Liar
Sunlight gleamed off beige stone as Thor sighed and buried his nose in the raven hair, inhaling the calming scent of crushed evergreen needles and petrichor.
Emerald cotton rustled and chain mail chinked as Loki half-twisted in his lap. An incredulous, "What are you trying to eat me now ? I know that I taste good, Thor, but cannibalism, really ? I thought we had more sense than to eat our favourite brother." with simultaneous raised brow.
He glanced out from the window seat into a sky that was slowly filling with stars before he chuckled, "If I were to do so I think that I would pick a better head, Loki."
"Well, I should certainly hope so."
"You won't leave me, will you ?"
"Leave ? Leave, Thor, wherever would I go ? Nifleheim is boring, Alfheim is too pretentious, even for me, Nidavillr is too hot and don't even get me started on Vanaheim or Nornheim. There is no place for me but Asgard." Loki suddenly flickered from his grasp with a terrified, "Thor, Thor !"
Thor's eyes jerked open when Father said, "I thought that I would find you here, Thor."
He didn't raise his head from the emerald encased pillow, it still smelled like Loki. "If you had merely said you were proud of him he would not have let go."
The sound of soft boots on tile as Father moved to stand beside Loki's bed, "He would not have believed me."
"Why not ? First Loki refuses to explain why he attacked Jotunheim and Midgard, but for idiotic jealousy of me and now you refuse to give me an answer as well. Why must everyone keep secrets from me ?"
"Sometimes we tell lies so that we do not hurt the ones we love. There is something that I should have told you, that I should have told Loki, long ago."
Unconscious though it was he glanced up into Father's blue eye, "Told him ? What could you possibly have told him other than that he was not a disappointment to you ? Tell me, what it is, Father, tell me !"
Father sat on the edge of the bed, his brown tunic rustling as he flinched. "Do you want to know the reason that I forbid all travel to Jotunheim, despite our treaty with Laufey ?"
Thor responded with the bedtime stories. "You always told us that they were monsters who would snatch us away if we didn't go to sleep or freeze us if we got out of bed. Ever since we were small you told us they weren't like us because they were lesser. Why should I have wondered such a thing until I went to Midgard and realized that despite their primitive technology they were just like us ? Why did you do it ?"
"I stole a child from them, abandoned as it was to die in the cold. Frost Giant children are not born with a high enough resistance to the cold as to be able to survive without their parents, but as they age their tolerance to the cold increases. Did you truly never notice that Loki was always the last to feel when a chill was in the air ? That he only ever acted cold when everyone else did ? It was because the greatest cold of Asgard is nothing when compared to the coldest day on Jotunheim."
Why would Father say such a thing ? Was it not enough that Loki was dead so that Father had to insult Loki's memory as well ? It was not true. It could not be true ! Father was lying. Loki was nothing like...like them, nothing at all. "You lie, how could he possibly be one of the Jotunn when he never looked as they did ?"
"When I found Loki in that temple he was not yet strong enough to summon his shapeshifting magic on his own. Therefore I lent him some of my own magic, so that I might take him with me because I could not bear to see a child die, no matter his race. As he grew he associated that shape with his true self and thus always returned to it unconsciously. I was proud when he showed an aptitude for further and eventually far more volatile magics at the mere age of eight years. It was then I told myself that by telling him the truth at that moment I would put him in danger of hurting himself. Every year that passed as he mastered more magic I kept telling myself that he was not yet disciplined enough or skilled enough. I thought that he would demand to go to Jotunheim for answers from Laufey and end up getting killed. It was not a risk that I wanted to take, so I put it off again and again until the damage had already been done. He thought not that I was ashamed of him, but that I hated him, that I had kept him here in Asgard utterly oblivious as a spoil of war, a...a useless relic. Now that you know, what do you say ?"
"I think that your regret is far too late to be of use. It does explain though why he said that he had never been my brother in that tone. Never had he said it in such a way that I nearly believed him before. Had I known that he was not my brother...I," He couldn't believe it all these years they had hidden for fear of banishment when they truly needn't have hidden at all. If he had known the truth he could've kissed Loki without being near always in a shadowy corner.
Father was wryly amused. "That you would not have hidden your romantic relationship ? Did you really think that your mother and I could miss such a thing ? It was part of the reason that Frigga wanted me to tell both of you. So that you needn't be ashamed of yourselves any longer than necessary. I am sorry, Thor, for all the pain and heartbreak I have caused. Were Loki here perhaps for once we might have understood each other. Now, the feast is in a few hours are you going to stay here alone and miserable or come and celebrate as he would have wished ?"
"I will come celebrate with you."
Father murmured, "Good, I will see you then." and left him alone.
Slowly, he got up too, after all, he had a feast to prepare for...for Loki.