Chapter Two
The best thing about the library was that Loki could learn about magic there. Impressive shelves encompassed the room, forming circular pathways around it. Twelve separate shelves of books stacked one on top of the other. The top two were packed with yellowing parchment paper, records new and old. And of course, there was the droopy statured librarian. The man himself squinted at him from behind his spectacles, his lips pressed together, thin as a page. Loki's cheeks flushed under the belittling man that regarded his every page turn with suspicion. The moment he'd shown interest in magic, the man's attitude had turned resentful. Loki reassured himself that he had done nothing wrong and had nothing to be guilty of. Not even any magic. Not yet, at least.
"There are numerous types of sorcery," the librarian cautiously when he had first inquired. "Does your mother know you're filling your head with it?"
"She doesn't mind." Loki misinformed him evenly. "I should know about it, she says, Asgard would be well to have people who can combat it." With that, he'd been permitted to look through a tremendously dense textbook of magical history. There was a whole realm of things to be accomplished with it, things his father only touched on in his speeches. Things Thor didn't know. Things his mother wanted nothing to do with.
Loki wouldn't have to be weak with magic. Once they realized his aptitude for it, they would have to get him a teacher. Perhaps they would finally let him go to other realms as Thor did and he could match Thor's battling competence with spells. Lugging the book off the shelf and dropping it onto the table with a resonating thump, he picked up where he had left off: Frost giant sorcery in the battle for the tesseract, eleven years ago. They described evil magics by a heartless and cunning race. This, he thought happily, was going to be good. He slid his finger between the lines, pausing on occasion to look up a word. The hands of the clocks grew wings as he immersed himself in his preferred type of history lesson.
Loki fixed had already finished his attention on the first section about natural frost giant magic, more an abilities of their species than anything else. His mother's voice broke the still of the library with a gentle greeting.
Summer air wafted through the room. Frigga proceeded to sit down next to him, her eyes shadowed with worry.
"It's too nice a day out for books. I thought you said you were going to be with Thor." Frigga pressed. Loki held his breath. "What are you reading that's better than a sunny day?" Loki was motionless as Frigga turned to the cover.
"Father mentioned it to me, and it's important, right?" he summed quickly. In spite of this, Frigga looked at him pointedly, more surprised than anything else. Loki melted into his chair, a pleading expression drawn on his face. As usual, she would launch into some explanation or justifying example that would make him wrong.
"Magic is not suitable for you to study. It's not a subject for you." she deadpanned. Frigga ran a hand through her hair and closed her eyes. "Your father wants to see the two of you. Promise me you'll not look into this craft again."
"I promise." Loki looked like a slapped puppy. He rested his head in his hands, instantly compiling ways to get at the books. Night visits. Making Thor get it for him. Falsify a signature on a request. The librarian's eyebrow raised a few notches as if to condemn him. To Loki's relief, he returned nonchalantly to his writing.
"To the great hall with you." Frigga directed. Loki obliged reluctantly, leaving the cool of the library for the bustling hallways. Asgardians in full battle garb patrolled the passageways, situating themselves in front of doors and the treasury at the end. Loki walked a maze that he'd known for as long as he could remember and entered the gilded hall.
Thor stood on Odin's left side, a grin spread across his face. He held that hammer. Loki grimaced and was reminded of his bruised front. Thor set Mjölnir down on its side when Loki climbed the stairs to the throne, admiring the view of the hall and carpet from the platform. He stood on Odin's other side. Thor leaned on the side of the throne and beamed at his father. Conversely, Loki slumped on the side of the winged throne where Odin's cold metal eye patch was fitted and shifted his hands nervously.
Odin looked as though he had seen better days. His skin looked tallow in the light, as if washed out from the demands of the day. In an effort to draw Loki closer to him, he reached out blindly to touch his shoulder. Loki felt a chill to his father's palms.
"What did you want, father?" Loki inquired, voice like a mouse's.
"My son, Asgard is a realm that wants peace for all of the nine realms. There is nothing I despise more than the bloodshed of my comrades." Odin paused and Loki could tell he was trying to justify whatever was to come next. "There has been a theft. Someone has stolen from the Jötuns, taken the crown of king Laufey and in turn removed one of their most powerful talismans. I have no doubt in my mind that they will name one of us as the swindler and choose to attack Asgard."
"Who took it, father?" Thor said with a certainty that implied Odin possessed all the answers.
"We have only suspects at the moment. I am hesitant to point out possible thieves." Odin replied with a sage-like calmness.
A voice as booming and loud as a peel of thunder reverberated about the hall. Magic, Loki realized ecstatically.
"King of Asgard, hear me. Return my crown and we will have no quarrel for this day. You have taken from me power, but none that is not otherwise belonging to my brethren." Odin rose to his feet. Odin closed his eye for a second and his brow furrowed.
"Loki go NOW to your chambers." Odin ordered, tone bitter and steadfast. Loki clenched the side of the throne. Of course he would be the first to go. Odin didn't want him there; Loki was the boy on the side of his blind eye, a mixed blessing. "Go!" he shouted and yanked Loki up by his arm.
The ornate doors that lead to Asgard opened, knocked aside by a rogue wind.
"You do not reply, Allfather." the chilling voice's amplified words said. Loki sprinted down the steps. Odin and Thor descended the staircase in front of the throne like avenging angels. Thor was on the warpath. Father and son had their hands to their weapons, hair-trigger reflexes on their side.
Loki glanced back as he nearly cleared the last set of steps and tripped on the bottom one. He broke his fall with his palms and saw as eight men, each the size of two Asgardian warriors, walked down the carpet laid out in the hall towards his brother and father.
They were the color of a frozen pond. The skin itself was not smooth like his, but ridged and scarred like treacherous ice with mottled darker shades. They moved with a lethal grace even though they wore metallic body armor that seemed to be forged directly into their flesh. Loki shuddered at the sight of their glassy crimson eyes. The drawings had never done them any honor.
Thor hurled Mjölnir at the giant walking in front. He bore his teeth like an ill-tempered dog and reached for a dagger in his pocket when the giant sidestepped his hammer.
Snarling, a giant broke rank, having singled out Loki as weak, and picked him up before he could make a noise in protest. The giant held him like a cook might to gut a fish. Odin's hardened expression twisted to shock. The giant brandished a curved claw of a knife, pressing it daintily against the hollow Loki's throat. His heart ran like a jackrabbit.
"Let him go." Odin ground his teeth.
"Now we have something of yours... Not a fair trade for us, I think."
"Laufey. We need not do this."
The giant curled one blotchy finger at Loki.
"Freyrssssson, bring the boy."
The frost giant brought Loki to the most fearsome of the eight. A cruel smile split his face like a blade, revealing the needlelike mouth of teeth. He touched Loki's cheek with one massive finger pad, expecting blue to blossom across his face.
Instead, the shade of his own skin drifted across the peach tones of Loki's, changing the color of his eyes to that of blood. The pigment flaked away like old paint.
"What is this trickery?" growled the frost giant king. He touched the trembling boy's brow and then drew back in sudden revulsion.
"Nothing more than a boy." Odin shot back. His sword was in his hand. Laufey's eyes shrunk to bloody slits.
"What have you done, Allfather?" Laufey spat. The tip of the blade prodded Loki's neck.
"Remove your hands from my son." Odin said with finality.
"This boy is no Odinsson. He wears only your skins."
"Father, Loki is of Asgard. This must be one of their deceptions." Thor directed Mjölnir's head at Laufey. The giant let red down Loki's collar, teasing the skin apart. A briny tear trickled down Loki's cheek.
"I want my crown." Laufey hissed, cracking a cold-blooded smile. Loki clenched his teeth and tried to stanch his watery eyes. Streams of blood slithered down his neck.
"We don't have it!" Thor bellowed.
"Pity," he shot back, pressing the blade deeper into Loki's neck. The prince cried out in distress.
"Laufey, do not kill the boy. He is your son." Odin threw down his sword. The frost giant turned his ruby gaze on Loki and planted his palm on the boy's forehead, the magic of the giant stripping away the pallid skin shade. Laufey examined the marks on the boy's head.
"How is this, that you speak truth!"
"He was to die after the battle. I love him as my own."
"Love me?" Loki muttered. Odin had claimed this before, but it made sense now. Why Odin favored Thor, why he was confined to the castle, why he was the one who came second if at all. "I don't belong here." Thor opened his mouth in protest.
"Brother, do not say things like tha—"
"I AM NOT YOUR BROTHER!" Loki seethed. Laufey released his hold Loki's neck.
"You are my son," Laufey murmured to him. "You do not belong here."
"Loki, do not listen to him." Odin warned in the same tone he took when disapproving of magic.
"I wish to speak with my son alone." Odin grimaced.
"I will allow this if you turn him first to us to dress this wound you have inflicted so courteously upon his skin." Laufey was silent for a moment, calculating.
"I will allow you to take my lost heir for a quarter of an hour."
A/N: Immensely enjoying writing this. Let me know what you think!
