"Sssh." Loki's whisper sounded, if that was possible, quieter than the surrounding silence. Steve stopped where he was and watched with faint unease as Loki made a series of gestures above the man in the bed.
'Man' was a misnomer. The creature lying amid its pile of silk and furs was clearly an elf, tall, slight, beautiful as a razor's edge, pale as moonlight and swathed in hip-long hair. He was also fast asleep and unaware that he was sharing his private chambers with a magic-using trickster god and an invisible Captain America.
"The circlet is hidden in the King's chamber," Loki had said, as they walked unseen through a city and a palace of bewildering marvels. "Under the hearthstone of his fire. It would look awful for him if the nine realms knew he'd had it in his room all this time, and he'd feel simply dreadful. So it's best if I get it out without him knowing. You can come along and make sure nothing goes wrong."
And OK, it wasn't as though Steve had any choice but to believe this, but it didn't make him feel better about sneaking around a king's bedroom at night, or the way Loki put his hands down and stood a long time looking down and smiling faintly at a creature who couldn't look back.
"I think one should do this with all folk of power," the god said, less quietly now that his spell was woven and there was no chance of waking the sleeper. "And then leave a token to tell them you were there. It reminds them not to get cocky." Then he took a deep breath and looked Steve in the eye. "Right then, lets try and get this stone up."
Clearing the ashes and clinker from the hearth revealed that there was indeed a fingernail-thick crack around all four sides of the paving-slab sized stone, but there wasn't a ring or a gap to get fingers into. When Loki sent a tiny tendril of green light towards it, there was a snap, a blaze like miniature lightning, and the hanging chains in the fireplace rattled so angrily that even under the spell the sleeper muttered and rolled anxiously over.
"Oh, there are some excellent wards on this," Loki knelt, resting back on his heels and contemplating the stone like one craftsman admiring the work of another. "No shifting it by magic then. And if you can't lift it up by your fingernails, I don't suppose I can."
Loki had the uncanny ability to look straight at Steve, which Steve found particularly impressive since he personally couldn't tell where his own arms and legs were. "Step back a bit, would you?" said the god cheerfully, "I don't want you standing on me by accident," and a blur of shadow later he was gone. Even though he'd been watching the transformation it took Steve three long beats to realize that the ant now squeezing itself into the crack between stones was the Norse god of mischief and lies.
Steve shook his head to clear it. What had happened to his life? Was this some kind of consequence of messing with that Tesseract thing? All he'd wanted was to help win the war, settle down with a nice girl after, and paint for a living. Not that he was complaining, of course, how could you complain about something like this? But being Loki's friend certainly upped the weirdness quota of his existence, and for a costumed Avenger, that was saying something.
There was a thunder of feet outside the doorway, and Steve tensed, expecting to have to fight off an influx of guards, but they ran on past intent on some other quest while the ant of mischief climbed slowly back out again, carrying what looked like a grain of salt in its mandibles.
The thing still had the colour of salt when Loki changed back. He straightened his long coat and brushed disheveled locks of black hair back from his forehead with one hand, while the other held tight to a milky, translucent, crystal crown. The god's muffled smile creased both cheeks and made his eyes gleam. "Good! And now to get out of here."
Steve expected the wrist clasp and the disorientating twist of interdimensional teleportation, but Loki just tucked the circlet into a pocket, opened the door and walked out. He passed the shell-shocked guards with a mocking salute, turned the corner as they exchanged the elvish equivalent of 'what the hell do we do now' glances, and had gone through a larger, carved and gilded, door before they had time to react. Steve had to jog to keep up.
As the great golden door swung open he breathed in in awe. This room disappeared to a blue horizon, as though it was a world. The beamed ceiling was so high that clouds drifted beneath it. Under the latticework of the bronze floor a dozen little streams ran, and in the silence that fell after Loki's dramatic entrance, theirs were the only voices that could be heard.
Yet the room was full of people – if the elves, monsters and other bizarre entities present could be called people – and once they had gawped their fill, they all began talking at once.
In the centre of the room rose a dais like a small mountain, green with grass. Atop it there grew a blackthorn tree – Steve recognized the little white flowers that nodded amongst the long sable thorns – the branches of which had been shaped like a throne. Naturally, since the king was sleeping an ensorcelled sleep, it was empty.
Smiling brightly, pausing to single out the occasional dumbstruck guest with a wave, Loki strolled up to the throne and sat in it. When the uproar broke out, and the guards finally shook off whatever paralysis had bound them, dashing up the steps towards him, he took the circlet out of his pocket and put it on.
The guards skidded to a halt, breathing heavily. A second silence, more stunned than the first, fell over the hall like the blow of a hammer. What the hell? Steve thought. Then a flame-like elf-woman close to the dais closed her golden eyes in resignation, took a deep breath and cried "Long live the king!" And everyone in the room, except for Steve, knelt with their heads bowed and their fists clenched over their hearts.
Loki grinned like a shark, and didn't stop even when Steve sprinted to his side and shook him by the elbow in a reckless combination of disbelief and disgust.
"What the hell?"
"I may have lied to you a little," Loki looked far too pleased with himself for this to be an apology. "You see, the interesting thing about the circlet of Frey is that it carries the rulership of Alfheim. Whoever wears it automatically becomes king."
He examined his fingernails with the air of someone trying hard not to laugh. "I was born to be a king, and since you do not seem happy for me to take Midgard, I thought this would be an acceptable alternative."
Oh God! Steve felt as though he'd fallen through ice into an Arctic lake – breathless with pain, sickness and panic. Betrayal, deeper and colder than all of that. Oh God! I let him take over a world. I helped him take over a world. He used me. What kind of a friend... "I don't..." he said, while grief and fury fought it out inside him with his heart as their battleground. "I don't..."
The god's eyes were kindly, and his look of triumph modulated into something warm as he smiled at Steve. "My friend. Now I am in a position to repay you for your kindness." He leaned forward, speaking man to man, both of those long hands held out as if full of gifts. "Tell me what you would like. A country? An army of knights on dragonback? Immortality? Anything you want, if I can give it to you, I will. I swear it."
Steve sank down on the first step of the dais and hugged his knees, grateful for still being invisible, that there weren't any paparrazi around to snap photos of Captain America, usurper of worlds.
Giving him time to think, Loki motioned graciously for everyone else to get up. There seemed to be very little dismay in the chamber except for Steve's. The courtiers huddled in knots, speaking fast and low, but the buzz of their voices was lighter than anger. Here and there were even pockets of laughter.
Their lack of outrage took away support for his own. He found himself remembering all those times he'd been sure, sure Loki was trusting him with things he wouldn't tell another soul – the anguished gratitude on his face when Steve had believed in him more than anyone else thought wise.
And here Steve was again, expecting Loki to behave the way Steve thought a friend ought to behave, instead of like himself. That hadn't worked so far, why should it start now? With Loki, he already knew you had to twist your expectations around a different corner. Suppose, then, he took a gamble on the hope this friendship was not a long con at all, but a real thing. Loki had put Steve to the test. Now it was time for Steve to do the same.
"Anything I ask for?"
"As I said."
Hell, if he'd ever been afraid of his friend before, it was nothing to what he was feeling now, but he dug his nails into the palms of his hands, rested the left for comfort on the rim of his shield, and said "Then I want you to give the kingdom back to the elves, right now."
Loki's eyes widened, and his unshuttered expression slid from shock to fondness to something like respect. "Oh, Steve Rogers, you are terribly earnest and no fun at all." He stood up, and at the same time colour flowed back over Steve's limbs. He could see himself again, and – by the interested, predatory looks of the elves, they could see him too.
"Such a good scheme! A whole world conquered, not a drop of blood shed. I was sure you'd approve. Just think of the peace it would bring to Midgard were I to be occupied playing with Alfheim instead. Are you sure?"
And Steve wasn't dead yet. How about that for a miracle? "Yes, Loki, I'm sure. This isn't right. Give them their world back now, please."
The golden woman made a sharp gesture, as if to grab Steve's arm and throw him down. Loki stopped her with a raised hand and addressed the room, gathering the moment with practiced grace. "Well, my subjects. I believe it is known through every realm that Loki always keeps his promises. Mine has been a short reign, but a happy one. And so... Catch!"
He took the crown from his head and threw it up to the beams of the hall, where it turned twice, flashing like diamond, and then tumbled, spinning, back towards the dais. Long before it could fall into arms' reach, a white clad elf at the edge of the hall unfurled indigo wings and, flying up, snatched it from the air. The room grumbled with one voice, but when he landed on the dais and set it reverently on the fiery woman's head, the cheering shook the walls.
Just as it had begun to ebb, the old king rushed into the chamber in his nightclothes. Livid with rage, he pointed a trembling finger at Loki. "Serpent! Deceiver! This Asgardian sneak-thief has dishonoured Alfheim by laying his filthy fingers on her treasured relics. Guards, kill him!"
But it was the old king around whom the guards gathered, forcing him to his knees. Loki came to stand by Steve's shoulder, watching in vivid interest but not saying anything, as the new queen took a foot-long pin from her hair and rested it gently on the ex-king's eye-lid.
"Whosoever wears the circlet of Frey is the rightful ruler of Elfland," she said, and gestured to one of the branches of the throne, where a bowl-like depression had been hollowed and polished as if to hold something precious.
"It should have rested there every night, so that it was by the people's will alone that the same man could have taken it up again in the morning. For eons this system has kept Alfheim in the hands of good kings. But you... you hoarded it. When it was not on your head, you hid it so no one else could take it. So there might be no king but you. All of us have chafed and murmured under this. The land itself has mourned. It is you alone who have dishonoured Alfheim, and I should take your eyes for it, but that I do not mean to begin my reign with bloodshed."
At a low command, the guards dragged the protesting creature away. The new queen replaced her hairpin and exchanged a measured look with Loki. "You have done a good deed today, Sky Traveller, though you may not have meant to. The Queen of Elfland considers herself to be in your debt."
"I will treasure your indebtedness like a ruby, Lady." It was a wicked, sideways smile that Loki smiled, and his gaze slid briefly to Steve and back without giving away the slightest hint of his thoughts. "And now, perhaps, I had best be getting this mortal home before your time departs too radically from his own. We don't want another Rip Van Winkle on our hands."
Steve thought about a two day walk back to the portal, with Loki brooding all the way about how Steve had snatched away his moment of victory as quickly and as thoroughly as... Oh hell... as Thor. He breathed a deep sigh of not exactly regret – he couldn't regret what he'd asked – but sadness. Loki was no stranger to holding a grudge, and Steve just knew he was going to spend the whole way back waiting for the inevitable retribution to fall.