- Chapter 303 -

"That concludes this memory file," Sean said quietly.

Quickly Odin turned to look at Seidmadr McCorrmick again. "Why would the boy do something spiteful like that?" This was nothing like what he'd seen of Jay. Whatever Loki was shown was clearly something distressing enough to make his son try to find another place to die. Watching Loki use the scepter on himself was nerve racking. Having to listen to his son talk about hiding his own body was almost as painful as watching Loki use the scepter. Odin wanted to know what Loki used the scepter for. He had a hard time believing that this in any way ensured Stark's safety. He had an even harder time believing that his grandson had been so spiteful. This made no sense.

"Prince Jay was scared, and angry. It was a child's response," Sean had certainly seen enough fearful responses when he was tutoring the children of the clan in the martial stances to know what they looked like. "The Prince recognized his mistake quickly and worked with Lord Stark to try to remedy the situation."

"They were arguing over the house. What about the house could scare Jay so badly that he would do this?" Frey asked. He was going to speak with Jay on this. Why his grandson did this, what the boy was thinking, was something he very much wanted to know. His Elder Brother was right. This wasn't like Jay. Frey was willing to be patient with his grandson. Everything the boy did was for a reason, so there had to be a reason for this too.

Like her husband, Frigga also wanted to know why Jay behaved in such an unacceptable manner. He was always such a good boy. Seeing this was almost like watching someone else. She could understand the boy behaving poorly if he were scared. Children didn't handle fear well. In spite of that, she had to agree with her brother in his skepticism that something about the house scared the boy. He was stalwart and unflinching in the face of a nearly corrupted firehawk. A few messy rooms shouldn't have impacted him. Frigga wanted to know why they did.

An urge to forewarn Lord Frey sprang into his mind. It wasn't an option for Sean. Lady Audhumbla wanted them to view the memory files as she had, as she set forth. Instead of a warning he quickly infused his sarammr with the reminder that, It will be alright. Extending it out so that the nebulous reassurance infused the Lords and Lady, and Prince Thor, gently to impart the reminder. "The answer to your question is in the upcoming content, sir. This next memory file is going to be very illuminating for many reasons. It should answer more of the questions you have, sir." He brought up the next one in the list. "This memory file is from February 9, 2014."

As the recording started Frey was instantly suspicious. There were only two recordings left. The one they were on and the one after that. He was shown two recordings. They were separate recordings. He wouldn't mind if his beloved sister never saw how Loki and Anthony bargained, but he wanted to see the parts of the second recording Loki had removed. He very much needed to see those things; the end he hadn't seen. There were only two left though. Perhaps this is what happened before Loki and Anthony bargained. There was a cold dread at knowing that this might be the recording where his beloved sister would see how Loki and Anthony bargained. He set that swiftly aside before it could work its way deeper into his thoughts. He set himself next. How they bargained was vile and having it shown openly was more than likely inescapable.

When Frey turned his attention to the screen he was looking at a house that he'd never seen before. It was done in almost all white. There were greys and blues here and there that he could see. It was also a much more open design than Loki and Anthony's house, as well as having a large circular area. Many of the walls of the house were large panes of glass. Light and air flowed easily through it. The only thing familiar was the cliff it was sitting on. That was the exact piece of land that Loki and Anthony's house sat on. There were only some trees missing. "Sean, what is this place?"

"This is Lord Stark's mansion, sir. It was his first home," Sean replied.

"Anthony's home? I've never seen this house before," Frey said. The more he looked at the land the more suspicious he was about it.

A calm smile touched Sean's face as he looked over. "No, sir, you haven't. This is the firehawk's aerie, sir."

What he was seeing certainly looked like something a firehawk might nest in; Frey couldn't disagree. However, he had no more time to puzzle over it. Loki was coming out the front door and that had his attention. He worried because Loki was already healed in this recording. When the boy bargained with Anthony, he still bore the injuries from being nearly beaten to death. This clearly wasn't that recording. Perhaps this will be alright, if it isn't that recording.

.-.-.-.

…feel good! Loki stumbled out the front door without bothering to close it behind him. His steps were weaving and awkward. The stairs he stumbled down were almost too much for him to stay upright. That brought little giggles from him. The cold stone felt nice under his bare feet. It was almost as nice as the cold blanket of numbness wrapped wonderfully around the scar in his chest. Below the stairs to the front doors was a small circular courtyard with a high stone fence on its outer edges. The fence encircled both the courtyard and the drive it led to. In the center of the courtyard was a smaller circle with little palm trees.

With every camera that had a view of him, Jarvis followed Loki. He was uncertain of what to do. He informed his creator when Loki woke up. An update was needed when Loki borrowed some of his father's clothes, limped out of the bedroom and went downstairs. An apology note to Bruce Banner was already sitting in the 'Drafts' folder of his creator's email waiting to be reviewed because of that. His father wasn't the only one who was going to be upset by this. Jarvis was already slightly upset and a little disturbed by what he'd seen.

Loki bent half over and panted heavily. The beat of his heart just kept getting faster. His hair hadn't been cut in months and was well below his shoulders now. It fell forward in a curtain over his face. He stumbled a few more feet forward before standing up straight suddenly and throwing his head back. A laugh tore its way out him shaking him as it went. Loki couldn't stop laughing. It was all so funny.

.-.-.-.

Not this! Frey's eyes widened in alarm before he put his hand over them and took a moment to set himself again. This wasn't the recording that he was dreading his beloved sister seeing. It was looking like this one might be almost as bad for different reasons. His calm expression was back in place when he crossed his arms over his chest again. The red heat of embarrassment crawled up his neck and began its climb across his cheeks again. Loki was drunk. His gaze darted to his beloved sister and back to the screen again. As bad a desire as he knew it to be, he ardently hoped that she would continue to see Loki, and not him. He briefly wondered why Sean hadn't warned him with an apology as he normally did. Sean was still unwell though, flushed and sweating. His unfurled seidr formed a Regenerative Weave. It slid into the beautiful young man's muscles before he furled his seidr back. The small, contented sigh from his fair Seidmadr was the only thing calming thing he had right then. Frey turned his attention back to the screen. Just roll with it.

When Sean felt another shift in the emotions of the Lord beside him he didn't startle. He was still grateful that the younger Lord was holding onto the happiness. However, embarrassment was being added to the mix, and it wasn't something he'd experienced before. It felt like a burning openness that made the warmth from Lord Frey slightly uncomfortable. More sweat beaded up across his skin. When he glanced over his gaze darted away very quickly. The sharp popping pressure of anxiety mixed with the solar flares of happiness to create the sensation of sitting on a beach. Adding the burning openness of embarrassment was causing it to appear as though the Lord of Vanaheim's clothes were continually being burnt off then reappearing. Unable to stop himself, his gaze darted down the front of the Lord beside him until he found the royal scepter and jewels he was curious about. The heavy heat of embarrassment crawled up the young Satska Soledras' face even as it was crawling up Lord Frey's face. Wow, emmiki. You really are impressive. I should not know that. Such expansive provocation set Sean's mind into steamier locations for a few moments. Before he could only wonder. Now he knew. What to do with that knowledge was the dilemma. The young man almost glanced back over to get another peek before stopping himself. Eideshan would slap me for being so lewd and disrespectful. I would deserve it. Embarrassingly, the starbursts from the harpoon of attraction's vibrations was what was most helping to mellow his disposition. Suddenly the pleasant heat of Lord Frey's Regenerative Weave spread through him. The young man smiled and sighed in relief. They always felt so nice. The lovely starbursts of pleasure it was sending sparking down his nerves were spreading out with the Regenerative Weave. They were crossing over his middle from his right side to his left. As he felt those starbursts spark around his seidr core, it became difficult not to smile widely. It was an amazing feeling like nothing he'd ever felt before. Despite his firm resolution not to think too deeply about it, it was hard not to want more of it. When the starbursts crossed warmly over the juncture of his thighs he crossed his legs nervously. Tingling pleasure was left in their wake. This is so unprofessional, he thought. Sean was tempted again to sit somewhere less physically exhausting and professionally dangerous but decided again not to. He already knew that Lord Frey was the only person who would affect him. Sitting somewhere else wouldn't get him out of working with Lord Frey for the rest of his life. Just getting used to it was better since only the younger Lord could affect him like that. Doing it with more than one person wouldn't be possible.

.-.-.-.

The swirling colors shifting thorough the objects around Loki were just too funny. Sweat beaded on his flushed skin. The inside of the house was too cold then too warm. The outside was just right. The sun was high in the clear sky. The low-slung jeans clinging to his hips and thighs no longer felt so hot against his skin. The damp patches across the shoulders and down the back of the charcoal grey tee shirt hugging his body were cooled by the gentle breeze blowing through the courtyard out front of the house. They were Tony's clothes fit to his skin. "Shhoo nice," he muttered. Loki swayed from side to side. His gaze roamed idly around the courtyard. Eventually it settled on a black camera monitoring the courtyard. Giggles erupted from Loki as he stumbled over to the camera when he saw it tracking his movements.

.-.-.-.

It was with curiosity that Bruce watched. Working in the ghettos of India had shown him some of the darkest elements of humanity. Drug abuse was one of the worst, and most common. It made fools of good people and corpses of fools. It was odd that Loki looked like he was high. Bruce wasn't even certain how that might have happened. All of this looked familiar.

.-.-.-.

"Jarvish," Loki's words slurred into one another, "I knowvv you cah hear meh." He reached up to paw at the camera that was just out of his reach. It shook a little as he managed to reach the bottom of it. A wolfish grin spread across his face. Mischief danced in his eyes. "Jarr-vish," he called in a sing-song voice.

Another giggle burst out of his mouth, and he whispered to the camera, "Thersh no one 'cept us, but we can shtil make shum noise," his slurred words were punctuated by hushed giggles. The house wasn't a good place to make noise. Loki wanted to fix that. He wanted some noise, and the fun that came with it. It'd been too long since he'd had any fun.

.-.-.-.

Oh Norns, not again! Thor recognized the look on his Little Brother's face. He'd only seen it a few times before. Despite the fact that he wanted to see beneath Loki's masks, to see his Little Brother for who he was, he still didn't want his mother to see this. He stood abruptly startling everyone in the room, "Truthkeeper, can we skip this one? I don't think there is anything of value to be found here." He glanced nervously to his uncle and noticed how red in the face his uncle was again. He wasn't the only one nervous about this.

"I'm sorry, sir, but that's not an option. What's in this memory file needs to be seen," Sean said as he swiftly paused the file. He could understand why Prince Thor didn't want any others to see this. There were other people in the room who might start to get ideas about the wrong things. More was here for them than Prince Thor knew, so he was going to have to be patient. This file was as much for Prince Thor's family as it was for the Avengers and SHIELD.

No one needs to see this! Thor sat down with a frown on his face. Pink tinged his cheeks and he glared resolutely at the floor, with both hands on Mjolnir as she sat in his lap again. At very least his mother didn't need to see this.

"Why shouldn't we watch this?" Director Fury asked. Everyone else had turned to look at Thor, so he did too. Thor refused to answer him.

No way to wiggle out of it. Frey sighed quietly. "If it's been selected by Lady Audhumbla then there's a reason to view it."

"Mother shouldn't see this," Thor grumbled. No one should.

I hope she doesn't see me in it. Frey kept his calm expression in place despite wanting to grimace. His nephew had the right sentiment. He didn't want his beloved sister to see this either.

"Thor, what is it you think I don't need to see?" Frigga asked calmly. She was starting to be more than a little insulted that so many people in her family viewed her as a delicate flower. When he hunkered down instead of answering she narrowed her eyes, and she changed her tone. "Thor, answer!" she ordered sternly.

"Loki's drunk, mother," Thor said quietly. He tried very hard not to think about Lenzin-Manod, or the tavern in Alfheim.

Mortification widened Frigga's eyes a little and she glanced back to her brother. He wouldn't meet her gaze. Crimson was burning across his face. Even his pointed ears were molten red. "All men drink, dear," she said quietly as she looked back to her son. The heat of embarrassment burned across her face as well. She was going to have to have words with her son on when and where he might have seen his Little Brother drunk, as well as why he wouldn't have told her. It was sweet, after a fashion, that so many members of her family sought to protect her from unpleasantness. It was more irritating than sweet that they hadn't come to her when they needed aid. Frigga was going to have words with all of them. Now that she knew what was happening she wasn't going to tolerate it any longer. She wasn't some dainty flower to be protected from the raging storm. She was the raging storm.

Since this wasn't about Lord Frey, Sean hadn't felt the need to give an apology when this began. Everyone was embarrassed and they hadn't made it to the important part yet. At least the Lord's embarrassment is nice and b… …I'm going to have to explain myself to Eideshan as well. Great!

"Let us just get through this," Odin said quietly. When he glanced over to Thor he suddenly understood that the boy had, at some point, seen his brother when he was a drunken mess. There was going to need to be a conversation had with his son about that. He had no questions about why the boy might have decided not to mention it. The depth of red in the faces both he and Frey were worrying; a little anxiousness over what he was about to be shown cropped up. His Little Brother was right and looked uncomfortable for it. There was no getting around it. Odin did his best to ignore the heat of embarrassment beginning to crawl across his own face. He wasn't certain that he wanted to see how his youngest son acted while drunk. Just hearing about it was bad enough.

Mother is here, Thor looked back to Loki with a little bit of worry in his thoughts, please Little Brother, just keep your pants on.

Loki's possible drunken foibles caused more interest in Clint for the file. He wondered if this was going to be the middle ground that there hadn't been any of. Loki doing something silly and ridiculous seemed like the right middle ground. Besides, it might be funny to see a drunken Loki.

The file unpaused calmly even as Sean's thoughts were slightly sarcastic. At least I'm not the only one embarrassed, he thought as he resolutely kept his gaze towards the screen and away from Lord Frey.

.-.-.-.

Loki summoned his Speaker's Orb from the interdimensional pocket he carried around with him. It appeared in an emerald flash, floating next to his head. None of the songs on it were quite right, so he grasped Skuld's pearl of sjel-seidr in his core. It was harder to find than expected. More little giggles bubbled up from him. For some reason, his core felt different. He couldn't think of why that was. There was fire in his core, but it wasn't burning him. It just made it a little harder for Skuld's pearl to change the seidr around it. Once it was all changed he intended to look through the currents of time, to find the right song. It made Loki laugh more when the currents of time immediately handed him the type of song he wanted. Those currents were nice enough to put it into the Speaker's Orb that floated merrily around him. They were even nice enough to refill his mostly empty seidr core. When a warmth like Healing Magics bloomed in his blood he thought it was very odd, but still nice of the currents. The currents of time were always so nice to him.

"Les make summ noise," he whispered to the camera. He pushed off the high wall suddenly leaving the camera alone. Loki uncurled his seidr. The fire in his core burned him slightly then. The warmth in his blood dulled the fire. The heat was being carried away by the lovely breeze sweeping through the courtyard which only caused him to giggle more. It was too funny not to laugh. A wave of his hand and his seidr disintegrated the trees in the middle of the courtyard. They were in his way.

.-.-.-.

The summoned Speaker's Orb swiftly drove Frey's embarrassment away. He worried when Loki's runework flashed in Skuld's sjel-seidr. He looked over the boy's skin and was confused to not see the blackened veins. He leaned forward on the table and looked to see if he could find Anthony anywhere. It made him very uneasy that Loki was using his seidr without Anthony there.

Suddenly Clint was very uncomfortable with what he was watching. This was supposed to be when Loki's magic was broken. The Queen's nervous reaction to Loki using his magic before his core healed made it seem like what Loki did was extremely dangerous. It didn't look like Loki was losing control, but still seemed dangerous. Loki doing something silly while drunk was fine. Loki doing something potentially harmful to himself wasn't. It seemed more dangerous when he couldn't find Tony as he looked in the windows of the house. Jay would've told him what was happening if he was there. Clint had a foreboding feeling that this wasn't going to end well. Maybe a drunk Loki isn't funny after all, he thought anxiously.

What do you think you're doing, child?! Odin was very nervous watching this. Loki using any seidr with a fractured core was suicidally foolish. He was very grateful that Stark was able to handle it the last time it happened. Stark wasn't there to stop Loki. Most of the walls of this house were windows, but Odin couldn't see Stark anywhere about. It made him very nervous to see Loki using his seidr without Stark there. This was just another perilous situation that he found his child in where all he could do was sit and watch. What he needed to be able to do was set hands on Loki to begin healing his child so that he could ensure her wellbeing. Odin wanted that so badly.

He's not there, Frigga thought nervously. Had Stark been there he would've stopped Loki, she knew it. He hadn't come out of the house, and she couldn't find him in any of the many windows in the house. All that was there was Loki and his fractured seidr core. His using magic was more nerve-wracking than it was before since Stark wasn't there to handle this. For the first time that day Frigga desperately wanted Stark to be on the screen somewhere. She kept looking for him, but there were only empty windows watching over Loki now.