Notes: I do apologize for this chapter feeling a little bit flaily: I was trying to get us to where we'll be in the next chapter and this one turned into sort of a detour, but we're back on track now and I've got a handle on where we need to go next. I also apologize for Loki kind of hijacking the proceedings again. There's something he's been needing to do, and since it ended up happening in this chapter I've decided to just go with it. Thanks to everyone who's reading for your patience!

Warnings: In case we need some.

Chapter Ten

After the revelations of the morning, Loki found himself quite incapable of the sort of fine-tuned concentration he would need to scan for bones. With apologies to Scamp for the delay, he accompanied his friends back to the car, and they drove home.

George walked into the house, glanced at the clock, and uttered an exclamation. "Is that the time? I'm going to be late!"

"Late for what?" Mitchell asked in confusion. Loki and Annie were similarly bewildered: ordinarily, a Sunday afternoon when none of the housemates were compelled to go to work was a quiet one, perhaps occupied with household chores or television. These activities were perhaps a little boring, but Loki for one generally appreciated that, since there was no telling when something would occur to throw them all into deadly peril once again. There had certainly been many times since his arrival on Midgard when he had thought longingly about sprawling on the sofa, half-asleep, while a football match muttered away unnoticed at the edge of his consciousness.

George flushed crimson, and all the housemates perked up, like Philip and Elizabeth scenting a catnip mouse. "Nina and I are going… there's a film we'd like to see…"

"Really? Which one?" Mitchell asked brightly. "Maybe Annie and Loki and I could join- God, George, breathe, I'm only kidding you!"

Loki breathed as well: as much as he enjoyed going to the cinema himself, he had developed a reasonable sense of when he would legitimately not be wanted, and this was certainly one of those times. For a moment he had really feared Mitchell was serious. It did cross his mind to wonder whether there was anything behind Mitchell's banter besides simple teasing- he and George had been so close for so long- but the vampire's amusement seemed genuine, and entirely without sharp edges.

George uttered a sound partway between a snarl and a whine, and dashed up to his room to change his clothes. Moments later, he clattered down the stairs again.

"Take the car," Mitchell called after him, an obvious peace offering, and George managed a smile as he took the keys and let himself out the door. Mitchell certainly did not look bereft, to watch his constant companion rush off without him, but Loki found himself carefully ensuring his gaze included the vampire as he looked around and asked,

"Has anyone else plans for the afternoon?" It was a silly question, but Annie forbore to laugh at him. She made a rueful face.

"I'm planning to keep very calm for the rest of the day, I think," she announced.

"I sense Pride and Prejudice in our immediate future," Mitchell glowered, and was rewarded when Annie giggled.

"Do you know, I think it might be a wise idea to explore these new powers of yours a little," Loki spoke up. Both Annie and Mitchell looked at him in surprise, and Loki explained, "Since you have them, it seems best that you learn to control them."

"But they just popped up sort of randomly- surely they'll go away again soon?" Annie asked uneasily.

"I am sure my nursemaids thought the same thing, when I first began to move things around the nursery, and change myself into the shapes of creatures that caught my fancy," Loki said. Annie burst into a welcome peal of her wonderfully infectious laughter.

"Oh Loki, really?"

"Apparently. I am told that the first time I was taken to the kennels, with Thor- I was hardly toddling, so I do not remember this- one of the hounds rushed up to greet us and I immediately turned myself into a puppy. I suppose it was the same instinct that made me shapeshift when Father picked me up, although of course only he and Mother would have realized that at the time." Loki smiled as he thought about it. "I understand Thor was delighted with my new form. I have the impression he was rather disappointed when I finally shifted back. We will not remind him of that," Loki added hastily.

"Of course not," Annie agreed. "I never thought about what it must have been like, to have powers like yours when you were little. You must have scared yourself sometimes?" The words tilted up into a question.

"Not that I remember," Loki replied, thinking about it. "I think it must have been very much like learning to walk, or to speak. Magic is part of me in the same way those other abilities are. I might have startled myself sometimes, and I did have to learn to use magic effectively, to control and strengthen it, but at a certain level it was simply there for me to use, in the same way I that learned to stretch out my hand and pick up a toy."

"I don't think it's the same for me," Annie said uneasily.

"Not exactly, perhaps," Loki admitted. "Since these abilities are not inborn to you, and you are only just getting to know them."

"Might be like learning to dance, though," Mitchell contributed. "You just need to learn the steps, and to follow the music, and all that."

"That is a very good analogy," Loki said thoughtfully.

"I'm a terrible dancer, though," Annie objected.

"Do not even try that on with me," Loki said firmly, sounding to his own ears almost local. "I was not that drunk, those nights in the tavern at Asgard, to be unable to remember your dancing." He thought about it. "I am sure you can learn to command your powers, if you are willing to practice. And I should be able to use my own, to help ensure nothing is broken or damaged while you learn to control them. Would that reassure you?"

"I suppose," Annie said reluctantly.

"I do realize that it is a daunting prospect, with these abilities so new to you," Loki said apologetically. "And also that it is an easy thing for me to suggest you do. If there was anything I could do, to learn along with you and make matters more equal, I would do it."

Annie looked thoughtful. "There is, actually."

Startled but willing, Loki said at once, "Name it."

He should perhaps have stopped to think about the offer before speaking, but it was not as though he would have refused her anything. Annie looked apologetic in her turn, but determined, as she said,

"It's only- you should be able to control your Jotun form. It's you, too. You should be able to call it out when you want to, without needing to go find Helblindi or someone to touch you." Loki was silent, and it was apparent from Annie's expression that she knew what she was asking of him. Who was to say Loki would ever want to transform himself thus?

But… it was certainly a sort of power with which he was uncomfortable, and he had pledged-

"All right," Loki said finally. "I will try to help you learn about your powers, and… and you will try not to be alarmed when I transform into my other form." That was a silly remark, and both of them knew it: Annie was not the one whose fear and distaste for the Jotun form was so deeply ingrained from childhood that, despite experience and common sense, it had not yet completely gone away.

"Of course I won't be," Annie said gently. "Or Mitchell, either." Mitchell, who of course thought of the Jotnar as Helblindi and Byleistr, and the soldiers who had come to their assistance against the Dire Wraiths, nodded confidently. Loki knew all these things as well, and he tried, truly, to think of them that way too. As long as Helblindi's was the face he called into his mind when he let himself think of the Jotnar, he did fairly well.

But still-

"Shall I go first?" he asked, partly as a gesture of good faith and partly to prevent himself losing his nerve. Annie smiled encouragingly and, wondering how she had managed to turn this back onto himself again, Loki looked down at his hands. How in the Nine was he to effect such a transformation, when he had never done so of his own volition before? This was not an ordinary shapeshift, with Loki imagining the shape he wished to take on and wrapping himself in magic to do so. This was… this was calling out something concealed within himself, something that was himself, as much as the pale-skinned form he had always inhabited and believed to be Loki.

What had it felt like, when last he had done it? He remembered old Helblindi extending his great hand, remembered his own as small as a child's in it.

A child's…He remembered taking the hand of the little Jotun boy, as they walked up the approach to the palace, the fingers that closed around his about as large as George's, but with the same vulnerable, half-formed softness as any child's anywhere-

The sensation of… not cold, not quite. Coolness, not on his skin but inside his hand, sweeping up his arm, spreading up toward the surface as it engulfed his body…

Loki closed his eyes, and remembered, and concentrated. This time, the chill seemed to originate just below his diaphragm, radiating outward as well as up and down his body. He let his head tilt backward, wiggled his fingers and toes, felt the sensation spread into his extremities and tingle through his scalp, noticed when the sense of coolness disappeared, leaving behind the impression the room was too warm.

"Loki," Annie said softly. She did not sound frightened. Loki knew Annie very well, knew what she sounded like when she was trying to be brave, and this was not the way. This was simply Annie, asking for his attention.

He opened his eyes.

The lounge was not only too warm, but too dimly lit. The Jotnar were adapted to living in a realm of ice and snow, and their eyes structured to filter out the glare that resulted when the sun shone down upon them. For a generation, for Loki's lifetime, since the war and the loss of the Casket of Ancient Winters, their realm had been cloaked in darkness. For the first time, Loki had the presence of mind to imagine how difficult that must have been, for beings whose eyes were designed to protect them from too much light. A generation was not long enough for eyes to evolve and change, and Loki imagined the anxiety of being unable to ever see properly.

When he had goaded Thor into that ill-fated trip to Jotunheim, when they had confronted Laufey and his guard, those soldiers had been fighting in the dark, at a terrible disadvantage. He wondered whether Thor, on his recent trip to the realm now once again bathed in sunlight, had thought of this already.

Close on the heels of his realization about the light came the awareness that his clothes felt too small. Loki was tall but slender, and had always been bitterly aware that his shoulders were narrower and his bones smaller than was normal for an Aesir of a similar height. Since discovering that his accustomed form was the result of magic rather than inheritance, he sometimes wondered exactly what input it had used, and at what point his adult form had been set for him beyond changing.

All of which was no longer here nor there anymore, but the point was, Loki had found that clothing suitable for a human of his height was often intended for someone rather larger around than he was. At the moment he was wearing jeans and two layers of shirts, all of them fairly loose-fitting. Or at any rate they had been when he put them on. He looked down at himself, forced himself to look at the strange blue hands, with their dusky nails, emerging from the cuffs of his long-sleeved grey t-shirt, and then up at Annie and Mitchell, sitting together on the sofa looking fascinated.

"Am I incorrect in my impression," he winced a little at the strange new rumbling timbre in his voice, "that I am somehow grown larger?"

"You are," Mitchell agreed at once. "You totally are. Two or three inches taller, at least, and quite a bit bigger around- here, let me check." Mitchell started to spring to his feet, but Annie forestalled him, rising and walking up to stand directly in front of Loki, as though she would embrace him.

And then she did, wrapping her arms around his torso and craning her neck to look up at him. Loki was nearly a head taller than Annie, but it was now apparent to both of them his current height was significantly more than that: he would need to lean down to rest his chin on her head, were either of them inclined for him to do such a thing.

Annie reached up to run a fingertip gently along the line of his cheekbone, and Loki felt it as a strangely over-sensitive, almost tickling sensation. He suddenly realized she was tracing one of the raised lines that marked his Jotun face, and flinched in surprise. Annie took her hand away, and then he found himself a little bereft at the loss of the sensation.

"I do not understand what has just happened," Loki admitted in his altered voice. "Previously, my form changed but my size did not. I do not see how- "

"Speaking of seeing," Annie interrupted to ask him, "have you ever actually seen yourself as a Jotun?"

Loki swallowed hard, shook his head. Of course he had not. He had let the form emerge when he made use of the Casket for his villainy, and when he had needed to explain himself to Helblindi and Byleistr, but he had certainly not wanted to look at himself like this.

In fairness, mind, there had also never been a mirror conveniently to hand when he had so transformed.

"Right," Annie said decidedly. "Well, you need to see this. Come with me." She took his hand, gripping it firmly- of course he could not hurt her in this form, Annie could not be harmed by this sort of touch- and led him toward the staircase. He obediently followed her, up the cramped stairs and down the narrow little hallway, up and down the odd little steps that suddenly made the hallway treacherous for his much-larger feet- it was fortunate indeed that his shoes had been muddy and he removed them at the door- until they came to the bathroom. Annie switched on the light and Loki followed her in.

"Look," Annie said, almost an order, and Loki obediently did, leaning down to see properly.

The creature that looked back at him from the mirror was… well, the incongruity was almost comical, the Jotun face and neck emerging from the round neck of a dark blue t-shirt that emphasized the cool strange blue of his skin. The Jotun in the mirror was nearly hairless, in the manner of his kind- surely Annie had made mention, before, of Loki retaining his hair?- and the crimson lines marking his face reminded Loki of images he had seen on the television, of the Maori people of New Zealand. The Maori, of course, wore tattoos, or some sort of created marking. These were clearly formed by nature, since obviously Loki had not done anything in the way of decorating himself in this shape.

He reached up carefully and ran his own fingertip along one of the raised lines that followed his cheekbone. The sensation was not the same as when Annie touched him, and Loki remembered that one could not tickle oneself, either.

His shirt was stretched tight across his chest in a most unaccustomed manner- even with clothing that fit him properly, Loki was not much inclined toward wearing anything tight, since all that could do was emphasize his scrawniness. The new breadth of his torso, and the powerful-looking neck rising from it, was almost more disconcerting than the blue skin.

He leaned closer, feeling nothing now but curiosity, and studied himself. He was not a particularly dark shade of blue, but the tones were deep, almost gem-like, contrasting vibrantly with his raised markings and ruby eyes.

He took a step backward and, quite suddenly, the image before him resolved into his own face looking back at him, his own features underneath the new skin. That was startling, yet reassuring, almost as though this form was only heavy makeup, such as was used in films. A costume, an outward appearance, with Loki himself still there underneath.

"I do not really feel any different," he remarked. "Physically, yes, but… " But changing his shape always brought awareness of the instincts and inclinations of the form he was wearing, always meant he had to be conscious to control them. If, for instance, he took on an otter's form to search for Excalibur on the bed of a lake, he had to ensure the otter was not distracted into chasing bright little fishes for his lunch.

Loki had worn a Jotun shape before, when he raged at his father, when he attacked Heimdall. But he had been in Aesir form when he sent the Destroyer to Midgard, when he goaded his brother, when he turned the Bifrost on Jotunheim. Even harrying his stricken father, as Odin succumbed to his Sleep, Loki had been wearing his Aesir face.

He had committed vile acts as a Jotun, certainly, but you could not say it was the fault of the form.

"You never acted any different, either," Annie said now. "I mean, when you transformed in Asgard, and Helblindi got so upset thinking about your mother, you were kind to him. And you were sweet with those little Jotun kids, just like you are with the ones at your school."

Loki caught Annie's eye in the mirror and smiled gratefully, then continued to examine the blue face before him. He tried to remember Laufey's features as he studied his own, tried to recall their harsh lines. There was something in common, surely, in the sharp chin and thin lips, but he was certain Laufey's eyes had been deeper-set, more hooded. Loki frowned, noted absently that the blue face looked merely thoughtful, not frightening.

"What is it?" Annie asked, apparently able to read Loki as easily in this form as his Aesir one.

"I am just wondering what my mother looked like," Loki admitted. "Whether Helblindi would see her in me, now."

Annie laid a hand on the small of his back- not so small now, of course- and rubbed him affectionately. "I'm sure he would." Annie did not normally lie to Loki, but under the circumstances he knew she would not hesitate to tell him what she felt he needed to hear. He did not resent this, and he wanted very much to believe her.

Loki rolled his shoulders uncomfortably, and from the doorway Mitchell commented, "We should probably get you some special size-huge clothing for the next time you take on that shape. I think you might be bigger than Thor." Giggling, the vampire added, "Which is awesome."

"I'd like to know what that's about," Annie said. "Why your Jotun form looks so different now, from the way it did the first time I saw it."

"I think perhaps I do," Loki said slowly. "I think, perhaps… when Father picked me up, he says I changed forms by instinct, into the semblance of an Aesir baby, and that form has never wavered. You remember, when he said that?"

"I do," Annie nodded, her arm sliding around his waist. Loki wrapped his own arm around her, creating an image in the mirror that should have been disturbingly incongruous, but somehow was not.

"Well, I wonder now whether that was because, with no contact with any Jotnar since infancy, my magic somehow… forgot how it felt, to be Jotun. Perhaps those first transformations were incomplete because… because I really did not know how to be Jotun, on a magical and physical level as well as an emotional one. I have had a great deal more contact with the Jotnar in recent times. Perhaps, now that my sorcery has, has something to work with, I am able to really take on the form properly."

"That makes sense," Annie agreed, looking thoughtful. "Now that I think of it, you might even have looked a little different when Helblindi used the Casket to bring you back. Although I admit I wasn't thinking very clearly at the time."

"I did not really notice, either," Loki said wryly, and Annie pinched him gently. Then she reached up to touch his face again, fingertips once again grazing the lines on his face. Once more, the sensation caused him to shiver.

"I'm sorry," she began, pulling her hand back, and Loki shook his head.

"No, it is… nice," he said, inadequately. "They are just… sensitive."

"And I'll leave you to it," Mitchell's voice sounded from halfway down the hall, as he retreated toward the stairs at top speed. Loki, horribly embarrassed himself, would have called him back, except Annie reached up to place a hand on the back of his neck and pull him down into a quick kiss. It felt… much the same in Jotun form as in his Aesir one, although he did wonder how Annie felt about it.

"Well," he said, after a moment, "this has all been very illuminating, but perhaps it is time to turn our attention to your powers once again."

Annie wrinkled her nose at him. "And here I was hoping you'd forget about my 'powers."

"Never," Loki assured her, kissed her quickly, and stepped back. "I should change back to my… what I normally look like."

"Sure you're all right?" Annie asked gently, and Loki nodded. He actually wanted to spend a little more time exploring this form- he would have rather liked to remove his shirts, for one thing, and just see what he looked like- but now was not the time. He did not want to remain in this form, not forever- he was uncomfortably warm, he would be unable to fit into his little box room or his bed, he would probably frighten the kittens, and certainly he could not work at the school in a body whose very flesh posed a hazard to small children…

He was used to the other form, and he thought perhaps there was no reason for guilt in that, but he was beginning to be curious about this one.

Annie withdrew, probably to reassure Mitchell, and left alone in the bathroom Loki experienced a momentary panic, suddenly wondering how he was supposed to return to his other form. He braced his hands on the edge of the sink, studying the face in the mirror, then closed his eyes and tried to remember what it usually felt like, to inhabit his own body. He was not sure exactly what he did, but suddenly warmth came stealing back into his limbs and he felt as though his clothing had become larger.

Loki breathed carefully in and out through his nose. Then he opened his eyes.

The pale green eyes looking back at him from out of an equally pale face were almost startling. For a heartbeat, Loki felt strangely… bereft.

Then he straightened, stepped backward, took a final look at himself in the mirror, and went downstairs to join the others.

~oOo~

Once again, Annie and Mitchell sat on the sofa facing Loki, who this time had pulled the armchair into position to sit across from them, leaning forward with his forearms resting on his knees and the kittens curled beside him, against his hip.

"I know the idea of really exploring your new powers is alarming to you," he said gently, once more in the voice he had always thought of as his own, "but as you saw, it turns out that really inhabiting my Jotun form was not nearly as terrifying as I always thought it would be. It would be good if you could feel confident that the same might be true of your new abilities."

Annie clasped her hands together and twisted them nervously. Loki wondered whether she realized how similar the gesture was to Loki's when he was anxious. In spite of the fact she had pledged to face her new powers, Loki found himself quite unable to push her on that front, and changed tactics.

"We will leave that for later. You want Owen to regret what he did to you," Loki said. "Can we talk about what, exactly, that means to you?"

"I think, if we put our minds to it, we could make him really damned sorry," Mitchell muttered.

"Yes," Loki agreed, looking at Mitchell but glancing at Annie out of the corner of his eyes. "But both of us know what it is to be really damned sorry for our actions of the past, and there is a difference between being sorry that you have done something to bring terrible punishments upon yourself, and being sorry you have done something." Both Loki and Mitchell had, by their past actions, certainly earned dreadful punishments, but neither had ever had to suffer them. As a result, what they both regretted were the crimes themselves.

Annie wriggled uncomfortably. "I want… I want him to be sorry he did it. All of it. I want him to think about it, and realize it was wrong, and want to be a better person."

"Very well," Loki agreed, relieved but not at all surprised: this was exactly what he would have expected of Annie. It would have been Annie's right to be vengeful and want Owen to suffer- Loki wanted Owen to suffer, himself, but he was not Annie, and frankly, the world was a much better place with Annie in it as she was.

Mitchell frankly looked a little crestfallen, and it crossed Loki's mind that it might be a wise idea to take his friend aside and remind him that "falling off the wagon" for any reason was a course to be avoided.

Annie spoke again:

"Maybe he's even sorry now." She glanced up at Loki and shrugged defensively. "I know he doesn't seem sorry, but maybe…"

He had walked into the house, through the entry hall where Annie had lain dying, and had not even flinched. That alone should have alerted all of them: had Owen been innocent, surely he would have recoiled from the site of Annie's death. Loki had sensed falsehoods in Owen, but was prepared to wager his own head that concealing his remorse was not one of them. Loki kept the thought out of his expression as he waited for Annie to continue to speak.

She sat up straight, struck with a thought of her own. "I think I should haunt him."

Loki's eyebrows flew upward, and Mitchell turned to Annie in frank disbelief. "You think you should what?"

Annie was determined. "Haunt him. Like… like Banquo's ghost. Loki, I don't know if you know about Banquo."

"He was murdered," Loki replied promptly, and that was the sum total of everything he knew on the subject. Nick Fury had referenced Banquo, on an occasion when Loki and Thor had emerged from a magical cavern covered in blood, and Loki had not remembered to find out anything more about him.

Annie nodded. "Yes. Macbeth murdered him, and Banquo appeared at a dinner party all covered in blood and… shook his gory locks at him." She blinked. "I'm surprised I actually remember that."

Mitchell looked intensely doubtful. "I'm not sure it's the same thing, though. Macbeth was pretty conflicted to begin with, though I don't think you could say he was exactly remorseful anyway and- wait, are we sitting here arguing about Shakespeare?"

"So it would seem," Loki agreed, entertained in spite of himself. "I really must look up this story. But to return to the point, Annie, I must admit that Owen did not leave me with the impression he felt much in the way of guilt for your death." Quite the opposite: anyone but a liar as skilled as Loki would surely have thought he felt only regret over the terrible, terrible accident. Even Loki had been unable to pinpoint the exact nature of the lie.

"No," Annie agreed. "I think he figures he's gotten away with it, and he doesn't think about it anymore. But… maybe he doesn't let himself think about it." She looked around at the two skeptical but sympathetic faces and, defensively, repeated, "Maybe."

"Maybe," Loki agreed. Mitchell twitched, and Loki glared at him. Arguing Annie's point, he said, "You and I have repented for more extensive criminal pasts."

"Yes," Mitchell sighed. "I repented, after I nearly drowned myself in blood and murder. I let Herrick change me into a monster- a real monster, Loki- and I fought it for a while, because I like to think that when I was human I was not really a bad person. But then I gave in and went on a bender that lasted nearly a hundred years, with occasional breaks in which sanity, or humanity, or something tried to reassert itself. I repented after I glutted myself on death and blood and madness, and all those faces of all those people I killed started coming back to me. I repented after I … after I realized that, even though I was in blood stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er- even though I knew that was true, I still couldn't stand to be what I was any longer, and I had to change, and so I tried to turn back.

"And you repented, after you went bonkers and did a lot of things that I think everyone who knows you would agree were out of character. You repented after you recovered your sanity and realized what you had done.

"And the thing is, I don't think either of those scenarios applies to Owen. He killed you, Annie, and he doesn't seem to regret it or feel conflicted or… care. He put on such a good act right here, on this sofa, that not even Loki could tell what he was lying about. I don't think his crimes keep him awake at night."

"But you don't know that for sure," Annie argued, her voice as soft as it was stubborn.

"No," Mitchell conceded. "I don't."

"Well," Annie said, "maybe that's the first thing we need to find out."

"Very well," Loki agreed. "That is what we will do."