No matter how strong one's self-assurance or intelligence might be, it is always possible to wonder if one has gone too far. Loki found himself almost genuinely recoiling from the snarling venom in Odin's gaze and took a moment - but only the tiniest one - to do so.

"Father - "

"No!"

Odin's jaw was set, his very face trembling as he clenched and unclenched his teeth. Loki was very glad indeed that the ire of the Allfather was not directed at him, in the main. The main subject of Odin's absolute rage was stood across the observatory, looking unrepentant.

And for once, Loki agreed with Thor's choice. Being unrepentant was probably in fact the safest option at this particular moment. Looking hurt and apologetic clearly wasn't working for him (he slunk out of the chamber as quickly as possible, looking as obedient as possible) and he had a hunch that trying to explain their little trip to Jotunheim in terms a reasonable man might understand would go down right now just about as well as a noisy chauvanist at a Valkyrie banquet.

At the moment, Odin was not looking like a reasonable man in the smallest degree. His single eye almost glowed with his anger, and his gnashing teeth spat flecked foam as he bit out words. This was no longer someone's dear old dad, nor the stern father of beloved if wayward sons. This was not even just Odin, leader and ruler of all Asgard. This was the Allfather, the legendary warrior overtaking the mere figure of the man. Once again, Loki's thoughts returned to orbit the concept of having taken that one step too far as he hurried along the corridors of the mighty, keeping his face schooled into an expression of alarmed chagrin. The alarm was extremely easy to provide with the memory of the recent battle and even more recent vision of Odin. It was certainly an interesting idea…

But then again, what was too far? If one's aim is to discredit one's brother so severely in the hearts and minds of his closest allies and family that they are prepared to close him out of his birthright, one must be prepared for a certain amount of friction. And friction wasn't always unpleasant, now was it?

Before the smile this thought prompted could overtake his control and escape onto his face, Loki retired to his own rooms, to wait. A few foot from his doors, a thin hand made a gesture: and around his boots as he walked in coiled a half dozen whip-thin snakes, conjured out of the air. They darted off, sinuous and silent, under all the furniture and into all the corners. It was a habit of Loki's he'd picked up growing up with an older brother: nothing and nobody was going to be hiding in his room without his knowledge. Snakes are nosy and inquisitive, needing to touch everything with their quick tongues, and these conjured emerald things were just as good as life in that respect. A couple of mice skittered out from behind the tallest shelves as the sorceries passed by, but that was all. Just mice.

When he had been younger - when they'd both been younger - Loki's burgeoning sorcery had found all sorts of things laid to annoy him or indeed actually hurt him in the corners of his room. Once, it had been Thor himself, although quite how he'd managed to squeeze himself and his ego under the teenage Loki's bed Loki would never know. When he'd gotten a new bed to suit his adult frame, it had been practically flush to the floor in result.

Oh, but it was terribly tiring, pretending. Loki sat down on the marble sill of his only window and huffed a breath out through his teeth. His snakes, their job done, gathered back to their father and cosied up around his boots. He called them further up with a flick of his fingers, enjoying the snap and tingle of his own magic crawling across his skin before dismissing the creatures into dissipating smoke with a thought. Tendrils of remaindered snake curled out of his sleeves.

Would that I could dismiss Thor so easily.

He would perhaps have been surprised to know that Odin was doing almost that very thing. Even really well-thought-out plans can still surprise their progenitor in the very simplicity of their resolution.

All words have power, but some have more power than others. Perhaps it is the ones that sound most like what they mean.

Banished.

Frigga screams it, first in disbelief and then in fury, at her husband.

Sif mouths it, silently, while Volstagg actually stops eating a chicken leg and Fandral slams his fist into the wall. Hogun sits without reaction, staring at his feet while the word moves through his body like sickness, drawing weakness through them all.

Thor cannot even bring himself to repeat it.

Banished.

Heimdall sees the echoes of the word spill out across Asgard, watches with his extraordinary vision the ripples of its implication move through the Realms. It is like watching a crowded street from high above and noting the passage of a gunman. Ripples of motion, spilling out from a dreadful, chaotic epicentre.

Within him, his strong, loyal heart sinks. Heimdall almost more than anyone is connected to what is and what will be - what has been and what is to come. Winter catches at his soul, a long, long winter that has no promise of spring or redemption of sun.

Heimdall knows what the fate of the gods will be, because there is a point beyond which even his eyes cannot glimpse. And today he feels his feet, unwilling, inexorably taking those first steps into the hoarfrost.

Have I gone too far?

Loki looked up into the sky, which was roiling with clouds around the observatory, and fancied he tasted snow on the air.

Not even slightly.