Wow. I really should be doing my homework. It's a problem. But fic is so much more fun, and I just... SHMERR! Anyhoo, there's more fic below. Enjoy it as best you can.
We get more characters and some Loki!love; that sweetie deserves it. Also, Odin's a dick.
Four months later...
Loki frowned, back pressed against the wall as he attempted to concentrate on Kybarrha's newest spellbook. The revelry below - Odin had destroyed a Frost Giant settlement the previous night - was too raucous to thoroughly ignore. He didn't see the point in it, but then, he never saw the point in his father's exalted deeds.
Tucking his book into his cloak and tying it up in itself so it functioned as a makeshift pack, he bounded across the rafters, looking for a path to his room, or the stables. He stared at his feet, anxious that he would fall and be seen, and wound up lost in the dungeons.
Many of the cells were empty, his mother's golden shields gone cold and grey without use, but one had some light to it, blazing and buzzing with power.
"If you touch the shield from the inside, it'll hurt you," Loki said, shuffling up to the occupied cell curiously.
A tall blue girl spat, scowling, her long black hair moving with her as she battered the shield. "I do not care. I will break free and avenge my people."
Loki cocked his head, floating up to eye level with his legs crossed. "My... Odin Allfather is upstairs, celebrating the attack on a Frost Giant camp. Was it your family he slaughtered?"
The girl's crimson eyes blazed and she whaled on the shield, throwing herself into it and screaming shrill, hoarse rage; blood, florid and as crimson as her eyes, spattered on the floor before her, dripping down her wrists from singed-raw hands.
"Please, stop! Don't hurt yourself, for the love of Yggdrasil, do not cause yourself harm!"
The girl stopped, sinking to the floor and sobbing, helpless. "I need to avenge them, child. My family was taken by the monster who sits in gilded splendour upstairs, and I alone survived because he wants to dissect my síða. What better way to make him understand it than to attack him for his war crimes?"
"I am no more a child than you, sorceress," Loki said quietly, placing a hand on the shield. It buzzed pleasantly, filling his cold hand with warmth, and he pushed through to touch her knee, green waves parting golden light. "I have never met another of my age who wields magic."
She smiled, wiping tears from red eyes, and laid a hand on his. "How you survive in this wretched place, I cannot understand, little one."
"I am not little," Loki protested. "I am nearly seven, which is nearly eight!"
She laughed, and Loki went still to listen, not even breathing. It sounded like wind on snow and chiming glass or ice, beautiful and high and clear. Pure. "Well, then you are a man already. I am already nine."
Loki's eyes widened. Nine was not old at all for a Frost Giant. How could Odin do such a thing to a child? It did not occur to him that Odin had been doing terrible things to a child for years, that he was his own best evidence in such a case. The only thoughts in his head were those of sympathy and delicate, careful plotting.
"I will free you if I can, my friend," he promised, thumb raking over the raised sigils on her skin. Concentrating, he read them aloud: "A-Angrboða."
The little sorceress grinned, bolting upright. "You read Snowspeak?"
"I did not know it until now, but I must." Loki's face brightened. "Is that your name?"
"Yes. I am Angrboða the Jötun!" Her sleek, angular face melted into a soft, satisfied smile. Her name was sad, to be sure - "She who brings sorrow" - but remembering it, hearing it spill off of that silver tongue, filled her with glee. "Angrboða."
"I am Loki. The... Aesir." He stared at his hands, chewing on his lip.
"You are too cold for Asgard, Loki the sorcerer." She said it like it was a compliment, and Loki's face flushed.
"My brother and my... my friends, they are all very warm."
"Then I will be your sister, and I will keep your chilled company. Now, go. Before someone sees." Angrboða shooed him away, but before he complied, Loki hissed enough verse to heal her hands.
She waved him off with smooth blue palms, and he felt a sweet flare of pride bleed through him.
Loki ran through the halls, invisible, until he crashed into Thor's chest.
"Brother! Where have you been?" the thunderer asked, helping him upright and pressing him into a hug.
Loki closed his eyes, relishing the warmth against his cheek. He couldn't help but compare it to the coolness of Angrboða's thigh. "I made a new friend."
Thor kissed his hair, picking him up gently. "'Tis near nightfall, Loki. I am proud you have made a friend, but let us sleep now."
Loki acquiesced, fisting one hand in Thor's hair and pressing the knuckles of the other to his smiling mouth. He had a friend.
He had many friends - he had Sif and Hogun and Fandral and Volstagg, he had the horses, he had his mother, he had his brother, and now, he had a sister.
It was wonderful, he thought as he drifted off to sleep on Thor's chest, to be loved.
Mythology! Angrboða was Loki's first wife.
(They had Fenrir the wolf, the Midgard Snake who turns the Earth in the sky, and Hel/Hela, who guards the dead in Hel, Realm Of Sleep. It's where people who don't die in battle go, and it's basically just a colder version of regular life except you don't age.)
She's a Frost Giantess and a sorceress, and no, she is not Loki's sister. I used that because A) she just lost her family and Loki has shown her kindness, and she wants that to keep happening and B) Loki doesn't have anyone who he can relate to across the board - in magic, in family, in belonging, in age - and he loves his brother best; someone who he has the capacity to love so greatly, as a girl, seems to him his logical sister.
And, yes, I do kind of want to throw in some Loki babies. They're necessary and I love them.