10.

. . .

Cloaked as the King, Loki stared balefully down at Lord Eirund as he knelt before the golden throne. The young man was in the midst of stammering out his last ploy, a feeble thing that both men knew wouldn't win him back his secret prize. "My King, there are not words enough for my gratitude at your offer, but-"

"But what, Lord Eirund?" Loki flung out the words through the veil of his beard, a scatter of old man's gravel. "I have given you my decision, as you have asked." He leaned forward in the seat, bending low, letting the brown and gold ribbons of the royal cloak nearly hit the groveling creature in the face. "Will you attempt to plea with us about the law?"

Eirund flinched back at the way the last word drawled out, glancing up furtively and meeting the 'King's' one good eye with his own frightened pair. Loki blazed back as hot as the braziers on either side of his throne, letting the lord see what he feared - that his hidden prize was known to the throne, and he now bordered on a kind of criminal theft, should the king choose to call him out for his ruse. "My apologies, Your Majesty. I have been waiting for the day of my cousin's wedding so long, it is… difficult now to let it go."

"So it is. And so you must." Loki settled back in the throne, worrying at the gold with his gnarled fingers. "But you do not leave empty-handed. Content yourself with that, young lord." He inclined his head, ironically polite.

"Of course, Your Majesty." Eirund cleared his throat with a strained rattle and scuttled back from the throne, losing himself in the milling crowd of petitioners and staff with almost amusing quickness.

Loki beckoned one of the messenger boys closer without looking at him, thrusting at him a sealed writ that would carry an offer to the girl whose dowry had been in question. Thor's advice won out, after all. It resulted in legal protection for the girl now and for her future, and a potentially substantial trader's contract for the lord - if Eirund realized this and actually worked for its success. He supposed at the least that meant the matter was good and done, and by the sheer terror in Eirund's face - and his hunter's own particularly focused ire - he could disregard the scenario entirely as a factor in his current, unwelcome haunts.

He found himself searching the crowd, studying faces with his own drawn taut under that long grey beard, and realized the prickle at the back of his neck, worming cold under the illusion he wore, was not yet sweat from the hot fires but honest fear crawling close inside his throat. He had nothing to search for but the vague shape of a shadow, and nothing to guide him but his instincts gone awry under the weight of heavier paranoia.

Shadows… Loki shook his head once, sharp, as if cobwebs suddenly broke loose in his mind to tickle him. He looked again at the people, each one here to curry a king's favor or plea for some kindness, or, worse yet, again seek to empower themselves by virtue of his acknowledgement, and he wondered if his stalker was right now in the very room with him. Likely? Probable, considering the nature of their threats.

He watched dancers glide from one end of the hall to the other, servants perfectly managing armloads of goblets and serving plates. He watched agile young lords and at one point his grip tightened upon the throne as a shriek filled the hall and caught a number of gazes. But it was only a small parcel of youngsters, one girl being chased by another three, their laughter and fast moving skirts causing a ruckus in the back of the hall as older adults looked on, weary with the abundant verve of the young.

Loki forced his hands to relax, going tired and still on the throne, a statue from some older era. But he continued to watch each and every face he could as supplicants began to again take their turns before him, listening inattentively, looking for the one that glanced back in just the wrong way to tell him they had an ill thought in mind.

Not one of them did. Not one. The laughter grew until his mind began to swirl with the ghostly echoes of it.

The tickle at the nape of his neck grew sharper and now he knew his hunter was there among them, and further, he knew he was not going to find them out this way. The field was to their benefit alone. Loki shifted in the throne, sweating openly now, hearing nothing, that one eye stuck fast open and flickering like a wild animal across the hall. Another minute, maybe two, and the adrenaline charging through his body would force him to flee his own throne outright.

In the shadowed back of the crowd rose more laughter, light and free. When he snapped his head towards it, whoever had laughed was gone.

. . .

Ago ~

He was early again, but with the handmaidens bustling around on other errands, Loki was able to spend his time waiting for lessons by resting comfortably on one of the Queen's many benches within her solar. He watched his mother's back as Frigga rushed through another missive, possibly some letter to a Vanaheim cousin or a nicety to another local lord. Maybe even a careful, politically encouraging call from a Queen to a young warrior stationed near Nornheim, something that would be shared with others in the camp to cheer them. With the festival now over some few weeks, the kingdom was still catching up to its business and routines had not quite entirely resettled.

Loki could see the focus stone he'd given Frigga towards the end of the revels sitting on the desk with its small and plush velvet cushion and smiled for a moment. On his lap now was a gift of a different sort, but he knew full well he had to be a bit careful about it. Rank mattered, and tone, and intent.

The scratch of the pen stopped. Frigga deftly cleaned off the sharp metal tip of it in a dip of water and set it aside. She turned to study her son, visibly tired and without any of her usual jewels or finery adorning her brow. Comfort reigned today. The last eve had been a long one, with the King and Queen poring over maps and tactics with their generals. Thor already snuck afield now and again to fight his witches, and by now Loki suspected the royal parents knew full well what he was up to. He would return more regularly, if only to play up the ruse of being a dutiful son. Although that Lorelei was still and ever working at him, insistent and charming both. It harmed nothing if Thor spent a small amount of time being pawed at, and it gave Loki a good laugh.

As for himself otherwise, however… "I don't suppose you're up for a day's rest," said Frigga, looking ruefully at him. Her fingers toyed at the back of her chair, nails tapping a mantra of her own.

He went for the tease, not minding, sounding playful as he lounged back in his seat. "But Your Majesty, it's always you that tells me that the most valuable lessons of magical control and focus come when we're at our worst."

She waggled a finger at him, amused. "You have a point, young prince. You are also in rare position to do your old mother a rather vast favor."

"Reassure you that you are far from old?"

"Flattery, my son, is often a good tool but not so good a one here against me. I am too well armored against such things." She snorted at him, glancing at the book in his lap and then back to his face. "Give old mother a day and I'll make it up to you in full in due time."

"I suppose I can be persuaded." Loki grinned, already entirely so. "You know I'll just spend it in the library anyway." His hands fiddled with the tome in his lap. "Before I go, however, I was wondering if I might beg of you a minor indulgence."

She studied him, her brow creasing once under the crown of loosely knotted honey-gold braids. If there were silver threads in his mother's hair, his sharp eyes couldn't find them. Then she beckoned to him with a gentle flick of her hand. "Which is?"

He took a breath. "All protocol borne carefully in mind, I thought to ask if you might pass this small book on to one of your handmaidens. It's just a history that I thought might be enjoyed." A rare enough one, admittedly. An interesting little tome of old Alfheim lore, sold by a unassuming and ancient night-revel vendor who'd just missed a sale on the last night of those revels. He didn't ask why. That much wasn't his business.

Frigga leaned back without responding, one shoulder blade nestled in its plate of simple but decorative silver armor now pressed hard against the desk.

Suddenly Loki realized he couldn't read her. "To the youngest of yours, Lady Kara."

He was caught completely off guard by the cool formality of her tone. "Of my two sons, it was not you I would ever expect to need this discussion. Loki, leave my girls alone."

He tried to not gawp, stunned. "I-hardly what I meant. Just a tok-" He cut himself off instantly. That was not what he meant, the weight of a 'token' being far more formal than what he'd intended to get across. It was not often he was jostled hard enough to forget his own tongue, and when it happened, it was often Frigga's cause. Now his words fell over each other in an awkward rush. "Just a polite offering, and through you I would have asked it to be granted anonymously. Nothing more! She is having difficulties with the other girls, and I thought-"

"I am fully aware of what is going on, Loki." Frigga took a breath and her voice gentled again. "It is kind of you to notice another's trouble. But they're my girls, and my responsibility." She looked away, the corners of her eyes crinkling wearily. "Leave the book with me and I'll see to it that it goes to her hand. But heed me on this, my son. Nothing more than that. Leave my girls be."

Loki licked his lips, realizing his skin felt stung under all the folds of his clothing. "Of course, Your Majesty."

Frigga looked back at the sound of his voice, quiet and unable to bury all the hurt he realized he felt. He could almost always manage it with Odin. Not so much with her. She rose from her bench and reached out to take his hand, giving it a squeeze when he hesitantly offered it. "I will give my Kara your book. Not immediately, but I will. Don't worry at her meanwhile, please."

"Of course," he managed again, letting go of her and standing.

"To the library with you, then. And I am still in your debt, my son." She reached out to touch his face, one palm on either cheek, and she smiled at him to show there would be no anger, no disappointment left within her. The matter was small, to her, and the matter was over. To her. "Consider Libraum, he was a good old seal-forger. It's wearisome stuff, but the intricacy of his work shows the worth of that kind of meditative focus."

He nodded, and he smiled for Frigga as best he could, and when he left her solar, he did not look at Mette where she now tended the flowers that crawled over the railings, nor did he look anyone else in the eye for the rest of the day. He put all he felt in that dark place inside where he barricaded away all those other moments that hurt him, and he shut the door tightly on it as he moved on back towards the comforts of old and safe magic instead.

. . .

Night was falling. Loki didn't want to see it, didn't want to see the shadows deepen enough to let the ghosts swim in them. Not that ghost, especially. The one that held his stolen secret and gave back none of their own. He paced through the halls before the prison instead, mulling over exactly how he would present the offer to Heimdall. Trying to get his tension in check.

There was exactly one way Loki could pull ahead of his hunter. The question would be what he was willing to risk to gain it. If Asgard's watchman could find a way to escape, he would in an instant. Too big a crack in the door and he would be gone - Loki's problems expanding from one hunter with his secret to a warrior with full right to his own vengeance.

He continued to pace, calculating his odds and finding them less than reassuring. Heimdall was older and wiser and intensely angry. But in the short term, Loki would get what he needed. The rest… could be mitigated.

The dark old thing in the back of his thoughts that rattled and raged reminded him that he could kill Heimdall when this particular issue was over. Certainly he hadn't so far. Too great a benefit to keeping alive a man that could see like this one. Too many questions that could rise from his death.

And, whispered a smaller, quieter voice, he didn't actually want to. Unease tickled him. He'd had his chances before, and he let each of them pass. Frozen the man, locked him up, set him aside, taunted him. But Loki had not killed him, never that.

The dark old thing inside jeered at him for that. The hidden monster that he could be, the parts of him that struck out at Earth and watched the Chitauri fleet boil across the sky, pleased with the chaos he helped create.

And you failed, too. Loki bared his teeth at nothing, no mirrors to stare into down in the dungeons. Only himself, and his own shadow mixed in with the rest of the dark. It was foolish to think of himself as pieces, try to share out responsibility. In the end, they were all only him.

Loki made himself stop pacing, looking back at the guard station that lay beyond the closed doors, then on towards the silent prison with its charge no doubt waiting for him inside. Heimdall could not see thoughts with those strange eyes of his, but, Loki thought, dour and with his face tight and strained, did he often need to? His own were plain enough this time, and hiding them wouldn't change them.

Whether or not those hidden thoughts changed himself, that was a question he did not ever think to ask.