Loki was not like other Asgardians. He never had been, not for as long as he could remember, which was a very long time. He decided when he was still a child that he must have been born old, for his interests were so very different from his older brother Thor's. Then he grew up, and realized he was incorrect; the older generation was nothing like him either. He had not been born old. He had been born odd.
Although carousing was fun for a time, Loki liked the quiet as well. Although sword-play was an entertaining challenge, he preferred knives. Although traveling around for "adventures" was undeniably exciting, he honestly preferred to stay home and read or work on scientific or magical experiments. Magic was another thing that set him apart. Many Asgardians had some kind of magical aptitude, including Thor's propensity to make it rain. Few honed their skills as Loki did, branching out beyond the talents that were innate. Despite its prevalence, or perhaps because of it, mastery of magic was not particularly fashionable in Asgard. The warriors who could not do it even called it cheating, and so Loki generally refrained from practicing it around others, except for the illusions everyone expected from him at this point. For him, magic was a solitary art. Lately, it had drawn him so much away from more popular entertainments, he had almost forgotten how annoying the court could be, until today, when his presence was absolutely required in preparation for his brother's coronation tomorrow. The day had been loud and disorganized. Every minute had seen sycophants clamoring for Thor's attention, and Thor indulged every single one of them while ignoring the instructions he was given by both their father and the protocol master, dragging out the proceedings far past the appointed hour. It was a long, boring, and irritating reminder of why Loki usually avoided these occasions. It was also, to Loki's mind, a clear reminder that his brother was probably going to be a terrible king.
Thus, evening found Loki sitting on a broad windowsill and fuming. He was not looking forward to the feast tonight after the rehearsal he had just endured. He just did not understand why everyone on Asgard was so stupid! Even the Allfather was a fool, his father, supposedly the wisest Aesir to ever live, who gave up an eye to gain supernatural insight (probably an unnecessary sacrifice; reading worked perfectly well and was easier with two eyes). Odin was completely and utterly blind to his heir's failings. Thor was a moron and always had been, worse even than most of the Aesir because his privilege shielded him so effectively from his mistakes. Oh, Loki loved his idiotic brother, but that did not change his opinion of his intelligence one whit.
Odin thought he was jealous, when Loki started complaining eight hours into the long, long day. If Loki was jealous of Thor, it was of his blond good looks and muscular frame, which people always commented on in contrast to his own narrower features, washed-out skin, and darker hair. He was not at all jealous of Thor's position as crown prince. Thor had no idea what he was signing up for by taking the crown from their father. He looked at the throne and saw fame and glory. Loki looked at the throne and saw only a higher view of the malfunctioning, poorly organized, and foolish Asgardian society he still did not understand after two thousand years of trying. Need a world to live in? Kill your grandfather and make a planet out of it (according to their bizarre ancestral religion that, for some unknown reason, many still believed in despite the scientific evidence to the contrary). Need a fortress? Contract a Jotun to build it and then refuse to pay for it, sparking a war older than he was and yet still on-going. Don't like your neighbor's wife? Make your husband start a blood feud. Disobedient child? Lock them up in another dimension, kill them, or marry them off against their will. Married to someone you don't like? Either raise your child to kill your spouse or if that doesn't work, kill the child to get back at your spouse. Nobody likes you? That's fine, go to another planet, conquer it, and install yourself as king (that was how Asgard was founded, according to the legends of the kings. The fact that this story was mutually exclusive with their religious history did not seem to bother anyone else).
As far as he could tell, fitting in and accepting random and sundry injustice was not a problem for other Asgardians. All his family and acquaintances (he always hesitated to call them friends as he only liked them, never understood them; he knew they felt the same way) seemed to have an intuitive grasp of how to happily function in their stuffy, illogical, honor-bound world, but that was an instinct Loki utterly lacked. His misguided efforts to fit in had earned him an unintended reputation for trickery instead, a reputation he later leaned into, as mischief proved a socially acceptable means of preserving his sanity when the nonsense became too much. He often wondered if he would be happier if he were less intelligent and had even contemplated a self-administered lobotomy at one point, but decided the risks outweighed the potential benefits.
Maybe he would reconsider the lobotomy if Thor was going to be king as of tomorrow. At least Loki was accustomed to Odin's peculiar ways. Thor was a loose cannon, liable to explode as soon as he thought someone insulted his honor.
A sudden thought struck him, and he smiled. Thor was even more sensitive than usual on occasions like this. His birthday, his graduation, his coming-of-age: any day that was about him meant double the reaction if he felt slighted. Loki could use that. He could make Thor blunder so badly even Odin would have to notice and second-guess his decision to give Thor the throne. It might be only a short delay, but delaying the inevitable was all Loki knew how to do anymore. It was so hard to remain calm, collected, polite, and out of prison when everyone around him seemed so utterly mad in comparison.
Loki stood up and sauntered casually towards Odin's weapons vault. The contents of the vault were the main reason Asgard still existed as a civilization in Loki's opinion, that and the Bifrost, which was conveniently already here when they conquered the planet from Vanaheim's dominion. Whatever else they may be, Asgardians were excellent fighters, excellent technological scavengers, and they were allied with Nidavellir, home of excellent weapons designers. It was a symbiotic relationship that had sustained both species for over a hundred thousand years. What Loki found even more remarkable than the contents of the vault, however, was the lax security on the thing. There were five guards stationed in the anteroom. That's it. Otherwise Odin merely trusted the Destroyer, an automaton equipped with heavy incendiary weapons commissioned from Nidavellir, to take care of anyone that got passed the guards. If Loki were inclined, he could steal whatever he liked out of the vault any time he wanted. He was not so inclined, of course. What would he do with a weapon of mass destruction?
He turned himself invisible when he neared the vault. Or rather, he wrapped an illusion about himself that accomplished much the same effect in the un-branching hallway. The guards could only see him from one direction, and his appearance was completely masked to match the hall behind him. So long as he was quiet, no one would notice him.
No one noticed him. He walked straight past the guards and into the vault. Once inside, he cast a second illusion over the Destroyer's sensors (it only had visual ones, stupidly), ensuring it would detect nothing unusual either. He approached the Casket of Ancient Winters but did not touch it, since it was a relic of Jotunheim guaranteed to freeze any Asgardian who got too close. He took a fresh-struck coin out of his pocket and brought it to his lips. "Portus," he murmured over it, then cast a third illusion over the coin, one that would vanish tomorrow morning, and flipped it onto the casket. The coin vanished as soon as it passed the magical field surrounding the casket, because the casket retained a mystical connection to its planet of origin. Loki's spell had just transformed that connection into a one-way portal for whoever happened to find the coin he had sent to Jotunheim.
He felt sorry for whichever unlucky Jotun happened to come across his trap, but not sorry enough to regret this action. He was the only sane person in a world of utter bedlam, afterall. He needed to protect himself. There was always a chance the Jotun would realize the danger and escape before the Destroyer activated. If they did not... well, Asgard was already at war with Jotunheim, Loki thought cynically, and Asgard held life to be incredibly cheap. What was one more casualty in a pointless war that had already claimed millions?
Feeling depressed, Loki turned towards the gardens when he left the vault. It would be too hot to enjoy them for long, but he preferred the peace of the well-tended flowers when he was feeling this frustrated and despondent. It was another thing that set him apart and made people question his warrior virility. Whenever Thor, Sif, or the Warriors Three got upset, they went to the training yards to hit things.
Author's note: the central premise of this story is quite simply that Loki is not the same species. He does not fit in and does not know why, until he discovers this fact. The other premise of this story is that we see it entirely from Loki's perspective, and Loki's perspective is dead accurate: all the characters are exactly as intelligent as they first appear to be in the first Thor movie - ie, the Asgardians are pretty much uniformly fools, Loki is intelligent (until he goes insane later in the movie, but we'll see how that plays out in this version), and Laufey is intelligent, because he is also not Asgardian. Anyway, as you might imagine, Loki isn't a very happy person at the moment. He also isn't a very nice person, not that he's evil, just that he's so worn down by his life he's become cynical and given up caring about trying to make the world a better place, since no one listens to his opinions.
