A/N: This is so late. My apologies. I did a little bit of writing while on vacation but I couldn't complete this chapter while mere steps away from some of Central America's finest surfing and snorkeling beaches. Fun in the sun and deep dark Loki feels don't mix very well. It took a couple weeks back in gloomy Seattle to find the muse again. I don't know if it's any good but I feel good to have finally completed it and now the doors are open for all the fun and fluff that awaits these characters in Glasir Valley, something they've worked hard all winter for.

This time the museum was empty, and it was light outside. He was dry, despite having just stepped through a waterfall, and he felt the soft cling of his tailored designer suit, or at least the mock feel of modern Midgardian style produced by a very elegant spell that was not his own. He eased down the steps, no cane in hand, and slowed by a lack of purpose. Waiting at the base of the staircase was a man with thinning close-cut hair, a smart tuxedo and an eye patch.

"Are you supposed to be the All-Father?" Loki asked, unimpressed.

The man blinked, slightly offended. "Don't you recognize me?" He spoke in German. His eye patch was small, sophisticated, much like Director Fury's only made of brown leather from the skin of a young, possibly endangered cloven hoofed creature. "Do you not remember taking my eye?"

"Dr. Heinrich Schafer," Loki laughed. He couldn't believe this was the crime, of so many he had committed, that they were confronting him with. He hadn't even killed anyone at that party. "Be grateful you're still alive."

The doctor's expression shifted, the way most arrogant ones do when they realize they aren't going to get any sympathy. It was then that Loki realized the mystics were somehow tapping into his memory, violating his thoughts. How else could they account for this level of detail without physically being at the scene.

"You enjoyed taking my eye," the doctor said. "I saw it in your face."

Loki stopped at the bottom step, leaning into the bannister. "You saw what I wanted you to see." He conceded to play along. "What I wanted them all to see."

The doctor stepped up to his level. "Why would you insist on being the monster that you are not?"

"You have no idea what I am."

"Neither do you," said the doctor. "But I think we can both agree you are not the devil that took my eye."

"I'm sorry to disappoint, but you are wrong."

"The Chitauri possessed you."

Loki laughed again. "They empowered me. They were fools."

"They were your allies. Partners in genocide. Are you suggesting you had tricked them?"

"Now you're catching on." Loki smiled.

"Why? " The doctor was not amused. "If you wanted passage back to Asgard, you could have had it. You didn't need to start a war."

Rolling his eyes, Loki switched which elbow to lean against. "Does anyone ever really need to wage war?"

"So it was chaos you sought." That wasn't a question.

"Am I not Loki?" He then grinned something crooked.

The doctor could only shake his head, his one eye sad. Had he been hoping for a confession of guilt? He should get used to disappointment if that was the case.

Loki gazed with satisfaction at the man's expression, which did not budge. Not even while the flesh and mass of it morphed and condensed, not even when the walls of the museum closed in, becoming darker, cracked, impoverished. He watched as the being before him became a raggedy little girl wearing what was once a vivid purple and orange striped dress before the colors were dulled with dust and dried blood. He tilted his head, curious, deciphering her age at about 6 earth years.

"And who are you supposed to be?" Loki asked, patronizing. The girl sat hugging her knees on the cement landing of a reeking stairwell, almost level with his standing height. Loki finally recognized their surroundings as a low income apartment building, starved of fresh paint and natural light.

"I lived here with my family before the alien dragon wrecked it." The girl looked up and around as she spoke.

Loki followed her gaze with partial interest. "Where is here?"

"Harlem," she said. "The walls fell down and the floor broke under our feet. Daddy could only hold my hand for a little bit before I slipped."

Loki forced a smile, understanding the purpose of this girl. Again, the mystics were trying to guilt trip him. They would have to try harder.

"Casualties are a way of the universe," Loki said. "Fairness is a luxury for the limited few. You are not the only one who's slid through their father's grip."

The girl blinked slowly, changing tactics. "You let go."

One of Loki's eyes twitched. "He released his grip the moment he concealed my true self beneath this spell."

"Daddy didn't mean to lose his grip on me." She looked up at Loki with rich brown eyes lined with thick lashes. "He only lost his balance."

Loki sighed. "You cannot compare your misfortune to mine, little girl."

The girl dropped her gaze to her lap, her hand attempting to rub away the stains in her dress. "He survived, but he was hurt. Broken bones and a broken heart." She then reached up and slid her hand into Loki's. It felt coarser than he expected. "I'm sadder for him than I am for falling. He probably blames himself. He shouldn't."

"He could not hold on," Loki said, staring at their joined hands. "He should absolutely blame himself."

The girl tightened her hold. "I forgave him."

Loki shuddered and yanked his hand back, shooing her away. "Be gone, apparition!" The image of her distorted and drifted up the stairwell, dissipating like a puff of smoke.

"You're not fooling me," Loki called out. "You'll have to conjure more than a little girl to break me. Your magic is weak. Antiquated. Cowardly!" He then rose and the facade of ravaged New York faded away, as did his suit, putting him back in his water weighted leathers, surrounded by weeping rock walls. His senses once again filled with a refreshing mist.

"This trial is pathetic, Hogun." Loki stepped onto to a thick fallen tree that spanned the grotto and the next towering platform, his arms held out with expectation. "Why don't you face me in the flesh? Quite hiding behind your witch doctors."

There was no response.

Loki dropped his arms to his sides. "This is a waste of my time. You know not the danger you put our realms in by keeping me a prisoner here."

More silence. Loki could feel his impatience creep in like a madness, pounding in his temples, flaring his nostrils. He was about to step off the log and hopefully force the next event via falling but he felt a walking frequency resonate beneath his step. The silhouette of an ancient soldier then darkened the mist in front of him.

"The only danger I see stands before me." Hogun's exotic monotone bled through haze. His details weren't apparent until he finished speaking.

Loki waited until each and every braid and buckle were visible before responding to him. "Spoken like the true ignorant."

"Enlighten me." Hogun didn't budge in body or mood.

"I have not the time for that scale of undertaking." Loki drew his daggers. "I know why you're really here. So let us get on with it."

Hogun may have just smiled. "So be it."

Taking his sparring stance, Loki readied his pride to be wounded. Hogun was the worst to duel with, he always had been. Where he lacked in conversational skills he made up for in weapon mastery. All weapons. Even daggers, which was what he chose to wield now, just to show off. Loki didn't stand a chance and Hogun knew it, and he knew that Loki knew it, but regardless, Loki would not show it. He would not give the grim but gifted warrior that satisfaction. So he went through the motions, delivering slices and jabs that were met with parries or air, growling and grunting, bearing his teeth, trying not to laugh when he actually managed a successful dodge. He must have hesitated in a surprised state of gloating at that small success, for the next moment quickly found him dangling from the log, fingernails clawing into loosening bark.

"Satisfied?" Loki growled, straining in an attempt to pull himself up.

"No," was Hogun's last word. His figure was then replaced by an old man with an eye patch, another one! This one growing strikingly familiar as the mist parted around him.

"Your illusions are pathetic!" Loki's voice was little more than a rasp.

"Take my hand, my son." The figure squatted, steadying himself with Gungir and reaching for Loki.

"I am not the son of Odin!"

"Loki," Odin said, calmly, patiently. "Please."

Despite the cheapness of the mystics' tactics, Loki begrudgingly connected with the outstretched arm and let himself be pulled to safety. Falling was failing in the eyes of these trials. Loki could not fail for the sake of his son, no matter how desperately he preferred the unknown void to the All-Father's company, even just an illusion of him. He released Odin's hand and smoothed down his leathers. The pair walked off of the log.

"My skin feels cold, but I always sweat," Loki heard himself say as the walls of Gladsheim grew around them. His voice was a relic of the past, innocent, unburdened by bitterness. "Thor does not have this problem."

A younger, taller Odin walked alongside him, his hair still holding on to warmer hues. "Remember when you were but this tall," Odin flattened his palm at thigh height, "and you asked me why you have black hair in a family of golds and reds?"

"You said the eternal made me different for a reason," Loki responded with a lost optimism. "That they had plans for me."

"That remains my answer to your physiological questions."

"But," the boy deflated, trying to make eye contact with his father who kept his gaze fixed forward, "when am I to learn of these plans? When will the others learn? I am different and everyone sees it."

"You set yourself apart," Odin said, his words heavy on Loki's thoughts, weighing down his hopes and clashing with his instincts. He opened his mouth to speak but he didn't know how to counter his father, didn't know what words had a chance of getting through.

The pair encountered Frigga on the veranda overlooking the training grounds. She greeted them with a warm smile, which was not returned by her husband.

"You should be joining your brother down there," Odin continued, "not hiding behind spell books. When they knock you down, do not retreat to the library. Get up. Face them again. And again. Do not show fear."

Frigga lost her smile.

"But they outnumber me," Loki said, meekly. "Four to one."

"The odds are not always in your favor," said Odin.

"They're never in my favor," said Loki.

"Use your tricks, my love," Frigga intervened, sliding her hands over the boy's shoulders. "You have a mystical edge on your brother and his entourage." Her touch was like a healing balm, her voice a harp's chime. "Magic does not cow to might."

Odin shook his head and walked away, muttering some disheartening disapproval. Luckily, Mother always knew what to say, how to encourage where Odin could only spit out impossible ideologies. From that point on, Loki had been able to hold his own in combat, gripping tightly to his magic with the fierceness that Thor gripped his steel weapons. Mother was more gifted with the mystic arts that many believed her to be, but she veiled nothing for Loki, teaching him everything she knew and equipping him with the ability to exceed even her skill.

How appropriate was it that he had used magic to take vengeance upon her murderer.

"See you in Hel," came a monstrous voice.

Loki whipped around to see this very murderer, his victim, standing before him, only he wasn't the monster of his memory but the dark elf that preceded a cursed makeover.

"That is what you said," Algrim continued, his white hair and icy eyes a stark contrast to the brown of his skin. "Yet you came not to see me on your last visit."

Loki blinked, confused. "I believe you misunderstood my words of damnation." His body had reclaimed its present age and his voice its proper edge.

"See you in Hel, monster," Algrim quoted. "What is there to misunderstand? If you weren't going to see me on your visit, then when? In the afterlife?"

"That was the implication." Loki gave him an odd look.

"You do not deem yourself worthy of Valhalla?"

Loki laughed, casting his glance around to the indecipherable limbo that had become their surroundings. "Would you?"

"She does."

Algrim then disappeared.

"She who?" Loki prompted, finally interested in what the elf had to say. "Sif? Mother? Hela?...Not Hela. No one is that forgiving." Loki's voice attempted to follow Algrim but was uncertain which direction to go. "Who, dammit? Tell me."

He spun around, yanked into a stride that found another younger version of himself—but this time grown— bursting into the throne room, charging up to his father.

"Why have you sent the guards to seize my daughter?" His volume filled the entire royal chamber. "Was it not enough to banish Fenrir and Jormungand, now you must take her?"

Odin cast a disconnected, single-eyed gaze down at him. "If left under the care of that witch, she will become our enemy."

"Then let me care for her." There was a desperation in Loki's demands. "She is mine. I will raise her."

"She is cursed. Diseased. She cannot be allowed within these walls. She could infect us all."

"She is merely disfigured, not contagious."

"You do not know that," Odin said, somewhere between calm and exasperated. "When was the last time you visited her? How do know that deranged woman you bedded has not further riddled her body with dark magic. She belongs in the realm of the damned."

"You base your sentencing on mere speculation."

Odin sighed. "The prophesies—"

"Are open for interpretation," Loki cut in. "Please Father, let me have her."

"You are still but a boy." Odin would not budge. "How can you be trusted to father a lost soul when all you have fathered lately is chaos. You are fortunate to be spared the dungeon after your affair with a Jotun and after that stunt with Idunn. And now, I am hearing you have even assaulted the Lady Sif. You let jealousy dictate your actions, selfish, childish ambition."

"I cut her hair," Loki defended, his voice cracking. "It is hardly an assault."

"Why did you do it?"

"She...assaulted me first." Loki shook off the issue of Sif entirely, unable to process that particular pain in tandem with his current one. "Father, please. Let me have my daughter."

"No Loki. She will be the apprentice of Mephisto. Her name will be changed to Hel for she is to become mistress of the underworld."

"Mephisto? Helheim?" Loki couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Father, no. That cannot be her fate. She cannot keep the company of the death and decay."

"They are her kindred spirits."

"She is not a monster! You cannot judge her soul by her haggard flesh."

Odin paused, taking a deep breath. "You see only what you want to see. I see beyond the superficial."

"As do I." Loki wouldn't back down. Not this time. "She is a good child."

"Forgive me that I do not trust your judge of character."

"Father, please." He was now abandoning all pride, letting his tears fall. He would do whatever it took, grovel if he had to. "Do not do this. I beg you."

Odin lowered his gaze and raised his hand in small, kingly gesture. "Guards."

"Please!" Loki cried. "You know she is not evil. Why won't you listen to me? What is it you're not telling me?!"

Odin didn't say anymore. The guards had to force Loki out of the throne room, his cries, struggles and pleading no match to Odin's command for his dismissal. Out of the corner of his eye as he was being dragged, Loki saw his mother approach the throne and attempt an argument on his behalf, but her pleas were ignored as well. Odin could not be reasoned with.

A torrent of emotion, both old and new, tightened Loki's gut as he stood surrounded by mist again. He nearly forgot where he was, too racked with wondering how many more children had to slip through their fathers' grip before truth was allowed to reign again.

Frigga's voice echoed in his head. "I asked him to be honest with you from the beginning."

"Cowardly woman," Loki snarled, his bared teeth stretching his wet cheeks. "Too weak to stand up to him, to go against countless decisions you knew to be wrong. You let his poison infect you, and now you're dead! You always made excuses for him. You bent to his will, served him unconditionally, and he couldn't even protect you. I should have let Laufey, my true father, slay him while you watched. Reap his end of the bargain in what could have been a beautiful atonement."

Each of Loki's words built a weight beneath his ribs that had now grown too heavy to support with a strong posture.

"Oh mother, what am I saying." Closing his eyes, he allowed himself to wither, to curl in and wilt as much as possible while still remaining on his feet. "His poison infects me as well."

The shifting of light told him the surroundings were changing again, but he didn't open his eyes to see how. He didn't care anymore. There was nothing else the mystics could throw at him that could strike as deep as his hatred for Odin. They would have to threaten his life to get a response now. He was done playing their game. They could fail him six ways to Svartlheim for all he cared. He just wanted this to be over with.

He felt his body shift, but not by his own doing. It seemed his feet weren't connected to solid ground anymore either, at least until they were, very abruptly, and with a final flash of light that disappeared as quickly as it deposited him into a new environment. He opened his eyes, finding himself in a setting of tranquility. It was a romantic courtyard manicured lovingly with lush gardens and spotless white arches, ornate stone benches and even a trickling fountain that audaciously thought it could summon calm in his soul. How trite. Was all this peace and beauty supposed to set the mood for a particular test? Was Odin going to appear again, this time in the spirit of future possibilities, and beg for Loki's forgiveness? The very thought made him ill.

"Loki," came a surprising voice from behind him.

Loki spun around, his heart catching when he laid eyes on Sif. She was seated on a bench, relaxed, draped in flowing silks from her hair to her robes. Her eyes picked up the warm and muted gold of her dress, a soothing color that enticingly complemented the rich darkness of her hair and lashes. She was beautiful beyond description. She also looked tired.

"Why are your clothes wet?" she asked in a voice he wished he could curl up in.

"To fool me into believing this is real."

A lock of her hair fell against her cheek as she tilted her head. "This is real."

Loki closed his eyes with an exhale. He didn't know what he was supposed to say.

"Loki," she spoke again. He then heard her rise, close the distance between them, and connect him with the aura of her sweet perfume that he wished was not so easily accessible in his memory. Was nothing sacred to these mystics? "The trial is over. Hogun's message said they would deliver you here once they finished with you."

"Can we please skip to the part where I am to confront the All-Father again?" Loki opened his eyes, hoping (oddly enough) to see Odin before him but was greeted instead by his lover's hand on his cheek. Her touch was warm yet he shivered. It felt too real, the timbre of her voice, the smell of her skin, it was all exactly as it should be, yet she wore not a single piece of armor, not even a fashionable breastplate or leather corset. Her body was draped only in silks, loosely fastened with knots and cinched with braided rope, impractical as it was beautiful, the slits in skirt not conducive for hiding weapons. This was not Sif. She would never willingly render herself so exposed. This was an insult to them both.

Loki stepped back, pulling out of her reach, refusing to play along anymore. They crossed a line this time.

"I will not be seduced by your ever-cheapening tactics."

Sif's eyes widened with a very convincing display and then everything whited out for the hot moment her hand struck his cheek.

"Ok, that was real." Loki's senses realigned as his cheek throbbed.

"Of course it's real, you idiot," Sif said, sounding very much like Sif. "The light show you just materialized in wasn't your imagination. Heimdall transported you out of Vanaheim, just like Hogun said he would once the trial finished." Fixing the sleeve that had fallen off her shoulder, she took a step closer, her eyes never shifting away. "You're in Glasir Valley. This is...my home. Ollie's home."

Her eyes saddened at her last words, no amount of makeup or stoicism able to hide her pain. Loki studied her intently as it was a familiar sadness, a real, tangible sadness, one he just played out in a memory. It was the look of a parent unable to be with their child.

Perhaps this was actually Glasir Valley. Her casual attire could be explained by the comfort of being at home. Which meant...

"Sif," he said with an encroaching worry, "where is Ollerus?"

"He's..." she lifted her chin, attempting to hide the quiver of her lip. "He's gone off on his own. To the mountains. Like he does sometimes, to hunt, or ski." Her voice weakened with each word, her eyes glistening despite her efforts to keep them dry. "Only this time it's different." Her chest was now heaving and her face was twisting in every way possible to keep her tears from falling, a sure sign that was indeed, the real Sif. No one could fake the extremes she was stubbornly willing to go to in order to keep from crying in front of others, especially him.

"Sif," was all he could utter.

"I lied for so long," Sif said with an uneven voice. "I've never seen him so angry at me, never seen him look so wounded or betrayed. He said he loved me but I don't know if he'll ever forgive me." Her tears finally broke through. "I don't deserve to be forgiven. The truths I withheld were the very core of his identity, and now he's hurt and confused and can't even look at me or be around me."

Loki watched as she covered her face with her hands, sobbing, breaking beneath the weight of her shame. It was a rare spectacle but all he could do was watch. He couldn't speak, couldn't move, could hardly even process the surrealism of the situation. He was hearing words he had longed to hear since he learned of his lineage. He was seeing tears fall in confession, driven by guilt and self actualized error, yet this was not the person he had hoped would shed these tears.

"He will forgive you," Loki said before taking a moment to plan his words, surprising himself.

Sif's sobbing paused. She lowered her hands to reveal only her eyes, which were also surprised despite the pools of makeup drowning them. "Do you really think so?"

"No," he said honestly, regaining control of his words. "How would I know what he is and is not capable of? I've never even met him, thanks to you and your lies." Loki's words were harsh, he knew, and Sif was on the edge of another outburst, but he kept his tone soft. "I don't know whether he's going to forgive you or not, but he should. By all...rationality, he should not stay angry with you. You obviously regret what you did. And clearly you love him."

Now Sif could only stare, paralyzed, her hands still covering the lower half of her face, her eyes revealing a very dazzling blend of conflicting emotions. He curiously watched her watch him, noticed the shift in power when her warrior's doubt and defensiveness eventually lost to the strength of her maternally driven hope. He had never seen her exposed to this extreme before, both physically and emotionally, not even in their most intimate moments together. He closed the distance between them and wrapped her in a consoling hug that he wasn't quite certain he could pull off.

She responded with a noise that sounded like gratitude. He did pull it off, this act of empathy that may not be an act, for her arms snaked tightly around his torso and her makeup began smearing all over his shoulder and neck. He lidded his eyes and inhaled her fragrant hair, which he began combing his fingers through. He could feel with each deep breath her heartache bleed into his chest, felt that weight again of a distant, hurt child. It was a pain he was used to, the hurt he felt for Hela, something that was easier to confront than a disturbing parallel that kept flickering in the dusty catacombs of his reasoning.

"Thank you for forgiving me." Sif murmured into his neck, a confession he wasn't expecting at all.

"Forgiving you?" Loki questioned. "For what?"

She pulled back, meeting his eyes. "For creating a legacy of lies in your family. I couldn't bear to unite you with our son if you both held a grudge against me."

The flickering parallel he was trying to ignore just blossomed into a wildfire, and he felt sick to his stomach. The trial made sense now. It was clear why they deposited him into Sif's arms after bombarding him with his past. It was a test of forgiveness, one which he just passed without even realizing. He had to forgive Sif for the same crime that Odin had committed against him. How disgustingly ironic. Still, he could forgive Sif without having to forgive Odin. Their lies were only minimally comparable.

Loki pulled Sif to him again, holding her tighter than before. "Like I said," his words were a struggle this time, despite having said them moments ago. "You're obviously sorry for what you've done." He fought the waver out of his voice. "And I know you love him."

Music: Skin by Oingo Boingo