As predicted, it did not take long for an unsuspecting Jotun to come across Loki's trap and magically appear inside the vault. What was extraordinary was the timing. Asgard was alerted to the intruder exactly as Thor was swaggering into his coronation ceremony, half an hour late, and playing up the crowd as if he were a celebrity of only five hundred years rather than the heir to the throne for over two millennia. Thor had no sense of gravitas, and even Odin was unamused. Even Frigga, their perpetually indulgent mother. Frigga was wonderful for always and endlessly loving her boys. She was terrible for never imposing any kind of discipline.

"Thor Odinson, do you swear to guard the Nine Realms?" Odin asked when Thor finally got around to kneeling before him. At the same time, Loki noticed the return of his enchanted coin, several floors below them.

"I swear," Thor said.

"Do you swear to preserve the peace?"

"I swear." Loki observed the change in the temperature of the floor long before anyone else, because he was expecting it.

"Do you swear to cast aside all selfish ambition and pledge yourself only to the good of all the Realms?"

"I swear."

"Then on this day, I, Odin Allfather, proclaim you..." Odin trailed off as the temperature of the air dropped precipitously and frost formed on the merry banners decorating the room. "Frost giants," he said in surprise. He raised both his hands for silence, and now all could hear both cracking ice and the distant sounds of battle. The Jotun Loki had lured in was a fool after all, if it was fighting rather than fleeing. "Thor, go!" Odin ordered.

At least Asgardians were decisive. Thor gestured for Loki, Sif, and the Warriors Three who happened to be standing conveniently nearby to follow him, then spun about and sprinted through the hall. He led the way down to the vault. By the time they got there of course, there was no need for their hurry. The floor was covered with melting ice, but the two Jotun intruders were dead, burnt by the Destroyer, which held the Casket of Ancient Winters in its metal hands. Meanwhile, the guards in the anteroom were confused but completely unharmed.

"The Destroyer," Sif gasped, while Thor just stared around with an expression of shock and anger.

"I thought it was just a legend," Volstagg said, sounding awed. Loki sometimes forgot that ordinary Asgardians never came down here. Perhaps his cynicism at their expense was a little unwarranted.

"I've never been inside the vault," Fandral commented, looking around with interest. "It's said the Tesseract was once housed here." It had been, but not for over a thousand years.

"The Tesseract! I thought that was a legend as well!" Volstagg enthused. Norns help him. Volstagg must be hungry. That always made the man more emotional and shallow-thinking. There was no way Volstagg as a sentient being could be this distractible in a room containing two corpses and multiple doomsday devices otherwise.

Hogun merely raised his eyebrows and nodded silently. Loki appreciated that about Hogun. He felt no need to state and restate the obvious.

"Shush!" Sif admonished her fellows, which Loki also appreciated. He had always liked Sif, even more than Hogun. She had more imagination than most. Enough to picture an alternative vocation for herself than merely mothering the next generation as was the doom of most women in their incredibly gendered society. The traditional, illogical misogyny was one of the other things that infuriated Loki about the culture he lived in.

"The Jotuns must pay for what they've done!" Thor said, finding his voice the instant their father entered the room. Loki fought not to roll his eyes at the expected but immature response. It was just like Thor to see two enemy bodies, no Asgardian casualties, and an unsuccessful theft, and immediately without a second thought want to seek vengeance because his party was ruined.

Fortunately, this time Odin agreed with him. "They have paid with their lives," the Allfather said reasonably. "The Destroyer did its job, and the casket is safe. All is well."

"All is well?!" Thor exploded. "They broke into the weapons vault! If the frost giants had stolen even one of these relics-"

"But they didn't," Odin interrupted.

"I want to know why they-"

"The Casket of Ancient Winters belonged to the Jotuns. They believe it's their birthright," Odin explained, rather tangentially in Loki's opinion. Even Thor knew that much.

"And if you hadn't taken it from them they would have laid waste to all the Nine Realms!" Thor said, rather inaccurately from what Loki knew of the war. It was entertaining to watch though, this argument. Odin was not giving Thor much chance to speak his mind, but it was not hard to follow Thor's thoughts, and they were surprisingly logical for Thor's standards. This was a terrible breach of their terrible security. If the intrusion had been intentional rather than serendipitous as only Loki knew, it would be entirely reasonable to be concerned Jotunheim could try again and make off with some potent artifact to threaten Asgard.

"I have a truce with Laufey, the Jotun King," Odin said firmly.

"He just broke your truce! We must act!"

Odin frowned and gestured to Sif and the Warriors Three. "Leave us." As soon as they obeyed, he closed the door and whirled back to Thor. "What action would you take?"

"March into Jotunheim as you once did, teach them a lesson, break their spirits so they'll never dare try to cross our borders again!" Thor said instantly, grinning like an idiot. Loki actually winced at the short-sightedness of the response. Yes, they were technically at war with Jotunheim, but it had been a cold war for the last few centuries. An invasion of the Jotun homeworld would lead to the deaths of thousands of Asgardians, at best, if everything went well. On the other hand, interstellar wars could easily escalate to extinction-level events.

"You're thinking only as a warrior!" Odin told him scathingly.

"This was an act of war!" Thor protested.

"It was the act of but a few, doomed to fail."

"They got this far," Thor pointed out angrily. He was not used to being told no.

"We will find the breach in our defenses. It will be found, and it will be sealed," Odin said in a tone that suggested the argument was over. Thor seethed. Loki hid a grin. Once things cooled down, he would happily volunteer to work on improving their defenses. It would help him sleep better at night, knowing it was at least a little more difficult for a thief to take the Casket, the Cauldron of Life, the Infinity Gauntlet, or any number of other dangerous treasures.

And yet, unbelievably, Thor did not give up. "As King of Asgard, I would-"

"You are not king yet," Odin growled. Finally, Thor's cocky attitude broke. No, he was not king yet, and from the look on Odin's face at the moment might not ever be. Just like any child of the Aesir, Thor was afraid of his father and would back down when he knew he could push no further. The villains of the childrens' stories Thor and Loki had grown up with were not monsters or witches as was standard in the literature Loki had later encountered from other races. No, in Asgard, the villains were the children, or they were the parents. No exceptions.

Loki's victory soured at the thought. He had won a reprieve from Thor's ascendancy, but he still lived in the asylum.

Maybe he should move to Midgard, he thought suddenly as he followed his father and brother out of the sodden vault. There were enough people and resources there, surely he could go unnoticed and unbothered...

Author's note: original fairy tales and stories from mythology make very alarming children's stories. There are too many instances of children killing their parents or vice versa. Thor might act as if he lives in a story, but Loki knows that's a horrible place to live.