A/N: written: summer 2012
edited: August 10, 2013
I don't own any of the characters, nor the song.
()()()
When blood and youth were warmer,
We breathed summer like the sweet air
We found each other like a mirror.
We were so optimistic,
It was so easy to be
We were young and naïve.
~ "Eileen", The Hush Sound
()()()
Thor was never very good at hiding.
Loki learned this at the keen age of eight, while playing an animated game of hide-and-seek among the warm fields outside the Asgardian castles. He had only just finished counting to twenty, his brother's laughter leaving a giddy trail of giggles in the wake of his bumbling footsteps, when Thor did the unthinkable and called out to him.
"You'll never find me!"
Loki turned from the weeping willow he'd been facing, dropping his hands from his eyes and grinning as he scanned the bucolic scenery. "Just you wait," he called back into the bushes. "Remember, no cheating!" he added as an afterthought, just to taunt. Thor was too "noble" to cheat, too great to lie. He said that future kings were not to be dishonest because lies were bad.
Loki thought that was silly. Lies weren't necessarily bad. Sometimes they protected people. And if lies protected people, they couldn't be harmed. So how was that bad?
"I would never cheat!" Thor's voice came again, deep within the underbrush, loud and prideful to match his personality. Loki pursed his lips to stifle a snicker, making sure to tread quietly on the thistle underfoot. If he just kept Thor talking, he would find him; his brother wasn't the brightest in the nine realms. He often cocked his head at Loki in a rather confused manner when he saw the younger boy doing magic, wondering how it was possible. "But that fire isn't real fire," he would say when Loki lit the candles on the dinner table. "So how is it here?"
"Magic," Loki would say, and, just to tease him, he'd wink and the flames would vanish from the candlesticks with a twitch of his fingers, and he'd revel in Thor's shocked expression.
"You wouldn't?" Loki's voice trailed up on the end in a light query as he descended a bit deeper into the brushwood, his footsteps mute on the forest floor.
"Of course not! I am to be a king! And a good, honest king, at that." Indignant and closer now.
At this Loki couldn't help but feel a pang of envy. He loved his brother-honestly, no lies-and he loved his father-honestly, no lies. And yes, it was also true that Odin told the both of them that they were meant to be kings. But Loki had never heard of two thrones. He had never seen joint rulers. This seemed to mean that there could only be one king, and even so, why did Thor automatically assume that this position fell to him?
I could be a good king, the green-eyed boy thought, even as the green-eyed monster tugged a scowl down over his lips and drew his eyebrows together. Maybe even better than Thor. He's not as smart as I am. I'll prove it.
He narrowed his eyes at the shrubbery a few paces in front of him. With practiced ease, even at eight years old, he placed a hand in front of his chest and signaled outward, towards the opposite side of the bushes. Across from him, another Loki swam into view, condensing out of thin air: an exact duplicate, a direct copy. It looked like him in every way, down to the last dark curl atop his head. With a twirl of his hand, the copy of him turned, as if confused, and a great giggling came from the bush before Thor barreled out from within the green and bumped right into the real Loki on the opposite side.
For a moment Thor stood, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, staring at his younger brother. "You—you were just-"
Loki grinned; Negativity promptly wiped clean away at the sight of Thor—his brother was too naïve for his own good, he thought. He swiped a hand through the air. As Thor watched, the mirage vanished, and Thor whirled back to his brother, eyes impossibly big and as blue as the clear summer sky. "You cheated!" the blonde boy declared matter-of-factly, prodding a finger into Loki's chest.
"So did you!" Loki pointed out. "You're not allowed to leave your hiding spot!"
"I only left to hide from you!"
"That wasn't me. I'm me."
Thor swung back around towards the patch of woodland his brother's doppelganger had previously stood upon, which was now vacant. "Yes, I know, but-" He turned back to Loki. "You wouldn't have found me had you not used your tricks."There was a certain kind of malice in his voice, an intimation at something Loki was all too familiar with already: Inferiority. As if he was somehow the lesser.
His eyes narrowed; lips parted on the brink of insults. "You're just angry because I found you," he shot back, his voice a lilting taunt. "You're angry because I won." He drove the spiteful word in as deeply as he could; he knew it would hurt. Thor did not like to lose. He was always the champion, and Loki supposed even the idea of not winning a simple game irked him.
"You did not win," Thor snapped scornfully, thunderheads gathering in his eyes. "You lied!"
Loki blinked, paused, and opened his mouth to speak, but Thor wasn't finished.
"That's all your magic is: Lies! It's all just an illusion! The only ones who use magic are cowards," Thor seethed out, rambling now, a child's jeer. "The brave men fight. The brave men are warriors, like-like Father. And like me!"
"And that is why you will be king," Loki said quietly, almost a question.
Thor stopped, blonde bangs messy in front of his eyes. He brushed them away angrily and asked, exasperated, "What?"
"And that is why you will be king," Loki repeated. "Because you are a brave warrior and I am a cowardly liar." He made sure to keep his face expressionless, his eyes guarded. The only way to get answers was to probe, to conceal what was already known in order to gain more knowledge. Loki often did this after pulling a prank, and while his mother rushed around, bustling about the castle complaining of snakes in wine goblets at dinnertime and stolen honey cakes from the kitchens, Loki would ask what was wrong, playing innocence and playing it well, to uncover information. And he knew the best way to get Thor talking was to make him feel sorry.
Thor fell for the pitiful act; he fell hard. "Oh, brother. That's not what I meant." He reached to put his hand on Loki's shoulder, a comforting gesture.
"But it is," Loki replied emphatically. "I believe you are correct. I am not as strong as you." His voice trembled with just the right amount of false emotion. With that, he stepped away, shrugging off Thor's hand, and dropped his chin to his chest. If he squinted hard enough, he could make tears come to his eyes: Real tears that held no real meaning. Genuine tears that lacked genuineness. Authentic tears that weren't authentic yet held enough authenticity to get him out of trouble when he turned the wine in the dinnertime goblets into snakes, because he didn't mean to, he was just practicing and he didn't know how to change them back and he was oh-so-very sorry.
Thor stooped over a bit, leering and trying to see Loki's downturned face. "Come now, brother, you're really strong," he said reassuringly, his voice gentle as if coaxing a small animal from a corner. "I think you'd make a good king, too."
At this Loki's eyes darted up to his brother's. "You think so?" Inquisitive now, hope brimming in his eyes.
"Yes. Really." Thor smiled a gap-toothed grin, Odin's golden boy in all his youthful glory.
Loki couldn't help but be affected by Thor's charm and moved by his sincerity. It seemed all Thor had to do was smile, and the world bent to his will. Meanwhile, Loki had to lie and cheat and trick, and even then he was scrambling for a foothold on the mountains of affection heaped upon his brother daily. He managed a smile back, albeit a wanton one.
"We'd both be good kings, actually," Thor continued, musing. He stroked an imaginary beard, and Loki could almost imagine him with one someday, sitting contemplatively atop a golden throne just like Odin. "We'd both rule Asgard well."
"Two kings." Loki smiled at the thought.
"Two kings!" Thor cried exuberantly. "And we'd be the best kings there ever were." He looped an arm over Loki's shoulders as the two trekked back towards the castle.
(Two kings, and one sat on a throne of lies. But if lies protected people, were they really that bad?)