A/N: Woohoo! I kept my promise and got this to you guys in under a week (although technically it's after midnight here, but we'll ignore that...) So, I always find that listening to music is a great motivator when writing, particularly when inspiration is running low. For a while now I've been toying with the idea of posting the names of songs that I think are appropriate to the chapter in my author's notes. I haven't done so thus far purely because it seemed kind of, well... lame? But anyway, then I remembered that in my copy of The Host by Stephanie Meyer, she does the exact same thing, and it got me thinking, if a best selling author can do it, why can't I? (That was rhetorical, I know there are a thousand reasons why, but that's irrelevant.) So I'm going to start doing it. I'll post them at the end of each chapter so as to avoid any possible spoilers. I understand that music is an intensely personal thing, so many of you might not get the connections I make in my head. Sometimes it's the whole song, sometimes a specific lyric, sometimes even just the general feel of the song. It goes without saying that if you don't want to get any more familiar with the workings of my brilliant (stupid) mind, then just don't pay any attention to it, but for those of you who are interested in familiarising yourselves with my awesome (weird) taste in music, that's great! By the way, the song I had in my head when I was writing Elsa's dreaming scene in the last chapter was Days to Come by Seven Lions.

Now, without further ado, I give you chapter nine...

Loki paced the length of his bedchamber, his legs swallowing the distance with a restlessness akin to a lion. The ice hummed with every footfall and the wind outside screamed as it lashed against the mountainside, but all sounds fell on deaf ears. Loki's mind reeled and writhed, unable to focus on anything other than the events that had just transpired.

Elsa had returned to her own chambers in order to give Loki time to mull over all she had told him, and also to eat. She had left him with copious amounts of food after shyly observing to him that he looked terrible. He had bridled a little at that, but could not deny it. Three days without sustenance had left his already lean figure well on the way to becoming skeletal. In that time he had hardly slept for worrying about Elsa. Any sleep he did manage to scrounge had been fitful and plagued by nightmares. On the first night he had dreamed that he and Elsa were seated at a grand trestle table laden with more food than a man could eat in a lifetime, but every time one of them ate, the other became more and more gaunt, until they eventually starved. After that he had barely had an hour of unbroken rest.

For the longest time Loki had done naught but stare warily at the pilings of food, the image of Elsa's withered form springing unbidden to his mind whenever he went to eat. But for every minute he held out, his hunger grew more difficult to suppress. He finally broke after an hour of torment, with the smell of fresh bread and roast fowl filling his nostrils, but even with a full belly Loki's insides still felt pinched and taut. He just couldn't relax, especially after hearing Elsa's ridiculous tale.

But is it ridiculous? Loki thought. He had to admit that parts of her story had seemed familiar to him in an abstract sort of way. He felt as though he were staring into a bank of heavy fog trying to catch a glimpse of something that he instinctively knew was on the other side, but the harder he tried to see through it, the more he could see nothing but grey, swirling and concealing.

Smoke and mirrors, that's what this is. Smoke and mirrors. I can't even see the ground beneath my feet.

He threw himself down on the bed in frustration. None of it made sense. It was true that he had felt some kind of connection with Elsa, but by now Loki had grudgingly accepted his attraction to her and had disregarded such feelings as a side effect of that, nothing more. But now Elsa's dream gave him pause. He had told himself again and again that it was just that - a dream - but there had been no lie in Elsa's eyes. Her conviction was so strong that it had seeped into him just while she was relating the tale to him. Left to brood like this, it was almost enough to convince him.

Don't be a fool, he berated himself. You would remember if you had met her before. Gods know she is not the type of person one simply forgets.

He found himself mapping out her features in his mind. Her crystalline eyes held him transfixed, but he knew what lay around them well enough; the delicate nose and full, pink lips, her slender neck held slightly atilt so that her snowy braid draped over a polished ivory shoulder.

"No," Loki murmured aloud. "I would not forget that face."

But what if I did? If what Elsa had told him was true then perhaps it was entirely possible. She had forgotten him as well, after all, and only remembered him when she touched the token. Loki had no qualms in admitting the peculiarity of that detail. Whether the things Elsa saw whilst unconscious were real or not, it made no sense that she would react so violently to the cuff if it were only a mere trinket...

Loki stifled a yawn with the back of his hand. He whipped his head back and forth aggressively, shaking off the probing hands of sleep. There was still too much to be puzzled out. With another shake of his head, he forced himself to pick up his train of thought again.

...And then there was the way the alleged memories came back to her; all in a rush, as though they had been buried or suppressed. That made even less sense to Loki. From what Elsa had told him, these memories were happy ones. Some of the happiest she has, I'd say. But people don't suppress happy memories. Not willingly, anyway.

The thought that Loki had been toying with for some time now loomed in the back of his mind. Magic, it called. Magic wouldn't require the person to be willing. He had to admit it was a likely argument. So long as the bond wasn't long-standing or well-established, it wasn't particularly difficult to alter someone's memory to make them forget another person. There was also the rather condemnatory fact that when Elsa had first broached her suspicions to Loki, he had felt the familiar thrill building within him that hinted at the presence of sorcery. He had shrugged it off at the time as a pathetically boyish reaction to Elsa admitting that she had felt the same pull as he had. Now though...

Magic certainly seemed to be the only logical explanation, but simply acknowledging that fact didn't reveal to Loki why anyone would want to tinker with their minds and make the pair forget one another. What harm could possibly come from them being together?

There's only one way to find out, Loki thought, trying and failing to suppress another yawn. I need to get my memories back.

With a heavy heart he realised that he hadn't the slightest idea how to do that. His own magic should have been strong enough to reverse the spell, but without knowing who cast it or what exactly they did whilst they were inside his head, it was virtually impossible. In fact, he might end up exacerbating the effects, and make himself forget that he was trying to remember what he had already forgotten. He shuddered. Mind manipulation could get horribly confusing. He preferred to do his manipulation from the outside, with a suggestive remark, a coy look, oh, and reverse psychology. That was fun, especially on Thor, who made it so delightfully easy. He almost started a war with the Jotuns just because I told him not to, the oaf.

Returning to the problem at hand, Loki went over all he knew of how Elsa's memories were regained. Clearly she had sensed them (or, rather, their absence) almost immediately after their meeting, as he had. But it took her touching the token she had supposedly given to Loki before they parted ways for them to return fully. Perhaps the token was the key.

But I've touched the cuff hundreds of times, even after I met Elsa, and it never affected me in any way. Then he recalled that Elsa had said he also gave her something; a flame, one of his green ones. Maybe it had to be the token that they gave, rather than the one they received.

Ah. Yet another problem. Elsa said she had no knowledge of the flame's whereabouts. Unlike her token of ice, Loki's little green blaze had not lingered in plain sight after her memories had been lost. He had given her nothing else. Except...

No, he thought with firm resolve, while at the same time another part of him cried, Why not?

No! he repeated, pulse quickening. I will not kiss her! I will not allow Elsa to become a weakness. I won't do it.

You were close enough an hour ago, his unhelpful little voice grumbled. Besides, you saw the way she looked at you. You know she wouldn't complain.

Yes, he had seen, and emulated her behaviour just minutes later. Odin's beard, he had come so close to losing himself, he knew, after Elsa had talked about seeing herself as a monster. Her eyes had been so full of sorrow. It had taken every inch of his will power not to grab her and crush her delicate frame against his, to silence her mouth with his and press her into the mattress. So close. The gods only know how close.

That closeness scared him, truth be told. He had never craved intimacy, never truly lusted after a woman the way he had seen his brother do countless times. In fact the thought had always repelled him; he had seen what such folly did to Thor, and had no desire for those same consequences to befall himself. But Elsa... She was another matter entirely. He had half a mind to seek her out right now, consequences be damned, but the part of his mind that was still thinking clearly shooed his fatuous thoughts swiftly away.

She does not know me, he argued. Not truly. If she did she would not seem so willing. She may call herself a monster, but one as gentle as her cannot begin to comprehend the things I have done. The things I still plan to do...

But her lips would not leave his thoughts, irrespective of how hard he tried to force them away. They always came back, hovering over him like a rosebuds. So beautiful, he mused sleepily. Yet no doubt covered in thorns. I'll certainly get cut if I venture too close.

The effort of warring against his own subconscious took its toll on Loki, who was already bone-weary from the ordeals of the past three days. Within minutes, darkness began to encroach on the fringes of his vision as his eyelids threatened to sidle closed. His surroundings became blurred and would not come back into focus no matter how he struggled. With one last weary sigh he succumbed, flopping back onto his pillows like a limp fish. His last coherent thought before he gave himself up to sleep was of Elsa's lips, and how sweet they would taste against his own.

The sound of his footsteps rang hollow in his ears. Carved doors yawned cavernously around him, and soaring pillars of elegantly hewn gold flanked him as he stepped further into the room. Loki had always been acutely aware of the enormity of the Asgardian throne room, but never before had he felt so small upon entering it. Sunlight streamed in through windows set high in the walls, bouncing through the room and turning every surface to molten gold. So much gold, Loki thought meekly. I am a glacier, floating in a sea of gold.

The floor beneath his feet was blinding, but he kept his eyes cast downwards nonetheless, squinting. He could not steel himself to raise his eyes to where the dais rose resplendent, for fear that his false father would be sat enthroned there.

A disembodied voice called out to him from nowhere, a voice that was infinitely familiar to him. "Loki," said Frigga. "You must always keep it hidden…"

Her voice began to dissipate into echoes, but Loki did not wait for the hall to fall silent before replying. "Mother? Where are you? Mother! I don't understand. What must I keep hidden?" His voice was brimming with anguish, but no figure emerged from the shadows, and no voice gave answer to his plea.

Loki's mind reeled as he tried to fathom the meaning behind the Asgardian queen's words. He gazed intently into the shadows in an attempt to locate the figure of the woman that he had always gone to for comfort and wisdom in the years of his youth, but his efforts were met by aught but gloom. On the peripheral of his vision he thought he glimpsed movement, but when he spun to face it, whatever had stirred was gone. An involuntary shudder racked his frame, and he knew that whatever had been lurking in the shadows was not his mother, but something far more sinister, and altogether unwanted. Odin, he thought immediately, but even as the name crossed his mind he knew it was not right.

More than ever before he longed for Frigga to take him in her arms as she used to when he was just a boy. She would stroke his hair and murmur soothing words to him until all his worries had dissolved like smoke in the wind. One day not too long ago, Loki would have scoffed at his so called troubles. 'Dilemmas' of the heart barely warrant such a title, he would have said. Now though, he felt as though he had the weight of Mjolnir pressing down on him.

"Mother…" he whispered, childlike.

"Why do you speak to the shadows?" a voice boomed. Loki whipped around to face the speaker, heart pounding at the base of his throat.

Odin stood off to the side of the throne, feet planted in his customary solid stance, one hand gripping Gungnir, his omnipresent spear. The king's one eye bore into Loki, his blue iris menacing and terrible and glinting in time with the golden patch that covered his missing eye. More gold. I do not belong here. This is the only home I have ever known, and I do not belong here.

Loki tried to answer, but his mouth was dry as parchment, and he could not speak. Instead, in a bid to unlock his gaze from Odin's, his eyes flicked to the nearest point of focus: the throne. Odin frowned down at him. "You covet what can never be yours."

"I never wanted the throne!" Loki hissed, his temper flaring up like a cobra. "I never wanted to rule. I only ever wanted to be Thor's equal. For you to see me as his equal."

"As I said, you covet what can never be yours. You are not his equal, and never will be. You are not of Asgard."

"The woman you married is not of Asgard!" Loki protested. "Your wife is of the Vanir, Allfather, will you deny that?"

"Frigga is descended from a noble race. Her people are peaceful and wise. Your kin, Laufeyson, are savages. By rights you are no better. You will never be equal to one of mine own blood."

Some small part of him tried to reason that this was a dream, that the real Odin would never say such things. It's a lie, his little voice cried. There is evil in this dream. Something pollutes your mind while you sleep. You must wake up! But the anguish that bubbled up within threatened to consume him. Loki had to have answers.

"Then why did you save me?" he demanded. "Why not leave me out on the ice to freeze as a child?"

"I have told you why," Odin said dismissively.

Loki barked a short, humourless laugh. "Yes, to forge an alliance between our realms when I came of age. But, pray tell me this, father, why would you want to be allied with a race of savages?" He spat the last word out with as much contempt as he could muster. "Or are you referring to the other reason you gave me? That I was just a poor little babe, stranded, abandoned, dying. Oh yes, Odin the Merciful, that sounds familiar. Odin the Sentimental." Odin's frown was deepening by the second. "You cannot have been so touched by my innocence, father, else why would you have given me new skin? Did it disturb you so to see me as I truly am, touched by ice?"

Loki was yelling now, and a snow flurry had begun to whirl around him. That's odd, he thought offhandedly. I've never done that before. He raised his arms up to shoulder height, and bared his teeth at the Allfather as he began to change his form. He felt the prickle at the base of his spine as his skin darkened to hues of deep blue, interrupted by ridges the colour of hoarfrost. His clothes sloughed off his body until he was laid bare before Odin, his Jotun form radiating icy menace.

"Do you see me, father? Do you see the monster?"

But Odin's stare was locked on Loki's arm, his lone eye narrowing into an inscrutable slit. "What is that?" he demanded in a quiet voice that was infinitely more terrifying than even his loudest battle cry. Loki followed his gaze and found himself looking down at the cuff that encircled his bicep, with Elsa's token set in the middle. He instinctively angled his body away from Odin, trying too late to conceal the item from him. You must always keep it hidden…

"Where did you get that?" Odin asked again, his tone bordering on dangerous.

Loki backed away, the squall intensifying around him, acting as a shield, for all the good it would do against Odin's wrath. As the Allfather began to descend the steps, the first of the snowflakes landed on his skin. Loki looked down at his hand where it had made contact, and was startled to see a streak of crimson running down his finger. More of the crystals landed on him, burying themselves in his hair and melting against his skin. When one settled on his lips, he almost gagged on the coppery taste of blood.

It came in torrents after that, the snowflakes whirling red around him, streaming down his face in hot, smothering gushes. He slipped backwards on the treacherously slippery floor and cracked his head as he fell. Like rose petals, he thought absently as the blood rained down around him. As he began to lose his grip on consciousness, Loki heard a woman's muffled sobs. "I told you to always keep it hidden from him…"

Loki awoke panting, and for half a second was convinced that he was in fact covered in blood, before realising that he was just slick with perspiration. He summoned a ball of flame and set it hovering over the bed. It cast a ghoulish light across the draperies, but the presence of light was an undeniable comfort. He swung his legs out of bed just for the benefit of feeling something solid beneath his feet. The cold was a welcome shock as he threw the coverlets back and pressed his soles against the ice. It served well to clear his head, for his dream had left him quite out of sorts.

Loki's dreams usually evolved from one truth or another that he was pondering at the time, but he could not help feeling that this one in particular was meant to reveal a truth to him. After many long minutes replaying the events of his dream, Loki was struck by a sudden realisation.

Until Odin's untoward reaction to the sight of Elsa's token, Loki had not realised the implication behind Frigga's words. When his mother had given the cuff to him three years ago, she had warned Loki that it must be kept secret. Loki had not understood the necessity for secrecy over a mere piece of jewellery, but had not questioned his mother on the matter. It was her gift to him, and her conditions, also. Privately, Loki had liked to think it was because she had bought him something and not Thor. Now, though, he finally understood. She had not only warned to keep it hidden, but to keep it hidden from him.

From Odin, Loki realised. He felt slightly breathless. Elsa had said that Frigga was the one who introduced the two of them in the first place; it stood to reason that she would know about the tokens. If Odin really had been the one to alter their memories, Frigga would have gone to any lengths possible to ensure Loki had something of Elsa's to keep close, even if he would not understand the significance of it. She would always hold onto the hope that one day we would find each other again.

The thought might have been enough to bring tears to his eyes, but, as it was, Loki's balled fists were shaking with barely quelled rage towards the man he had called father for so many years. The betrayal he felt now was a keen sting, matched only by the pain he had felt when his heritage was revealed to him in the Weapons Vault. By Odin, his helpful voice added.

Loki marvelled at the bitter irony that in his whole life, the only true pain he had felt had been at the hands of the only father figure he had ever known. The cruelty of that fact was astounding, and tears sprang to his eyes again, for quite the opposite reason this time. He blinked them back furiously. I will not weep for Odin's sake.

And then Loki realised something. He had been denied years of happiness because of Odin, in more ways than Loki cared to contemplate. Because of Odin's lies, he had been a stranger in his own skin and in his own realm his entire life. Because of those same deceptions, Loki had been raised to believe himself an equal, which only made the realisation of his inferiority all the more crushing. Because of the Allfather's conviction that he always knew the best path to take, he had denied Loki the benefit of the acquaintance that could have made all the difference in him finding peace with his true nature when it finally was revealed to him.

But no more, he thought with bittersweet determination. He rose to his feet, only pausing to pull a shirt on and tuck it loosely into his breeches before shouldering his way out the door. Though he strode with purpose, inside his mind was a tumult of nerves; he really had no idea how these things worked.

He didn't wait for Elsa to answer his knock before stepping through the door, as he felt sure that she would not be asleep. As he expected, she was standing on her balcony looking down into the valley in much the same way he had found her on his first night under her roof. At the sound of his entry, she turned, skirts swishing elegantly around her ankles.

They regarded each other in silence for a moment, Elsa's worry writ plainly on her face. Loki studied her from head to toe, drinking in her beauty. She stood in a pool of silver moonlight and seemed positively ethereal to his eyes. He did not spend long admiring her, however. Elsa shifted under his gaze and opened her mouth as if to speak.

In a heartbeat, Loki closed the distance between them and took her face in his hands. Elsa just had time to gasp before his mouth closed over hers, stealing the breath from her entirely. Her arms moved to encircle him and draw him closer, fingers twining into the fabric of his shirt. Loki's mouth moved against hers, slowly easing her lips apart. Just as his hands were beginning to drift down Elsa's frame, Loki broke off the kiss with a sharp inhale of breath.

Elsa looked up him wide-eyed, wondering if she'd done something wrong. She was as inexperienced as he was, after all. But Loki's eyes were bright with fervour, and a smile was spreading across his flushed features.

"I remember," he whispered, pressing his forehead to hers.

Elsa almost laughed, but the sound caught in her throat and turned into a sob. Loki tipped her chin up and claimed her lips again, more gently this time, but with no less feeling. It was Elsa who took it further, reaching up to run her fingers through his hair and press his face harder against hers. He smiled against her mouth, amused by her insistence, but complied nonetheless.

Some part of him registered the throb making its way up his spine as his skin reverted to its natural state, as well as the snowflakes settling in their hair and on their shoulders.

Ice and snow, he thought. Perhaps this is where I belong.

A Beautiful Lie - Thirty Seconds to Mars

Silent Storm - Carl Espen