"And thus the princess was saved, the treasure claimed, and the monster –utterly– defeated." With a flourish of his fingers the illusion dispersed, taking with it the valiant hero and his lovely bride. The children reached up, playing with the fading lights as they flickered above their heads.
"Tell us another!" Gullr demanded, his messy hair bobbing as he bounced on folded legs.
"Yes!" Trinka exclaimed. She hugged a tarp to her chest, a piece of salvage repurposed as a blanket.
The other children added their voices to the calls for an encore, the cold cargo bay warming with their enthusiasm. Sprawled in a semicircle around Loki, they were a ragged bunch. Youths and adolescents in poorly patched clothes, their hair grimy from the months adrift in the vast darkness between realms, wrapped in tarps and packing sheets in lieu of beds, heads laid on bags of crumpled cardboard instead of pillows. It would be several weeks more before they made port, a year and some before they reached the friendly lands of Midgard.
(Mostly friendly.)
"Ah, isn't it time for sleep?" Loki asked, resting his forearms upon his knees, the soft leathers of his tunic wrinkled from wear. There was only so much magic could do in lieu of a proper wash. "I fear dear Marta will douse the lights on us and I will be forced to pick my way through you in the dark! Do you not worry for your fingers and toes as I stumble about?"
Marta, for her part, merely rolled her eyes. Sat by the slated windows at the bay's far end, she was happy enough for the break Loki's stories provided her. Ostensibly, there were several other ladies and maids caring for the orphaned children of Asgard, but somehow the brunt of the work fell on Marta's shoulders. By the set of her wrinkles, deep and downward cast, Loki doubted she was ever a cheerful woman, and the children's plight had weighed those lines about her face that much deeper.
"Just one more," Ullie pleaded. "Oh! Tell us about your death! About Svartalfheim!"
"Yes!" Gullr, again. "Tell us how you came back!"
"How did you come back?" Trinka asked, clasping her dirty tarp in anxious fingers. "Was it very difficult? Did it hurt?"
Ah, yes. His death. He'd made it into quite the production, hadn't he? A theatrical favorite, in fact. The playhouse had put on a production every fortnight. And, yes, the schedule had been set by royal decree, but Loki was certain the public would have demanded it had he not. It'd been a tale of intrigue, drama, and a heroic life cut tragically short.
He'd known his charade as Odin would eventually be found out. He hadn't planned to stick around to answer his fan's questions once it had.
Loki glanced to Marta, seeking an out, but she merely raised a brow in return.
"Well," he began. "It certainly wasn't comfortable."
A young child, one whose name he hadn't yet caught, raised her hand. "Is it true you're a Jotunn?"
He stuttered, tongue freezing in his mouth.
"Don't be silly," Gullr said. "Does he look like a frost giant?"
The young girl shrunk into herself, eyes flicking between Gullr and Loki.
"Prince Loki's a sorcerer," Trinka came to the younger girl's defense. "He can look however he wants."
"Can you turn into a Jotunn?" Ullie asked, eyes wide.
More voices piped up, the crowd growing excited.
"Yes, can you?"
"Are you blue?"
"How big do you get?"
"Is it scary?"
"Enough!"
The children went silent, grins dropping into startled moues and scared frowns. With a steadying breath, Loki forced his face into an expression of easy calm.
"Enough," he repeated with a chuckle. "Let's not get swept up in the moment, shall we? Do you truly want a ten foot, frozen monster stomping about your quarters?" He emphasized by clunking his boots against the ridged metal floor, which earned some chuckles. "And breathing frost down your skinny necks?" He blew a loud gust into the faces of the children closest and they laughed as they turned their heads.
"No," he said, "I think we have enough hulk-ing behemoths crowding this ship of ours." This was met with uneasy titters. Besides Thor and The Valkyrie, few were willing to brave The Hulk's presence. The beast spent most of its time in the lower hold, making an ungodly racket whenever rage or boredom struck it.
"A different story, then?" Trinka hedged.
"Alas," Loki said, hands raised in apology. "Though you may have the energy of youth, I find myself growing weary. To bed for me if not for you."
A chorus of 'no's rose from the gathered crowd, drawn out and almost musical in their pleading, but Loki shook his head as he got to his feet.
"My sincerest apologies, my friends! It must wait for another time!"
"All right!" Marta called, clapping her hands over the din. "Wash up! Nine minutes 'till lights out!"
Loki stepped over the whining youths. Some dutifully settled themselves for sleep but those attempts were hampered by yet more children giggling and wrestling with their neighbors. Loki managed to find his way to the door without stepping on anyone.
He leant against the jam, calling over the ruckus, "A pleasure as always, Marta!"
He couldn't hear her reply, but her expression promised it was unflattering. He left with a wave and a grin, though he let it fall as the sounds of voices grew distant.
Loki stood in the small cabin he'd claimed as his own shortly after they'd left Asgard.
(Left its rubble.)
It was one of only nine proper sleeping quarters on the ship, four of which were bunkrooms. Thor had, of course, taken the captain's quarters. Loki had intended to take the first mate's rooms, but had been bullied out of his rightful claim by a surprisingly heavy Valkyrie.
"If you want it, take it," She'd said, then promptly flopped onto the queen sized bed.
He'd left in a huff (and huffing) after two hours. Two days later her rooms mysteriously began to smell of old fish. He'd waited for the inevitable accusations, but if the stench bothered her she was doing a remarkable job hiding it. Loki had begun to suspect she'd burnt away her sense of smell with drink.
The door slid shut behind him with a squeaking scrape, plunging the cabin into darkness.
He slapped the control panel by the door and the harsh glare of cheap fluorescents washed the already dingy room in a monotone grey. The window opposite was small and oblong, the bed to his left thin and hard and embedded in the steel wall. The few possessions he'd tacked up only served to highlight how bare and cold the sorry abode truly was. A bit of orange cloth draping the window. A small drawing, gifted to him by one of the children, scribbled on the back of a shipping manifest. Several golden bangles hanging above the bed, snatched from a drunken partygoer back on Sakaar.
A pathetic attempt to warm a cold and empty hovel.
Loki sighed, dragging his hands down his face, down his neck. It was better than nothing. It
was better than some things.
The closet to his right stuck as he unlatched it, requiring a hard yank to swing open. His Sakaaran clothes hung from the hooks within, blues and purples hidden away. On the other side of the long, thin closet door was a mirror, tall enough to see the whole of himself but not quite wide enough to encompass his shoulders.
Dark hair, pale skin, sharp cheekbones. He'd worn this face for centuries. A mask. Even this, a mask.
He'd never seen his true face.
Had never wanted to.
"Is it scary?"
It must be. Blue skin, blood red eyes, a predator designed to prowl the cold and dark.
Oh, so dramatic! The months in space were taking their toll.
Loki spun from the mirror to the bed, flat and hard, to the window, small and dark. No room even to pace! He leant against the plastic portal, blocking the fluorescents stabbing from above to better see into the void beyond. The ship flew in a nowhere place, distant stars like snowflakes scattered across black ice. He missed the colorful nebulae of Asgard, the constellations so thick that night was nearly as bright as day.
Loki slid from the ridged wall, finding himself before the mirror once more.
Would the shape of his face be different?
He traced a finger along his jaw.
Would he recognize himself? Would Thor? If Loki waltzed into the common hall, blue and frozen, would Thor know him?
Ah, if only he could tuck this truth away, hide it from the masses, from Thor, from himself. Alas, Odin had announced it at Loki's trial, had laid bare this secret kept for a millennium. And so Loki had but two choices. He could distance himself, he could try to squash the dark and venomous talk that nipped at his heels, the cruel mockery and even crueler pity, fight it until the day he died.
Or he could smile and laugh and use it as a weapon, wear it as an armor. Make it into a performance that all of Asgard would clamor to see.
His milky mask stared from the mirror, lips pressed tight.
This was a lot harder than having the stagehands paint a child blue.
Loki sighed. Better now, in the privacy of his quarters than later when tempers were high.
(And tempers would rise. They always did, and Loki always found himself dancing in the middle of it all, making it all the worse.)
Right. Jotunn. He could do this. He'd done it before (by accident), he could do it again. He'd taken on much worse visages, rabid dogs and wasted ghouls. How bad could this be?
(So much worse. Removing a mask… it was so much harder.)
He closed his eyes. A deep breath, a falling inward, a searching for the seams within his bones. If this was not his true form (and it was not) then there would be some flaw, some wrinkle or fold where this skin did not sit as it should. There would be a place he could tug and the stitching would come loose.
He dug and he prodded, but he'd worn this skin for a thousand years and it had always felt like home. He'd never noticed a flaw, had never found a seam.
Loki huffed, opening his eyes. Green. Still green.
There was something else. Surely, he should have shifted to his natural shape at some point, slipped into the from he'd been born to. As a child, perhaps, or as a youth when he'd explored his changeling potential. But for a millennium he'd walked as an Ás, none the wiser. He had shifted into the sleek body of a stallion, the shaggy form of a wolf, the slippery scales of a salmon, and when he grew bored or tired he'd always slipped back into the face of a Prince of Asgard. Only at the freezing touch of a Jotunn warrior had his skin melted to blue, only under the howling power of The Casket had his flesh turned cold.
Only an outside power had pulled away the glamour.
Ah, Odin. You took no chances, did you?
Again, Loki closed his eyes, but this time he shifted through the magics woven within his chest, his throat, his skull. Both Odin and Frigg had infused their sons with charms of strength, luck, and protection. It was a basic duty of parents to their children and, the king and queen being exceptionally powerful seiðrmasters, Loki's charms of fortune were numerous and strong. He'd given the magics very little thought. They were presents and always present. But now he combed through their sifting colors in his seiðr-eye, searching for something… something…
There! Unassuming and buried beneath centuries of spellwork. A little thing, a small thing. A pin to close the seams of a mask long-worn.
It was nothing to remove it, a gentle pull and it fell away. But he felt its absence keenly, as if the air was suddenly too warm, as if his clothes were suddenly too tight.
Far too tight!
Loki gasped, his eyes flying open. In the mirror, his reflection gaped back, choking in leathers pulled taught over his chest. Loki wrangled himself in, stuffing himself back into the pale skin of his Ás mask. His bones protested this reversal, aching under twitching flesh.
It would seem his Jotunn form was… larger.
He shouldn't be surprised. They were called Frost Giants, after all. But still, Odin had described him as a runt. And when he'd changed under The Casket's power, he hadn't grown. He must not have shifted fully then, back in the vault. Odin's little pin had fought The Casket's power, it would seem, had kept Loki somewhere between Ás and Giant.
If that was so… Loki had no idea what his true form might be like.
Very well.
He removed his leathers, doing so by hand, one strap at a time. He did it to slow the inevitable, draw out his apprehension. Illogical, but he did it anyway. His tunic joined the Sakaaran wear in his closet, trousers following after, until he stood in his smallclothes. These were looser, had give enough for this.
Gooseflesh rose along his arms, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling. The heating in this ship was truly abysmal.
Another sigh, and for the third time he closed his eyes. It was easy, now, shifting. A release, even. A deep breath after breaching the water's surface, a long stretch after climbing from a cramped space, standing after being forced to kneel.
He gasped, air filling his lungs, deep, his chest expanding, a hand braced against the wall. He could breathe! It was if he'd been wearing iron bands around his ribs and had never known! He could breathe!
Eyes blinking open, he winced, the fluorescents suddenly too bright and piercing. He fumbled for the control panel by the door, punching the digital display until the overhead snapped off. He waited for his eyes to adjust, and they did. The meager starlight from his little window filtered into his cramped cabin, illuminating every nook and cranny. It was nearly as bright as Asgard's nights!
Loki straightened to—Ah!
Something clattered against his forehead. Or, no, something ON his forehead clattered against the ceiling. He reached up, running fingers over his brow. He felt his eyebrows (so he still had those) then the skin above which grew rough and puckered at the base of- of-
Horns.
He had horns.
Loki ducked to peer into the mirror (which was now a tad too short) and turned his head this way and that to see. Two horns protruding from his forehead, at the edge of his hairline, white like frosted ice. They curved and twisted over his skull very much like those of his helmet. The helmet Loki had worn proudly for centuries, had made into a symbol of his station as a prince. The helmet Odin had gifted him when he'd reached majority.
You ruddy bastard
Loki could imagine the old man laughing in whatever afterlife he'd weaseled his way into. A good joke, furnishing his Jotunn foundling with a Frost Giant crown for all of Asgard to admire. And here Loki had thought the design a tribute to Bor's famous ram's helm.
Odin, always playing him the fool.
He yank on them, felt the pull of them in his skull. They were… well formed, at least.
His gaze flickered down to his eyes. Red. It was… unsettling. Every form he'd ever taken, his green eyes had bleed through. Impersonating Odin required an illusion on top of his shapeshifting to achieve the necessary blue. But now, no glamour, no magic, just red.
His magic had always been green, sparks of emerald and droplets of jade. Had his eyes been whispering a truth all these years? A glow of magic as he maintained his Ás mask.
He found his gaze skittering away from that red stare.
It really was bright in here.
Even without the overhead, Loki could make out every nook and cranny in his cabin. He'd suspected Jotnar had better night vision than the Aesir. Jotunheim was a dark world, far from its sun, its days smothered by heavy clouds. Red eyes, pigmentless to better catch every shard of light dripping to the planet's surface. The distant stars outside Loki's cabin shown like torches, bathing the room in a quiet glow, filtering through the clouds of his breath.
He could see his breath.
Frost crackled as he shifted his feet, flecks of ice falling from his shoulders. The air grew dry as the moisture condensed and froze along the metal walls, yet Loki felt no cold. In fact, he grew warmer with each inhale. He rubbed the tips of his fingers together, ice flaking off like dried wax, dancing through the starlight to rest upon the floor.
It was pretty.
His hands were much the same as they had been, long and thin. Though when he compared them to one of his bracers, pulling it from the closet, it was clear his hands had grown. His Ás clothes looked like children's dress in his grasp. He was larger, though not quite as tall as he'd led the children to believe. He suspected he might stand a head above Thor, now.
Still short for a giant.
He returned to the mirror, taking in the whirls and lines racing along his skin, tracing up his arms like raised roads. They curled along his shoulders, hugged his ribs, and disappeared beneath his smallclothes only to reappear down his legs. Was he born with these markings? Or had they been done to him. Did they continue down his…?
With trepidation, he peeked beneath the waistband of his smallclothes— and nearly had a heart attack. But a quick exploration proved that Jotnar were, apparently, innies instead of outies.
He supposed that made sense. Jotenheim's weather would not be kind to… sensitive parts. In fact, pulling his hair aside revealed his ears no longer splayed from his temples, replaced with bony ridges hugging the ear canal. Lip curled, he let his hair fall back over the truncated organ. It was… not attractive.
Tired of hunching, he settled to sit cross legged on the floor, ice blooming in curlicues along the steel. The man in the mirror did the same, an expression of surrender pulling at his eyes.
So this was Loki. No mask. No illusions.
He recognized himself. He recognized his sharp cheekbones and pointed jaw, his slicked back hair in desperate need of a proper wash. He recognized those eyes, red though they may be.
"Is it scary?"
No. It was not scary, merely… unsettling. Unsettling, seeing his face peering out from the blue, embossed with Jotunn scars and gilded with silver horns instead of gold. He was not scary, not even especially ugly, just… unpleasant.
He shifted, shrinking and pulling himself into himself, against the protestations of his tired magic and too-tight flesh, until he shivered in the frostbit air.
There would be no encore.