Loki awoke hours before dawn unable to go back to sleep. It was far earlier than he had said he would meet Heimdall, though. He got up and dressed, then sat and stewed in his rooms for a bit. He was too restless to stay here. He would check on Odin. He got up and walked the short way down the corridor to his parents' suite and let himself in. Frigga was still there, napping on a chair. Loki did not disturb her, but walked up to the edge of Odin's bed. Odin looked peaceful in this strange sleep, at least. Loki was still skeptical that Odin was really, truly aware of what was happening around him, but he supposed it did not hurt to pretend. "Good morning, Father," he said softly. "I go to make peace with Jotunheim today." He smiled deviously. "I am excited for the trip. There is a risk of course, but I am hopeful, and it will be interesting to see more of the world that made me. Preferably, there will not be a blizzard this time."
"Loki?" Frigga inquired from her chair sleepily.
"It's me," he confirmed.
She smiled and snuggled further into her blankets. "Thank you for coming to see him. I know you're busy darling, but could you do me a favor and check on Thor?"
"Heimdall is watching him," Loki told her.
"Is he? That's good. But a mother always worries, especially since I can't see him back any time soon. He must be so lonely and confused and frightened." Loki raised his eyebrows. Now that would be a sight to see, Thor frightened. His mirth faded within seconds however. He probably should look in on Thor.
"I will make a sending to him. I have time before I must treat with Laufey," he said.
"Thank you, dear." Loki smiled. He walked over to her chair and kissed her forehead, then headed back out, back to his own room. He went out onto the balcony and settled down on the bench under the night sky. He gazed in the general direction of Midgard and its star, Sol. He slowed his breathing and thought of Thor, his handsome looks, his winning smile, his infectious laugh, his proud nature, his loving heart, his stupid head, everything that made his brother, his brother. His eyes fell out of focus, and he closed them. When he opened them again, his awareness had shifted seventy lightyears away to the surface of Midgard.
He looked around with interest. It was midmorning here. He was in a desert. If he was here in person, he was sure it would be horribly hot. There were distant mountains, which from the angle of the sun were north and west of him. He turned in place and saw a very new-appearing structure which was unmistakably military in origin. He wondered what Thor had gotten himself into so quickly. He started walking in a straight line, passing directly through the walls, since his sending was mental only and relied in part on Thor's thoughts to work here. Strangely, Thor was nowhere to be seen, yet this was the location where his thought dwelt... Loki laughed softly. The humans had found Mjolnir. That had to be the explanation. And Thor had come for his hammer, and been apprehended. He was probably still in the facility somewhere. Loki just had to find him.
He found Mjolnir first. The humans had built a containment area around the hammer when they discovered it was unbelievably heavy and surrounded by the mark of the Bifrost, and built everything else out from there. There was something odd about the hammer, Loki thought. He modified his sending to give it magical sight and saw new runes blazing with the fire of Odin's own magic inscribed on the thing. They read, "Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor." Interesting. So Odin did intend for Thor to get his powers back at some point, by means of the hammer as predicted. The words were vague, though. Loki would presume Odin intended the spell to be specific to Thor, but it was possible anyone who met the criteria for worthiness would be candidates. He would figure it out later. He moved away, traveling in slowly expanding circles as he searched for Thor. Just when he decided he was going to have to come back later or risk being late for Laufey, he found his brother. He was stuck tied to a chair in what was obviously a prison cell despite the hasty construction with transparent walls, although it would never have held him if he were still himself. He appeared unhurt, but he also looked as if he had been...crying.
Loki's heart went out to his brother, but his mind pulled it back. Thor had been banished for a reason. There was no way in hell Loki would let him back on Asgard now with Odin out of commission, not until the trouble with Jotunheim was put completely to rest.
There was a human here, questioning Thor. "It's not easy to do what you did," the man was saying. "You made us all look like a bunch of mall cops. That's hurtful." Well, at least Thor had given a good accounting of himself. "The men you so easily subdued are highly-trained professionals, and in my experience, it takes someone who's received similar training to do what you did to them. Would you like to tell me where you received your training?" Thor did not answer him, obviously. What could Thor say? Asgard? "Pakistan?" The human persisted. "Chechnya? Afghanistan? Then again, you strike me more as the soldier of fortune type. What was it, South Africa?" Loki was insulted on Thor's behalf for the implication he was a mercenary. The human leaned in closer to Thor. "Certain groups pay well for a good mercenary. Especially HYDRA." Norns, human politics were even more confusing now than they used to be, Loki thought. How many enemies did this human have? "Who are you?" the human demanded.
"Just a man," Thor said softly, sadly. Loki's poor, fool brother was giving up hope.
The human was not impressed. "One way or another, we always find out what we want to know. We're good at that." Loki made a mental note to instruct Heimdall to extract Thor the moment it looked like the humans might decide to physically torture him. That would be unacceptable. Finally, the human left. Thor lowered his head just as Loki stepped through the wall, made himself visible with garments mimicking the human's who had left so no one would decide Thor was insane for talking to him, and smiled at him.
"I thought he'd never leave," he said brightly, grinning when Thor jerked in surprise.
"Loki? What are you doing here?"
"This is a sending. I had to see you."
"What's happened? Tell me! Is it Jotunheim? Let me explain to Father -"
"Father is dead," Loki interrupted. The words just slipped out. As soon as he saw Thor's reaction, he knew the lie was probably the best thing he could have possibly said. Here Thor was, banished and stripped of his powers and future, and he was still stuck on the exact same thought he had been all day yesterday. Loki supposed he could charitably attribute that to actual worrying about the fate of his realm, but Loki was not feeling particularly charitable. He was confident Thor was still thinking of the conflict with Jotunheim as a feud to be won, not as a war to be averted. The only consequences Thor actually understood and cared about were death or grievous injury to the people he, personally, loved. Anything less than that was just ornament to the grand story he told himself about himself.
"What?" Thor said, stunned.
"Your banishment, the threat of a new war, it was too much for him to bear," Loki said more truthfully. He did not regret deceiving Thor. Not now, not when Thor needed to focus on his own self-actualization, not politics back on Asgard and Jotunheim. He would have plenty of time to apologize for this later assuming Odin did survive. If he did not... then the death of their father was, mostly, Thor's fault, and he had to accept responsibility for his actions.
Thor took him absolutely at his word, and Loki could see the one hundred eighty degree flip in his face. Thor decided he had murdered their father, not just been an enormous pain in their collective rear end. Wonderful. Now he was going to break Thor the other way. Thor was so... black-and-white. He had no conception of the grays of the world. He stepped closer. "Look at me. You must not blame yourself for all of this. Odin was ill, and he kept that from us. I know you loved him. He knew that too..." he should stop talking. He was making this worse, not better. Thor started crying but didn't say anything. Loki cast about, trying to think of a distraction, no, a motivation for Thor to focus on. Something that would help him transform the pain he was currently feeling into something useful for whatever personal growth Odin was hoping for.
The answer was obvious once he thought of the problem from Odin's perspective. This was going to be tricky, though. He had to make Thor see Odin both as prize and punisher. Which meant he would risk doing the same for himself, simply because what he had done and was about to do would confuse Thor terribly if and when he discovered Odin was not dead. He once again assumed the suggestive, appealing tone of voice that Thor responded to so well. He only said one thing with that almost hypnotic tone: "It was cruel to put the hammer within your reach, knowing you could never lift it." That would give Thor something constructive to think about. How could he become worthy of the hammer again?
Loki stepped back a little. "The burden of the throne has fallen to me now," he said, changing the subject back to mere updates.
"Can I come home?" Thor asked quietly. For the love of Bor, he sounded like a child. Could Thor not think at all right now? He was mortal! He could not live for more than a short time unless he regained his powers, potentially even shorter in Asgard where the magnetosphere was not so strong as Midgard's and the atmosphere was consequently more radioactive. (There was a reason all Asgardians were born with regenerative magic; it was the first kind their species had evolved). Loki worried if he explained that now, though, Thor would sink further into despair, seeing the task as impossible rather than an achievable goal.
"The truce with Jotunheim is conditional upon your exile," Loki said instead.
"But couldn't we find a way to-"
"No," Loki said firmly. "Mother said you cannot." Technically true, although not of course in the way that Thor would interpret it. Thor nodded, defeated. He looked down and sniffled. Loki felt both pity and irritation for his brother, but he was done here. He had to go meet with Laufey. "This is goodbye, brother. I'm so sorry."
"No, I'm sorry. Loki... thank you for coming here."
"Nothing could have stopped me," Loki said, and he even meant it, although the visit had been Mother's idea. He heard footsteps outside, and he released the physical appearance of his sending instants before the human interrogator returned. "Farewell, Brother," Loki said.
"Goodbye," Thor said.
"Good-bye? I just got back," the human said. Loki heard that much, but he was already walking away. He did briefly swing back by the room containing Mjolnir. There were a great many footprints scuffing the runes of the Bifrost, oriented in ways that suggested many, many men had attempted and failed to lift the hammer. That was good. But was it just because they were weak mortals, or because they had not met the spell's specifications? Loki approached the hammer. His form may be only a sending, but it carried his magic with it, and his magic was far stronger than his arm. He crafted a hand for himself, disillusioned of course so the humans would not notice. He grasped the hammer handle and pulled. Mjolnir was immovable as always. He tried a few more times, increasing the power of the spell, but the hammer did not budge, as if set in stone instead of sand. Well, either he was not worthy, or the weapon was still spelled for Thor specifically. Or it did not like his phantom hand. It did not matter. He was satisfied Thor's power was safe.
He released the sending. If any humans had been watching, they might have noticed a man-shaped gout of green appear and vanish. Loki opened his eyes back in his room in Asgard. The sun was finally crossing the horizon after their long night. Briefly, he wondered how many days Thor had experienced so far. Midgard was both farther away from the center of the galaxy, less massive than Asgard despite its larger radius, and spinning faster. Its days were therefore observationally shorter but relativistically longer than Asgard's, so Loki would have to check a star chart to calculate the difference, if he cared to. Which he did not at the moment. He got up and started towards the stables, where General Tyr and a hand-picked squad of Einherjar were supposed to meet him. He would still be going to Jotunheim alone, but Tyr would be on standby should Loki require extraction. Loki strongly believed in not only a primary plan, but second, third, and fourth backup options. He was not going to be caught off-guard again.
Author's note: there is an asynchrony of days between Earth and Asgard and Jotunheim for several reasons. Firstly and most obviously, they're different planets spinning at different speeds. Obviously the days are different. However, I'm also referencing relativity effects: gravitational fields actually affect the flow of time. Time passes ever-so-slightly slower at higher altitudes because the effect of gravity is weaker. Midgard has shorter rotational days, however the gravity is less (one reason Asgardians seem so strong, perhaps?), and being further away from the center of the galaxy, that gravitational effect also gets to be less, thus while Thor goes through multiple Earth days, absolute time is passing slower for Thor at the moment than it is for Loki. This is another reason Loki doesn't want mortal Thor to come home for his own sake. And the fact of Earth's faster rotation means the planet's magnetic field must be stronger than Asgard's (I think? I'm not a geophysicist), because the rotation within the iron core of the planet is what produces the field in the first place. And if I'm going to science- and logic-up the Thor stories, I might as well explain why every alien species seem to have some kind of regenerative superpower: makes sense if Earth's magnetic field is actually unusually strong in the grand scheme of things. Humans are the weird ones for never needing to evolve regeneration for lack of constant radioactive bombardment...until the X-men show up once humans start clobbering the ozone layer and unleashing nuclear weapons... lol. That's my fun nerdy head cannon and I'm sticking to it.