The Better Part of Valor

This is a retelling of 'Thor' from Loki's perspective, and postulates that he wasn't the one who let the frost giants into Asgard. Not actually intended to change the events of the movie in any way. I don't have a beta for this one, so here goes nothing. Research failure and typos are all on me.

Rating might go up later; currently no pairings planned beyond Thor/Jane Foster.

Chapter 1

If there is one skill honed to true perfection, among all the dazzlingly crafted specialties in Loki's arsenal, it is the ability to remain silent. It is the knowledge of when silence is required, or advantageous, or worth it for the manner in which Thor's pupils flare when he is angry. It is knowing how to use silence to turn a dull, meaningless interaction into a contest worthy of his attention and his amusement and the vast, labyrinthine intellect that silence so often hides.

Silence boasts a myriad of forms. Asgard inures one to color, as it inures one to cacophony. Every prism and plane swells with indulgence, coruscating in every hue like the Bifröst made small and plentiful for the eye, burning in sunlight as the Bifröst burns. Together with sound it is seiðr in the air, stopping up all ears, crawling the bones and hollowing the pores ― together it is no more true than any madness. Silence, then, can only be sanity. But more than sanity, it is his silence. It is Loki's silence: Loki, in whom more words have birthed and died through the murmurs of fleeting dreams than most Asgardians have conceptualized in all their long lives. He knows this curiously without vanity; each of the Æsir has a superlative, and the interplay of words and keeping words back happens to be his, overlapping with the Allfather's though it does. It is so much so that the process of judging it goes by without his notice. He seldom has to weigh alternatives, because the answer is already before him. So it is today.

He lets Thor precede him from the weapons vault, anger-quick steps snapping echoes from the walls, while his own echoes crawl more subtly upward and fail to descend again. He knows well not to be in his brother's sight-line until his black mood passes, and further he requires time to think. Knowing when to hold his tongue has become automatic; other processes remain too complex to reduce to instinct, too useful and too deliciously fun to wish simpler. Loki likes to ponder. This mess that has arisen will not be lightly unsnarled, but he must settle on a course of action with all speed, and his thinking is clearer and better when the charged humidity of Thor's rage is not heavy upon him, nor the oft-tiresome prattle of Fandrel filling his ears, for surely their friends will not be far behind a display such as this. Hogun is quiet enough, as is Sif, and at least Volstagg will frequently block his mouth with victuals, but Fandrel loves nothing but to talk incessantly even when he lacks a topic of any interest. On a typical day, taking in their reactions to Thor's anger would be quite interesting enough, even from Fandrel, but not this day. This day, it is different. This day, Loki has seen something he never thought to see: the Allfather surprised.

This is curious for many reasons, and startling for many more. Each slow, measured pace along the corridor in Thor's wake is an implication.

He reaches the side room beloved by Thor's comrades just as a table is being upended in a fine exhibition of pique, strewing the floor with what would have made a fine meal, from grapes and mead to well-cooked boar. Loki raises an eyebrow as he slips inside, skirting the room's edge to approach Thor from an angle. Volstagg is likely to lapse into mourning. Loki is not surprised. An overabundance of the expected royal extravagance has made Thor always a bit of a wastrel, and certainly he is quick-tempered enough ― and Loki counts on both of these traits now, for he has already developed something of a plan.

Perhaps it would be better termed a strategy, for it relies upon knowledge he does not yet have, fashioned though it is to account for that. It begins perforce with a mechanism for obtaining that knowledge through drawing on his brother's predictability.

Between here and the weapons vault, alarm and intrigue have modulated into excitement and anticipation of the challenge inherent. It thrills, this prospect of learning something that Odin does not know ― that even Heimdallr could not see, for surely the demands of his duty would have driven him to action long before the ceremony had to be baffled by Odin's abrupt departure. It appeals to his intellect and his vanity at once, and to all the untapped reserves of his cleverness. It thrills almost as much as had the look on Thor's face when his coronation went awry, and almost as much as knowing that he, Loki, has but to utter a handful of banal and sympathetic words to set in motion the means to his much-delayed recognition. When Loki succeeds, Thor will undoubtedly be petulant that he has been left out, but only for he does not think things through, and will not realize the importance of his role until Loki patiently helps him to understand.

At that point Thor will be insulted, but that's its own miniature pocket of enjoyment to look forward to.

Thor has lapsed into quiet after his outburst with the table, eyes following a fruit as it rolls across the worked stone floor, low-banked anger in every crease of his cloak. Loki learned quite early that even brotherly affection cannot hope to sway Thor's temper, no matter whether his intentions are to manipulate or simply to aid, if he is too direct. He speaks not right away, instead circling behind a pillar, taking in the precise cant of Thor's jaw and the tilt of his head, still too many colors in the film of Asgard's sun, the better to gauge the intricacies of his mood and consider what is best to say. He must work within the anger first, and turn it to his purposes, and his brother's naturally malleable disposition will take care of itself as his blood boils and he finds new focus in action: ever the quickest way to higher spirits. Loki is about to do both of them a favor.

He has already decided what is best ― what is necessary, really. There is much yet unknown. Thor is correct, at least, in that doing nothing serves only the Allfather. Loki has no doubt that Odin will uncover the means of this treachery, and by far better methods than Thor would attempt; because he cannot see those methods, cannot ken their terrifying efficacy, Thor believes their father does nothing at all, and it is this that drives him to fury. Loki, who has learned much from watching Odin work, will side with his brother this one time, for the chance to win that race to the answer, and with it a kind of glory Odin alone might fully appreciate but which will earn him accolade from even his peers at last. The door might be opened by a cudgel or by a fine needle; Loki plans to use both in their turn, and Thor has so excellently volunteered to be the first.

Initial point of approach: sympathy. Cautious, prepared-for-violence sympathy.

Loki emerges from behind the pillar, and takes slow, deliberate steps so that his brother will know he is there, else he might sneak up on him without intending it. A heated glance falls on him, and then Thor looks away. "It is unwise to be in my company right now, Brother," he grits out, sounding far more sullen than he likely realizes ― as if it weren't already clear to the entire palace, and Loki were an accomplished sort of dunce besides. Loki ignores it. Thor oft says obvious things as if they are great revelations. In a swirl of green and gold he sits, and prepares to converse, and watches the hurt and disappointment roil underneath the anger, and thinks of how unfamiliar they are on that face. "This was to be my day of triumph."

Despite himself, Loki does experience a jab of the commiseration he would have feigned. So well he understands that feeling. "It'll come," he says, to reassure them both. "In time." How thoroughly he enjoyed seeing Thor for once humiliated, down to the pit of his stomach where all his laughter lay trapped and thrashing to escape, yet how swiftly the enjoyment fades. The words uttered in private, before the ceremony, remain true, whether Thor believes him capable of sincerity or not.

But Loki has been already diverted, and by the time he collects the melancholy disarray of his intentions, though it takes but a few heartbeats, the expected distraction of the Warriors Three has finally caught up.

They swan through the doors in high form, Volstagg and Fandral making near-identical faces of surprise and dismay at the overturned refectory before Volstagg's modulates into fully realized horror. "What is this?" he demands. Hogun is black shadow and sternness. Sif is with them and her focus is immediately on Thor.

Loki has not enough momentum to lose Thor's attention to his friends now. He wants to be kinder, and to express more of his genuine wish for Thor's mind to ease, but now there isn't time. With a glance and a fidget in the direction of the nuisance, he turns back and launches into the substance of his strategy; Thor is not likely to notice his lack of subtlety, having none of his own against which to juxtapose it.

"If it's any consolation, I think you're right. About the jötnar, about Laufey, about everything." Keep his phrasing simple; keep his voice warm, almost conspiratorial, as if no one else can hear. The others can. Loki doesn't care. Their regard for him has ever been low, even if they are sharp enough to tell what he is doing without the context of prior exchange.

Sif's armor catches the light, teasing the corner of his eye with its vermilion accents. If anyone will, it is she. Perhaps Hogun.

"If they found a way to penetrate Asgard's defenses once, who's to say they won't try again ― next time with an army?"

"Exactly!"

Loki knows he's won already from the way Thor's hands move in gesticulation to accompany that word. A small corner of his mind is immediately gratified that, above his current purpose in goading Thor to action, he may well have managed to recapture the camaraderie of before the coronation.

But he does regard Sif and Hogun, those likely to be clever, aware that being backlit by the overlook of the city affords him a second longer to do so without being overt. They blend badly with the room itself, though they love it well and have spent many hours here, with their vaunted love of violence about them like mist that abhors the palace's indolence. They have not the indulgence of Fandrel and Volstagg. They have no need for rooms like this. Torchlight and fine-wrought stone steps and lavish furniture are made only for idling, where rosy shadows caper across their faces that long for the senseless physicality of killing, an impulse which abandons them, dissatisfied, until they have gone again on the hunt. It is how Loki knew Sif would become what she has become. As for Hogun, he has ever been more level-headed than all of them, and he knows enough of silence to be dangerous when he speaks. They stand together, between the other two, Volstagg behind (rescuing what he can of the scattered food) and Fandrel in the fore, his eyes now turned to the brothers as well, for once holding his peace as he no doubt fails to comprehend what is occurring. They are all girded simply for war, as always. Loki cannot pause. He dares not.

Scarcely before Thor has finished that single word, he is continuing, and it is simple to know the best words now: "There's nothing you can do without defying Father."

A few moments later, and it's all in hand.

Presently, their mounts thunder down the Bifröst, and Loki contemplates everything he has set in motion.

Thor is easy to motivate, provided one allows him to believe it his own idea, yet he is not entirely certain why the others have come, though he knew they would. And does he agree with Thor, as he has said? Loki does not think so. He only knows that answers may be found nowhere else but at their destination.

What troubles them, likewise troubles him, yet it is tempered by the enjoyment he has always received from breaking the rules. It is forbidden to go; Loki has always wanted to go, and has never before had a good enough reason. What must Jötunheimr be, that it is home to the creatures Odin conquered and humiliated, that it was theirs and now it is less for having lost its sovereignty? And who has lent them the strength and the nerve to enter Asgard once more? Loki assumes the jötnar less than clever for having taken this long to foray, and so he assumes now that they have taken some aid from one more clever than they. Yet, he is not certain, for the foray itself was ill-fated, ill-planned, doomed to fail as the Allfather said. Who would back such a clumsily executed attempt? The Vanir are all but Æsir now; the dwarves keep to themselves unless offered a trade for their craftsmanship or goaded into contest; Álfheimr poses no threat and has never let its capricious nature exceed its borders. Even for mischief, Loki himself would not have prized apart the fabric of his home and allowed monsters to enter, monsters he has never properly seen. Yet such things could be done by seiðr, and few know so much of that as he. He, and the Allfather.

It is likely that even now, Odin has gathered more of this than he, the old sharp ravens Huginn and Muninn ever busy at his behest, so Loki must hurry if he is to succeed and be recognized for it. And Thor must not suspect.

For once it is Loki who will catch the seiðmaðr in his mischief, but to do this, he must ply silence as he never has before, for it alone will speed him to victory.

Where Asgard's many-hued glory gives way to the vast starfield beyond the world, just at the edge there is Heimdallr: grand, silent sentinal of the Bifröst. He is an obstacle, bound to obey Odin and uphold the ban, a barrier to Loki's plans. He will already know what they want. Loki did not hide it, even with his magic which allows him to do so, because Thor must be seen as the instigator of this. Thus they will contend with Asgard's Guardian.

The groups dismounts a distance from the entrance to the Bifröst chamber, leaving their horses ground-tethered to wait for their return. Should Loki have his way, it will not be long until then. The failsafe is already in place.

Heimdallr stands golden as the chamber itself, still as stone, all the colors reflected in his armor and in the great golden sword which brings the Bridge to life. A younger Loki thought that Heimdallr had no home but this, the scarce meter of bridge where he planted his feet, and so many years elapsed before he realized that Himinbjörg was hidden in another space, all around them and yet not. It was an inspiration. Still now he models his own concealment on its breathtaking simplicity. He senses it with his skin, feels it in the air, as they approach; the weight of the Gatekeeper's world is as heavy as the weight of his gaze. Only a fool could mistake it for sight only. It is sight, and it is prophecy, and it is a peeling away of all pretense. It is not honesty, for honesty is not the true opposite of lies. It is dismantling, stripping, and laying bare the smallest breath. That is the opposite of lies. That is the opposite of Loki. But today he must pretend pretense, act as though he is acting, for even though they are older, it seems Thor's friends have never truly understood that Heimdallr does not have to be actively watching in order to know. They still believe that if they are fortunate, his attention will be elsewhere, as if it can only encompass one event at a time ― as if Heimdallr were no more than a lens, to be focused in one direction. Loki has given up attempting to convince Thor otherwise, and upon the Warriors Three or even Sif, he has not tried.

There are ways in which Loki feels he is the oldest of them all.

He slips past Thor, and says easily, "Leave this to me," a smile on his face as if he is lightly amused. He advances to Heimdallr. "Good Heimdallr ―" he begins.

"You're not dressed warmly enough." Heimdallr, more dour than Hogun, knows nothing but bluntness, and it is as Loki expected.

He feigns confusion; "I'm sorry?"

"Do you think you can deceive me?"

Yes, answers Loki's mind, I can.

"You must be mistaken," he says instead, "we were ―"

"Enough!" Thor has broken in, shedding glittering impatience as he moves so that Loki is a little behind him. "Heimdallr, may we pass?"

"Never ―"

― they all draw in a breath to protest ―

"― has an enemy slipped my watch until this day." The words are meant for them all, save the word enemy which is meant for Loki. "I wish to know how that happened."

Loki hears Sif untense behind him, and nearly hears Fandrel grin. Well. Heimdallr is unexpectedly an ally, then, and Loki can relax but a little. His plan for circumventing the Guardian's refusal would have been complicated and uncomfortable, and would have relied heavily on the swiftness of the others in catching on. So Loki lets Thor supersede him, fitting in that it represents the whole of his life. His silence pulses, once, and settles within him.

"Then tell no one where we have gone until we've returned, understand?" Yes, still a king in virtue if not in name, Loki's brother Thor.

But he cannot watch the satisfaction flood his brother's face, cannot watch the swagger of his walk into the chamber, for he remains halted and staring at Heimdallr, tasting the word enemy still and longing to spit it back at him.

It is a contest in long standing, begun in Loki's youth, when he was first told of Heimdallr's gift ― that everything of his young life was seen, everything was heard, nothing was secret or safe. Indifference seemed to suit Thor and for that matter all of Asgard, but Loki could not join them in it. Ever he wished to know the ways of seiðr no matter their cost; that he regrets it now, a trace only but enough, attests that once, long ago, he knew credulity. Not innocence. Never that.

So he worked to keep Heimdallr always in his mind, constructing his mischief by the most innocuous of methods ― for without the effervescent delight of mischief his days were too tedious to be borne ― and the one thing he never kept to a semblance of secrecy was that he did so deliberately, if only to know that once in a hundred years he could accomplish something rare and clever and beautifully complex and Heimdallr would miss it. It would never be for long, as the very fact that no one knew eventually came to mean that all knew it to be Loki, and thus his reputation as a liar and a sneak became widespread, bound up with his sorcery to set him apart from all and mark him as unfit. No longer was it said that either brother could ascend to the throne. No longer was he Thor's equal. So it remains now.

Odin has his own magic so minutely wielded that few suspect its breadth, and none dare speak to him of ergi. Few enough speak of it to Loki, and none twice, protected as he is by his parentage and his enviable skill in exacting payment, though he sees it in even the kindest eyes and hears it slither about in whispers so often that it only fails to tarnish Thor's reputation because Thor is untouchable. No wonder, then, that the Warriors Three associate with Loki only reluctantly, smiles badly masking, veneers over their veneers as if the layers make it more difficult to penetrate and as if the deepest core did not match the surface. Yet Thor, he allows to speak of it; none but he. Thor does so blithely, and with confidence that it is only right to point it out while also assured that it is no more than a jest between siblings, so Loki permits it. To protest it would be to place his brother at odds with all.

Thor is, as Thor must be.

And so his beloved brother shames him openly, and others whisper because they are not so privileged, and the Warriors Three look away when he meets their eyes while Sif stands behind in unendurable, unwelcome pity that is shadowed by scorn... and Heimdallr watches him more intently than anyone else in the whole of Asgard. It is a great achievement, and a high compliment. It sets Loki's teeth on edge and makes the sharp-cold resentment flare inside his hands so that they claw, stiff, at his sides.

Somewhere in all of it, while the others pass him and he stands still in the full force of the Gatekeeper's gaze, he finds contempt.

Yes, watch, Guardian and Gatekeeper. Do your duty and live your purpose. How empty you must make your life, so that you may fill it up with the lives of all others, bereft even of battle save in rare defense of a bridge that has never been taken, Odin's eternal watchdog and faithful and dull. You are but splendor's mirror and inferior, a poor imitation of Hliðskjálf and truly needed only for those moments when the Allfather must leave his throne. You guard this existence so jealously, as if it is precious to you ― you believe I threaten it, and that is because I do. It is ever the same, you and I. You watch as my seiðr unfolds into a brilliancy unmatched by any save your master, and you watch as I become something your sight cannot encompass, something at once more elemental and more visceral than rage. Any fool with a sword or a spear can feel the molten-hot glory of battle; you and I know of the small, chill pathways where seiðmenn suss out greater truths. Can you yet see into my mind? Does your gift teach you the ways of my thoughts, the grand, fine-spun tapestry I weave from the fibers of the world's tree? What see you, when you look into my eyes? What, then, are you, when I have left you behind?

So heated is that golden-eyed stare, which perhaps truly does know his closest thoughts and the impulses beneath, that his own vision is subsumed, and he sees nothing until they are upon the rocky rime of Jötunheimr.