It felt good to get away from the boy's persistent chattering. It was as if he'd not had anyone to talk to and was making up for it all with Loki. Never mind that it was a completely one-sided conversation. Being forced into such a partnership with a human frayed his patience as it was, but Book was of no use to him if he couldn't gain his trust.

And that was why Loki stood alone in the concrete washhouse. While the boy busied himself with his own schemes for the day, Loki was going hunting. A scant few miles outside the town, the countryside gave way to pastures and thick stretches of forest, the woods growing ever denser until they showed little to no signs of human habitation. These woods crept steadily up the sides of hills that turned into gentle mountains.

To gain the solitude of these trees—and to get away from the constant presence of Midgardians—Loki had volunteered to try and earn his way through acquiring fresh meat for their table—such as it was. The little problem of lack of hunting tools and the apparent illegality of his plan didn't cause Book more than a kind of disbelieving bemusement.

"What are you gonna do? Condescend the rabbits to death?" he had asked.

Oddly, despite his lack of faith in the outcome, Book hadn't objected. In fact he seemed almost as eager to get Loki away as Loki was to go. Curious.

He'd save those musings for another time. Now he simply wanted to wash the sleep from his face and try and comb some tangles from his hair. His thoughts must have wandered elsewhere because he didn't notice that the old, cracked mirror had been replaced until the early sun crept high enough to angle through the mesh covered slots around the top of the room.

He started as he caught his reflection in the wavy mirror. This was the first time he had seen himself clearly since being sentenced to this mortal hell. Hands clenched around the edges of the sink as he swallowed rising bile. There, around his mouth, were marks he hadn't seen in hundreds of years. Jagged scars bit into the tender flesh around his lips, some slicing into the lips themselves. They were old, pale with age; vicious scars immortalizing torn flesh and malicious care. They twisted and stretched—scars of childhood pulled tight by growth.

Leaning forward, he rested his head against the cool glass. With his magic gone—he ought to have known. He'd carried the smear of glamour for so long he hadn't actually had to think about it in hundreds of years. His magic had unconsciously fed it in the same way his heart beat and his lungs expanded without thought or order.

But the way the boy would look at him sometimes, a question clearly brewing. Considering the near constant stream of questions rattling from the child, it should have occurred to Loki to wonder why this one would never come. He wanted the answer—badly—but every time he nearly gave voice to his thoughts, he reined himself in, curiosity clearly weighed against something else and found wanting. Tact, perhaps. Or pity. Loki growled. How dare that weak creature look at him like that.

"Bad memories?" asked a voice.

Loki reeled back. His patron filled the mirror like swirling mist.

"Do you remember it, blood on golden thread?"

How?

"I know all there is to know of you, Loki. Even that which you try to forget. But how can you when the evidence is there on your face." His patron hummed in thought. "And to think how willingly you suffered for your brother then. And still he does not know?"

Be quiet! Loki snarled.

The coal-dark eyes narrowed into shards. "You alone are to blame for this, Trickster. Do as I wish and all will be restored to you. Your strength, your voice." She paused, the final promise drawn out alluringly, "your magic to hide your shame."

The mirror shattered. Loki slowly drew back his fist, letting the blood drip into the sink. Shaking himself, he shoved his injured hand into his pocket and eased out the door.

A few miles of angry hiking had done a great deal to calm his rage and distract him from the sick feeling twisting through his gut. That and the morbid desire to run his fingers over the pits and tears around his mouth. Huffing in irritation, he returned his focus to the vibrant new-green of the forest. Within the wood, animals would have already begun to venture out of their holes and take the edge off their winter leanness. All the better for him.

He'd never been overly fond of hunting. Or rather, he had been quite fond of the hunt and the chase, but less so of the kill. Squeamishness didn't play into it. He'd kill to eat or because an animal was dangerous and needed to be slain, but he was indifferent to killing as a sport.

Once, he and Thor had tracked a chunna for over a week, the clever beast always eluding them. Chunna were creatures fit for sport and fur hunting rather than for food. The closest Midgardian animal would be the fox, though, the chunna stood a bit taller and with much larger ears. They had striking, light golden coats with ruffs around their necks and a tufted plume atop their heads that ran in a ridge down their backs to become part of their large, brush-like tails. Unfortunately for them, this coat was much prized by the ladies at court.

This particular hunt was meant to end with a chunna skin to finish their mother's nameday present—a lavish cloak embroidered with delicate, interlocking designs in gold and silver thread upon a deep blue. But when they had finally cornered the creature, Loki hadn't really wanted to kill something that had offered such a chase. There had been a nearly sentient ingenuity to the way it evaded them. And while Thor's patience had grown thin after the first two days—after all, tracking a chunna wasn't nearly so glorious as trailing after a bilgesnipe or a giant boar—Loki had reveled in the game.

And so he'd stayed his hand. He'd finished the hunt not with a knife thrust, but a simple touch to the back of the creature's head. In his touch he gave the chunna its reward—spells of minor protection and intuition. Thor's lack of understanding had been truly impressive. He had suggested that perhaps their mother's cloak should be trimmed in Loki-skin to make up for their wasted effort. Loki had airily replied that it wasn't really in fashion.

He flexed his muscles to ease the tension suddenly building in them. Perhaps Thor still wanted to gift his mother a Loki-skin cloak—this one also blue, a Juton blue. He shied away from such thoughts. He was here to hunt. With a knife, stout branch, and a fire, he could fashion a spear with little difficulty. That had been one of the weapons he was quite skilled with, but given his inherent gifts, he wouldn't be needing any weapon. His real skills lay in tracking and his ability to become the perfect predator for any kind of prey. Midgardian fauna had never been an area of particular interest to him, but he knew they lacked many of the more aggressive types of animals that populated other realms.

A glis would be far too much, he thought. A hound then. Glancing around, he made sure he was quite alone as he prepared to slide from his natural—his Aesir—form into another. She may have taken his magic and much of his strength, but he didn't need magic to change shapes—rare though it was, he'd been born with the ability. The muscle along his jaw jumped. He'd started as an infant if Odin was to be believed—instinctive mimicry.

He crouched down, remembering what it felt to be a dog, the nose down, tail up kind of focus. It was an easy process to fall from one form into another, muscles sliding and stretching, organs moving and changing. Just as he began to feel the shift, a terrible tearing wrenched through his body.

His knees hit the damp ground. Fingers jammed into last year's leaves as a swallowed scream dripped from his lips. It was as if iron spikes had been driven through his skin and into his bones and when the muscles tried to move, they tore loose from where they had been tacked down.

The memory of a thousand needles driving into him surfaced as he remembered when She had made a prison of him. He hadn't realized then what she had done. Swallowing, he rocked back on his heels, feeling the cold wet of the ground creeping up his knees. Gritting his teeth, he focused on his arm, carefully willing it to ease into fur and paw. The ripping sensation grew as pinpricks of blood dotted his skin. Hunched around his arm, he gasped for breath, letting go of the change and settling back into his normal state.

Even this, he thought raggedly, even this She would take from me. He ignored the way his own skin felt suddenly too tight. His head hung loosely between his shoulders as he hunched on the ground, hair a lank screen for his face. A hint of a laugh curled in the back of his throat as he rolled his neck out slowly, eyes roving the clearing. Shaking himself out, he unfolded from the ground and spared the clearing one last look over his shoulder. An expression of confident challenge ran through his body and settled across his scarred lips. Is this all that you bring against me?

By the time he had covered the miles back into town the sun was angling ever deeper into the west and hunger had gnawed its way through his confidence. In its place snarled irritability and a growing sense of being hemmed in.

Plunging into the darkness of the entry hall, Loki paused as he waited for his eyes to adjust. Up ahead he could hear the boy's particular brand of clattering. He considered easing back outside in order to avoid the questions the child seemed no longer able to contain. Even if Loki had been willing, he was certainly far from able to answer. And oh, how he wished to. Simply being able to give voice to anything would have been a comfort. Try though he might, he could only manage animalistic grunts. Not that this was the first time he'd endured enforced silence, but he'd never known a magic that could take a voice. One that could swallow the sound of words, physically bind the lips or throat—but not this. The sliding fear in the back of his mind whispered that he may never retrieve his voice if he did not bow to Her wishes.

He rolled his shoulders and shook off the thought. Hitching up his bag, he headed toward the "Pit" as Book called their main living area. Something caught his interest just out of the corner of his eye. He paused and backtracked. The whitewashed cinderblock wall down the righthand side of the passage was no longer bare. Blurbs of somewhat clumsy writing speckled the length of the hall.

Loki peered at the sentences. They were all questions: Where are you from? Do you have any siblings? How'd you lose your voice? How old are you? How'd you get on the street? What's the story behind your name? Where's your family?

The onslaught of questions never ended. Loki jerked away from them. So this was what the child had been devising.

"Who's got the mad idea skills?" asked Book as he popped up next to Loki. He grinned and gestured at his handiwork. "See, it's like a giant message board. Now we can actually have some conversations that aren't some never ending game of twenty questions." He held up a tin can, rattling the thick black markers jammed into it. "You can use these. I kind of killed one already, but if we run out I can get more and…what's wrong?" He'd noticed Loki glaring at him.

What right have you to know anything!

The boy frowned. "Look you don't have to answer them all. I just thought well…it would help if we could get to know one another a bit better. Why don't you just try one?" He held out the can.

It clattered to the ground as Loki smacked it away and stalked past the boy. For an instant, Book just stood there. Then he knelt down, gathered up the scattered markers and put them back in the can, setting it on the ground by the wall.

"Here's a question for you, Loki," he said stiffly, partially hidden by the shadows in the hall. "Why'd you go hungry tonight?" He snorted, "Don't worry, I think I know the answer." With that, his steps retreated, light flashed briefly into the darkness, and the door slammed shut.

Loki dropped his bag by his pallet and sunk down beside it, balled fists pressed against his knees. He swallowed thickly. A wave of claustrophobia rushed over him, pressing down on his lungs so that it was like breathing with Mjolnir on his chest. His nails bit into his palms and he resisted the urge to tear off his own skin.

He'd gone decades without once changing shape, but that had been by choice—to not have the option at all…he surged to his feet and ripped off his outer layers, stripping down to his undershirt and tearing off his shoes. Pressing through the slender gap in the crates, he forced his way out into the main warehouse, its high, grimy windows letting the reddening sun slant across the vacant expanse.

For a moment he stood against the light, listening to his heart try and tear itself from his chest. Then he began to move, flowing through the stances he'd been adapting for hundreds of years. They were not the thick, bullish moves of Thor or most Asgardians, nor even the modified strategies used by Lady Sif or the maiden warriors. These were a swirling dance of movement, forms based on avoidance and the turning aside of an enemy's attack. A warrior was fast, but Loki was faster, sliding always just out of reach. A coward's approach he'd been told. He'd never seen the point in proving your valor by taking a blow—and the broken rib that went with it—when the same blow could have been avoided and exploited. But then he'd often known he was the only sane one.

Sweat trickled unnoticed down the nape of his neck as he dropped into the trance of movement—martial meditation he liked to call it. He reveled in the freedom of motion, the crushing sense of claustrophobia evaporating.

His arms swirled through the last form as he traced out a crescent with his left foot before sinking his weight down onto it. Warmth shot through his muscles, a familiar ache welling up. He slicked back his sweat soaked hair and looked up to see moonlight just fingering the rusty edged windowpanes.

The crevice into the Pit spilled a beam of light into the dark expanse. The light brushed across a boy's silhouette. Loki pulled away into the shadows, crossing his arms over himself. Book just stared for a moment and then got to his feet.

"Tomorrow we learn about how to find a real shower," he said. He brushed at the seat of his pants and then squeezed back through the crack, momentarily cutting off the light.

Loki cursed himself soundly in every tongue he knew. If it was possible, the boy was more wary of him now than when he had first pulled him from the gutter. His flash of temper and display of martial skill had seen to that. That trust that had so very nearly been his was gripped tightly once more.

Though cordial enough on the surface, the tensions beneath were enough that even Thor would have noticed them. A single misstep now and the boy would either run or worse, set the realm's law officers on him. That would go poorly, and Loki had little doubt that being of interest to the authorities would eventually bring his presence to SHIELD's attention.

But this was hardly the most delicate situation Loki had ever found himself in. For the next few days he donned the cloak of one who knew he had acted rashly but was too proud to apologize. He imagined Book would have been astute enough to recognize a quick apology as nothing more than a placating gesture of manipulation.

The morning of the fourth day, Loki played his hand. Watching through cracked lids as he feigned sleep, he saw Book slide from his bed chamber and head down the hallway. As the boy walked out toward the door's sun-chinked outline, he paused and backtracked. He leaned forward to squint through the shadows, but Loki knew there was a new line of text beneath one of his questions. For a minute Book marveled at the neat, even lines that clashed with his unwieldy scrawl. He glanced back at Loki before heading out the door.

Slightly backlit, Book's expression had been unreadable. Loki only hoped that his action had been interpreted as an attempt at mending the rift between them by one who couldn't bring himself to say it in so many words. He'd spent much of the night deciding which of Book's questions to answer and how truthful to be. It had to be one that seemed to reveal something private and personal about himself. A touch of vulnerability and trust on his part as a peace offering. In the end he'd simply gone with the truth—though the elements that would mark him as a visitor from another realm were obscured.

Loki pushed himself up from the makeshift bed and brushed the dirt from his clothes. He had made his move. Now he had only to wait. His hooks were well set. The boy would forgive him and as long as he tread carefully, Book's waning trust could be rekindled and things could proceed.

It wasn't until that evening that he would have the chance to see if his assumptions were correct. The boy had been away all day and only returned after the sun had vanished. He carried an armload of scrap wood to burn against the strangely chill night.

"You've been busy," he said, nodding at the already snapping fire in the barrel. His satchel dropped from his shoulder with a thump as he sunk down beside it. Curling his arms round his leg, he rested his chin on his knee. "We'll need more wood before the week's out. It might snow on Thursday."

Loki looked at him quizzically. But surely winter is well passed by now. Things are in bloom.

Book huffed. "I know the flowers are out, but around here that doesn't mean much. I read once that there are actually three small winters after winter proper." He extended his fingers as he counted them off. "Redbud, Dogwood, and Blackberry. Whenever those are in bloom, better watch out, cause a cold front is coming."

There was an awkwardness in the way he carried himself, as if he weren't sure exactly what to do or say. Loki fought to keep his face passive. The boy was going to try and somehow mend fences. But he wasn't sure how to go about it.

"I read your message."

Yes, that much was obvious, thought Loki with an inward sigh. On the outside he carefully schooled his features to impassivity with just a bit of uncertainty leaking through—as if he wasn't already aware of how his overture had been received.

"This would explain some of your abandonment issues."

Loki's head whipped round. What?

"But it's okay, I get it." Book looked at him earnestly and with something like pity. "It's never easy to learn that your own parents didn't want you—and they couldn't even be bothered to give you up properly."

Loki found himself backing away slightly. This wasn't a direction he had foreseen.

Book raised his head and frowned in thought. "You were pretty old when you found out you were adopted, huh? Your folks really dropped the ball on that one—but a lot of adoptive parents are scared of how their kids might react."

Sinking down onto a box, Loki pressed his fingertips to his forehead. Dear, sweet Norns—he's trying to counsel me.

"But at least someone wanted you. I mean, your parents chose you. It's not like they had to keep you." He blew at a stray curl of hair that had fallen in front of his eyes. His voice dropped almost too quiet for Loki to hear. "I'd give anything to be adopted."

Flicking leaves into the coals, Book watched as they curled in upon themselves, a molten eye showing their skeletal veins until they flared and vanished. "You want to talk about unwanted? My mother threw me away. Literally. In the trash."

Loki glanced up, but Book continued to watch the leaves.

"Tossed me in the dumpster and left me to die. Great mothering skills right there. It was two days before someone found me. Thought maybe a cat had gotten closed up in there. Boy, were they surprised. So I get it. I understand what it feels like to be abandoned. But at least you had someone decide they wanted you. The people that found me just left me at the hospital, and they shuffled me off as soon as I was stable. Been shuffled around ever since."

He dropped his chin into his propped hand and sucked on the inside of his cheek. "That's how I got saddled with the most atrocious name in the history of anybody—ever." He took a steadying breath. "My name…is Hubert Aloysius Standish Salyer." Book closed his eyes against it as if the name pained him to admit.

Loki laughed. Just as much at the mournful look on Book's face as the great mouthful of a name. Granted, he found most Midgardian names odd sounding—but this was a tremendously unfortunate name for the child. Little wonder that you prefer Book.

"Thank you for reminding me why I don't let people know that." He huffed and pushed himself off the crate. "Why couldn't we be like those Nordic countries that have an official list you have to choose from—or at least a judge that would stop you from sticking a kid with a name like that! But oh no! We're American, we'll have none of that socialism here, thank you very much—just publicly funded this and welfare that—and standardized tests without enough spaces to actually fit your atrociously long name!"

The boy was working himself into a rant and Loki merely sat back. He knew they'd somehow strayed into politics, but this realm was filled with so many conflicting ideologies he hadn't really paid attention to them beyond the fact that it would all be irrelevant when he was king.

Book flopped back down with a noise a bit like a disgruntled horse. "I suppose it could be worse. I mean, the Puritans had some crazy names. I read about this one guy named If-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned Barebone. Or there was some guy in the Middle Ages whose parents actually named him Phillippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bambastus von Hohenheim."

There was a name Loki recognized. Or at least partially recognized. A renowned—and somewhat eccentric—Aesir had a similar name. He was considered the authority on alchemic reactions. Perhaps they were one and the same. He had disappeared to Midgard in his dotage.

"At least that name is kind of impressive. But no—I get Hubert Aloysius Standish Salyer. There is nothing remotely cool about Hubert." His mood seemed to drop away. Fiddling with the zipper on his open jacket, he ran it up and down the teeth. "It's worse than bad, though. It's not mine. Like I'm walking around in someone else's shoes and they pinch and rub, you know?"

Of course he did. He'd been walking around in a life that wasn't really his for centuries—doing everything he could to make it fit just right and always coming up short.

"Soon as I'm old enough I'm gonna change it."

Loki's eyes widened inquiringly.

"I don't know yet to what. I mean I've tried out all kinds of different ones, but I haven't found the right one yet. And it's gotta be unique, but not I'm-naming-my-baby-after-a-fast-food-chain unique." He waved his hands as he talked, casting flailing shadows behind him. "I guess I'll just know when I find it. It'll feel like mine."

Leaning his head back against the crates, Loki schooled his features to hide the bitterness creeping into his thoughts. Perhaps this mortal boy might hope to one day find his place in the universe and be content. Loki was not so delusional as to believe in hope.

Notes:

I know, I know, the "lips sewed shut" thing is a pretty common myth to work in. But I don't care, because I like blood imagery and it adds a nice little element to things later on.

I'm not a fan of Thor: Ragnarok (understatement of the century), but I suppose I should be grateful that it at least canonizes that MCU Loki is a full on shapeshifter rather than just using glamours or only being able to go from Juton to Aesir (for some reason). So yay…plus side to a movie that I otherwise have little use for.