9.
. . .
Mooar. Ridiculous name, but that was a fae for you. Loki thudded the back of his head against the innroom wall, which did nothing satisfying as the 'wall' was actually a thick barrier of soft and mossy sod, speckled with tiny flowers that liked to gleam. It lit the room and mirrored the last few stars that peeked through the canopy of trees, an obnoxiously lovely effect. Dawn was quickly coming, and at least he'd stolen a nap. Fitful and dreamless. Too much on the mind, so he'd woken back up to study it all in the pre-dawn peace and quiet.
Loki put the timeline together in his head, spreading it out to make mental notes. There wasn't much to work on, but he put himself to it with his full focus anyway. Best to do so while he could. Before the dawn came full, and his phone woke up, and his mind divided itself all over again.
That Mooar had come out of the library by himself, approached Thor, and offered his help with the study of their family documents. He'd given information about how to wend through the remaining piles again, which Thor decided not to do. Good information, suggestions Loki would have added if he'd been there. And yes, Mooar had recognized Asgardian nobility quicker than Leamhan had. They had spoken, Mooar had taken his hand in friendship, and then he'd gone away again.
A simple enough scenario, no real meat on it. Nothing overly strange about it, by Thor's telling. But because Thor had been warned about possible issues - twice over - and because it had been long years of one betrayal or another in the Odinson family, the encounter had keyed up Thor enough that he'd gone to tell this other Elf, Leamhan, about it.
Only to find his suspicions instantly rewarded.
Loki wished, not for the first time, that he'd simply been there. Then he thought over the tale he'd pulled out of Thor over dinner once more, back and forth, looking for verbal nuance in Thor's tone, finding nothing. He went back, thought over the encounter with Leamhan, and the quick study he'd made of the watchman's stone. Again, nothing. All he had was Thor's words.
And something about it all nagged at him.
It's probably nothing more than exactly what I've already pointed out. Wallowed in, yet unable to change. The irritation that I was not here. I should have been, I offered to be, and I haven't been. Because some ruddy human arsebiscuit from who knows where has everyone going mad back at the office, and I'm damned good, but there isn't more than one of me available.
Which, let's admit it, thank gods for that. This poor universe. I'm singularly bad enough.
Loki tapped the phone against his crooked knee, thankful that there was at least a lull in the messages. Everyone had to sleep sometime, apparently even the bastard or bastards trying to wind up both his team and the entire UN.
So, back to more important issues. Thor's looking for documentation about the year of his birth. All our leads here end in nothing, and calling for a heist on Odin's own cache is less than wise. Could it be done? Maybe. Do I know anyone that could pull it off and not get executed for trying it?
He did, actually, if it came down to it. He knew one person in the Nine Realms that had successfully forced entry on Odin's personal quarters, and had gotten away with it right in front of Loki's own face.
That was absolutely not a cry for help he wanted to send, though. It would lead to a whole box of his past that he didn't want to open. Bad enough that-
Loki cut off the thought with abrupt finality, not interested in thinking about the Framework again, if ever. He shifted on the cot and stared up at a soft, blue nebula that seemed to curl around the sky like a cat's tail. It faded even as he watched, that first hint of dawn chasing it away with lazy intent. A ruckus came from downstairs, intent and thudding along the few panels that made up the high canopy floors, and he didn't focus on it at first because he assumed, with memories made in Asgard, that it was the innkeepers preparing the morning meals.
Then he remembered the roasts were kept among the barer treetops, where the smoke became savory hints blended and matched with the rich herby smells of the forest, and also that Elves were usually not what anyone would call heavy movers.
The ruckus became louder yet. Mixed into it were angry shouts that were becoming very identifiable, and that hit his alarms. Startled voices, bellowing and churning through the air. The sound of metal clanging. Loki began to sit up, wondering if he should at least stick his head out the door to investigate, when he heard the worst sound of all.
Thor's roar of fury and insult, filling the halls of the inn like thunder. "Get your hands off me, damn you!" And more clanging - the sounds of a fight, rousing and violent, in old and sacred Alfheim.
Loki shot off the bed like an arrow, his hand on the door's grip. He flung it open, and found a knot of Elvish armored guards staring at him with almost as much surprise and confusion as he felt. One of them, the robed sorcerer of the group, had a hand out towards his door, and dangling in his other was a peacekeeper's key and chain. He could smell the magic on it. A shackle for other sorcerers, a common device in Alfheim. He'd worn chains marked with some of those enchantments before, and the recognition made his face go dead white.
"Now I know damned well you're not about to arrest me without full disclosure on what this nonsense is all about." It came out in a low, gritty seethe, masking his confusion and helping him forge it into almost murderous anger.
The sorcerer's voice was strained and polite to the point of agony. "Your Highness, if you will deign to accompany us to the palace freely, we would of course prefer to work with you without fetter. As your title demands. I apologize for the sight of these tools, it is my fervent hope they are no more than symbolic of my duty - and some other man's worse situation."
"What about my brother?" Not a trace less hostility. Not a whisper of that. Loki was something beyond livid, instantly, on behalf of both princes. Whatever this was about, someone was going to have to pay. He could still hear the fighting below. "What's his situation?"
"He will not agree freely, Your Highness." The sorcerer's tension began to crackle through his aura. He was frightened of Loki, badly, and that gave him a single thread of black pleasure. "Please, Prince. On behalf of the Queen, who speaks only well of your great realm."
Loki let a trace of tension out of his posture, just enough to let the sorcerer see he wasn't about to paint the walls with them all. Freely, then. Because, whispered that newer, more reasonable part of him, that's what his friends would do. If for no other purpose but to force answers out of this mess more efficiently than cutting these guards apart would.
And also because, by the sound of the ruckus below, force wasn't helping Thor.
Gods damned Alfheim.
. . .
"I still don't understand." Loki wasn't pacing this time. He stood in front of the magic barrier that kept him from Thor's side of the holding area, like a drained white statue of pure, prickling anger, and he knew full well that could be more frightening to these small Elves and fae than anything else he could have done. Hell, it had worked nicely on Talbot mere hours ago - hours that felt suddenly like a week or more. "You're claiming Thor is, and I would laugh 'til I were sick if I wasn't so ruddy pissed off, in league with some Elf faction looking to undermine the Queen."
The Queen's factor was present. To Queen Aelsa's credit, this figurehead wasn't some thin fop better suited to cocktails and fairy dust. The factor was a very small fae, though, and if Daisy were here she would have instantly made some crack about those plump old women fairies in that soppy children's tale about the sleeping girl. It probably would have gotten them all killed, by the look on this fae's face.
Yes, he'd seen the film. The resemblance between those fairies and this headstrong little person colored from top to bottom like a ruby gem was unavoidable. The guards shrunk as best they could from the two members of the Asgardian royal house, staying as far back as security would allow. This person - her name was apparently Adenium - stuck her tiny balled hands on her daintily armored hips and stared mercilessly back up at him from two feet away. Her small, translucent wings stopped fluttering, spread their full fifteen inches wide in a position of dominance. Her fearlessness made him angrier. In contrast, her voice was cool and stolid. "I'm afraid we have good reason to investigate this properly, sir."
"I would love to hear all about your investigation."
"Kindly cut the acid from your tone, good prince. I'm not impressed." She looked past him. "Your Highness, mighty Thor, would you be good enough to cut us a few steps and explain for your kinsman what we know?"
"Mistress, I haven't a damned clue what you're on about." Thor remained seated within the magicked holding area. His arms were crossed against a chest recently stripped of the armor plate he almost always wore under his tunic, and there were two guards in there with him. Neither looked tickled with their part of the job.
"Oh. You're going with the same tone as your brother. That's worrisome, your highness. Very worrisome."
Damn the woman's warning. Loki snapped. "What the hell is going on?"
Adenium sniffed. "We have been given due warning that Prince Thor, thus Asgard by proxy, came to Alfheim under false intent, with the purpose of allying himself with a faction we know to be operating with hostile goals towards Queen Aelsa and her family. Potentially with a mind to destabilize us among the realms."
Loki stared at her. This was already insane. "We came to look at soddy, soggy paperwork."
"How likely, good prince. Asgard's dumped its documents on us for centuries to remind us of our vows, and not once has it bothered to come collect it. Now you're here looking for receipts on the silverware used at some soiree or another?"
"That is, as dull and dumb as it sounds, precisely what we had been doing, at both Verdurois and here." Loki bent, casting his shadow over the fae. "You can examine our activity at the city library. We sought the family genealogies there. Ask the High Archivist."
"The archivists will never disclose a visitor's activity, Your Highness, as you well know. I am aware you're thoroughly studied of us. And surely, if it were important, Asgard has its own copies of such works. Your explanation makes little sense and it is not useful as an alibi. I'm very sorry." In his shadow, she continued to hold her dominance.
Loki did his best to not hang his jaw in outrage and shock, ending up with a set and bared line of teeth that didn't make him look like the sane and reasonable political agent he'd been successfully living as for several years. He'd made an easy mistake - him. Of course the archivists wouldn't speak to offer alibi. It went against all their nonsense protocols. A guard behind Adenium recoiled at his expression. He straightened up, collecting himself. "Then where is your evidence?"
Adenium arched a bright red eyebrow. "I hope you don't think we are so foolish as to bring in nobility without proof readily in hand."
"Oh, I hope that with religious dedication, Mistress Adenium. For all your sakes, I hope with you. I want to see this proof."
"Speak to your kinsman, then. See if he talks this time."
Loki stared at her, then finally laughed outright. It rang through the holding area, high and amused and brittle as glass. "You're all mad. He's done nothing wrong. He holds no proof."
"Mm." Adenium looked past him, at one of the guards at Thor's side. "The small blue pouch. On the belt, under his left arm."
Loki barked another laugh, turned to watch the guard try to shove his hand under Thor's arm. Thor didn't fight him off, but he didn't help, either. The arm hung, thick and heavy, and the guard had to struggle. Thor and Loki locked eyes with each other as the guard pulled the small pouch free - a pouch intended for traveler's coin and small gifts, as any Asgardian might have on them - and Loki read the look clearly. I have no damned clue, brother.
Loki believed that look, or wanted to. Thor didn't lie as he did. He could trick and pretend, and had more than once to try and duck a parental dressing down, but not like Loki, and his face was an honest one. Loki had not been there, and his knowledge of these Elves Thor had met were all secondhand, but Thor had never been the man to lie about what he'd done.
Yet the guard pulled the pouch free, and what it held should have been unremarkable, save for a few coins. But there was a gem there, too. A small one, a sharply white opalescent cabochon, and its curve was engraved with a mark.
Thor started from his chair. Loki saw his face and knew it. Thor had never seen it before. It wasn't going to matter to the Elves. A reaction wasn't proof enough to doubt. "What is that?"
"A token, sir, as you well know," said Adenium. "A marque of King Oberon."
"Fuck," said Loki, blunt and bitter, knowing a snapped trap when he saw one, and the guards recoiled from him again.
