A/N: Fair warning - this may be a bit more Loki-centered vs Loki&Thor-centered. It doesn't mean that there won't be ample amounts of brotherly fluff, because... well, it's me. There's just no getting around it. Anyway, I probably should start this one right now but I really want to. So yeah... Ahem. Surprise! Super fast turnaround! End of one story and the beginning of another.
Warning: this does pull from the series that I've been writing with Gabrielle Day. If you have not read it, certain characters and events may seem strange. You have been warned.
Pockets Full of Stones
Lay me down
Let the only sound
Be the overflow
'Cause they took your loved ones
But returned them in exchange for you
But would you have it any other way?
Would you have it any other way?
You couldn't have it any other way
~ What the Water Gave me, Florence + the Machines
If this were his calling, he wasn't sure he was as fond of it as he ought to be. He was good at it, no one questioned that. His quick wit and sharp mind were made for the circle of politics, certainly much more than his royal brother who preferred to assume everyone honest, but he found little entertainment in the restraint. This meeting and that meeting as a formal representation of a certain blond prince he was currently rethinking his loyalties to. The only upside he could find was that it gave him ample opportunities to publicly humiliate Aegir, the current Lead Advisor to the King, a past time that he much enjoyed.
"Perhaps the crown prince might grace us with his presence at the council meeting on the peace agreement with the Jotuns that is to be brought before the king in a week's time?"
Loki perked, realizing the question had been aimed at him. Thor had not been to any meetings recently, an excuse being made at every turn and he had been spending more and more time on Midgard as of late. Either the planet was near doom and destruction again or the crowned prince was finding it harder than Loki did to stay focused on the meetings and had found the best way out of them. The younger prince probably wouldn't have blamed him, if he weren't required to be there in his place. "I will speak to him on it," he said at last, risking a glance in the direction the voice had come from. Bram's face was not new to the council chambers, though certainly not as old as Aegir's either. He was a quiet man, so when he did speak Loki felt that he had thought long on what he had to say.
Bram's grey eyes looked out over the crowd of dispersing advisors that had say at the latest meeting. "He has been missed as if late, my prince."
Loki's thin lips twitched downward at the formality. It was an oddity to have a prince sitting on an advisory council, but not unheard of. Though, if the trickster were to place money on it, he would wager it had nothing to do with his royal title that made so many of the advisors wary of him. "My brother has many duties to see to."
Bram smiled very slightly, a certain understanding in his eyes. He had watched both boys grow, change, fight, and make peace once more. "Of course, I merely meant to say that some of equal value are easily overlooked in light of others."
"Some of greater value," the dark haired prince agreed with no humour in his voice. He hadn't realized just how tired he was and his guard was slipping. He allowed a charming smile to settle across his lips and he stood, green eyes watching as many grey-haired men walked from the room. After a few moments of silence, even Bram excused himself, leaving Loki to his own thoughts in the quiet of the room.
He sank back down to the chair he had been sitting in for the last two hours and ran his thin hands through his hair. He wasn't sure what he had expected when he'd finally accepted the position, but he was sure this wasn't it. He felt... worn.
"Perhaps you thought it would be easier."
Loki straightened in his seat, cursing his distraction. Aegir had returned and now stood looking quite pompous a few feet away. He watched the dark haired prince with barely veiled contempt, finally sniffing and speaking again when he was given no response. "Your father wishes to see you."
A small smile stretched slowly across Loki's face. "I do appreciate that you're such a quick and loyal pet to deliver the message."
Aegir looked ready to snap back but seemed to physically bite down on his tongue to stop himself. Apparently it did not work well enough. "Quickly, Prince, as he seems in quite a foul humour. Perhaps he'll do us all a favour and banish you from our realm for one trespass or another. I'm sure you've done something as of late."
The dark haired god was already halfway down the hall and barely heard the last piece, though he knew what was being said. It was the same slight jabs, the same insinuations. Every chance Aegir received he would take, and he'd taken to hedging that dangerous line of saying too much around those that secrets were better kept from. Loki knew better than to address it to his father, because in that Aegir only won. He would appear nothing more than a small child, rushing to daddy to complain about the bully. No, the trickster thought as his boots echoed softly against the marble floor, he had long since learned to handle his own battles.
Frigga stood just outside of the closed, ornate doors, the expression that she wore saying that she had been waiting for some time. She perked at the sound of her younger son's approach, any tension melting into a soft smile. "Loki," she greeted.
"Is this to be a family event?" he asked with an easy smile. They both knew it was a mask, covering the strain and stress that he had been under. Strange that he longed for one of Thor's quests of old now over the endless and incessant drawl of old men.
The queen quirked an eyebrow. "Your brother is in there," she said, motioning towards the door. "I'd thought that he would be done by now."
"Aegir said Father needed to speak with me," Loki ventured, wondering if it really were a family affair.
"We may be waiting some time yet," his mother said with a smile.
As if on cue, Thor's voice boomed from behind the heavy doors, angry and irritated. Neither brother nor mother could tell what the king and his crowned son were fighting over, but the words were well heated.
Loki glanced from the door, to the unmoving guards - he was quite sure after all the ways that he and Thor had tried to illicit some reaction from them in their childhood that they were not much more than statues - to his mother before taking a seat on the floor, legs crossed and looking like it was the most natural thing in all the worlds. "Well, we'll be here for a while," he said with a shrug.
Frigga shook her head with a chuckle of her own, joining him in a flurry of light robes. The spread around her and she leaned against her son with a sigh, head resting against his shoulder. "I am quite convinced at times," she said almost wistfully, "that you and Thor have grown far too quickly. For all of the magic in all of the Nine Realms, a mother still cannot turn back time."
The dark haired prince let out a long breath through his nose, his often silky words sticking somewhere in the back of his throat so that they never made their way to his lips. After a moment he did away with his usual pride and let his head rest against hers.
The doors burst open suddenly, startling both Loki and Frigga, but the guards remained stoic even as the god of thunder in such a fury from his father's throne room that it was usually reserved for the younger prince. He did not seem to notice them in his haste to leave and Loki stood very slowly, offering a hand to his mother. "Well that was... I do believe we can leave Thor's temper well enough in the past," he murmured and Frigga laughed openly.
Odin had not approached the door, but appeared to have recently sunk back down onto his throne, hand against his face in a wary motion.
"I'll leave you to it," Frigga whispered and was gone with the doors closing behind her to leave father and son alone in the room.
Loki briefly wondered as to why she had been there to begin with, but was called from thought as Odin looked up. It was as if the Allfather had forgotten that he'd sent for his youngest, and perhaps he had, but he loosed a deep sigh and attempted to straighten himself.
"If a different time would be better..."
"No," Odin said slowly. "As long as you, too, are not intent on informing me of my old and foolish ways." The aging Asgardian looked as if he had never meant to say it, his good eye glancing towards his second son, but he only received a strained smile for any embarrassment that may have been there.
"I hadn't planned on it today," Loki assured him. He watched his father's movements as he poured wine - always kept in the corner of the throne room, but rarely partook of when Loki was called to it - and offered a glass to the dark haired prince. "You did send for me?" he asked at last, half expecting that Aegir had played what he felt was quite a clever trick on the god of mischief.
"I did," Odin acknowledged. "I should not have kept you waiting."
Loki shot him a look that said that the formalities were more than a little odd. Their relationship was often strained in the best of times, but very rarely had it dipped to the point of speaking to each other as strangers would. As far as he was aware, they were on as good of terms as they ever were.
"You have sat in on the counsel for developing the treaty with the Jotuns."
"That does not sound like a question."
Odin snorted lightly. "Thor was meant to sit in on it. I hear, though not from you, that my eldest has neglected many of his responsibilities in favour of traveling to Midgard as of late."
"I'm sure Thor is needed there."
A tired smile stretched across the Allfather's face. "You have spent so much time covering his trail that you will lie to your father on the matter as well?"
Loki felt a rush of indignation and, somewhat surprisingly, a need to defend his brother. It was true that he had been frustrated that the elder prince had not attended the more important meetings. After all, these were part of the responsibilities that a crowned prince bore, and Loki was no crowned prince. Many times he was surprised that anyone referred to him as prince at all. Even so, Thor had often come to him for the summery of what had happened, asking about the points he needed to know and had kept up very well for his usual tastes in activities. Loki was the one to sit with his books all day, while Thor moved. As frustrating as it was, the dark haired trickster knew that they had fallen into the best routine to get the most accomplished. Explaining that to their father, though, might be a bit more difficult.
"Thor has been... very well informed of every matter," Loki said slowly, as if tasting the words as they were said. He watched the reaction, gauging as only he could.
"By his own wishes?"
"Yes."
"You would not lie to me, would you, Loki?"
A smile perked the god of lies lips and he stretched out his hands, palms upward, in an innocent gesture. "Of course I would, Father, just not about this."
Odin chuckled and took a sip from his goblet. "What are you thoughts on the matter?"
This caught the adopted prince's attention. "Aegir is your most trusted advisor and he is on the counsel. Why not ask him?"
"Because I choose to ask my son instead." The words were said quickly, bordering on harsh and demanding. He was losing patience.
"I think..." Loki sighed heavily. He thought that he hated being on that counsel. He would have taken anything other than this if he had had the choice, but it was too important to allow to slip by with the likes of Aegir leading. The doddling old bastard would sell him off in all likelihood if he was given half the chance. "I think we should tread with care."
Odin nodded, letting the words sink deep and listening to everything that was unspoken as well. "I've received a very unsettling letter," he murmured, pulling it from what appeared to simply be the air.
He handed it to his second son and Loki recognized the broken seal of the House Beyond the Vale. King Hoenir and Prince Lyall's house. Green eyes skimmed the words quickly, noting a script that he had recently become more accustomed to. Lyall wrote to the House of Odin in secret, warning them of whispers that his feared his father would not heed. Peace beckoned to the Nine Realms and the Aesir seemed ready to dive for it at all costs. Lyall worried for their future and asked Odin's advice: were the Jotuns truly trustworthy under the rule of the untested heir of Laufey?
"Leifr," Loki murmured, the name leaving his tongue as something distasteful. He was just older than he and Thor having been a very young boy when the war was waged. He'd been kept by his queen mother, safe and away from the fighting. When Lifa took the throne, it was said, Leifr had been deemed too young. He would have had to change their minds in some way or the other in the few years since. "We know nothing of him, and that within itself is dangerous. Have you responded?"
"I will not go behind Hoenir's back to answer his son's query. We have only recently put aside too much to do that now."
Loki felt a certain discomfort creeping within him, as if he and Odin both knew that whatever the Allfather had called him in for was not something that either wanted, but that the kingdom needed. Odin looked as one that had been worn down by the weight of the Realms, and perhaps he was. Perhaps he simply needed to Sleep.
"Father," Loki said slowly, carefully, "you called me here for a reason."
Odin pulled a deep breath in and let it out through his nose. "If I saw another way..."
"Ask. I'm willing to tell you no."
A small smile perked his lips at the words, also said with a smirk that befit them. "I need someone that can go to Jotunheim undetected and can move through without notice."
"You want me to spy on them?" Loki managed, feeling as if he were already on the icy world. Odin knew how he felt about the place: he'd still laugh as it burned if he had half the chance. He knew nothing but suffering and pain there. It haunted his dreams, as Laufey and Lifa reached up from the grave to take hold and pull him down to Hel. There had been many times that Odin's adopted child had woken to those nightmares in recent years, short of breath and finding himself hoarse from shouting. More than once he'd even drawn his brother by accident, the thunderer bursting into his chambers to find his younger brother huddled in his bed, fear shining in his eyes. He hated the Jotuns and he hated their world even more.
"You said that you were willing to tell me no," Odin murmured, voice somehow both flat and pained.
"How can I?" the trickster whispered. "You've found a use for your stolen relic."
"Loki, that is not-"
"But it is." He was not accusing, merely stating fact.
"I don't ask that you go alone, of course."
"But not Thor?"
"That would be foolish, yes."
"He can't know of this," Loki murmured, closing his eyes and his mind whirling with suddenly laid plans. "It would put everything at risk. It will be assumed that he is heavily involved in the preparations for the truce, and if he's seen as showing such blatant distrust..." He shook his head. When had the thought of going behind his brother's back become so impossible, so repulsive of an idea? He steadied himself carefully, thoughts pulling back to what he needed to make this work and to make... Yes, after all these years to make his father proud.
"I would prefer you take someone with you."
"I am fully capable of taking care of myself."
"I do not question that, but this place haunts you, my son. Is there someone beyond your brother that you trust?"
This place haunts me, yet you send me without delay, Loki thought bitterly. "Sif," the name left his lips without any real thought.
Odin quirked an eyebrow but did not question it.
"The final revisions of the truce are to be presented in a week's time."
"Leifr will be attending a joint meeting between he, Hoenir, and I at that time to go over it."
"Then this needs to happen now."
"Then you'll do it?"
Odin's words hung in the air as ones that neither wanted answered. Loki thought he might have been fooling himself, but hoped that he was not, when he realized that the strain was not entirely over whatever his father and Thor had fought on, but on the decision to ask his youngest son to do the impossible. It pained Odin to ask this.
"Yes, Father."
The Allfather reached forward, taking hold of his second son and clasping the back of his neck as Thor so often did. "I am sorry to ask this of you."
Loki opened his mouth the say something, but then closed it again. He would not hate him for this. He would prove himself finally and completely. With a deep breath he finally said, "I will see what I can find for you before Leifr steps foot on the Bridge."
He turned to leave, feeling as if his resolve might shatter if he didn't throw himself headlong into the task right away, but Odin's voice stopped him. "Loki, when this is done and over with, no matter what is found... Come home."
TBC
A/N: So... I like it? Hate it? Want to throw me off the Rainbow Bridge into the abyss? (please don't).
