He finishes fastening the dark green bandana about his head just as his first mate calls to him, yelling about their new captives they'd brought onto the ship.
"What is it?" Loki sighs, dark hair flying about in the wind, his formidable coat of captains' black billowing in sync. He steps down onto the deck and squints at the dying sun before turning back to Clint. "I take it the raid went well, Hawkeye?"
"Aye, sir," Clint "Hawkeye" Barton grunts, snapping his bow back into place behind his back. "We got quite a haul, we did, and supplies too. Loot's been shoved out the back."
"Excellent. More captives for our burgeoning crew behind you, then?" Loki smirks, eyes glinting dangerously like his sword.
Clint's eyes light up, and his answering grin is wide and menacing. "Yes. Particularly worthy of note was," he pulls none too gently on a swath of rope encircling his fingers and yanks a man forward, "this 'ere rogue. Bruised some of us bloody and everything, he did, but he's a damned good fighter we could use in our ranks if we can break 'im. Thought I'd bring him to you and see what magic you could work on him, cap'n."
The bound man shoves at Clint, spits at his feet. Clint grits his teeth and socks him a powerful one in the jaw, but the captive barely flinches. His eyes, an unyielding blue, are cold and unmoved as he stares Clint down even as blood runs down his chin, matted and filthy blond hair a mess against the sweat of his neck.
Loki is impressed despite himself, and pats Clint on the back, laughing heartily. "Good man. You know how I like them." He leans in a little closer to Clint and murmurs, in his ear: "Meet me in my cabin tonight, then. I'll see that you are rewarded… accordingly." Pulling away, he just smiles mysteriously, winking at a now scarlet Clint and the other men gaping at him. "Leave the taming of this colt to me," Loki drawls, eyes narrowing. The captive raises challenging eyebrows in response, defiant, like an invitation.
Oh, but Loki does so love a challenge.
He pulls the man forward unceremoniously so that he's forced to follow Loki reluctantly to his chambers. The swath of rope around his neck is a surprisingly good look on him, and Loki feels the first stirrings of interest as he looks at the captive behind him unabashedly, taking everything in.
"What is your name then?" Loki asks quietly as they walk, looking forward again, secretly delighting in the way the captive bares his teeth in a snarl.
"I don't need to give my name to the likes of you, seafarer," the man grits out, and Loki is somehow suddenly reminded of a wolf, wild and untamable, all fangs and fury.
He likes this one.
Chuckling, he snaps his fingers, and the doors to his chambers open. "How discourteous of you." He's pleased to see the man's eyes widen when that happens; his magic never fails to instigate similar reactions from people seeing what he can do for the first time.
"Demon," the man seethes. "You ravage our village, pillage everything, hurt our people, and you are a warlock, to boot? You should burn."
"Pirates will be pirates," Loki says lazily, and twists the rope tighter around his wrists as he pulls his captive inside. "It's our nature. As for the magic, I've always had it. It helps me fight, defend myself, and carves out a path of success for me. Why should I begrudge my talents such?"
He sits down in his captain's chair, overlooking the ocean. The man just continues looking at him disdainfully, eyes like steel and colder even than that.
"Has anyone told you that you make a terrible guest?" Loki makes a sweeping motion with his hand, and then a chair floats over to him from his table, whispers of magic trailing around it. He can tell the man is unnerved, but trying viciously not to show it. "Well, why don't you take a seat, then? Impolite you may be when I'm offering you, ah, hospitality, but I'll never have it said that I'm a bad host."
Mouth set in an obstinate line, the man continues to stand. "Standing is just fine by me."
Loki's own mouth thins, his patience trickling away by the minute. "I said, sit!" He thunders, voice ringing like the crack of a whip, and the man is startled for a moment. That moment of uncertainty allows him to curl his fingers into a fist and slam the man down onto the chair. Because he's already feeling the first edges of anger lacing his thoughts, he waves his hand again and has more ropes bind the man tightly against the chair, his legs spread open. The man gasps from the pressure, wincing, and Loki feels dark satisfaction at that.
He looks a little cowed now, at least. Good. Something uncoils from within Loki, like a snake. He wants to hurt this impudent man, he realises. Wants to break him, like a toy. Strip away all that arrogance and pride and dignity, see what's left after he's done tearing him apart.
"One doesn't run a ship without commanding fear from his followers," Loki murmurs, his voice low in the silence but for the echo of waves outside. "I am not a man of patience. I'll have you know that if you cross me, you will pay, and pay dearly." He tilts his head at the man, a beautiful and bruised thing in ropes staring up at him with loathing and wonderment both. "Now tell me your name."
The clock he has on his mantelpiece near the fire seems to tick on for what feels like hours, the tension mounting impossibly until the man says, finally, "Thor."
"Ah." Loki turns around, the darkening sky visible from his wide glass windows framing him like a cloak. Flames dance in the lamp hanging from above them, casting half-shadows on their faces. "See, that wasn't too hard, was it?" He lowers his voice to a whisper, a menacing and cutting edge that many of Loki's enemies had come to know intimately in the last, snatched seconds of their lives before he moved in for the kill, slashing a knife across their throat, boiling their blood alive in their veins.
Loki is ruthless, and he prides himself on it, relishing it. He smiles as Thor struggles futilely with his ropes for a moment, eventually sagging against the back of the chair and throwing his head back to look up at the coarse wooden ceiling, exposing the long and sharp line of his neck. It's something to behold.
"I am Loki," he says, crooking his fingers so that the ropes tighten ever so slightly, slipping to curl tighter around Thor's neck. "Captain Loki Laufeyson. This is my ship, Thundersbane. I tame the raging seas and all who would defy me wherever I go; magic is as much a sword to me as my own blade, and with it I fell cities and other lords of the sea to emerge victorious. Soon, all will bow to me, yield to me, come to know me as the most powerful and ruthless pirate to sail the seas."
Thor sneers even as he winces. "Hollow words from a hollow man. All that, and for what? Gold, glory? Pride?"
Loki's eyes narrow, and Thor squeezes his eyes shut as the necklace of rope turn winter-cold, biting into his skin. When Loki loosens them again, a ring of red is faint against his neck. It's as though Thor was kissed by fire, there. "You don't know what you're talking about," he says coolly, standing and walking over to Thor, who's glaring at him again and breathing hard from the brief flash of pain. "What would you know of pirates, of our honour?"
"Pirates have no honour," Thor shoots back. "You're the one who doesn't even know what you want, aren't you? You pirates are all the same, pointless fools with swords and ships playing at kings at sea, thinking there's more to your life of savagery than your senseless violence."
Loki grips the braided rope tightly, pulls it back so that Thor's straining towards him even with the other ropes coiled around him in place. He yanks it once, twice, and lets his magic flow down the ropes to hold Thor in place, trailing his fingers down to Thor's reddened neck before sinking them in like fangs.
Thor cries out, and Loki smiles viciously, his heart thundering under the illusion that is his composure. Something about Thor, this rough diamond, irks him, stirs him. He cannot fathom why, and that angers him. "Know your place, thrall."
Delighting in the pain he's causing, Loki runs the pad of his thumb up and down Thor's neck, the dips and curves he finds there. Thrall or not, Thor is a magnificent creature, all lean muscles and golden looks. Loki wonders if it was war that hardened Thor so, that made him such a fighter, almost a warrior.
If he looked into Thor's soul, what would he find staring back at him?
The intrigue is almost too much to bear, and Loki tucks it away.
Thor looks at him, tense and hostile. "I'm a better man than you'll ever be," He says, eyes half-lidded. This close, Loki sees they're a dark and fascinating blue; piercing, like his words. "You're nothing, Loki Laufeyson. You're nothing but a petty criminal, with blind followers who follow you like sheep, abusing your devil's power and your swords for a crown that doesn't even exist."
Loki doesn't say anything, but he shifts his hand back up to Thor's neck again, slinging his left arm about the chair to steady himself and to climb onto Thor's lap. "Petty, am I?" He murmurs dangerously. "I've ended the reigns of rulers and pirate lords with this power—" Flames blink to life in the curve of his palm as he holds the blazing heat close to Thor, watches every expression that flits across his captive's face as Thor keeps from flinching beneath him, stubborn but unsure. "I have brought cities burning to the ground with my crew, known treasures beyond price and dreams. And yet you call me petty?"
Thor bares his teeth at him, much like the wolf Loki was likening him to in his mind. "But you are. Just look at you." He dangles the seemingly innocuous words like insults, like a challenge, every syllable a blow against the armour of Loki's pride. "Captain of a ship, he says," Thor taunts, rising his chin up to look at Loki, so close that Loki can almost taste him, defiant mouth scant inches from his own. "Captain and liege of the seas, are you? Oh, but you are such a fool, Laufeyson! The sea cannot be truly conquered. All these things will fall away, all your gold and your precious little victories and your ships in time. They can burn, they will burn, and so will you."
"Shut your fool mouth!" Loki snarls, baring his own teeth, moving to pull cruelly at Thor's hair, twining his fingers in the slick golden hair. He feels his checked anger spilling over, like a river pushing against the destruction of a dam.
Thor's eyes glitter, sea-blue, almost an invitation. "Make me."