Thanks for waiting for this next chapter :D I probably should have mentioned in the author's notes of the previous chapter that I'm away at a place with dodgy Internet connection, and found I couldn't post this chapter until now. Sorry :/

It's Loki's point of view for this part. This chapter was probably the second most fun for me to write out of this entire story (the one I liked writing most hasn't been posted yet).

Outside the diner, the afternoon sun was softening, sending down its gentler warmth to envelope everyone who dwelled below. Loki was grateful it was winter – there was something therapeutic about the cold air brushing over him. It reminded him of once drowning in an insufferably intense fever, years ago. The only sensation that had given relief from the unyielding heat was Frigga or Thor pressing a cold towel against his neck, his cheeks, his forehead.

They continued to thread between the bustling clusters of humans. The people here were distinctly less formal and graceful than on Asgard, and he was already quite used to the way humans seemed to often accidentally collide with each other and then hand out casual apologies.

As he and Thor walked, an elderly woman with a mild smile once thudded into Loki's side. Pretending to courteously accept her 'sorry, sweetheart!' and not notice her wizened hand slipping into his coat pocket, Loki stepped aside as she continued hobbling along. Under her own coat, she would be clutching what she thought was a sheaf of the Midgardian country's papery money. He glanced over his shoulder, and let the paper notes seamlessly morph into a fistful of fat, droning flies. He caught up to his brother's pace as he heard her appalled yelp fracture the air.

Eventually, the collections of buildings began melting away into neat, bare shrubbery and a wide stretch of flat, snow-crisped ground like a public play area. Every few paces, a crude snow fort stood either forlornly abandoned, or so crowded it was crumbling to white sand. Snowmen dotted the field like confused sentries, some half-finished, some faceless, some topped with a battered hat. Dozens of teenagers and children capered and flung snowballs, while parents appeared to be trying to record them with metallic hand-held devices, or anxiously supervise their respective child. Loki guessed that he and his brother would be hit more than a few times by misfired snow ammunition, but he did not worry about evading any – even a solid ice block would barely bruise either of them.

"Hey, look out!"

An ice-white stone flew between Thor and Loki's heads, before shattering into powder on the ground ahead of them. They turned as a young woman with untied brown hair and a flushed face hurried forward. She clasped her yellow-gloved hands together in mortification as they looked at her.

"I'm so sorry, guys, I really am, my little nephew's aim is terrible! He didn't hit either of you, did he? I'm so sorry if he did!" A short boy crouching behind her was fiddling with his bootlaces, avoiding looking up. Loki could sense radiating from the boy both embarrassment and irritation at his aunt's obsequious intervention.

Thor was already waving off her chagrinned apology. "You needn't worry, young maiden, it would not have hurt us too badly!"

The lady smiled like she was trying not to smile too broadly. Possibly because she was simply amused at being called a 'young maiden,' or perhaps something more to do with how she was staring up at Thor with idolising eyes. She brushed away a rebellious lock of hair playfully, only for it to come hang down twixt her wide eyes. Loki hid his face by pretending to adjust his scarf – it let him furtively force a laugh back down his throat.

"Don't be too harsh on your family members for slip-ups in sport," Chuckling, Thor then patted Loki's back, while Loki rolled his eyes at where his brother was leading the conversation. "Why, even now in adulthood, the countless times I've had to work with my brother's absence of athleticism – "

" – by utilising an absence of basic intelligence?" Loki murmured into his scarf, as the woman aw-ed and replied, "Well, don't worry, I love my nephew to bits, so no problems there. Are you two blood-related brothers?" Her eyebrows climbed up somewhat as she glanced between them. "You look practically nothing alike." He noticed that Thor also caught her eyes flicking towards Thor's brawny arms. Loki ducked his head to pretend to rearrange his scarf again.

He looked up as Thor glanced at him and said, "Yes, that's always been, well…" Loki quirked his head slightly as if to ask so what's the end of that sentence?

She was distracted as her nephew began pulling on her trouser leg. She sighed reluctantly before saying brightly to Thor, "I'll be going now, but it was nice meeting to you both. I'm sorry again though, about the snowball. Merry Christmas!" She hastened after the younger boy.

Once she was out of earshot, Loki blinked up at Thor naively. "Do you get the inkling she was quite drawn to you, Brother?"

Thor grinned. "Well, perhaps – "

"I'm beginning to wish we had brought Sif along with us. She would have adored that."

The grin quickly slid off. "Change the subject now."

Loki snickered. "Very well, then. I'll re-incite it later back home, when Sif's nearby." Suddenly, he glared at Thor in feigned outrage. "An 'absence of athleticism?'"

Thor's smirk returned. "Don't grumble, Loki, I know you could wield good enough skill on a battlefield, and it's not like you need to be strong enough to lift Mjolnir." He gestured at a toddler several feet away who was sheathed in an astounding number of wooly layers. "I think you display the same level of muscularity as that human there."

The toddler tripped over nothing, giggling as she fell.

"Oh look, and about the same level of agility too!"

"Hm, I've just remembered why I hate spending time in public with you, Thor, so I'm going to go stand somewhere else – "

Thor's laugh rang again from behind him as Loki began walking towards the most sparingly populated area of the park. He actually made it far enough to render Thor's brash laughter muted, before he felt a clump of wet snow explode against his back.

Icy water droplets trickled their way down his coattails. Then he felt an old childlike thrill slowly pulling his mouth into a smile. Moments later, he heard his brother's heavy footsteps crunching towards him from behind, and that familiar huff Thor gave when he thought Loki was being over-sensitive. He must have decided Loki was actually offended.

"Loki – "

While he is still talking

" – have a sense of humour – "

Turn, aim, and

Whump!

Thor's stubble suddenly had a sparkling white coating, and Loki could see surprise momentarily widen his blue eyes. Palms glistening with ice dust, he quickly crouched to shape another sphere while Thor blinked and wiped his face.

"I'm sorry, what were you saying?" Loki raised his eyebrows politely.

Some minutes later, Loki found himself sprinting across the frosty eiderdown that carpeted the town square, the ends of his scarf streaming out behind him and people laughing.

Though a part of his mind wished there were not so many onlookers cackling at them, he reveled in how different their general reaction was to what a snowball fight would have elicited in Asgard – here, they were amused, in place of annoyed.

Thor's thunderous footsteps were gaining volume, and Loki envisioned Thor executing the step-and-throw manoeuvre he nearly always did to hurl Mjolnir forward. Loki also eyed the shining white expanse in front of him, and smiled widely. He dived to one side and looked up to see a snowball the size of his head sail through the space he had just been. Thor reached some paces ahead of where Loki had thrown himself down, then Loki grinned as Thor pivoted to face him with another globe of white.

The pivot made him slip and hit the ground, dispersing the snowball. Thor rose to his feet again quickly but his haste made his feet slide out from beneath him, and Loki bit the inside of his bottom lip to hold in the building mirth. Now on his stomach on the icy floor, Thor was eyeballing him with something torn between a glare and bafflement, which shattered Loki's composure.

Now they were both still on the ground, Loki hugging himself as he laughed too hard to even meet Thor's stare.

"Ice-skating rink" he managed to say, before another wave of hilarity took him. A cluster of teenagers wearing skates skimmed past Thor, giving him a wide berth. Some snickered, while the others stared at the two equally incapacitated men.

The expressions of people around them were a jigsaw puzzle of bewilderment, disapproval, but mostly amusement. Loki and Thor had to ignore them.

Many of Thor's rushed attempts to escape the slipperiness of the ice ground only coaxed him deeper into the rink, whilst completely silencing Loki with laughter. But eventually Thor, blond hair sodded with snow, was sitting on steadier ground beside his brother, who smiled up at him like Thor was just joining him for a picnic. Thor slowly turned a glare onto him that seemed to try light him on fire. Loki only blinked back.

"Really, Brother, what better time for me to use my 'tricks'?" He made his expression so innocent he knew it was unmistakably mischievous.

Thor scoffed. "You will not win a true battle with tricks, Loki."

"Well, you cannot seem to even win a snowball fight against me, so I'm not seeing how you have the right to – "

"You two from around here? You seem like you're new." A man with a brown coat and a cautious tint in his eyes stood before them. His nametag identified him as Andrew, the ice-skating rink's supervisor.

"We're just visiting." Loki answered.

"Do you behave like that in public often?"

"Not often." Thor said. "I usually defeat him."

"He likes to think that often." Loki added.

Andrew grunted, but a tiny smirk trapped the corners of his mouth briefly. "Just don't knock down any of the skaters." He sauntered away.

Loki peered up at Thor. "So what should we do next?" He asked happily. He could feel the icy snowflakes still sitting in his hair, not melting into it like the snow water that was starting to slick down Thor's hair.

"I'd much appreciate you using your 'tricks' to discretely dry all this melting snow off my garb," Thor wiped his wrist across his temples. "Then we're going to get out of here so these people stop chortling at me from behind their hands."

"Perfect idea." Loki dusted the fine constellations of white ice from his hair as he stood. "I can't wait to tell Mother and Father about this."

"Don't you dare."

Okay, so this story isn't going to be as lengthy as I thought it would, in terms of the number of chapters, since here I'm breaking up the story into larger chapters than what I normally do. And my chapters I guess are not very long in comparison to other writers'. Anyway, the next chapter is also going to be the last, and I thank you guys for sticking to this for this long!

So what did you think of chapter three?