish pride and dull hammer. He had declared war upon them for the actions of two individuals – desperate warriors attempting to save their realm – and laid waste to a hundred and fifty Jötnar for a single insult. Then the Bifröst, which had torn into their realm with a roar a thousand times louder than any princeling and bored a hole so deep and blackened that nought would ever grow there again.

Many had wondered if Odin finally tired of relishing their slow extinction. Some had even whispered that death at the hands of the Oppressor’s bridge might even be mercy of a kind – better than the slow but inexorable advance of starvation and decay that was all that awaited the Jötnar without the Casket.

On days like this, much as it shamed him, Byleistr himself was tempted to agree with them. It was agony to see his people suffering and know that there was little they could offer in the way of comfort.

Laufey had not been a well-liked King. He had led them to defeat all those years ago, had lost their most precious treasure and condemned them all, and in the years since had proved callous and greedy and cruel. He had hoarded what was left of Jötunheim’s resources, living as if nothing had changed, and put down rebellions amongst his people with the same ruthlessness as the Gallows God of Asgard. But sometimes Byleistr understood his cruelty – did not countenance it, did not excuse it, but understood it – because Laufey had known his realm was going to die and had known that it was his fault. It had twisted him, as inevitability had twisted many Jötnar.

They were a doomed people. What had they to lose, bickering over the scraps? What did a little cruelty matter when they would not last long enough for a coup to mean anything?

Laufey might have been hated but he had also been feared. None had dared to depose him, but they had all breathed a sigh of relief when he had died. The broken king had never bothered with repairs after losing the War, had never pushed for new advancements or reached out to other realms for aid (too proud, too arrogant). Many had hoped that with him gone that something might at last be done to improve their home, and they had pinned their hopes to Farbauti.

His mother had long been exiled from Utgard, too outspoken for the king to tolerate and yet too beloved for him to truly punish. He had loved her once, Farbauti always claimed, but something had happened that had broken their bond and the Laufey that Byleistr had always known had never been one for sentiment.

Farbauti had still been nominally queen, however, and when Asgard took their King’s life and rained down destruction she had been the one they crowned. Many people had come to show their joy and support, but they had brought with them countless cries for help and the hope that she could somehow repair their realm, make things better as she had before her husband banished her to the outer rims.

Those expectations weighed heavily on his mother, Byleistr knew. It told in her every movement, a tiredness deeper than any he had seen in her before, even in the blurry memories of Helblindi’s birth. Seeing his ever-strong mother in such a state had been terrifying as a child, and was no less so now. He was not even of age yet; he could not lose her. And yet every day her shoulders seemed to sag further under the weight of the throne.

The latest complainant was not helping his case by spending near fifteen minutes waxing lyrical about his ancient family manor that, as far as Byleistr could tell, had been consumed by Bregðagrund. The largest crevasse in Jötunheim had opened at the end of the War, and without the Casket there had been no healing it; since then it had consumed nearly a thousand homes and two dozen lives. Most sensible folk had moved away from it, as the crack grew in unpredictable spurts, and so as far as Byleistr was concerned the petitioner only had himself to blame if he had not relocated his possessions when it became clear that his manor was in its path.

Yes, it was tragic to lose so much history – but there were Jötnar whose whole livelihoods had been consumed by Bregðagrund, and they had still whined less than this noble whose name Byleistr had either not paid attention to or just forgotten.

Even his mother’s endless patience was beginning to fray, visible in the shifting currents in her ruby eyes. Throwing him out would at least break the tedium of the endless proceedings, but he knew that she wouldn’t – Farbauti was adamant that everyone be listened to, no matter how obnoxious.

If only Byleistr could cast! Seidr would be so useful in situations like these, to occupy himself if nothing more. His mother had always told him that he had an affinity for it, but with the Casket gone Jötunheim’s natural magic was so weakened that it was not worth attempting to learn. The early stages of mage training involved connecting to ambient seidr, but only the strongest were capable of such a thing when the realm’s ordinarily strong magic had retreated underground in a doomed effort to save itself.

Sighing again as his thoughts circled back around to their greatest unsolvable problem, Byleistr concentrated back on his mother in an attempt to keep from depressing himself.

“I understand your complaints, Lord Bakrauf, and you have my deepest condolences for the loss of your ancestral home,” Farbauti said, her annoyance well hidden in the deep rumble of her voice. “And of course you may reside here in Utgard whilst-” she trailed off mid sentence, her eyes going wide and distant as she let out a gasp that sounded pained.

Byleistr stepped forwards. “Mother?”

He ignored the glares shot at him both for interrupting proceedings and addressing her so familiarly (however often she chided him that formal addresses were to be used in the receiving hall, she would always be ‘mother’ first to him), caring little about breaking protocol when his mother might be hurt. Her eyes snapped to him, but they were still glazed.

“Oh,” she whispered, and he had never heard her sound like that before. Shocked, but full of wonder. “Oh!” Her eyes brightened, nearly glowing – a shade he had never seen before. At the same time, a deep, verdant green haze rippled over her skin – seidr, manifesting far more strongly than it should have been capable of when she was so tired.

That was when Byleistr felt it. It was like a wave, cresting high above his head and crashing down on them all, yet it was not water. It drowned him and froze him and deafened him, and yet it felt so strangely like coming home. It was- he gasped as well, feeling something within his heart tug, a yearning so deep that he pressed a hand over his chest.

A green so pale it was almost blue surrounded his hand like a halo, wispier and more thready than his mother’s but still undeniably seidr. He gawked at it, even as the feeling rose again, washing through the room more calmly now and bringing with it a feeling like music and making his – his! – magic hum in response.

Farbauti rose from her throne as the magic reached a crescendo, staggering slightly at the sheer power of it. Byleistr’s head ached, he could taste frost and iron under his tongue, and yet it felt as if his soul was dancing. This was magic – this was Jötunheim’s magic.

It was back.

He did not understand – could not understand how it was possible. There had been no warning. He had never felt its like before, and yet there was no denying that a miracle had taken place.

Had Asgard taken pity on them? The thought was ludicrous and this was nothing like he had thought the Casket would feel like, yet he could think up no other explanation. Jötunheim – she was singing. It was as if a piece of himself that he had never known was missing had been returned.

It was joy, and laughter, and agony, and power. It was everything and nothing all at once. It was the song of the world, and now he understood why his mother had never been able to describe seidr to him and why she had always looked so sorrowful that he would never touch it – because this was indescribable and yet it was everything. It was as if he had been sleeping all his life, and had been kissed awake. A balm for a wound he had never known he carried.

“Excuse me,” said his mother, breathless and near to tears. “A matter has come that I must address.”

Byleistr opened blurry eyes (when had he closed them? When had he started crying? He could not remember; the rush of magic had drowned out all physical senses) to find that every Jötun in the room looked stunned. None of them appeared to have been as affected as Farbauti and he – in fact some, Lord Bakrauf among them, barely looked to have been affected at all – but it was clear that they had all felt something. That pulsing, like a heartbeat – it was settling now into a dull but comforting thrum – they might not know what it had meant, but they knew that something significant had happened.

The most significant thing of all. Their dying realm. It might not be dying anymore.

The court rumbled unhappily, but there was little they could do as their Queen dismissed them. Byleistr barely waited until they were both out of the room until he was at his mother’s side, both of their seidr swirling visibly around them.

His mother looked at him with eyes still jewel-bright. “Oh, ást minn,” she whispered, tracing her fingers over the clan-lines on his face. They lit up at her touch, glowing the blue-green of his newly discovered seidr. “You are so beautiful.”

“It-it’s…”

She smiled. “Yes.”

“But how? How is this possible?”

“That is what we must find out.” He grasped her hand, clinging to it like a child as the magic surged again and threatened to sweep him off his feet. It was so new – how was he supposed to control it? Seidr was supposed to wake slowly, be teased out, but despite spending several years intermittently practicing he had never felt a thing. His magic had always been just out of reach, unmoored in a realm with no ambient magic to ground it.

Now it was eager, spiralling under his skin with such abandon that it leaked into the world around them. It was not strong, he had known that before, but it was there.

His mother, however, closed her eyes and hummed, a strangely harmonic note that seemed to resonate with his new power. He could feel what she was doing, submerging herself in the still-delicate tendrils weaving new patterns over the realm. “This way,” she murmured, eyes still closed and eyelashes dusted with green.

He guided her, steering her around walls and through the palace as she concentrated on tracing the source of the energy spikes. They soon left the palace behind, and Byleistr had to muffle his gasp, not wanting to break Farbauti’s concentration.

It was difficult to stifle his wonder, however. He had never seen Jötunheim like this; he had been born centuries after the War and the realm he had always known was rife with cracks and crevasses, with a dark sky and clouds perpetually swirling overhead, always threatening a storm.

This, however, was Jötunheim from the old stories – the ice was practically glowing, eddying with currents of what looked like seidr. The wind gusting around them was softer than he remembered, almost playful as it tugged at his hair.

As a rule Jötnar did not feel cold, but Jötunheim’s wind was always biting and harsh, threatening to rip away any scraps of exposed cloth. Now it was more a gentle brush, swirling over his exposed kin-lines like an embrace. He marvelled at it even as his mother paused and opened her eyelids, gazing up at the mountains above Utgard.

Tears gleamed at the corner of her eyes at the sight of their realm awash in seidr. “I had forgotten how beautiful it was,” she whispered, and Byleistr squeezed her hand in silent agreement.

He had always loved his realm – it was the only home he had ever known, and even dark and harsh it had been beautiful in its way – but to see it like this was mesmerising. This was the realm that had once rivalled Asgard for culture and splendour, before the oppressors had decided that they did not like competition.

Farbauti took a moment to compose herself, her eyes wandering across the shining landscape but always returning to the mountains. “It is centred on the temple,” she announced, and briefly he wondered how she knew, what he was too new and unlearned to sense. Just seeing the magic alone was barely within his comprehension; he was both glad and disappointed that he could not perceive the nuances. “I will teleport. Do you wish to accompany me?”

Of course he did, but… “Is your seidr strong enough?” Teleportation was amongst the most taxing of magic uses, and an hour ago he would not have believed she had the strength to jump from one side of the hall to the other, let alone from Utgard to the temple.

She smiled at him. “Oh, ást minn, I am your mother; it is my job to worry about you, not the other way around.” Before he could argue, she held up her hand, “Regardless, I have sufficient magic for the both of us. Whatever is restoring Jötunheim is boosting my own reserves as well.”

Nodding, Byleistr stepped closer. He did not know if physical proximity would help but he did not think it would hurt.

Farbauti wrapped her arms around him, encircling him in the deep green of her seidr. “Close your eyes.”

The next moment, his newly discovered seidr-sense felt the world blurring around him and Byleistr was very glad that he had obeyed his mother. He did not know how teleportation actually worked but his stomach had lurched enough just feeling it; adding his eyes on top might have made him throw up.

Pushing the nausea away, Bylesitr took a deep breath and reopened his eyes to see the temple right in front of him. It was immensely disorientating, having the world change when you were not looking, but that paled in the face of the fact that the temple was glowing.

Byleistr had never been to the mountain temple before. Once it had been the holiest place of their people and domain of their few treasured seidberandi, attracting pilgrims from across the realm, but scarcely anyone had set foot there since the War. It was widely considered to be cursed, the place where Odin Heart-Stealer had desecrated their most sacred treasures, where he had drenched the clean ice in the blood of an infant prince and ripped the Casket from its pedestal, taking the essence of Jötunheim’s seidr with it.

The temple’s caretakers had also died that day and had never been replaced. Laufey had proclaimed that there was little point – that the temple was now a tomb, and had caused ill luck enough without sending more Jötnar there.

A stubborn few had still ventured forth, leaving small trinkets in plea to the Norns to return their realm’s heart, until Laufey had heard of it and commanded a smaller temple built within Utgard for those who wished to partake in such ‘foolishness’ whilst simultaneously ordering the paths to the temple closed off. Since it had been one of the only new buildings he had commanded raised and done before the realm’s seidr had deteriorated quite so far, the new temple had been built quickly and the mountain left to rot as intended.

Byleistr had heard the stories, both of what it was like when it housed the casket and what it had become even before Laufey had sealed it away. Jötnar still spoke in hushed corners of the walls carved with such elegance that it made some weep to behold it, the carvings capturing the very nature of the ice realm using methods known only to their ancestors. Of the enchantments woven so deeply into the pillars of the temple that the whole building sung with an ageless song. Of how the walls were thin as a strand of hair and yet sturdier than bone.

They said that the temple had been the first to darken, when the Casket was taken. How the song was starved and stifled, the walls began to creak, the pillars to melt. How the floor, once a single impossibly smooth sheet of ice, had cracked into a thousand miniature crevasses and creaked underfoot like melt-ice on a lake.

The Völur that had survived the war (so few, and fewer still kept up their practice when it appeared that the Norns had abandoned Jötunheim to destruction) claimed that a heaviness had fallen on the sacred place, that you could feel the despair weighty on your shoulders within a mile of the place. Cursed, they agreed – only Odin Realm-Wrecker could curse such a pure place.

Like the rest of Jötunheim, however, the temple appeared to have undergone a miraculous restoration. It stood tall and elegant in front of him, a palace far more elegant than the sprawling complex in Utgard, like a crystal of ice enlarged to fit even the tallest Jötun. And it glowed with seidr.

A thousand thousand colours spiralled through the icy walls that made up the temple, blue chasing red chasing yellow and purple and other colours he did not even have names for. The most predominant colour was green, however – similar enough to his mother’s seidr to almost be mistaken for it, but at the same time so much stronger than Farbauti’s even when she was well rested.

Unlike the others, it did not swirl in mesmerising patterns through the walls but shrouded every inch of the temple, like a second, ethereal sanctuary overlaid on the first. It curled almost protectively around the pillars surrounding the entrance and formed a thick screen over the door itself, hiding whatever was within.

“Mother?” Byleistr questioned, tearing his gaze (with difficulty) from the hypnotically swirling magic to Farbauti’s still-frozen form. He knew that he should be uneasy – he knew nothing about what was going on and he was so vastly unqualified to help – but he was not. There was something about the swirling seidr that defied suspicion.

Something had happened that had begun to restore Jötunheim’s heart. Had potentially saved the realm. He could not imagine it doing harm to her people.

“Byleistr,” Farbauti murmured, seeming to come back to herself.

“Are you alright?”

She did not answer his question. “Come. We should go inside.”

Byleistr eyed the seidr concealing the entrance. “Are you sure?”

“I am the Queen of Jötunheim,” she pronounced, the regal starkness of her tone somewhat undermined by the way her voice was shaking slightly. “It is my duty to know what is happening to her.” Then she glanced at him and her expression softened, the monarch receding in favour of the mother. “Even before the War, the temple was never like this. It is beautiful, but the green seidr… the other colours are all of Jötunheim itself. The green is… something else.”

“Aesir?” Byleistr hated how shaky the word sounded, but he could not help it. He had never met anyone from Asgard; the only official interaction between the Jötnar and the Aesir in his entire lifetime had been when Prince Thor had come to Jötunheim and slaughtered hundreds of her people. And the Bifröst incident, if that even counted when none of Asgard’s people had accompanied it.

“No, no – well, I am not sure, but I meant… I would say it was the seidr of an individual, but no mage on Jötunheim has that power. No mage I have ever even heard of has such power.”

Well. That was worrying.

Reading his disquiet on his face, Farbauti placed a hand on his shoulder, the kin-lines they shared warming under her touch. “It is not hostile,” she reassured him. Her other hand reached out towards the green magic-mist; a tendril of it coiled around her wrist, but it did no harm. “If I am right and it is a mage then I do not believe that they bear us ill will, considering how their seidr is reacting now and how Jötunheim has responded. And if I am mistaken then this is merely another manifestation of the realm’s restoration and thus will not harm us either.”

It was not as comforting as she had probably meant it to be, but Byleistr mustered up his courage and nodded. He was Prince of Jötunheim; the title ordained responsibilities as well as luxury.

Turning to face him, Farbauti offered him one last out. “You can wait out here.” There was no judgement in her voice – in fact, she seemed to be silently urging him to do so. He was her child and she did not want to put him in danger. But he would not make his mother face the unknown alone.

“No I can’t.” He reached up to squeeze the hand resting on his shoulder, his own blue-green seidr nuzzling up against his mother’s and the foreign one. As the two touched, he felt what his mother had described – it was cautious, like a wary cat, but not hostile. He got a sense of warning from it, or from his own magic (it was difficult to distinguish the two; he had only touched his seidr for the first time today, after all), a sense that it was ready to defend itself or the temple should they offer provocation.

With their hands and magic twined together, mother and son advanced towards the entrance. There was a moment of hesitation when they reached the thick screen of seidr shielding the entryway, when the magic pressed thickly around their own and seemed to test their intentions, before all at once it yielded and allowed them through.

It was like stepping into another realm, like teleporting once more. The temple was incredible, every bit as fascinating as the tales that he had heard. The floor with its thousand cracks had been smoothed again into a single sheet of ice and the walls were indeed so intricately carved that it was difficult to focus on them; the pattern captured his attention only to lead his gaze in circles, its form flickering from his perception before he could focus on a single rune.

Yet Byleistr’s attention was not on the no-longer-cracked floor or the intricately detailed walls. No, his mind was drawn straight to the mage who was stood in the centre of the temple, hands pressed against the altar that must once have held the Casket of Ancient Winters as if it was all that was holding him up.

The altar itself was empty, the depression for the Casket still barren. It was not what Byleistr – nor Farbauti, by the looks of her – had been expecting; for Jötunheim to begin to restore itself, for it to happen from here, the Casket’s ancient resting place, he had been almost certain that it had been returned to them. No other scenario made any sense. The realm had been dying without the Casket and now it was not, therefore the Casket must have been recovered.

Instead it was like a scene out of one of the ancient tales, the mage, surrounded by his own seidr, casting a working of incredible power. The magic around him was so thick that it was difficult to make him out, a dark shadow against the shining light of the temple, whilst the altar itself appeared to be acting like his staff.

Thick bands of magic of every conceivable colour flowed from the bottom of the twisting pillar of ice and spiralled out in a way that reminded him of the Bifröst, though so much gentler and more benevolent, each stream branching out in different directions as it got further from the mage. When Byleistr’s own seidr, almost of its own volition, queried a dark blue strand, a vision nearly overcame him – Bregðagrund, the crevasse that had claimed so many lives and homes, slowly beginning to seal itself, fresh ice surging up from the bottom like a wellspring.

Wrenching himself away from one vision made him overcompensate, his seidr lurching into a light orange band instead, and it tasted like sunlight and warm mjöðr. The accompanying vision was flashes of crop growth, the dwindling harvests that had pushed so many near starvation these past few centuries suddenly bountiful again.

Then his mother’s hand tightened on his, her seidr pulsing before his eyes, and he pulled free with a gasp. He tightened his own grip in both thankfulness and to prevent himself from sinking to his knees, but his mother did not acknowledge him, all her focus on the mage that was apparently singlehandedly restoring Jötunheim.

Not without cost, however. The stranger was panting raggedly and leaning heavily on the altar, his arms shaking as if willpower alone was keeping him standing. It was difficult to make out any details through the thickness of the magic but he was very small. Ividja, Jötnar mages, tended to run on the small size but this mage was truly tiny, about the size of an Aesir.

But it had to be a Jötun. It was not arrogant to say that no other race could restore their realm, not without the Casket – their seidr would simply not be compatible. And yet even Farbauti had not known of a mage that could do this.

“Stay here, Byleistr,” his mother ordered, releasing his hand. Byleistr wanted to protest but he kept his mouth shut; his mother was a master seidkona, whereas he could not even control his magic. But he still tensed, ready to move at the slightest hint that things might be going wrong.

Farbauti advanced upon the mage with cautious steps, hands held out in front of her in a clear gesture of peace. It seemed to be a needless precaution; the mage did not respond to her presence.

 At last Farbauti ascended the steps to the altar, her footsteps quiet as an issköttr upon the ice. She stared at the mage across from her, something beseeching in her eyes, but whatever it was she was looking for was hidden behind a particularly thick drift of magic. As if even without the mage’s input his seidr was shielding him from recognition.

Green – only a shade distant from the unknown mage’s – wreathed his mother’s hands as she manifested her own seidr once more. Then, with a deep breath, she too placed her hands on the altar.

Immediately, a tight, almost pained look spread over her face as her magic joined the other, siphoned into whatever ritual the other had started. Byleistr took a step forwards, but only managed one before a wedge of her seidr leapt towards him, shoving him back.

It was gone almost as soon as it collided with him, drawn straight back to the altar, but the message was received nonetheless. Do not interfere.

He would not have had time to do so anyway. Ten too-loud too-fast heartbeats pounded in Byleistr’s ears as he watched his mother join her own efforts to the unknown spell, and suddenly the temple blazed with light, flashing even more brightly than before. It was worse than the harshest glare off the ice, forcing him to shut his eyes lest he risk blindness, and a sound like a bell rang through the air.

When the chime faded, he cautiously peeled his eyelids open again, blinking spots from his vision. Whatever ritual the mage had been performing seemed to have ended, for his mother had stumbled back from the altar and the mage did not seem to be tethered to it either, though he was still leaning heavily against it, panting raggedly.

The streams of different coloured seidr within the floor had faded away, leaving the ice pristine. The temple was still glowing but it was a softer, more stable glow of pale blue streaked through with green.

An orb of it swirled in the centre of the altar, the once home of the Casket, and Byleistr could feel the gentle pulsing from ten paces away. It was definitively not the Casket, and yet a part of him still recognised it – somehow, this was Jötunheim’s Heart.

Had the mage… made a new one?

It seemed incredible, unreal, but yet that was what his magic was telling him. It should have been impossible, but there was no denying the evidence of his own senses, the seidr he thought he would never reach purring contentedly underneath his skin.

Awed, Byleistr looked between the mage (who was still surrounded by the mist of his own seidr) and Farbauti, waiting for what would happen next.

It was not his place to interfere. He desperately wanted to go and check on his mother (no matter what effect the restoration had had on it, her seidr had still not been at its best and now she seemed completely drained), but at the same time something held him back.

For a few moments, the temple echoed with the sound of the mage’s laboured breathing. And no wonder – to create a new Heart for Jötunheim… Byleistr could not even comprehend the power that would be required to do such a thing. As far as he had known, before today, such a thing was widely held to be impossible.

Then the mage, still a shadow against the softly shining temple walls, began to move. Slowly at first, he straightened, removing first one hand and then the other from the altar. His shoulders rose, his back straightened. There was something primal about it, something Other.  

Finally, the mage stood on his own two feet, however shaky. Only then did his breathing calm somewhat.

Then, without warning, the seidr swirling around him stilled. Through its tendrils Byleistr caught a glimpse of sapphire skin and eyes like fire, but the details were lost as the seidr flared brightly and descended upon its mage, wrapping itself around him like a cocoon before vanishing inside skin that was abruptly pale and white, visible only in the bright emerald of his eyes.

Farbauti inhaled sharply. “Prince Loki?”

Chapter Text

Prince Loki? Of Asgard?

Byleistr peered closer at the mage, unable to reconcile his feelings. He had never seen Asgard’s second prince but like everyone else he had heard the stories. Whispers of the Liesmith had penetrated all Nine Realms, even Jötunheim, but there never seemed to be any consensus on his character. So many of the stories contradicted themselves – the rumours were generally unpleasant, but as a Prince of Jötunheim Byleistr was also privy to the true events of two years ago. Loki had been the only one of the Thunderer’s companions to preach diplomacy and tact, who had tried to resolve the situation peacefully and without loss of Jötnar life.

The dark prince also had a reputation for wielding seidr, named one of the strongest of his generation by the Alfar (interestingly not the Aesir), although none of that had even hinted at the true depth of Loki’s magic. To restore a realm… truly Asgard had a jewel as their prince.

Bitterness welled up in Byleistr at the reminder of how the oppressors thrived whilst Jötunheim suffered, although there was something strange here as well. Why did the false-father not gloat of Loki as he did of Thor?

Moreover, how had an Aesir managed to restore the Heart of Jötunheim? And why?

It made no sense, although Byleistr could admit that he did not have enough knowledge of the male to discern his motivations.

Especially as, according to Asgard itself, their second prince was supposed to be dead.

Exhaustion flickered upon the mage – Loki – ’s face, but there was none of the disgust that Byleistr had half been expecting. Nor was there the urge for destruction that had characterised his brother Thor in all the tales. On the contrary, Loki met Farbauti’s crimson gaze calmly, and even dipped his head a little at the sight of the silver circlet cresting her head.

As a people the Jötnar did not much care for adornments, but Farbauti was only two years into her rule. The crown was a tangible reminder to the court that she was not the consort so easily pushed aside who had left Utgard so many centuries ago.

When he spoke, he managed to surprise Byleistr again. He had been taught that Aesir were loud and brash and what he had heard of the Thunderer had only confirmed it, yet Loki’s voice was low and slightly rough. It also held a surprisingly little amount of pride, well tempered with respect.

His words themselves were shocking enough. “I am Loki,” he agreed, “but not a prince, I should not think.”

Farbauti frowned, but did not ask. “Loki-kunnigr, then.” A flash of something – pleased surprise? – passed quickly over the mage’s face. It was a strange reaction, for he had more than earned the kenning; so far had the seidr of Jötunheim been buried that only a master mage could have connected to it at all, let alone coaxed it out of hiding. And anchoring it in place should have been plainly impossible; there were no tales of such a thing ever having been done, nor had it been so much as mentioned as an option in any of the crisis meetings throughout Jötunheim’s long decline. “I am Farbauti, Queen of Jötunheim, and he is my son Byleistr, Prince of Jötunheim.”

“Just Loki, please, Einvaldi,” the mage said. Yet another surprise, that he not only knew of the correct form of address but was willing to use it.

She tilted her head, contemplating him, then nodded. “Farbauti, then. For what you have done for Jötunheim if nought else.”

Loki winced and shook his head. “I fear I do not deserve it.”

“You have restored Jötunheim’s heart,” Byleistr burst out. His mother sent him a warning glance but did not look too displeased. “Of course you deserve it.”

 The mage attempted a smile, but it came out small, pained, wrong. “I do not deserve acclaim for righting my own wrongs.”

“It was Odin Glad-of-War who took the Casket.”

“And it was I who unleased the Bifröst upon this realm.”

The confession echoed around the halls alongside his and Farbauti’s twin inhales of shock. That wrong smile turned even sadder, and there were traces of shame on Loki’s face. Strange for such emotion to show on one who had been named a liar god. Yet the shame turned to surprise when Farbauti only asked, “Why?”

So much surprise. His reactions since they had entered the temple, alongside the stories that had come out of Asgard and the way Odin had never seemed to claim any pride at Loki’s talents, had some very disturbing implications. As did the laugh that came from the mage, a terrible, broken thing.

“You are the first to ask me that,” he said, stepping away from the altar. The glowing ball of seidr that he had left on top of it – what Byleistr assumed was the new Heart of Jötunheim – extended a tendril towards him in something like concern, if a realm could be concerned with an individual, and for half a heartbeat Loki’s smile turned gentle. He brushed a fond hand across the wisp of magic and then stepped away, sinking down to sit upon the altar’s steps. “Apologies. The working was more taxing than I imagined; I had planned to be away by now. You can be assured that I will not trespass on your realm again.”

Immediately, Byleistr wanted to protest. Despite what Loki had admitted to, he did not want the mage to leave like that. Not after what he had done for Jötunheim and not when he looked so depleted, so weary and broken down.

Besides, whilst the wrath of the Bifröst had been terrible to behold it had not actually done that much damage. The initial strike had been right next to Bregðagrund, an area most everyone avoided, and less than a dozen had lost their lives in the end. Whilst the earth had been left terribly scarred it could have been much worse – indeed, the Thunderer had done tenfold the damage, and they had not been at war then.

Thankfully, Farbauti spoke when he could not bring himself to. “It would not be trespassing, kunnigr. Not after this.” Shock, again, on the mage’s face. Whilst Byleistr was angry that he had apparently unleashed the Bifröst, there was something missing. He did not have the whole story, and so how could he judge yet?

Farbauti took a seat herself, somehow managing to make the icy floor appear akin to a throne. A flutter of her fingers had Byleistr joining her, pressing against her side in a gesture of support. “There is no need for you to run off; no one will disturb us here and Byleistr and I are not going to attack you. But I would like an answer to my question.”

“And you would trust me to be honest?” The question might have been bitter had he not sounded so tired. Farbauti tilted her head slightly.

“I think too few people have trusted you, and that your actions so far have given me no cause to not do so. I can promise to listen.”

Loki trembled but bowed his head. Byleistr was inclined to side with his mother – he would be surprised if the mage was even capable of lying in this condition. Magical exhaustion was no easy weight to bear, although Loki was holding up frighteningly well – if he had not seen the ritual or been quite so familiar with his own mother’s tells then he might not have realised just how depleted the mage was.

Still, Loki offered one last resistance. “How many?”

“Hm?”

“How many… how much damage did I do?”

Loki was young, Byleistr realised with a start. Not that much older than himself, in truth, perhaps only by a century or so. And unlike most Aesir (unlike Thor), he seemed fully aware that his actions had repercussions and was even willing to do something to mitigate them.

It was Farbauti’s place to answer, however. “Not as much as you clearly fear. The area the Bifröst hit was near our oldest crevasse and mostly abandoned, and whilst a good amount of our harvest was lost to the disturbance it was not so bad as it could have been. A monitoring party lost their lives, eleven all told, but it was a dangerous assignment in normal circumstances.” She hesitated, then pressed, “You did far less damage than your brother, in any case.”

“He is not my brother.” It was said in a numb tone, but Byleistr could tell that there were blazing emotions somewhere deep within Loki’s exhaustion. And wasn’t that interesting, especially as Loki had claimed not to be a prince.

“Oh?” Farbauti mimicked Byleistr’s inner voice but with just the right amount of intrigue to push him into sharing. Loki’s eyes narrowed, almost certainly seeing through her ploy, but just as his seidr at the entrance had been his expression was only wary, not hostile. Nor was it a refusal.

Tipping his head back, Loki stared at the ceiling of the temple. Byleistr too glanced upwards, although the ceiling was so high above that he could barely make out the detailing that stylised much of Jötunheim’s early history. He wondered if Loki knew those stories – many rumours had painted Asgard’s second prince as a scholar, but as a Jötun Byleistr himself knew very little of Asgard’s early history despite his obsession with stories as a child.

He knew little about any of the other realms, in truth. Travel from Jötunheim had been forbidden after the War and so he had never set foot elsewhere, nor did many travel to the frozen realm. They were essentially cut off – almost as isolated as Midgard, where he had heard rumour that they did not even remember that the Jötnar had once tried to populate their planet.

That was perhaps why Loki was so fascinating to him. Even Utgard had been foreign to him when he had moved to the capital upon Laufey’s death, since he had lived with his mother on the outer rim for almost his whole life. He could not even imagine what the other Realms would be like.

He had been frightened of the Aesir for most of his childhood, but sitting here with Loki was oddly peaceful. Then again, Loki hardly seemed like a typical example of Asgardian physical might.

“You asked why I unleashed the Bifröst,” the mage said eventually. “And I think I owe you enough to give you a full answer, if you will hear it.”

“You owe us nothing,” Farbauti denied. “The restoration of our realm would forgive far greater sins. But I would like to hear it nonetheless.”

“It is not an easy tale.”

“Life seldom is.”

An amused huff, more genuine than the broken cackle he had let out earlier. “Would that Thor had known that,” Loki mused, his voice taking on the peculiar lilt that Byleistr normally associated with skalds. The Jötun straightened, excitement visibly flickering in his newfound seidr – he had yet to grow out of his love of stories.

Farbauti glanced at him as the brightness caught her attention, amusement dancing in her own eyes. But the second that Loki spoke again, both of their focus returned to the mage.

“I do not know how much you know of Asgard, or of Thor, but I presume you know of what happened when Thor came to Jötunheim?”

“Indeed.”

“Then you know that he was ill suited to be King.”

Byleistr glanced around on reflex; he knew enough of Asgard to recognise that merely expressing such sentiments as an Aesir was bordering on treason, although Loki seemed remarkably unconcerned. Nonetheless he clearly registered the Jötun’s concern, for he made a placating gesture.

“Their gatekeeper cannot see us. The temple has been cloaked since I arrived, as I did not want any to interfere whilst I was casting – not that that was likely; their Bifröst is still broken.”

The freedom with which Loki gave away what were presumably Asgardian secrets should have been alarming, but already the Jötun prince had been captured by the tale. Out of the corner of his eye he registered his mother carefully filing away the details (and Loki’s resulting amusement as he recognised what she was doing), but that left him free to focus on the story.

“Anyway, Thor was remarkably unsuited to the throne. He is beloved of Asgard, and in truth I believe that one day he may be a good king, perhaps even better than his father. But that day had not yet come. He was war hungry, bloodthirsty, and cared very little for the minutia of running a realm or for diplomacy of any kind. Those had always been my area of expertise, and I assume that the All-father’s intent was for me to take over those boring everyday details-”

Farbauti and Byleistr exchanged alarmed looks, because they both knew exactly how important those ‘boring everyday details’ were. They were the reality of kingship, and by his tone of voice Loki knew it too.

Loki painted the situation quite clearly, and for all Odin’s vaunted wisdom Byleistr had to wonder if the one-eyed king was truly blind. The setup was as old as time, reliant on Loki’s goodwill and practically asking for something to go wrong. And something clearly had.

“-but it never would have worked. Even if I had been happy to take over the burden of running the realm without any of the perks – which I might have been, at least for a few centuries – such a scheme still depended on Thor actually being willing to listen to me. And that has not been the case for near five hundred years.”

Bylesitr winced. Ouch.

It was a familiar position, not to him personally but to his mother. She had taken on that role before Laufey had finally had enough of her ‘nagging’ and banished her from Court, and it felt strange that Asgard might have had a similar problem. He would have thought that an ‘all-seeing’ gatekeeper would prevent such things.

“What good is an advisor that no one listens to?” Loki’s smile was sharp as an ice blade. “Not that Odin heard my complaints either. I told him many times that Thor was not ready for the throne, but all of Asgard was so very quick to believe that it was simple jealousy. That I craved his position.”

The laugh from earlier reappeared, like puss from a wound. “I never wanted the damn thing. I am a being of chaos; I would hate a throne. Did hate it. But they all believe me an unrepentant liar, and there was nothing I could say to refute it that would not be dismissed out of hand.

“And so I got desperate. I have seen Thor make the same mistakes again and again and again, on almost every realm, for century upon century. It was bad enough as crown prince, when I could quietly clean up his mess whilst he was passed out in a glorious stupor. But as King?

“What did Thor care, if in slaying the latest beast he crushed several buildings or trespassed on a sacred glade, or if his reaction to simple insults caused permanent damage to local nobility? He cared nothing for consequences, only for glory. Yet I loved Asgard and could not allow her to suffer, and so it was I who used my ‘tricks’ to repair the building and my ‘silver tongue’ to smooth over relations with the faefolk and my own funds to pay weregild to the nobles.”

Not without cost, Byleistr assumed, and not the monetary kind either. It was written deep in the lines on Loki’s face – a kind of exhaustion that went beyond mere seidr depletion and threatened to send a mage into the kind of frantic downward spiral that could result in things like spontaneous combustion… or unleashing the Bifröst on an enemy realm.

Truly, if he was reading the tale correctly, it was impressive that Loki had lasted as long as he had. The kind of pressure he was talking about could break seidberandi ten times his age in a much shorter period than five centuries.

As if Byleistr had needed more reasons to hate Asgard. Although apparently not one Aesir in particular, for it was impossible to hear the defeat and resignation in Loki’s voice without feeling at least a little empathy.

“My actions meant that the All-father never truly knew of the damage his own heir could cause, and saw nothing wrong with Thor learning the so-called ‘finishing touches’ to diplomacy on the throne. But as a king his tactless blunders would have far more repercussions, and I did not at all have faith that I could smooth them over.

“So I got desperate,” Loki said, his voice descending to a ragged whisper. “If Thor was crowned then Asgard would be at war within a month, but Odin would not listen. So I had to show him.”

“The Jötnar were not my first resort. I tried many times: I stopped hiding things behind the scenes so that Odin might see the messes Thor typically got into, allowed him first to insult a Vanir enchantress to such an extent she started a blood feud and then to cause a brawl on Nidavellir that collapsed an entire mine, amongst many other blunders. The All-father dismissed all such incidents as heightened nerves.”

“Next I looked closer to home. I arranged for a seidmadr to beat Thor on the training grounds; he threw the expected tantrum and offered near mortal insult to the mage, but Odin claimed overindulgence and youthful exuberance. Under disguise I sent him on a stupid quest to pick up a trinket so that he missed the entire diplomatic visit from Alfheim, but he brought back one of Vanaheim’s sacred objects and all was forgiven. I had to steal it back afterwards because whilst Odin might not care about the magics of other realms, I always have. I then made sure that he was included in the meeting with the Muspel delegation so that he inevitably enraged the ambassador and drove them from the realm, leaving Asgard devoid of key supplies, but apparently the Muspels have always been finicky and Thor was not truly at fault.”

It was a truly impressive list, made more so by the fact that Loki barely seemed to have paused for breath nor hesitated to rattle it off, as if they were only a few examples of commonplace events. Byleistr felt tired just listening to it. The sheer breadth and creativity of Loki’s attempts was remarkable. And alarming.

“All this time, the date of the coronation was getting closer and closer. My schemes were growing increasingly dangerous – I was trying to prevent a war, not start one (little good that it did in the end), yet if the relic Thor had taken from the Vanir had been just slightly more important, or if the Vanir had not been so tightly bound to Asgard, then it could have been a true disaster.

“It was barely a month before the coronation when I finally accepted that no ordinary idiocy was going to be enough – Thor had to do something irrevocable, and it had to happen right in front of Odin. He was always going to dismiss any ill will towards his precious heir as slanderous hearsay, especially when I was involved with so many of the rumours.

“Trickster. Liar. Envious younger brother. Ha! I should just have let him fail. But no, I loved that realm. Loved it enough to commit treason.”

Loki dug his nails into one palm, a seemingly unconscious act, and took a deep breath. “I should have known from the start that Odin would need to witness it. It would have saved me a lot of effort had I not wasted time thinking the best of them both.”

The mage had glanced at both of them intermittently throughout the story, as if checking that they still cared enough to pay attention. Now his gaze shifted towards the walls, avoiding their eyes.

“I knew that the surest way to get Thor to do something stupid was to get him emotional. And ‘twas not difficult to do – the ease with which he could be manipulated had always been frightening. It was one of the reasons I was so sure that he could not be given the throne –Asgard’s monarch has absolute power, and with Thor on the throne absolutely anyone with a shred of cunning could attain that power. And there would be little anyone could do to stop it. He was always hot-headed and unwilling to listen to logic, at least not when it came from me.

“I also knew that the easiest way to get Thor emotional was his pride. He was arrogant and bloodthirsty, but he was prideful most of all. It is the fatal flaw of many an Aesir, and in so many ways Thor is the embodiment of Asgardian ideals. But it was too near the coronation for yet another plan to fall through – this would have to be my final resort.

“And so I hatched either my best or worst plan yet. I am still undecided as to which it was – for it worked, Thor remains uncrowned, and yet it had terrible consequences.”

You let the Jötnar into Asgard, Byleistr realised. He did not say it out loud, however, part of him afraid that if he interrupted Loki then the mage would never restart the tale.

And he needed Loki to finish. He did not understand everything his seidr was telling him – it was all too new; he did not understand half of what he was feeling – but there was an odd tugging inside of him, something formed partly of his insatiable appetite for good stories and partly from some half-formed seidr-bond.

Besides, it was harmless enough to let Loki continue. He did not need to interrupt just to hear the sound of his own voice, and Farbauti too was listening avidly.

“I met with my b- with Thor just before the coronation. He would not even admit that he was nervous, not even to family. He sent me on ahead, and he waited to make a big entrance, strutting into the hall and waving his damnable hammer as if this was some sort of stunt on the training grounds and not the biggest event of our lives.

“Odin was not impressed.” Loki snorted. “Odin was the opposite of impressed, but Thor did not care. This was his big day and he was determined to be the centre of attention, ignoring his king’s displeasure. That should have sent up red flags enough, but Odin was still going to go ahead with the handover. He was seconds away from crowning Thor when he felt it.

“I did not know.” Loki’s voice cracked, and the disjointedness of the story might have been jarring if there had not been such emotion in Loki’s voice. “I swear that I did not know, although I should have. I did not know what the Casket was to Jötunheim, or really any truth about the realm at all. It was an unforgiveable gap in my education, and I should have questioned it. I should have questioned so many things about Asgard…”

He trailed off, shaking his head as if to clear it. “The rumours are not kind to Jötnar,” he started again in a clearer voice. “The way I was raised was to see frost giants-” Byleistr scowled, and Loki grimaced, waving a hand in a vaguely conciliatory gesture. “Apologies, but old habits are hard to break. I did not even know it was considered a slur until very recently. Anyway, we were raised to see Jötnar as monsters, savage beasts.”

Byleistr’s scowl deepened, but he did not give voice to his protests. His upbringing was no fault of Loki’s, and whilst Asgard had apparently been worse (of course it was), Jötunheim had its own fair share of tales painting their enemies as monsters.

 Byleistr’s own first century had been full of fears of the Aesir descending from the heavens to kill them all and dance on their bones – and that very fear had been realised just two years ago (the killing bit, at least, although rumours also concurred that the Thunderer had found much joy in the slaughter. The few who had recovered from that battlefield had remembered him laughing).

“The Midgardians have a wonderful word for it. Such bright, chaotic little lives with such fascinating concepts. ‘Tis called propaganda. And racism, I suppose.” The two words did not translate well through All-Speak, and at Byleistr’s clear curiosity Loki elaborated.

“Propaganda is purposeful misinformation designed to present events and people a certain way that is beneficial to a ruling body. In this case, using the Jötnar to focus the Aesir bloodlust on a conquered realm rather than allowing it to tear itself apart in civil war.” For all that Loki had been mocked for his cunning, he had learned it at the knee of the greatest manipulator of all. “Racism is judging a people based on prejudice and not individual merit.”

Huh. Midgard was the most isolated of all the realms, and the other eight tended not to bother with it; humans simply did not live long enough to make the effort of reaching out to them worth defying Odin. And Jötunheim was woefully cut off from the events of the main realms, let alone the backwater. Still, Byleistr had not expected them to come so far in a single lifetime. During the War they had still lived in mud huts with a primitive culture; concepts like the ones Loki was describing would be just as alien to the humans of his mother’s stories as they apparently were to the Aesir.

The prince was, however, up to date with the latest of the False-Father’s edicts, and he distinctly remembered that one of them reinforced the no-contact rule with Midgard. That Loki had apparently been there (and spoke of the realm with more fondness than Asgard) was intriguing and if he got a chance after this story ended he might even beg the mage for others about the mortal realm.

“It does not excuse what I did,” Loki reiterated, and the Jötun absently wondered who he was trying to convince, “but I thought a few monsters a fair price to pay for averting almost certain war.”

Byleistr might have taken more offence to the ‘monster’ comment if he had not been quite so sure that the revulsion in his voice was aimed at Loki himself.

“It is my gift, to walk the Paths Between,” the mage said softly, “To hear Yggdrasil sing and to wander her branches. I abused it, the day of Thor’s coronation, opening a portal directly into the Vaults. I had not promised the Jötnar that I tricked that they would retrieve the Casket, only that they would have the chance. ‘Twas not quite a lie – I believe one of them even managed to touch it.

“There were not supposed to be guards in the vault. It was a vault, meant to be kept sealed, especially with so many strangers in the palace. And I did not know what the Casket was – I thought it to be a weapon, not the last hope for a dying realm. I do not even know if Odin knew what it was, although I suspect that he did, if not when first he took it then later as Jötunheim began to deteriorate.”

Loki shook his head. “Either he was too prideful to return it, did not care at all for Yggdrasil or he was just more blind than anyone ever believed. Anyway, the defences activated as they were supposed to, and for a moment it seemed that everything would work as I had intended.  

“The would-be Casket-liberators were dead, the coronation had been interrupted, and I had won myself breathing room. Odin sensed them and immediately went to check on the vault, and Thor accompanied him with me trailing behind. I have always been too curious for my own good; there was not a chance in Helheim that I would have remained in the throne room had I not already known what was going on, and so to keep up appearances it was the three of us who investigated.

“Thor was all for declaring war on Jötunheim right then, proving me right once and for all- not that Odin ever actually admitted that. Nor did I care about mere acknowledgement when Odin finally truly saw Thor, the real Thor and not the golden idol he had built in his head, and realised at last that he was not ready for a throne. He said as much, that Thor was not yet King, and I wanted that to be the end of it – but then I realised that Odin still had every intention of rescheduling the coronation, that it would be delayed by weeks or months or perhaps even a year but not the decades that Thor would have needed to mature.

“My- the prince stormed off, after that, too upset at having his big day interrupted by frost giants to see the hesitance in Odin’s eyes, the way he was re-evaluating his son. Subtlety has ever been lost on Thor.”

It did not seem like Loki could decide whether to be bitter or thankful for that. He was a knot of so many tangled emotions that it made Byleistr hurt just to look at him, and the anger that the Jötun had for Asgard (always present in some form) flared hotter and hotter. Loki’s tale was clear evidence that it was not just Jötunheim that the False-Father had ripped apart, but also his own son.

“I followed him, of course. I knew that it would only take a little push now – that was all it ever took to make him do something foolish. I caught up to him in the banquet hall, throwing a tantrum. He upended one of the tables, if I recall correctly.”

What? Really? Even Helblindi did not throw fits like that anymore, and he was a child still. In the interests of the conqueror of the Nine not having a king that would go to war with Jötunheim in a heartbeat, Loki’s scheming might actually be worth celebrating, even if it had cost Jötnar lies. If Thor had been crowned and gone to war properly, millions more would have died.

“Talking to him in that state is a bit of a minefield-” Loki rubbed at his arm almost absently “-but as I said, he was already reckless and did not really require any needling. So I consoled my brother, and then I stroked his ego, told him I thought that he was right. And then I told him that there was nothing he could do without defying father.” Loki’s eyes sharpened from where he had been lost in memory, irritation sparking within them. “His father,” he corrected himself.

“It wasn’t supposed to go as far as it did. I expected that he would go to Odin and press the situation further. That he would insist upon war in public and in doing so force Odin’s hand in delaying the coronation for far longer. But I underestimated Thor’s stupidity – instead of Odin, he decided to demand answers of King Laufey.”

 Things were slotting into place now. Byleistr (along with most of Jötunheim) knew exactly what had happened next, even if the context was new.

“It was like the universe was conspiring against me.” Loki let out a bitter laugh. “Perhaps that is arrogant, but it should never have gone so far. Jötunheim was supposed to be forbidden, but Thor did not care. Odin should have been keeping an eye on him, but he has ever been blind to his son. The Gatekeeper should have stopped him – I even attempted to manipulate Heimdall into doing his duty by making the request myself when I knew that he did not trust me. But he was almost as arrogant as Thor, wanting to know why the Jötnar had slipped his watch, and so he sent us and the Idiots Four – Thor’s friends – to your Realm.”

Loki looked miserable. “That was when things spiralled completely out of control, if such had ever been mine in the first place. Thor stormed into what I assumed was Jötunheim’s court, and to King Laufey’s credit he did give us a chance to leave unhindered, saying he did not want war. I accepted on our behalf, but then one of them called Thor a princess.

“That was all it took, a final knock to his unstable ego. He started killing, and the rest of us had no choice but to join in.

“There were too many, of course, even for the Mighty Thor, but he did not care even as the rest of us tried to retreat. And then Odin came.

“That was my doing – I had sent a message to him before we even reached Himinbjörg, the Bifröst gate, and it saved all our lives.” That horrible, dead smile made a reappearance. “Perhaps it would have been better if I had not.”

Ancestors, what had happened to Loki?

“Odin tried to smooth things over, but Laufey had had enough of Asgard trampling all over him. I cannot even really blame him for that – Norns know even I was tempted to hit Thor sometimes and he was supposed to be my brother. Laufey declared war; the very thing I had sought to avoid.”

Now Byleistr leaned forwards. This was the interesting part – no Jötun knew what had happened between the declaration of war, Laufey leaving the realm and the Bifröst striking their Realm.

“We returned to Asgard, and Odin banished Thor.”

“He banished him?” Loki’s gaze snapped to him and for a moment Byleistr regretted the interruption, but why hadn’t he known this?

“Oh yes.” There was something malicious about Loki’s smile, a poisonous bitterness that spoke of a wound long festered. “Stripped of his power and long life, turned mortal and sent to Midgard. But in private, with only myself, Heimdall and the All-father as witness, because Norns forbid anything tarnish the golden prince’s reputation. And Mjölnir was sent after him, to give him hope and make it non-permanent. Three days, in the end, of a strengthened human body and a lady to fall in lust with. Such fit punishment for starting a war.”

Ouch. Yes, definitely a sore spot. Ancestors, Loki’s life was complicated, and seriously messed up. But everything he said was validating Byleistr’s hatred for Asgard, so at least there was that.

Loki took a deep breath, controlling himself, even if pain was written clearly on his face. “The events that transpired next on Asgard are hardly relevant to Jötunheim. Suffice to say that I discovered something that had been hidden from me – that I was adopted, and not even Aesir – and my psyche began to splinter. I thought I was going mad – I was going mad – but Odin confirmed my suspicions and before he could explain, at the most inconvenient time possible, he fell into the Odinsleep.”

Did things always escalate this quickly in Loki’s life? Byleistr dreaded to think what more revelations were to come before they finally got to unleashing the Bifröst, especially as madness did indeed shift behind his eyes, still glowing green with powerful seidr.

“Odinsleep?” he questioned.

A spark of something like desperate humour lit in Loki’s still-glowing green eyes. As if he had to laugh in order to prevent a breakdown. “He’s an old man. He needs to take naps.”

Farbauti let out a low rumble, clearly amused, but gave a clearer explanation. “The Odinsleep is a magical coma. Odin wields the Odinforce, the magic at the core of Asgard. ‘Tis how he is so powerful, but it takes a great toll on his body and so every few decades he must spend up to a moon resting his seidr and soul.”

Loki nodded. “He had been putting it off to crown Thor, and with everything that had happened the pressure was finally too much for him. He collapsed right in front of me, further tearing at my sanity when I had been so close to answers – not that they were satisfactory, nor even the truth I now suspect – and Mo-Frigga crowned me regent king.”

“Was she insane?” Farbauti burst out, and Byleistr looked at her in surprise. His mother was normally so very controlled, but that had been vehement.

Initially, Loki bristled, but before his roiling seidr could alarm them too much he closed his eyes and centred himself. “I… do not know what she was thinking,” he admitted, looking pained. “I was the very worst person she could crown, given the circumstances. I was barely sane enough to look after myself, let alone Asgard – especially an Asgard at war. But- well, I believe that she had grown used to seeing me as the reasonable one, over the centuries; I was never as reckless as Thor, always so logical, always reliably clearing up his blunders. What was one more?”

He shook his head. “And by the line of succession, Gungnir was indeed supposed to go to me. A situation I don’t believe Odin ever anticipated actually occurring, but nonetheless it was my right.

“I should have told her no, but… I never could refuse her anything. And I will not deny that the thought of finally being able to step out of Thor’s shadow was… somewhat seductive.”

Byleistr swallowed. If Farbauti had ever asked him to be regent, had needed him to, would he have been able to say no? Even when he knew that he was not ready, that he was too young for such responsibility? It was a pointless exercise; she never would have asked it of him. It was the main reason that she was Queen even now, to spare him the burden, when she would have been happy never returning to Utgard in the first place.

“I did not want the throne.” Ancestors, Loki sounded so tired “I never have, I never will. I am not fit for it; I am a being of chaos, as I said, and ruling somewhere like Asgard… I could – I am capable of it, and I wanted that ability acknowledged – but I would hate it. And they hate me.” It was stated as simple fact, and all the more terrible for it. “The regency only proved it; I had not had the throne for five minutes before Thor’s friends conspired treason against me. Their Gatekeeper tried to kill me. And I… I plotted, as I often did, and schemed for a way to win the war without Aesir casualties.

“Since letting the Jötnar into the vault had been so successful, I thought to repeat that trick. I arranged for Laufey to penetrate Asgard’s defences and come to where Odin lay defenceless in Sleep.”

This was a confession, Byleistr realised at last (should have realised long before, but the story was enveloping, addictive), one that he and his mother mayhap were the first to hear. And he wondered how isolated Loki truly was that he would unburden himself to two literal strangers, two people he must have been raised to see as enemies.

What had happened to fracture the clever schemer so? Loki had spoken already of adoption and treachery, which might have been enough to shatter any man, but there were shadows in those glowing green eyes that had not yet been explained.

A prickle of unease shivered over Byleistr’s clan lines. Loki’s tale so far had comprised of blow after blow, lies on manipulations on betrayals. Yet the worst was seemingly yet to come, and Byleistr wondered if he truly wanted to know.

He also wondered what the purpose of this was. It could just be that Loki wanted to unburden himself, to tell someone – for there were cracks in his voice and pauses in the tale that marked a story never before spoken aloud – but the mage struck Byleistr as too clever for that. There was a point, buried somewhere beneath, some unknown motivation spurring him on when it was quite clear that the story pained him.

He did not think that Loki would have planned for this confrontation. The mage would have had no way of knowing that he and his mother would be the ones to come here at all, let alone so quickly, but he also believed that Loki was probably capable of turning near anything to his advantage. His story spoke as much even if his reputation had not preceded him.

“Everything fell into place. The evil frost giant came upon the sleeping King with only moth-Frigga to defend him, stopped to taunt him, and I stepped in. I parried the blow that would have killed Odin, and pierced Laufey through the heart.”

Loki tensed slightly as he admitted it, but neither Farbauti nor Byleistr were going to attack him for that. Laufey-king had not been well-liked; Byleistr had hated him for essentially abandoning himself and his mother and, whilst Farbauti might have once been his consort, the Jötun that she had loved had perished centuries ago. Long before he had sent her away.

Besides, Loki had been Regent King of Asgard and they had been at war with Jötunheim, a war declared by Laufey-king’s own voice (even if he had been fiercely provoked). It was not something to be blamed for, and deception was not as frowned upon by the Jötnar as the Aesir – as long as you won a battle, who cared for the methods used? A warrior would be just as dead from a knife in the back as a sword through the front. ‘Honourable’ combat was reserved for those that could afford it, and a dying realm could not.

Once Loki had ascertained that they would not turn upon him when his attention was on the past (not that they would have attacked him save for self-defence inside the temple anyway; no Jötnar would willing desecrate a sacred place), Loki returned to his explanation.

“It is funny, really, that they all accuse me of wanting a throne. Had that truly been the case, I would have waited an extra thirty seconds before slaying Laufey; with Thor both mortal and banished and Odin dead by a Jötun hand, I would have been crowned true king and Asgard would have been mine.”

The expression of disgust on Loki’s face was very clear, and for a moment Byleistr wondered how anyone could believe that the mage wanted to rule. But then, Loki had been surprisingly open with them, as if unconsciously obeying the rules of Jötnar culture – deceit in Temple was almost as taboo as spilling blood here.

“I am not surprised that they thought the worst of me; it is something of a recurring pattern, and expecting any Aesir to follow logic and use their brains is apparently too much to ask. Anyway, I slew Laufey and struck a decisive blow for the war. I thought that I had proved my loyalty to the House of Odin.

“And then Thor returned.”

Loki sighed, old fondness warring with new bitterness to leave his voice sounding strangely blank. “The oaf always did have awful timing. I had taken steps to prevent such a thing, for the situation with Jötunheim was far too fragile for Thor’s normal ‘hit until the problem goes away’ approach, but my heart was not truly in it and my mind was already tearing apart, so of course it backfired.

“I had told him… some awful things, in my pain, and made many mistakes. I knew that there would be no forgiveness – every slight towards Thor was harshly punished, whilst only Frigga ever cared for those towards me, and even she would only give me platitudes – and so I decided that at the very least I would finish the war that Thor had started. I believed… my actions hardly make sense even now, and there is, of course, no justification I can truly offer for what I tried to do to Jötunheim.”

Perhaps there wasn’t, but the guilt that Loki clearly felt was more than he would ever imagine would come from an Aesir. Or at least an Aesir-raised, from what Loki had already said – that Odin had lied about his own species as well as his blood.

He thought about what it would be like to find Farbauti not to be his mother and immediately reached out and latched onto her. To discover that he was not Jötun would be devastating, even if he would never doubt Farbauti’s love. Although he would not be nearly so upset if someone else had sired him, considering Laufey had sent him away along with Farbauti all those decades ago.

He traced his own kin-lines in silent comfort. His ancestry was written on his skin; the lies that had been fed to Loki would never have been possible on Jötunheim.

…Had Loki mentioned which species he actually was?

His skin prickled more fiercely when he realised that no, he had passed over it almost casually, wrapping them up in the story without giving them a chance to ask. Perhaps it did not matter, but something was telling Byleistr that it was very much the opposite. That it was in fact a key point of this story. Something did not add up about Loki’s tale – finding out you were adopted in such circumstances would be awful, but should not be enough to break a mage’s mind.

But Loki was not about to stop and let him ask.

“The Aesir have a history of genocide, you see. It was Bor that wiped out the Dark Elves and left Svartalfheim a wasteland, and he is hailed as a hero. They were the creatures of nursery rhymes – born of eternal night, the dark elves come to steal away your light, and so on – just like the Jötnar. Having found out my origins, I believed I needed to prove myself to the House of Odin, and what better way than to follow in the footsteps of one of Asgard’s greatest heroes? What better way than to end the war Thor started without a single Aesir casualty, ensuring in the process that Jötunheim would never challenge us again?”

It was awful. It was truly horrific, and yet… Byleistr could not muster up much anger towards Loki. Not when he was so clearly repentant – tearing himself apart over his long-ago decisions. Not when it had led them here – to a new hope for the realm that all Jötnar had thought lost. Not when there were so many others he could blame – Odin and Thor and Asgard, for what they had done to a mage who was clearly powerful and clever and yet did not seem to believe himself worth Farbauti’s regard.

“So I aimed the Bifröst at Jötunheim, opened it, and froze it in place. And right on cue, along came Thor to tell me that what he had attempted to do only three days prior was despicable at my hand. I did not listen to reason; truthfully, I was beyond reason. We fought. I lost.”

How? The question was at the tip of Byleistr’s tongue, for the Thunderer had very little seidr whilst Loki was a master mage. It should not even have been a competition; he had seen his mother hold off a dozen opponents with magic alone, and Loki had already proved he was stronger than she. But he did not ask, did not pry further after all that Loki had already revealed.

“Thor ended it. He smashed the Bifröst, and-” Loki’s jaw snapped shut and he closed his eyes, shoulders slumping. Slowly, he shook his head. “So there it is. The whole tale, as it were.”

Farbauti’s eyes were gentle, her voice surprisingly tender. “Not quite. What happened next, Loki?”

When Loki’s eyes opened, they were so full of shadows that the green was barely even visible. “I fell,” he whispered.

There was such agony in the mage’s voice that Byleistr did not want to ask questions, but he must have made some sound because dark eyes snapped to his. Loki swallowed, the sound audible in the quiet of the temple, and then explained.

“The destruction of the Bifröst caused massive magical backlash. Both Thor and I were thrown from the bridge. And along came Odin, woken by the threat to his heir. He caught Thor’s foot. Thor held onto one end of Gungnir, and I the other, as we dangled over-over the- the Void.

“I told Odin- told the All-father that I could have done it. For him. For all of Asgard. It was… a desperate attempt to reach out. To justify myself. It was all I was capable of. I needed him to see that I – that I could still be…”

“And what did the Deceiver say?” There was permafrost in Farbauti’s voice, the kind that Byleistr thanked all the Ancestors had never been directed at him.

The voice that replied was not Loki’s, though it came from the mage’s throat. Stern and full of disapproval, Byleistr hated it even before he realised whose it was. “No, Loki.”

Farbauti made an appalled noise; Byleistr recoiled. Loki’s eyes were dead, his story reduced to a broken murmur. “And I let go.”

Chapter Text

Woken by his distress, Byleistr’s blue-green seidr rose up, rippling over his hands like mist. Farbauti was barely any better, her own stronger green magic manifesting as a pulse just barely under her skin and making her kin-lines glow a strange colour. But she was steady as she rose to her feet, taking slow and steady steps towards Loki.

The mage’s own magic surged, albeit sluggishly, but Farbauti did not falter and it did not harm her. She towered over him as he sat on the steps (so small, the race that had conquered Jötunheim all those years ago), and as her shadow fell on him Loki flinched.

He did not attempt to defend himself.

Then Farbauti leaned down and pulled him to his feet. Even now, Loki kept his eyes down and his head bowed, shaking slightly.

Whilst Byliestr knew that Jötunheim was near-lethally cold to the other races, he somehow doubted that it was the cause of Loki’s shivering – seidr was a protective force and the mage had not shown any sign of being cold previously. His heart ached; no matter what the Aesir said about them, the Jötnar were not uncompassionate and the way Asgard had ripped and ripped and ripped at Loki…

Seidberandi were treasured on Jötunheim, for very few of their people were magically gifted. A mage of Loki’s strength would have been revered, never rejected. And one that had restored their realm as Loki had done… what fear haunted him so, that he came here so broken and so unresisting even as he clearly believed that they would hurt him?

Loki had claimed that Jötnar were monsters on Asgard. From what had been done to the mage, however, it was the Aesir that were the monsters. How could they drive their Prince to suicide?

Byleistr knew that Farbauti would not hurt him, but even he was surprised when she stared into his eyes for a few moments, ruby to emerald, before pulling him against her and wrapping her arms around him.

The Jötnar in general were a tactile race, but even so Byleistr was surprised. Yet not nearly so surprised as when Loki shuddered more visibly before all but melting in her arms, leaning his head against her and closing his eyes.

He looked both impossibly old and oddly childlike, a good head shorter than Farbauti (who was herself widely considered improbably small for a Jötun, mostly due to her abundant magic reserves). The image was strangely right, making something deep within Byleistr (his own seidr?) hum contentedly, the way the temple was humming even now.

“I hold you blameless, Loki-kunnigr,” Farbauti proclaimed, a weight to it that he had come to recognise as her Queen’s Voice. Only now that Jötunheim’s balancing had released his own magic did he recognise the seidr within it, writing her actions into the very lifeforce of the realm. “You owe no debt to Jötunheim, for your actions were the fault of Asgard and Asgard alone.”

A single tear slid down Loki’s face, sparkling as it caught the light of the ice and seidr dancing over the temple walls. Tenderly, Farbauti brushed it away.

“For their crimes against you and for your service to our realm, Jötunheim offers you sanctuary. So long as you do no harm to us outside the boundaries of defence, we will shelter you and aid you against your aggressors. Let our home and hearth be yours when you have need. Let our Ancestors watch over you and the Ice sing out in welcome. Let Jötunheim heal your heart as you have healed Hers. I am Farbauti, Queen and Voice of the Realm of Eternal Ice; thus is my right. Let it be done!”

As she spoke, Loki’s eyes got wider and wider, brightening as Farbauti banished the shadows within. At the end of the vow, there was a bright flash of light, the temple’s magic aiding Farbauti’s as Jötunheim itself accepted her promise.

When it was done, Loki stumbled backwards, breaking free of Farbauti’s arms. He was panting wildly, his eyes wide and a little horrified. “You cannot mean that.”

“…You are not used to having allies,” Farbauti deduced after a moment, and Byleistr bared his sharpened canines in a silent snarl. “You are not used to having your contributions recognised. But you are not on Asgard anymore and we are not Aesir; we see you, Loki. I see you, and I am not repelled. What you have done for us… I do not think you realise quite how rare you are. You are a treasure, kunnigr, and I would have you know it.”

“How can you say that? I tried to destroy your realm! I-” Loki shuddered, nearly falling as his back brushed the altar. Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. “I am a monster.”

“You are not,” Farbauti said firmly, still in her Queen Voice.

The slight tang of blood drifted into Byleistr’s nose; Loki’s nails had bitten so deep into his own palm that he had pierced the skin. But whilst it was obvious that he did not believe her, he did not refute Farbauti’s claim; no one denied Jötunheim’s queen when she sounded like that.

After a moment, the mage spoke again. “Whether I am or not, it does not truly matter. You cannot- I cannot stay here, and you should not ask me. You certainly should not offer me sanctuary.” He visibly shuddered at the last word. “I am not worth the danger it would bring to your realm.”

Farbauti snorted. “I care little for Asgard’s sensibilities.”

“I am not talking about Asgard.”

The shadows were back in Loki’s eyes and there was terror in his voice. It was quite unnerving. Parts of his story had hinted at fear, although he had masked it well, but there was no other word for the emotion he displayed now. Terror, carved deep into blood and bone.

“I have given my oath.” Farbauti spoke softly but firmly. “I cannot, will not take it back, so can you tell me whom we face?”

There was naked longing on Loki’s face at the mention of we, but all the same he resisted Farbauti’s promise. “’Tis why I am still here. To warn you. I will not hold you to your oath.”

The mage was so stubborn. Still, he would learn soon enough. Jötnar did not go back on their vows, especially not one sworn on the realm as Farbauti had done.

Loki took a deep, steadying breath. “After… after I fell, I… was found. He will hunt me, to the Nine and beyond. I slipped his leash, and he will never forgive me for that, but nor could I have done elsewise.” The mage met Farbauti’s eyes. “Not with the lives of half the universe at stake.”

She blanched, skin paling to a sickly turquoise. “Nei. It cannot be.”

“Mother?”

“You would not know his story, ást minn,” she said, but her eyes never left Loki’s. “We do not tend to speak of him. I doubt the other realms do either.”

“No,” Loki spoke just as quietly, “but we should have. He is a ghost, a nightmare. I would not have known of him at all if I had not practically lived in the library in years past, and the Nine are so utterly unprepared for him.”

“For who?”

“Thanos,” Farbauti named, and Loki jerked violently. Seeing it, she corrected, “The Mad Titan. The last time the Realms united – truly united, not this sham that the Oppressor claims is peace – was against him. He is a threat to all who breathes, with the ultimate goal of wiping out half of the universe.”

“He travels from planet to planet, conquering each one before lining up the population, half on each side. He makes one side watch as he drowns the other in their own blood, and claims that it is balance.”

Now it was Byleistr’s turn to blanch. “Why?” he cried.

Farbauti shook her head. “There is a reason we called him mad. He went insane long ago when his planet died and he did not.”

“I will not deny that he is insane, but there is more to it than that,” Loki corrected. “His reasons are convoluted and make little sense, but he does have them. His world died, ‘tis true, but he was part of the cause. Like many planets, their population grew too quickly for their resources. Many solutions were proposed, but the Titans were obsessive perfectionists; they would not implement any strategy with even the slightest of flaws. Of course no perfect solution was found, and I believe He lost most of his family before deciding to take matters into his own hands.

“His solution was simple – there needed to be fewer people. And so he stole his planet’s census and divided it in half. Killed his own mother in the culling.”

Byleistr let out a tiny whimper. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

His mother pulled him to her side, rubbing his back soothingly, but she did not ask Loki to stop. Instead she was listening just as fervently as he was.

“The Titans did not believe in the death penalty – which was probably part of the problem, considering how long they lived and the atrocities they were capable of. Than-He was far from the only extremist – but his ‘solution’ made them willing to make an exception for him.

“He became exceptionally bitter that, in his eyes, they turned on him for ‘saving’ them. He fled to the stars, but it quickly became clear that Titan was never going to recover. The half who remained had lost so many of their friends and loved ones that many gave up hope and joined the slaughtered, and there were not enough left to fix their broken planet. In a twist of fate, the Mad Titan became the only survivor precisely because of his exile.”

“Yet he still believed that halving populations was the best way of ‘fixing’ the universe, and that Titan had simply passed the point of no return before he could ‘solve’ their problem. And so he began his killing spree, travelling to and culling other planets before they can reach the same point as his own and ignoring the way that most of them wipe themselves out in his absence.”

Loki shrugged, a forcedly casual gesture. “That’s one story, anyway. The other popular one is that he courts Lady Death.” Byleistr wanted to gape. The mere concept… the arrogance one would have to have to court a fundamental force of the universe was staggering. And horrifying. “I do not know if it was the same for all of the Titans or whether He is unique, but He is both ageless and near invulnerable. That has led to a fascination with Death, who he views as a tease, and dedicates his slaughter to her.”

The mage grew ever quieter. “Personally, I would believe that Thanos courts not death but misery. He leaves half of the people alive to torture them – and he is very, very good at torture.”

Oh. Oh.

Loki…

What did he do to you? Byleistr knew better than to ask that question.

This was the answer he had been dreading since the mage had started his first tale. Everything that had happened on Asgard had only been the beginning. The thing that had shattered Loki so… first trying to kill himself, only to fall through the Void (which wasn’t supposed to be survivable in the first place) only to land in Thanos’s hands? It was a miracle that he was here at all, that he was in any way functional.

Loki was stubbornly not looking at either of them, and part of Byleistr was thankful for that. He knew that there was pity in his eyes and he knew that pity was the last thing that Loki needed or wanted. The mage might not be as bad as Thor but he still very clearly had his pride.

“He has- well, they are not his children, but he calls them that. He will pick someone, sometimes, from the planets he destroys. Take them with him, break them, and then raise them fanatically loyal. Set them against each other and ‘upgrade’ the loser. To the point where one of his daughters, Nebula, is more cybernetics than Luphomoid. Most of them are as sadistic as he is; they enjoy hurting each other.”

“Is that what he tried to do to you?” Farbauti probed as gently as possible. “Tried to make you his child?”

“I was older than was his wont,” Loki admitted – and it was an admission, a clandestine acknowledgement that yes, Thanos had done despicable things to him. “But essentially, yes. He tried to remake me in his image.” His spine straightened. “But he miscalculated. I am Loki, and I am Chaos. I do not break, but I twist – I create a third option when the two I am given displease me. He will regret what he did to me, for I will arm all of the Nine against him. He will hunt me, that I know, but I do not intend to be easy prey.”

Loki bared his teeth and they glinted in the seidr-light – almost like Jötun teeth, actually. (Aesir were supposed to have blunt teeth, weren’t they? Like a cow.)

When Farbauti opened her mouth to ask a new question, however, he cut her off. “What they did to me is not really relevant.” Byleistr ached to disagree, but his mother remained silent and he took his cue from her. “But this you must know. It is not just my presence that will draw him to the Nine; he seeks the Infinity Stones. He must not get them.”

Infinity stones… they were bad, weren’t they? He vaguely remembered his tutors speaking of vastly powerful objects, singularities from before the known universe began, but it was his mother’s expression that clued Byleistr in to just how awful such a thing would be. She had gone even paler than she had at the first mention of Thanos, turquoise washed out by sickly grey, and it looked like only the sanctity of the temple was preventing her from vomiting.

Seeing that Farbauti understood, Loki turned to capture Byleistr’s red gaze with steely green eyes. “If the Mad Titan succeeds in his quest, he would have no need to travel from planet to planet. All he would need to do is snap his fingers, and half of all life in the universe would wither to dust.”

Yes, that would be bad. Very bad.

Byleistr could have gone a thousand millennia without knowing that, and he almost wished that he could forget. Almost. Because nothing was so terrifying as the unknown – as knowing Asgard had unleashed the Bifröst on them once, had stopped for unknown reasons and could attack again at any point with no warning and no provocation – and at least now he would not be stuck with no idea what happened if half of Jötunheim suddenly died.

On second thoughts, Byleistr might be the one to throw up. He had not even reached his major majority yet – was he supposed to help stop this?

“Does he have any?” Farbauti questioned urgently, sounding shaken.

A sudden, vicious grin slashed over Loki’s face. It was a wolf’s grin, full of teeth and savage delight, and something about it sent a thrill down Byleistr’s spine. “Not anymore.”

Tension sloughed from the queen’s shoulders even as intrigue sparkled in her eyes. “You?”

“Oh yes. I said he would regret what he did to me – I believe he is regretting it already.”

“Which?”

“Mind,” Loki said, the grin fading slightly, although the essence of triumph remained. “He took great joy in abusing its power. But I am a mage, and he struggled to keep any hold over me, for he could not risk using the gem’s full strength without sending a signal to the rest of the universe that he was stirring. To compensate, he pressed it into a sceptre and sent it off with me to keep in constant connection. To Midgard, for the Tesseract, which houses the Space Stone.

“I rather took exception to that.” Byleistr couldn’t help his low rumble of dark amusement. From what he had learned about Loki today, that was a severe understatement. But the mage clearly didn’t mind, catching the Jötun’s eye in order to share his grin. “Yes. The Mind Stone remains on Midgard, for now, whilst the Tesseract has been reclaimed by Asgard. Past time, really, considering what they were doing with it.”

Farbauti raised an inquiring eyebrow, and Loki obliged. “They were playing with it. They did not even know what it was, but they were trying to use it to make weapons under the cover of harnessing energy.”

The mage sighed. “Generally they are bright creatures, advancing remarkably quickly compared to the Realm Stagnant-” now there was a nickname for Asgard that most took care never to utter in Aesir hearing. Byleistr wondered where Loki had learned it “- but they are not even spacefaring yet, let alone ready for interstellar war. The attention of the Titan would obliterate them easily – they barely handled the Chitauri.”

Chitauri – Byleistr had heard of those, though not that they had finally chosen a master; as a hive-minded species, they had a glaring weakness to target. They were thus were not considered a major threat despite their penchant for destruction. Even Jötunheim, declining and dying as they had been for many centuries, could have dealt with such a species without undue trouble.

“Why was it on Midgard?”

Loki shrugged. “Odin.”

Farbauti growled. “Does he know of the Titan?”

“He aided in his defeat last time, I believe, but he has never mentioned him as a potential enemy in my hearing. I-I would like to think that Heimdall cannot see into the Void, so no, I do not believe that Odin knows that He is stirring. Nor am I willing to try and tell him, as I have no desire to be thrown in a cell when he would not listen anyway. Not to the Liesmith. And the rest of the Aesir would just believe I was trying to save my own skin.”

“I would not ask it of you,” Farbauti reassured, gaining a startled look from Loki. His mother had definitely been right – he was not used to having true allies. Not ones that he did not have to manipulate. Byleistr also suspected that this was one of the reasons that Loki had explained about the Bifröst – so that they would believe him when he warned them about Thanos. “And if the Mad Titan is truly after the Stones, and at least two of them are within the Nine, then we will be in danger regardless. My promise of sanctuary stands.”

Still Loki denied her, shaking his head. “I restored Jötunheim because I owed it to you, but also because if Thanos comes… I need you to prepare. I would not- I have done enough damage to your realm. I would not have you defenceless. And I will not put you in further danger by staying here any longer than necessary – my magical signature on the Heart is enough of a draw; I will not make it worse.”

“You have paid enough, Loki.” Farbauti insisted, a core of steel to her voice even as she strove to make it gentle. “Jötunheim will remain open to you no matter what you say. But if you will not be convinced, then I will offer aid in another way – and if it pleases you better, you can count the reason as that you know the Titan best and are therefore my best recourse for saving half my people.”

That did indeed seem to take some of the tension from Loki. As if he were safer when he was needed.

Hel-damned Asgard.

“You may, of course, refuse, but you mentioned that the Titan used Mind on you. And there are fractures in your seidr – likely scars in your mind and your core. I have some skill with both – would you allow me to heal you?”

Loki froze, wariness sharpening his green eyes. At the same time, Farbauti went very still, as if an issköttr had entered the temple, and allowed his frigid gaze to sweep up and down her full height. Even Byleistr felt a tingle on his exposed neck, his newly discovered seidr nearly screaming danger.

It was probably only a few seconds all told, but it felt like an eternity before Loki released a tight breath and shook his head. “Perhaps one day.”

Not at all offended, Farbauti inclined her head. “If that day comes, it would be my honour.”

It seemed to reassure Loki both that the offer had been genuine and that she would not hold refusal against him – not that any moral person would. A mind was a terribly private thing, doubly so for a seidmadr and triply for one who had already had such a sanctum violated. He bowed his head back to her, and the queen took the gesture to mean the topic was closed.

Effortlessly, Farbauti steered the conversation in a new direction. “Now, may I know how you balanced Jötunheim’s seidr? I was under the impression that it was impossible without the Casket.”

Light returned to Loki’s eyes, a love of the arcane that was common to almost all magic wielders. He and Farbauti began to speak at length, delving into technical details that were so far beyond Byleistr’s level that he would have thought it a language untranslatable by All-Speak, but he did not really mind.

Whilst he did not understand the terminology, it was fascinating to watch the seidr-light play on the mage’s face and how expressive Loki became on a topic he was truly a master at. It was humbling, really, the depth of knowledge that he could claim when he could not be all that much older than Byleistr.

As far as the young prince could tell, the Casket had functioned as an anchor point for Jötunheim’s seidr. It had probably not been intended as such, since no one in their right mind would introduce such a weak point to their realm’s defences.

Instead, some long ago king had almost certainly hoped to focus the natural ice storms of Jötunheim into its deadliest weapon. But such things were strongly tied into the core of the realm and so the Casket had linked itself with Jötunheim’s natural magic. The Casket functioned as intended, but with additional influence on the realm itself.

The seidr of a realm was a constantly evolving thing. It was not sentient in the way that people generally defined sentience, but it was certainly not a dead thing either. The warping of Jötunheim’s natural power into a weapon had created a kind of wound in that core, and the realm had stabilised itself by using the self-same casket as an anchor point. Over the course of the next few thousand years, Jötunheim had grown reliant upon having an anchor, and thus had its abrupt removal destabilised the realm.

Crucially, however, Loki had discovered ancient tomes that implied that the anchor did not need to be the Casket. In fact, he explained that as far as he could tell the Casket was only a stopgap, its power straining the realm’s seidr rather than healing it, which was why it had never truly recovered from when the relic had first been forged. The realm required a counterbalance, not a weapon.

That was what Loki had done. He had reached out to what remained of Jötunheim’s natural magical core and formed an anchor made of concentrated seidr, reinforced by his own magic. That was the orb of light that sat perfectly in the niche that had once held the Casket of Ancient Winters.

It was intangible, as the heart of a realm should have been all along. Thus it could not be used as a weapon, but counterbalancing that disadvantage was the fact that Asgard would not be able to steal it as they had the Casket and the way that it theoretically had the power to heal the wound that had been torn so long ago – eventually a semi-physical anchor would no longer be needed at all.

It would take many centuries, perhaps even millennium, but ultimately Jötunheim’s ambient magic would rebalance itself. In the meantime, the orb would help their realm to heal and keep the natural seidr flowing as it should.

In the meantime, however, Loki warned that just because the anchor could not be taken did not mean that it was completely safe. The temple was a natural access point and therefore the best place for the anchor to do its work, but it also meant that destroying the temple would likely also destroy the anchor. It could not be left to rot as Laufey had left it; Jötunheim could not afford to lose this one.

The thought of that happening raked a shudder down Byleistr’s kin lines. He had only just gained access to his own seidr, but the thought of it being ripped away made him want to claw at his own skin. It was a part of him, even new as it was, and to lose that extra sense that pulsed warmth and safety deep inside of him would be akin to losing his own heart.

On that note, Loki and Farbauti delved even deeper into discussion, debating (as far as Byleistr could tell) different measures that could be taken to prevent the temple’s destruction. Unable to understand even the basics of their conversation he mostly stopped listening, instead watching the patterns flow across the walls of the temple and enjoying the low rumble of their voices without context. He did not mind – indeed, he was privileged to have witnessed Loki’s working at all.

Finally, a slight change in subject caught his attention. “And what of Asgard?”

Farbauti asked the question and Byleistr almost winced (no matter how much they had wronged the mage, he had still grown up there, still been part of their royal family. A thousand years of loyalty did not come undone cleanly) but Loki did not take any offence. Instead his brow furrowed in the expression that his discussion with Farbauti had revealed demonstrated deep thought.

“Their Bifröst is still broken,” Loki concluded after a minute, “and it takes Odin a dangerous amount of energy to send anyone to another realm without it. Asgard should not be an immediate problem.”

“There are other ways to walk between realms,” Byleistr chimed in, happy to at last be able to contribute. He knew that there were other ways, because Asgard would never have deigned to allow any Jötun to use the Bifröst nor let the other realms visit Jötunheim, and yet they did still get visitors, rare as they were. Loki had demonstrated it, actually – in his tale he had mentioned luring Jötnar with the Casket, which would have been treason and therefore not something he could use the Bifröst for. Also, Loki had still managed to get here with the Bifröst apparently broken.

“The Paths Between,” the mage acknowledged, smiling briefly at him. It was a softer smile, a lighter smile – as if the long discussion had made him forget some of his burdens. “Yes. Some passageways are more well-known than others, and there are other technologies like the Bifröst, but rarer and more dangerous. Asgard frowns on seidr, however, so you should not have problems from that quadrant, and the few natural portals from Asgard to Jötunheim do not come within fifty miles of Utgard and are mostly unknown besides.”

“How do you know?” It was not an accusation; Byleistr was genuinely curious.

“I mapped them,” Loki said, justifiable pride in his voice. “The Aesir scorned my seidr and so I shared them with no one, but I was loyal enough to Asgard that I made a point of knowing and warding as many Paths as I could find. Besides, ‘tis my gift, to walk Yggdrasil itself. My seidr is attuned to the paths; I can find them most anywhere, and convince them to go where I will.”

“Norns,” Farbauti breathed. Loki had mentioned something similar earlier, but in the middle of the story she had not thought to question its implications. “You are a world walker. I thought they were myths.” She hesitated, almost afraid to pry, but in the end a seidrköna’s curiosity won out. “What is She like?”

“Beautiful.” Loki’s whole body softened, something like rapture in his voice. “There is no describing Her, but she is beautiful. Strange, but so welcoming, and humming with power. She sings such a song that nothing in any of the Nine can compare.” He blinked, drawing back to himself with some effort, and then met her eyes. “Would you like to see?”

Chapter Text

Would they like to see? Even young as he was, Byleistr knew the magnitude of that offer. To see the World Tree… it was not something he had ever thought possible, excepting the moment of death, when it was said that you could glimpse eternity as you hovered between living and dying. But the skald who had told him that story had been particularly given to romanticising and he had thought it was just a myth, for how could you comprehend something as massive and fundamental as Yggdrasil?

Farbauti’s eyes were shining like a child of only a single century, and she was nodding almost before Loki finished the question. Some lingering tension in him seemed to ease at her very visible eagerness and he smiled at her, bright and full of mischief. It took centuries off his face, making him look his age for once.

“I do not know what you will experience,” Loki warned her even as he extended a hand. “I have taken people through portals and well-trodden paths many times, but only once have I ever taken someone into Yggdrasil itself and they were unconscious at the time.”

“Sounds like a story,” Byleistr probed, unsure whether it was a sore spot or not. Loki’s tone had sounded strange – a kind of fond exasperation mixed with grief.

Thankfully, Loki only chuckled wryly, although he retracted his hand as his voice again took on a skald’s lilt. “Hardly. It was the same story as dozens of times before. Thor dragged me along on some idiotic quest – to Muspelheim, of all places. He had made up some story about an artefact he wanted to bring back for father, but it is very hard to lie to me in the best of cases and Thor was yet young enough to make stupid mistakes. Like calling said artefact the Hot Potato of Muspelheim.”

“The…” Loki winked at him, and that was all it took for Byleistr to dissolve into giggles. Even Farbauti laughed, a surprisingly light sound that he had not heard in far too long. The throne was no easy burden and Byleistr wanted to hug Loki for that laugh alone, forget everything else he had done here today.

“Not his best moment,” Loki agreed with a grin. “I believe he wanted to go precisely because it was forbidden – the Muspels have no love for Asgard and we had not yet reached our majority – and had not thought up the name for this ‘artefact’ beforehand. Since he cornered me in the banquet hall and has little skill for improvisation, he must have been desperately trying to think of a name and caught sight of a platter out of the corner of his eye. Thus was the Hot Potato of Muspelheim created. I laughed at him too, but, as he is a stubborn oaf and persevered with his story, in the end I humoured him and asked him what it was supposed to do.”

“‘ ‘Tis a magical artefact,’ he proclaimed, which I suspect was because even back then I was always chasing after new seidr. ‘It has the wondrous power to, eh… make potatoes taste less like bilgesnipe dung!’”

Oh, this was perfect. Loki had even changed his voice into what must be Thor’s, and Byleistr could barely breathe for laughing. The Thunderer no longer seemed like a figure worthy of nightmare – if they ever met, the Jötun might even hold off attacking in favour of mocking him for this.

“Like any good younger brother, I of course asked him why he had been eating bilgesnipe dung-” Byleistr snorted “- and it devolved from there into a half hour of bickering. Eventually, however, the only way to stop his incessant pouting was to agree to go, declaring that I had to see an artefact with the astounding power to make Thor eat his vegetables.”

“We went to Heimdall and asked him to send us to a small province of Asgard where I knew that there was a portal to Muspelheim. He was suspicious, but he had not been watching us when we plotted and so did not have any cause to deny us.” A thread of bitterness wove itself into Loki’s voice, but it was quickly dismissed in favour of the story. Loki made a good skald, Byleistr noted again. “Since we were princes and thus had the run of Asgard, he had to send us where we asked. We visited the village first at my insistence, Thor drinking his way through several flagons of mead, until I felt Heimdall’s gaze turn from us, satisfied with the supposed minor mischief-making in the form of embarrassing my brother.”

“We then made our excuses and headed for the portal, one I had discovered a week prior and which probably prompted Thor’s desire to visit the other realm. And then we were on Muspelheim.”

Byleistr leaned forwards slightly. Of all the other realms, this was the one he perhaps knew least of – Midgard might be a backwater, but at least there were still Jötnar who had actually been there. But being of a race that were primarily creatures of ice, he had not been able to find a single first-hand account of the Muspelheim.

“The heat was the first thing to hit us,” Loki remembered. “It should have been obvious, I know, as it is called the Realm of Fire for a reason, but to go from Asgard one moment to Muspelheim the next was like walking into a wall of flame. In a heartbeat it vaporized all the moisture from my mouth and prickled uncomfortably along my skin, and my seidr was quick to react, blanketing me in coolness.” Loki lifted his hand, green twining amidst his fingers. It seemed stronger now, having recuperated remarkably fast from exhaustion.

“Thor was sweating within minutes, but he refused to let me cool him as well. ‘‘Tis part of the adventure!’, apparently.” Loki shrugged, forcedly casual. “His loss. Anyway, as with all the realms, I found Muspelheim remarkably beautiful despite its alienness from Asgard.”

At Byleistr’s eager expression, he elaborated further. “Asgard is a planetoid and mostly flat, whilst the skyline of Muspelheim is defined by craggy volcanoes biting into the sky. Their soil is red and black rather than brown, with magma gushing up at unexpected intervals, and there were beasts that we had never seen before claiming both rock and sky for their own. It has surprisingly diverse terrain, with deep lava lakes that conceal vicious hunters and barren rock fields inlaid with obsidian and fire-iron in broken patterns set in between the many mountains.

“I just wanted to stare at it all for a while and definitely not go too far from the portal, since the blurring I was holding over us meant that Heimdall would not be coming to our rescue unless we drew attention to ourselves. In which case we would most likely be dead as there were two of us against the whole of Muspelheim.”

“Anyway, I found it beautiful, if strange. Thor did not – it was too different, and he has never enjoyed individuality in the way that I do. So he dragged me onwards, through the rock fields nearest us and past the shores of several lava lakes until we reached the nearest volcano.”

“We fought a few beasts on the way, low down on the Muspel food chain – rust-drakes, rock trolls and the occasional lava-wyrm, mostly. Things that took offence to us passing through their territory but were not intelligent enough to wonder what the new beings were, since we had landed in a remote part of Muspelheim that might not have seen Aesir in several thousand years.”

“I suggested we leave whilst we still had our heads, but there was a cave halfway up the volcano that Thor thought looked interesting, hungering for some adventure and likely believing there to be a worthy ‘monster’ to slay inside. I will admit that it did not take much convincing, since I liked the view enough from the bottom to wonder what I could see higher. There were no tracks leading up to the cave, so I thought it safe enough.”

“It was not safe,” Byleistr deduced instantly, familiar enough with such stories to recognise where this one was going.

“Oh, not in the slightest. What I did not yet know of Muspelheim was that the more altitude you have, the higher up the food chain you tend to be. And this volcano was tall indeed, and home to a Stygian Dragon.”

Farbauti let out an incredulous laugh. “Trouble just finds you, doesn’t it, kunnigr? It is astonishing that you are still alive.”

Smirking like an issköttr, Loki gave a sarcastic bow. “I live to entertain, Einvaldi. In fact, perhaps I live because I entertain. The Norns dislike dull characters.”

“That tongue must get you into as much trouble as it gets you out of.”

“More, I should think. Loki Silvertongue, at your service.”

“At no service but your own, I think,” Farbauti riposted, but she was smiling widely enough to expose sharpened canines. “As it should be. I do not think the realms would survive elsewise.”

Loki dipped his head almost far enough to hide the pleasure edging his smile, and returned to the story. “The cave was larger and higher up than we had believed at first, unused as we were to mountains of any kind, and the air was thinning by the time we were halfway there. And the view was stunning, like one of Frigga’s tapestries that I previously thought mere inventions of her mind. Thor was blowing like a horse and even shrouded safely in my cooling spell I was sweating, so I suggested that we had gone far enough.”

“Thor would not hear of it, of course, and I hardly had breath enough to argue with him. I still tried, because I was beginning to realise that this could not possibly end well, but he would not stop.” He paused for dramatic effect. “Not until he collapsed. Right at the mouth of the cave.”

Byleistr let out a muffled whimper, not sure if it was a laugh or a cry.

“Norns, he had the worst timing,” Loki grumbled. “It was heat exhaustion, of course, and his own damn fault for not letting me spell him.”

“I was not unfamiliar with the symptoms; I used to experience them often until I began ‘cheating’ with magic, for Tyr was relentless in training the warriors even in the height of the summer heat. Thor was always quite resistant to warmth and so had never suffered the same way as I before, but Asgard’s summer cannot compare to even the coolest Muspel season. And the day we had chosen was not a cool one even for Muspelheim; I believe it was the middle of their dry season, when even the realm’s normal inhabitants spend most of the day sleeping away the heat.”

“Except for Thor’s collapse such would have been to our advantage, since we were attacked less than we would have been at any other time and even the dragon was sleepy. But I did not know about her yet, not until I knelt at Thor’s side, casting diagnostic spells over his unconscious body, and the ground began to shake beneath me.”

“I had a shield up at once, since he was not awake to scold me for using magic rather than facing an enemy ‘bravely and with honour,’ and also began grasping for the nearest branch of Yggdrasil in case we needed a quick getaway. I knew about the existence of Stygian Dragons, of course – I made it a point to know the most dangerous beasts before we ever set foot out of Asgard, as Thor has a knack for attracting trouble – but I had dearly hoped never to meet one. Alas, it was not to be.”

“The first I knew of her was her footsteps, the volcano itself trembling at her approach. But ‘tis the second sign that surprised me, for a voice echoed out of the shadows on all sides, ancient and powerful and terribly amused.”

“It is not often that prey is so obliging as to present itself to me in my home.”

The voice was everything Loki had spoken of and more: low and sibilant, yet somehow musical. It made a very primal part of Byleistr want to shrink away in terror, but at the same time he could not take his eyes off the mage-turned-skald. He could have sworn a plume of smoke trailed from Loki’s teeth as he mimicked the dragons voice.

“It was only after she had spoken that she revealed herself to me, the red light of Muspelheim gleaming on scales that were such a deep shade of black that they seemed darker than the Void itself. Her body was slim and elegant for all of its great size, as large as this temple and yet still somehow gracefully proportioned. Each scale was larger than my head. Twin silver horns guarded her vulnerable eyes, each of which contained the heart of a flame: a red so deep it flickered with purple and white, with ancient cunning dancing in their depths.”

“Within a blink she had us surrounded, her tail across the exit and her head on level with my own, her body forming a complete circle around us. Each fang was the length of my hand and she could have obliterated us with a single careless breath, and yet for all of that I could not bring myself to regret encountering her, for she was the single most beautiful creature I have ever laid eyes upon.”

Loki’s fingers flickered in a complicated gesture and a moment later there was a dragon within the temple, its body taking up the entirety of one wall whilst its tail trailed out of the doors, unable to fit inside the cavernous main chamber. A single wing, the membrane a purple so dark it was almost black and edged with swordlike silver-grey barbs, blotted out the ceiling. The neck arched around so that its head rested lightly on Loki’s, although it was obvious that, had the dragon been real, the weight of it would have snapped the mage’s body like a twig.

He was right; it – she – was beautiful. The illusion smirked down at him, as if aware of his every thought – a queen assured of her own powerful, terrible beauty.

Even as an illusion (and that was an impressive piece of magic all on its own), she was downright terrifying. For all that Byleistr could appreciate her beauty, he thought that Loki might be mad not to regret meeting her. Had she been real, he doubted that there would be any thought at all in his head beside pleasedon’teatme pleasedon’teatme Ancestors Iamnotreadytodie don’teatme!

“What did you do?” he breathed.

“I told her so.” Loki shrugged as Byleistr gaped. “Why wouldn’t I? If I was going to die – for I doubt any amount of seidr would be enough to so much as stall her – I might as well be truthful about it.”

“What did she do?”

“She laughed.” Byleistr blinked, incredulous, and Loki let out a wry chuckle. “Why wouldn’t she? I was but a morsel, insignificant, and she was well aware of the truth. She could smell lies, you see, and whilst there was fear in my scent it was apparently not as predominant as she had expected. There was awe, and appreciation, and a contradiction she could not reconcile – she told me I was of both ice and embers, and something new in her long millennia of existence. I was, for lack of a better word, entertaining. And I broke up the long monotony of the dry season, which she normally spent hibernating, for dragons of her size struggle to feed themselves at the best of times.”

With a flicker of seidr, he again spoke in the dragon’s voice, only this time it appeared to come from the illusion’s mouth. She regarded Byleistr as she must once have looked at Loki, her burning eyes gleaming with pleasure.

“What a curious creature you are. It has been an age since any visited me; not since the eldthursar banished my kind from their cities. But you are different – you are a seidmadr, are you not? I can taste it on you, prince of fire and ice. Such energy, such power from one so young. And such a flatterer too. I might almost be impressed, were I not hungry.”

She licked her lips with an obscenely red tongue, nostrils wide as she took in his scent.

“It would be an honour,” Loki said in his own voice, “to be considered worthy prey of such a mighty queen as you. But surely myself and my companion would not be more than a morsel.”

“Perhaps not,” said the dragon. “But you delivered yourselves to me so conveniently. Would you have me deny my hunger?”

“Of course not, majesty. I would instead offer to fetch you a meal more worthy of your time.”

“I like you, little word twister,” she decided. “The last seidköna to reach out to me was not nearly so eloquent or reasonable. But I already have you in my grasp; what proof have I that anything you could offer me would be worthier of my time? Or that you would indeed return?”

Loki was smiling, as if this were a fond memory and not an extremely close brush with death. He even reached up as if to caress the illusion’s scales, seemingly remembering at the last second that she was not solid.

“I could be out of your grasp right now, if I wished it, but I have never met your like before and it would be rude to leave so suddenly. We trespassed in your home, after all, and if you allow it I would like to make amends.”

The dragon stretched, her scales chiming against each other even as her nostrils flared in silent warning. “Bold words,” she hissed, although there was intrigue in her swirling eyes. “But… you are not lying. Hm. An accord, then, little contradiction. If you escape me now, then I will not roast you should you return.”

“An accord,” Loki agreed, and the air took on a green glow – a pact sealed by the Norns. The dragon’s head reared up in surprise. “Farewell, sky-queen.”

The dragon lunged forwards, straight at Byleistr, who let out an involuntary squeak despite knowing she was an illusion. Farbauti barely had time to flinch in his direction before the false dragon collided with him and dissolved into a cloud of green and gold sparks. Loki smirked at them both, although it became more genuine when Byleistr only mock-growled at him and then smiled back.

“That wasn’t nice.”

He raised an eyebrow. So? “It is part of the story. She lunged for me, I lunged for Thor, and I dragged both of us into the safety of Yggdrasil mere moments before she would have consumed us both in a single swallow. As it was I felt the heat of her breath on my back, and such was the force with which I had acted that Thor and I nearly tumbled off the branches entirely.”

When it became clear that Loki was not going to continue of his own accord, Byleistr asked, “And then?”

The mage shrugged. “Then I hauled the oaf back to Asgard and kept him cool and hydrated until he stirred. Upon waking I teased him for fainting like a girl, since he had always made such a big deal of his Aesir manliness, and he threatened me never to bring up what had happened again. Since mentioning the dragon would doubtless spark a pointless quest to ‘hunt the monster down,’ potentially costing thousands of lives – and not hers, since stygian dragons of her age are near impossible to kill – I agreed and kept quiet. Once Thor was steady on his feet he called for Heimdall, and we were back home in time for dinner. The end.”

“But what of the dragon?” Byleistr insisted, although he suspected that Loki would not know what happened to her next. Stygian dragons were a level of dangerous that all sentient species in the Nine avoided; even the Muspels, who knew whatever secret let them drive the dragons from their cities, did not irritate one lightly. “Did you ever go back?”

“Yes,” Loki admitted, and seemed delighted at Byleistr’s shock. “It surprised her too, but I do not freely swear bargains I do not intend to keep. Not ones sanctified by the Norns, anyway. Besides, she was beautiful and dangerous and I could not help myself. A bit like learning to walk Yggdrasil, actually.”

“What happened when you returned to the dragon?” Byleistr reminded when it appeared that Loki was drifting from the subject again.

“Which time?” Loki asked, mischief glinting in his eyes when Byleistr’s jaw dropped open.

“You went back more than once?!”

“Oh yes, several dozen times.”

“Why?”

“At first, it was a matter of pride. I promised her a meal worthy of her, and I kept trying. Then because I had come to enjoy her company, and she mine – the Aesir do not much appreciate sarcasm, and flyting with her was always delightfully diverting. She also respected my seidr in a way that Asgard did not, and she was so very interesting – one of the oldest beings still willing to take the time to speak to me, and clever in a way unlike the humanoid races of the Nine by way of such a different perspective. She taught me things, too, when a gift was particularly pleasing to her; much of what I know of the nature of fire is thanks to her.”

“What do you feed a dragon?” Byleistr asked, feeling hysteria bubbling up in his throat. Clever and cunning Loki might be, but he was also insane.

“Oh, anything, really. As we grew older, the quests Thor dragged me on became less about seeing the other realms and more about proving his battle prowess, so there were never any shortage of ‘beasts’ that he left lying everywhere – I believe he left one on Jötunheim itself, for example – and many were large enough to be fitting tribute. I deplore waste, and to Aldrnari food was food no matter where it came from or who made the kill.”

“She gave you her name?” Farbauti interrupted, and Loki nodded, a smug grin on his face.

“Several centuries ago we exchanged names and titles, and bestowed one upon each other to use in polite company. Her true name is a gift I will always treasure, but ‘tis not something to use lightly and so day to day I called her Aldrnari, the soul of a flame.”

Just like tales, Loki seemed to have a gift for names; Byleistr could not imagine one more fitting to the illusion he had conjured.

“Anyway, she particularly enjoyed tastes from other realms, but it took me a century of sporadic visits to figure out that seidr is like spice to her – she never enjoyed something more than when I used magic in the takedown. After that, I started using it on purpose, saturating my gifts with distilled magic. It drained me, of course, but it was well worth it for the smile she gave me when she realised that I had noticed.”

“She also threatened to eat me every visit without fail,” Loki added almost idly, and Byleistr nearly choked. “I never forgot that she was dangerous, and that I was likely to be little more than a temporary amusement, but I knew for sure that she considered me a friend the time when I arrived just as she was about to take off and she allowed me to witness the heavens from her back.”

It was one shock after the other. To think that a legendary stygian dragon would consent to be ridden like a common horse defied all imagining, and yet to look at Loki’s smirk was to know it for the truth. And Byleistr could not imagine any other in his place, any other that would dare – but somehow it suited him, this wild foreign mage. Indeed, it was far easier to imagine him ruling the skies alongside an ancient dragon than from Hlidskjalf, Asgard’s throne. Loki was a traveller, a wanderer, a mischief-maker – a kingdom would smother him, and he was well aware of it.

“You are insane,” Farbauti murmured, but there was awe in her voice too.

“Completely,” Loki agreed, sweeping another bow. “But what a way to be!” He paused, smirking, then added, “Incidentally, she also taught me how to take on her form.”

This time, it was Farbauti that choked. “You are a shapeshifter on top of everything else?”

That bit was not really a surprise to Byleistr. Loki was changeable as the wind and twice as tricky; being confined to an Aesir skin did not suit him. “Chaos is change,” the mage sang, and green seidr glimmered across his body as it shrank and blurred until a black and white corvid (a Midgardian magpie?) stood in his place.

With a cackle, Loki hopped into the air and swooped across the temple to land on Farbauti’s shoulder, winking at Byleistr as he did so. Unable to hold back her chuckle, Farbauti reached up and smoothed his feathers with a single finger – very carefully, since her hand was bigger than his whole body in this form. “Asgard was a fool to throw you away.”

With a more subdued caw, Loki pressed his head into her palm and closed his eyes.

Trust, Byleistr realised. That was what he was showing them now, in such a small and vulnerable form, and all because they had shown him a scrap of appreciation.

The moment was over too soon. The magpie hopped off Farbauti’s shoulder without bothering to extend his wings; even as he fell, his feathers rippled and blurred and his body grew until Loki landed in a light crouch in his Aesir body. “So, Yggdrasil?” he asked, once more offering Farbauti his arm.

She inclined her head, every inch the queen, and took his elbow in hers. It should have looked ridiculous, because even in this form she was much taller than he, but it did not.

“We should not be long,” Loki assured Byleistr, catching his stare, before turning to Farbauti. “Hold onto me, and squeeze my arm should it become too much.”

Farbauti let out a hum of acknowledgement, her ruby gaze focused on the mage as if unwilling to miss even a second. Loki escorted her to the wall of the temple, where for the first time Byleistr realised that the carvings formed an elaborate archway, before there was a crackle of seidr – both Loki’s and something immense and yet foreign. The carvings inside the arch blurred as Loki reached out to them, and then without further fanfare both he and Farbauti vanished.

Getting to his feet, Byleistr approached the archway for himself, but had the gateway not been carved into the walls he would have had no way of telling it apart from any of the other embellishments in the temple. He ran his fingers lightly over the wall of ice, but it felt solid as stone.

Clearly, someone had known about the crossing of Yggdrasil and the temple itself, to have carved the archway, but it was still a near unparalleled feat of magic to actually access the passage. To walk Yggdrasil itself… quietly, Byleistr hoped that Loki might extend the same offer to him as his mother.

His own seidr was still untrained, but as he focused on the breathing exercises he had learned years ago to try and coax it out of hiding he prompted it to investigate the temple. It rushed from him, eager as a wolf pup, and traced the carvings on the wall, but as far as he could tell it was just a wall, no different from any other.

Even so small an effort had drained him – Farbauti had been right that despite his affinity for seidr his reserves did not go deep, even after the anchor had teased them from their hiding place – and he sat back with a sigh. It was not a hardship to lean against the wall and examine the temple, for it remained a wonderful feat of engineering, but as the minutes passed he began to grow anxious.

After everything that Loki had given them this day he had a certain amount of trust in the mage, but Farbauti was still both his mother and his queen and he worried for her. Loki had said himself that he had never taken a conscious person onto Yggdrasil with him. What if something had gone wrong?

Right as he was at the verge of panicking, there was a soft pulse of seidr and Loki emerged from the archway. Farbauti was leaning on him, her eyes wide, but she was glowing. Physically as well as metaphorically.

Carefully, he reached out and transferred her weight onto his own shoulder, helping to prop her up. “Byleistr,” she murmured, meeting his eyes. “Oh, astin minn, it was so beautiful. So beautiful…”

She was magic-drunk, he realised belatedly, having never seen her so before. Jötunheim had not had enough ambient seidr in all his lifetime for anyone to immerse themselves in such a way.

A strange scent drifted into his nose, spicy and yet sweet and completely alien, and there were small bursts of colour dotted throughout her dark hair. Flowers. He had only ever seen their like in pictures; Jötunheim had its ice-blossoms and a variety of other flora, but not colourful florets like these.

“We took a side trip to Alfheim when the experience grew a little too intense,” Loki explained when he tentatively reached out and touched one. “Apparently, their Winter Shrine is located on the same whorl in Yggdrasil, which explains much of why that particular area is eternally cold.”

“I have not been to Alfheim in centuries,” Farbauti murmured. “Was it always so colourful? I had… quite forgotten.”

“Seasons are different on different realms,” Loki explained, a careful hand still on the Queen’s arm. “I do not know about Jötunheim, but it is currently spring on Alfheim. I came here from Midgard, and it is winter there.”

“We do not have seasons like that,” Byleistr explained in return, when it became apparent that his mother was still recovering. It felt strangely nice to be teaching Loki rather than the other way around. “Though perhaps we will now; I believe we used to before the war. When the Casket was removed the weather grew worse, until all that remained was storms broken by short lulls. But the wind is already calmer since you anchored the temple, so who knows?”

Loki had winced at the mention of the war but nodded his thanks at the new information. “Hopefully,” he murmured, his eyes distant.

“Will- would you be willing to show me Yggdrasil?” Byleistr asked, trying hard to keep the hope out of his voice.

Loki hesitated, glancing at Farbauti. “It… might not be a good idea.”

Now recovered enough to at least attempt standing unaided, his mother sighed and squeezed his shoulder, sending a reassuring pulse of warmth down his kin-lines. “Unfortunately, I agree. The World Tree overwhelmed me, and I have been a fully trained seidköna for longer than you have been alive. Your seidr is new and untrained, ást minn; it could easily overwhelm you.”

He pouted but did not argue, even if the back of his eyes prickled. Yggdrasil… now that he knew that it was possible, he ached to see it.

Whilst he had tried to mask his disappointment, nodding as regally as he was able (he was a prince, not a child), it had clearly still been obvious to Loki who was eying him thoughtfully. Coming to a decision, the mage nodded to himself. “I could take you straight to Alfheim without stopping on the World Tree,” he offered. “The two are so close that it would be easy. And that I have done for Thor and his friends many a time with no real ill effects, other than a passing sickness, although none of them are sensitive to seidr.”

“You do not owe us anything,” Farbauti said. Hope still leaped into Byleistr’s heart; it was not a no.

“Perhaps not,” Loki admitted for the first time, and it made both Jötnar smile. “But I do not mind. I cannot imagine being trapped in one realm my whole life; it would drive me mad. And… it is nice, I will admit, to have someone appreciate my gifts.”

Byleistr growled. “Asgard can go-” he listed several Jötnar expletives that would have got his mouth washed out as a child, ramping up to the ones that would have chased the court in Utgard out of the room. Loki listened with bemused amusement, especially he became more and more creative, and even Farbauti did not reprimand him, looking as if she would quite like to repeat the sentiment herself had it not been completely unbefitting of a queen.

“Byleistr,” she eventually chided when his suggestions began to get anatomically impossible, though there was a twitch beside her eyes that betrayed her own amusement. “Enough now. It is pointless to express these things when we are all in agreement.”

It was a bit of a risk to claim such when Loki had been raised Aesir, but the mage did not deny it. “Bah, fine,” Byleistr grumbled, then gave his mother a hopeful look. “May I go?”

She appraised him quietly for several seconds, then jerked her head in a brief nod. It was not glowing permission, since he knew that she had her reasons to be more than a little overprotective, but it was still consent. With a beaming smile the Jötun prince turned to Loki, trying his hardest not to bounce on the spot or pelt the mage with questions.

“I will take care of him,” Loki promised Farbauti, who gave a slightly smoother nod. “And we will go straight to Alfheim and return straight back.”

“Thank you.”

Inclining his head, Loki turned back to Byleistr. “As with your mother, hold onto me and do not let go. Thor and his friends always found it helpful to close their eyes. The shrine is deserted, so you should not encounter any Alfar, but they are generally less prejudiced than Aesir so it should not be a problem either way. Remember that it is a sacred space much like this temple, so be respectful.”

“I will,” Byleistr promised, latching onto Loki’s arm. The mage grinned at his impatience but dutifully escorted him over to the wall.

“Three, two, one,” he counted down, and then pulled him through.

There was a rushing sound in Byleistr’s ears, a crackle almost like electricity along his skin. Despite Loki’s warning he had kept his eyes open and for a moment his vision whited out, far too much passing by every millisecond for him to even begin to comprehend.

Had he been at all prone to motion sickness he would have vomited, but at the same time his body was convinced he was not moving at all. There was merely the sensation of the universe all around him, so wide and vast that he felt smaller than he ever had in his life, despite being smaller than the Jötun norm. It was spectacular and horrifying all at once, and he found his mind shying away from the experience even as his seidr danced wildly in his heart.

It was too much, far too much, like a shot of adrenaline straight to his brain. He was laughing even as he gasped for air, the sensation so very new and yet addicting. To feel the universe… Loki was lucky indeed.

He came back to himself at a blast of warmth, so much hotter than even the mildest of Jötunheim’s storm-lulls.

Alfheim!

Another realm! It was so green, so alive in a way completely different to the way that Jötunheim’s ice was alive. A thousand scents baffled his nose, most with either a sweetness or a spiciness that he was unaccustomed to, and he sneezed and his eyes watered even as he could not get enough of it. All five senses were in overdrive, and Loki’s hand grasping his arm was the only thing keeping him upright.

He dragged his eyes to the sky, the plain blue a comfort – something ordinary to ground him in a world that was so very different to anything he had experienced before. It was only then, with fewer new experiences to bewilder his mind, that he recognised the sensation dancing under his skin.

His seidr was skittering, his whole body on edge. There was so much overloading his senses that he was losing control of himself, like a babe of a single decade.

It was embarrassing that he could do no more than gape, even the barest shreds of dignity beyond him. Yet this was so new!

Loki was not looking at him, he realised when he tore his narrowed eyes from the sky, affording him his privacy. At first he was inordinately grateful for the consideration, before realising with a start the consequences of losing himself. It was not just his expression that he was losing control of but also his body’s natural defences, the strain of too many new sensations triggering every defensive response a Jötun had. Including their frost-skin.

So rarely had he met another race that he had almost forgotten that every Jötnar naturally had a body temperature low enough to risk frostbite in warmer species, and all had a kind of innate seidr that would lower that temperature even further when under attack. As his body was convinced he was now.

“Loki,” he tried to warn, but of course the mage did not understand the problem. The Jötun tried to jerk his arm away but Loki just moved with him, trying to steady what he thought was a stumble.

Then, for the first time since he was a child, Byleistr lost the silent battle with himself. His temperature plummeted well below frostbite level.

His horrified stare fixed itself to Loki’s arm where it touched his, but the blackness he feared did not come. Instead, Loki’s skin turned blue. Jötnar blue.

The first emotion that registered was relief. What kind of repayment for bringing him to Alfheim was frostbite? Since the mage had already demonstrated his talents as a shapeshifter, he likely would have paid the incident no mind had Loki’s blue arm not warmed beneath his touch. Such warm skin was completely antithetical to a Jötun. Unless…

Hardly daring to breathe, Byliestr looked at where his hand was resting on Loki’s. Sure enough, under his fingers were the ridges of Loki’s own kin-lines. Very, very familiar kin-lines.

His heart stopped. His mind whirled. How?

Adopted. The answer came far too quickly. Loki had told them that himself – told them that he had been lied to all his life, told that he belonged on Asgard when he was not even the same species. And neither he nor his mother had asked what race he truly belonged to.

Jötun. Loki was Jötun!

And with those kinlines…

Loki was related to him!

Loki was…

Loki was his brother.

Chapter Text

Loki was looking down almost idly at where blue was steadily creeping towards his shoulder, a complicated mix of emotions passing over his face before it turned blank. “Did you mean to do that?” The mage – the Jötun – asked in a strangely neutral voice.

“Ancestors, no!” Byleistr denied. “I tried to warn you – I did not know…”

Loki’s eyebrow quirked curiously. “This is how I found out as well,” he mused aloud, still in that blank voice. “When Thor declared a war on Jötunheim and then tried to fight it single-handedly. One of them grabbed my arm and it turned blue.”

Well. Byleistr did not know how he had expected Loki to have found out about the adoption, but that sounded particularly awful.

“Over a thousand years, they raised me. And never, not once in all of that time, did they refute the tales that Jötnar were monsters. The enemy. They never once corrected the prejudice in their own family, let alone the rest of Asgard.

“Our nursemaids used to frighten us with tales of frost giants eating naughty Aesir children. Nor was Odin ever shy about recounting the War. Do you know what Thor vowed when we were children? That when he was older, he would hunt the monsters down and slay them all.”

Agony was bright in Loki’s eyes. “They were never going to tell me what I was. As if as long as I did not know, what did it matter what lay beneath my skin? What did it matter that they were teaching me to hate myself.”

Oh, Ancestors. Byleistr was going to be sick. And Loki was not finished.

“Except I could not measure up. I was never Aesir enough for them. I never understood why. Not until we travelled to Jötunheim.”

He held up his blue arm, halting his transformation with a whisper of seidr but not reversing it – not when Byleistr’s cold hand still rested on it, the Jötun still struggling for control over himself. Undaunted, Loki continued.

“They still were not going to tell me, can you believe that? Not until I went to the Casket to confirm my suspicions. There Odin found me, commanding me to stop, as if it could be taken back. I practically had to rip answers from him.

“I asked him what I was, and still he did not admit it! What little confession I managed to get was lost when he collapsed into the Odinsleep, and I was left regent of a realm that was at war with my birth one. A realm that, if they ever found out what I was, would not hesitate to slay me where I stood. No one to support me as my very sense of self ruptured; Frigga at Odin’s bedside, Thor banished, his friends so false and all too willing to commit treason.”

Loki’s shoulders slumped, breath heaving as he recentred himself. “My apologies,” he said after recovering his composure. “You do not deserve my anger.”

“I do not mind,” Byleistr whispered, appalled at how badly and repeatedly Asgard had failed Loki. “You needed to say it, and someone should know. Your side of the story, I mean. I… Asgard never bothered to ask, did they?”

“Why bother asking truth of a liesmith?”

“But you do not lie all that often, do you?” Byleistr murmured, casting his mind back to Loki’s tale. He had glossed over his adoption, distracting them with the rest of the story – and they had let him. He had not lied, had not needed to lie. “Just deflect attention and allow others to make assumptions.” Almost idly, he traced Loki’s Jötun markings, feeling the warmth of kin spiral under his fingertips. “Do you know what these are?”

A shallow nod. “Familial markings,” Loki said in a tightly controlled voice. “I did not know before – my education has an unforgivable Jötunheim-shaped hole in it; I should have realised before – but I did a lot of research to know how to restore the anchor without further harming your realm.”

“Our realm.”

Loki blinked. “Our… our realm.” His tone was strange, but it was not a rejection. “I…”

Carefully, as if the mage were a skittish horse, Byleistr flattened his palm on Loki’s arm. “Your kin lines…”

“Mark me Laufeyson, I know. Odin told me that much, in the vault. I knew that Laufey was my sire when I killed him. And I was so desperate for my adoptive father’s approval that I did not care.”

That was horrific, but Byleistr shoved it aside for now. Loki was his brother, and Byleistr did not even know if he knew. He had to tell him. “No, Loki.” It was only after Loki flinched that Byleistr remembered his history with those particular words. He winced but forced himself to continue. “I mean, yes, half your markings are of Laufey’s line, but these-” he trailed his fingers down Loki’s arm “- these are Farbauti’s.”

Wide green eyes told Byleistr that no, Loki had not known that. Had not put the pieces together. “She…”

“Yes,” Byleistr smiled as reassuringly as he could. “She is your mother. And that- that makes you my brother.”

Nervous. He felt nervous, because he had suddenly realised that not only was Loki biologically his brother but he wanted him to acknowledge that. Wanted to actually be a brother to the incredible mage. Ancestors knew it was about time Loki had someone in his family who would actually support him.

Loki staggered backwards, wrenching his arm from Byleistr’s. A trickle of blood leaked from one lip where he had bitten through it, and he was letting out a low keening sound deep in his throat. It was a distinctively Jötun sound and it made Byleistr ache but he kept very still, not wanting to spook his newfound brother.

Slowly, Loki’s eyes darted between his still-blue arm and Byleistr’s own. Byleistr held it up, not needing to see for himself; they were near identical, only slight variations for their difference in age and place as first and second born.

With a crackle of seidr like melting ice, a full transformation swept over Loki, sapphire enveloping his skin and fire-red eyes blinking up at Byleistr. His breath caught – not only was Loki stunning like this but his resemblance to Farbauti was unmistakeable, right down to the colour of his magic. He was truly her son.

Still trying his hardest not to spook Loki, Byleistr gave him a gentle smile. “There you are.” Loki’s eyes stared into his, searching for something that Byleistr could not imagine. But he took a guess. “We thought you dead, you know. Mother mourned you for centuries – sometimes the grief takes her even now. I do not know how it happened – I never wanted to press her. Not when mere mention of him – of you – made her so sad.”

“Odin-” Loki swallowed, licking blood from his lip. “Odin claimed to have found me in the temple. Said I was abandoned, left to die. A runt.”

Byleistr inhaled sharply. “Nay, brother. He stole you. ‘Twas true that you were left in the temple, but not abandoned, never. It was the safest place Mother could find for you.” Once more, he ran his fingers over the lines that connected them both. “I will not lie – Laufey always disdained your size. Mine too,” for Byleistr was not unaware that he was small for a Jötun, even if the smaller Jötnar tended to have different talents – like seidr or intellect – that made up for their lack of physical strength. “She did not trust him to protect you properly, not when the War had already turned him into someone she barely recognised, bloodthirsty as an Aesir and twice as ruthless.”

“Odin was advancing on Utgard and there were traitors in the court; nowhere was safe, and as Consort it was her duty to fight. So she bid your caretakers take you to the temple, where she hoped that not even the Gallows God would dare hurt a babe on sacred ground, and where your own seidr, already so strong, could commune with the Casket and defend you. She once told me that it was the hardest decision of her life, and the one she most regretted, for as soon as the Bifröst took the Deceiver from Jötunheim she teleported straight to the temple only to find you missing.”

“She barely even cared that the Casket had been taken, because you were gone. The stories say that she collapsed right there upon the temple floor and wept, and that her cries echoed for weeks without end. Ultimately, the temple was abandoned not because of the loss of the Casket but because we believed that the blood of an innocent babe – and prince of our realm – had been shed upon its grounds, cursing it forevermore.”

Loki was gaping, all composure gone. “She cried for me?”

“She loved you,” Byleistr promised quietly. “She loves you still, even believing you dead.”

“Even if she knew what I have done?”

Byleistr snorted. “What, saving our realm? Taking her to gaze upon Yggdrasil? We all make mistakes, Loki, and you have paid for yours.” Seeing him unconvinced, he added, “She offered you sanctuary when she did not know that you were Jötun. Had she known that you were her son she would have burned the world in recompense for the wrongs Asgard has done you.”

“Odin…”

“Odin stole you!” Byleistr cried, frustrated. “Took you from your family and let Mother believe you dead! Odin was the one to abandon you, when you were no longer useful, and let you fall!”

Loki flinched again, but this time Byleistr was unrepentant. He strode the two paces that separated them and pulled Loki into an embrace. “You are my brother,” he whispered, pressing his head against Loki’s own. “And now that I know you live, I am never letting you go again.”

It took a moment, but Loki relaxed in his hold, blue body shaking ever so slightly. Byleistr ignored the ragged breathing, just holding onto his brother and letting him calm himself. He could not imagine what it was like for Loki – first to find out he was adopted and then to think his birth family had wanted him dead.

Then Loki took in a deep breath and step back. Byleistr did not want to let him go, but he knew better than to try and keep a mage somewhere that he did not wish to be.

Biting his lip once more, Loki said quietly, “I killed your father.”

A part of Byleistr hurt at that, the part of him that actually remembered Laufey and had mourned when he had heard of his death. But it was only a small part; Laufey had hurt both him and his mother enough that his feelings for his sire had been complicated even before his death. Loki was not the only son Laufey-King had essentially abandoned.

“I barely knew him,” Byleistr confessed. “Part of me even hated him. He sent Mother and I away from Utgard before my second century, and we met on only a handful of occasions after that. I mourned his passing, but for his memory more than anything. I do not like that you killed him, but I understand why… and many Jötnar would say that you did us a favour. Laufey was not a popular king after the war, and mother is a far better ruler.” He hesitated. “Will you allow me to tell her? Mother?”

“Do I have a choice?”

No, Byleistr wanted to say, because he knew how it hurt his mother to think her firstborn dead. But he bit down on the word before it could leave his tongue; he would not drive Loki away, even if keeping such a secret would tear him apart inside. “It is your truth.”

“She would really want to know?” Ancestors, Loki sounded like a child, so young and vulnerable. It made Byleistr want to wrap him up in another hug, but he refrained, not wanting to smother him.

“Yes.” He tried to put all his emotion into it – all those nights he had heard his mother sobbing, how quiet she became every year around the anniversary of Jötunheim’s final defeat, how she had a hidden corner in her room where she kept the traditional perma-ice rattle gifted to every new born Jötun.

He was not sure how well he succeeded, but Loki said, “I will think about it,” and the way he bit his lip made Byleistr think that this might be a test, perhaps even an unconscious one. Ancestors only knew how little freedom he would have been accustomed to in Asgard, where the word of his adoptive father (kidnapper) would have been law.

So Byleistr did not press, instead nodding his acceptance. The surprise that briefly flashed across fire red eyes (Farbauti’s eyes on a male face) seemed to indicate that his guess had been correct.

“In the meantime, if there is anything you wish to know about Jötnar, I would be happy to answer your questions,” he offered. “And… I would like to call you brother one day, but if you wish otherwise…”

“Loki, for now, at least when I am like this,” the mage said, recloaking himself in his Aesir skin. Byleistr hated it, already missing the familiar-yet-foreign form of his older brother, but reminded himself that it was Loki’s body to do with as he willed. He nodded, trying hard not to let disappointment colour his expression, and cast around for a change of topic to ease Loki’s clear discomfort.

“So, you said that this was a shrine? Is the rest of Alfheim like this, so colourful, or…”

The relief on Loki’s face was evidence enough that he had done the right thing, and it was no real hardship to babble all his wonder at the foreign realm. It relaxed the mage enough that his words became less stilted, tension seeping from his body, as he did indeed attempt to answer all of Byleistr’s many questions.

Alfheim was fascinating, but he considered it a victory when Loki started to tentatively ask questions of his own, seeking clarification on little details about Jötunheim – things about daily life and personal experience that would be difficult to discover from books.

Happiness bubbling up in him, Byleistr linked his arm with his brother’s and wandered into this strange world’s sunshine.

***

It was far too short a time later when Loki announced that they needed to return to Jötunheim. He had taken Byleistr on a quick tour of the shrine, but it was the natural scenery of Alfheim – their lush vegetation and oddly tame wildlife – that captivated him most of all.

Easily reading his longing glances towards the forest that surrounded the shrine, Loki had paused only long enough to pay his respects at the altar (Byleistr copying him somewhat awkwardly, earning him a slightly surprised but pleased smile) before bringing them out into the open air.

At first Byleistr had stumbled an embarrassing number of times, unused to needing to watch for roots and snares underfoot. The ice fields of Jötunheim were precarious footing but they were so very different to a forest floor that all his experience with crumbling ice were useless. When he tried to watch his feet, however, twigs grasped at his face and hands and he had walked through several spiderwebs – irritating insects that could not survive Jötunheim’s cold – until Loki had nearly broken out in laughter at his outburst of curses.

It was hard to be annoyed at his brother for that, however, when he had noticed that he walked into far fewer obstacles afterwards. Out of the corner of his eye he caught snatches of branches that curled ever so slightly out of his path, spiderwebs swaying to the side as if in a breeze. When glancing up at them caused him to stumble unexpectedly, the low-hanging bough that he would have hit jerked sideways in a muted flash of green.

“Thank you,” he said quietly as they turned and headed back towards the hidden path to Jötunheim.

Loki’s lips tilted upwards, but there was a touch of wistfulness to his almost-smile. “You are welcome. I… cannot imagine what it would be like, to only ever have seen Jötunheim.”

“It’s home. I never knew anything else, so how could I miss it?”

“That will change.” The mage sounded like he was making a decision even as he spoke, and hope leaped in Byleist’s heart. Some of it must have reached his face because Loki reached out and squeezed his arm in silent comfort, and even in this form the Jötun’s kin-lines warmed at the touch of a family member.

It was a distinctly different sensation than with Farbauti, but no less pleasant; Byleistr’s only regret was that it was so foreign to him. Loki’s touch should have been as familiar and comfortable as his mother’s.

“If Farbauti allows it, I will teach her how to walk the established paths – there are three, in your temple: Alfheim, Midgard, and I believe Vanaheim. You will not be locked to a single realm again, although I would advise extreme caution on Midgard. The humans have barely any knowledge of the other realms and whilst they may struggle to damage you they have Thor on call. And Odin would likely not tolerate your presence there, especially not now that your realm has a replacement for the Casket of Ancient Winters.”

Byleistr bit his lip. He wanted to promise to avoid the realm – neither he nor his mother had any aspirations of conquest (especially not when restoring Jötunheim was likely to be all the Jötnar were capable of for the next few centuries at the very least) – but at the same time… “You mentioned it before, Midgard. Is that where you are staying?”

A few hours ago Byleistr would never have recognised the slight tension that stiffened Loki’s body, muscles coiling in readiness, nor would the mage have likely felt comfortable displaying even that much of a tell. But sometime over the course of telling his story and their wanderings through the elves’ realm, a fledgling trust had started to develop. After a few heartbeats of what was probably careful consideration, Loki dipped his head slightly. “It is.”

“Would you…” he swallowed, throat suddenly dry, but he did not want to lose his brother so soon after finding him. “Would you mind if I visited you?”

“You would want to?”

A powerful (and increasingly familiar) urge to throttle Odin, Thor and the whole of Asgard surged through Byleistr and he nearly growled, feeling ice tip his fingers. Whatever they had done to Loki that made him believe himself worth so little was unforgivable.

“Well, it’s either I visit you or you stay in Jötunheim. I told you,” he added at the minute twitch of uncertainty on Loki’s face, “I might not have earned the right to call you brother yet, but by all the Ancestors I am not losing you again. Not when I’ve just started getting to know you and you are already everything I could ever have wanted in a brother.”

Almost unconsciously, blue bled over Loki’s skin even as an unspoken agony rippled over his face. “How can you say that?”

Beyond caring if he was overstepping, Byleistr took hold of the hand still resting on his arm and yanked his brother into a tight hug. Jötnar were a tactile race and seeing those familiar kin-lines again, near mirror to his own, easily overpowered his self-restraint.

“Easiest truth I ever spoke,” he said gruffly, pretending not to notice the shudders that wracked Loki’s body. (Mentally, he was plotting Thor’s death a thousand times over. The Thunderer had taken Byleistr’s place in Loki’s life and yet somehow hadn’t realised what he had. Byleistr hated him more for that than for the hundreds of Jötnar lives he had taken.)

“Queen Farbauti…”

Loki’s voice was uncertain, as if he himself was not sure entirely what he was asking, but he made no move to pull away so Byleistr only squeezed harder. “Would say the same thing. She loves you even as she believes you dead. She offered you sanctuary without knowing that you were hers.” He forced himself to take a deep breath. “But I will not force you.”

The shudders became stronger, coldness practically radiating from Loki. It was the most distinctive show of Jötnar abilities that Byleistr had seen from his newly discovered brother, and it made him want to smile just as much as it made him want to weep.

The mage took a deep breath before going unnaturally stiff, the cold receding as he withdrew into himself, stepping backwards. Paleness drove the blue from his skin, and Byleistr felt a pang of loss as his fellow Jötun retreated into the Aesir form. But it was quickly driven out by Loki’s next words. “You can tell her.”

“About you?” Byleistr barely even dared to ask, not wanting him to take it back but needing to know that he was sure. As much as he would hate to keep this from his mother, he did not want Loki to resent him for it. Not when the mage’s trust was so fragile, brittle from all the times the Hel-damned Aesir had shattered it.

Loki had never looked more uncomfortable, but he gave a short nod. “If you think she would want to know… I would not ask you to keep it from her.” His expression darkened. “I would not have secrets come between you.”

“Thank you,” Byleistr breathed. Unable to help himself, he darted forwards once more and hugged Loki to him. This time, however, his brother did not relax, stiff as a corpse in his arms. Not wanting to push him when he was so clearly at his limit, Byleistr retreated as quickly as he could bring himself to.

It was hard. He just wanted to wrap Loki up and never, ever let go again. But Farbauti needed to know – and Loki had been right to state that she was probably worried by now.

It took a minute for Loki to offer his hand, taking in overly deep breaths to calm himself. Byleistr made no comment on it, allowing him to compose himself, before the mage reached out. He took it without hesitation, and Loki gave him a soft countdown before they tumbled back through Yggdrasil and emerged on Jötunheim.

Almost before he could recover his bearings after the flash of almost painful everything-ness assaulting both his physical senses and newfound seidr, Byleistr found himself plucked from Loki’s side and span around to face his mother.

“Are you alright, ást minn?” she demanded. “You were gone nearly an hour.”

“I’m fine – it was just wonderful. I did not want to leave,” Byleistr gushed, his eyes alight with wonder. “Overwhelming, but… wow. Alfheim is so different. I did not know that there could be so many colours in one place, or how difficult it could be to walk in a forest.”

It was only once Farbauti had checked him over thoroughly and ensured herself that he was truly alright – more than alright – that she straightened up with an almost embarrassed cough and turned her focus on Loki. “Thank you. I… am sorry if I gave offence. It is just…”

The mage was already shaking his head, though there was something conflicted in his eyes when he looked at Farbauti that had not been there before. “He is your son and he was out of your reach, with a mage that you only truly met today. I would be more concerned had you not worried.”

Byleistr could feel some of the tension seeping from his mother from where she still had her hand on his shoulder. “Nonetheless, you have given my son a great gift. I have not seen By so excited since we came to Utgard for the first time.”

“It was my pleasure.” Loki was still keeping his distance, still tense, and Byleistr knew that he had to tell his mother now. It was surprisingly difficult – how did he even start to tell her something so life changing? – but he was determined. If he did not, Loki would world-walk straight back to Midgard and Byleistr might never see his brother again.

“Mother,” he began, his tone low and urgent, and then stopped. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Loki blanch a little and take another nervous half-step away, his hands clenched tightly into fists. Every line of his body screamed flight.

But he did not run.

“What is it?” Seeing his tension – and Loki’s – she frowned and placed her other hand on his other arm, so that they were standing nose to nose. “You know that you can tell me anything, hjarta minn.”

“I discovered something, in Alfheim. When we first arrived – it was overwhelming. There was just so much I had never felt before. Loki was holding my arm, trying to stabilise me, but I went into sensory overload. I lost control of myself.” He raised an arm, cooling it by choice this time so that even his mother could feel its bite. It would not injure another Jötun, but it was still a clear signal to back off.

Farbauti’s eyes widened slightly, her eyes darting to Loki. But she found no injury on him either, and Byleistr pressed on, “Loki… he turned blue.” His – their – mother’s eyes widened even further, obviously seeing the implications far more clearly than Byleistr, but she did not know yet know the depth of the lie that was Loki’s pale-skin.

“He was not adopted,” Byleistr bit out, harsher than he had perhaps intended but he could not help it. “He was kidnapped. From Jötunheim.” He took a deep breath. “From us.”

“Byleistr…”

“His arm turned Jötun blue,” he pressed on; now that he had started, the words came more easily. He would not, could not, stop until all the truth was out. “But it did not go cold. My hand was on his kin-lines, and they warmed under my touch.”

“It cannot be.” Old pain ripped deeply into Farbauti’s eyes, her voice hardly louder than a puff of air. “It is not possible. Hveðrungr died as a babe – the Butcher murdered him right here in this temple!”

“No,” Byleistr said, his voice quiet but no less full of rage. “The Deceiver found him and saw a bargaining tool.” Because he had no illusions that the Gallows God had taken Loki for any sentimental or altruistic reason. “He stole him, and raised him a changeling child upon Asgard, where they taught him to see his own kind as monsters.” His voice kept getting lower, rasping harshly as he tallied more wrongs Odin that had done to their family, wrongs that not one of them had even been aware of. “Loki found out the truth only when the Thunderer came to make war here and our warrior’s frost did not harm him – that he was one of us. And then Odin lied more, telling him he was abandoned for his size. In the temple, with the Casket.”

“Byleistr…”

“Odin took him, Mother,” He tried to smile at her, but it probably came out as a grimace. “But he came back.”

“This is the truth?” Farbauti choked out, turning beseeching red eyes on Loki.

The mage had not moved, had not spoken, only continued to tense until just looking at him made Byleistr’s spine ache. Farbauti’s entreaty, however, reached him through whatever fog his brain had descended into. Taking a deep breath, Loki let the blue seep over his skin again.

He did not look at them, his eyes pinned to the smooth floor as if its endless surface was etched with the truth of the universe, and so he did not see Farbauti reach out a quivering hand, her eyes spilling over with crystallised tears. Those kin lines… an illusionist, as Loki had already proved to be, could in theory fake them, but they would still warm only under the touch of blood family. And Loki would not have known how to falsify them so perfectly as to match Farbauti, Laufey and Byleistr whilst keeping the subtle delineations that marked him first born, Heir.

No, there was no denying whose child Loki was. Not when his similarity to Farbauti was only enhanced by their proximity.

His – their – mother let out a quiet cry, visibly trembling as she crossed the space between her and Loki on unsteady feet. The newly-discovered Jötun could not help but glance up at the sound, and something indescribable passed between them as twin ruby eyes met.

Gently, oh so tenderly, Farbauti ran a shaking finger down the lines on Loki’s arm, the ones marking him Farbautibarn. Fear skittered fleetingly over his face, but she only inhaled sharply in shock and then placed her hand flat on his wrist.

A heartbeat later, Loki was practically being crushed to her chest. “Mine,” she rumbled, her eyes darkening with something primal and possessive. “My son.”

Loki had gone stiff again – it seemed to be his natural reaction to being embraced – but after only a moment he seemed to realise that, whilst tight, the hug was not crushing. He took in a deep breath, and Byleistr knew the moment her scent registered – speaking to the deep instinct in all Jötnar that identified their dams. Children were near-sacred on Jötunheim, especially once the realm’s seidr had weakened enough that the talented ones (like Loki, and even Byleistr himself) seldom survived. The bond a child had with their mother… it was something unmistakable, even for a child stolen in his first month, as Hveðrungr  – Loki –  had been.

“My child,” Farbauti whispered, resting her head atop his. “My Hveðrungr .”

“You… named me?”

Despite all Byleistr had told him, Loki sounded so bewildered that an appalled cry left Farbauti’s lips. “Of course. You- Hve- Loki. I do not know what Odin,” like Byleistr, she spat the name, “told you, but you were – are – my son, and I loved you so very much. So much. Never doubt that, kind minn. You were loved, you were wanted… and if I ever come face to face with the Deceiver again, I will claw out his other eye for stealing you from me!”

Shock flashed briefly over Loki’s face – the mage was clearly at his very limit. Hearing that he had been wanted seemed to undo him in a way that even describing his own trials before and after he fell into the Titan’s grasp had not.  

Sensing Loki tensing again, Farbauti drew back and carefully ran her hand through his hair. He leaned into her touch, eyes half-closed, as she struggled to regain her composure. “Loki, my Loki, my Hveðrungr , my heart. My child. You are home at last. You are mine, and I am not letting you go again.”

Chapter Text

Things went in a whirlwind after that. Farbauti had embraced him for long minutes, unwilling to let him leave her arms when she had so long believed him dead, and Byleistr had hardly needed any prompting to join in.

The both of them were utterly accepting in a way that Loki had never experienced. It had felt like forgiveness, forgiveness and salvation and love. It had been so long since Loki had been touched that way – like he was precious, treasured. So long since anyone at all had been gentle towards him.

He had cried. But there had been none of the shame that he would have assuredly felt on Asgard, for Farbauti had cried too, her tears crystallising into ice the moment they left her eyes as she wept unashamedly.

Even when they had let go of each other, Farbauti had not let him go far. She had instead swept him to the palace, insisted on introducing him to the court, officialising his place in her family. He would not be a dirty secret, would not be a shadow prince. Not on the realm that was always supposed to be his home, the icy wasteland of a planet that had shown Loki more warmth than he had ever believed possible.

Treated him as if it was his due. Defended him and his actions in a trial that was barely less a sham than some in Odin’s court, only this time the ruler was fully in Loki’s favour.

It had astonished him, however, just how willing the whole realm seemed to be to go along with it. It had brought Farbauti to tears once more that he had not realised that they might be thankful for his restoration of their realm’s core, the salvation that they had long lost any hope for, had seen it only as his due, so long accustomed to cleaning up Thor’s messes.

That here, on this realm he had long been taught was one of monsters, he could be revered. Adored. Because somehow, it was true. Of course there were dissenters (whose catcalls had, ironically, relaxed him. It was what he was accustomed to, and a realm where people were willing to actually express their dissatisfactions was something of a reassurance after so long under Odin’s stifling fist), but after only a month on Jötunheim he had been gifted the kind of adulation that he had only ever seen given to Thor.

It was strange. So very, very strange to be welcomed in every home, to walk into the marketplace not to whispers and jeers but to bows and excited greetings, to have the sellers press their wares on him for free rather than counting out every coin. To have his seidr greeted with curiosity and wonder instead of scorn.

He knew he could not stay. There was much to do, so many things he could do to prepare for the Titan’s inevitable arrival.

(Because he would come. If there was anything Loki was sure of, it was that. It had not been a threat but a promise that the Other had given him – that there would be no crevice, no barren mood, where Loki could hide from him.

Loki was not a coward, no matter how many times Aesir had whispered the word or even spat it in his face. He had no intention of hiding.

Instead he would make Thanos regret that he had ever plucked Loki from freefall and believed him a weapon, a tool.)

Neither would he risk this newfound realm, a realm already fostering a loyalty in him deeper than the devotion he had once had for Asgard, by drawing attention to it. From the Titan, or from Odin, who would no doubt have no qualms about tearing Jötunheim asunder once more in pursuit of Loki.

He could hide himself from Heimdall, but not the entire realm. He had neither the power nor the ability to do so in a way that would not draw attention in and of itself – the Gatekeeper could hardly miss an entire realm suddenly vanishing from his perception. And Farbauti had lived up to her promises – he was no dirty secret, not a secret at all.

If he remained, Heimdall would notice that Jötunheim’s royal family had gotten a new member. Since Loki was the only one the gatekeeper was aware to be hidden from view and because the Aesir was well aware of his heritage (not that Loki regretted that. Heimdall had never been shy about his disapproval of Loki, and the memory of freezing him in place with the Casket was one Loki found himself fond of), Odin would doubtless send someone to investigate.

He might even send Thor. Because that had gone so well last time.

Another war would not end well for Jötunheim. The Bifröst might be broken for now, but repairs had been well underway when Loki had stolen Odin’s library under his nose and it would not be long before the Aesir would be free to subjugate the Nine once more.

He had to leave. But it would not be forever, he had promised his mother and brother that – the had given him a home, as easily and genuinely as if to do otherwise had never crossed their mind, and Loki was welcome there as he had never been welcome anywhere else in the Nine, or the wider universe. Had a place and a people to return to, and by the Ancestors he would fight for it.

(Farbauti had watched him grow, and blossom, and she was so indescribably proud of him. So proud, and also incandescent with rage that the Deceiver had ever denied her this, her powerful, beautiful, wonderful son.

Yet he had not truly had Loki. The loyalty he was capable of, the person that he was, so cautious and yet willing to love so deeply… she shuddered to think of this kind of power in Odin’s hands. How had he never realised what he had?)

Farbauti’s son would return. But there were things to be dealt with first; he would not truly rest until he had done so. And she refused to cage him as the Aesir had, attempting to force him into something he was not, and so reluctantly she agreed to let him go.

It was a calm, clear night when Loki left Jötunheim, the kind that had become increasingly common as the realm’s seidr stabilised. A perfect night for stargazing, which Byleistr had tried to tempt him with in order to get him to stay, but Loki was resolute even as regret coiled in his veins.

Farbauti, too, had tried to persuade him to at least wait until the morning. Unfortunately that had also been the plan the previous day, before a group of highborn children had decided to take a shortcut through one of the few still-unstable icefields and found themselves tumbling down a crevasse. There was always something to be done on Jötunheim – it was so much busier and more alive than stagnant Asgard – and if he stayed the night, no doubt something would come up in the morning in urgent need of his attention.

As much as Loki longed to stay, he knew that he had dallied as long as he dared – months past the short week he had allotted for restoring Jötunheim’s anchor, before he had known that he had family here to miss. Before he believed that a realm he had done such harm to would ever allow him to stay, let alone welcome him with a family and a stunning appreciation for gifts that Asgard had always scorned.

If he forever stayed one more day, he would never leave. And no matter how he hated to deny his newfound mother, there were still things that Loki needed to do.

Their constant insistence did not irritate him the way Thor’s always did. Instead their words had warmed him in a way that he had long been starved for, at least before Jötunheim. Their desire for him to stay was born from a genuine concern for his wellbeing and desire for his company, so very different from the suspicion and need for control that characterised Odin’s house.

If the events following Thor’s banishment had not convinced Loki never to return to Asgard, then this would have. Jötunheim, the realm long derided as that of monsters, had shown him what a family was truly supposed to be.

Sometimes it was hard, sometimes it hurt – Yggdrasil knew that he had made plenty of cultural blunders at first, and none of them had quite known how to treat the others after so long apart and so much grief – but all of them were making an effort, not just Loki. That meant more for him than any soft words from Frigga or bold declarations from Thor, because the Jötnar were actually trying and not just paying lip service.

Whilst they had argued, often even, Loki’s words had been listened to and believed in a way a year previously he would not have thought possible – not for him, not for the Liesmith. Not once had he ended up in the dungeons for disagreeing with Farbauti despite her status of ruler of the realm.

As ruler, too, she differed vastly from Odin. The vaunted All Father would never be seen away from his hallowed throne, mingling with common people, except in war. But Farbauti barely cared for appearances, and whenever she could manage time away from the court (ah, court. They remained the same throughout all realms, festering pits of politics and bullshit. But here he was not punished for his sharp tongue and quick wit – here Farbauti laughed at his antics behind closed doors and Byleistr looked at him like he had hung the moon whenever Loki came to his brother’s defence) the Queen could often be found lending her considerable seidr to rebuilding, whether that was in the lofty halls of Jötunheim’s trading district or the darkened outskirts of the city, what could only be called a slum.

She cared for her people, and many of them adored her for it. And when she accepted Loki, many of them did too – some even held him in reverence, once she had revealed his part in the restoration of the realm. It was a strange experience for one who had always been a shadow prince, reviled and mistrusted. In many ways the handful of Jötnar who had still glowered at him despite their queen’s support had been almost comforting, something familiar in this new world.

Asgard really had done a number on him.

Wrenching his mind away from painful topics, Loki nearly growled in frustration when he realised that, yet again, he had been subconsciously following the scent of singing ice back through Yggdrasil to Jötunheim. Leaving should not have been so hard; he had always been a wanderer and since learning to world walk he had never been content to stay in a single realm for too long. He had not been turned around quite so much on Yggdrasil’s branches since the year when he had first taught himself to navigate Her.

This time he kept his mind firmly on the present, following the scent of petrol and rot – mortality – towards Midgard. He was using the realm as a safehouse for several reasons, not least the fact that he knew that both the Titan and the Stones would inevitably be drawn here.

After being trapped for so long on the inappropriately-named Sanctuary, the Titan was not difficult for the Trickster to predict. Thanos had never taken well to being denied anything, and Loki and Midgard had cost him the Space and Mind stones as well as a good chunk of Chitauri.

The drones could replenish themselves easily enough but it was the defeat that mattered. The Titan would never be able to resist attempting to prove his superiority. Plus there was the matter of his need to reacquire the Mind Stone, which Thor had left there.

Additionally, Loki strongly suspected that the rest of the stones were also likely to turn up on Midgard. They wanted to be together, attracted one another, and having two of them in one place would have been a beacon to the rest. Additionally, although they had long been thought lost, he suspected there to be a third stone already on the realm, the Time stone. He had found traces of it there before, amongst a sect of dimensional magic users.

(It was a practice Loki himself disdained; the theory was interesting, but in reality using such powers was likely to draw the attention of extradimensional entities that Midgard was far from prepared to deal with. The ‘Mystic threats’ the sect claimed to guard against would hardly be interested in the realm at all if not for the meddling of those very same mortals.)

Midgard’s final attraction was that it was likely the safest of the realms for him to hide out in. Few would suspect that he would remain there, the site of his ‘defeat,’ and, whilst Loki could acknowledged that certain mortals could be both clever and cunning, theirs was the only realm amongst the Nine with no true understanding of seidr. For all their innovation, they had yet to create tools that could guard against Loki’s skillset. And with the Bifröst broken, there would be no one to warn them even if for any reason his shields did slip.

For a moment, his thoughts flashed back to Jötunheim. Surprisingly, the ice realm was also a place of safety for him – but although Farbauti had offered sanctuary freely, he had no desire to bring more grief to his birth realm by attracting Odin’s attention to it (or, Helheim forbid, the Titan’s). Not when they still bore the scars of the last time the Deceiver had turned his eye on it.

This time he caught his mind wandering and refocused on Midgard in time to avoid turning around, but in the process something new caught his attention. A flicker of self – blood. His, to be exact – a familiar knot in Yggdrasil, marked with lingering strains of potent seidr.

The branches were not a physical place, could not be stained, but here Loki had bled within Her embrace and that left its own kind of mark. As a mage his blood bubbled with power and enough of it had been lost that it had left a kind of beacon. It was a crude way of marking places but an effective one; Loki instantly recognised the intersection his feet had brought him to.

New York. He hesitated only an instant before making a decision. Why not? He had not visited the city since his escape, and no matter its necessity a flicker of guilt still persisted for the damage the invasion had caused. It would be interesting to see how much of it had healed – interesting also to check up on Thor’s little pets, the Avengers. Perhaps they would be a useful distraction during the Titan’s next move (likely sending his children, if Loki understood them at all. Always so ready to do his dirty work).

With a slight frown, Loki relinquished the natural cold of his birth form and slid into a warmer skin, the blue fading. He no longer had any issue with his Jötun features, had indeed grown to love the delicate kin lines and better vision, the warmth that promised home and family whenever Farbauti or Byleistr brushed against him, but unfortunately blue skin would not be much more welcome on Midgard than Asgard.

Another twist of magic and his features morphed away from the black hair green eyes pale skin he had worn all his life, lightening and darkening his features until he was an utterly nondescript mortal, brown haired and dull eyed. He could not be too careful in returning to the scene of the crime, as it were.

A final flicker coiled a shimmering skein of seidr around him, brushing close as a lover against his skin. It would twist light seamlessly around his form, rendering him invisible for the brief period when he stepped through to Midgard. Perhaps it was paranoia, but if the mortals were to be monitoring any place for his return it would be this. He had not been subtle when he had fled this city.

With a small flutter of his energy against Yggdrasil, almost a goodbye, he ducked through the natural opening and phased through the same tree trunk that had gifted him his escape all those months ago.

He was met with an immediate assault on his senses. He had, of course, been prepared for an onslaught of noise and fumes (the pollution was one of the things he disliked most about Midgard, and a legitimate reason for scorning the mortals. What kind of creatures poisoned their own planet so foully? It was one of many reasons that most other realms used seidr instead of cruder energy), but this was excessive even for mortal standards.

No, not mortal; human, Loki reminded himself. He was to play a part, now, unremarkable and unmemorable, but even if he spoke to no one it was still a courtesy to use their own terminology. Loki had been raised a prince, was still a prince. He had ever understood the meaning of diplomacy, and it had been a delight that Farbauti and Byleistr did also. That meant adjusting to other races viewpoints when on their world, and addressing them in terms of their choosing. Jötun, not frost giant. Human, not mortal.

Mindset corrected, he looked around him, mouth set in a small moue of distaste. The city around him was full of crashing noises and broken glass, almost as bad as the invasion had left it all those months ago. There were bodies lying on the street, gleaming strangely – were they metal?

Huh. From what Loki remembered, the only humanoid robot Earth boasted was the suit Anthony Stark had worn. Clearly, things had changed in his absence, as they so often did on this realm. But not for the better, he remarked in his own head as he had to step to the side to avoid another robot crashing to the ground, frowning at it in distaste.

It was crude – exceptionally so – but there was a trace of the humans’ dimensional magics running through the robot’s battered circuits. It was why the thing was still twitching despite having had half of its wires yanked out the back of its neck. Interesting.

Loki looked around to check for watchers. Oh, there was the Iron Man, doing battle with yet another robot on the roof of a skyscraper. The streets were mostly deserted, the mort-humans cowering in the buildings around him. Unfortunately, there were also the metal eyes to be considered – a camera that had not been there during his ‘invasion’ was centred right on the tree he had emerged from, a shiny STARK logo embossed in the corner. Its scope was wide enough to catch the fallen robot in the very corner of its video.

So the humans – Stark, at least – were watching this exit point. It was always nice to have his paranoia vindicated, even if it was irritating that it prevented Loki from taking the metal-magic construct for study.

He would have to make contact with the dimensional magic users eventually, after all, either to find Time or to verify a dead end. And potentially cause a little havoc – he had mostly refrained from causing mischief on Jötunheim, restraining his antics to playing with Court and teasing Byleistr (who, unlike Thor, never took real offense), but the time spent with his family (a word that still made him shiver for reasons so very different to the wariness that came with Odin) had restored his penchant for it.

Better to find a construct that was not being watched, however. The robot attack appeared to have caused damage to various parts of the city, including its network of cameras, so it should not be too hard to find an area without surveillance.

It also meant getting closer to the fight, but that was hardly an issue. It would be a good opportunity to assess the Avengers now that they had had some time to integrate properly as a team and Loki was not half out of his mind.  With that thought, the Jötun retreated out of range of the Stark-cam and then dropped both his humanoid form and his invisibility, shrinking into an ordinary pigeon.

A few flaps of his wings acclimatised him to the form, and then he was off, climbing swiftly to perch on the top of a building opposite Iron Man and the robot which happened to be clear of surveillance.

Loathe as he was to admit it, he did somewhat understand Thor’s love of flight – it was freedom, pure and simple. Although Loki far preferred crafting his own wings to the crude hammer that the Thunderer resorted to.

Ugh. There were also disadvantages to this form, of course – its simpler brain was far more easily distracted, and Loki had to concentrate on his own self humming underneath so as to refocus on his goal.

Stark was still battling a single robot. Loki tilted his head, wondering what was taking him so long. The two automata should not be comparable; the energy source at the centre of Iron Man’s chest radiated a distinctive power, far more so than the new robot. It was reminiscent of the Tesseract itself, which might explain why its resistance to Mind. The armour had been far more effective against the Chitauri despite that having been several months ago.

Stark was heralded on this world as a genius, and there was no true sentience to the other machines. Surely the inventor would have improved his suit enough to take down ordinary robots, no matter the dimensional energy saturating them? Yet he did not seem to be able to hit his opponent at all.

Pigeons had surprisingly good eyesight, but the lack of depth perception was strange and it was rather more difficult to focus on moving objects than it was for Jötnar. Mimicking the bird’s natural behaviour by bobbing his head up and down felt ridiculous but it did help compensate for the differences, allowing him a better picture of what was going on.

It was interesting. The bursts of tesseract-adjacent energy from Iron Man were actually on target, but his gauntlets projected their intent. The robot seemed able to calculate their trajectory near-instantly and get out of the way. Its movement was jerky and it was far too preoccupied to retaliate with its own attacks, but it was enough to force a stalemate.

No matter how fast Stark got his repulsors to fire, the robot remained ever so slightly faster. The human was clearly directing his blasts to corner it against the building currently serving as Loki’s perch, but just when it looked as if he had it trapped there was a spike of dimensional energy and space warped slightly, the blast bending an inch to the right whilst the robot twisted left. The two passed within millimetres of each other. A black scorch mark was left on the robots gleaming carapace but its function remained unimpaired.

A frustrated huff echoed through Iron Man’s speakers before a panel at the top of his arm popped off and released something small and metallic. It travelled fast enough that Loki’s pigeon eyes struggled to make it out, but it quickly became clear that it was some kind of targeted missile when it locked onto what appeared to be the automaton's blast prediction system.

The robot made what seemed like a half-hearted (if the metal creature had a heart, which it did not – no functioning brain either, at least not one seidr could recognised. Then again, the only inorganic being Loki had thus far sensed on Midgard had been centralised within Stark’s tower) attempt at dodging, but the missile struck true. A small explosion knocked out some crucial circuit, and the robot began to jerk in place even before Iron Man nailed it with three repulsor blasts in a row.

The blows seemed to cost him, as his hand then pressed over the device in his chest as if it were paining him. Loki blinked, clearing and focusing his vision, but was distracted from his scrutiny of the human by an obnoxious squealing sound.

Whilst a robot did not necessarily have the same weak points as a human, Stark must have hit something vital because his opponent had dropped like the hunk of metal it was (crude but surprisingly functional). It landed on the same roof as Loki, who blinked at it. As it skittered towards him, the pigeon-shaped Jötun found himself idly contemplating what he knew of Midgardian technology.

Heat seeking? Would that work on a robot? Well, it was working pretty hard to calculate the trajectory of those blasts – that could conceivably have generated enough thermal energy as a byproduct to register on a responsive enough sensor. Neither did its sensors appear to work very well on the missile itself; not programmed for it, perhaps? Iron Man is a well-known figure on this planet and his repulsors are likewise common knowledge, therefore it is plausible that someone might have designed these bots with them specifically in mind. And…

Loki cut his own (distracted, again. Hel-damned bird-brain) thoughts off as he became aware that the ‘eyes’ of the Iron Man faceplate were turned directly towards him. His hand had come away from the device in the chestplate, back at his side to stabilise his flight and also ready to aim at a moment’s notice, and he was looking right at Loki.

Oh. Right. He was perfectly visible, and an ordinary bird probably would have flown off at the commotion.

Then again, from what he knew of Midgardian pigeons… they were like the pyske of Alfheim in that they were commonly hailed as completely fearless nuisances, and the birds were fully adapted to the metal-and-concrete hellscapes the humans so favoured. Loki let out a coo, then awkwardly bobbed his way over to the fallen automaton, pecking at it as if testing whether it was food.

Stark let out a snort and turned away, shaking his head slightly. Loki even caught a muffled murmuring from within the suit, something about feathery menaces. Likely inaudible to humans, but then their senses were all relatively pathetic – even a pigeon had better hearing than they did.

(It did make the things they accomplished in spite of this more impressive in comparison. Rather like the ants he had once compared them to, in fact.)

Once he was certain that Iron Man was out of sight, Loki gave the fallen robot a metaphysical poke with his seidr. The dimensional energy that he sensed within it had not totally dissipated. It could no longer move, as it had before, but it was definitely still doing something.

With a curious flutter of feathers, Loki submerged himself into mage-sight. His seidr could act as ‘eyes’ that allowed him to ‘see’ the energies of the world. It mostly blinded him to his surroundings, but he was confident that the fallen android did not constitute a danger to him (especially not when he seemed to all the world an ordinary pigeon, save the dark green hint in his eyes, the tell of seidr-sensing) and there was nothing else in the vicinity.

What he found was certainly interesting. The dimensional energy was not just coming from the construct (it was a construct at least as much as it was a robot; Loki had seldom seen someone meld extra-dimensional energies with technology in this way. It was far from an elegant solution, but quite clever in its own limited way) but from a thin thread that connected it to… something. A web over the city, perhaps?

No, nothing so coordinated – more like a mess of individual strings, one of which trailed down the side of the building to the fallen bot he had encountered earlier.

Puppetry, perhaps? It would explain the robot’s rudimentary decision-making despite it having little sentience, but did not seem quite right – if it were true puppetry then the robot would have continued to move until either the connection was cut or it was totally destroyed. This was more… communication.

Curious, Loki wove his own seidr into something akin to a receiver, tuning it to the specific dimensional frequency that the robot’s builder seemed to favour. There was nothing protecting the system, which would have been insulting had it been built to counter Loki but was perhaps understandable (if still pathetic) on a realm that only had the basest understanding of just what they were poking their sticky fingers into.

He did nothing to disrupt the flow, only copying it, the readout recorded into one of the many blank books he had kept in his dimensional pocket for situations just like this. Additionally, he let part of it scroll out before his eyes in minute green swirls made purely of his own seidr – it would look extremely suspicious had any of it been visible to ordinary eyes rather than solely mage-sense.

Hm. A long string of highs and lows – ones and zeroes– which fit with what he had observed so far: technology and magic intertwined. Likely this was one of their programming languages, feeding into a computer at a remote location, and sent through dimensional magic in order to prevent Stark from discovering it.

It could be an entertaining side project, Loki supposed, but he did not need to decode it to divine its purpose. Not when its actions made that abundantly clear. Collecting and sending data; the Avengers had made enough of a mark on this planet that they were attracting marginally intelligent enemies. Clever enough to send scouts rather than reveal their hand outright.

It would not do for Loki himself to be caught in the trap, of course. Dismissing the readouts with a flutter of a wing, the Jötun mage submerged himself fully in the pigeon persona. Green fading from his eyes, he pecked once more at the robot before hopping into the air and flapping away.

He still wanted to examine it more closely, but he did not want to alert its creator that there was another interested party. That meant that there had to be a plausible reason for its sending to cease – and no suspicious birds in its vicinity.

Once he had swooped out of the robots sightline and into one of the many camera blind spots created in the attack, Loki drew invisibility back over himself, this time being careful to include extra-dimensional sensors of similar frequencies to the robots in the spell’s parameters. Then he wheeled around and headed for the metal frame suspended above the hapless construct.

Already weakened by Iron Man’s attacks (was anyone paying for the collateral damage to the city? Stark had not been careful with those repulsor blasts), it did not take much coaxing from an invisible Jötun (ice powers were useful, useful things. And damn the Aesir whose prejudice against the Jötnar had barred him from ever experimenting with anything similar before. They might just about tolerate a prince who dabbled in the womanly arts, but traditionally Jötnar elemental powers? Odin – quite literally – forbid!) before it was groaning and swaying alarmingly.

The robot twitched, clearly identifying the danger, but Stark had been thorough when he had crippled its movement magic. It managed nothing more than a futile whine before the entire structure (some kind of advertising. Humans were strange creatures) crashed down on its head.

Subtle green swirls directed most of the wreckage towards the robot, and half a second after impact Loki’s seidr thickened as he abruptly cut every connection to extra energies away. The metal fizzled and sparked, but mage-sense confirmed that it was no longer transmitting – and never would again, as an inbuilt self-destruct further mangled both physical and metaphysical wiring.

Apparently the creator really did not want its capabilities discovered, presumably by Stark. Too bad they were trying to combat a master mage rather than a tech genius; Loki had deduced enough already.

He was never one to dismiss a learning opportunity, however, so Loki folded it away in the same dimensional pocket as the book with its intercepted transmissions.

Finished with his little side quest, Loki decided that he had seen quite enough of New York for the day. With the attack still mostly ongoing but its conclusion already set (scouts were not sent with the purpose of winning), there was little point in Loki’s continued presence. He would have no way of judging whether or not the damage he saw to the city was a result of his (not his) invasion or this newest incursion and he had no desire to stay any longer than necessary in the noise and smog that humans called ‘civilisation.’

Unfortunately, the camera that Stark had built to cover the pathway to Yggdrasil had not even been scratched by the robot infestation, so it would be safest if Loki abandoned it for the next few decades. Nor did he particularly want to have to worry about more of the scouts catching a hint of his energy and transmitting it to the attacker. With an irritated flutter of feathers, he took wing and resigned himself to searching for a different pathway.

It was not his only option, of course. His seidr had more than recovered enough to teleport, but it was wasteful to use that much magical power when matters were not urgent – not to mention that there were ways to track such things. True, Earth had no mages capable of it (the so-called sorcerers did not count; they used dimensional energy, which was not at all the same thing as seidr), but Loki had many enemies now and it never hurt to be cautious.

(Well, unless Thor and his Idiots were around to call it being ‘sneaky’ and ‘up to something’. But Loki was now free of Thor… and thoroughly ignoring the ache that such thoughts still triggered.)

It did not take him long. The wind was cool and pleasant underwing despite the polluted miasma Midgardians called air, and he revelled in the freedom of flight as he watched over the city from above. The areas clear of shiny metal bodies seemed mostly recovered, which was mildly relieving, and Loki caught glimpses of several Avengers engaged in their own duels with the scouts.

Their teamwork had improved, and he was pleased to see that the bonds he was partly responsible for forging (yes, he was claiming credit for that. It was always nice to see plans coming together even when his brain was, as Banner had so delicately put it, like a ‘bag full of cats’) had only strengthened in the last few months. Perhaps the humans might be able to defend themselves a bit better in the future. He had little hope of them standing against Thanos, though.

They were creative little things but they had struggled against the Chitauri, whose hive mind was such a glaring weakness that they had never been considered a major threat on any other realm. He dreaded to think what might have happened had Thanos put his Outriders at the Other’s disposal instead.

Shaking away shadows of nightmares, Loki tucked his wings in and dove towards the streets, seeking to outpace his scattered thoughts in a rush of speed. He opened his senses as he dropped towards the ground, eyes a little glazed as he sought out Yggdrasil rather than any visual indicator.

A snatch of song steered him southwards – he could coax a branch closer in many places where they neared the surface, one on practically every second street, but it was always easier to work within Her natural flow.

The tree had been a strong anchor point, unlikely to move and easy to access. That kind of pathway would remain in place for decades, possibly centuries, and traversing it required no more seidr than a simple illusion. That was what he was seeking – because New York had been touched by two infinity stones, which resulted in a convergence of energy that would likely attract more conflict in the future. It was always best to have a way out prepared well before it was ever needed; it was why Loki had so many safehouses on so many different realms. Including, as of a few weeks ago, Jötunheim.

Finally he found what he was looking for as he swept beneath the Brooklyn Bridge. A stretch of riverbank called to him, and with the ease of long practice he aligned himself with Yggdrasil’s energy and slipped from Midgard’s surface with nary a whisper.

The Void reformed around him, and although it still sent shivers lancing through Loki’s heart he refused to give it any power over him. He had been back here many times, and he no longer harboured the desire to let go. Not when he had a newly rediscovered family waiting for him on Jötunheim. Not when he still had to make a certain purple megalomaniac pay.

(And, perhaps, not before he rubbed it in the Allfather’s face that he was a stolen relic after all. A treasure that Farbauti was only too pleased to have back.)

He marked the place with a glowing ember of seidr (he was relatively confident that he could find it again even without, but even seconds could be critical in an emergency and he had already affirmed his belief that New York had become the hotspot for tension on Midgard) and returned to his own form. Whilst he might now be capable of traversing the seeming emptiness without shrouding his eyes in waves of magic or collapsing in base panic, using wings in a space with no air current or resistance of any kind was disconcerting.

The detour had distracted him enough that Loki no longer found himself so drawn to the whispers of glacial music,  able to discern the crisp plainness of Midgardian snow from the rich depths of Jötunheim’s diversities of ice. It was a work of moments to slide through the gaps between tangibility and emerge over a thousand miles northwards.

The cabin had become something of a safe space during his long months of recuperation. Yet now Loki looked around at the quaint log walls and rustic furnishings and felt a cold that had nothing at all to do with the Canadian snow piled up against the door or the wind whistling past the windows.

His wards kept the space well insulated, even with his longer-than-expected absence, and it was certainly warmer outside than it had been on Jötunheim. By any measure, the temperature was pleasant. Still, Loki’s skin flushed a deeper shade of blue, his body naturally trying to adapt to a perceived chill.

That had been fascinating to learn, that Jötnar naturally adapted to changes in temperature by producing more or less of the same chemical responsible for their blue appearance. Their skin deepened in colour due to something of an anti-freezing agent so that their blood did not ice even in the depths of winter.

Even better, Byleistr had never mocked him for needing to ask about things that were common knowledge to infants on their realm – had answered questions that Loki had been hesitant to even voice aloud, reading and responding to inquisitive eye flicks the way it had taken Thor literal centuries to learn. He had not once felt the need to delve into Jötunheim’s library (although desire was another thing entirely; Loki loved to read, and the thought of a whole new realm full of books to explore had him salivating) because Byleistr never showed a single sign of impatience or judgement.

Frowning, Loki concentrated and managed to lighten his skin tone again. Whilst primarily a reaction to temperature, the darker coloration could also be taken as a demonstration of discomfort and Loki had spent too much time on politics to allow himself so blatant a tell, especially when entering a cutthroat foreign court.

It was a familiar feeling, not wanting to disappoint his family – only this family had wrapped him up in embraces and reassurances, that he was welcome no matter his behaviour. For Ancestor’s sake, they had both forgiven him for attempting to destroy their realm. His Jötun family had responded to his biting sarcasm and sometimes brutal political manoeuvring with acceptance and even praise.

(The stuck-up Lord who had attempted to use Loki’s newfound presence and immediate acceptance to provoke and discredit Byleistr had not returned to Court at all after his very public and brutal political slaughter at Loki’s hands. The Mage was not one little bit repentant (he was well aware of his possessive tendencies and Byleistr was his), but it had been something of a shock that upon getting him in private his brother had hugged him and murmured his thanks whilst his dam had looked on with pride.

It was so very alien to what he had become accustomed to; Odin would have thrown a royal fit, shouting at him for causing an incident before coming up with some kind of humiliating punishment, like putting him at the beck and call of the very noble he had taken a dislike to. He would never have bothered to ask for the reason for Loki’s behaviour, always assuming the worst. Announcing that the mage was just being petty. Farbauti did not ask his reasons either, but there was a glint in her eyes that suggested that she simply did not need to.

Loki had always assumed that his intelligence had come from his mother. He was surer than ever that he had been correct, even if the mother in question was not Frigga.)

Colouring under control, Loki scanned the cabin for whatever was causing his unease. The prickle of seidr over his skin was familiar and strong, its reassurance easing his instincts – his sanctuary had not been breached. His wards were not impenetrable, but there were only a handful of mages in the Nine that could have broken them without significant backlash, and none of them without leaving some kind of trace.

No, the cabin was safe. It was just… cold. Empty.

Ludicrous. Of course it was empty – it was a safehouse; no one else had ever set foot here.

Oh.

Oh, that was unexpected. Loki had always liked his solitude, had sought out the library for peace and quiet. Unlike Thor, who was liable to pout whenever he spent more than an hour away from his fawning band of fools, Loki had always been more than happy in his own company. Even Frigga, whom he had loved dearly, had started to grate on him whenever he spent too long in her company, and there were days when the mere thought of leaving his room and dealing with the Aesir had set ants crawling under his skin.

He had never had a problem being alone. Yet now the silence seemed to echo through the empty cabin, pulsing like a heartbeat in his ears. Like a living entity.

He missed Jötunheim, he realised. Missed the scent of ice, clean and crisp without a hint of smog. Missed the open acceptance of walking around with blue skin, the zip of seiðr along his arms as the realm began to heal, the softly guttural tones of his birth language – one he understood more of every day, relishing the challenge of a whole new culture even as he mourned for all the centuries he had lost.

More than anything, he realised, he missed Farbauti and Byleistr. It had only been hours since he had seen them last and yet he was viscerally aware of just how far away they were, on an entirely different realm. He missed his younger brother’s constant chatter and steady explanations of every aspect of Jötnar life, missed the stable warmth of Farbauti’s gaze on his shoulder, reminding her that her child had been restored to her.

It was a strange thing, this hole in his chest. He had never, not once, felt this way about Asgard. Had always enjoyed escape from the Golden Realm, always been drawn back not by sentiment but by filial duty, the responsibilities of a prince, the expectations of a realm that did not understand wanderlust.

On occasion he had missed Frigga, but he had become accustomed to not seeing her for long stretches of time since he had first started accompanying Thor on his adventures many centuries ago. They had usually both kept in contact, Sendings – illusions that could talk but not touch, taking one’s full focus and therefore useful only for communication – allowing them to see each other when separated. She had her duties as All-Mother, whilst Loki had had his as Prince – they had grown further apart as he aged, as he grew bitter that she never truly took his side, offering platitudes but no real substance.

Thor… he had rarely been apart from Thor, a part of him fearing what peril the elder might get into without Loki there to watch him back. Or what messes Loki might have to clean up if he were not there to soothe volatile tempers and ease careless insults. Thor was loud, larger than life – his absence was always equally noticeable. Yet Loki had oft needed a break from Thor’s antics, and had scarcely been anything other than grateful for time to himself when separated. He could seldom remember times when he had truly missed Thor, not like he now missed his Jötun family.

He had never missed Odin. As much as he had longed for his false-father’s acceptance, being under Odin’s gaze had always burned as much as it thawed, his prevalent disapproval like a brand. The All-Father had always been too absorbed with ruling to be much of a father. His presence was constant but it was something distant, something colder than all the ice in Jötunheim.

How quickly Loki had become attached to his blood family. He wondered if they felt his absence even slightly as keenly as he felt theirs. If they wondered what he was up to on Midgard as Loki was now musing over which council member would trigger Farbauti’s behaviour today and if Byleistr had snuck out to watch the stars again or whether the absence of Loki’s cloaking magic meant that his brother had been caught by his own guards.

A glance out of the window proved that the travel, battle, and becoming lost in his thoughts (as well as the time difference between realms) had cost Loki most of the day. The sun was setting in a truly spectacular sunset, full of colours Aesir eyes would have been so utterly blind to. All those centuries, he had never known what he was missing.

It was still early, but Loki felt exhausted. A wave of his hand closed the shutters and lit the fire, the warm crackling driving away some of the quiet.

Tomorrow he would need to get back to plotting – finding the Mind Stone had to be a priority, as much as he despised that particular artefact. Not only had SHIELD already proven that they were perfectly happy to misuse an Infinity Stone, but Mind was one of two stones that Thanos already knew the location of and Midgard was far easier to attack than Asgard.

Tomorrow, though. Tonight he could rest.

Jötunheim had healed something in him, eased some of the pain he had almost forgotten was not natural, but the scar tissue was still tender. It had not been easy, not been truly restful. For all that Farbauti and Byleistr were insistent on getting to know as much of their real son and brother as possible, Loki had still been on show – the rest of the realm had not had familial sentiment to excuse him, after all, and after the unexpected gift of sanctuary Loki had been loathe to cause more problems for Jötunheim’s queen. No matter how insistent she was that he was welcome and had more than paid his debt with the restoration.

He tried to push it out of his mind. The idea that he was welcome, that Jötunheim could be home, was still uncomfortable, and such thoughts were not conducive to sleep. Yet his mind refused to quiet, even as he donned a simple sleeping robe and collapsed on the obscenely comfortable bed (the cabin might be quaint and outfitted in a centuries-old Midgardian style but Loki had been raised a prince – was still a prince, how bizarre – and liked his creature comforts).

His thoughts twisted and spun, and in his efforts to distract them from Jötunheim Loki ended up replaying the battle he had witnessed earlier. Specifically, his mind focused on Stark – on that final blast to the robot, and the way he had grasped his chest afterwards.

Loki had known about the arc reactor, of course. Specifically that it was a tesseract-based energy source that powered the man’s armour. But now he remembered back to when he had tried to use the sceptre on Stark, had tapped it against his chest. It had been a flat surface, or so close as made no difference.

Seiðrless beings could not twist dimensions. For the very first time, Loki realised the implications of that.

The power source was within Stark’s chest cavity. Deep within, if his chest could appear normally shaped aside from the bright glowing light. He had given it no thought during the invasion, had not had the capacity to spare on curiosity or concern, but now it was clear that something was very wrong with the reactor. It had pained him.

Stark was an intellectual genius. Barton had revealed that much to Loki. His greatest power was his brain, and yet the mortal had suited up to fight the worst of the world anyway, had come out of Afghanistan a changed and better man. After his stint on Sanctuary it was something Loki could very much respect. And yet perhaps, also like Loki, the man might not have actually truly recovered.

Stark was one of very few mortals who might have the power and influence to at least help to defend this planet when the universe turned a greater eye on it. Whether they would survive… well, Loki would not bet against Earth, having seen before how very quickly they could develop, but at the same time he knew how much more developed empires like the Kree and Thanos’s Black Order were. Stark… Stark was one of those few mortals born in centuries capable of kickstarting mass progress on the little backwater realm. His survival – or opposite – might very well have massive consequences for Midgard.

Unfortunately, Loki liked Midgard. Even more unfortunately, he owed Stark a debt. Taking the nuclear missile through the portal (yes, he knew what it was. Loki was not ignorant, thank you very much) had saved both the city and Loki at the same time, since he had nowhere near enough seiðr to escape the blast or subsequent radiation. Whilst he could dismiss most of the Avenger’s contributions to Loki’s escape from Thanos’s plan as part of his intricate plan to resist Mind, Stark was different. He had not thought it likely that the mortals would be so quick to destroy their own city (although it had been an acceptable risk at that point. Death over slavery) and had done nothing to manipulate the man into saving all their lives.

Which meant that he was unlikely to get any sleep tonight. Tangled thoughts of Jötunheim and Midgard would continue to chase themselves around his head until he did something about them, and with a groan Loki pried himself out of the warmth of his blanket nest.

Fine. He would go after Stark, and hope that this would be a problem that was simple to fix.

Chapter Text

It was not simple to fix.

Of course it wasn’t. Since when had anything in Loki’s life ever gone smoothly?

Neither travelling to New York (using his new branch that emerged under the Brooklyn Bridge) nor locating Stark’s abode (the obnoxious electrical tower in the middle of Manhattan) proved at all challenging, but knowing that Stark had gone to the trouble of videoing his original escape path had made Loki wary. He ended up a pigeon again, fluttering around the roof of the building next door, half of his mind devoted to putting up the just-an-innocent-bird front (why did humans have to have cameras everywhere? It was like being back under Heimdall’s gimlet stare) whilst the rest of him analysed the security.

He had not thought it would take much more than a moment, as typically it took seiðr to guard against seiðr and humans had neither inherent talent nor the time it took to master the field. Apprenticeships could last anywhere from centuries to millennium depending on the skill and dedication of the student, and humans simply did not live that long.

Except it had been nearly five minutes and here Loki was, still outside.

The building was, curse his own curiosity, interesting.

It was not only the fact that, whilst most of New York seemed to have rebuilt admirably, Stark’s monument to himself was still stained in several places. Nor that the obnoxious proclamation of “STARK” on its edge had not been fixed, the lone remaining A blinking stalwartly out at the city, although that combined with the building’s near-emptiness suggested that the building had been repurposed to fit the so-called “Avengers” rather than remaining the headquarters of Stark’s business. Most of Loki’s focus had instead been focused inwardly, on the humming energy throughout the building that he had not thought mortal’s could even sense.

The flavour of it was distinctive on his tongue, and yet off in a way that made goosebumps prickle along his skin. The tesseract, except not.

An energy source based on an infinity stone. Well. Stark really was a remarkable human, wasn’t he?

For a seiðrless being, it was actually a reasonably good defence against many of Loki’s more subtle talents. The energy was being piped through the whole building – self-sustaining energy, Barton’s stolen knowledge whispered in his mind – and would likely react to overt intrusions, making them obvious to anyone monitoring the building’s power. Moreover, it’s mere presence was so psychically loud that it made it very difficult to get a sense of what was within. Even Heimdall was likely blind to the interior – the tower would be so bright to his Sight that it would be akin to staring at the sun.

Loki hummed, the sound coming through the pigeon’s beak as an odd sort of chirp. The defence was by no means all-encompassing – he could think of a dozen ways off the top of his head to work around it, familiar with the Tesseract as he was – and would do nothing to someone just walking into its confines as he was planning, but still. For a human who likely had only built it for its energy output and not as a magical defence, it was immensely impressive.

Aggravating, also. It meant that Loki would need to enter the building and physically locate Stark rather than merely scanning it with mage-sight. Additionally, he could not even do a fly-past in pigeon form as animals were far more sensitive to energy currents and likely avoided the tower altogether; he descended off the roof at a leisurely glide, tucking himself into an alleyway opposite the entrance.

Invisibility would solve the problem, of course. He disliked relying on it, knowing all too well how easy it was to make it a crutch. Many security systems in other realms even relied upon it; there were a variety of ways to catch an unseen presence, which was a major flag that something illicit was taking place.

Not relying on invisibility as his primary means of misdirection had enabled Loki to practically walk into over a dozen supposedly “safeguarded” areas merely by appearing to belong there. He had seen enough mages caught due to reliance on invisibility alone that the thought of doing so himself was distinctly uncomfortable.

Still. Needs must.

To appease his own paranoia, Loki first shifted into a form neither his own nor fantasy. His scalp itched as his hair lengthened and bleached and his body ached as his whole makeup morphed, shrinking and growing in parts as he moulded himself like clay. Likewise, his clothing shimmered, tinting an eye-catching emerald even as it tightened into a low-cut dress. Rolling his shoulders, Loki stretched languidly, cat-like, then took a few steps to adjust to the new weight of his chest and altered anatomy.

For many shapeshifters (well, relatively; there were very few in any realm with the skillset), this kind of change was harder than twisting into animals – at least then the sensations were expected to be unfamiliar. Loki had always found it rather freeing, despite the scorn it had drawn from those few who had seen him at it. His female form had offered him many liberties, relative anonymity and freedom to pursue seidr-studies foremost among them, although he would admit that this particular shape offered none of them.

Then again, this was not himself, not Loki. This form belonged to Amora, an Asgardian enchantress who had somehow become enamoured with Thor. Some centuries ago she had stalked him relentlessly until Loki had intervened. With him and his brother now at odds, her presence in the tower would be sufficiently excusable as a resumption of old habits, and her seidrcraft was sufficient that Loki could justify using any magic that might occur to him without undue concern.

Weaving invisibility around the borrowed form like a cloak, Loki swayed slightly from side to side, turning his usual stalk into a prowl, shoulders back and chest out. Then he – she, now – fixed a coquettish smirk on her face and strode boldly straight into the tower.

No alarm went off, neither aloud or silently; she was keeping careful track of the flow of energy all around and there was no sudden disturbance in the electricity currents.

Inside, the lobby was all but deserted, a single Midgardian slumped half-asleep behind a counter. It was an impressive space; unreasonably large with a high, sweeping ceiling, all metal and glass. Very modern. In character, Loki let her nose wrinkle slightly, full lips pursing into a moue of distaste.  

Thor would have disliked the space but kept his mouth shut – as dense as he could be sometimes, he had been raised a Prince and by Frigga and Loki probably would have snapped centuries ago had he not possessed the very bare minimum of tact. As far as Loki was concerned, she could appreciate its elegance, all clean lines and sharp contrasts, but it was not to her taste either. (Then again, very little could measure up to the beauty of a snowstorm seen through Jötun eyes.) Amora, however, would have distained it completely – her sense of style was positively tacky (she had become enamoured with Thor, enough said) – and had never had any issue making her preferences known.

Sighing at the added complication, Loki contemplated her options. The ordinary way into the tower was out of the question; taking an elevator was hardly subtle. Neither would Amora have any knowledge of what they were. Instead, she resigned herself to a lot of stairs.

There was just the obstacle of the doors first. Electronically monitored, probably alarmed, a definite giveaway of an invisible presence… ugh. Loki was tired. This was rapidly devolving from an intriguing and useful side-trip to appease her conscience to becoming as much a chore as any quest Thor had ever dragged her on.

She should have just stayed in bed.

Still, she had come this far, though she suddenly found herself caring quite a lot less for stealth. Thor was not here – she would be able to feel Mjölnir if it were present anywhere in the building now that she was within the shielding.

It was not, and Thor would never go anywhere without his precious hammer. What could Midgardians do to her, really? They could not hold her before, not even with the oaf’s aid.

Arrogance was dangerous, but Loki was tired. All the caution was beginning to grate on her, and in this instance she was fairly sure it was unwarranted. This was no grand step in any plan; it was the repayment of a debt at most, so what would it truly matter if anyone found out she had been here?

Midgard was no longer her only refuge, after all. Jötunheim was open to her, and she might even be pleased to have the excuse to return.

Mind made up, she merely waited for the near-dozing Midgardian at the desk to turn and poke languidly at the screen in front of him before brushing open the door. A twist of seidr deadened electronic energy for the handful of seconds that it was open, and then she was through and it was done.

If nothing else, the stairs were a good test of her physical condition. Her thighs burned a little as she ascended right to the top, assuming that a billionaire with a flying suit of armour would position himself in the penthouse, but it was a pleasant warmth of exertion rather than something reminiscent of her time with Thanos. For a moment, a small but genuine smile graced her face as she allowed herself a second of pride at her recovery.

Unfortunately, the smile faded away as she exited the stairwell into an uncomfortably familiar penthouse. Her memories from that time were somewhat hazy with a bewildering mix of pain, fear and triumph, but she did not believe that she would ever forget this room. The walls and floor that had battered her body but freed her mind.

Morbidly, she hovered over the exact spot that her spine had cracked the marble flooring – but whatever company had done the repair had been thorough. Even Asgardian eyes could find no trace of the crater.

Darkly, she wondered if Jötun ones might, but as many risks as she was taking tonight and as uncomfortable as she found Amora’s guise she could not push herself quite that far. Instead she sighed and ghosted quickly through the other rooms, but they were cold and empty.

Someone did live here – there were expensive clothes in the wardrobe, fresh linens on the bed. A few personal items left on the counter in the bedroom. Most interesting was an old photo of a college-aged Stark and a black man both caught mid-laugh and more at ease than she had ever seen him. Not that an alien invasion nor a press camera were prime opportunities for relaxation. There was a whiskey tumbler left out on the bar – empty but still smelling of alcohol, an amber ring at the very bottom.

Despite the few signs of life, however, there was a lack of a certain something. Before Jötunheim, Loki might not have been able to identify it quite so quickly. Someone lived in these rooms, but it was not a home. A place to sleep and dress but not for spending time in.

It could explain why Stark was not in the bedroom at some ungodly hour of the morning. She would have to seek his sanctuary elsewhere, although hopefully still within the tower – she was not in the mood for a search of Midgard.

The energy permeating this tower was so irritating. Searching by hand was tedious.

Oh, Norns. She was beginning to sound like Amora as well.

Revolted at herself – since when was she repulsed by a little legwork? – Loki began to methodically work her way down the tower. The next few floors also appeared to be residential, and exploring them had the added bonus of confirming that this tower now housed the Avengers; the décor suggested one floor split between Romanoff and Barton, one between Rogers and Thor (he did not bother entering those rooms, the faint smell of ozone signifying both who lived there and that Thor had not been by in some time – assumedly still in Asgard. Had they not fixed the Bridge yet?), and a final one between Banner and his other half (did the Hulk make regular appearances? Back during the not-quite-invasion the Midgardians had all been terrified of him).

Below the Avengers were two floors that were empty and unused, but below that, Loki finally found what she was looking for. The first clue was the door; heavily reinforced, it was built of thick metal with a lock far more complex than those guarding the living quarters.

Despite the additional security, the same twist of seiðr as the bottom floor gave her access, and her breath actually caught in her throat. This was… she did not know where to look first.

This floor – two floors, actually; the barrier in between having been removed to create a larger space – did keep to the modern style of the whole building, but that was where the resemblance to the rest of the tower ended. There was clutter on every available surface, tools, gears and scraps of metals strewn over countless worktables. She stood on an upper balcony with a full view over the entire space, from the multitude of ongoing projects to the gleaming armour lining the walls. Each one was a clear progression from the next, displayed with pride. Another might have assumed them trophies, but a craftsperson would know them for what they were. Works of art.

Stark’s workroom. She had known that Stark was an engineer, a mechanic, a blacksmith, but she had not expected…

Grease and oil were everywhere, the space obviously Midgardian, and yet she had seldom ever seen a place so reminiscent of a mage’s workshop. The science might be different, limited purely to electricity rather than the full range of energies seiðr allowed manipulation of, but the principle of the space was the same. This was a place dedicated to discovery and creation, the joy of a mind rather than a body at work.

Loki was barely cognizant enough to close the door before she set off any alarms, too busy wondering at the space. Farbauti had had her own room for seiðr-craft, and her invitation of Loki’s presence there was a joy she yet carried in her heart like a hearth-fire, but Farbauti had been a queen first, a mother second and a seiðr-wielder last. Her crafting room had been every inch as opulent as one might expect from a royal, but she had not had the time to spend in it and it had been reflected in the flatness of the room’s energy. They felt similar to Loki’s own seiðr-spaces, mere niches she had carved out that had always needed to be kept hidden from the rest of Asgard. Seiðr was no appropriate calling for a Prince.

This… this was a room well-loved. Reverent, Loki stepped further inside, allowing herself to grip the railing as her seiðr hummed inside of her, the energy of the room calling to her like a siren. She had not experienced its like since she had last spent time on Alfheim, amongst the quiet paradise of the Ljosalfar. It had been nearly a century.

There was a quiet groan, the metal of the railing bending under her grip. Loki closed her eyes and inhaled, forcing herself to let go of both the guardrail and her own nostalgia. She had a purpose here, and it was not to bask. She had not been invited here, was not welcome.

Her exhale was heavy, a little guilty. She was intruding.

It had not mattered upstairs, in mundane rooms, but here… here was a heart, a place of creation and beauty. There were rules and customs amongst mages for places like these, and even if Stark wielded not a scrap of seiðr she could not help her instinctual revulsion at the thought that she had stolen her way inside.

Still. She was here to help him, to assuage a debt, not to spy or to craft herself. It was necessary. Even if it was rude.

At least Stark was actually inside. She would have felt far worse if she had trespassed here without him but there he was on the lower floor, where a tiny corner had been carved out and dedicated to the catering of human necessities. A mini-fridge, a coffee-maker, and a comfortable sofa upon which Stark was slumped, exhaustion written deep in the lines on his face.

Sleeping. That would make things easier.

Careful not to disturb any of the clutter, Loki kept her steps quiet and light as she descended from the mezzanine. Stark looked at home here, in the centre of his creations. Relaxed. Peaceful.

Hm. She reached a hand up, tangling through her hair. She could not leave without doing anything, not after having come all so far already, but perhaps… perhaps just a scan for now. To find out if her hunch was even correct, if there was something wrong with his chest. Then she could come back later, not rip any sense of sanctuary from this place. She would not wish that on him.

Carefully, she situated herself so that he was directly in front of her, kneeling to be on his level. She would need mage-sight for this, and she did not want to be blinded by the energies emanating from the building. With a quiet hum, she submerged herself in her seiðr, the world instantly brightening from the tesseract-adjacent energy running through the tower.

Eyes squinted, she rested gentle fingers atop the device in Stark’s heart. It was difficult to get a read on Stark’s natural energies past the blinding light of it, the power coiled up on itself in a familiar-unfamiliar way.

The device itself was… an electromagnet? An extremely overpowered one, set into his chest cavity. Her skin paled drastically, approaching her usual shade instead of Amora’s tan without a shred of magic necessary.

Reading people’s energies like this was an extremely advanced use of seiðr. It took surprisingly little power, but an incredible amount of control to touch enough to sense but not enough to influence – and was usually taught only to healers who had taken binding oaths, since it’s infamous use by Takahael, a Vanir sorceress infamous for her ability to kill through a simple touch. Not many Aesir realised quite how dangerous healers could be – if one could mend something through seiðr, one could break it. Actually, breaking was easier.

Loki had snuck into the Healing Wing to watch and then taught herself this technique and a half-dozen others. It was too practical a skill for someone so oft caught up in Thor’s foolish quests, when he and his compatriots had never had the sense not to touch cursed objects.

If this had not been Midgard, Loki would have thought Stark cursed too. The device in his chest replacing flesh and bone, the foreign energy running through it and leaking into him, and, more devastatingly, the dark spots in his heart, were all beyond concerning.

How was this man not dead?

She took a deep breath, steadying her heartbeat even as she drew herself slightly away from Stark’s energy. Emotion had no place in a healing, even in a mere diagnostic. And she dared not touch anything of Stark’s before she fully understood what had happened to him.

Distantly, she dredged her memory for what Barton had told her of this man when Thanos had first sent her here. Desperate for something she could twist, could use, she had instructed him to detail what he believed the most threat would be to an alien invasion, and her mind had caught onto the concept of the Avengers.

Anthony Stark. Playboy, billionaire, philanthropist. Tortured by terrorists for months, coming out with a glowing light in his chest, a suit of armour and the desire to be better than the naïve rich boy he had been before. A desire driven by the fact that he had been captured through the use of terrorists wielding his own weapons.

Weapons. Missiles. Bombs.

That was the missing link. Stark had shrapnel in his chest. In his heart.

Loki took another calming breath. Again, how was this man not dead?

She shook her head. It did not matter how the Midgardian had survived up until now, it mattered how Loki was going to make sure that he survived in future. Most probably through grinding that shrapnel into its constituent atoms, and then extracting it through his natural systems.

Yes. That would work. It was a creative solution, but Loki was not opposed to creativity. Only after the largest threat was dealt with could she think of doing something about the awful, gaping cavity in his chest that he had filled with metal.

Upon entering this sanctuary, she had intended to just do the diagnostic and then come back for any alterations later. To preserve some sense of safety even if it were false. But this was not something that she felt comfortable just leaving. Stark was important.

Iron Man was good, yes, but it was Stark’s brain that was the true asset. Men like him that could catapult Midgard’s development forwards were vanishingly rare, far rarer than superheroes, and the desire to do good in those men were rarer still.

With the Titan’s attention drawn to such a place, Midgard would need Tony Stark.

Resolve set, her fingers ghosted along the Midgardian’s skin. So gently it was as if he was merely shifting in sleep, she eased his posture so he was lying comfortably on his back, chest exposed. Then she hesitated, eying his shirt.

It would be easier if it was off. Skin to skin contact was not precisely necessary but it would help her precision, and this would be an immensely difficult working. But she was uncomfortably aware of the lack of consent involved here, and even more aware of the presence overhead, humming currents of electricity that pervaded the whole building.

An Artificial Intelligence, or at least she guessed so. They were rare – mostly on account of the Kree’s shining example of what exactly could go wrong there – but not unheard of, and it would fit Stark’s profile as a technological genius on a planet dead-set on poking its nose into every nook and cranny without any amount of caution, good sense or universal ethics. (Not that Loki herself was a paragon of such things.) Also, the presence of an inorganic being alongside the lack of any significant dimensional energies or seidr truly limited the possibilities.

An AI that had not gone haywire likely had very clearly defined parameters and priorities, and that this one was limiting itself to Stark’s holdings and technologies hinted that it was likely to be bound closely to its creator. As in, extremely protective of him.

Loki might be able to defend herself against Midgardian technologies (seidr at its core was energy manipulation and electricity was a kind of energy, even if it was not one she had spent all that much time mastering – too similar to Thor’s lightning), but the healing was likely to demand her near-entire focus. Interrupting her would likely prove itself fatal. To Stark.

Weighing up the pros and cons, she sighed. She had already decided that Stark was essential to this realm, so exhausting herself it was.

Ancestors, she wished she had just stayed in bed. But there was no point crying over melted ice, so she took a deep breath and committed herself.

Stark’s chest lit up once more in her vision, the not-quite-silver of his own energy, the foreign whitish-blue device, the brown palette of mortal bodily structures, the dark spots of shrapnel. Then her own body joined the glow, the green spectrum of her seidr, the red of Amora’s Aesir form, the ice-blue of a Jötun at her core (and that colour finally made sense to her, after centuries of wondering why her deepest self was tinted differently to any Aesir she had ever encountered).

She drew upon her many centuries of mastery as she suffused her body with energy until she was aware of every last molecule that made up her body, letting every other awareness fade from her mind. The vulnerability of it made her skin crawl, but she forced herself through it, mastered herself. She would not let Thanos take more from her than he had already claimed. Relinquishing control had always been difficult, but she was Loki and nothing was impossible for her. Her intricate command of seidr was her pride and it would not be taken from her.

Finally reaching an almost-transcendent state, she gritted her teeth and shifted her molecules, ever-so-slightly out of phase with the rest of the world. It was limited to her arm and pain spiked through her cells, never having been built for this, but it was actually a sign that the technique was working.

Inch by inch, her fingers shifted forwards, inwards. They were far more green than anything else now; her seidr suffusing her so thoroughly that her arm was more magic than flesh, the red and blue no more than an afterthought. It allowed her to slide easily through the brown and white, slipping through gaps between atoms, until she reached the first of many black spots.

That took even finer control. Shifting herself so she could affect the black and only the black – the shrapnel – then concentrating energy to her fingertips so she could utterly obliterate the deadly shard. And then gathering what traces remained in a tiny shield of its own, so it could be guided out of Stark’s body without further harm.

It was hard, fiddly, exhausting work. Made more so by the fuzziness caused by the cloth obstructing her view.

Then, of course, she had to do it again. And again. Hunting down every single shard individually and without ever losing her concentration, for having a hand suddenly occupying the same space as Stark’s heart would very definitely not be fun for either of them.

Very little worth doing was ever easy, but this might actually rival any one of the many curses Thor had run afoul of over the years. At least those adventures had halfway prepared Loki for this ordeal, even if it very much lived up to that name.

She hoped Stark at least might be more appreciative than Thor, even if she knew that that was unlikely to happen. After all, it would be for the best if Stark never realised who precisely had performed magical surgery on him – he would be unlikely to take it well, since his only image of her was as an insane would-be planet conqueror, and she did not actually wish for him to spend the rest of his days wondering what motive she had had and when his sudden health would come back to bite him.

Finally, finally, after so long that dawn had actually come and gone in the world outside of her little bubble, it was done. Stark looked no different as she extracted herself and stepped back, at last allowing her vision to fade back into the normal visible spectrum – a spectrum that had little grey spots swimming in front of her eyes.

Maybe, just maybe, she had overdone it. Biting her lip, she examined her seidr reserves – enough to realm-walk, but not to teleport. Definitely not to fix anything else today, despite her original musings on how she might remove the device from the inside of Stark’s chest.

Either she would have to come back, or she could research into Midgardian medical technology to see if this was something Stark might be able to handle on his own. He was a billionaire, after all, so it was not as if he lacked the resources for the best possible care; assuming that the shrapnel had been the issue, the mortals might be able to take care of the rest.

She doubted it. Asgard might rely exclusively on seidr for healing, but Loki had visited many planets with only the most basic grounding in the more mystical arts so she had a reasonable grasp on what the secular world was capable of. Nowhere had she seen bone regrowth done through any means that Earth currently had available.

Still, hope cost nothing. And she really was not keen on returning to Stark’s tower unless she had to; she had lost enough time to recovery and then Jötunheim that she really did need to start securing the Infinity Stones.

With one last glance at Stark (was it her imagination or did he look more peaceful than before? He would not be able to tell that the shrapnel was gone – she could only guess when or even if he might discover that it was gone – but all the same there seemed to be something more restful about him now. If only because he was no longer contorted like a pretzel half over the back of the sofa), Loki retraced her steps back through the lab and up to the balcony.

There had been an additional door on the lower floor, but that one had been, if possible, even more heavily reinforced than the one she had entered through. Additionally, the path to it was tangled with all manner of scattered parts and projects and she was reluctant to disturb any of it, so the upper floor it was.

Then it was just a matter of twisting her seidr to open the door, taking the stairs back down the Tower, repeating the twist on that door, and walking out.

It was made marginally more difficult than entering had been due to the slight aching throughout her entire body. She had overused her magic, pushed herself. Like the burn in her calves earlier, it was a good kind of pain, more stretch than strain. Certainly nothing like the agony the false invasion had pushed her to.

There were few opportunities to perform the kind of delicate, fiddly work she had done on Stark, and whilst she was not a healer by calling and could never take long days of repeating this kind of magical surgery (though what she had just done was unusual, would perhaps be hailed as impossible, even by Asgardian standards), the challenge had been enjoyable.

Loki loved seidr. Despite all the grief it had caused her, how ‘improper’ it had been for a prince of Asgard, she had never stopped loving seidr.

She kept Amora’s guise in place for two blocks before she started seeking out alleyways. Keeping in character, she wrinkled her nose upon entering the dark space, though she could not entirely hide the sharpness in her eyes as they swept the place.

No cameras. Excellent. She shed the form as if shedding a cloak, shrinking and sprouting feathers until she was a pigeon once more – neither were favourite forms of hers, but the bird’s inconspicuousness was too valuable to disregard and wings would get her to the bridge faster than legs. She could coax a branch into being right there, but she had already used a great deal of power today.

Female pigeons happened to be slightly bigger than males and Loki was all for getting back to bed as quickly as possible, so she did not bother to return to her birth gender. Instead she took flight, dropping the invisibility as she flew through the shadows so it would be less conspicuous, and winged her way across New York until she could finally pass through Yggdrasil and into her cabin.

She did not care that the sun was in the sky and the day had already begun. She was tired and she was going to sleep.