There was a time when I wanted to be Bor Burison. I tied a red throw rug around my neck and stuffed a make-believe sword through my belt every morning before our governess could get me to come down for breakfast. Bor was the wisest, most ferocious, most praiseworthy Asgardian ever. When I grew up, I wanted to just like him. He was, everybody said, the greatest hero who ever lived. My father's father.

I practiced my victory pose and pranced up and down the hall swirling my red rug cape. I strutted to my lessons because in my head this is what Bor Burison would do, swung my sword at the servants, and developed a morbid interest in Father's hearth. Mother wove me a remarkably patient story about how the large vicious-looking plants in her garden were actually Bor's staunchest allies. Allies, she insisted, are not to be attacked. Father took to calling me Bor even though I hadn't asked him to, which was nice—and which lasted just up until I tried to command Odin Borson and then I was Loki Odinson instead.

Glass orbs, bread loaves, and round-ish knicknacks were all unsafe if they were in grasping range. Head-sized things had to be held aloft so that I could display my conquest to proper loving applause. The barbaric Nine Realms had to be put to heel. Rebellions had to be conquered in glorious war. I made an irritating mess of myself with Mother's red skin paints for blood.

My bedroom in the nursery's dual suite had a life-size model Eldjotun in it by the toy chest, with plastine black armor and an enchanted fiery beard. This model was very good for striking with my toy sword. Thor had to be kept out of my room by our governesses because nobody could get him to stop kicking the Eldjotun, which made me mad. Not because he was kicking my model—I'd have been only too happy making him a war leader in my army if he thought to use a sword instead of his foot—but because an angry round brother kicking my Fire Giant destroyed the illusion. Illusion was very important. Faux-realism was very important. One kills an enemy by attacking him with a proper weapon, not sulking up to him and lobbing a boot at his shin.

Thor didn't care about playing pretend. By age seven I towered over him, could outpace him in combat class, could out-run and out-jump-and out-do him in the field and the scholarly arts as well. While I converted my room into an alter to Bor Burison he tortured the servants and yelled at everybody. I grew like a prized weed: straight up. His growth seemed to be building at the roots without putting out any stem at all; his future mass piled on as excess weight and this earned him the ire of our fighting masters.

"Thor will grow," sighed Mother.

"Thor will grow," soothed Father.

Here is our picture that summer: One son going through a Bor phase and one son who "will grow".

When Father took us to visit Alfheim I wheedled Mother into letting me bring my Bor costume. Father took me aside and, on bended knee so he could look me in the eye, told me that I could be Bor in my room but not at the dinner table. The people of Alfheim wanted to see Prince Loki, he explained, not Bor.

The people of Alfheim must be idiots, I thought.

So the red rug cape came off and the sword lay in glorious repose on my pillow, frozen in a dream until the moment we could play together again. By that time the cape's knot had pulled into a shrunken fist harder than habrium and Thor had taken my sword against our table at home one afternoon, so the blade had more nicks than edge, but these two objects I loved more than anything else in the cosmos. I don't think Thor loved anything. If he did, he kept it close to his heart where nobody could take it.

Alfheim didn't love anything, either. Our governesses kept Thor and I in sight at all time, where 'adventure' in adult-speak translated to 'let's go and see what the citadel park looks like without getting up from the park bench'. I knew what the park would look like: the back of three or four royal guards. That's what everything on Alfheim looked like.

My short, angry, round brother became my one ally in this. Thor threw our packed lunch on the floor when he found out we were going back to the park, causing Asgardian meats to splatter spectacularly across dainty elven pearlstone. He stamped upstairs to his room with me on his heels, slammed the door so he could open and slam it again, and stuffed himself under his bed.

"Want to play conquest in the tower?" I said, not knowing what else to say after this embarrassing, cathartic display.

"No!"

"Want to watch Sigurd and the Birds?"

He made an angry, guttural noise.

We sulked together for most of a fortnight before someone—possibly Svaldir, who as the Chief Councilor for Interrealm Affairs, must have considered this a prime situation for fostering interrealm affairs—arranged that Thor and I should attend a chant with the Queen of Alfheim's daughters.

Smirna and Polini were a couple of years older than Thor, both bright-eyed and forever implacably dressed in glittering gossamer robes. They spent the whole chant tormenting my brother until Thor got so angry that he pushed them down. Our next playdate went better; both my brother and the Queen's daughters had been suitably punished between times and said not a word to the opposite side. Smirna and Polini attached themselves to me instead—in five minutes, I had two personal attendants who liked fetching me sweet drinks and toys. I couldn't understand it. They adopted me as a new friend, earning me the hatred of their own younger brother, and together we talked about books and sat in the shade of a hollow oak tree. This was very nice.

Smirna liked mind-games; she would have Polini and I speechless with agonized concentration, trying to work out answers to riddles I'd never heard before. Polini liked dress-up play; together the three of us made the Children's Court and presided over our peers' conflicts. They showed me pretty gems and feathers from strange birds, opal seashells, and wove their treasures in my hair.

My father put a stop to the last when I came back to our tower to show him. Boys aren't supposed to be pretty, he said. He made me take all my friends' gifts back, and accused the Queen of Alfheim of "trying to undermine the House of Odin". I think their mother must have spoken to Smirna and Polini, because the next time I played with them they suggested we play a fighting game instead.

"Girls don't fight," I said, baffled.

"Oh." They seemed equally puzzled by my answer, which made me even more confused. How could this be news to them? "Very well. What would you like to do?"

"Play Bor and Conquest!" I told them I would fetch my red cape and sword, and they could be the rebellions, and I would come after them and crush them. Smirna and Polini got very excited about this plan. I charged back to my room and took up my rug cape and my toy sword, which gave me an electric jolt as love will. I raced back to the girls with my heart in the clouds and my feet lighter than air.

Smirna and Polini loved my Bor costume. They giggled over the cape and gave my sword experimental swooshes. One of them—probably Polini—suggested that we get my discarded, angry brother.

"We could all run from Thor," she said.

"Oh, yes!" cried the other. "He'll make a perfect Bor."

This hit me in the face like an unearned fist. "I'm Bor," I said, stunned.

Smirna laughed. "No, you're nice. Isn't he nice? He's too cute to be awful old Bor."

"Bor-Thor," Polini chanted, giggling. "Thor-Bor. Thor the Bor the Bloody. Ha! He's ugly enough to be Bor."

My face grew hot. Bor, awful? Bor, Ugly? What was wrong with Alfheim? Bor was good! He was the best Asgardian in the Cosmos. How could my friends not love my hero? "I'm Bor," I demanded, heartbroken.

Smirna's nose wrinkled. "Why do you want to be the bad guy, anyway? Let's make Thor the bad guy. We can all run from him while he tries to cut off our heads."

"Yes!" Polini shrieked. She handed my sword back, and I clutched the toy hilt; comforting it, protecting it. "You can be our friend and run with us. You can be an Eldjotun spy."

"I'm Aesir," I said, horrified. Aesir are heroes. Bor was a hero. Eldjotnar were evil.

Smirna blinked. "But you're not like other Asgardians, Loki. You're good." Her eyes got very round and her mouth grew tight with passion.

Thor and I spent the rest of the trip in our own tower, angry separately and side by side.

A/N: Just a friendly note that I will be going on hiatus for a week. I want to make sure I can incorporate any details about MCU Thanos and his minions from Guardians of the Galaxy. Next chapter will probably be up the second week of August . . . but if I finish early (or it turns out that I don't need to alter my original plans) I will update much sooner.