Man loves company even if it is only that of a small burning candle. – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
The Gatekeeper knows from the first that the small infant hailed by Odin and Frigga as their second child is not theirs, cannot be theirs, for he saw the Allfather take the Jotunn babe from the ruins, and watched as the blue drained from the boy's skin and the red bled from his eyes, all at the touch of great Odin's hand.
He knows many things, and keeps his own counsel. It is not his place to offer wisdom to the wise, save when he is asked.
The boy asks often, as he grows. Loki, the child is called, for the quickness of his movements is like flame. He comes to the Bifrost with his father and his brother Prince Thor, and Odin tells the brothers of the Nine Realms of Yggdrasil, and of the rainbow bridge that can take them there. Thor's eyes are alight at the thought of the adventures and glorious battle than might be found in Midgard or Nornheim, but Loki's spirit is kindled by more than eagerness for sport. He sees the Bifrost as a gateway not to vast pleasures, but simply to vastness. His young mind yearns for knowledge.
For days without end, he comes to Heimdall and sits at his feet, demanding stories, asking first with a child's boundless curiosity and then with a youth's ferocious determination.
"Why are these called the Nine Realms? Surely there are worlds beyond only these!"
"Is it true that only Father may travel to Niflheim and return unharmed?"
"Does a giant serpent truly encircle all of Midgard?"
Heimdall answers Loki as he answers all, in a slow deep voice as steady as the foundations of Asgard.
Sometimes the boy stays too long, and a servant comes from the palace to drag him away, all unwilling, to his weapons training or to the supper table. As the slender, straight-backed boy is lead away across the bridge, steady Heimdall feels a faint sense of regret.
"Send him away when he comes," Odin says, upon his return from an excursion. "You have your work to do and he has his."
"He is young, my king, and he hungers for the sight of other worlds. There is a fire within him."
Odin's eye dims briefly. "Better a fire than a winter storm."
Heimdall is not surprised when Loki comes to him that evening, well after he should be in bed. He has seen the goings-on in Odin's hall, how the king has laughed and praised his heir's growing talent for swordplay and made little of his second son's progress in his studies. "He said there is no need for me to study statecraft," Loki says, grinning as he strides into Heimdall's sanctum. "That I would do better to spend my time tilting at quintains and leave the leadership lessons to my brother. But I say that if Thor is content to waste his days playing with toy swords, then at least one of us should learn how to run a kingdom. This way, Thor can do as he likes and I will be of use to him when he is king."
His boyish voice is jesting and sweet, but it is sweetness over-ripening into bitterness, like a rare fruit left too long on the stem.
"That is well, my prince," says Heimdall. "It is a wise man who keeps two strings to his bow."
"That's what I mean to be," declares Loki. "As wise a man as Father - wiser! Even if I cannot be a king."
It is late that night when Odin himself comes to fetch his son. He finds Loki curled up on the floor, catlike, asleep at Heimdall's feet.
The Gatekeeper stands tall. He stares straight ahead, motionless as ice in a Jotunn winter. It is as though he has never moved once in all of time. His golden armor shines, and his cloak is laid carefully over Loki's peacefully sleeping form.