A/N: Apologies galore for the long, long wait! You can all place your blame respectively upon, in this order: the last two semesters of school, school-related projects and homework workloads, getting sucked into the glorious, mind-warping Eldrich horror of Commonplace Books'/Mr. Finks's/Mr. Cranor's Welcome to Night Vale (I regret nothing, and yet everything, for conversion to it's lovely, eyeball-searing terror. ALL HAIL THE GLOW CLOUD...), convention-going (and getting poked in the chest by a homemade Glowstick of Destiny at said convention), several rather long family summer trips, taking up a fandom-related cross-stitching project, hosting several visitors, preparing for another semester of school, and writing for several other stories that refuse otherwise to leave me alone.
NOTE #1: Marvel's The Avengers: Age of Ultron was...a mixed bag for me (although I will be making references to it later in this story). On one hand, it was awesome, at least to me. On the other hand (WARNING: VAGUE BUT MAJOR SPOILERS! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!), what happened to Quicksilver seemed utterly needless to me (this is the guy who moves so fast Mjolnir moves in ultra-slow motion when he looks at it while running, why did he let that happen to him? That move was pointless, except for what the impact was on Clint so he'd feel super-indebted to Wanda since Pietro died saving him...although I'm willing to bet Marvel will bring him back in a bigger role somehow, it's rather hard to stay down permanently in the Marvel film!verse recently...). Also, Tony's experience with tech, J.A.R.V.I.S., pop culture, and Bruce there "science-ing it up" with him all should've put up a million red flags before either of them could think of making a real A.I. using alien technology, even with the mind-altering influence. But nope, let's build a super-massive A.I. to be a Big Brother sentinel for the entirety of Earth, and let's make it using the scepter that was previously used to alter people's minds, blow up helicopters and cars, and contains a rock of incomprehensible crazy power that really should be just locked away from light fingers and any sort of mind to play with...then again, that means it's still at least partly Wanda's fault since she waved her grubby little fingers in his brain and essentially brainwashed him into building the stupid A.I. in the first place, and only swapped to the Avengers' side when Ultron basically had to explain to her that he was planning on smashing the human population to bits to start rebuilding Earth how he wanted. Steve, please stop enabling her; if she's old enough to enlist in H.Y.D.R.A. to destroy one of your teammates, she's old enough to be at least be made to apologise for the mind-altering!
NOTE #2: I have literally no idea if the Marvel Comic Universe has Loki as a parent, but, given what happened to his poor kids in Norse mythology (dear gods above, it was utterly horrible), I'm going to settle with the fanon theory that Loki was the godly equivalent of someone in their late teens/early twenties when the events of the first Thor came into play, and that, as far as we know, he has no kids of his own and already had enough childish antics to deal with just keeping Thor from being too much of an idiot.
Why are there no kids, you may ask? The answer is simple: if I put in his awesome mythological kids, all I'll be able to think of is the absolute pile of cacamas (my deepest apologies to anyone Irish who might be offended!) that Odin and the other gods and goddesses put them through (it's enough, if I think about it too much, to make me want to set fire to Odin's beard and poke out his other eye, rip the bridle and bit from Sleipnir and give him back to Loki along with a mountain of sugar cubes, and evoke curses of infertility and indescribably painful boils for everyone involved, just for starters...).
So therefore, according to this AU, up until this point there are no babies by Reindeer Games, the bag-of-cats is having far too much fun driving Midgard up the walls with tricks to think of that. Adelram, being the cat who adopted a god (anyone who's ever had cats probably can attest that the cat takes on you, you just pamper the little fuzzy hellspawns to bits like the good little human that you are~), is an exception. If (and/or when) there are any little sprogs, they'll be like Ade: wonderful, strange little rescue-babies found here on Midgard, and in desperate need of a good home and lot of love. Name suggestions are appreciated!
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing but the idea for this story. All references to anything are done for entertainment purposes only. Please don't try to send me to Desert Bluffs for taking so long to get this chapter out, as I very highly doubt that I'll survive the machinations of StrexCorp, or the wrath of their immensely disturbing Smiling God.
The next chapter will be less...angst-ridden, and more upbeat, I promise!
Among the many interesting sites of the city of New York, there were, sprinkled here and there, the gems of those timeless sources of knowledge: libraries.
Given the incredible amount of digital media available nowadays able to provide the curious minds of the public with any sort of information they desired, libraries on Midgard were not quite as often used, or filled up with people willing to spend the long hours often required to read books before checkout. Most people were more willing to look up the information using their cellphones, computers, or digital tablets, so the quiet domiciles of book-based information were not always as popular, save for during cram sessions or forced fulfillment of the old-fashioned researching style that plagued students the world over for the sake of their school projects and research papers.
Loki, of course, was not among those people.
For a large portion of his life, the self-exiled former prince had found a refuge in the libraries of Asgard, eagerly soaking up the knowledge offered from between the pages of the thick, often-dusty tomes, memorising as much as he could when the subject being read pleased him. The towering shelves often passed from floor to ceiling in height and extended for miles, creating a thick, dizzying labyrinth of information to be explored. In youth, there was a certain comfort, cold and fragile as it sometimes seemed, in the silent understanding that Thor and his friends, nor the other children interacted with in training sessions for battle, would ever think to come and find entertainment of any sort in a library, of all places, much less the one he most frequented, that of the palace. He could not be mocked for his fighting skills, or choice of weapon, or love of magic, in a place where the warrior-children often refused to tread.
Now, he found that, despite the somewhat unfortunate fact of these libraries mostly being much smaller and less informative than those of Asgard, these repositories of books were generally quite cozy, often having a little café or tearoom attached, complete with menus for sandwiches, pre-made pastries, and what Loki was inwardly certain were among the most ridiculously overcomplicated caffeine-filled drinks known to the Nine Realms.
He had learned enough complex spellwork over the years to make even the most dedicated of students cringe in horror, but the mere knowledge that somewhere on Midgard there existed a soul brave, or crazy, enough to order a gallon of espresso shot-filled coffee laden with a noxious mixture that included protein and matcha powders, over half a dozen different sugary syrup flavourings, at least three different types of candied chips, a whole cupful of both soy and cream each, and a heaping drizzle of gooey caramel and fruit was enough to lead to disgust, nausea, and the beginnings of a migraine over pondering what would drive such a person to order such a hazardous-seeming beverage. No mortal living here seemed to be willing to risk their health for something that disgusting-sounding.
Today, he'd sequestered himself away in a little nook in a library located several hours from his little apartment, a mug of hot black tea and a plate of warm biscuits placed by his elbow, and Adelram had taken it upon himself to curl around the god's neck and shoulders, nuzzling the dark hair as Loki directed his attentions onto a collection of Midgardian mythology.
There was little to nothing he could find so far that seemed more than vaguely correct, though much of it was at least somewhat amusing. The stories he found of himself were utterly, hideously, disturbingly wrong, of course (and thank the Norns for that, he didn't know what he would do if he actually had been the one to experience the insane antics of the recorded Norse pantheon, and why did he have so many alleged children?), and there were quite a collection of them to be found among the shelves of European mythos, but it seemed that either the humans had mistranslated a great deal of the exploits he and Thor had gotten up to during their previous visits some centuries before, or it was all a compendium of nonsense written down while the author was still deep in his cups and couldn't be bothered to double-check what he'd scrawled into memory.
Staring at the rather thick tome lying open in front of him on the table, his mind shrank back in inward horror and disgust at the some of the more...unpleasant readings. Bound with his entrails? A sword shoved through his maw? Banished to rule an empty, lifeless wasteland of forgotten, shunned dead as a puppet-queen? Ripped apart by his own brother as a mindless wolf? Trapped to an existence as Odin's warhorse? What sick madness has been written down in this planet's mythos that those are what they think of?
His appetite brutally shredded by the violent, unpleasant lives and fates written upon the pages, he shut the cover and pushed the book away, a feeling of sudden, overwhelming nausea threatening to make him ill.
And they say I'm the disturbed one of the house of Odin.
The feeling of contentment he had been experiencing was now slowly but surely ebbing away like water down a drain, and he sighed in frustration at how easily the day had taken such an unpleasant direction. Sipping the rest of his tea as a distraction, the god stared at the hastily-repelled book at the other side of the table, the gilded lettering embossed on the leather cover hiding the poisonous words inside.
Adelram, sensing the sudden change in mood, hissed at the book from atop his lofty perch of skinny alien shoulders, fur standing on end as he batted the air in front of him as if trying to swat a particularly annoying fly. A low sigh issued forth as the god stared in half-melancholy, half-amusement at his pet's antics.
Perhaps this signals our time to leave this place, then. Words that poisonous should not be read again today.
Getting up, he snapped his fingers sharply, letting the magic laced through the action send the books on the table back to their shelving spaces and cause the plate of biscuits, untouched thanks to the grim readings, to vanish into nonbeing. Looking at the mug of black tea sitting on the table, he suddenly wished it were something far, far stronger.
Yes, definitely time to leave.
Reaching up with thin hands, he effortlessly scooped Adelram from his shoulders and swept him into his arms, taking a small, split second to rest his forehead against the top of his pet's wonderfully soft, furry head, drinking in the small comfort it provided. Adelram rumbled softly, a low, deep purr resonating through his tiny body to fill the god's chest with shaking, hummingbird-bright warmth.
Why they never had any of your kind back on Asgard, I'll never know. You are so much nicer than getting completely inebriated to cope with painful matters of the heart and spirit.
Sighing again, this time calmer, he straightened up and walked from the building, uncaring as to the odd looks he received (illusion to cloak his real appearance or not, mortals never were wont to look away from a man walking down the street while cuddling a tomcat). Emotionally drained from his dive into Midgard's mythology, he could only feel a dull throb of annoyance when he found himself feeling too burnt out to teleport home.
Thus, an impromptu walk began. Taking to the web of streets radiating out from the library, he strode through the maze of passing civilians hurrying back and forth through the streets, shops, and avenues in an endless bustling rush to somewhere or another, watching in vague amusement as several of the less "aware" teenage mortals, engrossed in responding to the stimuli on their handheld devices, often didn't notice until it was too late that they were about to crash into another person, a garbage can, and in rather painful-looking case, a streetlamp.
Endlessly busy, the lot of them. How they can stand it defies my understanding. Why waste so much time with only rushing about? You barely take the time to take in what is before you.
Although, the god reluctantly conceded, it wasn't as if there was too much of interest to look at, out here. The buildings of the surrounding town area were mostly similar, with hometown family-run businesses and small stores and bakeries. There was much less in the way of flashing neon signs, billboards, flashing electronics, or huge spires of glass and metal than in the huge, sprawling metropolis only a few hours away.
How utterly dull.
Continuing on his way, he noted, with no small amount of distaste, that the sky was darkening again, the clouds looking heavy and dark with their icy cargo. Thunder rumbled in the distance, but wind was starting to pick up, and he had an inkling that it would only worsen. People were hurrying faster now, shops putting up Sorry, we're closed signs in windows as employees hurried out the doors in coats and yanking open umbrellas. The bite of slowly dropping temperature in the air left his magic tingling and his skin prickling in unhappily-remembered thoughts of blue and cold, and he pulled Adelram closer, buttoning his coat shut, the cat nuzzling vigourously into his chest and rubbing a tiny, pink nose over the god's heart, as if trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to crawl into his ribcage to curl up around the beating organs within and warm them back to wholeness.
A storm is descending, and in this weather, teleporting might be dangerous...
The thought of using the oft-done spell to return them both home, only for the wild magic of Midgard's unpredictable natural forces to possibly interfere with the mechanics of the trip, potentially even dangerously so, was not a risk he wanted to take. Electrocution by Mjolnir was difficult enough to withstand, electrocution by what could possibly be multiple simultaneous lightning strikes was not acceptable. He might survive it, Adelram would certainly not.
We need shelter.
Stepping off the sidewalk, he ducked into the nearest building to gain a hideaway from the ill-seeming weather.
As he stepped through the doors, green eyes blinked several times, widening as their owner took in the sight inside.
The rows and rows of animal cages and glass tanks were, admittedly, to be expected. However, the odd lack of persons watching over the store was not, though the crooked, still-swinging Sorry, we're closed sign on the front implied the evacuation wasn't too long ago.
Songbirds with bright, angelic warbling tunes and tropical specimens with huge, arching feathers and colourful wings clustered in trash can-sized cages and perched on bamboo stands. Clusters of snakes, coiling and slithering over and around each other in piles of muscle and scale, each ranging in size from as thick around as a wrist to thin as the width of a pen, with cold, jewel-bright eyes that glittered hungrily from behind the glass. Tanks full of soft, squeaking mice, hamsters, or rats, whiskers twitching and tiny paws scampering about. Pens with wriggly, furry puppies emitting high-pitched yipping and barking as they playing tug-o'-war with chew toys sat next to pens of tiny, pudgy kittens with strawberry-pink noses and stumpy little tails playing with toys filled with bells and studded with soft tassels to bat curious paws at.
Adelram was utterly fascinated.
The tomcat, curled up against Loki's chest with tiny, needle-sharp claws wound firmly into the fabric of his coat, stared with wide, curious eyes at the sight of the cloud of tiny felines playing in the pen on the warm floor.
At first, Loki couldn't decipher the surprised look on his pet's face, wondering if his smaller companion simply was interested in one of the toys. But upon looking a bit closer, it soon became clear to him that the tomcat wasn't interested in the toys, but the cats playing with them.
Having only ever seen Adelram interact on occasion (and even then with wariness, as he was still smaller than some of them, a trait which Loki had a feeling would be permanent) with the few adult cats kept as pets by a few of his neighbors in their shared building, the god could only surmise that, given the unfortunate beginnings for his pet before he'd found him during that fateful storm, the cat likely had little to no memory of any littermates, or of any other cats his own age. Being left in the cardboard box all by himself to be given away like an unwanted pair of socks suggested, at least to Loki, that his dear, faithful feline was possibly the runt of his litter, too small or not of the right breeding to want to keep. There would be little to no chance to bond with a mother cat or littermates if it seemed he didn't "fit".
The god clenched his fists at the memories that train of thought evoked, and promptly shoved the musings down. No point in getting angry when he's here, and he's fine. That's all that truly matters. He is wanted, and loved, and safe.
His pet was a warm, reassuringly solid weight in his arms, alive and well. As if he could hear Loki's thoughts and had deemed them too dark to continue, the tomcat meowed sharply, long, sleek tail swishing up to flick against the god's neck in a seemingly-unwitting distraction. The haze of pseudo-projecting vanished as if dispelled by a banishing hex, and he stroked the twitching, silky folded ears in silent thanks.
A crack of thunder from outside suddenly BOOMED harshly, rattling the windows and leaving the animals fidgeting and chattering restlessly. The puppies let out a panicked chorus of barking, the kittens mewing and hissing in turn. Scowling at the sudden noise, Loki pulled Adelram closer, silently weaving a muffling spell into the air of the store so his pet's sensitive, short folded ears wouldn't hurt from the incessant noise, and watched the multitude of kittens in the pen converge into a huge, fluffy ball in the face of the storm now happily raging outside.
All, that is, save for one.
Curled at the back of the pen, almost completely obscured by the shadows cast by a nearby stack of sacks of dry pet food, was a tiny kitten with a whipcord lean body and lopsided ears. The thunder cracked across the air again, and while the other kittens hissed and meowed, huddling into balls together to help avoid the noise, the little body in the shadows merely shivered, then curled up into a lone ball, an unusually-long tail wrapping around the tiny form as if to serve as a makeshift blanket.
Surprised at the sight, Loki leaned over the side of the pen, peering down at the mere scrap of a fledgling cat huddled in on themselves in the dark. Even in the shadows cast by the stacked food, he could see faint tremors wracking the tiny body.
Adelram stared for a long moment, then uttered a plaintive cry and wriggled his body out of lean, jacket-clad arms; before Loki could grab him and pull him back, the tomcat landed in a graceful crouch in the pen, then padded over softly to the small, shaking form huddled in the back. A twitch of whiskers, and then the little pink nose nudged the kitten's forehead. The smallest, almost ridiculously soft little mewl rent the air as the tiny head tilted up, revealing a softly twitching dark nose, a yawning mouth, and a pair of big, bright eyes, the colour an unnervingly poisonous-looking greenish-yellow on the left, and a bright, starry blue on the right. Adelram stared for a moment, then licked one of the lopsided ears and turned to face him. Judging by the look in his eyes, Loki knew there was a question being asked.
I like this. It's like a small me, only not. Can we keep it?
The miniscule scrap of fur let out a sneeze. Adelram curled around the tiny body, meowing softly, and stared at the god with the eyes of one who already knew he held victory well in his grasp.
Sighing, Loki held out his arms. At least I know enough vanishing spells to deal with the extra shedding.
He could almost feel the rumble of Adelram's purring crackling through the air as he picked up the smaller feline by the scruff of the neck, walking up to the god with bright eyes and a triumphant air.
"Come here and warm yourselves, you insufferable creatures."
The purr of the larger cat as he curled into the god's arms, the smaller cat sandwiched between the two of them, sounded, in that moment, to be almost louder than the thunder outside.
Buttoning his coat shut, Loki sat down cross-legged on one of the unsold, clean animal beds, feeling the soft rumble of purring resonate through his body.