Title: Forbidden Fruit.

Author: Teofse

Rating: probably NC-17 by the time it's done.

Pairing: Fandral/Loki

Genre: Slash. Romance.

Word Count: 5994

Warnings: Unbetaed. This is a WIP. Post Avengers AU. Disregards Thor: The Dark World in its entirety.

Disclaimer: Don't own these characters. No money is being made out of this work.

Summary: He is forbidden fruit to me. He is hopeless longing. He is the most bittersweet dream I've ever dreamed and the one treasure my status as a lowly warrior of this golden realm will never allow me to grasp.

Forbidden Fruit.

I have never faced grief head on before now. Her cold shadow has never stood before me long enough to force me to become familiar with either her hair-raising, dry-eyed and bitter features or the grating, gravelly sound her voice makes when it demands to know why is it that her firstborn looks so fragile a wisp of wind could break him, why is his skin Aesir-white instead of Jotun-blue, why does he lack the distinctive body markings that are the birthright of his race and why are his still closed eyes rumored to be a deep shade of forest green instead of the crimson color they should be?

Every calmly delivered answer my king offers to those questions leads to further anguish. To a pain that's so profound, so honest, so very... visible... that it shakes me to my core, shaming me with the knowledge that this woman's heartbreaking misfortune has been my absolute gain. That her stolen child has graced my life only because she lost him. That the boy I grew up with, the studious teenager and elegant youth I have spent so many waking hours, so many sleepless nights, admiring from afar has only ever been mine to admire because my king committed one of the most despicable of crimes anyone could possibly commit against a mother who now stands in Asgard's medical bay setting eyes on her eldest child for the first time in two thousand years, allowing us all to see the kind of unbearable pain I'd have never imagined it was possible for anyone to suffer without losing their sanity altogether.

"Loki. His name is Loki..." She whispers quietly and her hand raises shakily towards the dark hair that fans, like spilled tendrils of dried ink, across my prince's pillow. Huge blue digits take hold of a single, soft looking lock, curling it round and round a trembling forefinger as its owner swallows loudly, clearly overwhelmed by a longing that feels tangible enough to be properly embraced.

"He has such a tiny frame, mother." Helblindi whispers into the uncomfortable silence, making me jump with the sheer gruffness of his too-loud voice and my heart crumbles as I listen to those seven simple words. To another brother who has barely even finished setting eyes on Loki for the very first time and is already pointing out his supposed failings to his new family.

"Yes. He's smaller than Ymir himself. Smaller than we ever imagined. Small enough to be considered the greatest mage ever born in the realm of Jotunheim."

"Father would have been so proud..." Bylesyr butts in, coming to stand beside the rest of his family and peering down intently at Loki's face. "He looks just like you, too, or he would, if his features bore the right color."

Odin fidgets at the foot of the bed, hands curled tightly around the handle of Gungnir, as his lone eye watches over the proceedings with the sort of grim blankness that betrays his growing discomfort with the Jotuns current proximity to Loki. Queen Frigga is the only one among us who seems at ease with their presence, having gone as far as to dismiss the healers and guards who are usually bustling about the place in a bid to gain the kind of privacy one very rarely enjoys in the medical bays of Asgard.

"His skin will turn as blue as yours if you touch it." She whispers and ignores her husband's startled 'my love!' in favor of offering the slender pale hand that she's cradling between her palms up to her clearly shocked counterpart. "Go on, then. Take a proper look at our son. You may have to wait a very long time to see his real features once he wakes, for he hasn't yet learned to be comfortable in the skin of his forefathers. Give him time, though. Give him patience and honest commitment and he will eventually shower you with the blessing of his affection."

Queen Farbauti stares at Queen Frigga with crystal-clear disbelief.

"You would share him like a toy? He is not yours to keep."

"He's not yours, either." Odin growls and I stand to attention and place my right hand on the hilt of my trusty sword as soon as the colossal Jotun princes turn their heads to glare at him, teeth bared in unvoiced threat.

"I have raised a loving son. He won't turn his back on us of his own free will, Farbauti. I do not need to shackle him to my skirts for his heart to be mine, and I would advise you to remember that a trapped bird may be taught to sing for you, but it won't do so by its own choice. Loki will do as he wishes. He will feel as he wishes. He will love who he wishes. I will not see him caged by anyone ever again. Do you understand me?"

The tense silence that follows feels so thick it could be cut with the flimsiest of hair ribbons. We stand in strained tableau around the bed where my sorcerer lays and I can't let go of the thought that he's the only oasis of peace in a room full of suspicions, regrets and barely contained violence. He's the unnatural calm in the eye of a storm that could very well pit Asgard against Jotunheim once again. He's the treasure we all covet. The prize we stand to lose in the aftermath of abominable torture. He's the dishonored prince on whose name Asgard will unleash its revenge-seeking armies until not a single Chitauri soul remains alive. Until they all have paid a thousandfold for every scream of pain they've managed to rip from his unwilling throat.

"The firstborn of my line is not meant to be caged. I doubt anyone could achieve such a thing even if they tried." Farbauti's proud words interrupt my gloomy thoughts and I watch as the small, tentative smile that had begun to bloom across her lips comes to a sudden death when my queen replies very quietly:

"Someone did. They answer to the name of Chitauri and they seem to have managed to drain Loki's magical core through only the Norns know what terrible means."

Helblindi's loud roar of rage threatens to leave us all deaf as it raises from his chest, almost drowning both his mother's pained gasp and his brother's shocked exclamation:

"That can not be! Loki's size alone is proof of his immense magical ability. There is no creature alive who could have a single hope of defeating him in magical combat."

"I can't understand why you keep referring to my prince's height in such terms, your highness. I was told his diminutive size would have been a cause of great shame for your people." I dare to insert into the conversation, forcing myself to stare directly into Helblindi's crimson eyes in the hope of prompting him to clarify his frankly puzzling attitude towards Loki's obvious... smallness.

The Frost Giants look so genuinely bewildered that the scornful sneer that's been plastered all over their faces every single time their gazes had so much as crossed with mine melts off their expressive blue features like a mask made out of paper.

"Why would my son's lack of height shame us? His small size is a sign of his great power." The queen questions sharply and now it is my turn to gape at her with undisguised confusion, unwittingly betraying the fact that this is not the same tale I've been told. Not by a long shot.

"I may have heard that he was left to die on the steps of your temple for being an unwanted runt." I'm forced to confess, tone strained with blooming dismay, and it takes all my training as a proud warrior of Asgard not to flinch and take a step backwards when she whirls around and lowers her impressive torso down low enough to snarl directly in my king's face.

"Is that the lie you've fed my child, thief? Is that the excuse you've wrapped around what was nothing but a royal kidnapping to help you sleep at night? Is my firstborn lying in his deathbed believing himself to be the reject I didn't want when I have done nothing but love him all his life and grieve for his absence since the moment he disappeared from mine? May the Norns curse you with the blackest fate in their arsenal, Odin allfather, for what you have done to my family deserves nothing short of agony!"

The Jotun queen's pain shines through her words like a blast of sunlight breaking through darkness. It radiates from her like a vapor, wrapping itself around us with a strength that leaves us breathless and forces my king to lower his proud head in shame.

"I didn't know it was a lie until much later. I saw him there: a small babe covered by a flimsy blanket that would have never been enough to protect him from the inclement weather and leaped to my own conclusions. He was so small... a beautiful runt whose heart-wrenching wails for help failed to attract anyone's attention. I know you think me a heartless thief, but I have never been anything of the sort. I waited, Farbauti. I fought my way through the warrior ranks protecting your temple, ignoring Loki's cries as best I could. I told myself he wasn't mine to worry about. That he was someone elses' responsibility. I waited a veritable eternity before approaching him, trying to see if anyone would step forwards to gather him, but no one ever did, and I assumed that his parents had left him there to die because of his small size. It was the only explanation I could think of to justify why not a single member of your army had bothered to protect him."

"He was the crowned prince of Jotunheim! He didn't need anyone's protection. Whoever had tried to touch him without royal permission would have been condemned to death on the spot. That doesn't mean he was unwanted. Or that we left him to die. Only those who are born with a sorcerer's soul have the blessing of a tiny frame in the realm of ice. The smaller the body the greater the magical power it houses. My firstborn's size was a cause of great joy among our people, for it meant that one day we'd be ruled by the only sorcerer king born into Laufey's line since Ymir himself."

"He was alone and frightened. I thought he looked abandoned. He would have died of cold and hunger, if I hadn't rescued him."

"He may have been alone and frightened, but he hadn't been abandoned. He was under the casket's protection, for it chose him as its wielder from the moment he drew his first breath. There was a possibility for either myself or my husband to have perished that night, but my firstborn's survival was never in question. He should have been safe. Guarded, as he was, by a force so much more powerful than anything else on the entire realm. I have never understood how you managed to find him. You shouldn't have been able to lay your thieving eye upon him, let alone touch him for long enough to remove him from the temple."

"But I did and that means that it was meant to be, Farbauti. Loki's role as Asgard's second prince must have been fated. You may have spawned him, but he was always meant to be my son."

My heart pounds as the enraged queen takes a step forwards, hate-poisoned eyes brimming with the unadulterated violence of the berserker. I step in front of my king, ready to stand there and serve as his personal living shield if our foe's sensibilities can not be soothed, but such sacrifice on my part is rendered unnecessary by the only voice of reason left in the entire room: that of my prince's beloved mother.

"Loki's thread is thinning by the second. Even if the Norns decided to gift his childhood to us, their design has made it impossible for his Jotun inheritance to remain unacknowledged. His future is in your hands, Farbauti. Surely, at this point, ensuring our son's continued existence is more important than teaching a lesson in subtlety to my hotheaded husband."

An enraged roar of discontent issues from the slender blue throat of the Jotun leader, but her seething ire seems to deflate as if prickled with a needle and she turns her back on us with a dignified huff. The allfather's callused hand settles on my shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly before pushing me out of his way once again. I stumble sideways slightly, managing to keep my place on the left side of the bed's footrest by sheer dumb luck.

My breath halts when I finally raise my eyes and catch sight of the huge feminine hand that has just settled atop Loki's own, imbuing his pale skin with an unnaturally cold touch that forces it to change before my eyes, darkening it to the very same shade of cobalt blue that covers every inch of the other Jotuns in the room, changing the appearance of my Loki's flesh in such a way that it's familiar smoothness shatters under the onslaught of the lines that rise, like mountaintops emerging from the depths of the ocean, to mar his frame with the distinctive moonlight-colored markings of his race.

His nails harden as I watch, breathless and aching with the unutterable pain of seeing the owner of my heart look so alien. They increase in length and blacken to a dark charcoal, curling into the kind of wicked claws that could gore many a warrior without aid. His lips turn from soft pink to pale purple, but his features remain the same: untold beauty made now exquisite by the delicate markings that settle upon his face as if they have always been there. His hair still fans, dark and oh-so-gloriously-soft across his pillow, and I wonder how it will look covered in bright beads even as queen Farbauti's quiet sob breaks the stillness that surrounds us.

"Loki. Oh, Loki..."

Helblindi's long arm curls around his mother's slender figure, offering her the quiet support that I'm sure Thor would have been offering to my own queen right about now, if he was here. That's when it dawns on me that we are all similar, deep down. We're all so very similar... Despite our different colors and sizes and backgrounds we all have mothers and lovers and brothers and children. We all care about those who are dearest to us with equal fervor.

"Does he look as he should be, Farbauti? Is there anything obviously wrong with Loki's Jotun form?" Odin inquires quietly, leaning forwards to gaze at his child's prone body with a shadowed blue eye.

The Jotun queen inches forwards too, her tall and slender body curling protectively downwards over the allfather's head as her crimson gaze focuses intently on the raised lines that cover Loki's skin, following the same path that the deathly sharp nail of her index finger travels as it shreds the soft tunic my prince is wearing until it has exposed the full expanse of his blue-tinged chest to her avid gaze, allowing her to place her huge palm over the tangle of lines that form a raised knot directly over his heart. Loki's chest shimmers faintly under her touch, emitting the same weakened tendrils of mossy-colored magic that we've grown so used to seeing whenever we scan him nowadays. We stand there, helpless and silent and frozen into reverent stillness as this woman, who once bore him within her, does her best to read what's happening to him.

"His markings are flatter than they should be and they bear the dull gray color of the disowned. He has never allowed his magic to race through the proper conduits and so they are underdeveloped and... lifeless. His magical reserves are depleted almost completely and, although it looks like part of them has been harvested by force, his magical core remains not only intact, but also... untapped. This doesn't make any sense. He seems to have been using his reserves for all his magical needs. It's like he never realized how much power lies dormant within him."

"That can't be accurate. Loki has been studying magic almost since he learned to spell out the word. He has gone to great lengths to train himself in every aspect of sorcery. I know his path was quite hard at the beginning, his progress slower than the asgardian females who trained with him. We assumed his constant difficulties were related to his gender and, although I wanted him to focus his efforts on diplomatic training, to which he was infinitely better suited, he refused to follow my advice and persevered in his magical studies until he became proficient enough to take part in Alfheim's magical games. He has been considered one of the strongest sorcerers in the nine realms ever since he won them. Surely someone with such skills would have been able to recognize the true depth of his own magical core."

The queen's gaze narrows thoughtfully as she stares down at her child. Delicate index fingertip tracing the lines that frame his left cheek all the way from forehead to chin before dipping down across his slender neck with an aching tenderness that makes me flinch with sheer discomfort.

"Those news do not discredit my theory. They make it sound all the more probable, in fact. My son is a Frost Giant, yet his frame is small enough to pass for an Aesir's and not even the tallest Aesir of the lot, but one of regular height. That makes Loki the tiniest Jotun ever born. He is at least six feet shorter than Ymir, who was, as you must know, our greatest mage, the creator of the Casket of Ancient Winters. If Loki had been using the full potential of his magical core all along he would have never been known as one of the strongest sorcerers in the nine realms because nobody would have been able to ignore the fact that he IS the most powerful magical being who has ever existed."

"But he has very little magic left. That is why he is trapped in this cursed coma, isn't it?" Frigga's voice sounds as utterly confused as all of us are feeling and we stare at one another in stumped silence, trying to wrap our minds around a conundrum that makes absolute no sense.

"Maybe he has almost no magic as far as he is concerned. It is possible that his lack of knowledge with regards to the real strength of his magical core has led Loki to believe himself drained."

"That would still not account for why our scans show him dangerously depleted. They are very advanced measuring devices. There is no way they'd have failed to detect that sort of power, regardless of how convinced my son is about his lack of it."

"Magic is 90% belief, my love. If our son considers himself drained then it's possible that his raw power may be attempting to bring his will into being. The great Ymir is thought to have been able to bend reality itself. To stop time as we know it and even fool death. Only the Norns know what sort of feats could be achieved by a mage greater than him."

"No. That's not it. Loki's sharp mind is one of his greatest assets. He has often used it as a weapon against others, but I can not imagine any scenario in which he'd fall victim of such simplistic illusion."

"Frigga..."

"Do not forget that his threads have changed color. Loki is no longer black and green and gold in my hands and that means he can't be black and green and gold in the hands of the Norns, either. He is blue, Odin: Jotun blue. His body no longer reacts to Asgardian healing techniques. I think Loki's lack of magic has begun to unravel the spell you used to disguise him as an Aesir."

"You know magic doesn't work that way, my love. A sorcerer may be able to deflect all manner of common spells, if he either sees them coming and is knowledgeable enough to remember how to counter them or wears a powerful enough talisman, but once a tailor-made charm such as the one I designed specifically for him has taken root only the caster can remove it. His current lack of magic can not possibly be affecting my own spell-work because the power used to anchor it was never his, but mine."

"He must have found a way. It's the only explanation that makes sense of his current state of health. I know not how he's done it, but the magic that once helped him pass as one of us is no longer whole. His anatomy is shifting one step at a time, reverting to his natural estate as a Frost Giant."

"Then he is doomed indeed, for no Jotun sorcerer has ever survived the loss of his magic. It's the only way to kill them, and I should know, for I have witnessed enough magical executions to make anyone have nightmares." Farbauti whispers in a tone that's low and pained and so very full of hopeless fear that the most terrible chill runs up and down my spine in instinctive reaction.

"Are you telling me there is no cure for Loki?" Silence follows Frigga's question like a shadow follows flesh and sorrow settles slowly upon our shoulders, heavy and unwelcome and bitter, as we stare at Loki's sleeping form with eyes that are beginning to be poisoned by the dreadful weight of defeat, until Helblindi's loud voice shatters the strained quiet.

"What happened to the rest of his magical reserves then? You said only part of them had been harvested, mother. He should still have the rest, or be in a position to assimilate back what was stolen, as soon as it becomes available, shouldn't he?"

Queen Farbauti gasps, as if startled, and her finger-pads press once more over the tangled knot of lines that crisscross the skin above Loki's heart, searching for only the Norns know what with an expression in her crimson eyes that kindles the embers of hope within me.

"That is still here, but it feels faint. I think he may be blocking it himself, on purpose." She whispers at long last, sounding utterly bewildered.

"That is impossible. Loki has been unconscious since he collapsed at the end of his trial. He wouldn't have been able to sustain a blocking spell in his condition, and I refuse to believe he may be tricking us."

"He could have cast one last hex before collapsing. Something permanent and specific directed solely at himself, something self-sustaining. He could have tried to seal his magic away of his own free will. Committed magical suicide. The practice has fallen into disuse, but it was common enough among the dark elves of Svartalfheim back in the days when they fought against every single realm and then some. Elf sorcerers used to seal off their power as soon as they were captured in order to render themselves useless to their enemies. Their pride stung at the idea of becoming a foe's 'magical pet'."

Odin frowns, clearly uneasy.

"I have heard of the practice, but it can't possibly apply to Loki. Why would he fail to cast it when he was first captured but not even hesitate to do so here, among his friends and family, when he knew he was finally being freed? He'd just escaped the beasts who tormented him. Had learned he wouldn't face the death penalty for his actions in Midgard. There is no logical reason for him to have taken such harsh measures at all."

"Maybe he underestimated his captors and didn't realize how dangerous they were until they had already rendered him unable to defend himself magically. Maybe they stole his essence and threatened to use it to trace him back to Asgard, if he ever tried to escape. Loki told me once that a sorcerer's power does not disperse into the ether when its purpose its served. It returns to his sire instead, maybe not immediately, and maybe not all at once, but it comes back all the same, as long as it's not being forcibly redirected. The prince could have been trying to protect us. Foil his enemies' attempts to follow him here. That could explain his stubborn refusal to defend himself during the trial, my king. He was aiming for the death penalty all along. It would be so like him to have tricked his way back home in order to die among... family."

"Oh, Loki..." Frigga's heartbroken reaction to my wild conjecture gives it more credit than I'd like and I sag where I stand like a slowly deflating water pouch as we all stand there and stare at the body resting so calmly upon the bed. A prickle of desperate emotion burns the back of my eyes like a hot poker and the sight of my queen's trembling hand as it settles over Loki's pale cheek, unflinchingly ignoring the cold his skin must be giving off long enough to set in motion the process that will turn his form from Jotun blue to Aesir white, becomes more than I can bear.

"He can't die, though. Can he, mother? Even if he manages to siphon every last speck of magic from his reserves he still wouldn't be truly depleted. His core would still be there, full to the brim with untapped power. Everybody knows that a sorcerer's magical reserve is negligible in comparison to his core, so the part of his magic that my brother's spell is targeting can be no more than a single drop in a raging ocean. He has enough magic to survive such a small drain, doesn't he?"

Farbauti looks at Helblindi, crimson eyes heavy with dullness despite her child's hopeful words.

"Loki won't wake until whatever curse he cast completes it's work, Blindi. By then his mind would have already started to shut down in preparation for what he assumes would be his end. Worse than that, there is a pretty good chance that he won't wake at all because, if his body is reverting back to Jotun, then the fact that he believes himself magicless should be enough to end him while he's lost inside this coma."

"Then I propose we dampen his magic right now, clamp it in place before his curse has enough time to achieve its purpose. His spell will be frozen mid-work and, although his reserve will be weakened, it should not be gone altogether. He'll have no other option but to wake and face us. He'll be forced to either argue his case or find a way to trick us into releasing the cuffs, if he's that keen on getting rid of his magical reserve before the excess that was stolen from him makes his way back, along with his captors."

Odin looks at me with the kind of respect most warriors of my generation have spent their entire existence attempting to inspire in him, and I realize that my harebrained plan, born of the purest form of desperation I have ever known, must have more than just a passing chance of succeeding, if he's that impressed by it.

"Yes. That could help. That could save him." He whispers under his breath, but his voice brims with such purpose that the small sound bounces around the room like an echo does in a cave or the boom of Thor's own thunder as it travels through the skies. Queen Frigga bursts into laughter, the sound half-relief and half-uncertain hope, but as she tries to raise from her chair and come to her husband's side his beringed right hand stalls her mid-motion with a staying little wave.

"No. Stay where you are, dearest, please. I shall command one of the guards outside to bring the magic-dampening cuffs forthwith. We can not afford to waste time and I... I do not wish for Loki to wake up from his slumber and find himself thus crippled without the comfort of your presence by his side. We both know he won't welcome my company and I doubt the Jotuns' proximity will soothe him."

The queen sits back down even as her counterpart flinches, gasping loudly as if the allfather's words have slapped her across the cheek with mighty force. Helblindi catches her recoiling body and glares towards my liege, murderous rage crystal clear in the crimson depths of his eyes, but the king, who had already started to stride purposely towards the door and is now opening it with enough energy to startle the guards outside misses the look entirely.

"He didn't mean to hurt you, your highness." I whisper quietly, wondering even as I say it what sort of madness is directing me to attempt the thankless task of acknowledging the giants' feelings. Helblindi's glare transfers swiftly towards me, but his brother's appraisal is as contemplative and curious as their mother's own.

"You have saved him..." She murmurs, her tone low and pained and vibrating with an emotion I can't name. "If the thief's word has any worth, and I wish not to doubt him when it comes to my firstborn, then this is the second time you have done so."

"I've done nothing so remarkable, your grace. All of us were pooling ideas, mine was just one among many, and we still don't know if it will work." I reply haltingly, trying -and failing miserably- not to squirm uncomfortably under her intimidating scrutiny. I have never felt so small in all my life, nor so unbearably exposed.

The king's rush towards the bed, carrying the magic-dampening cuffs that Loki has dreaded all his life, brings our stilted conversation to a welcome halt. I shuffle forwards, all the better to focus on my beloved's pale face as his father's age-mottled hands wrap the cold metal around his thin wrists with a gentleness that dries all moisture from my throat. The click of the cuffs sounds vicious and loud in the thickening silence, and I can't tear my gaze away from the delicate way in which my king's fingertips trace around the edge of the metal, checking they're loose enough around Loki's milky-white skin before sweeping downwards across the back of his hands until they have taken hold of my love's elegant digits and indulged in a single, heartfelt press against them. I don't know how long the allfather remains there, holding onto his youngest child with such tenderness, but the low moan of discomfort that spills from Loki's throat seemingly out of the blue makes us jump as one, and the king let's go of his hands in order to take a reluctant step backwards.

I'm not sure why it surprises me that the Jotuns follow Odin's lead and swiftly melt into the shadows, clearing the area immediately around the bed in a graceless rush to get out of the waking sorcerer's direct line of vision, but it does. So I alone remain frozen to the spot, trapped at the foot of the bed by my own inability to move. My mind whirls with the knowledge that I should make myself scarce too, allow my prince to wake to the lovely features of his dear mother in this, his clearly unplanned return to the world of the living. I force my body to move and my boot scrapes against the polished floor as I slide it backwards in preparation to follow my thoughts with immediate action, but the motion never gets completed because Loki's green eyes flutter open at that moment, rendering me immobile once again as I watch him stare at the queen with obvious confusion.

"Mother?" He calls her, equal parts bewildered and dazed, before muttering grimly under his breath. "This can't be Hel, then."

"Loki!" Queen Frigga berates him, swatting him on the shoulder with displeasure despite the relieved tears that have begun to roll down her cheeks.

"Do you really think me deluded enough to have aimed for Valhalla?" He questions, clearly incredulous, and I'm pretty sure every heart in the room breaks along with mine as that tellingly self-deprecating query rents the air.

"Such discussion is moot at this point, son. For you're not setting foot in either if I have anything to do with it."

His father's explosive growl startles Loki into siting bolt upright on the mattress, pushing his right hand towards the sound in the age-old gesture of a sorcerer's dueling stance. His gaze sweeps the room and his jaw hardens when he spots me, thin lips compressing into a taut line of pure disgust that becomes ever colder as his eyes fall upon the king. The sudden rigidity that takes over his frame, coupled with the abrupt loss of what little color he had left and the look of unadulterated terror that flashes through those painfully haunted emerald orbs betrays the exact moment in which he becomes aware of the fact that there are Frost Giants in the room.

I can't think of a single thing to say as I watch his wary gaze take in the strange tableau around his sickbed. His jaw begins ticking with tension as his slender body shifts on the mattress, turning around until he has placed himself directly between his mother and the rest of us. His shrewd mind must be trying to make sense of what he sees, coming up with all sorts of fantastic scenarios to explain away the presence of Asgard's sworn enemies so deep inside her walls. I know not what conclusion he finally settles on, but my entire being reels with shock as I watch him fail to crumble in abject terror, like I expected him to do. The 'cowardly' Trickster of Asgard doesn't scream for help or ask a single question, but his battle-ready arm never wavers as he remains exactly where he is, shielding our beloved queen with his weakened body in the kind of silent statement that doesn't need explanation. My gut churns with the shame of a thousand regrets as I watch the weakling prince of the Realm Eternal become the very picture of blooming rage and that wild, undefinable quality that most trapped predators tend to display. He's a man with nothing to loose, a condemned soldier ready to take down as many enemies as he can before his strength finally abandons him. He's the very soul of a warrior of Asgard in this, the first instant in which my heart looks upon him knowing him to be nothing of the sort.

"The Jotuns are here as my guests, Loki. They mean you no harm, I assure you. You have nothing to fear from them." His father's quiet explanation makes his raised arm twitch so hard that the loose cuff wrapped around his wrist shifts with the motion, drawing his gaze like a magnet. His features twist with the rage of the berserk as he stares down at the bracelets before lifting his hands to claw shakily at their ornamental edges, tugging them desperately in a vain attempt to release their hidden mechanical catch.

"I've sealed them with magic. You will not be able to open them, son." The king says with somber finality and we are all forced to watch the pure fear that twists Loki's pale features into the very image of trapped despair as his wild gaze settles on his father and he snarls with mounting outrage:

"What have you done, you, fool? What, in the name of the Norns, have you done to me now?"

TBC