Nobody Notices
The tavern is dimly lit and crowded when he enters, and nobody even notices when he does.
Loki thinks this is well.
He does not wish to be bothered this night.
He has come from the palace, and an unpleasant altercation with none other than Sif.
Unpleasant, Loki thinks, is putting it mildly.
She had cornered him on his way to the library, somehow cutting off and blocking his path and menevuring him against a wall.
He and Sif do not like each other. Another understatement.
Ever since they had been children, each vying for Thor's attention.
More times than not, Loki recalls with a hint of resentment, it felt as though Sif had won that particular battle.
And so he had cut off her golden locks, and he had had his lips sewn shut for it, or rather, had them sewn shut for bartering to fix it, and their relationship, whatever had been left of it, if ever it had existed at all, spiraled into bitter anger, and sometimes, it seemed, even hatred.
Loki tries to avoid her all he can, but Sif, admired warrior maiden that she is, and Loki wonders why it is someone so against convention could be so lauded and loved, when he himself is rejected for much the same, seems to think nothing of seeking the second Prince out, if only to taunt and harass him.
He rues the day he ever made an enemy of her.
She had pressed him against a wall, unafraid, apparently, of physical retaliation. Loki is stronger than her, of course. But not much. And she has never seemed to fear putting her hands on him.
"What did you do with it?" She had demanded angrily, and Loki had looked at her with genuine confusion.
"I am sure I know not to what your refer, Lady." He had answered wearily.
And her face had twisted in disgust, he remembers, and she had shoved him back, hard, her hands on his chest, unkind.
"Do not play coy with me trickster!" She had hissed. "My shield, it is missing from my chambers!"
"And you think I stole it, of course." Loki had sighed, more a resigned statement than a question.
"I know you did!" Sif had bit back. "Do not play games Loki! Tell me where you have it!"
Loki's eyes had narrowed then, angry.
"Much as I am sure it pains you to hear this Sif, I assure you, I did not take your shield. Perhaps you left it in the training rings and it simply slipped your mind."
The lines of Sif's beautiful face had hardened then, Loki recalls, hand pressing harder against his chest, and she had growled out…
"No. That is not something I would forget. Enough of your lies Loki. Tell me where you have hidden it!"
"I have told you I do not have it!" Loki had shot back, voice less controlled. "Whatever would I want with your shield anyway?"
"Do you ever need a reason for your foul games, Liesmith?" Sif had retorted.
And Loki had just glared at her a long moment, unmoving, mouth pulled severely in a frown.
Before at last, he'd reached up and taken hold of her wrist, pushing her hand from his chest.
"Allow me by." He'd said flatly, making to move past.
That was when she'd hit him.
Hard across the face with her open palmed hand. Hard enough to snap his head fully to the side and leave a vicious stinging in his cheek in the moments following.
Loki had stood there, frozen, for a moment, shocked.
And then the anger had come, boiling up inside him like an unstoppable wave and he had turned to Sif with lightening speed and grabbed hold of her wrists before she could even register the movement.
And there had been a flash of unmitigated fear in her eyes then, as she'd stared up at him, mouth agape.
Loki's hands had tightened over her wrists painfully, and he'd wanted for an instant so much… so much to just snap the bones there and leave her in a crying heap along the floor.
… As he'd so often been left as a child.
Crying and huddled and alone.
But as fast as the rage had come, it went, and he'd released her, stepping back.
Her eyes had remained on him, wary and accusatory and then hateful.
She'd sneered at him, and shouted, throwing accusation and insult and threat.
But she'd done so to his back, as he'd walked away, not bothering to turn. To acknowledge any of her words.
He'd just wanted to get away then.
Just wanted to get away…
And somehow, he'd wandered into the city, and here, at this tavern.
He isn't sure why he chose this particular place. He doesn't think there's any, specific reason, truly.
Just a place to be, away from there.
He wears a cloak over his royal garb, hood pulled up, and he prays no one recognizes him.
His eyes scan over the place, searching, until he finds an empty table, near the back and pressed into a corner.
He thinks perfect, and begins towards it, keeping his face dipped and arms at his sides.
No one notices as he seats himself, hands folding along the wooden surface of the table.
A few minutes later, a young boy comes by, carrying a trey and asking if he would like a drink, or some food.
Loki declines and sends the boy away.
He watches the patrons with sharp eyes.
Most of them are drunk, and overly loud, yelling at each other instead of speaking, some singing songs. Occasionally, fights break out, furniture breaks, but before alls said and done, the men are friends once more, arms slung over shoulders and laughter filling the air.
Loki isn't sure why he came here.
He dislikes rauckous behavior like this. Dislikes intoxication and the ill tempers it induces in men.
It reminds him of those times Thor has been drunk.
… Those times he was afraid of his brother.
But Loki likes to think he is a student of nature, and observation is his lesson.
He watches people.
And eventually, there is one, particular person who catches and holds his interest stronger.
A woman; perhaps just a girl. But she is beautiful.
Loki watches her for a long while.
She seems to be by herself, though there is a constant stream of men who take notice of her and are more bold than him by far, going up and trying to court her attention.
She seems to ignore them all.
Loki has never been very good at this.
He can be charming, he knows.
Immensely so.
But, it seems, only when he is not truly interested.
He recalls the one time he had been, and how he'd somehow managed to make a blubbering idiot of himself.
The girl he'd tried speaking to, that time, he remembers, had looked at him with incredulous eyes, and then laughed in his face before walking away.
Loki hasn't tried courting anyone since, a span of many, many years.
He tells himself it's because he isn't interested.
He knows the truth is that he's afraid.
He sees women who fling themselves at his brother and hears the whispers as he moves through their crowds at feasts and gatherings of how handsome and beautiful the crown Prince is.
He hears no such words for himself.
Loki tells himself that used to bother him, but not anymore.
Loki knows, deep down, that also is a lie.
It isn't that he hasn't had women. He has.
When some maiden or other is unable to garner Thor's attention, they settle for him, come to him and offer themselves.
He accepts, because he's lonely.
And when he wakes in the morning, he always finds the place beside him empty.
And he always hates himself for letting himself think he might one time wake and that will somehow be different.
Loki hates the word hope.
He thinks it is a vile, vicious lie of a word.
It is worse those times he wakes before them, and then has to hear the excuses, the reasons for why they can't stay.
Those times, Loki wants to lash out and ask them what it is that gave them the notion they could ever lie to the god of lies.
But he only ever nods, and tells them it is fine, and watches as they gather their clothes and leave.
Loki has never been very good at this.
But he remembers Sif, and the sting across his cheek from her slap, and his anger, and the feeling of drowning, and he wants… he wants desperately and suddenly and uncompromisingly to feel something else. To feel a woman's hand across his face, the touch gentle and kind.
To feel someone beside him and knowing they want to be there.
And so Loki pushes himself to his feet, and he begins making his way across the room, towards the woman.
He realizes halfway there what he's doing, and it takes every ounce of his will not to stop and turn back around.
Anxiety boils in the pit of his stomach, a kind of nervous tension which leaves the tips of his fingers numb, and he thinks to himself…
"Coward"
What kind of man cannot even approach a girl?
So he forces himself to keep going, until he is standing beside her.
There are several men on either side of her still, drinking and laughing and jostling each other.
Loki pointedly ignores them, and breathes in, gathering himself to speak.
"… Good evening." He says.
But very apparently, he said it not loud enough to be heard over the din of the place, and unwanted heat rises in the Prince's cheeks as the woman fails to turn and acknowledge him.
Loki's eyes slip to the floor, his hands folding behind his back as he straightens further, trying to push the unpleasant feeling down.
He wonders how Thor does this. How he just walks up to maidens so easily and has them giggling like children within minutes.
He clears his throat and tries again.
"Good evening, Lady." He says, making his voice louder, and finally, the woman turns, for a moment, her eyes unfocused, staring at his chest, before she lifts them and he finds himself staring into her face.
Gods, but she's beautiful.
For an instant, he's frozen, voice momentarily caught in his throat, lips numb.
"… Yes?" She finally asks, voice slightly clipped and impatient.
She sounds unhappy already, and Loki curses his stupidity.
"… Good evening Lady." He repeats for a third time, and nearly turns and runs for the embarrassment he feels at the realization. "… I… I was wondering if you might… that is to say… if perhaps…"
He's stumbling all over his words, and he can't believe the irony, he who is called Silvertongue, and he can't even form a single, coherent sentence now.
The woman's expression is growing gradually more impatient and less impressed, until finally she puts a hand up and says, no lack of snide disregard in her voice…
"Is there something you want?"
Loki stills, and he feels himself stiffen.
He keeps his eyes down as he answers, quietly…
"… I thought perhaps you might like to accompany me from this place, and…"
She laughs.
She laughs.
And suddenly Loki feels dizzy.
He dares to glance up, and she is smirking at him.
"You're going to have do better than that, darling." She says, hand perched on her hip.
Her dialect is lower class, and for a moment, Loki feels a swell of anger, that a commoner would dare speak to her Prince so.
He opens his mouth to say something, but then he realizes the cloak he wears, and that he's scarcely yet lifted his face to her. She couldn't possibly know to whom she speaks.
But then she is talking again, and her words are sharper, crueler, her eyes roaming up and down his figure in skeptical assessment…
"You're a bit scrawny, ain't ya? Not to my tastes, I'm afraid."
And that does it.
His hands reach up, seemingly of their own accord, and he throws his hood back, staring back at her with hard, cold eyes.
She's drunk, as everyone else in this place, and it takes a moment for her to register just who it is she's looking at.
When she does, her eyes go slightly wide, her mouth falling into a surprised O.
For a long moment more, he glares, features schooled into unfriendly and displeased lines.
And without another word, he turns, ready to leave her, and this wretched place, behind…
Only to come face to face with a man, shorter than him by perhaps an inch or two, but with broad shoulders and a wide chest, thick arms crossed over it. He is filthy and hard looking, and Loki is filled with the urge to step back, away from him.
He does not.
The man is looking at him with unflinching eyes, studying him, and Loki stares back, unwilling to be intimidated.
"You're the Prince, ain't ya?" He says.
Loki says nothing a moment, and then a second man calls out, to his left.
"Yeah, he is. The second son, aye! Prince Loki."
"Prince Loki!" A third man now, behind the first, turning and staring. "What's he doing here?"
"Don't know." Says the first. "Shouldn't you be, I don't know, holed up somewhere's in the royal palace?"
Loki regards each of them only a moment before refocusing on the first.
"You will excuse me." He says, making to move past.
And all at once, the first man's hand is on his shoulder, pushing him back.
"Now just wait a moment." He says, looking up at the Prince with ill-intentioned eyes. "That's my woman you were just talkin' to."
Loki's gaze narrowed at him, before glancing up, darting to the two others.
"… You will pardon me then. I did not mean offense." He starts. "But if you will kindly remove your hand from my person."
He reaches up, grasping the man's wrist, beginning to push him off.
He can feel already in the man's arm that his strength is greater than his own.
He pushes him away nonetheless.
And then he is brushing past him, and the others.
He shoves the uneasy feeling pooling at the pit of his stomach away, rigid and straight backed as he moves for the tavern door.
Thor has told him not to come into this part of the city by himself.
It is dangerous, he's said, full of Asgard's poorer classes and unsavory individuals, many of them law breakers.
He wishes now he had heeded his brother's warnings.
But Loki has ever been one of rebellious sort.
Ever has he done as he liked, damned be to the consequences.
He is out the tavern door and into fresh, night air, hitting his face. And for a moment, he feels relief.
But it lasts only an instant.
And then his face is hot, the ugly and familiar sensation of humiliation burning his cheeks.
"Fool." He thinks bitterly.
He is an utter fool, attempting… trying…
He isn't even sure what.
Only that it ended in failure, like everything else he does.
And then those men…
He'd felt distinctly uncomfortable in their presence.
He isn't sure why, doesn't understand the apprehension he'd felt, coiling in his chest.
He could easily handle them, should they have attacked.
Perhaps not physically, but he has his magic and…
"Hey, you!"
He turns, and they are standing there, the three of them.
And the discomfort returns full, Loki's lips pulling into a deep frown.
Was he that distracted, that he hadn't even heard them approach?
"I hear a rumor, my Lord…" one of them begins, stepping closer, stance very obviously threatening. "and I wondered if you might confirm? You see…"
The others are stepping nearer now, and for an instant, Loki tears his eyes from them and flits his gaze around, noticing belatedly that there is no one else out in the streets now.
He moves his eyes back, and the man talking is only a few feet from him now.
"I hear that you're argr." He says meanly. "So what that's got me wondering is, how come you were in here tonight, speaking with a maiden?"
Loki feels his heart quicken and then abruptly freeze in his chest.
Hurt and embarrassment and then suddenly vicious resentment and suffocating rage explode within.
Somehow, he manages to keep this all from his face, remaining an impassive and unaffected mask.
Hands, though, curl to fists at his side, frame tensing imperceptibly stiff.
He turns more fully, standing to his full height, facing the three men.
"You do your Lord insult." He says, voice deceptively calm and quiet. "Such impudence is grounds for public flogging."
The men around only snicker in return.
"And will our Lord run to his Daddy like the coward he is, simply because he was done insult?"
"And what cause has he to call it insult when it's so obviously true?" Another laughs.
Whatever restraint Loki had been managing quickly falters and snaps, and his face contorts in hard lines of fury.
"I am no coward!" He spits.
He isn't.
He isn't, he isn't, he isn't, he swears he isn't…
More laughter, louder still.
"Your dabbling in the dark arts tells us otherwise, my Lord." One of them begins. "What sort of man can also call himself a sorcerer?"
There is an eruption of agreements and acknowledgment among them, and if possible, Loki feels himself tighten further, shoulders painfully rigid and stiff now.
Vague tremor down through his arms and hands…
Some place in the back of his mind, he tells himself to calm down, that impudent rage is the least affective approach to this situation.
But logic is losing the battle against feeling, and he wants so much… so very much to lash out and…
"So he says he's no coward. Not argr? Well then, why doesn't he prove it? Come, my Lord, why don't you prove us false by facing us as a man would, and nothing else?"
Loki's mouth twitches, hands curling tighter.
This is an obvious and clumsy manipulation, he knows.
It has no less affect on him for it.
Loki's volatile temper has ever been his greatest enemy.
And with the next instant, he finds himself lunging towards the men, all thought gone from his mind but the desire to silence them and their accusations.
It is a mistake, and he knows it the moment his hands find the man closest to him, and he has hold of him only a brief second, fear and shock flashing across the others features before there are hands on him, pulling him back and tossing him roughly aside.
Instinct has him reaching for his magic, ready to defend, to blast them back from him with the surge of power.
But he then hears their words in his mind.
Argr, and coward, and he is not a coward. He is not.
Not those things…
And he will show them. He will prove…
Thoughts scatter and defuse with the sharp explosion of pain through his insides, a loud crack snapping inside his ears, and he hears a harsh gasp, and realizes only an instant later it belongs to himself.
He collapses from the blow, face into mud, and then there are hands, burying in his hair, jerking him back roughly, and he is being dragged, pulled off the road and back, into some place hidden and shadowed.
They fall upon him, all three men, and they beat him without restraint.
Hard heeled boots finding and sinking against his sides, his abdomen, across his face and arms and legs.
Loki curls into himself in some half-hearted attempt to prevent injury.
But this place is familiar.
He's been here before.
Been here so many times.
Distantly, he thinks he could destroy them.
He could.
He could paralyze them and crush them with pressure unlike any they've ever known. Turn their insides to liquid and watch them bleed out into the dirt and mud and filth which surrounds them.
Blast them apart with a power and concentrated heat, undo the fibers, the particles holding their bodies together and watch them unravel into nothing.
He thinks, probably, even he could simply defeat them with his hands and nothing more, beat them as they are doing to him now.
He may not be Thor. He may not be so strong, or even so skilled.
But skilled he is. He knows how to fight, and fight well.
If he focused, if he tried.
He could do all these things.
Somewhere in his mind, of this he is aware.
But he does none of it.
He does nothing.
He lies there, and they kick him, pull him up by the hair and lay fists to face, crack his skull against walls.
Lies there and lets it happen, and he thinks, vaguely, he thinks…
I deserve this.
I deserve this.
I deserve this…
They beat him until the world spins and he can no longer see straight, no longer think.
No longer pick himself up.
One last crack of knuckles against his jaw, they're holding him against a wall, thick hands clasped over his thin writs, pinning them back on either side of his drooping head. He feels his own knuckles scraping and bleeding against the brick.
The man holding him spits, right in his face.
And then they let him drop, and he collapses to the ground, unmoving.
They're muttering something as they walk away, but he doesn't hear. Doesn't listen.
Only lies there a while.
And there is some pleasure in his thoughts, and he feels his lip split wider and blood flow fresh, copper down as throat as he smiles grimly to himself, thinking about how they couldn't make him scream.
Oh no…
He's had far worse than this before.
Far worse.
And never then did he scream either.
Never cried, because no, no, no, he isn't a coward. Isn't argr.
And they know that now. They know, because they couldn't make him scream, no matter how hard… how hard they hit him.
No matter how hard…
And if there's a stinging in his eyes as he pulls himself up finally, if his vision blurs and throat slightly constricts, Loki ignores it.
It's only dizziness. Too many hits to the head, too much blood swallowed.
That's all.
He stumbles, catching himself against the wall, holding himself there.
Dizziness and too much blood…
He reaches a hand up, shaking, though he doesn't notice, groping for the hood of his cloak, pulling it back up over his head.
Waits a few moments longer for the world to stop spinning.
And then he pushes himself off, and he staggers.
And nobody even notices as he makes his way back into the tavern.
Nobody notices him at all.