Loki decided not to sit on the couch as he waited for Odin and Frigga to come to his room the next morning in answer to his pointed note. If he sat on the couch, Frigga almost certainly would sit next to him, and he wasn't sure he wanted that. He sat on a padded armchair instead, slowly turning the pages of the final volume of the Chronicle of the Kings. It would be coming to a close about fifty years too early by his estimation, but the librarian had informed him the next volume was still being edited and was not yet ready for print. Loki could not recollect enough about the publication process for the official Chronicle to gainsay the explanation. But it rankled that he could not read ahead to find the answers to his most pressing questions.

He tended to trust books more than people, even the people who wrote the books, particularly in the last few days.

Frigga arrived first, knocking on his door and swooping in to plant a kiss on his forehead with a radiant smile. "I got your note, darling. A little cryptic, but I thank you for it nonetheless. It made it a lot easier to escape the meeting this morning. I feel like I haven't seen you but for a few hours this week! I hope you don't think me a bad mother, leaving you alone in a time like this."

"I am old enough to be left to heal without motherly supervision," Loki said with some amusement.

Frigga smiled and hugged him again before taking the chair across from him. "How are you feeling?"

"Other than a headache, I am as well as can be expected."

A little of the light left her eyes, though she still smiled at him with obvious love. "And what is on your mind today that you specifically requested my company?"

"You and the Allfather are keeping a secret from me," Loki said without preamble. "It is probably the reason why someone keeps trying to poison me. I would like to hear it."

Frigga's bright smile died, replaced with an expression of pure pain Loki was not prepared for. "We will wait for Odin," she said quietly. Loki nodded in slow acquiescence.

The king joined them after another five silent minutes. His single eye flicked from his wife to his son and back. His usual stern posture wilted as he shut the door behind him. "It's time?" he asked Frigga.

"It's time."

Odin took her hand and drew her from her chair to sit next to him on the end of the couch nearest Loki. He did not let go of her hand as he started to speak. "What have you noticed or remembered?"

Loki raised an eyebrow. "Both of you, and Thor, have been meeting with the full Council for hours on a daily basis since I was injured. If ever I leave this room, I am met with stares of suspicion and hostility. Almost everyone I have seen, including you and Thor, are nervous around me or otherwise behave differently than expected. People frequently ask if I remember things that happened 'recently,' but when I demur, they do not then fill me in on the details. Instead, they would rather turn the conversation towards some older event. Someone has tried twice to kill me within the last few days. I could go on." His bared his teeth. "I don't remember anything that would in any way explain all this. Anytime I mention any of this to anyone, they either lie to me or tell me to ask you. So I am asking you."

Odin smiled weakly. "You are observant as ever, my son. And we will tell you what you want to know, although I warn you it will be difficult for all of us."

Loki frowned again. "Just tell me," he said.

"The trouble started a little over a year ago when you found out you were adopted."

He stopped then, waiting for Loki's reaction, but Loki didn't know what to say. That was the last thing he might have expected this morning. It just sounded bizarre, as if Odin had calmly told him a little over a year ago he had turned himself into a horse and given birth to an eight-legged colt after rutting with a wild stallion. "I'm sorry, what?"

"You are adopted, but you are no less our son," Frigga said fiercely, slipping off the couch to kneel on the floor and take his numb hands in hers. He shook her off. His mind was racing, but he was not ready yet to be brought back to earth. She might have spoken again, but Odin put a hand on her shoulder, silencing her. He was watching Loki's face carefully.

Loki shook his head but set his shock aside. From his parents' faces (his parents, hah!), what they were saying was total truth, however foreign. He steeled himself and waved a hand. "Go on. There must be much more than that to explain what has been going on."

Odin's breath hissed out between his teeth. "I am such a fool, Loki... Your mother and I should have told you centuries ago. You would have taken the news well. You would have been fine. But we actually never told you."

"Ah... as you said, I 'found out.' You meant that literally."

"Indeed. You found out under the worst circumstances imaginable that you are... adopted from Jotunheim."

Another unexpected shock, and somehow worse than the last, cracking the very foundations of his identity. He felt a vague lightheadedness and slight worsening of his headache, though it receded quickly. "I'm not even the same species?!"

"No." Numbly, Loki finally listened to the story of Thor's disastrous coronation, the brothers' subsequent incursion into Jotunheim, and then Thor's banishment.

"You banished him out of concern for me, didn't you?" Loki interrupted, seeing it all in an instant. "Same as his punishments after I took ill in Muspelheim. Not because of our reckless disregard for your law but because of this. Because of my secret origins."

"Yes."

"Fine. Go on."

Odin looked at Frigga, both clearly concerned by his tone. "Loki,-"

Loki held up a hand to forestall them. He didn't want to keep pausing. If he stopped, he feared would lose track of the conversation as the shock caught up with him. "I am upset. I am not yet angry, so spare me your reassurances for now. Finish the tale."

"The situation went from bad to worse," Odin continued in a low voice. "I looked for you as soon as Thor was gone to Midgard. I knew the secret could not continue. But I miscalculated. I extended my powers too far in snatching you and Thor and your friends back from Jotunheim and then stripping your brother's powers. I fell into Odinsleep midway through trying to talk to you, with Frigga none the wiser that anything was wrong. You see," he said quickly before Loki could interrupt, "you are not just any child of Jotunheim. You are the son of Laufey. I told you that and almost nothing else, and you were left to process the revelation alone."

"Laufey," Loki repeated. "Succeeded Fornjotr as King of Jotunheim two years before your own ascension. A rival of Asgard since winning his crown. Notably defeated by you at the Battle of Broken Ice in your 206th regnal year, and again in 345-8 after a protracted campaign that left the three major Jotnar interstellar ports in ruins. Smaller engagements occurred in 429, 475, and 508. The Jotnar staged their last major campaign against Asgard in the 712-725th regnal year, although minor skirmishes have continued every century. The campaign began with an invasion of the northern territories of Midgard for use as a base for renewed interstellar operations, however 'Laufey suffered his greatest defeat to date, against the spear of Odin and the combined prowess of his sons Thor and Loki, recently come of age. The Battle of Bleeding Fjords is considered by most scholars to mark both Odinsons' first blooded battle...'" He was quoting the Chronicle of the Kings, of course. Brief introductory passages preceding a litany of battles, accompanied by dry tactical analysis. Those particular chapters had seemed as average and largely meaningless to him as any others when he had read them only a few days ago. The surreality was almost comical.

Odin coughed. "Yes. To put things mildly, you did not take the news well. Before I sank into unconsciousness, you accused me of taking you as a political prize and raising you as lesser than Thor because you were the son of my enemy."

"And son of monsters," Loki breathed as he suddenly remembered a children's morality tale he must have heard hundreds of times; the naughty children were eaten by a Jotun in the end. He felt cold sweat break across his forehead and his pulse quicken. He blinked and looked hard at Odin. "So then you fell into Odinsleep. Thor was gone. I would have been named regent. And all the time I was consumed with the news I was an imposter, a snake that should have been kept far from the nest of Asgard's throne. Or at least, that was what others would think if they knew the terrible secret. And of course, there was the question of who else knew, and why I had never been told..."

"But, Loki, you are none of those things!" Frigga exclaimed, no longer able to contain herself. "You are our son! You are loved! I only wish I had realized what was going through your head you first found out!"

"I had no idea whose child you were when I found you," Odin said forcefully. "It was after a chaotic battle on Jotunheim that only ended when Laufey triggered an earthquake to divide our forces and allow his retreat. It destroyed the city. When I came upon you, your guardians were gone or dead. You were a lone infant with only your innate magic to protect you." He smiled in reminiscence. "It was strong even then, disguising your native form to camouflage as an Aesir as soon as I picked you up. I couldn't leave you there of course, so I brought you home. We took you in to be our own. We initially thought to tell you when you came of age, but then things changed during a truce negotiation with Laufey several years later. He was different from the last time I had seen him face to face. Worn down. Regretful and bitter. He thought you had died in that battle, you see, that he had sacrificed his newborn to save his troops."

"And you did not tell him otherwise," Loki said, reading it in Odin's face. "Why?"

Odin looked down. "Perhaps I should have," he admitted. "But several reasons kept me from honesty that day. The most important was you. Your mother and I had already bonded with you. Figuratively as well as literally. The sorcery in your soul is and always will be entwined with ours to such a degree that you never grew to full Jotun size and only powerful sources of Jotun magic can reveal your genetic appearance now. If we had let you go then, young as you were, you would have passed away after a few months, starved of the bonds of magic you had grown accustomed to. Laufey likely would have understood that, but he may well have wanted to lay claim to you again despite the risks, which was something I would never condone." He shrugged. "The more calculating reason is that that meeting was the first time Laufey was openly willing to negotiate for almost two centuries, and we had a period of peace following that lasted even longer."

Loki grimaced, even as his insides twisted. "I cannot blame you for that, then. I might have done the same."

Frigga laughed bitterly. "You see, Odin? We should have told him centuries ago."

"I was afraid of stirring up tensions again with Jotunheim, and of damaging your position here," Odin explained.

"Afraid I would want to set myself up as Laufey's heir apparent?"

"Not in so many words. I was more afraid you would want to learn how to use Jotun ice magic and do something to give yourself away. As you seem to recall, Jotuns are not well-regarded among the Aesir."

"No... no they are not. I remember that. And you are right, I probably would have started experimenting... Everything would be the same in the end." It hurt terribly to realize that the court hated him for who and what he was, that this wasn't some mistaken act that he could easily rectify in a century or two. His was a mistake of birth a whole lifetime had already failed to redress.

"Not exactly," Frigga said. Loki looked at her. For the first time this morning, she was actually crying. The sight chilled him. It was still worse than he thought, apparently.

"Oh, I see. What else happened a year ago, then?"

Odin held Frigga's shoulders as she spoke. "As you said, you were named regent while both Odin and Thor were indisposed. I think you must have been suspicious of everyone, trying to figure out who knew what about your parentage without asking anyone directly, including me. You thought Thor's banishment harsh at the time. I know you did. Particularly as you didn't realize how temporary it was meant to be, and you didn't realize at all that it was done for your sake. I think you were afraid of Odin once he woke up, afraid of what he might do to you now that you knew the secret. So..." She broke off.

"What madness did I do, Mother?"

"Madness?" she echoed with a flutter.

"It must have been madness for you to speak of it the way you do."

"You decided to prove your loyalty to Asgard," Odin said in a strange voice.

"How?"

"By winning the war with Jotunheim, forever."

Loki froze, eyes wide and heart pounding. "How?"

"You lured Laufey here under the pretext of an assassination opportunity against Odin while he was helpless in Odinsleep, and you killed Laufey when he attacked. Then you integrated the Casket of Ancient Winters into the Bifrost mechanisms, despite Heimdall's attempts to stop you, and targeted the combined weapon at the core of Jotunheim. You would have destroyed their entire planet if Thor had not returned in time to stop you," Frigga summarized rapidly. She was clearly leaving out a lot of pertinent details, but the gist was there, and it was horrifying. He could imagine exactly what such a weapon might do, freezing all life it touched, potentially even reducing the planet's molten core to near-absolute zero, eliminating their magnetic field and all potential for organic material of any kind, forever.

"I should be dead," Loki whispered after a moment.

"Loki-"

"No! I should be dead! Executed like the war criminal I am. How dare you look at me with love, woman, if what you say is true? You should strike my name from every page it appears in this damned Chronicle and never speak of me again except as an illustration of evil to match the Witch Purges. Why in the seven hells of fallen Titan did you not have me executed when you should have?"

Odin raised his eyebrows. "Seven hells of Titan?"

"Do not try distract me, Allfather. Just tell me why I am still alive after committing patricide and attempting genocide."

"You were dead, Loki," Odin said, voice deliberately calm. That silenced Loki again. Every time he heard what had to be the most stunning part of the sordid tale, the next twist of the knife was even more shocking and terrible. "Thor didn't know how to deactivate the Bifrost, so he destroyed it. We tried to catch you... but you were lost to the edge and vanished into open space."

Loki started giggling helplessly, a nervous and inappropriate reaction he couldn't stop once it started. "I really should be dead then. How have I made it back? Some kind of forbidden necromancy in order to stand trial? Is that why my memory is lost, because of a resurrection spell gone wrong?"

"Ah, no." Frigga said. "We don't know how you survived. You really were injured in Midgard. We thought you dead for the last year, but then you appeared there seeking a weapon Odin had buried there which the humans had untimely uncovered."

"The Tesseract," Loki said, making the connection instantly. He giggled again at their alarmed expressions. "It was in the Chronicle. Perhaps you should speak to the editors if you did not want such things widely known."

"Noted," Odin rumbled. "Yes, you were after the Tesseract, but we have no idea why. We sent Thor to Midgard as soon as Heimdall glimpsed you, but the two of you immediately clashed. You didn't tell him what had happened to you since you had fallen or why you wanted the Tesseract. However, you were not alone. An army followed you of creatures called Chitauri..." Loki shivered when he heard the name, but though it provoked a feeling of dread, he had no coherent memory or even any real meaning to accompany the term. Odin noticed his reaction and watched him with his one eye for a moment. When Loki was silent, Odin finished, "You were defeated. You suffered a terrible head wound and almost died of your injuries and the seizures it provoked. And that's all we know."

Loki just sat still for a moment, staring down at his clasped fingers, and their many scars he didn't remember getting. "It is a lot to absorb," he said finally. It was such a trite response, but he really did not know what to say. He didn't object when Frigga rose and hugged him again, kissing his hair several times as she muttered soothing nonsense over him. "What did the Council decide to do with me?" he finally asked.

Odin smiled with obvious relief, at what, Loki was not entirely sure. "For now, nothing. No one is inclined to punish you for crimes you have no memory of committing and no intention of repeating. It would be meaningless and cruel. As you have no doubt noticed, you are even free to wander at will. I'm afraid people have been referring to you as 'prince' out of habit, though. You do not have full royal privileges nor any duties until we have seen more about how you will recover. And until we have heard from our allies and whether they will overlook your, ah, abuses of power."

"Including Jotunheim," Loki said.

"Ah, no. I meant Alfheim, Vanaheim, and Nidavellir."

"And I'm telling you to ask Jotunheim as well. They deserve a voice."

"As you wish," Odin answered hesitantly.

"Although you'll forgive us if they ask for your head and I say no," Frigga said drily.

Loki snorted. "Eventually, yes, I'm sure I would forgive you."

"Do not joke about such things, Loki," Frigga said with ice in her voice.

"Sorry."

Odin sighed. "We are sorry, Loki. I know this will not be easy for you to bear at present, but we have learned the hard way that it is a thousand times worse to wait and keep you in the dark. We are blessed that you have returned to us, but our second chance comes at far too high a cost to you... I have served you poorly as a parent."

Loki thought he should probably argue with the sentiment, but his silver tongue felt like lead at the moment, and he stayed silent. He didn't know what to say, didn't know what to feel. He had every combination of shock, horror, disbelief, and self-loathing coursing through him at the moment. He should probably be crying, but the tears had yet to form. He regretted pushing for answers this morning. Nothing positive had come from it other than loss of mystery. He would rather contend with the mystery of other people hating him, he realized too late, than know the hatred was deserved. He was the un-dead prince that everyone would have preferred to forget in shame. He was a monster, whether by his birth or by his choices. The only question was if and when the monster would come back to wreck more havoc.

"Can I be alone?" he asked. "I need to think."

"I will go," Odin rumbled, standing up and moving to hug him as well. "Just know I love you, Loki, exactly as you are, despite everything that has happened. You are still my son, forever will be."

"I love you as well, my dearest child," Frigga said. Her voice was worried. "Are you sure you want to be alone? I could stay for a little while..."

"No, thank you."

"Will you be well?"

"Eventually. Fear not. I have no intent to punish myself for my forgotten misdeeds."

"Good," she said with obvious relief. "We will stop by later, to answer any more questions you may have."

"Yes, I would appreciate it."

Despite what he had told Frigga, Loki did find some small way to punish himself after his adoptive parents left. He abandoned the useless Chronicle he had been reading and instead perused his shelves for every book of tales, every book of dark fiction, every polemic he had... which turned out to be not all that many, but he could not bring himself to leave his room to seek out the library... He buried himself in every text he could find that emphasized the deep conflict between Aesir and Jotun. He lingered over every racist description of his own ancestors and cherished every wound as the merciless script finally gave him the words to describe himself (or at least, the person who the world thought he was, the person who was almost universally hated).

He was a low and vile creature. The meanest form of intelligent life, capable of premeditated violence and sometimes cunning but not of sophistication and culture. In times of peace, he was given to petty lusts and gluttony. In times of war, he was an avid killer with particular fondness for the blood of innocents and for bringing low those warriors who were most noble. He was a thief and a parasite. He was greedy. He thought nothing for the hardships of other races. He was dirty and profane...

He was actually none of those things, or at least not to a significant degree, Loki knew. This was not a good coping strategy, but some part of him needed the catharsis. He kept reading until there were no painful books left.

Then he walked out to sit on the hard stone bench of his balcony, gazed out over the beautiful vista of the city spreading as far as the eye could see. The city that had been his home for thousands of years, since before he could speak. The only place that had ever been his home as far as he could remember. A place that now wasn't sure it wanted him.

Finally, he cried.

Thor found him still on the balcony several hours later, sweating slightly in the midday sun. He had always been heat intolerant but never known why. The elder brother sat down on the same uncomfortable stone bench silently, not even trying to catch his eye. He put an arm around Loki's shoulders and pulled him into a hug. "They told you, eh?" It wasn't really a question, but Loki still nodded. "I'm sorry," Thor said.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," Loki whispered.

"You think not?" There was a note of incredulity in Thor's voice.

"I deserved everything you did to stop me," Loki replied with feeling.

Thor sighed. "It's true I had to stop you, but I wish I had found a better way to do it that didn't hurt you so."

Loki's eyes flicked briefly to his brother. Thor's face was drawn and sober, strange to see in one so habitually given to jollity. "I forgive you, then. You did the best you could in circumstances most trying. I am sorry you were put in such a position that your only options were so difficult." They were silent again for a moment, simply taking comfort in each other's presence. "It has changed you," Loki ventured. "The past year, I mean, and perhaps not for the worse..."

"I have changed," Thor agreed. Then, "My lessons were hard-earned, and I value them. But... it was easier when I was more foolish and cared less. I think the most significant thing I have learned from all that has happened is how very, very easy it is to do the wrong thing and cause harm to the people who depend on me."

"Humility will make you a better king, Brother," Loki said.

"Unless I let my uncertainty cause errors of inaction."

Loki's lips quirked briefly. "You won't."

"Oh? What makes you so certain of that?"

"Parts of you have changed, but mostly you are the same as I vaguely remember from two millennia ago. One year, for all its tumult, is still only one grain of the dust that makes you you."

Thor smiled and squeezed him tighter, briefly. "I might say the same of you. So much you have been through, so much you have lost, but the day you came back to us... it felt like stepping back in time. I thought you dead, and then on Midgard I thought you still forever lost."

"Had I changed so much in a year, even then?"

"Yes and no. In some ways, particularly your wit and humor, you were the same. But you had so much anger in you, so much transformed hurt, and held so many secrets..."

"What happened on Midgard, Thor?" Loki asked softly. "The full story."

"You don't want to know," Thor said, looking away.

"But I need to. Please."

Reluctantly, Thor told him. Loki was beyond further shock today, but he was sickened by what Thor described. His callous misuse and murder of defenseless humans. His sadistic manipulation of Thor and his allies at every turn.

His antics on Midgard did not make much sense to Loki as reported by Thor; he had either had no intention of actually conquering the planet and had only pursued the Tesseract as some kind of Dans Macabre, or there was some missed motive Thor had no knowledge of to explain his aberrant decisions. He was both surprised and relieved that it had been one of Thor's allies rather than Thor himself that had dealt him his near-lethal injury. It felt reassuring that Thor was the one who decided to save him, not the one who tried to destroy him. Thor could easily have let him die on Midgard with no one the wiser. But no, his brother still valued his life, even after a bitter, hateful battle between them.

"I almost had to kill you again, after everything else." Thor said. "You were hurt, but you were alive. You woke up when I feared you might not, and you awoke peacefully. I regained hope that you, the brother I loved and missed so much... you might still be within reach. And then you were dying again, your brain afire." He shuddered. "It was the worst feeling in the world, holding you down and shielding you as your own magic broke you, and everything else around us."

Loki took his hand. "I am glad you didn't have to. Have to kill me."

"But I almost did," Thor repeated bleakly. "If the Midgardians hadn't happened to have a powerful sedative to hand, I would have killed you..."

"Shh..." Loki said, though he shivered despite the heat. "It doesn't matter now, and for what it's worth, I would have made the same choice."

"I'm just so happy you're back, Loki!" Thor cried, hugging him now with both arms and sobbing uncontrollably into his shoulder. Loki patted Thor's back and smiled slightly for the first time that day as he watched Thor's confused emotions mirrored in the sky. Wisps of storm clouds chased each other overhead in strange circles, caught in warring winds. The light rain that fell over half the castle refracted a faint rainbow.

Perhaps Loki could not be certain of his place in Asgard anymore, but it was obvious he could still trust Thor's love.

Author's note: updates will remain sporadic for now. Imma busy. But if you're enjoying this, please leave a review!