"Guard duty… it feels a bit beneath us, doesn't it?" Loki was sitting on the low wall next to me, his long legs stretched out in front of him. His suit jacket was lying on the wall beside him, the sleeves of his white shirt casually rolled up, and sunglasses perched on his nose as he was basking in the sun.

"It pays the bills," I shrugged. I was wearing red jeans and a T-shirt with little strawberries printed on it, my own sunglasses sitting on top of my head. I yawned, the sun was making me sleepy.

"I'm a god, you are an immortal sorceress, surely there are better ways to spend our time?"

"Richard said they wanted someone more powerful than just the average guards on-site, the artefacts they are moving from this warehouse to Temple Hall vaults are powerful and priceless. They are worried the Phoenicians might try and attempt to steal them."

The Phoenicians used to be pirates in the distant past. They are now a mercenary group that sells their services to the highest bidder.

There was something strange happening in The Secret World. Magic was growing weaker. It was as if the anima itself was becoming thinner. It didn't affect me much, my Bee helped me to manifest a surplus of anima. And Loki had his own source of anima, being inherently magical himself.

Anyway, because of this, magical artefacts were ever more sought after than usual, and the Templars had decided to move a collection of their own to a safer location. And we had been relegated to guard duty for the day, so now we were sitting at the side entrance watching one of the country roads that was leading up to the warehouse.

I looked at Loki beside me. I still knew so little about him, really. There had been little hints about his past, he had mentioned Odin specifically a few times. But I still had no idea what his exact relation to Odin was, or to the rest of the Norse pantheon for that matter.

Loki knew quite a bit about me. About my childhood, which had been happy right up until it wasn't. My father was a construction worker who had been a kind and loving father until he hurt his back in a work-related accident after which he turned to drink. I quickly learned to fear his violent temper and his fists.

My mother, who had been warm and kind but had demons of her own, who over time began drinking more and more. She died of liver failure while I was pregnant with Jess.

My brother, who couldn't abide sitting in a chair all day at school and dropped out, moved to the city where he joined a gang and turned to drugs.

I left home early myself after dropping out of college and moving to Dublin to become a live-in nanny. Soon after I met Jessie's father and had become pregnant far too quick, but it didn't matter because we were happy with our own little family. Right up until the police showed up on my doorstep, hats in hand, to regretfully inform me about a drunk driver that had swerved onto the pavement just as Jessie's father was on his way to his early morning shift.

After that, I hadn't been truly happy for a really long time.

"I still don't know anything about you," I said.

"What would you like to know?" Loki asked with a frown.

"Everything!" I promptly answered.

"Everything? It's always 'all or nothing' with you, isn't it?" he chuckled.

I just had so many questions, I didn't know how to start.

"How old are you?"

"Over a thousand years, give or take. You rather stop keeping track of the exact years after a few centuries." he grinned.

"When is your birthday?"

"When is my…? Why does that matter, I don't really celebrate it anyway. The 17th of December, that's as good a date as any."

"Really?"

"Really? No, not really, but it doesn't matter anyway."

I figured I'd ask something different, Loki was getting annoyed.

"What was your childhood like?"

"My childhood… good heavens, what sort of question is that?"

"I'm just trying to get to know you a bit," I said, a bit defensively.

"My childhood was…. lonely. Always lonely and yet rarely alone.

I was… am I going to tell you this? I haven't spoken about my childhood in centuries." he sighed. "Well, it appears I am now."

Loki seemed to have lost an argument with himself. I waited patiently for him to continue.

"I was raised in a golden palace as a prince amongst gods. I spent my childhood running through golden halls, eating from golden plates, sleeping in a golden bed."

"Really?" I asked again.

"What? Is it truly so unthinkable I grew up in a palace?"

"No, not that bit, the golden halls and the golden plates and…"

"Yes," he interrupted me.

"But the beds, I mean, were the bedframes gold? The sheets? The pillow…"

Loki rolled his eyes in annoyance.

"It's a matter of speech! It just sounds good! There is poetry to it; golden halls, golden plates, golden bed! Are you telling the story or am I?"

It was just that golden beds sounded really uncomfortable, especially if the pillow was gold too. I was imagining a pillow made of solid gold. It didn't seem very comfortable to me.

"Stop imagining the golden bed!" a long slender finger was waving under my nose as Loki snapped at me.

"How you made it through life so far without being strangled to death will always remain a mystery to me," he muttered angrily.

I grinned, he was kind of cute when he looked so annoyed.

"Where was I?" he asked.

"Golden…" I began to suggest.

"Yes. Golden palace!" Loki glared at me, then continued softly:

"But it was all a lie."

"A lie?" I interrupted. "It wasn't made of gold?"

"Gah! Woman, can you just let me tell the story?"

I pressed my lips tightly together so as not to interrupt, I did really want to know what his childhood had been like.

Loki continued after a moment, a haunted look in his eyes.

"The lie was that I was not truly the AllFather's son. I was adopted. I had never truly belonged."

There was a sadness in his voice, an old pain that made my heart bleed for him.

"My own mother had died hours after giving birth to me. I never knew her. Our home came under attack, and my mother fought for her life, for our lives, but she was still weakened from having given birth and she was killed. My father fought and died elsewhere, never even knowing I had been born."

I glanced at Loki as he sat beside me, this wasn't an easy story for him to tell. I took his hand in mine, gently caressing his fingers.

"Odin found me near the body of my mother. He wrapped me in his cloak and took me to Asgard. Frigga, his wife, had only given birth to a son the day before. Thor entered the world as he lives in it: big, loud and hale. But the birth had been hard for Frigga, who had nearly died.

Afterwards, she had been told she would not be able to have more children. When Odin came to her with a newborn orphan in his arms, Frigga immediately decided to adopt the child for themselves. Odin was hesitant, but he loved Frigga dearly and eventually agreed.

The birth of Thor had not been officially announced yet, and thus when the time came Odin presented not one, but two newborn sons to Asgard."

"They pretended you were twins," I said softly.

"Yes, twins, with Thor being the elder and thus heir to the throne. No one knew I wasn't Thor's true brother. Not even I.

But Odin came to regret his choice soon enough. I was a weak and sickly infant, that grew into a weak and sickly child. While Thor was able to wrestle boys twice his age, I preferred the library over the training grounds. Before Thor could even grow a beard he was defeating grown warriors in one to one combat. I could barely lift a sword."

Loki sighed.

"I was different. Different from Odin, different from Thor. I spent my whole childhood wondering what was wrong with me, why I could not be more like them…

This isn't really something I like to talk about," he admitted. "Father disliked me for being so different, perhaps because people would start asking questions and his deception might be revealed, perhaps because he just did not like me. Perhaps a bit of both."

Loki frowned.

"It wasn't a pleasant childhood. Thor and his friends would pick on me at times. Small, scrawny and far too quick to show my emotions, I made an easy target. And running to mother to hide behind her skirts in her study certainly did not help."

"Thor bullied you?"

Loki shrugged.

"I'm not certain if he meant it that way. When it was just the two of us we had fun together. But when Thor was with his friends I was merely the annoying little brother that always wanted to tag along."

Loki grinned suddenly. "When it was the two of us we had fun, Thor and I got into quite a bit of trouble together over the centuries!"

I squeezed his hand.

"All my childhood I was raised as a prince, raised to be next in line if something were to befall Thor. But of course, that was all a lie. I would never be king, no matter what. I was not Odin's flesh and blood!"

An angry frown was on his face, and he had pulled his hand out of mine, gesticulating forcefully.

"I was never going to be good enough, even if Thor was nothing but a witless, irresponsible oaf! I found out the truth eventually, Odin and I argued, Thor and I fought, and I was banished from Asgard."

Loki sighed and let his hands drop by his side. "It was all a long time ago, It doesn't matter anymore anyway."

I noticed he hadn't mentioned much about his relationship with his adopted mother, Frigga. I also noticed there were some gaps in the story, but I did not want to push him. I could see this wasn't an easy thing to talk about for him, and he had told me more than he ever had before. I was slowly beginning to get a picture of the life he had led, and it hadn't been an easy or happy one.

Three large black 4x4s with tinted windows came driving down the road towards us. Loki's mood changed immediately, and a wicked grin appeared on his face.

"Look darling, it seems the entertainment has finally arrived!"

About a dozen men and women jumped out of the vehicles, dressed in black and purple combat gear, armed with machine guns and wearing bulletproof vests.

"Are those…guns?" Loki asked in mock surprise, "Do you see this, my dear? They have little guns! Isn't it adorable? They have no idea who we are!"

Loki casually sauntered toward them.

I bit the insides of my cheek, trying not to laugh. Someone was having fun!

"Helloooooo…" Loki drawled.

The mercenaries raised their guns while looking at each other questioningly. This was not going as expected.

I was supposed to call in the other guards at the first sign of trouble, but there were only a dozen of them and two of us. I was confident we had this under control.

"Not another step! Hands up in the air! Let us take the artefacts and no one needs to get hurt!" The leader, or at least what I presumed was the leader, barked at us threateningly.

Loki sighed and shook his head. He looked back at me and winked mischievously. He was having fun.

"How incredibly uncreative. No imagination… what a dull and uninspired threat."

He turned back and raised his hands slightly. Some of the mercenaries lowered their guns slightly, they thought he was going to surrender. They weren't even looking at me, obviously not considering me a threat at all.

"Surely there is no need to be uncivil. Let's get to know each other a bit first, shall we? Perhaps some introductions are in order."

Loki made the slightest of bows, mockingly. As he stood up he shimmered, his trousers and shirt changing into black, green and golden armour, a green cape draping down his back, a horned helmet on his head.

I rolled my eyes and hopped off the wall. He was showing off, I'd better have his back in case this misfired.

"Helloooo… hi!" Loki drawled again. "You may have heard of me. My name is Loki, Prince of Asgard, god of Mischief."

The mercenaries' eyes widened. The news about Loki had gone around the Secret World for quite a while now, they knew he was real. One or two were stupid enough to raise their guns and take aim anyway. There was a loud crack of thunder and Mjolnir went flying over their heads, followed by a few bolts of lightning striking all around them.

"And this ravishing lady by my side, as you might have noticed, is the wielder of Mjolnir. We shall not refer to her as Thor, that will just make things awkward between us, and none of us wants that now, do we?"

Loki grinned down at me, and I grinned back.

I casually tossed a bolt of lightning from one hand to the other, hoping for all the world it looked even remotely threatening. From the look of the faces in front of us, it had the desired effect. Or perhaps it was just that there was a 6'4 god in full armour standing next to me, that could be it too.

Some of the mercenaries hesitantly put their guns on the ground, this was more than they had signed up for. The leader, however, raised his gun. Not at Loki, but at me.

"Oh, no you don't," Loki growled as his eyes flashed green. The gun turned into a viper and the leader dropped it to the ground where it slithered away.

"I tire of this!" Loki took another step forward, his powerful voice rising in volume as he spoke, his arms lifted up high.

He wasn't going to..? Was he? I bit back a grin and shook my head, I knew exactly what was coming. So did some of the mercs it seemed, a few were already on the ground.

"KNEEL!"

Loki's armour and helmet glinted in the sun as he stood there. The men and women in front of them were kneeling on the ground.

"Now, isn't this better, so much more civilised?"

Loki's eyes sparkled in my direction.

I bit my bottom lip as my heart skipped a beat and my breath quickened. Ladies and gentlemen, my boyfriend, the god of Mischief! Could he be any sexier than he was right there and then?

"Hold that thought until later, darling," he smiled and winked, "and perhaps call the other guards. It seems we have some prisoners."