Odin was on his private balcony when Heimdall came to him. It was rare for the Gatekeeper to leave his post, for he, perhaps of all Odin's people, felt most keenly the weight of his duty. Odin felt his curiosity balance against a weight of foreboding.
"What brings you to see me at such a late hour, All-Seeing Heimdall?"
Heimdall bowed, pressing his fist over his heart. His great sword was strapped across his back, the hilt spare as a promise over his shoulder. "Allfather. I come regarding your son."
Odin huffed a humorless laugh. "I take it not my elder son."
"No, Allfather."
"What is it of Loki that burdens you."
The Gatekeeper stood tall against the void behind him, as though it were his place and always would be—standing between those he protected and those who would harm them. "Loki plots. His heart festers; I can see it, clear as vartari in flesh. He searches his books for any crumb of knowledge on the weapons vault. There is one artifact that draws him most, more even than the tesseract. I hear it whispering in the dark corners of his soul."
Of course. "The Gauntlet."
Heimdall bowed. "The same. Allfather, I do not need to tell you the danger if he were to obtain it."
"No, old friend, indeed there is not. I was there, too, in the last war; I fought, the same as you." Odin rested his hands on the balustrade, looking out over the City. The floating spires of the communications tower danced in the distance.
"He must not."
Odin sighed. "Do not think I belittle your warning, Heimdall. I no longer know the man my son has become. He is twisted, warped from the child I raised, and I fear of my role in his transformation. I would not trust him with the relics any more than I would trust a hungry fox in a chicken coop—but I follow a command that supersedes rationality."
Heimdall raised his helmed head, his gaze sharp. "Frigga has received a vision."
"That she has."
None respected Frigga's Sight more than Heimdall Horn-Bearer. "May I ask what she Saw?"
"You know she does not share what she sees. That is her greatest wisdom, though it is sometimes difficult to bear. She told me only to hope, and to trust my son."
"Trust Loki."
"Yes." Perhaps it was the burden of kingship resting unusually heavy upon Odin's shoulders that night, but the stars seemed brighter, closer. Cosmic gases spun in diaphanous clouds, parting to reveal distant solar clusters before swirling together to veil once more their secrets. Odin gazed heavenward, and found himself wishing...
"I must learn to trust my son, again. I must trust my wife Saw true, and you, Heimdall, must trust that even if she did not I will do whatever must be done to protect this realm."
Heimdall bowed. "Allfather."
The Watcher of the Worlds stepped out, and the Lord of the Æsir remained, staring at the sky.
OOO
"You have been cleaning around the sutures with a salt solution every night?"
Loki nodded, avoiding the healer's gaze. He pursed his lips before he could stop himself, and the irritated flesh protested. He ran his tongue against the stitches.
"Well, there aren't any signs of sepsis, and the sutures are healing cleanly. You're lucky." Brokkr sat back. "If there was an infection chances are the scarring would be severe. I can't use a healing stone on sutured tissue."
Glorious news. Loki wouldn't be severely scarred, merely lightly scarred.
The silence stretched, and Loki felt the mood shift. He glanced toward his executioner-cum-personal physician. Brokkr was watching him, a sad light in his eye. "I've said it before, but I am sorry, Loki. I've told the Allfather punishments like this don't help, but tradition..."
Loki snorted. He sat forward in his chair, perched as though to leave, his head tilted in question.
Brokkr sighed. "Yes, you can go. Keep applying the ointment I gave you, and I expect to see you in here again, tomorrow."
Loki gave no sign he had heard, instead rising from his chair and slamming open the doors to the ward proper. He marched past the rows of beds to the exit, ignoring the stares of the healers and patients who watched his progress. His current guard, busy charming a novice, scrambled to catch up. Together they left the healing wing.
It was near the end of breakfasting hour, and the halls were slowly filling. Servants scurried to and fro, dodging nobles who, partaking in their post-prandial strolls, stopped at odd intervals to exchange pleasantries. All of them, high and low, took a moment to gawk at Loki as he passed. Double-takes and whispers followed him like a wake followed a boat.
Scowling, he took a shortcut through the Hall of Noble Dead. A vast, echoing chamber at the crux of the palace's four wings, it held the sigils of all those of the First Tier that had gone before to the halls of the Ancients. It was empty, for few came here outside of the Holiest Days, when Odin offered blót to his ancestors. Shadows clung to the corners like memories condensed. Loki had spent many hours here with his brother as a child, their tutor drilling the history of their line into their heads. They had memorized the exits long before they could recite their great-uncle's defeat of the Ljósálfar.
Loki paid no attention to the relics of his adopted house, caring only for the door tucked behind the statue of Borr. Ducking beneath his grandfather's outstretched arm, he eased it open and slipped through. His shadow managed to get a hand in before the door closed on him, though he had trouble negotiating the small opening in his armor. Loki suppressed his smile, not bothering to slow his pace.
They found themselves in a narrow corridor, used most often by the servants but deserted at this hour. It led past the library, and that was the path Loki followed, wending through the maze until the hall spat them out into the Rotunda.
The Palace Library was, like so many features of Glaðsheimr, superlative. It took up the entire ground floor on the east wing, a good three stories above, and two more below. The hub of it all was called simply the Rotunda, a colonnaded masterpiece of High Asgardian architecture. Various side halls and reading rooms divided off from it, and twin staircases curved around to the second floor balcony. Loki strode across the knotwork floor, sure of his course.
The second prince had always had a respectable collection of books. Some he had pilfered from the library but most he specially commissioned from the finest printers in Asgard. They covered the breadth of worldly knowledge, from history to art to humor, from sagas recorded from the skalds themselves to cheap pulp. By far the widest portion of his horde focused on magic. Loki was a sorcerer, after all, and always sought to perfect his craft.
Yet he had found that his private collection could no longer aid him, for Loki's search required he plunge deep into the arcane and obscure.
The Palace Library had an answer for his quandary. Down the north transept there was an unassuming door, unlabeled and looking very much like a supply closet. None of the tracer spells used to help guests locate their books had loci within, nor carried any record of its contents. Only those with knowledge of the door's existence knew what was beyond: research on divisive magical theory, studies performed on dangerous artifacts, spellbooks of dubious moral standing. It was a vast complex. Loki himself had only found it by accident when he realized there was a discrepancy in the library's layout.
Loki squinted at his guard. This one was young, and looked particularly dim—not the sort to pay mind to books, regardless of their content. One couldn't be too careful, however, researching controlled materials, and Loki kept a careful eye on him. He pushed open the door and into the musty air beyond.
He pulled his journal from his belt pouch and consulted his notes.
Preliminary investigations into the device manufactured by Thanos, the Mad Titan, during the War of the Gems, BJW 9,922. Construction and magical defenses of Glaðsheimr. First priority: magical restraint.
Loki stepped up to the antiquated catalogue along the near wall and began shuffling through the cards for the information he sought.
OOO
It was late afternoon, and Loki was ready to tear his hair out. No small amount of that was due to the changing of his guard, replacing his young and disinterested warden with an older, cannier veteran who was more than ready to tattle to the Allfather if his charge began searching through dangerous books.
The balance of his frustration was due to the library tracing spells. They were voice activated.
He hissed and slammed the book shut. He was in the criminal justice and Asgardian law section, browsing the shelves and hoping to run across any book that might carry information on spells that bound a person's innate magic. They didn't seem to exist, at least not in this section of the stacks. Loki shoved the book back on the shelf.
"Evil plots not cooperating, today?" his guard quipped. Loki glared at him turn for turn. No, in fact, they weren't.
He was getting nowhere with this. Maybe with a guard he felt less like throttling he could get some of his more innocuous research done, but as things stood he was facing long hours of aimless wandering with nothing to show for it. He growled and pushed away from the shelf, stalking down the aisle to the corridor beyond. Tomorrow would be a different guard. Tomorrow, maybe, he could uncover some scrap of anything useful.
He was just passing the horticulture and gardening sections when a body surged out from the stacks and into him, knocking him to the floor in a clatter of falling books. Loki blinked, disoriented. He looked up at his attacker.
It was a woman, small, compact, with hair so curly and voluminous it strained against the haphazard bun she had crammed it into. Her eyes were wide. "Oh—Oh, I am so sorry, I didn't see you, I was just—here, let me help you—" She seized Loki's hand, oblivious to his scowl, and hauled him to his feet. Then she was down on her knees, gathering together her fallen books, chattering all the while.
"So excited, you see, finally found the grimoire I've been trying to track down—I'm on leave from my work at the collegium, thought I'd take time to indulge—completely didn't see you—if you would be so kind as to take these—" She shoved a stack of books in his arms and went back for more. Loki was tempted to dump them back on the floor, but his respect for books in general was too great to abuse them more than they already had been. He glanced to his guard, who was leaning against a bookshelf and watching the scene with intense amusement. He looked back to the woman.
She was still talking. "Traditional Ljósálfar Herb Lore, Desert Perennials of the American Southwest—I'm missing one. Oh, here it is, behind you—" she reached around Loki to seize a fallen book. "—Life Cycle of the Muspellian Fire Flower!" She grinned up at him. "Incredible flowers, really, they—" she noticed Loki's dour expression. "Oh. I'm babbling. Um, this way." Cheeks pink, she led the way to a nearby carrel and piled her books on top. She waited for him follow.
Loki stared at her, incredulous. He would have thought she didn't know who he was, but her clothing bore the cut and traditional tailoring of Third Tier nobility, and every house from at least Sixth Tier up had been present at his execution. For lack of any better ideas he dropped the books on the table next to hers.
"Thank you, my lord," she said formally, curtseying. "And again, I apologize for running into you." With little more ceremony than that she settled down to her books, opening the first with an air of expectant glee.
Loki backed away, annoyed and more than a little confused, and had almost turned around when she looked up from her book and smiled at him. It was simple and full of joy, and it was lovely—but that was not what caught Loki's eye.
There was a scar across her lip, silvery and faint with age, but still clear. It dragged at the lip, pulled her smile crooked, and Loki stared at it. He spun and walked away, shaking his head.
He wasn't sure why her cleft lip had bothered him. Just the same, he couldn't get it out of his head for the rest of the day.
