Some timeless instinct told Loki it would happen.
He ran down the winding golden halls of Asgard with half a dozen Einherjar hot at his tail with each step. If it were a normal day, he would have told them he was perfectly capable of defending himself, but today was anything but normal.
The vault door burst open at his push. Ice clung to the golden walls, froze the translucent opal river beds, dampened the stale air with a sharp, almost metallic smell that spelled so much magic was used that residual sparks still wafted in the air.
All-Father stood before a frozen Destroyer. Chiseled pieces of its armor littered the ground around his feet.
Panic and dread fizzled in Loki's guts as he took in three impaled guards on his way to his father's side. He stole a timid glance to where the Casket of Ancient Winters once sat in peace.
"They took the Casket," he whispered once he reached his father.
"They took the Casket," Odin echoed. With the distance in his voice and the way his father's shoulders slumped, he knew he questioned what had happened to the legendary Destroyer to slow it down enough to be defeated. After two blinks, the All-Father straightened and turned towards his son. "Their dangerous birthright. My son, you must be the voice of reason. You know what you must do."
"Father, he will not listen to me. He is—"
"No, think again," Odin encouraged.
And with his father's strict but trusting glare and the strong but gentle way he clasped Loki's shoulder, the youngest realized he had to steal it back...somehow.
But first, he had to face off his older brother.
#
"Loki, know your place," Thor growled as he slammed his fist down on the table. The corner of it fell off next to the berserk warrior's feet.
"My place is to protect my people just as much as you. Would you think about what a war would bring us? A war, Thor, not a damned game of yours."
The eight elders of the counsel joined by Odin and Heimdall sat around the conference table, watching the brothers in their own fascinated expressions.
Thor jumped off his seat so fast his chair tumbled backwards. Mjölnir's hum filled the tension until it landed in the eldest's grip. Loki, unfazed as usual, rose to his feet as well.
"Have you grasped the gravity of their crimes? They snuck into Asgard, broke into the vault, and stole their weapon. As King of Asgard I declare they should never see daylight again."
Loki blinked a few times, then scoffed. "You idiot, what do you expect them to do? March to Midgard, to Alfheim, to Norns know which realm and bring about more ages of ice? They are in utter ruins. They require at the least a decade of reconstruction with their precious Casket until they can stand on their own feet."
"Tame your tongue, brother," said Thor, with a furious glare and Mjölnir pointed at his brother's chest.
The younger took a bold step closer. "You know I never will, much less when it needs to be your brain."
"Must I call upon a sorcerer to silence you?"
Though the telltale sign of pure fury—Thor's nostrils flaring—promised he was not jesting, Loki grinned. "If you would use your mind for once then perhaps I will consider stepping off your nerve."
Thor set Mjölnir down and crossed his arms. He considered his younger brother for a mere moment. "Very well, then. I will strike a bargain with you."
"I'm listening."
"You retrieve the Casket without aide from anyone and I will let you draft a new peace treaty." He spoke on despite his brother's incredulous look. "Until then, the rest of us battle. Like capable Aesir."
Loki didn't know which silenced him after he accepted the single thread of hope with a diplomatic nod: the impossible bargain or the jarring insult.
He caught a glance from his father, and it told him everything would be alright, even in spite of the new war-hungry King.
#
It was the eve of the fourth day since the war started between Asgard and Jotunheim. Already, a little over a thousand on both sides met their graves. Odin reported to Loki that in three more days, the death toll would skyrocket. The presence of the Casket had strengthened the Frost Giants enough that they wielded ice to an unprecedented accuracy, yet the presence of Thor in the midst of the warriors of Asgard was an equal match. Thus, neither Asgard or Jotunheim had any plans to surrender.
Loki spent those grueling first four days concocting a plan.
He drank nothing but the green tea the All-Mother laced with vitamins and electrolytes, and ate nothing but fruits for fear that eating or drinking as usual would slow the adrenaline propelling the cogs of his mind. Sometimes, where he sat at his desk behind piles of stacked war strategy and magic books and pages upon pages of notes, the All-Father and All-Mother watched, either separate or together, but usually the latter.
Not once did he notice. Even when his eyes skewed printed words into claws upon the pages, Loki would steal a sip of tea, wipe the exhaustion from his eyes, and massage the crick in his neck for no more than five seconds.
Though the resulting scheme was far from his best, he decided he had to try. When he laid out the plan to his mother and father, he filled to the brim with gratitude at the faith they had in it—in him—despite the gaping fault in it: he had to rely on an old map of Jotunheim to take him to a less obvious path towards their Temple, and had to pray for luck to be on his side to pass their defenses alive.
And so on the eve of the fourth day since the war started, he stole a canoe from an independent fisher, cloaked it and himself in invisibility (t'was best that Heimdall could not see him in case Thor in his lust for war asked where he was and ordered he be stopped), and rode it out to the jagged mountainside outside the eternal city of Asgard. There, hidden around hues of brown and crumbling rock, waited the secret passageway Loki knew of. His parents trusted him to not ask where it was, and so he was still its sole traveller.
He plunged into the tunnel. Rivulets and flashing streams of rainbow colors washed over the unending tunnel. The constant woosh lulled the rising anxiety in his chest.
Him and his canoe fell into the greenish-grey ashes of Svartalfheim. Loki stepped outside of its cloaked safety into the winds that carried assaultive grains to his cheeks. He took out a handkerchief from his overcoat's pocket, and tied it into a knot at the rusty hook that poked from the nose of the canoe. He would need it later to catch the current of the rift back to Asgard.
With a few more words he tucked the canoe into his pocket dimension, then walked on ahead towards where he knew his next clue was.
Once he passed the third calloused mountain, he found it: the first ray of ivory sun, or so he hoped it was the true first ray. Its shinning fingers touched down behind a valley, so he climbed down the third raggedy mountain's back to fall into the mouth of the vast valley of ashes. He met the ray's presence at the edge of a cliff, which was also the end of the valley.
Loki snatched a pebble, and tossed it towards the glistening, dull ray. Sure enough, the pebble disappeared. So it was the right one. He grinned, for fate and his memory served him well today.
The younger prince took a few strides backwards, sucked in a deep breath, and broke into a dash towards the edge. He fell into the second rip in Yggdrasil head first. While in the flashing wormhole, he twisted his body enough so that his densely armored left arm would take in most of the shock of his fall. That it did.
With a deep exhale he opened his eyes. A biting cold stung the back of his neck. He pushed his fatigued body up, and waved his hand to reveal a hologram of the old map of Jotunheim he'd memorized. The path he had to take winded around the ruined outskirts of the fallen city. No doubt half of it fell to erosion centuries ago, but as long as he stayed close, he could follow the ghost paths they left.
#
Loki waved his hand to reveal the hologram map again. Daytime dawned in the distance and he still had half more to go until he found the slithering golden path through the mountains. His trek took longer than expected. It turned out a chunk of the path had fallen to erosion (as expected), which gave him no choice but to climb through the stinging mountains of the Giants' homeland to find a segment of the path again. Trudging through untamed mountains, no matter how capable the body was, still took thrice the time a walking trail would.
Once he had been tempted to scrap it all and just charge into the city like all the other Aesir were, but his plan relied on the element of surprise and virtue of patience. Magic, too.
Aside from the time delay, everything else was on his side. He happened not upon one Frost Giant; hadn't even heard the echoes of a nearby battle between soldiers.
So the scheming prince soldiered on, deeper into a forest of trees made of rock and ice with a found narrow path, hope, and an old map to guide him.
#
There it was and there they were. From whence he hid in the mountain's shadow, he saw it all.
The crumbling backside of the Temple of the Giants loomed above the deafening sounds and crimson sights of war. In front and to both sides, Giants fought golden armor with swords made of ice.
Loki couldn't help but watch as the King—Laufey—bent ice with an impassive wave of his fingers. He stood near his throne, protected by the narrowing walls of the hollowed Temple's roof. At his command a bush of sharpened icicles blossomed from the tousled blue ground and pierced through the armor of two Asgardian warriors. Red stained the crystalline bush not a moment later.
He sneered at the King who hovered above, untouched by any marks of war. Weak he was, for the cries of Thor smashing and sending volts across the planet of ruined ice echoed off the crumbling mountains at all sides. He was repulsed by the vile race, but a childish part of him marveled at their power. To have the innate ability to bend the nature of winter to your whim would be a power worth the enemies you'd acquire with it, or so he thought.
But enough, he thought to himself, for it was time to initiate the most risky part of his scheme. Any bolt of it could unscrew at any time. It was best to avoid any margin of error while fortune was on his side.
Loki doused himself with a solid illusion of a Frost Giant. He felt his body writhe in displeasure at the facade it had to hold. To pass as a Frost Giant, one had to BE a giant first, and so the dizzying difference between where his eyes really were compared to where the illusion showed them made him see triple at the conflict. His stomach rolled in nausea at the strange sensation flooding his bones. Every cell of his gagged; every fiber clenched.
Loki dropped into a stoop in his safe shadows and took in a greedy gulp of air. He recounted that this spell took hundreds of tries until the sorcerer wouldn't feel the negative effects, but he never expected the intensity of them, nor that holding onto it would drain his stamina drop by drop, minute by minute. 'Twas no help that this was a new spell to him, one he'd learned during research.
It took twenty minutes or so for the illusion to mold around him, like melted gold to an imprint of a ring. While his senses processed from his true body, his seidr transferred all his reactions not a second too late to his new one. Loki felt his hold on it was strong enough, and so he kissed the safety of the shadows goodbye.
In turn he dropped from the height of the mountain into the shadow of a warring Giant, and wielded a dagger he'd formed from ice at his side. Besides the one Giant fighting with two Aesir, there was no one else he could use for his plan.
So he took his chance now. Lady Luck cheered him on.
Loki let out a pulse of magic to knock back the Asgardian warriors. The Giant, who'd stumbled to the ground at the wave, looked up at him. In a blink, Loki covered his mouth and stabbed the Giant right through his heart—on the right instead of the left, just above the center of his body. Thank the Norns he found education fascinating.
Despite his treason, the Asgardian warriors ran towards him with their swords aimed at his chest. It took all his control not currently used to hold his illusion to keep his golden insults at bay. Still, he could not help but state the obvious to himself.
Not the brightest of the bunch. Wouldn't have killed you to pay attention in anatomy class, either.
Loki snatched the first one by the wrist, breathed a spell for antigravity, and hurled him into the solid back of the mountain with an added aide of a force spell. The man in his golden armor cluttered to the floor with minuscule twitches. Out of nowhere he felt a flaming gaze fall upon him from above, so he ducked out of the way of the other warrior, grabbed his arm, and snapped it. The warrior's scream satisfied the otherwise idle king, so he looked at the heat of the battle ahead again.
"I'm sorry," Loki whispered into the warrior's ear not a heartbeat later and let go of the leg he had been praying to not have to break as well, "just stay down."
Whether out of confusion or due to the twisted pain of snapped bones, the warrior chose to stay down.
Loki knelt beside the other fallen warrior, and breathed a healing spell that would keep him alive, but not heal him enough that he could wake from his blackout. After, he grabbed the fallen Giant up underneath his arms, and dragged him closer to the back door of the Temple. He clung to the last spark of the Giant's life with his seidr until the door opened.
He'd read how the doors only opened to the priestesses of Jotunheim, those of royal blood, or the severely wounded. No amount of an illusion could bypass those rules, not even the talent of a shapeshifter. The Temple was too holy to the Giants, with it being the home of the Casket and heart of the land.
Now able to walk inside, Loki held fast to his illusion and ventured forth.
Three wild priestesses, who formed a fortress with their bodies around the seat of the Casket, aimed their ice powers at him, which the prince blocked with a shield of green sparks. He panicked that the King would hear until he remembered the doors seal automatically after they sense one soul stepped inside.
Loki kept his shield up as one priestess leaned an inch away from the Casket. "You are not of Jotnar blood. Step back, witch, or you shall feel the bite of winter death." A crooked finger of hers touched the Casket, and it seemed she was ready to send a whip of its power out to him with her sisters in duty.
This was not so lucky, but he did think up a version of this scenario under his "what-if" list. Scenario 3 to be exact. Loki's cogs whirled until he grasped at an idea specially reconstructed for the moment. He dropped his illusion, which his body shuttered in relief at for a moment, and raised his hands. The priestesses tensed evermore despite his surrender.
"Heed me, priestesses. I am Loki, prince of Asgard."
One Giant's eyes narrowed. "Brother of Thor?"
He fought the instinct to roll his eyes, instead smiling. "Yes, which means I—" The women flung a bite of the Casket towards him, and Loki barely dodged out of the way. The energy of the relic seeped into the blemish-free blue stone walls.
He flung his hands up even while down on his knees from the dodge. "Wait! I have a proposition for you."
"Why would we listen to your cursed words?"
"Because, as I confirmed, I am the brother of Thor. I can speak reason to him on Jotunheim's behalf."
The priestess who looked to be the oldest removed her finger from the Casket. "What is your bargain, Prince?"
Loki slowly rose to his feet again. Word by word he lowered his arms. "If you would surrender the Casket back to Asgard, I will speak to my brother to aide with Jotunheim's reconstruction."
The youngest made a noise that sounded much too close to a bilgesnipe's growl. "We require our treasure to reconstruct. It is the heart of our home."
"I am not finished yet. Asgard will aide with reconstruction, and perhaps in the coming centuries, should Jotunheim prove herself to hold no ill intentions, I shall speak to the King to return your Casket for a decade at a time."
"Only a decade at a time?"
Loki smiled weakly. "You've forgotten how you nearly decimated Midgardians with an ice age. Asgard has not."
The eldest sneered. "A century at a time, and we yield to your bargain." The other two sucked in deep breathes and stared at her. The look she gave them both said the war wasn't any help anyways.
Loki couldn't make that promise. Hel, this all was him improvising. He wasn't even sure if he could convince Thor to help with Jotunheim's reconstruction, much less talk him into letting the Jotnar keep their Casket for a hundred years at a time before Asgard intervened. Though it was but a mere blink of an eye in time, it was a significant enough blink that Jotunheim could reek havoc with it again, especially if they reconstructed their homeland enough.
The prince held in a sigh. Behind his back, he formed a two-edged dirk of titanium. "What-if" scenario 8, section D.
"I am afraid I cannot accept the terms of your bargain. Jotunheim's history is much too saturated in conquest and desolation. However, I must confiscate your land's heart with or without an agreement."
In a breath he threw the dirk towards the youngest's side. It spawned two other shinning dirks in midair, and they aimed at the other two priestesses.
Loki released a shockwave that slammed the Giants into the wall the moment the dirks tore through their skin, then he cloaked himself in invisibility and ran for the Casket.
The eldest yelled an incantation, which bled his cloak off.
Fine, be difficult. Scenario 3, section B.
He snatched the Casket and then cast a spell of camouflage. An illusion of him appeared in front of the scrambling priestesses in wake. They attacked, Loki formed invisible chains around their necks made of pure seidr, and the illusion faded away into smoke. The three Giants fell forward, gasping at their chains.
Meanwhile, Loki shoved the humming, whirling, thinking Casket into his pocket dimension. He bolted outside, and the chains dissolved without him there to channel more seidr.
He climbed up towards the shadows of the mountain again. The Casket, even tucked away as it was, hummed for him. Dazzling life sprung up from the realm with each step he took, and the jagged mountain seemed to sigh in relief at the presence of its beating heart. That was bad—clearly he could not hide this time—but something stranger still sucked away his clear-mindedness. In the back of his mind he felt a pleasing coldness snap in place in his bones, and a rush of amoralate (a cousin of oxytocin, blessing of longevity, ten times stronger) wash over his body. The biting cold air felt like nothing more than the spring breeze that swayed in the All-Mother's gardens.
The priestesses wails followed him onto the golden pathway. He tore his focus back to the matter at hand. Crouching in the shade of a boulder, he reached out with his seidr. The cold heat of the three huntresses swallowed up more ground with each breath he took.
Scenario 14, section A.
Loki cast a doppelgänger to run ahead, complete with mimics of the Casket's power underfoot to at least buy him more distance. Despite his lingering fatigue, he broke into a sprint down a whole new, improvised pathway.
He ran until his lungs burned, ankles swelled, and heart threatened to combust like a firework. Through a wheezing fit, he brought up the map again. In his rush, he'd ended up swallowing half the road under his feet in what had to be less than half an hour. Added, he had taken a longer route. A grin as long as the Rainbow Bridge overtook his sweat beaded face.
Not unexceptional.
He waved the map away and bent forward, resting his hands on his knees. The roar of the Casket overtook the silence between each pant.
Loki craned up. Not a whisper of footsteps kissed the stagnant air. With the coast clear, he summoned the Casket out of his pocket. He just had to see what in all the Nine Realms it was doing to cause such a ruckus even in his stow-away pocket.
He stared wide-eyed at the cold fire burning through its case. It hummed in an eerie rhythm, as if it were trying to speak. This time, a rush came over his body, like a blanket unraveling from around him, then the cold snapped inside his bones, but he ripped his attention to the rumbling ground underneath him. It started moments after he'd pulled the Casket out.
Pebbles danced, as if the relic had awakened the mountain. Then he heard ice crash in mammoth pieces into stone. The last thing he expected was a growl, followed by the mountain crumbling in on itself right under his feet. Priestesses' aware howls drifted to him from three miles off. He cursed the Thor-like carelessness that led him to think fishing out the relic would be safe.
Loki stuck the Casket back into his pocket dimension, whisked to the edge, and took a great leap before the ground snagged him down with it. He tumbled down the side of the mountain, faster, rougher, anything but gracefully, until his body slammed into an ice-tree's uprooted web of roots. With a constant wail at the aches all over his body, he forced himself up onto his knees.
Stale breath puffing into his face made his gaze shoot forward, away from a gash in his palm.
A beast of the Frost Giants roared into his face, then made to squash him under its massive paw. Loki released bolts of lightning towards it, and while it absorbed the pain, he broke into chase again.
A hundred steps of his was like two for the creature. It didn't surprise him that with a swift blow, it's paw sent him flying into an abyss created by centuries of erosion.
What did was the feral burn of the Casket. As he watched the cliff fall away from him, he created a shield to at least give him a chance at surviving the fall, but what felt like smoky fingers tore the shield. They tugged at something to his left.
The next thing he knew, a flood of static rushed in his ears. Then rainbow streams. Loki let out a bark of victorious laughter, that is until a fire coursed through his veins.
He prayed the virgin rip the Casket seduced did not end up leading him to Muspelheim, lest he burn alive in five seconds. Or Nornheim for that matter.
Hel, he just needed the terribly unstable rift to let him go already. With an ounce of his sanity, despite the agony crippling him, he formed a shield around his skin. It was enough to protect him from the worst flames of time and space.
#
His arms. They floated in something thin yet dense.
His legs. They surely weren't carrying him up towards light. It was coming to him.
His lungs. They thrashed in his chest.
His skin. It was NOT burning.
Loki opened his eyes to see translucent blue liquid.
Water.
He swam higher towards the light dancing above serene waves until his head dived to freedom.
River water poured down his raven locks, then kissed his neck. He wiped the thin sheet of wetness off his face and blinked until his eyes adjusted to fluorescent lights. Dozens upon dozens of green trees and bushes with wooden barks rose to the foggy navy blue skies above him. A word scratched at his memory. In the horizon, twinkling fortresses reached to the sky. Again, the light emanating from them was anything but natural.
Loki swam to the edge of the river, and pulled himself out. He rested on soft, little blades of green flora. He smiled. They seemed to appreciate the water bleeding off his clothes, despite how moments ago those same drops had washed away flames from Yggdrasil.
Then it hit him: Midgard. One glance at the constellation confirmed it for him. He stole another back to the river. With the dust off what he remembered of Midgard, he figured the new rip in Yggdrasil had landed him in the midst of a park of some sort...which meant he needed to ask exactly where he was if he was going to find the restaurant that hid the way back to Asgard.
"Freeze! Put your hands up, sir." The sweet, chilling voice of a Midgardian woman made him reel towards the voice. "I said hands up. I'm the...I'm the sherif in town."
Loki raised his hands and slowly rose to his feet. He mentally thanked his seidr for casting an illusion of Midgardian clothing out of instinct the moment he'd pieced together where he was. The skinny black jeans and grey-violet dress shirt were as dry as a bone in the Sahara desert.
With him standing, the peculiar woman was as tall as his chest. She threatened him with some strange Midgardian contraption pointed at square at him. Another woman with shoulder length black hair tapped her shoulder from behind her.
"Um, Jane, I don't think it's legal to—"
The shorter woman's gaze didn't move from him. "Shut up, Darcy. Having a moment."
Loki chuckled and dropped his hands. "Good even, Lady Jane" he bent at the waist just a fraction with his eyes locked on her "Lady Darcy" he repeated the gesture to the other woman. "'Tis a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
Jane dropped the device until it rested at her side and joined Darcy in gaping at Loki.
The younger woman tapped her shoulder again. "Jane, I think we found the Little Mermaid's husband."
"Should I tase him?"
"Just not the face. Way too pretty."
Loki arched a brow at them. "I know not what you speak of, but I am Loki of..." Not Asgard. Telling them so would be an unwise idea. Midgardians still thought themselves alone in the universe. He raked his memory for a state of Midgard. A frazzled light went off over his head. "The York of New."
He frowned to himself. After all these centuries, he still did not know what a "york" was, nor why it had to be "new".
This time the women arched their brows at him. Jane cleared her throat. "You mean New York?"
He grinned, abashed at his memory's slip. "Yes."
Jane smiled, just as abashed as him. She tucked her contraption in her vest's pocket. "Well you're about five states too far. This is Missouri."
Loki ran his fingers through his hair. That did not ring a bell at all.
"Can we please kidnap him? I'll take care of him...feed him and everything," Darcy tried to whisper.
Loki shook the blankness of his mind off and glared, clearly humored. "I am not a kid, nor do I need to nap. I also must state that I am capable of nursing myself, should I require it. Now, my memory is usually quintessential, but not this eve. Would you pardon me asking what river this is?"
"What does 'quintperensual' mean?"
"Quintessential, Darcy, look it up. And that is the Mississippi River." She pulled out a thick, rectangular device with a bright screen. Numbers and colorful lines reached to the top of the white, bright surface. "But listen, I have an energy detector and I chased it here. You didn't happen to come through a portal in space, did you?"
"Portal? In space?" he repeated incredulously.
"I know it sounds crazy but I know—" she flailed in overexcitement as her device broke into strange noises. "Look, there's the reading again!"
He had to give this Midgardian lots of credit. Whatever the petty device was, it picked up on the Casket's energy shutter.
Loki smiled like a father would smile at his tot trying to walk. He sighed before settling on telling a version of the truth.
"Lady Jane, whatever you believe, whatever you strive to prove, do not give up. A day will come when the time is ripe. You will be able to pluck undeniable proof so long as you keep striving. Now, you must excuse me; I strive to stop a war."
With that, he broke into a run run aside the river's guiding edge. The restaurant he needed was in a state that ended with -nois (-noise?), and he remembered this particular river with the strange, long name was a vein in it. If his memory served well (which he was starting to second guess) then it would break into another river, which would lead him to the metropolitan.
Lady Jane and Darcy yelled and ran after him, but in three meager seconds fell too far behind.
#
Peoria, Illinois. The skyline of the grey and brown buildings painted the Illinois River into a breathing mirror, but the horde of souls didn't stop for a moment to admire the beauty. Pity.
It had taken Loki about one hour—24 Midgardian ones—to follow the river into the gleaming city.
Weariness clung to his bones, which was why he decided he would settle for some lunch (as the citizens of the realm called it) before opening the rip in Yggdrasil to get back to Asgard.
His illusion held fast as if that was how he truly appeared. He walked in calm strides with his hands in his pockets up a street called Persimmon. When a new one appeared to his right, he reached forward with his seidr to see what lay ahead. The street labeled Southwest Washington would lead him to too much noise, with Midgardian metal machines running on residue of their ancestors left and right much too quickly to tolerate in his dull weariness. So, he took Commecial Street, with a little deviation onto a sliver of Slate Street, and finally followed Water Street towards the single Midgardian establishment he knew better than his right hand.
It's name changed since 1916, when he had last traveled to Midgard on a quest towards discovering each secret link between the realms. Aside from the establishment looking wider and taller, and it having been divided into separate little shops, nothing much changed.
Loki pushed open the decorated doors to Blue Duck Barbecue Tavern. It was the portion of the building that he concluded now housed the portal.
Soft lights, black walls, and hushed voices greeted him. He met the server at the counter.
"Good afternoon, sir. Just you?" He nodded, and his eyes trailed to the chalk writing behind the man's shoulders. "Yes, that is our menu. I recommend looking at the starters in green and the house specials in yellow."
He worried his lips. What were Mexican Tacos? Fries? Cole Slaw? That last one just sounded vulgar. He suddenly missed the simply labeled meals the restaurant lost to time had.
Whatever face he made, the server sure found it funny. "Too many choices?" he asked as he calmed from a fit of laughter.
Loki waved his own confusion away. "I am afraid I shall make the wrong choice. What doest you, dear worker, recommend?"
"Did you just use the word 'doest' in 2016? Are you, like, a student from Cambridge?"
The prince smirked. "What, does my voluminous vocabulary offend you?" As much as he wanted to call the server gentleman a nuisance with all his dullness, he found he liked the way he looked at him, with humorous respect.
"Not at all, sir. Your 'voluminous' vocabulary brings quite the color to this century."
"Indeed. A century ago I thought your kind thoroughly dismal. Now, explain to me good..." he peered at the name tag on the server's chest "...Ken, son of Cleary, what in all the Nine Realms cole slaw is, lest I find the urgent need to burn the memory cells that retain those twin words drenched in vulgarity."
Ken laughed again. "Dude, you're either stoned or hammered and really good at hiding it, or I am." The prince stared in horrified shock at him. "It's a—"
"I beg your pardon, Clearyson, but I must catechize you. From whom did you hear that insult, for I must teach them a lesson on manners. Death by stoning and death by Mjölnir are not compliments. Should you step foot on Asgard, you, interesting fellow, would be stoned...You should think twice before you speak. Now, you were expounding?"
Loki ended up ordering their Smoked Brisket Poutine. From the bottom, where fries poked out from layer over layer of meat, to the top coated in sour cream, melted cheese, and some purple rings that stung his eyes but tasted sweet, the prince of Asgard struggled to eat. He concluded it didn't taste half bad, especially after the water Ken paid for in the fancy glass jug he said was called vodka (Loki supposed it was a friendship offering, thus decided not to scold him even though buying another a drink meant the two were romantically involved).
He created a hundred dollar bill out of a clean napkin and made his way to the restrooms. With his eyes shut and seidr reaching for the magic of the portal, it whirled out of its dormancy in the roof of the building.
Loki skipped like an excited schoolboy to the handicap stall. Once there, after making sure no one was to witness, he climbed on top of the toilet, then onto the edge of the stall. A twist of his wrist opened the air conditioner vent and formed stubs upon the inside for him to latch on to until he climbed in.
Once inside the metallic contraption, he screwed the vent shut, then started crawling towards the rising melody of an ecstatic portal.
The poor thing. I should never blame it. I would be agitated too with all the metal and concrete abounding this realm.
At the edge of the merry portal, he removed the shroud over him along with the extraneous Midgardian illusion. Heimdall could tell his parents he was on his way.
#
Loki broke through Yggdrasil, and landed next to his grandfather's statue. Though he had planned to get back through Svartalfheim, the need ended up being one and the same.
He took the canoe out of his pocket dimension. After noting the strange dents over it, he climbed inside and rode in eerie silence over the waters towards the castle. Whether he would have died or not, he felt at peace with his weary self, because accepting Thor's impossible bargain was ten times easier than suffering the silence left behind by thousands of fallen Aesir.
Odin, Frigga, and Heimdall waited on the Rainbow Bridge. The second he stepped on land, the All-Mother showered his damp, chilled face with kisses and hugged him close despite the wetness still soaked into his clothes.
"Never ever shroud yourself again, dearheart. You made me worried sick, not knowing where you were or what happened."
Loki smiled against her shoulder. He felt the warmth of her magic drying his clothes and tangled hair. She placed one last kiss on his forehead and broke the hug, but her adoring gaze never left him.
The younger prince nodded to his father. He took the Casket out of his pocket dimension. It thrummed to life in his naked grip.
"So I suppose I may tackle the dolt now?"
The strange coldness filled him again, but he figured it was just the typical reaction of holding a living relic. Quite a persnickety one too, what, with all the dents it created on the canoe. He did not notice his hands turning blue, nor rings of a different blood royalty crowning his forehead.
What he did notice was the twinkling of proud tears in his father's eyes as he nodded, Frigga cupping her heart as if it would jump to hug him for her, and Heimdall breaking into a full smile after what had to be a two century gap.
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Thor slumped down into the bed of his private healing chamber. Frostbite from the touch of Giant warriors pricked his left arm, from wrist to elbow.
He groaned, and turned his head towards the velvet blue curtain where his nurse had disappeared behind to make medicine. "I order you to hurry with the ailment, nurse," he grumbled. She'd left a quarter of an hour ago. "I refuse to leave behind my warriors. We have a fight to win." He grunted at the still pervading silence, and decided to close his eyes.
"You will have to allow your thirst of blood to be drenched tonight." When he opened his eyes, Loki hovered at his side. He tenderly rubbed his healing seidr over the ugly black skin. Thor felt each cell bubble with life. It fascinated him, how the golden glow breaking from his brother's gentle hand clumped into a thick sort of ointment. "Oh, don't look so surprised, brother. I am a fully capable sorcerer. Now, does your itty mind remember the bargain we made?"
Thor ripped his gaze from his brother's healing and met mischievous blue topaz irises. "What, the impossible one you could never satisfy?"
Loki grinned, pride practically dripping off his chin. "You of little faith. You shall be very surprised. Stand up and follow me." Thor got on his feet, but reached to touch the glittering congealed magic. Loki whacked his hand before he could. "Don't touch. I am not one that volunteers to nurse a brute a second time."
The elder brother laughed, and followed the younger. He led him to the Vault, and there, relaxed in her previous spot, stood the Casket. Thor stared wide-eyed at it for minutes straight, while Loki just relished his shock.
"But—but how?" Thor finally spoke.
The schemer smirked and tapped his forehead. "I think with my head. Punching your way out of things doesn't pan out all the time. You should test out that sensation sometimes. It feels marvelous!"
Thor matched his brother's smirk. "I remember a part of the bargain was that you should achieve this on your own? You surely didn't manage that condition."
"Oh but I did. Mind, magic, and patience. They were my only helpers."
At Thor's continued doubtful look, Loki's pride softened into something close to heartache. "What?" he whispered, "I'm not as useless as you perceive."
He made to leave, shoulders an inch too down, but Thor grabbed his wrist. He chuckled lightly. "So I...I suppose I should fulfill my part of the bargain."
"Yes. And I suppose that means I should be drafting a peace treaty about now. Excuse me, brother, I have much to write." Loki tapped his big brother's shoulders twice to nail in the warlord's defeat and gave him a weary smile. He spoke on as he walked away. "Also, I expect an overwhelming apology for your insult of me not being a capable Aesir. Fair warning, chocolate cake alone shall not move me to forgiveness."
Thor crossed his arms. A brush of a content smile tugged at his lips. If his baby brother put his life in peril to fulfill the impossible bargain to stop the war, then maybe Thor was wrong to declare it. "The clever ninny," he observed with the smile forming in full.
"Still in the Vault you blockhead!"