Loki had known the minute he drained his magic that he wouldn't be able to help Book. That didn't keep him from lying to himself and everyone else for a few days and trying to find another way to get the boy out of the wolf. Futile. Even if he had magic, he doubted it would have helped. Changing shape was as easy for him as breathing—he didn't have to fight for it, it just happened. Try as he might, he couldn't seem to guide Book through the process. Ultimately it just wound up with both of them frustrated with one another.

It probably didn't help that the broken edges of their bond ground against one another any time they were even in the same room.

"Turn your focus inward, focus on your core." Loki sat on the arm of the couch, one leg drawn up and tucked into his chest. "Look for your center, for what makes you, you."

Book crouched on the floor, stiff-legged, back arched in acute concentration.

"Think of what it is to stand on two legs, to turn the pages of a book, to write your name."

The wolf growled. Shut up! I'm trying!

Loki arched back and gazed at the ceiling. He took a deep breath to even out his words. They'd been at this for over an hour and not so much as a quiver of change. Book couldn't even remember what it felt like to become the wolf—that had been lost in pain and fear. Why would a human be expected to know what it felt like to wear the skin of another—it was hardly natural? "You're trying too hard. Let it flow naturally, you can't force it to happen."

Book snorted and flashed his teeth. I can't do it! He sat back on his haunches and looked away, ears back.

"Yes, you can. You just have to find your way back to yourself…"

A sharp bark of anger cut Loki off. The wolf stood before him, fur spiked along its back, growling. No more of your space-buddha-zen-magic snake-oil! It's not working.

Loki started toward Book, but then thought better of it. Instead he clasped his hands behind his back and began to pace between the two steps down into the great room and the fireplace. Book was right. It wasn't working. It wasn't going to work. Even if Loki had more than an imperfect knowledge of what a shift ought to feel like for someone who wasn't a native-born shifter, he needed magic to spark the change and guide Book back to himself.

If it was even possible.

A human was never meant to be anything but human. There was every chance this was a one-time transformation. Loki tried to ignore that line of thinking, but it lurked at the edges of his thoughts. He may not have liked it, but his dislike did nothing to lessen the probability.

He paused at the mantel as if struck with a thought. He turned on his heel. "What if we were to try…" he trailed off as he met a wolf stare inches from his face. The boy's size and ferocity seemed to be the only things that would change. The wild eyes bored into him, sticky breath on his face.

You've got nothing. He snorted. And you know it. A shudder ran through the wolf from ears to tail.

"Not…nothing."

The wolf growled, clearly not having any of it. I want to bite something. The words came calmly, as if stating a fact. It would be better if you weren't an option. The wolf allowed that to sink in for a moment and then padded for the door, nudged it open, and disappeared over the porch railing.

"Loki?" Steve Roger's voice came from the front of the house as he stepped down into the great room.

The Asgardian sank onto the hearth, attention focused on the darker whorls within the hardwood floor. He studied them as the Captain started into the room. "I have decided that they were wrong. There are no men like me."

Curious as to where this was going, Steve dropped his coat over the back of a chair and closed the distance between them. He didn't speak, waiting for Loki to finish his thought.

"A bit of kindness and I repay with a monstrous curse. Book would have done well to leave me in the gutter." He shook his head at the thought, remembering the night so many, many months ago when the child stepped into the rain to bring him somewhere warm and dry.

"That's not entirely fair," said Rogers. "You did save his life."

Loki waved it away. "I prolonged it. There is a difference." His gaze grew distant. Images of the Allfather clutching a child against the blowing cold mingled with spears of memory from the weapons' vault. His terror, disbelief, wildly clutching at anything to make sense of the world. The man who had been his father at his feet. "Better to die than live to be made a monster."

"Book is still Book. Just because he's a bit different on the outside now doesn't change who he was before."

Do you speak from experience, Captain? Loki thought.

Steve picked up two glass pebbles from the game Stark and Banner sometimes played. They scrapped against one another as he rolled them between his fingers. "I'm guessing you didn't see this coming. It wasn't your intent, but your actions did get the ball rolling. Maybe you can't fix Book, maybe he stays this way for the rest of his life—but you owe it to him to make sure that he's looked after."

"That will be rather hard from the depths of the Allfather's prison," said Loki blandly.

Steve looked at him with a friendly, open smile. "Oh, I don't know, you seem like a pretty resourceful guy. I'm sure something will come to you." He dropped the stones back onto the board and gave another smile as farewell.

Loki pondered the Captain's words—ultimately useless as they were. Was there an angle that he hadn't considered? A resource dismissed out of hand? His eyes narrowed as they fell on the gleaming glass stones. Green and brown…just like Book's eyes. He stooped to catch up the stones and held them in his palm.

That was something he hadn't fully considered. He and Book were no different than these gaming pieces. Skuld maneuvered them toward some outcome beyond his knowledge. And it suited her ends for Book to be the wolf, for Loki to be powerless. But why?

Shaking his head, he stalked onto the porch, scanning the fog-shrouded trees for any sign of the wolf. Pale morning sunlight struggled through the mist, but it was still too dense to see more than the soft shadows of pines and the muted colors of other trees.

As he pressed his hands against the railing, a sound began to swell out of the still woods. The lonesome howl lanced through the crisp air, ringing back from the mountains in an echoing chorus. The single howl spawned a pack of echoing replies.

In that moment, Loki knew exactly why Book was a wolf. It was the same reason he'd taken in Loki in the first place. His jaw clenched as the echoes faded away and Book's single, lonely howl remained.

Conviction gripped him. Book was not going to remain like this, Loki owed him that much. The tension in his shoulders melted away as he realized he only had one choice. Now he understood why Skuld had played the game that she had. She wanted him backed into a corner. She wanted him desperate. It had been masterfully done too. There was only one person in the universe that could help. A person Loki's self-interest would never have allowed him to turn to. But right now, with that mournful cry still hanging in the air, his own interests didn't seem that important.

A gentle warmth rose in him, filling the empty pits of his being. His eyes slid closed as he raised his face to the sky. Magic—his own magic wove itself into the hollowness. It seemed Skuld approved of his choice.

There was no euphoria, no rush of giddy emotions like when he had siphoned power from Mjolnir. He blinked hard as the world suddenly jumped into clearer focus and the weakness of his body fell away. He simply felt right and whole in a way he had forgotten was possible. The last of Skuld's chains had dropped away. Everything that had been stripped from him was returned. His voice, his shape-changing, his magic, and his strength.

His first instinct was naturally to bolt. A depreciating laugh slipped from his lips as he immediately dismissed the idea. The Norn would have shackled him again in the space between one thought and the next.

Another howl swelled from within the mist.

A thought struck him and he could only shake his head. He wasn't free of Skuld's restraints at all. She had neatly slipped one last chain around him unawares. He tipped his head in acknowledgement, well played, my lady.

Caught up in his musings, Loki didn't hear Thor approach until they were standing shoulder to shoulder.

"That is a sound to wring the hearts of those who hear it," murmured Thor.

Loki couldn't keep the amusement from his voice. "That was very nearly poetic. I didn't think you capable, Thor."

Thor leaned with his arms against the railing. False indignation rang in his words, "My tales have always been received with the highest regard."

Pursing his lips and humming in the back of his throat, Loki took the offer of comfortable patterns that Thor extended. "But not, I think, for their skill in the telling."

"Then for what?"

"I haven't the foggiest," he said in an offhanded manner. Thor watched him closely with skeptic worry, clearly not buying the easygoing façade. A thought equal parts amusement and pain occurred to Loki—he'd spent hundreds of years wishing that Thor would actually notice what was really going on and now that he was…he wasn't sure he liked observant-Thor. It used to be that almost any shoddy semblance of truth would have been enough for him. Not so now.

"Something troubles you."

"I managed to turn a human child into a gigantic wolf," he said in sarcastic exasperation, "of course something is troubling me."

Thor shook his head, hair brushing across his shoulders. "I wish that you felt you could tell me what you were thinking."

That my story is about to take a wholly unexpected turn. Magic crawled beneath his skin, anticipating his actions before his own thoughts had fully formed. He flexed his fingers, idly twisting strands of magic—a childhood habit he'd never fully suppressed. The physical movement wasn't really necessary for someone of his skill, but magic had always seemed very tangible to him and it felt odd not to acknowledge that physicality.

Uncharacteristically, Thor waited in silence by his side. As a child he'd been annoyed by his brother's constant "fidgeting." As they'd grown it had become one of the many things he'd teased Loki about—not always unkindly Loki now had to admit. In turn, Loki had mercilessly mocked his attachment to Mjolnir, often referring to the hammer as Thor's first love.

"I have uncovered a way to return Book to how he was," he said.

Thor frowned. "Yet this does not seem to please you." His eyes narrowed as he edged forward. "Brother, what are you planning?"

Still contemplating his hands, Loki let his glance slide sideways, a weary smirk edging into view. "Something rash."

He plucked at the world fabric, twisting his fingers into the seams and slid through the space between.

A/N: I can't say having Book and Loki at odds is my favorite thing in the world. I just want to snap my fingers and have all be right and forgiven. But that would make me a bad author that forced her characters to do what she wanted them to do rather than what they would do *sigh*.

To all my American readers, Happy Thanksgiving! Sacrifice that turkey so that you may triumph in your shopping endeavors.

Next Week: Loki shows just what he is willing to give up in order to drive the wolf from Book.

RedHood001: The little connection between Book and Thor was a fun discovery in the writing process. That realization that they were in some ways in the same boat. And Book probably needs all the guidance he could get right now.