"Take him!" Was seared into his mind. That voice that had reared him from an infant now betraying him.
He heard it over and over again as the boats set sail. Not in person, his so called mother had been felled almost immediately after the invaders decided to do as she wished. But he heard it all the same. The wind seemed to whisper it when he listened. The skies murmuring it as thunder crashed all around them.
"Thor is angry," A prisoner said.
"Thor is always angry these days," Loki whispered back.
It had been thundering the moment the invaders boats had anchored. Loki had thought them visitors at first, come to see the new Jarl. They had certainly been welcomed as such, and dined with civility that spoke of peace.
Yet here Loki was three days later tied up when he wasn't forced to row.
The visitors spoke much on their journey. They were happy, and why wouldn't they be with the spoils they had accumulated. Among the scant prisoners were treasures that Loki's own people had won in raids to the West. Yet sometimes the language they spoke wasn't the Norse that Loki had grown up with. Nor was it any of the other accented dialects that surrounded Loki's home. It wasn't even Wessex, or whatever that strange land called their language. It seemed to be nonsense, or all of languages at once. Loki suspected magic of some kind, it had to be. Which meant these were people favoured by the Gods.
Loki didn't know if that was a good or bad thing yet. So far, the Gods hadn't been exactly favourable with his lot in life, he wouldn't put it past them to have his life planned to be just complete misery with worse and worse events one after another.
"Jotun!" One of his captors called.
Loki kept his head down, praying to whatever God might be listening that they might spare him dying on this boat. At least let him make it to land. Give him a fighting chance with a knife in his hand.
He was roughly pulled up by his hair, that same man leaning close to say pointedly "Jotun."
Oh, they'd been calling him. "Loki," he corrected, not sure whether his name would make any difference to these people.
It didn't, the man grinning back at his friends for some reason before saying pointedly again, "Jotun." He was let go at least, the man doing his job in getting Loki's attention. Crouching so they were of a height, the man asked, "Is it true?" The words coming fluidly in the tongue Loki spoke, no longer that of a jumbled mess.
"Is what true?"
The man didn't wait for an invitation to grab Loki again, this time in a wholly uncomfortable place. Loki knocked the man with his fist before he thought better of it, his strength sending the man backwards, blood already beginning to drip from his nose.
Instead of being angry, the man grinned, his face even more monstrous now the blood he'd wiped just hours before was replaced with his own. One of the others from the rowing pit demanding, "Well?"
"Oh there's something there," The bloodied one chuckled. "Whether there's a cunt too we'll have to find out when we get back."
The smile he shot Loki was full of promises. Promises Loki was going to kill himself before he would allow them to be fulfilled.
He tried not to think about why the man would just assume there was something else there the rest of their journey. It wasn't hard, he was kept too busy to think most of the time. If it wasn't the rowing, it was the blisters that came from the rowing. If it wasn't the blisters it was Njord making the waves big and monstrous, threatening to overturn their small vessel any moment. If it wasn't that, it was the people that were thrown overboard.
Loki had been on raids before, he knew the casualty number that came with transporting slaves back home, the problem was, back then, he hadn't been the slave. He'd known they felt fear, just as he did, he knew they were human like himself, but being a raider meant that if they were stupid enough to get captured then they deserved to spend their life serving him. Loki had always been able to overpower anyone that came his way, and gladly took what was his because it was his right to. He didn't ask for much after all, not anymore. Yet here he was, the Gods deciding it wasn't enough to paint him blue by birth, by stripping him of his manhood by giving him a woman's opening along with his cock. No, they had to take his freedom too. It was times like these where Loki seriously wondered if there were Gods at all. If there were, they really hated him.
Five days they were on that boat, Loki growing tired of the waves in a way he hadn't before. He was eager to get off, to start finding his way out of this mess, figuring he just needed to get a knife and he'd be fine from there.
They docked, only one of the men getting out, scouting, Loki thought, just like his people did. If he wanted to move he would have to do it now while there was still the sense of uncertainty. They wouldn't follow him, not without leaving the rest of their treasure exposed.
He raised his bound hands slightly, rubbing them along the grooves of his leg. It hurt, the rope rubbing wrong on his wrists and chafing his leg, but it gave, that was what was important.
It didn't take long before he was sitting there with loose hands. He watched ahead, waiting for the moment where their captors were looking away. There-
He was yanked down before he even got up, Loki miscalculating how many enemies were on this vessel with him as he came face to face with a man he'd previously known as a prisoner. The strength behind the grip betrayed him as an enemy, it was one of the first things Loki had noted about them, their strength. They were able to rip trees apart like they were nothing, Loki too if he gave them reason, and he'd almost given them reason.
The man said nothing, not drawing attention to the others in the boat, just firmly held Loki down and re-tied his hands.
The scout came back before the shock wore off and Loki could try again. Before long, they were setting off, the boat, and the ones behind them, taking a narrow stream through a thick copse.
It seemed to grow tighter on them, tighter, until Loki felt like he couldn't breathe. This wasn't a natural stream, he knew it in his bones. There was something of the Gods in it. Swallowing them.
Until it didn't. It spat them out, Loki almost blind from the brightness that assaulted his eyes. He was too hot. So hot. Why was it so hot?
He felt a different kind of uncomfortableness as he struggled to breathe now, the air too humid for nothing but shallow breaths. His captors were watching him funnily, looking ready to toss him overboard. It struck a fear inside of him so tightly that he righted himself through sheer will, glaring at each of them, just daring them to slit his throat.
His eyes stopped blurring the longer he managed to control his breathing, his eyes adjusting enough that he managed to make out the bright colours that were boring down on him. He'd never seen anything like it. Neither had the others from the way they were staring. Even on their excursions Loki had never seen colours this vivid, it was like he was looking at what the colours should have been. Like, what he had seen at home, his reds and browns, his greens and blues, they were all just a shadowed copy of their true forms. He could scarcely believe it, and the distraction helped him not focus on the heat, which was also a bonus.
"Great Odin," The prisoner next to Loki muttered. "We must be in Valhalla."
If they were, Loki was glad he hadn't felt, or even remembered, his death.
But if they were in Valhalla, then why were their captors here too?
The boats drifted along the sea for a while, the day fading but the colours never losing their potency. Eventually, a great ball of light loomed in the distance. The sun was still high in the sky, and Loki knew it wasn't that, this was something else too.
It was.
A great big golden city seemed to loom upon them. There were torches everywhere, no, not torches, the reflection of the sun off the shining buildings seemed to illuminate the whole place, Loki's breath catching again as more and more details became clear to him the nearer they got.
It distracted him, for a moment, that he was being taken here a slave, this was truly a place of the Gods after all. But the ropes binding his wrists reminded him soon enough. As did the muttering of his captors.
The language was still unknown to him, but Loki got a sense of unease off them as the docks came in sight. Especially because there were people waiting for them.
Loki thought, at first, that they had to be the welcome party, here to congratulate their warriors on their successful raid. It certainly looked like the ones Loki had seen. But, the closer he looked, the more he could see the set to these golden men's shoulders, the hard looks in their beautiful faces. They didn't look friendly. Loki was starting to wish he would never have to leave this boat now.
They docked with the leader of this vessel stepping onto the waiting wood. He didn't seem to sense anything wrong, not like Loki, as his arms spread wide as he yelled some kind of greeting to the golden men.
Someone hoisted Loki up before he could see what happened next, his life in those moments leaving the boat one long blurry rush of stumbling.
They were lined up, as was custom, Loki falling in step with the grown men he'd been taken with. He didn't think he would fetch a hefty price, even in this magical city. His blue skin made people fear him a sinister monster. Superstition whispered around him, even at home, people making warding signs whenever he passed. Then there was the matter of his age. Children never fetched a good price. Never mind that Loki was at least fifty, he looked no older than a five year old and he feared he would never grow bigger. His small arms weren't good for labour. Nor were his tiny legs. Unless someone to keep him as a pet, there wasn't much else they could get out of him, and Loki hadn't forgotten the promise his captor had made, his legs already clenching when he remembered it.
The leader of their raiders didn't seem to be making much leeway with his welcome party. The grin had gone in favour of a slightly more apprehensive tone, the golden men not seeming to see those they were blocking in. The reason for why became clear when they parted suddenly to let in a rather elderly looking man. Loki was fascinated. The oldest person he'd seen had been his supposed mother, and she hadn't been half as spry as the one in front of him now. There was strength to this man, one that the old people back home just didn't seem to possess. Even then, those people were usually younger than the man before him now, the elderly throwing themselves off cliffs before they became a burden to their families. Loki's mother had only survived because no one else would take him, and he wasn't about to call the only person to look after him a burden. Not if he wanted to eat.
The man was clad in armour, a spear held aloft and one eye missing. Even without the breathy mutter of "Odin," Loki knew he was looking at a God.
He fell to his knees with the rest of his people, prayers spilling from his lips of mercy and judgment in his wisdom.
A choked cry had Loki looking up, his captor falling to the ground as Odin Allfather slew him. The guards moved in on the rest of the raiding party, capturing some and killing others. Loki wanted to feel afraid, it wouldn't be long before he was joining his captors, no mortal would witness Asgard after all and go home, no mortal was worthy. But he didn't. He felt nothing but satisfaction as the man who grabbed him joined his leader on the ground.
When the killing was done, the men dragged away from the docks, Odin Allfather turned his attention to Loki's lowly group. Some men were prostrating themselves, the women knowing better had kept themselves back, one of them reaching for Loki, their backs straight as they accepted whatever was in store for them.
The Allfather walked past all of them, looking at them one by one until he lingered on Loki. He hummed low before striding off, a quick flick of his wrist and a low murmur the only warning they got before the remaining guard advanced.
There were screams, Loki trying not to be among them as he held still, waiting for the blade. Yet it was an arm that grabbed him, not steel, it pulled him forwards, dragging him through the golden streets where people, such beautiful people, were standing, watching.
They walked for miles, Loki getting the sense that even the Gods weren't accepting of a blue child as even these immortal creatures crossed themselves and prayed to Odin for help.
Asgard loomed, its palace walls so different yet the same as how Loki had imagined them in his stories. The golden guards were everywhere here, some of them standing still while others busied about, other people often in tow. Others were here too, ones more lavishly dressed than the people in the lower city. They were most interested in the proceedings, some of them purposefully blocking the guards bringing Loki's people in and vying for gossip.
Loki was eventually brought to a wide room, the survivors of the raiders here too. They were all lined up, intertwined with one another, all of them being judged together.
Odin sat before them on a throne almost too bright to look at, seated next to him and on the step below what had to be Queen Frigga and Prince Thor, although he was a lot younger than what Loki would have thought him be.
The trial, since it had to be a trial, started with that same nonsense speak, the raiders seeming to get the gist if the way they shrunk in on themselves was anything to go by. Odin asked all sorts of questions, some of them making men cry, some of them leaving them shouting. All of them ended with him stepping from the dias and crouching low before Loki.
He lowered his eyes, as was befitting of looking at a God, Odin tipping him back up with a tap to his chin. "You have a name?"
"Loki," he said, not even attempting to lie to the Allfather.
"Loki," Odin repeated, approving of the name. "Tell me Loki, what is your mother's name?"
"My-?" Loki didn't think he meant Siv. "I don't know Allfather. I was found as a child in the woods. The woman that found me thought my real parents had abandoned me because…" Well because the Gods had decided to give them a weak baby not able to care for itself should it grow older. They were kind of right, try as Loki might to sound grown his voice hadn't even started the journey to deepening yet. Still, Loki didn't think it right to blame this on the God's, not when one was in front of him.
The Allfather nodded as the silence went on. "This woman found you as a baby did she?"
"Yes Allfather."
He looked back at Thor thunderer before asking his next question: "And just how long ago was that Loki?"
"About-" He looked around at the others, knowing they knew some of his unnaturalness. It was one of the reasons they had agreed to bring him on raids. They took him with the hopes that they would lose him in a fight, never once thinking that his small stature could be an asset in stealing things. "About fifty winters ago. I know I don't look it, but I'm a man Allfather, and will gladly die like one." He wasn't about to be given a mercy death after all. He wanted to feast in Valhalla like the others as was his right.
Odin hummed again, seeming to consider Loki for a while. When he stood, it was to motion two guards forwards. "Take young Loki to Thor's chambers. Let him pick out whatever he wishes." The Norse was for Loki's benefit he knew, he almost didn't expect anyone else in this room to understand it.
Yet, "Father!" Thunder boomed, "He's a Frost-"
"Thor," Odin boomed back just as loud, his voice softening as Thor pouted down from his anger, "Why don't you accompany Loki if you're that worried about what he might choose."
The little godling was still pouting as he picked himself up and started tottering towards Loki. He wasn't that much bigger really than Loki, his legs just slightly longer, but there was an air of childishness about him that Loki had long grown out of. He was surprised to see it, this was supposed to be the Mighty Thor. The man who guarded the clouds and fertilized the crops. Who slayed beasts and called lightning to his fingertips with barely a thought.
He looked at Loki the same as the rest of the world however, so Loki could forget trying to befriend one person in Asgard. Usually, children didn't know that Loki was something to be feared, they gave him the benefit of the doubt, merely thinking him odd. Someone must have informed Thor early on that blue children were unnatural and a bad omen. It was the only reason Loki could think of for why the little boy wasn't asking him a hundred questions like other children would. That and the fact that Loki was about to take something that was supposed to be his.
Thor's chambers were rightly befitting a God. They dwarfed the two of them, even the bed that Thor managed to climb up stood taller than him when he stood on the floor. Loki indulged Odin's wishes, taking stock of the room around him. There were wooden toys on the floor, swords and shields that were just the right height for Thor. Loki considered them for only a moment before moving onto the other things there. The clothes were tempting, Loki's own ripped in places from the fight and bloodied in others from the long journey. Ordinarily, Loki would have jumped at the chance to take the red cloak hanging out of Thor's trunk, but with it being so hot here, Loki didn't think he could stomach it.
Eventually he found something that piqued his interest. There, on the sideboard, was a dagger. It was ornately decorated, jewels inlaid at the hilt. It looked sharp too, and light to the touch as Loki handled it.
It was also roughly slapped out of his grip, Thor huffing, "No," as he jumped down to pick it up himself. "This is mother's. You can't have it." He held it close to his chest like Loki would take it anyway.
Loki knew he wasn't above it right now. God or not Thor was a child, if Loki tried he was sure he could outwit the boy and steal the knife for himself. It was tempting enough to try.
But he didn't, instead, he went in search of anything else he might like to take as a gift.
He wasn't stupid. He knew they were stalling him. Violence may not be coming his way but something was. Enslavement maybe. They could be planning to release him back home, Loki had heard stories of such things, but Loki wasn't that hopeful.
Thor stuck to him as Loki started on the adjoining chamber, the knife clutched in his clumsy hands. Here there were other things that Loki took a shine too. Jewels of such beauty he could hardly believe their existence. Gold. Silver. A helmet that would fit right onto his head should he try it. He did, and had it grabbed out of his hands again by an angry Thor. Loki was beginning to get the feeling Thor would be unhappy with whatever Loki picked up. It proved true, and after a while Loki contented himself with sitting still back in the main bedchamber, staring at the door.
They couldn't mean to leave him here too long. It was almost fully dark, Thor would need to be put to bed soon.
He paced to the window when it did get dark, staring at the luscious garden below. Thor had the helmet on, he'd put it on as soon as he got it off Loki. The knife was still in his hands too, the little boy sitting there like he was a guard himself. When Loki got back, he was informing everyone he could about what the real Thunder God was like.
A knock came, Thor, for the first time, distracted away from Loki. He took his chance, his legs moving swiftly as he vaulted up to the bed, snatched the knife he'd been imagining ways of taking countless ways in the past few hours and darting back to the window before Thor could do more than screech. He climbed out the window, knife in his teeth, and scaled the bricks he'd mapped out. It was an easy descent, the grooves in his palms acting as a sort of grip, never letting him fall. There was a reason no one could out climb him back home.
The grass was just as soft as it appeared from above, Loki not giving himself time to to do more than feel it before he took off just to the left of Thor's window. He'd seen the trees thicken in this direction instead of lessening out into the beginnings of the city. It would be easier to lose guards in a forest than a city. A city, there was a chance someone would give him over, it wasn't like he blended in. Not yet.
He ran until his legs could no longer support him. Then he climbed until the branches thinned and he threatened to fall.
He'd just robbed a God. The thought had him stifling manic laughter, the exhaustion of the past week weighing him down until the laugh quickly turned to sobs. He kept as quiet as he could, knowing there was a chance of being heard. He was in the land of the Gods after all.
The land of the Gods!
He clutched the knife close to his chest, never letting it leave his grip as he rocked himself into an uncomfortable nap.
When he woke, all weakness from the night before was gone. This wasn't the first time he'd been abandoned in a foreign land. The only difference was that this time Loki might not be able to find his way back home. But that was fine. There was nothing back home for him anyway.
Tucking the dagger into his breeches, Loki changed his skin. He'd been able to change his skin colour before he could walk, it was the first thing he'd done as a baby, and for the first few years Siv was happy to believe that Loki was just an ordinary baby, that the colour she'd seen him as first was merely a trick of the moon. When he got older, and the cold started setting more and more into their land, Loki's skin changed to the blue he usually wore. It was easier living in the cold with his blue skin, he could barely feel it. But it did damn him in the people's eyes. No longer was he lovable tricky Loki, the boy that never seemed to grow. Instead he was the cursed boy, the changeling that had snuck into Siv's house, taking the real Loki away. He usually changed his skin on raids, hoping to surprise his enemies when they least expected it by becoming a monster. It was most effective.
Just as it was effective now to shift into his other skin and climb down from his tree.
The heat was easier to bear in this skin. Pale as he was, Loki didn't fear burning, not in the land of the Gods.
He tried to get his bearings, climbing three more trees before he found a good direction to start walking.
There were a number of things he needed if he was going to survive here. Food, water, shelter and information. The first two would be no problem. Loki was small but he knew how to hunt and how to set traps. Water he could find by following the sea or finding a well. Shelter, he knew the Gods wouldn't take him in. They would notice his unusualness sooner or later and remember he was the rumoured fifty year old child the raiders had brought back with them. No matter, he would simply make his own.
The city he'd gleamed the night before was even more beautiful in broad daylight. The people didn't bother him as Loki roamed the paths and walkways, seeing him as just another wandering child as he tried to find Asgard's water source.
Sure enough, there was a well not far from the palace, the line for it not as long as it should be which meant there must have been another well not far from here. Loki drenched himself in water, not minding the people waiting behind him as he drank his fill and more for his future adventure.
He made a mental note in as he walked, remembering places here and there that may come in handy if he needed to run. He manage to grab some chalk at one point, the white dust helping him keep track in case his memory failed.
Down at the docks he found the last of what he needed, keeping more in the shadows here since these people would have gotten a longer look at him than the ones in the streets.
They were already talking, the language that nonsense again, Loki listening long enough to get a hint of what they were saying. Something about the palace, Odin too. If they had anything to say about the people Loki had left behind he couldn't make it out.
He stuck around anyway for a while, trying to get a grasp on the language. If he could just work out a bit of what they were saying he knew he wouldn't be left hopeless.
As midday came and went Loki abandoned the docks in favour of backtracking through the streets. He stole a few things here and there, some cloaks from children, boots to replace his own. He even managed another tunic before fleeing to the woods to start setting up traps.
He hunted with the knife he stole until it got too dark to see, resigning himself to another night of going hungry as he scampered up a tree again to sleep.
The next day he had more success on the hunting front. The day after he managed to steal enough cloth to start setting up a sort of tent. By a week, he was watching the men at the docks making boats, working out how they knocked wood together. Two weeks he was trying it for himself in the woods, his fingers stinging as again and again he knocked them with the rocks he tried to use as hammers. Three weeks and a thunderstorm tested the small shelter Loki set up for himself. Four and he was rebuilding again.
"How much could I get for this?" Loki asked, holding up a bird he'd felled that morning.
The merchant eyed him up, figuring, like the others had, that he was sent here by his parents. "Three coins."
Loki held back his hiss, three was far too cheap for a bird this fresh. "Five."
"Two and I won't rap your knuckles for that attitude." He thought it was 'rap' it could have been something worse. He still wasn't really that good at the language yet.
"Six and I won't tell the guards you're selling dodgy meat. Don't think they don't already have their suspicions. Two of them were ill last week after buying a roast that was over five months old."
The merchant eyed him again, Loki knowing he'd played this right. A parent sending Loki, fair enough, the merchant probably thought he could cheat him and Loki would go home grateful. But by mentioning the guards, an intimate detail of the guards, he was revealing he had a higher status than previously thought. A high born would be more inclined to come back down and ask for their due. "Four."
Now they were getting somewhere. "Seven and you throw in that week old bird." It was bigger than the one Loki had, but the meat was quickly going off.
"Five and no bird."
"Seven and the bird," Loki insisted.
The man huffed, knowing he wasn't going to get a better offer for a bird this good from anyone else. It wasn't like he was one of the royal traders, this man barely saw any hunters, preferring to buy his meat from traders that wouldn't be able to sell their wares due something or other. "Six and I'll take the wings off for you."
The wings would be more than enough to feed him tonight, any more and Loki would be looking at too much wasted meat. "Fine." He still held the meat until he had his end of the deal, the wings much easier to carry in his little hands.
The coin he put away, filling the waterskin he'd bought from his last trade up at the well before going back to setting his traps.
It was strange, almost every week he could have sworn his traps had been meddled with. He would have suspected a larger animal but the way that the traps had been tampered seemed to suggest that someone, and he was sure it was a someone, had carefully killed his hunt, removed them and reset the trap before Loki could come collect it.
Now once he could have forgiven. Twice was pushing it. But three times, Loki still needed to eat.
He set it up, slipping up into the tree tops. This time he would find them. He'd find them and… maybe extort them for money. At least negotiate some kind of arrangement so he wouldn't be struggling for food.
It was just before dusk before the fox he'd caught twitched anew as unsubtle footsteps started stumbling through the foliage. Loki perked up, expecting a palace guard, someone who might walk these woods often on patrol. Instead he got a boy just slightly taller than himself.
"It's here, it's here!" Thor called, more footsteps following until Allfather Odin and his Queen Frigga were there too.
"A fox," Frigga awed completely for Thor's sake as she shared a harsh look with her husband.
"Truly impressive," Odin complimented, his own approval not as forced as his wife's. "Now, do you want to bring it home or should I?"
"Me," Thor grinned, taking the little hammer Odin handed him.
Loki didn't look, too busy climbing further up the tree in case they happened to look up. Alone, Odin and Frigga started hissing together, the sound travelling up but not so far that Thor would hear.
"How often has he been coming out here?" Odin asked.
"A few weeks. I thought he had gotten lucky when he first came home. Maybe that poor rabbit had just fell and Thor happened upon it."
Odin said something Loki couldn't understand, stopping only to look over at Thor for a second, "Still, it is impressive. I wonder who taught him how to make traps like that."
"Not me," Frigga insisted. "Maybe one of those little friends you force him with."
"He cannot stay with you forever Frigga," Odin sighed.
Thor came bounding back over with his fox, holding it up for Odin to grab while he went back to 'set' the trap, "For later," he grinned, taking the fox again and scurrying back to the palace.
Well, Loki couldn't negotiate an understanding. Nor could he stay here.
Making sure the Gods were truly out of sight Loki scampered down his tree and to his tent. It didn't take much to fell it over, Loki grabbing what he could and moving so he was deeper into the forest. It would take a while before he could set up properly again, but Loki was willing to do it. He wouldn't be found out. He refused.
He moved his traps too, leaving the one Thor had 'set'. Let the little God try and figure out why the animals weren't coming anymore, Loki didn't care. He just needed to eat.
It took another month before he was able to call his shelter stable again. Even then there was always something to do to it. With the structure set, he now had time to get more materials, make it more permanent. He spent more time at the docks than he probably should have, a few of the fishermen recognising him when they saw him. Some of them even shared their lunches, but the familiarity was damaging all the same.
So he left them behind to seek out a different hobby. The blacksmiths was interesting, it helped him with working out how he could make things stronger by adding metal to the wood he was planning on gathering. The seamsters also was helpful, especially because they thought he was cute and invited him in whenever he poked his head through. He didn't mind being doted on, for a few weeks anyway until familiarity set in. They sewed his clothes for him too.
It granted him a better way of living when he managed to work out how to do it for himself. Before, when he'd been abandoned, it had been more about working out how to get home. But, since he'd got here he hadn't been able to figure out how to get past through the narrow stream that had brought him here. No one else did too, when Loki subtly asking the people saying the raiders had used some kind of Bifrost. No stream to be heard. There was no way back, which meant Loki had to focus more on living. Something he thought he was doing pretty well with so far.
Before he knew it, winter came and went, spring melting into summer and Loki had been there a year. Another year didn't make him feel better, it just made him feel old. He still hadn't grown. He would probably die looking five. A concept that was coming nearer and nearer the longer the years passed.
Fifty one turned to fifty two. Fifty two to, well Sixty.
Ten years Loki had been on Asgard when he saw Prince Thor again.
He had been eyeing up one of the stalls, the coin purse at his side aching to buy the sweet cakes that always melted in his mouth. The only problem was they were overpriced and Loki also had his eyes on another dagger he fancied buying. It wasn't anything like the one that belonged to Queen Frigga. But Loki felt bad about using it every time he did for mundane things. A dagger like that should be used in combat, not for trying to cut up a skin to make a new blanket. Loki needed a simple everyday dagger.
But those cakes…
He would have to do with Queen Frigga's dagger for a while longer. It wasn't like he was desperate for it. Really, Loki was just kidding himself if he thought he would be able to use a new dagger for another ten years. Sixty was pushing how long he should have already lived, he was feeling the weight of expectant death any moment.
So Loki counted out the coins he needed and tried to push his way to the front of the throng. He made sure his hood was up, head down in case someone recognised him. He'd tried, about a few years ago, to change his appearance again, maybe his hair colour. He'd gotten it half way before he gave up and changed it back to black. Whatever magic allowed him to change his skin seemed to stop at just that. It felt untrained as he tried to do it elsewhere, like something would go wrong at any moment and he would be stuck that way. He didn't want to be stuck, and a cloak was a small price to pay. He figured if he was still around in another five years he would go in search of some kind of runework in Asgard to help him with his appearance, for the Gods were bound to have the answer to his problems.
Loki reached the front, holding his coins up to show he meant business. He just had the merchant's attention before something blonde and pushy knocked him down.
"Thor!" Came Queen Frigga's voice.
"Here mother." The prince was already pointing to the last honey cakes on the stand.
Loki would have felt cheated had he not been struck stupid. Thor- Thor hadn't changed. He was exactly as Loki remembered him ten years ago. His size was still the same, his face, his voice. He didn't look older than last Loki had seen him.
He was the same.
He was the same!
Maybe Loki wasn't so freakish after all.
"Thor, how many times do I have to tell you to watch where you're going. You've knocked this poor boy down." Gentle arms were helping him up before Loki could scramble back. They dusted him off and set his cloak right too. "There," Queen Frigga said, "Now let's see your hands? And you will apologise," She said to Thor.
"Sorry," Thor mumbled over a honey cake, handing over the coin Frigga gave him to the merchant.
"Again Thor, and mean it." Loki got his coin purse back at some point. He couldn't take his eyes off Thor.
The boy swallowed at least before saying sorry again.
"It's fine," Loki squeaked. He remembered himself then, how dangerous it was to be with these people. If the age thing wasn't a problem what could be was the familiarity of his features. Already Frigga was scrutinizing him.
Loki hoped he wouldn't be struck down as he ran. It was rude, he knew, to just leave the Queen like that without so much as a thank you. But Loki did not intend to be captured by these people again.
So he looped and ran, ducked and hid until night fell and he stumbled back to his little house.
Despite the fact his heart was racing Loki couldn't help but laugh as he lay his head down. He wasn't wrong. He wasn't! If Thor was still a child then maybe Loki was too. They had always said Loki was wrong, maybe he wasn't, maybe he was just a fallen God. It wasn't that far fetched. He had powers others did not. He looked different too. Surely there must be some God in Asgard with skin like his.
Whatever the case, Loki wasn't dying anytime soon. He wasn't even an adult. It gave him a new direction in life. New opportunities. Ones he wasn't going to squander trying to merely live anymore.