All in all, Loki was not pleased.

After that little fiasco in his study, he had woken up in (surprises!) Midgard.

In the branches of a most unobliging tree, with his entire body aching and sore from where the twigs had chafed and prodded at him.

And stuck in a child's form again... For the second time that decade!

Then, while his true inclinations had lain towards the going-back-NOW-and-wreaking-Holy-Vengeance-on-the-Norns sort of thing, he had been forced to desist due to the impossibility of such a course of action. Instead, he did what he never did.

He swore.

Hard, viciously, and at great length, in the many different languages he had picked up during his wanderings.

Knowing the Norns, they were probably tracking his every move using that same damned scrying mirror; and he rather hoped, in a grimly perverse kind of way, that they were, indeed, tuning in on his current torrent of obscenities... The words he was using would have made even Thor blanch, and the thunder god wasn't exactly one of the most delicate Aesir around.

It was, without a doubt, a most inadequate revenge... But at that point in time, Loki was content to take what victories he could get.

In fact, for all he knew, his children were watching as well, and although a paternal part of him balked at letting them listen to such unutterables, another more vengeful part wanted them to see what their scheming - for he was sure of that - had reduced their father to.

And, although he had no earthly way of knowing it at the time, he was right; on both counts.

VAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAV

"... Loki-sama does have a rather... ah... varied vocabulary, doesn't he?"

Twisting in her seat, Verdandi surveyed the room's occupants.

Fenrir was cowering on the floor, his paws clamped firmly over his ears, tiny whimpers of denial issuing periodically from his throat. His younger brother, on the other hand, had a glazed look to his eyes, and was trying, without notable success, to cover their pet shikigami's floppy ears.

Urd was sipping tea calmly in the corner, although the whiteness of her knuckles as she gripped her cup's delicate handle told entire volumes.

Skuld had long since left the room, mumbling something about needing fresh air for a while.

Verdandi eyed them for a little longer, and then turned back to the mirror, propped up by a make-shift stand of stacked books.

At a particularly vile expletive, Urd's eyebrow twitched, and she rose elegantly, all but slamming her teacup back onto its saucer.

"Enough."

The Goddess of the Past stalked over to the mirror.

"Urd onee-sama?"

"It's about time something actually got accomplished, don't you think?"

Verdandi smiled.

"Of course, Urd onee-sama."

VAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAV

"Little boys shouldn't be swearing like that, you know?"

Loki turned at the sound of an unfamiliar, deeply male voice behind him.

The owner of the voice was looking at him appraisingly, one eyebrow raised. Ah, yes. The whole little-boy thing.

Before he could react, the man had closed the distance between them with three long strides. Stooping, he patted Loki on the head.

"Are you lost?" No, I just got thrown out of the highest plane of existence... again.

He managed to give the brown-haired man a composed smile. "No, I'm not."

The man looked disbelieving. "Then what are you doing out here, cursing like a pirate? Come to think of it, where did you learn that many swear words from, anyway?"

"Here and there." Loki dismissed the matter with a relaxed shrug of his shoulders.

"I see." The man regarded him with a marked skepticism, but let the vague and distinctly un-childlike answer pass without comment.

After a brief, awkward silence, Loki smiled lightly. "If you'll excuse me...?"

"Whoa, wait. Where are your parents? They can't possibly have just left you here, can they?"

Loki weighed his options for an instant, before finally settling upon a tactical skirting of the truth. "They're not... with me, right now."

Wrong answer.

The man frowned. "They let you wander the streets alone? At night?"

Loki definitely didn't like the sudden gleam in the man's eyes. "Actu..." He began. The man nodded smartly to himself, as if coming to a decision, and straightened.

"Well, I can't let you go traipsing off by yourself, so you'll just have to come with me." He grinned at Loki.

Great. "No, I'll be fine."

Catching the momentary expression of consternation on Loki's face, the man looked surprised for a second, then started as a completely erroneous light of comprehension dawned in his eyes.

"Don't worry, I'm just bringing you to the local police station, so... " He paused, then added helpfully and completely irrelevantly, "Besides, I'm going there anyway."

Loki stared balefully at him, not feeling at all in charity with sandy-haired men at the moment. Stressing each word with a barely leashed irritation, he repeated, "Thank you, but I will be fine... by myself."

His antagonizer looked indulgently amused. "A kid like you?"

Loki's eyes glinted. In a way which somehow managed to convey a weighty promise of very painful retribution.

Unfortunately though, there apparently were humans as dense as Mayura.

Oblivious to the pint-sized god's almost palpable air of menace, the man - having declared his intentions in no uncertain terms - took Loki's hand in a dismally no-nonsense manner and started to drag him purposefully down the street.

"Wai..."

The man cut him off cheerfully, "I'm Niiyama Keiichi, by the way. You would be?"

Niiyama...?

Just when the name snapped into place, he heard an extremely familiar voice. One he had heard just two days ago, in fact.

"Keiichi-kun!"

... Those Norns are really enjoying this, aren't they?

VAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAV

Urd smiled in smug satisfaction. "Now, that's more like it."

"Beautifully done, Urd onee-sama."

"Why, thank you."

VAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAV

He heard her breathing halt for one confused instant.

"Loki-sa... kun?"

Inwardly vowing many extremely Bad-Things on the Goddesses of Fate in the near future, he turned to face her.

"Hello, Mayura."

She blinked rapidly, as though she didn't quite believe her own eyes. Eyes luminous with bewilderment.

"Why..."

He gazed at her, his chest constricting painfully. Age had mellowed her; replaced a little of the brashness of her youth with the wisdom that came with experience. And although her previous naivety still shimmered around her like a cloak of light, he could see that same wisdom tempering it, softening it.

He didn't miss the simple band of silver encircling the third finger of her left hand, either.

Hesitantly, she smiled at him. "Loki... -kun?"

He bristled at the sound of his name on her lips. Not at the familiarity of it; but because he hated the way she said his name so tentatively, when before, she had called it with such natural ease. Hated the way she had thought of him as -sama first, and -kun second.

Through the host of emotions collecting in his throat, he managed to shrug resignedly. "I suppose you could say that I was persuaded to come."

Keiichi observed their exchange with a faint frown on his face. "Mayura?"

Startled out of her stunned preoccupation with Loki, she flushed, and turned to him.

"Umm... Keiichi-kun, this is Loki-kun. He's a... close friend." She paused for the briefest of times, then continued. "Loki-kun, this is..."

He interrupted her, the merest trace of belligerence in his voice. "We've been introduced."

"Oh." Her face cleared, flooding with an obvious relief; and that hurt, more than it had any business to.

To distract himself from the irrational emotion, he extended a hand to Keiichi, whose eyebrow had risen to astronomical heights. "Nice to meet you."

The man considered the proffered hand for a moment, then shook it. "Same here." Keiichi laughed suddenly. "And to think I was about to drag you off to the police station to prevent you from getting lost!"

She giggled, a little nervously. "I don't think Loki-kun would have liked that very much."

Bending down so that he was once again on eye-level with Loki, Keiichi smiled. "I suppose you came to attend our wedding tomorrow?"

It was, Loki knew, childish. Petty. Unsophisticated. None of which were qualities that he held with any regard... But at the moment, all he wanted to do, was to kick the man in the shins. Preferably hard enough to land him in the hospital for a couple of weeks; or at least till said wedding was over.

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

Mayura had come up to stand behind her husband-to-be. "Umm... Loki-kun... Where are you staying?"

He shrugged noncommittally. "At a hotel, I assume."

Keiichi eyed him dubiously. "You... assume?"

"I... really didn't make any plans before coming." Hard to, when you didn't know that you were coming.

And, of course, he looked horrified by that. "Your parents didn't even bother to help you book a room!"

Loki spied Mayura out of the corner of his eye, looking like she was trying terribly hard not to laugh, and a vein throbbed at his temple. "I'm a rather independent," and here he shot her a thinly veiled glare, "sort."

"Still. You're just a child! They should know better than to let you wander around on your own like that..."

A muscle tightened imperceptibly in his jaw, and Mayura broke into a helpless fit of coughs, which sounded suspiciously like stifled giggles.

The man gazed at his fiancée in concern. "Are you okay?"

She waved her hand, still coughing/giggling.

Keiichi looked thoughtful. "Besides, it's not like you can book a hotel room without an adult's assistance..." (At which Loki looked extremely pointedly at the two adults standing before him, but had the good sense to remain silent.) After a spot of thinking, he smiled confidently, evidently having come up with a satisfactory solution. "In that case, why not stay over at our place?"

... Our. I see.

Mayura interrupted hurriedly, with a guilty sort of explanatory air. "It's not really ours," she emphasized the word ever so slightly, "yet... Although... I was about to move in today."

In what he hoped was a placid tone, "I don't think I should impose."

Keiichi looked offended at the very idea. "You're Mayura's friend, right? Just think of it as a get-together, or something." Something else seemed to occur to him, and his forehead furrowed in a puzzled frown. "If you don't mind, how old are you, anyway?"

For a fleeting instant, Loki dwelt idly on the consequences of telling him the truth. Regretfully, he abandoned the idea; the man would probably have laughed in his face. Or patronized him, which would have been even worse... And he wasn't sure he could bear either from Mayura's betrothed. "... Ten." A reasonable age, for his current appearance.

"Oh." He looked highly dissatisfied at the answer. "Precocious, aren't you?"

Loki raised an eyebrow.

"I've known Mayura for almost 4 years, and since she's never told me about you... It's simple math."

"She's never told you about me?"

He shook his head. "Uh uh, not even once." At this, he threw Mayura a wondering glance, which said plainly, Why?

Mayura averted her eyes self-consciously, and his forehead creased further in perplexity. Nonetheless, when he turned back to Loki, he was smiling cordially. "And look at us, standing in the streets talking. C'mon; our apartment isn't too far from here."

... Many, many Bad-Things. "I can find accommodation easily enough elsewhere, I assure you." Loki asserted forcefully, in a tone which brooked absolutely no further argument.

Humans have such amazing powers of selective hearing, sometimes.

VAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAV

Having just returned, Skuld looked hopefully at the mirror. "Do you think that Loki-sama will give up on Mayura-san now?"

Yamino, who had recovered his composure by then, reminded her tactfully, "You're the Goddess of the Future, Skuld-sama."

She pouted.

VAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAV

Loki sighed.

It was, he reflected glumly, a sad day when the Norse god of Chaos and Fire was reduced to being in the position of having to play along with a mere human's whims.

Of having to play along with Mayura's fiancé's whims, to be precise.

Mayura had gone off to her father's shrine for the night, to say farewell to him and her old home properly. Which left him, alone, with Keiichi; who was, understandably, the very last person in the Nine Worlds whom he wanted to be in the company of, at the moment.

Keiichi, on the other hand, appeared to be positively delighted to have an opportunity to pile question after uninterrupted question on him, and promptly took full advantage of the situation.

After the fifth time of dancing around yet another variation of "How did you get acquainted with Mayura?", the trickster god decided that enough was enough. Draining the rest of his tea as quickly as protocol and dignity would allow him to, he made to rise.

The phone rang.

"Excuse me?" Keiichi smiled apologetically at him as he picked up the call. "Hello, Niiyama residence... Misao-san?"

Loki's dwindling interest rebounded.

"Mayura? No, she's not here... What?"

He neatly appropriated the phone. "Mayura-papa?"

The voice on the other end of the line sounded baffled. "Huh? Who... YOU!"

Loki winced at the sheer volume of it, holding the receiver at arm-length, as her father burst out heatedly. "What have you done with Mayura, again!"

Cautiously, he brought the phone back to his ear. "Quite simply, nothing. And what's happened this time?" Six years, and she still manages to get into trouble at the drop of a hat. One would think better of her... But then again, I suppose this is Mayura we're talking about.

"Dammit, nothing good ever happens when you're around, does it?"

"Mayura-papa, you're not answering the question."

Begrudgingly, her father muttered in reply, "She's missing. No sign of her on the grounds, and no note or message, either."

"I see." Loki glanced at the clock; it read eleven o'clock.

The priest asked suspiciously, "You really didn't have anything to do with it?"

He suppressed an impulse to sigh, and rubbed his temples instead. "No, I most definitely did not. Have you tried searching for her?"

"Only in the immediate vicinity. I thought she might have gone to Keiichi-san's place, so I came back to check first."

"Ah. In that case, I suggest you start searching again. We'll be heading out now, as well."

"Now, wait just one minute! What are you doing over there? Didn't you go back home?"

The telephone went a perky "be-ep" back at him.

VAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAV

"That girl's still as ditzy as ever?" Fenrir stared at the scenes unfolding in the glass with an incredulous fascination.

"Nii-san! Ditzy is such an impolite word!"

Fenrir snorted derisively. "Would you prefer air-headed, then?"

"Well..."

VAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAV

Where was she?

Although Mayura had a penchant and talent for getting into all sorts of scrapes, he knew very well that she was never one to make her father worry unduly. And as far as he was aware, no one from the pantheon had come down to Midgard recently...

Which only made her current escapade all the more unsettling.

"Wait... up!"

He turned to see Keiichi panting behind him, and stopped to allow the man a chance to catch his breath. When he was sufficiently recovered, Keiichi gave the four-foot boy a thoroughly contemplative look. "You've made quite the impression on Misao-san, haven't you?"

"We can talk about that later." Loki side-stepped the issue. "Right now, we need to find Mayura."

Keiichi sobered. "Yes, I guess we do. Do you know your way around here?"

"Fairly well."

"Then, can I ask you go that way? I'll take this side. I know I shouldn't be asking a child," his eyes bored into Loki's in an unnervingly perceptive manner, "to wander around this late, but..."

Loki gave him a very direct look. "I'm quite capable of taking care of myself, thank you."

Keiichi turned in the opposite direction. "I'm counting on you, then."

Loki watched his back recede into the darkness, then turned as well.

VAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAV

"Loki-sama really is rather fond of Mayura-san, isn't he?" Verdandi commented brightly.

Skuld looked put-out. "Loki-sama's kind to everyone, not just her!"

Before the sisters could continue bickering, though, a high-pitched voice piped up from behind them. "Does Loki-tama know where to start looking?"

At this piece of insight, the other occupants of the room startled, and stared, surprised, at its unexpected source.

Ecchan simply hovered in the air, and looked guilelessly back at them.

VAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAV

Meanwhile, having run fruitlessly and completely aimlessly around for some time, Loki was mentally berating himself for being a consummate fool. What kind of detective doesn't even ask for the details of a case before running out to solve it!

He passed the park and caught a glimpse of her sitting on the swing, her head bowed, and breathed a quick prayer of gratitude. Feeling an odd sense of deja vu, he approached her carefully.

"Mayura?"

She started, and hurriedly stuffed something back into her pocket. "Loki-sama?"

Worry melted, to give way to anger. "What are you doing out here, so late?"

"I..." She flushed guiltily, her hand still in her pocket.

"You made your father worry, Mayura!" The vehemence of his own words shocked him... As did the overwhelming urge to just drag her into his arms and make sure that she was, indeed, unharmed.

She looked confusedly at him. "Papa? He knows I sneaked out?"

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

She began to rise for a moment, then sat back down. "I... don't want to go back. Yet."

He took a few steps closer. "Why?"

"... Because..."

"Stop mincing your words, Mayura. It's unbecoming." He got onto the swing next to her.

Instead of replying, though, she stared at the ground, her face pensive. "Ne, Loki-sama?"

That damned honorific again. "Yes?"

She cleared her throat uncomfortably. "Why did you come?"

"You didn't want me to come?"

"Yes... No. I don't know." She sighed in exasperation, her hand slipping back into her pocket to finger whatever was there again.

His mouth went dry at her answer. "I see the Norns wasted their efforts planning all this, then."

She looked curiously at him. "Norns?"

"Goddesses. They were the ones who forced me back down here, in this body."

"Oh." There was a note of something that rang vaguely of disappointment and hope in her voice.

Tension arced in the air around them.

Obviously casting around wildly for anything to end the poignant silence between them, she blurted, "Did Ragnarok go well?" And as soon as she formed the words, her eyes widened in a way which made it quite apparent that she was very much aware of the sheer inanity of what she had just said.

There was another bout of silence, of an entirely different sort.

"... Mayura, was I supposed to answer that seriously?"

She reddened in embarrassment. "Woops?" she offered weakly.

They met each other's eyes at last, emerald to crimson, and laughed. And with that laugh, the tension broke, replaced by the easy companionship they had shared, so very long ago.

"Loki-kun," and he noted with gratification the return of her habitual use of the honorific, "Were you surprised to hear of my engagement?"

"... Yes." Dumbstruck would have come closer. Flabbergasted, even. Stupefied.

Unconsciously, she rubbed the silver ring on her finger. "Keiichi-kun... He's... a nice person." Somehow, the way she said it made it sound almost as though she was trying to reassure herself, not him.

He tried to swallow the lump of jealousy that had collected in his throat. "Yes, he is."

She gazed into the night, her eyes faraway. And despite himself, he thought that she had never looked as beautiful as she did now, her crimson eyes soft and introspective, with the moonlight glowing around her in a gentle nimbus of light.

"Loki-kun... Are you really a god?"

The question surprised him, and he lifted an eyebrow. "You still doubt that?"

"Well... No, not really. It's just that..."

"That?" he prompted her.

Her face was a study in conflicting emotions. She shook her head, as though trying to dislodge them, and said, a wisp of sadness in her voice, "Nothing."

They relapsed into silence.

Suddenly, she laughed. "You should have seen me when Yamino-san told me that you were a god... I nearly went hysterical then!"

He smirked roguishly. "Why do you think I left it to Yamino-kun?"

She stuck out her tongue at him. "Mou, Loki-kun is so mean. You were the biggest mystery around, and you didn't even tell me! And when he told me that you were his father, of all things..."

He grinned remorselessly at her. "Is that so hard to accept?"

She pouted. "You look like a child, Loki-kun. Of course it's hard to accept."

"Even after that little display in the park?" He arched an eyebrow at her.

She looked thoughtful. "Yeah. I just can't equate you," she motioned at him, "and... the other you." She gestured vaguely, at somewhere in front of her.

"Didn't you say that the... 'other me', so as to speak, reminded you of 'me'?"

He made out a faint heightening of color on her cheeks in the dim illumination. "Well, yes... But... You're alike, but at the same time, you're different." She stopped, searching for words. In a softer voice, "In this form, you look so... familiar. So safe. In your other..."

"I look unfamiliar and unsafe?" He cocked his head amusedly at her, but watched her intently.

She blushed furiously. "Not exactly. More of... You look... feel so mysterious. Like you're on a different plane of existence. Like, right now," she reached out to sift her fingers through his hair, "I can touch you, but when you're in your real form..." She shook her head again, and withdrew her hand.

He ached to hold her close, to tell her that he was here. Would be here, for as long as she wanted. And he thanked the Norns for throwing him on Midgard in a child's body.

For, if he gave in to that impulse, he would never forgive himself.

She was right; they did live on different planes of existence. And he had vowed never to forget that simple fact. For their own sakes.

Then, why did it feel like his heart was being ripped out by some unseen hand?

She looked at him, directly. "Loki-kun, can I ask you a question?"

Pulled back from his reverie, he blinked once, and shrugged. "Go ahead."

"Why didn't you take my memories when you left?"

Correction: Ripped out, and fed to Garm, while he watched.

His chest squeezed. "I don't know."

He looked up to see her frowning at him. "Don't lie to me, Loki-kun. Please."

At the sight of her expectant, hopeful face, he found himself unable to do even that most basic of things. "... Because I didn't want to."

"Oh." She was quiet for a while, mulling that succinct answer over. Then, she got to her feet.

"I'm glad." She smiled at him, and extended a hand. "Thank you, Loki-kun. For letting me remember you."

His spirits crashed to the ground.

VAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAVAV

Authoress :

cleaeverlasting > Don't worry, I don't want Mayura to be married to anyone else either. :)

manda-chan > Thank you so very much! And please, do continue your Curiosity Killed the Cat! XD I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to its next chapter /wags tail appealingly/

I've realized that I really rather like thinking up fluffy waffy dialogue. /snickers maniacally/ I could think of less pleasant ways to pass the time...

Maybe one day I should do a side-story on Yamino-kun breaking the news to Mayura. >D It'd be fun to write, if nothing else.

I'm rambling, aren't I? Ah well. Anyway, Keiichi was... well... a mistake. I really didn't mean to make him perceptive. /shifty eyes/ He was supposed to be kind of... absent-minded. But I guess a guy like that couldn't manage to win Mayura over, ne? Imagine a timid little boy trying to give Mayura flowers... Mmm. It'd be a strange courtship, to say the least. :P

Mayura is slightly OOC here; Or actually, she appears to be more manga-Mayura, than anime-Mayura. Please, just pretend she's older and wiser. /gives an absolutely blinding smile/

And... although this may seem wierd coming from myself, when I read over this piece, I can't help but feel that Yamino-kun should be popping popcorn. O.o