"So you're trying to tell me that that….weird…thing that happened to us was your 'magic'?" Faith scoffed as she pushed through the screen door.
"Yes, but you are mistaken, I meant it was our magic, yours as well as my own." Loki followed her, a somewhat harassed look on his face.
"That's ridiculous. I'm not magical!" she squeaked throwing her hands in the air.
"Well it seems that you are in fact. Trust that I know of these things. I've not told you…I didn't think it wise. Also I didn't think you would believe me, but I am proficient in the magical arts. Sorcery, and shape shifting and illusions…" Loki began stating matter-of-factly.
Faith cut him off. "Stop. Stop, just…quiet. Let me get this straight. When we made a…connection, as you called it, our mutual…"abilities" decided to zap us?"
"Well, not exactly…" Loki looked thoughtful.
"I mean, it didn't seem like magic to me, just a tingly feeling, like goose bumps, and I was, like, seeing things, like I told you, dreams, or memories, but not mine!"
"I'm guessing you have unique abilities, ones similar to mine and different as well."
"This is crazy, so why do I believe this, this is crazy, you're crazy!" Faiths eyes were as big as saucers and she was waving her hands wildly in the air.
Loki sighed, rolling his eyes.
"If you call me a puny mortal, Loki, so help me I will-"
"What's crazy? Who's a mortal eh?" Gramps shuffled in from the back, covered in dirt and carrying a basket of carrots and beets.
"I was just trying to explain to Faith…"
"He is nuts, he says we are magic buddies or something and I…"
Loki and Faith started simultaneously.
"Whoa! Ho there!" Gramps yelled. "Why don't you two just button it up for a minute, let your brains get it straight in your head before you let it go spillin' all over." Gramps plunked the basket down on the counter, straightened his overalls, and then turned back to the two.
"Now, Loki, you seem to be talking the most sense right off the bat, so let's give you the first swing alright?" Gramps leaned against the counter crossing his arms, his bushy eyebrows knitting together.
"I'm sorry? Should I..." Loki glanced wearily at Faith. She sighed and looked at the ceiling.
"Yes, yes, talk boy, talk."
Loki described what happened in detail, using several terms Faith had never even heard, but Gramps just nodded and listened.
"I see." He said after a minute. "So, what don't you understand doll?" he smirked at her.
"Um, the freakin' magic part Gramps." She snapped, fighting the urge to stamp her foot at the two ridiculous males.
"Well, it's a bit like hotwiring a car, or a fridge magnet." Gramps nodded, like it was the sagest analogy in history.
Faith and Loki stared.
Gramps frowned, he looked at Faith with sad reluctant eyes. "Alright, well, Hun, I suppose I oughta tell ya, your mom was… gifted. S'not like I know all about it, I'm no expert, I just know she could do things. Like sometimes she just had to look at ya and she'd know exactly what you were thinkin'. So I've just been waitin' for somethin' like this to happen, didn't think it would though, but I guess the sparks have flown, your engines startin'." Gramps's chuckle was bittersweet.
"You've been waiting?" Faith looked hurt. "You never told me about… she… Grampa!"
"Darlin' you've got it in ya. It's like you're a magnet, you just didn't know it 'cause you haven't been around any metal."
Faith nodded, and looked at Loki. She understood a while ago, she just didn't want to accept it. "Oh." She said quietly. "Kay, if there's any other bombshells you want to drop on me I'll be in my room." Faith turned and rushed out of the room.
"Sir, Faith's magic is powerful, I felt it. I didn't know midgardians were capable of such things." Loki stood in the middle of the room, a bit stunned.
"Sonny, I'm sorry to be the one to break it to ya, but there's a hell of a lot stuff you don't know." And with that Gramps headed after Faith.
"Faith? Honey? Can I come in?" Gramps asked through the door to Faiths bedroom.
"Yeah. Yeah sure." She barked, sitting with her arms crossed and facing the doorway, waiting to pounce on the old man.
She leaped off the bed when he entered.
"Grandpa. What…I don't get it. I really don't!" Faith shook her head.
"Faith. Sit down. I'll tell you." Gramps groaned and he sat down.
He sighed heavily as he patted the mattress next to him.
"Gramps. You never told me that about mom." She looked pleadingly at him.
The old man looked sadder than she had ever seen him. "Sometime, sometime soon I'm thinkin', I'm gonna have to tell ya all about where you came from. Every last thing, but not today. You have powers in you, such strong things. All I need to say is your special and you should know that. You don't need to know the rest. 'Cept that I love you."
Faith eyes watered as warmth for her grandfather won out over her frustration. "What do you mean that's all I need to know, gramps I'm not a baby! Come on, whatever happened, whoever mom was, you can tell me." She said softly, not really expecting any more information out of the man.
"Someday." He patted her hand firmly. "And now I'm gonna be getting supper ready if you like. I'm done being cryptic and annoying you!" he chuckled sadly.
"Gramps, this is… impossible! I can't… it's not…" Faith held up her hands, at a loss.
"You just believe it alright! Your special ok! I know it's crazy, and shockin' but it's true." Gramps shuffled through the door. "I love you punkin. And I'm sorry.
When faith looked up to ask what he was sorry for he was gone. She sighed, closed the door and fell back onto her bed.
Loki was excited by the new surge of magic he felt flowing through his bones. He had felt so lost and weak without it. But this was so unexpected. Faith had power, real power, different from any he had seen before. In Asgard Loki's abilities were feared and ridiculed as wrong and cowardly, which made sense now that he knew his true race, though Odin held huge power over Loki. Even Thor and his mother had their own gifts, but Faiths were different, they felt foreign, not Asgardian, not Jotunn… New. Loki's curiosity got the better of him and he knocked on Faiths door.
"Faith, would you find it in your heart to grant me entrance into your chambers?" he said grinning.
On the other side of the door faith sighed. "What do you want? I mean… go ask Gramps ok?"
Loki leaned his back against the door. "I merely wish to know how you are."
"I'm fine… uh, thanks." Faith just wanted to be left alone with her thoughts, and then to go strangle Gramps for keeping that information about her mother a secret. There had been a time when Faith had wanted to know every single detail about her mom and where she came from. The story her Gran, and then later her gramps, had always told her seemed too cut and dry now that she thought about it, too normal to be normal. Like a background story that came off of an assembly line. Now it seemed like gramps had admitted, unspoken, that it was a lie. On the one hand she was outraged and furious, on the other she was alright with it… and wildly curious about what she could do.
"Alright then." Loki waited, looking up at the ceiling.
After a few minutes the door was yanked open and two glittering blue eyes looked at him through long damp lashes.
"Well come in sir pertinent." Faith snorted as Loki followed her in. She stopped in the middle of the room, glancing around. He did basically the same.
"So are you going to tell me what happens next?" Faith finally managed to look at his face. Damn his cheekbones, she thought, is it obvious I was crying?
"What do you mean?" He breathed, clasping his hands behind his back as he began to stroll around the room in a circle, examining its contents.
"With the whole 'surprise-your-magical' thing. You said you know what you're doing. So, what can you do? And why didn't you tell us before?" Faith finished with a flourish as she grabbed a picture frame from Loki, who was enthralled with her various knick knacks.
"I didn't think midgardians could do magic, and it's not something one just goes around advertising anyway." Loki said preoccupied with a can of hairspray on Faith dresser.
"Oh." She answered lamely.
Loki continued to examine Faiths things while she watched until, annoyed, she said, "It would be nice to get some answers, since I just found out I'm not a normal human being like I thought."
He turned around slowly, to look at her and she tried not to squirm under his gaze.
"Please do me the favor of eliminating that tone from your voice. You're like one of the whining children you care for. I of all people am equipped to comfort you. I know better than anyone what if feels like to find out you weren't who you thought you were." Loki felt the pain seeping into his mind again, the burning loss. The fury and the sorrow dripped into his last sentence, tempered only by the look of deep regret on the girls face.
"You're right. Sorry. I didn't think." Faith said sincerely, though she thought he acted a bit touchily.
Loki sighed. "That's…what I came here for." He said watching her reaction.
"What? To comfort me? Good job." Faith looked at her feet.
"No… To attempt patient answers to your questions. No matter how tedious." He shifted his stance, still studying her face as she grinned.
Days passed. Loki became accustomed to working at the school, and Faith became used to the idea of her powers. They had spent several evenings discussing it, and Loki found he enjoyed conversing with the tiny human more than anyone he could remember. For her part Faith found herself being taken over by Loki's infectious zeal for magic.
As well as telling her about all sorts of spells he knew, and abilities he possessed, he told her, somewhat reluctantly about Asgard and other realms. He explained the layout of the heavens, of Vanaheim, Alfheim, the Midgard serpent and the broken rainbow bridge. They stayed up late talking about the Dwarves of Svartalheim, and Hel, land of the dead, of fire demons and light and dark elves. The one thing Loki didn't talk about was Jotunheim, and Faith never pressed him.
She had always been caring and sensitive to others feelings, but with Loki it was almost as if she knew the instant his mood changed. Gramps remarked once that he had never seen her listen so patiently to any person before. Faith had amazing patience with children and animals, and Gramps used to say that if she watched a pot, it would boil faster, and whatever she tended in their garden would grow perfectly. But grown people she had a short fuse for. She would often say it was because they knew better than to be stupid, so she had every right to get mad, but with Loki she never ran out of patience, she would listen quietly as he would rant about his adopted family, only snapping at him when he took it out on her.
And so weeks passed.
"Tell me another story about a trick you pulled when you were little." Faith called to Loki as she pulled weeds.
Loki was lounging in the shade of the porch, one of Faiths sun hats dropped over his face.
"Hmmm…?" was his muffled reply from under the straw.
"Talk to me magic-boy. If you're not gonna help over here, you might as well amuse me." Faith smiled as she sat back on her heels to raise an eyebrow at the lazy young man.
"I'm not your jester you know, Faith." he groaned huskily and he pulled himself up to recline against the porch railing.
"Ok, ok. Whatever." Faith waved a dirty hand at him and turned back to her weeding. She knew he liked the sound of his own voice to much to let an invitation to speak go unheeded.
"Should I tell you about the time I cut off the Lady Sif's Hair?" he smirked at Faiths response.
"You horrible jerk. That sounds hilarious. Please continue."
"Well. Sif likes to brag about-"
"Wait who's Sif again?"
"Ahem. A lady of the court and the first female warrior to be honored by Odin."
"Oh" Faith snorted.
"Yes. I know. Well, she had this long blonde hair, like yours but not so shiny, and a bit frizzy in my opinion. But she heard that Thor said he liked it, and she is quite enamored with Thor, no matter how she denies it. And though she makes a show of being a warrior she is still a female, and prone to extreme and ridiculous vanity. I came upon her once when she was outside in the court gardens, lying on a bench. I suspect she was waiting for Thor to return from hunting, but she fell asleep. Well this was quite some time ago, I was about, 13 Midgardian years I think, and I thought to myself, "what a stupid preening girl, I shall cut her hair off." So I did. I materialized a pair of golden shears and snipped it all off and she didn't even wake up till I was gone. "
Faith was chuckling from beneath her sunhat. "You brute! The poor girl! I bet you got good and thrashed."
Loki made a choking noise. "Of course. Odin took every opportunity to punish me. Though it was not as severe a one as I had expected. Mostly because Thor thought it was pretty funny too, secretly of course, and he asked father to let me get away with it, if I gave Sif a new head of hair."
"Of course, cause that's what anyone would do." Faith rolled her eyes.
Loki ignored her. "So I did, though she threw another fit when it grew back in a dark color. She changed her mind soon after when Thor told her he thought it better suited to her. She should have thanked me for that."
"Hey, you mess with a girl's hair; she has every right to throw a fit! If you ever touch mine ill cut something else of yours off that even you couldn't grow back… I don't think."
