A/N: All knowledge of Norse Mythology taken from D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths, and I took liberties with them. Inspired by like two panels in Blood Brothers.
In later years, rumors would spring up as to how he gained entrance to the chamber. Some would say that he came down from the ceiling, creeping on a web like a spider. Others would claim he'd slipped through the window, eyes glittering in the moonlight as he cracked open the shutters with a twitch of his fingers. And some would say that he came in like a ghost, carried by the icy breeze.
These are false. Twisted tales grow 'round tragedies like weeds around the apple tree, and it is fruitless to try and pull up their roots. They are mired as deep in the earth of the mind as the worms which gnaw Yggdrasil's flesh.
The truth of it is that this was a summer's night, that the window was flung open but far too high to climb through. The truth of it is that the door was unlocked. This took place in the years before there were guards posted in the royal halls of Asgard—in those days, Heimdall sufficed to watch the realm, and two guards stood for show only at the gates of the palace itself.
Loki slipped into those chambers with more ease than one can in these days. His feet were clad in supple leather boots, so they made no more sound than cat's paws. He wore a cloak made of cobwebs and shadows, a garment he'd woven himself, and those few servants who went about in the night did not look upon him, nor hear his passing.
There were no candles lit, for the sole occupant of these rooms was deep asleep, and not dreaming of intruders in the night.
Loki stood over the bed, which was bigger than he, and looked down on the warrior who slept sound. They slept naked, as he had been utterly sure they would. A white sheet slipped round their midriff, and to his great pleasure, they slept on their stomach, sprawled out with one arm slung cross their pillow and another awkwardly placed, palm up on the undersheet. A mane of blonde hair covered their bare back, disguising shifting lines of muscle. His eyes crawled over the skin visible between blonde strands, taking in the few scars, the aberrations of birth, the blue veins just below the fragile surface.
They drooled, and Loki thought, I do not, as if that were a triumph.
His smile came then, white teeth cruel in the darkness. He opened his hand, and a knife slipped to it, called from a sheath in his sleeve crafted more by magic than by metal. It was a small blade, but sharp enough to cut his thumb when he drew the ball across it, and the hilt was set with emeralds and rubies. It was a weapon fit for a young prince, not one for dark deeds in the night.
Loki Liesmith curled his fingers around the red and green gems, and struck.
The scream in the morning was loud enough to wake all Asgard, and the rest of the Nine Realms as well.
Loki was in his mother's chambers before the sound had died. Frigga was awake, for she rose earlier than most. Her hair was honey brown, as yet unscored by grey. She had not been surprised when he arrived in the morning, to sit at her feet and watch as her nimble fingers plucked tapestries. Her youngest knew that she liked to weave in the morning, when the dawn light came through her window and could be spun into the cloth. He liked to watch her at the task, as if he had not the same skills.
And he had looked guilty that morning, and Frigga was long used to Loki hiding in her skirts. For sure, he had found his own crannies and nooks to hide in, and there was another who sheltered him, but there was only one person in Asgard who could stand when Heimdall came in rage, and that was not the Allfather.
Still, she rose to her feet when she heard the shriek, magic still in her fingers. There had been something in that scream that curdled the blood, and she had never heard the Lady Sif make a noise like it.
Loki leaped to his feet as well, eyes wide, a decent facsimile of alarm. But he was with his mother.
"What stray beast made that cry, do you think?" He asked. "I wonder if Thor let some animal in the castle for sport, and it ran afoul of one of our hunting hounds."
Frigga shot him a hard look then, and Loki smiled. His eyes were wide and guileless.
She made him stay put. If there were a dangerous beast in the castle, he ought not to be about. Loki hunted only when Thor asked. Frigga stayed in her chambers as well, and resumed her weaving. It was her way to let the people come to her, and it was a good way, one that had held true for long eons.
But the stitches she made from thereon were crooked, and they did not hold the sunlight. Loki sat by her side, content.
Odin Allfather was the one who came. Frigga had expected no lesser messenger.
"Sif." He said. He had come in full armor, in all his Kingly regalia. His beard was snow white, even then. His single eye was a bright blue, and it shone with cold rage.
The tale he carried was yet grimmer. Someone had come to her chambers at night, and had shaved her hair. There was not a drop of blood on her scalp, but every last thread of gold was gone, and all knew that such hair would not grow back.
"Thor is with her." Was how Odin Allfather finished his tale.
"Good." Frigga said, and Loki's knuckles were white. As if Thor, whose words were clumsy and whose hands were too oafish to wield anything but a battleaxe, would have words to soften this tragedy. Thor had no magic but the storm, and lightning could not grow hair. "Who does she accuse?"
It was only then that Odin Allfather turned his gaze to his youngest son.
But Loki was long gone, then, his image fading from sight. Loki was fled, for Frigga loved Sif. All of Asgard loved golden Sif. Loki fled instead to other protection, another shield of his childhood. There had been nights when he was small, when he had nightmares of cold and battle, where the long walk to Frigga's chambers was too far, and too dark, and he wanted nothing more than warmth.
His feet slapped the floor, but they were unheard in the wails of grief that had seized the kingdom. He darted past servants who were running to the windows, for the dawn light was fast retreating before thunderheads, and went to another unlocked chamber.
This door was open wide, askew. The chamber was chaos—the bedclothes had been ripped off and flung aside, heavy black boots lay on the floor, one upright and one fallen, and a plate of fruit some servant had laid to break his fast was shattered on the floor, a victim of a rude awakening.
Loki did not bother closing the door. He knew that a hunter looks longer at closed ways than open ones. He slipped off his own boots and tucked them neatly beneath the bed, with his folded cloak and shirt, and huddled into the covers. Though Thor had left them hours ago, they were still warm, and they smelled of him.
The bed was wide enough for three. Loki pulled both blanket and sheet over his head, like a tent a small child might make, and curled up in his makeshift fortress. He slept, then, and it was a good sleep. Thunder raged outside, and maidens sobbed in equal grief and rage, and grim parents bickered, and he slept like one who had conquered a nation.
"Why?!" That was the word that woke him. That and cold air, as the thick blankets were thrown aside and cold air hit his bare chest. The word was roared like a cacophony, like a lightning bolt, and Loki had barely words to answer.
"It was just a joke." He blurted out, instinct handling his tongue. Thor stood before him, and it was near enough to undo him. He must have been with Sif all through the day, for Loki could feel that the darkness outside was the dark of night, not of cloudbanks. He had not bothered to change from what he had worn when he went to her—a white tunic, hastily flung over himself, a cloak that blazed red, and a battleaxe in his hand. His hair was a tawny mane over his shoulders. It was the most vibrant gold in all Asgard.
"A prank?" Thor repeated Loki's own words back to him, as Loki knew he would, and it gave the trickster time to trick. "You thought that shearing her like a sheep would make decent jest? Are you mad, brother?"
Loki blinked up at him, innocent as a lamb. He had been right to come here. Thor would believe the best of him. It was his fool's nature.
"I took what mattered most to her." Loki said, glib. "I thought she would be a most entertaining sight, prancing round the palace trying to find her hair. There are minstrels who will make ballads of it, mark my words."
Thor stared at him, aghast. "Brother…what did you do with it?"
"I threw it in the fire." Loki said. He had sat in his own chambers and watched green flames devour her locks hair by hair, watched gold melt and bubble and finally sink into ash. "It's not as though she can't regrow it."
"And you think yourself wise." Thor said wearily. He sat on the bed beside Loki, one knee crooked. The axe he rested on the bedside table. "It will not grow. Sif's locks were precious, more than any gem in this realm. I had hoped…had you but stolen them, you might have made a spell to reattach them, to bind them to her once more."
"I just thought it would be some fun." Loki said, his eyes wide. "I thought of no such consequence!" He hesitated a moment. "Is she much hurt?"
"She wants to mount your head on a spear." Thor said. "And father wants to see you in his throne room."
Loki's mouth twisted, at that.
"I will tell him I could not find you." Thor said. "You stay here, wait until their rage cools. I can bring meals to you, they'll not know."
"No." Loki said sharply. "You'll come here each hour with a haunt of venison and a pitcher of wine, and even your thick-witted friends will realize I'm kept in your sheets. Go to the gardens, ride with your horse. Take apples and wheat while the gardeners watch, as if you mean to feed the animal, and bring those back to me."
"You cannot live on apples." Thor said stupidly.
Loki sniffed. "I know my own stomach, Thor. I promise you, I can make meals."
"I suppose you are the better at scheming." Thor said. "What of Heimdall?"
Loki did not move.
"He says his gaze was not in his sister's rooms last night, as he had no predilection of what was to come, but he searches for you. No trick cape will hide you from him." Thor hesitated. "I left him comforting Sif, but brother, he is wroth."
"He won't look for me in your bed." Loki said, finally. "Occupy him with his family. Tell him to send his gaze to the high mountains, or to the library. Let him scour every other realm, never guessing that I am concealed in Asgard's heart."
"I fear that his gaze is broader than you think." Thor said. He shook his head. "Brother, this prank was foolhardly, and crueler than you knew."
"I will find a way to give her back her hair." Loki snapped. "Just do as I say."
Thor did, as Loki had known. That night, Loki changed dull water to the richest wine and apples to pig's heads, and still tasted bitterness on his tongue.
"I know you are hiding him." Sif's voice came to him. Loki was in the dark, under Thor's bed, where had slithered, quick as a snake, when he heard two sets of footsteps at the door. "Heimdall told me he rests in your chambers."
"He knew not what he was doing." Thor's voice came. Thor's voice was a gold clarion.
"He always knows what he does, better than anyone else in Asgard!" Sif's voice was rudely clanging bells. "This was pure malice, Thor!"
"You have done nothing to Loki to provoke such a strike."
"That is my point." Sif hissed. "He is spiteful, and impulsive, and petty above all. I do not doubt that this is for some passing slight that none but him would take as insult, vengeance a thousandfold more than the offense—"
"He says he did not even realize that your hair would be forever gone."
"In magic, he is second only to your mother, of course he knew." Loki smiled, lying in the dust and flagstones. "That is his only gift, Thor!"
"He meant this as a harmless joke." Thor insisted, stubborn to the last. "Take it as such! It is only hair, Sif."
"I am not angry for my hair!" Sif cried. "What discomfits me is that your imp brother crept to my room in the night while all Asgard slept, with a knife in his hand!"
"You cannot think Loki means you harm. You have known him since you, and Fandral and Volstagg and Hogun and I, were but children." Thor laughed. Loki heard cloth rustling, as if Thor had taken her close. "He would have told me, if you had angered him."
"That does not allay my fear, Thor. It only makes me wonder whether you see him as a child still."
"I know that Loki has grown." Thor said, amusement in his tone. "You are becoming ludicrous. And besides—what do you fear? Loki could come to you in full armor, my father's spear in his hand, and you would rise nude from your bed and beat him bloody."
Sif sighed then, some satisfaction in her tone.
"You are fast becoming one of the mightiest of all Asgard's warriors." Thor said. "You have nothing to fear from my little brother."
"He should fear me." Sif said. "If he cannot give me back my hair, I plan to cut out his heartstrings and make a braid to loop round my bare scalp."
Thor laughed. He never could take a threat as genuine. "You want red hair, now?"
"I…" Sif sighed, then. Loki saw her feet before him, clad in sandals, as she sat on Thor's bed. "I do not think baldness suits me, Thor. Call it vanity if you want to mock, but I feel naked and ridiculous."
"You are as beautiful as you have ever been." Thor promised, his voice quiet.
"I do not care that you think so." Sif said. "I am uncomfortable in my own skin, and I cannot abide it."
"We will fetch you new hair." Thor promised. "It will be a quest. I will gather the Warriors Three, and Loki can draw us a map."
"To where?" Sif asked. "I came by my locks while still in my mother's womb, and I do not think Loki can steal into that chamber."
"He will know." Thor said. "And if I have to journey through all Nine Realms and Valhalla besides, I will find follow his word and return to you with tresses that shine brighter than diamonds."
There was silence then. Loki looked at Thor's boots, close to Sif's sandals now, and he hated.
Thor's word proved good. A quest was enough to appease Heimdall, to make Frigga nod in weary acceptance, to convince Allfather that justice was at hand.
Thor led them, riding tall on his stallion, golden hair and scarlet cape flapping behind him. He smiled as he waved goodbye, as if they were but on a hunting trip again, in search of a simpler sort of pelt.
"I say, Loki, this deed was ill done." Fandral remarked as they rode through the green hills. "You sneak into the chambers of the most beautiful maid in Asgard, and all you think to do is trim the hair on her head." He grinned, his gaze going to Sif. "I would have put my fingers in different curls, myself."
"Do not think that I will hesitate to strike you, just because this quest is for my benefit." Sif warned. She hefted a javelin in her hand. Sif rode with her helm covering her head, a brilliant headpiece of white and silver, to contrast her elder brother's black and gold.
Heimdall did not ride with them, trapped as he was as guardian of the realm. But his gaze was on them, Loki did not doubt.
She'd had to wrap a cover around her head as well, to protect the soft skin of her scalp from chafing by the helm's hard metal, and it fell against the curve of her neck in soft blue folds. There should have been soft strands of gold there instead, too bright to be contained by her helm.
"Listen to her, my dashing friend." Hogun said softly. "That blade looks sharp, and I do not think we can go on quest to find you a new head."
"But we might substitute a rock without noticeable change." Volstagg said. He roared a laugh, spraying spittle over the thin brown strands of his beard. He was trying to grow one, and it made him look like a goat.
Hogan looked down to snicker, and Thor's laugh was loud as thunder. Lady Sif looked at them, warmth in her eyes. Loki burned with disgust. He rode at Thor's side, to whisper directions in his ear, and he knew the scorn that would follow should he try to join their banter.
"But then," Volstagg continued, still smiling, "a rock could not feast with us, and that is why we truly quest."
"I thank you, Volstagg." Sif said, rolling her eyes. "Shall I lose my nose next?"
"I doubt Loki could slide his sword into your flesh." Fandral said. Thor reached out his arm and punched him, and Fandral laughed even as he clutched his shoulder. "Nor could any warrior in Asgard! Let a man finish a compliment, Thor."
"Come, Loki." Thor said, looking down at him. "Which way?"
"North." Loki said.
He would give them a quest. He would make them quest until they bled like pigs.
He took them to Nidavellir, where the dwarves lived in darkness. It ranged East of the barbarism of Midgard, South to the vast cold reaches of Jotunheim. It was savage mountains and furious skies, where hot rain beat down on black stone and it was sheer luck that Hogun found them a passage beneath the ground, to where dwarves lived.
Loki gnashed his teeth, and wished he had simply brought them all into Hel.
The tunnels were dark, and small, so that at times they all had to crawl on hand and knee to go forward. There were forges there, Loki knew, and sweat tricked down his brow and between his fingers as they went quested on. Thor's cloak was heavy and limp, and Sif's helm slipped and slid on her head, making red welts in her forehead.
Yet they found the dwarves, shrunken little creatures who lived in caverns of wrought gold.
Loki vowed that he would not open his mouth and ask these foul beings for help. They were a party of gods, and these were the maggots of Ymir's flesh. So Thor commanded them instead, in the Allfather's name, and wonder of wonders, they obeyed.
It might have been Thor's muscles. He had cast off his undertunic and wore only armor, and his arms shone with sweat in the torchlight, shadows playing in the caves and boulders beneath his skin. Or it might have been the simple cadence of his voice, a command that rang truer than their steel, a young prince who knew his birthright. Or perhaps it was to pay their debt to Odin, who had seen fit to gift them with reason.
Loki knew not what compelled them to action. He knew only that Thor spoke, and they submitted.
Their leader was a gnome named Ivaldi. He wore a strange puckered helm, and his beard was bright red and braided twice over. "Lie on my table, my Lady." He said, his voice like stones scraping against steel.
Sif lay down with hesitance, the grime of the worktable fouling her fingers. Her friends gathered about her, and even Fandral's face was drawn. One of her hands clutched the hilt of sword, and they passed the other around between them, so that one moment it was swallowed under Volstagg's meaty palms, the next pressed in Fandral's slim knuckles.
He measured her head in a thousand waves—the curve of her skull, the breadth of her brain, the distance tween the tip of her nose and the back of her neck. Loki paced behind him, watching Thor's back.
"I cannot do it." Ivaldi pronounced. Sif took a deep breath, her eyes closing. "I can spin gold, but it will never be equal to the gold that can grow in the womb of an Asgardian. It would not fit you well."
"I thank you despite, good sir." Sif said, her voice quiet. She sat up, hands loose in her lap, head bowed.
"I…" Ivaldi stopped her. "I might craft you a substitute." He looked down, to his own ugly paws. "It would not be the same, but I might try."
Sif's thanked him as she held his hands, and Thor stumbled over his words as he tried to convey how the entire royal family of Asgard would give him regard for this act. The dwarf's voice was gruff when he muttered that all he would do was try, and his cheeks were red like apples.
He melted onyx and mixed in slivers of obsidian, brewed raven's feathers in a pot, went to the surface and chiseled a piece of the new moon from the sky. He went deep to the mountains and returned with a saucer of oil, and he stole a cat's pupils.
Ivaldi put this in his forge and heated it until it glowed so bright white that not even Thor would look upon it, then spun it into gossamer.
And though the dwarves were known for nothing but dead stone, he made the silk grow from Sif's temples like ripe barley, and when she rose, a curtain of shining black hair fell from her crown to the small of her back.
Thor roared approval, and Volstagg beat his fists against his torso, and Fandral whooped, and Hogan brought his hands together. Loki simply watched as darkness framed her face and it made it glow like the center of dark candle, and heard her scream in triumph.
Ivaldi shook her hand, though she might have crushed him with a finger. "You and your comrades, and Asgard's princes, are welcome in my forge."
"You are welcome in Asgard." Thor said. One of his hands went to Sif's new locks, letting the silk slide between his fingers. "If you wish to return with us, I will give you a place of high honor at our feast."
"Feasts suit my kind ill." Ivaldi said. "But I will give you a map to guide you from my forge to the gates of the rainbow bridge as it passes Nidavellir, and tell my sons of your valor." He gave them a crude map of charcoal, sketched on oil paper.
It guided them true.
Heimdall greeted them, in his cast gold armor.
"Your new mane shines like dark opals." He said, as he embraced his sister. He looked at Loki then, freakish gold eyes intent. Loki raised his eyebrows. "I trust it will stay in place."
"I never play the same trick twice." Loki said, lifting his lips. It was perhaps more grotesque than he intended, but only Heimdall was watching. The guardian smiled truer, but it was crueler. Heimdall saw things that the rest of them did not, after all.
Loki looked away from him, stepping into Thor's shadow as protection.
They feasted that night in the hall. Raven-haired Sif drank and was merry, her helm cast off and lying beneath the table.
"I wonder." Odin was saying to Frigga, the two of them thick as thieves at the head of the table. The place of high honor went to Sif, but they still reigned over the hall. Only one with pointed ears could have heard their conversation. "This might mean a new age with the dwarves, relations that have fallen into myth coming to the light."
"Perhaps. These new warriors have a unique valor about them." She looked down the table fondly, to where Thor and Volstagg were clashing their goblets together.
"We should arm them well. There are old weapons, ones of dwarfish make that rarely see the light, ones we thought no person in Asgard worthy to wield—" Frigga silenced him with a hand, then.
"Not here." She murmured. "Do not talk of Sindri now." The two of them looked down the table again, and this time it was clear that her gaze was for Thor alone.
"I was speaking of our son." Odin rumbled back.
"Which?"
"The one who fights honest in the sun." Odin responded.
"No need for such harshness." Frigga said softly. "Shadows have their purpose."
"I only wish I knew why the lad did it." Odin dropped all pretenses. "It seems so unprompted…"
"Not here." Frigga repeated, this time as not a request but a command, and they fell into talk of other matters, of how beautiful the torchlight was against Sif's braid, of how much coin Odin would wager on Fandral leaping to the table and singing before the feast was through.
Loki sat in darkness, his hair falling in his face like ashes.
He had watched, nearly a fortnight ago, in the barley fields. Thor had been golden, and his hands broad when he cupped Sif's face and kissed her. She had pulled him down into the grass with her, hair spread wide beneath her, and Thor had buried his face in it and murmured the endearments only a youth could say without sounding the ass. His hands had run through her hair like a plow through wheat, and she had locked her legs over him until they were so close they might have been one glorious beast. Loki had crouched there and watched them, golden warriors, and his pale hands clenched so tight that black bruises sprung on his palms.
He left the feast, and no one called him back.
A/N: First time I've ever actually completed anything that has to do with Asgard, so feedback would be much appreciated :)