Weeks, months, years passed and Loki had not forgotten the human girl. For such a young child, the raven haired prince understood a great many things that his elder brothers did not. Where the royal family overlooked the King's brashness, Loki made count. The number of inconsistencies between Odin's title and his actions were sickening. Loki found it difficult to look his father in the eye, knowing that, underneath his armor, a monster lurked. The cruelty, the murder, the affinity for battle. These qualities that were so valued in Aesir culture under other names were things Loki would never let himself possess. The young prince hated war. Unfortunately for Loki, he was the only Aesir in the world who seemed to think this way. Even Frigga, good, sweet, kind Frigga, rejoiced when her husband came home from battle, drenched in blood.

The three princes were often summoned to the training grounds to practice the art of war. Thor was swift and ruthless, destroying targets with ease. Baldur was sturdy in defense, and heavy when he could land a hit. But Loki could neither wield a sword nor club; he could use daggers and the bow, but bows were not for leading battles and daggers were not honorable. Thor's snickers of laughter hurt the young prince more than Odin's disapproving stare.

What Loki lacked in physical prowess, he made up for with intelligence. It wasn't long before he stopped going to his lessons at the training ground altogether, meeting with his mother instead to practice magic. He absorbed her teachings like water on parched earth. On top of these new lessons, his visits to Heimdall's observatory grew more frequent. Soon, he was there every day from lunch to supper.

"You are early," the gatekeeper and overseer noted as Loki entered. The boy was alone. Loki shrugged. Heimdall might have smiled. The two followed the stairs underneath the observatory to the strange dwelling below. These were Heimdall's living quarters, though they seemed much more like a messy museum, or a storage shed. It was dark, dusty; much unlike the gleaming cleanness of the golden observatory above. One table sat alone in the middle of the cluttered room. Atop it sat a blue cube.

Pulsing.

"That's new," Loki frowned, sitting at the only clean chair in the room.

"It has pulsed since dawn," the gatekeeper murmured, standing beside the prince. "My only guess is that an Infinity stone has resurfaced. Perhaps today we can try to communicate with it once more."

"Out of all the times we have tried to communicate with it, we walk away with nothing. What says today will be any different?"

Heimdall said nothing.

Loki gave a little sigh and lifted the cube. The cube flashed blue and the boy crumpled in his seat. His head spun and it hurt to breathe; his lungs were far away. It frightened him, but not as much as the scene he saw.

In the heart of the deepest cave in all the nine realms, a man trekked in near-total darkness. He was dressed in the finest berserker armor, held the strongest blade on his back. He sat where it was safest to and removed his heavy helmet. The lightest hair, the bluest eyes, bronze skin burned by lightning. He was a true Aesir. He stared out into the blackness of the cave. The silence was deafening. The only thing audible was his breath. He could not hear even his own footfalls as he navigated the cave. His eyes strained in the darkness. A faint blue light reflected on the water below. Days ago, at the mouth of the cave, he saw the same blue light and followed it. He took a deep breath and jumped.

The splash was deafening, a roar escaping a vacuum. His heavy armor pulled him down and down, into the icy water. He did not fight the pull. Instead, he let it guide him to the source of the light. The light pulsed brighter and brighter until the Aesir warrior swam only in blue. Before him, a gem of the finest quality pulsed in its golden setting. A sapphire? No, something better. Something rare. He reached for it. His hand closed around the light. With a sharp tug, he and the gem resurfaced.

In his hand, he held a majestic golden staff. The pulsing light flickered and was still, illuminating the cave with its full brilliance. It soothed his nerves and flooded his mind with thoughts of ultimate power. He felt strong, unbeatable. He was the most righteous warrior.

The Aesir smiled proudly.

Loki returned to his body and coughed up what was left of his breakfast into the basin Heimdall held out for him. Afterward, he wiped the blood from his nose and said two things. "Firstly, I never want to do that again. Secondly, get my mother and father, I think I've seen the Mind stone and an Aesir has taken it for their own."

҉

Over the course of a hundred years, the princes saw less and less of their elder brother. Baldur grew increasingly sick until he was admitted into the healing ward without leave. Frigga kept to his side day after day. Loki and Thor were not allowed to visit their brother, so they did their best to occupy themselves. Without Frigga to mentor them in the maths and history, their sitting lessons dwindled to nothing.

One morning, Loki sat alone in the study room at his desk, tracing his finger along the sturdy oak. Thin green tendrils of magic carved away at a picture of Yggdrasil. His mind churned; Loki wondered if his mother had gone mad. She rushed through the palace begging every object not to harm Baldur in hopes that he would recover. He understood her desperation. If something so strange and silly would have saved Siv, he would have done the same. He fingered the leather strip in his pocket. The image of the girl flashed before his eyes. He gave a quiet sigh.

She was not a divine creature to him anymore. He saw her trembling legs, her perpetually dripping nose, how the color in her cheeks seemed dangerously out of place on her stark face. Even in his mind, Siv was dying. Nothing could quell his thoughts about the young human child he met in the days of his visit to old Scandinavia.

A voice broke his concentration.

"What is the Prince of Mischief doing sulking at a study desk?" a girl asked.

Loki turned to see three golden haired children at the doorway: Thor, Fandral, and Lady Sif. All three were scuffed from battle training. "Observing Baldur and the healers," he said simply. He quickly cast an astral eye to Baldur's sickbed – a trick Heimdall taught him how to perfect.

"Prince of Lies, more like," Thor snorted.

Loki quirked a grin. "No, 'tis true! They gossip more harshly than maidservants." He stood and walked toward them, palms out. "Do you doubt me? Right now, they are bathing him. He burns hot with a fever. His cheeks are red and his skin is pale and clammy. Now, they say, 'He is so weak, weaker than any Aesir. He is clouded with strange blood, blood of a– . . ."

"Of a what?" Fandral asked.

Loki smirked, swallowing back his urge to panic. He had stumbled across the answer to a question he did not know he had. "If I told you, I would be just as terrible a gossiper as they."

"Come, Loki," Thor interrupted. "We are camping in the mountains as a training exercise. You should join us. You hardly have any experience with weapons, but you can do our woman's work." He snickered.

Sif cast the raven haired prince a deadly glance, daring him to make the jab they felt under their feet.

Loki grunted. He did not dislike camping, though to camp with these three would be damaging: Thor to his body, Sif to his memories, Fandral to his ego. Still, Loki could already guess what would happen. Someone would aggravate Sif, who would in turn take her frustrations out on everything around her, and Loki would have to devise a way to escape while they all ran for their lives. Besides, any sensible parent would oppose to letting four children not two centuries old go camping by themselves, and with a girl was unthinkable. So Loki accepted.

The journey up the mountain was all well and good. It wasn't until they made camp and started to practice that tensions ran high.

"Loki, enough!" Sif snarled, shielding herself from the sudden fury of winter.

"Oh, come now, Sif, it's just a bit of fun. If you are so against it, why not just burn it all away? Surely you can conjure up a little magic, unlike these two," Loki snickered.

"Magic is the woman's art," Thor growled.

"Yes, and Lady Sif is anything but a woman," Fandral chirped. Sif punched him in the stomach.

Loki put a finger to his chin, smirking. "I remember a time when you demanded that I teach you magic, Thor. Was that just childish jealousy? Were you upset that I can do something you cannot? My, how peculiar. A boy with the strength of a hundred men craves to know the woman's art."

The golden haired prince clenched his jaw. "And I remember a time on Midgard when something far more peculiar happened."

Fandral perked up curiously. "Pray tell, something interesting?"

Loki stared up at his brother in surprise.

Thor flashed a nasty grin. He turned to his friends. "When we went to Midgard for the first time some hundred or so years ago, Loki wandered into the forest by himself and fell in love with a human girl."

"I did not fall in love!" he retorted.

"Your ears burn red," Thor snickered. "He saved her from a wolf and she pledged herself to him. He brought her to our camp to convince our parents to bring her to Asgard, but she fell sick. They slept together in a tent, and let me tell you, she was as bare as a newborn when they brought her out the next morning. She must have been so ecstatic, it brought her death."

"Enough!" Loki roared, summoning hot white magic into his palms. It crackled and screamed and blinded them all. The raven haired prince threw his anger at his brother; it exploded on impact with a deafening boom. Fandral and Sif stepped away from the youngest prince. Loki stared at his hands in fear. He had never created anything so powerful before. Was Thor alright? From the corner of the camp, Thor sat up with a groan. His hair stuck out in all directions, his face scuffed with burn marks. Thin pricks of lightning swelled at his fingertips. The three standing children let out a sigh of relief.

"What did you do to me?" Thor asked, horrified as he stood. He felt jittery, as if lightning flowed through his veins. The clouds swirled overhead, dark and brooding with a sudden storm.

"Easy, Thor," Fandral said, coming to his side.

Loki stared at his brother and then at the sky. Something between a grin and a grimace curled on his lips. "I think I've given you your worst nightmare."

"Let's find out," Thor scowled, and tackled his younger brother to the ground. The scuffle did not last long.

"Calm down!" Sif grunted, pulling the two apart. "Think of it this way – the weapons we train with already have magic in them, right?" Thor glowered at her.

"Think of it as a little extra bonus," Fandral grinned.

The stars glittered brightly in the midnight sky, illuminating the children. They broke into pairs, Sif with Fandral and Thor with Loki. Thor found it difficult to contain his new power. With every pout, groan, or harsh word, clouds gathered and rumbled, threatening to break. Loki made him sit and calm down, forcing the clouds to disperse before they continued.

"This is annoying," Thor grumbled, staring at the sky. Clouds rolled in. He let out a sigh and they rolled away. "Have you ever bestowed magic onto something before?"

Loki swallowed back a smile. "I did it to a frog once. It turned out alright." He paused. "Bit crispy, though."

Thor stood and the sky crackled. "Crispy? Crispy? How is that in any way alright? You make jests when I can see now I almost died! I'll show you crispy!"

Loki laughed, despite his fear. Thor was hardly mild-mannered, and the danger was very real. He armed himself with his dagger and ran circles around the camp. Lightning bolts nipped at his heels. Before he could stop himself, he barreled into Fandral.

"I didn't know you were a racehorse, Loki!" he grunted, scrambling out of the way of the lightning. He and Sif made for the sidelines and away from the terrors that were the princes. But no matter how far away they moved, the end result was inevitable. Loki was losing his playful mood, and rose his dagger. Thor, anger still roiling, knocked the blade from his brother's hand and sent it soaring through the air. In a stroke of bad luck, the knife edge landed in the worst of places.

The princes paled.

The young Valkyrie reached up to touch the back of her head, a silent shriek caught in her throat. Her gloriously once-golden ponytail lay scattered at her feet, jet black in disgust of the electrified steel. She plucked Loki's gleaming dagger from the leather cuff that once held her hair together.

"It was Thor!" Loki said quickly, pointing an accusing finger.

Sif screamed with all the fury of a woman enraged. No one was safe. The three boys ran for their lives.

"What in Hel did you do?" Fandral shouted, tripping over a log. He rolled and sprang upward.

"Loki was the one who cursed me!" Thor whined. The thundering sky chased him as well.

"For the love of – It's not a curse, Thor! Shut up and hide!" Loki growled, pushing his companions away.

Fandral landed in the thicket and the other in the crevice of a boulder, leaving Loki to run across the mountain by himself. Sif screeched somewhere behind him, more frightening a sound than any animal. He had no place to go to. The ground was sloping upward when it should have sloped down. Much to his dismay, he broke through the trees only to find the edge of a cliff to greet him. The blade miraculously returned to its master, wedging itself in the back of Loki's right calf. He let out a cry of pain and stumbled. Blood ran sticky down his leg. Sif barreled through the trees, sword raised high above her head. Loki panicked, spread his arms out wide, rolled over the edge of the cliff and became a falcon that staggered through the air. The flight didn't last very long. The boy fainted, becoming himself once again, and fell through the trees below. The last thing he heard was a clap of thunder, and perhaps Thor shouting his name.

҉҉

The children arrived at the infirmary in the belly of an archaic personal flyer, courtesy of Heimdall. Loki was ushered into the infirmary by nearly a dozen healers. They surrounded him with healing stones and calming lanterns and other strange remedies. His body was patched up easily, but the child remained in a coma. Thor nearly destroyed the place with his new power, demanding to see his brother. When Frigga came, she saw the storm above that flowed with magic, and calmed her son in the way that only mothers could. She pulled the boy into her lap and sang to him. The storm slowly subsided. Sif apologized repeatedly to Thor and Frigga, knowing full well it was her fault. She was pardoned, though the warrior still took the blame. Fandral did his best to ease everyone's spirits with jokes and bright smiles. Odin never came, being realms away on the planet Ria of Nornheim.

For many days, Loki rested beside Baldur. The eldest prince still writhed with a terrible fever. The youngest prince was cold and still, like death, save for his beating heart. The healers respectfully questioned Loki's blood.

"My Queen, Aesir children have weak immune systems for a few hundred years, but these two are unlike any other. We mean no disrespect, for we already know the truth about the firstborn, but is there something wrong with the young prince as well?"

Frigga held her head high, speaking with all the authority she had. "Do not speak so openly. You sound as though you accuse me of adultery. You have known since Baldur's birth that mortal blood flows through his veins. You have known why, how, and when, since the day he saw this realm. Do not dare accuse me of such crimes."

The healers lowered their heads. Frigga collected herself. "When the War with Jotunheim was over, Odin found an infant abandoned in a temple. He brought that infant to Asgard a few months after I had given birth to Thor. He was given the name 'Loki' and presented to Asgard as the younger son, a twin that was not ready to see the light of day when his brother was. That is how I have explained it to the children and to the rest of the realms. The maids and healers present then were sworn to secrecy, just as you shall be. If you are honorable in your silence, you shall be rewarded with continued life. If you dare speak a word, you will bite off your own tongue and drown in blood. Am I made clear? Honor is your lifeline after this night."

Heimdall entered the infirmary with two parcels wrapped in cloth. "Forgive my sudden entry, but there is no magic or machine in your possession that will heal either of them. My Queen. . . You know what must be done."

He untied the parcels. One was small, and was handed to the All-Mother. She took it, held it before the eldest prince, and stroked his forehead as the Tesseract cleansed his soul. The other was larger, and was handled by him alone. He could not wield it as a weapon, as only Jotuns could, but the Casket of Ancient Winters was not just a tool. It was a form of life support to weak Frost Giants such as Loki. The youngest prince slowly turned blue, skin soft and unmarked by Jotun traditions. The blue faded away after a few moments, ice crystals mending wounds unseen, and he stirred. The healers quickly sedated him, keeping him from learning the truth about himself. He slept for a few hours, haunted by dreams of Siv and a white realm.

When he woke again, days later, the young prince believed himself clinically insane. He said nothing to the healers, to his mother or brothers or even to his reflection. To dream of Siv was no strange thing, but these dreams were more vivid and more real than anything he'd ever experienced before. When he was finally released, Loki locked Siv's leather hair tie away in a box, pushed it to the back of the highest shelf in his room and forgot about it. He no longer needed to feel it between his fingers to see the girl who lingered behind his vision. For weeks, she whispered strange things, of prophecies and promises that he wished he could forget.

'You saved me thrice. Let me return the favor. There is a storm on the horizon. I will come back to save you, I swear it.'

And Loki continued to refrain from speaking for nearly a decade.

15:32

22.5.14