Loki had plenty of time to think on the long ride back to the palace, mulling over all the mistakes he had made that morning as well as what Thor's fate actually meant. He decided when he thought about it rationally that Odin probably hadn't pared down Thor's life to that of a human's, at least, not exactly. He had definitely stripped away the vast majority of Thor's magical ability; Loki could see that much as it happened. Magic conferred much of the longevity of an Asgardian via supernatural durability and regeneration. With so little of it left to him, Thor was very physically vulnerable and would undoubtedly age faster than he would have otherwise, but still not as fast as a real human.
All that was to say, Loki was slightly less horrified and guilt-ridden by the time they reached the city. Only slightly, though. Even if Thor managed not to be killed in his squishy mortal body, he would grow old and die sometime in the next five hundred years, and Loki would outlive him by two millennium or more. His mood was not helped by the alarmed stares from everyone who saw the empty saddle. Odin had brought sleipna for their whole party. Loki led the one intended for Thor. Thor was popular. His movements were always marked. His failure to return was as well.
When they got to the stables, Loki decided he did not want to keep accompanying Odin. He did not want to see Mother yet. He would have to commiserate with her about Thor's banishment and mortality. He did not think he could stomach the hypocrisy the way he was feeling. "Unless you need me further, Father, I will depart," Loki said, keeping his voice perfectly even.
"To where?" Odin asked.
"To the healing chamber, and thence to the vault. Thor was right about one thing: we must identify the breach in our security. So that is what I will try to do. If I cannot identify the gap precisely, I will at least try to come up with additional security measures to keep something like this from happening again."
Odin smiled at him, and he actually looked proud. "I will meet you there, after I have spoken with your mother." Loki nodded. By then, he would be ready.
Loki briefly detoured to the pantry before stopping by the healing chamber, where he was relieved to find Fandral stabilized, awake, and already flirting with his nurses. Volstagg's frozen arm was actually proving to be the more problematic injury for their master healer Lady Eir. Loki was sure she would fix it in time, but she had had to debride off a great swath of dead skin and muscle before starting the regenerative process. The wound currently looked worse now than it had when Loki first saw it.
"Where's Thor?" Sif asked softly.
"Odin banished him to Midgard," Loki said shortly. He did not feel like explaining further at the moment. He feared he would become nauseated if he tried.
"We should never have let him go," Volstagg grunted. To Jotunheim, he meant.
"There was no stopping him," Sif pointed out.
"At least he's only banished, not dead. Which is what we'd all be if that guard hadn't told Odin where we'd gone," Fandral said.
"How did the guard even know?" Volstagg wondered.
"I told him," Loki admitted.
"What?" Fandral asked, pushing himself up on his elbows and turning to stare at him.
"I told him to go to Odin after we'd left." Loki picked up a healing stone and threw it into the fire. The stone dissolved into calming incense that did little for Loki's low spirits. "He should be flogged for taking so long," he grumbled insincerely.
"You told the guard?" Fandral actually had the nerve to sound upset.
"I saved our lives! And Thor's." Mostly. "I had no idea Father would... banish him for what he did," Loki replied irritably.
"Loki, you're the only one who can help Thor now," Sif said earnestly. "You must go to the Allfather and convince him to change his mind!" It was unbelievable how loyal these people were to Thor. If they talked much longer, no doubt this entire situation would be Loki's fault in their minds rather than Thor's... which it was, but not for the reasons they thought.
"And if I do, then what? I love Thor more dearly than any of you, but you know what he is. He's arrogant. He's reckless. He's dangerous. You saw how he was today. Is that what Asgard needs from its king?" The others fell silent. He had a point, and today, even without the whole monstrous truth, they could not fail to see it. Loki handed Volstagg the bag of sweets he had snitched for him in sympathy, and departed.
When Loki came to the long hallway leading up to the weapons vault, he walked it as himself, alone and fully visible. It was a novel experience. The guards at the end of it were on high alert this time and stopped him. "My prince, none may enter here."
"Correction. I may enter. The Allfather knows I am here to investigate the breach earlier today. He will be joining me shortly." Loki waited confidently. After only a brief hesitation, the guard bowed and stepped aside. One of his fellows unlocked the heavy door and pushed it open. Loki stepped through and closed the door behind him.
He looked around and forgot all his morose thoughts about his brother. He had other things to worry about. The ice had all melted, but the floor was still soaked. Mercifully, the two bodies were gone. He was not sure if they had been removed or if the Jotnar underwent similar postmortem mystical decay as Asgardians, not that it particularly mattered. He walked over to where they had been, even though he did not expect to find anything of interest there. As he walked, he drew an illusion about himself, a simple one that looked exactly as he did. This was for Heimdall's benefit, as the Watcher was doubtless paying more attention to the vault than usual. The illusion peeled off of him and appeared to investigate the scene further, while Loki stopped where he was with a second illusion keeping him invisible. This second illusion he expanded outwards for several feet around him, until he was enclosed in a bubble of unnoticeability that did not actually touch him. Inside it, he simply looked like himself. He raised up his hands and inspected them. There were a few nicks from the ice battle in the fair skin.
Where had the blue come from? If it was some strange Jotun curse, it was now gone, but the Jotun's surprise suggested it was not that. Rather, it would seem the blueness had come from Loki, involuntarily. He concentrated on one finger, studying the veins of magic coursing through his substance. He did not understand. All the magic there was his. Carefully, he started pushing magic out of his fingertip. All of it. He could not do that for long, of course, or he would lose his hand, but he could do it long enough to see... his fingertip turned blue.
Stunned, Loki let go of his hold on the magic and watched his normal coloring flow back up his nail. His appearance was magical? He started analyzing the magic in his finger again. This time, he did not look for foreign elements but rather the special dimensions of it. He found something, of course. Uncast magic should be unformed power, but his was not. Some of the magic was that of a sophisticated illusion. When he looked further, he found the same spell covered his entire body, inside and out. Every part of him was enchanted to look like something it was not. He felt a sudden, unspeakable need to know what the spell was hiding. He widened his own unnoticeable field further, then took hold of the illusion that masked his form with his mind, holding it in place as he stepped out of it like a snake shedding its skin. When he did, the illusion standing in front of him was complete, naked, and perfect in every way. He could see the same nicks on its hands, see the pores in its skin. With trepidation, he looked down at his own hands. They were deep blue again, both of them this time. He pulled up his sleeve and confirmed it was not just the hands. He conjured a mirror... the face of a Jotun stared back at him. Blue skin, red eyes, everything. Loki dropped the mirror. It vanished into green sparks. He dropped his hold on his...disguise. It flew back over him; the anchor that held it was unusually strong.
He concentrated on that, the method of enchantment. It was an insignificant magical technicality but a welcome distraction from the looming existential threat to the very foundations of his identity. How had this even happened? It was his own magic! How could he not know about it? This was like no spell he knew... because it was not Aesir. Of course he would never have read about it. His affinity for illusions was already unusual and something Odin lacked. Odin had not done this to him. Frigga had not done this to him. Somehow, he had done this to himself... presumably as a babe-in-arms. Numb, he walked towards his other illusion, which was pacing the perimeter of the chamber, and allowed it to merge back with him.
What did he do now? Odin was coming. What would he say? How would he say it? Could he say nothing...? No, not really, not now they were back in the full throes of conflict with Jotunheim. He turned his feet back towards the center of the room. Absentmindedly, he noted the coin he had enchanted to get them into this mess. He picked it up and pocketed it. He came back to look at the Casket of Ancient Winters on its pedestal. Why did Laufey even want the thing so much to risk renewing the war knowingly? It was a powerful weapon and useful to the Jotuns in terraforming for a new colony, but still. Loki scolded himself mentally. He should have been able to answer that question yesterday before he opened the trap. He should have accounted for every variable he could both yesterday and today, and he had not.
It was because he was tired. Tired of being the only thinking person he knew. Odin may be wise by Asgardian standards, but that was the wisdom of experience. Odin knew the patterns of life. He did not know how to break those patterns, or he would never have planned to put Thor on his throne. The way Loki's mind worked was completely different... because he was not the same species. At least now he knew why he did not fit in here, why he was not happy here. The knowledge left him even more depressed, though. His life could have been different. Would he have been happy and fit in elsewhere, on Jotunheim? Could he still? Or if he went to Jotunheim, would the giants find him stunted? He was shorter than the giants they had seen, definitely. But was he also mentally different, from growing up here with all these thoughtless Aesir? He may not have a place anywhere in the whole universe.
Loki's ears twitched as he heard footsteps outside the vault. He pushed aside his doubts and stepped towards the casket. When Odin opened the door, he reached his hands forwards and watched as the dangerous cold turned his hands blue again. The reaction to ice magic must be defensive, he thought detachedly. The illusion was more than skin deep. It was actually influencing his physiology, because it was not an intentional illusion but a much more sophisticated adaptation to his environment. It allowed him to tolerate Asgard's warm climate; it was probably what made him stop growing. It had to roll back for him to tolerate the ice of Jotunheim. Recklessly, he actually picked up the casket, letting the cold roll over him. He heard the rattle of the Destroyer waking behind him and found he did not at the moment care. Nor did he care if Heimdall was watching all of this. The Liesmith was done with secrets.
"Stop!" Odin cried. Loki slowly turned around to face Odin and allowed the genuine fear to show in his face. Odin's expression matched his.
"Am I cursed?" he asked. The words slipped out, childish as they were. He wasn't cursed, unless this Aesir illusion counted.
Odin wilted before him, his very body voicing his apology. "No. Put the casket down." Loki set the casket back upon its pedestal, his body quickly returning to its normal form and color. He stared at his father.
"What am I?" he wanted to hear Odin say it.
"You're my son," Odin said.
Loki felt a flash of pure anger. He did not want platitudes. "What more than that?" he asked bitingly. Odin did not answer him. Loki's anger burned higher. An explanation was the least Odin owed him. He would have it, so help him. "The casket wasn't the only thing you took from Jotunheim that day, was it?" Loki was born the same year as the destruction of Jotunheim's great capital city, the ruins they had just revisited. The same year Odin had brought back the Casket of Ancient Winters as a trophy of war. Supposedly, Frigga had hidden the pregnancy because of the war, which had reached its most violent period, not wanting to present a tender target.
Odin met his accusing eyes and sighed. "No," he finally admitted. "In the aftermath of the battle, I went into the temple, and I found a baby. Small for a giant's offspring - abandoned, suffering, left to die. Laufey's son." Loki's heart skipped a beat, and fear surged again. That was... not what he expected. It was worse in so many ways.
"Laufey's son..." he repeated. Abandoned? Then he reigned in his panicked first impulse and reminded himself to listen skeptically. Odin, like all the Aesir, was a simpleton at heart. He might be telling Loki what he believed, but that did not make it true. So, Loki was found alone in a temple. As an infant. Whether that was because he was truly abandoned or because his minders had been killed in the battle was unclear. Small for a giant, but that could mean anything. He could have been born prematurely, or perhaps Odin had merely never seen an actual Jotun newborn before. Who knew? Besides Laufey and the Jotun queen. Norns, Loki did not even know her name. "Why? You were knee-deep in Jotun blood. Why would you take me?" Loki asked. This was the most important question, perhaps. Did Odin take him out of pity, misguided as it might have been, or for political gain?
"You were an innocent child," Odin said. Pity, then, or so Odin held. Good. That was good. He felt marginally reassured. Only marginally, though.
"You took me for a purpose, what was it?" Loki probed, not trusting his father's answer. When Odin did not reply that as good as confirmed Loki's suspicion, and his wrath grew hot again. "Tell me!" he shouted at his father.
"I thought we could unite our kingdoms one day, bring about an alliance, bring about a permanent peace... through you. But those plans no longer matter."
No longer mattered? Loki thought frantically. Why? Because of what had just happened? Or something else? Was he at risk or not? "So I am no more than another stolen relic, locked up here until you might have use of me," Loki voiced the most dangerous conclusion.
"Why do you twist my words?" Okay, so that was not what Odin meant...
"You could have told me what I was from the beginning. Why didn't you?" It was the logical, obvious thing to do when your child was not even the same species as you.
"You are my son. My blood." No, he very definitely, very obviously, wasn't. "I wanted only to protect you from the truth." Oh, Norns, it was so hard to follow the logic of a fearfully illogical brain. What did Odin think he was protecting him from by concealing his own genetics? What if he had fallen ill with something unique to his species? Or what if he had wanted to marry an Aesir woman and have a family in a union doomed all-unknowing to infertility? Why risk a child's health and future happiness like this?
"Because I am the monster parents tell their children about at night?" That made as much sense as any other explanation would, he figured.
"Don't..." Odin breathed.
Loki shook his head. No, Odin really never bore him any malice, not in taking him from his home, not in keeping his origins secret. It was just thoughtlessness. This would be funny if it wasn't so, so horrible. Odin had found him, the perfect political hostage, and never figured out what to do with him because the circumstances of the acquisition were too confusing. He had never said anything to Loki, because he did not know how. He could not see the need, even as the differences between his sons kept piling up, and even as Loki silently suffered for them. "It all makes sense now. Why you favored Thor all these years," he said bitterly. He could not help but think it would have been easier to find contentment in his life here if his... uniqueness... had been acknowledged by his family. Acknowledgment was necessary for valuation. By pretending Loki was Asgardian and raising him in ignorance of his heritage, Odin disrespected Loki. Because deep down, Odin disrespected the Jotnar, just as Thor did. Just as Loki had, until today.
"Listen..." Odin protested. Loki ignored him. Why should he listen to more lies or more foolishness?
"No matter how much you claim to 'love' me," Loki continued mercilessly, "you could never have a Frost Giant sitting on the Throne of Asgard..."
He finally stopped his tirade because he suddenly noticed something was very wrong with Odin. His body was shaking, and it... kept phasing in and out of the visible light spectrum. Quickly, Loki looked with his magical sight instead, and what he saw was both strange and terrible. Odin was literally falling apart, and not from too little magic but from too much. It was rolling off him and draining into other dimensions, which was the cause of the visual effect. Loki had never witnessed such a thing before. Nor could the king seem to see him anymore. "Listen to me!" Odin shouted, even though Loki was now silent. "Loki!" He stumbled and fell back against a wall, screaming in undisguised agony. Loki hastened to him, but he did not know what was happening. He did not know what to do. Healing was not one of his magical interests. Maybe it should be...
Odin fell still in his arms, but he was not dead. His magical pattern collapsed down into something more stable, although far from normal. "Guards!" Loki shouted. He had to shout several times before anyone actually opened the door. He found he was crying when several sets of hands took Odin from him. He might be angry with and even still afraid of Odin at the moment, but Odin was still the only father he had ever known, and whom he deeply and fiercely loved.
"What happened?" a guard asked urgently.
"I don't know," Loki said. "I don't know... I don't know." His shock was showing for all to see. At least there was an explanation for it. Someone helped him up and guided him from the vault. Someone said to station additional guards at the vault and to send a messenger to Heimdall to find out if he had seen any of what happened.
Author's note: I don't have any particular notes for this chapter. Will continue to update on Fridays, and as always, reviews are appreciated.