Again, we're operating within the first "Thor" film canon here. I still do not own...etc.

Of Princes and Kings

Loki sat on the hard golden throne, thinking and rethinking his last audience. He did not know how long it had been since Sif and the Warriors Three had left him, but he still was pondering all that had passed during their visit. They had behaved so strangely, as though they didn't know him at all. As though they hadn't all trained together and grown together and fought battles as part of the best six-membered team that Asgard had ever seen. Still, he supposed, this was an unfamiliar and unprecedented position for all of them.

They had asked that he bring Thor back.

He bristled momentarily at the memory of it, the gall that it must have taken for them to come to him and make such an ungrantable request. Even if he had wished to bring Thor back, he had given them a perfectly valid reason as to why he couldn't. The more he considered it, the more he realized that he didn't know which aspect irked him more – the fact that they had asked at all or the fact that they had argued for it once he had given his perfectly sound logic.

He thought briefly that there had been some mistrust in their eyes when they had approached the throne. They hadn't been expecting to see him sitting as king, of course, but – was he imagining it? – he had still been the topic on their minds, and they hadn't been thinking good things.

Of course, he thought bitterly. Whenever something goes wrong, they are so quick to suspect me. Even though he knew they were right to do so this time, it still irritated him beyond measure. Especially in light of recent . . . information.

He was busy brooding over this when the door to the throne room opened quietly; he looked up to see the Lady Sif closing it discretely behind her, as though she didn't wish for anybody to know that she had come to see her friend – her king – in private. She took a breath and turned, approaching the throne. "My lord," she said, bowing to him as befitted the king. "Might I have a word?"

The formality suited her ill, he thought, and he bid her rise. "If this is about my brother –"

"No," she said. "It is about you." He eyed her confusedly as she took a tentative step toward him, and then another, and another. "Loki?" she asked, gaze muddled as though she was uncertain if he was still there, hidden within the heavy golden armor and black leather and shining, polished horned helmet that she knew only ever came out for stiff, disconcertingly formal ceremony.

He just looked at her. He wished he could have done something to let her know that it was still him, but he couldn't think of anything. He felt a myriad of things, none of them normal, and so he would have been false had he told her otherwise.

"Did you speak with your father?" Her voice was quiet so that it wouldn't echo more than a rush of the breeze throughout the cavernous room. Loki had always felt so small in such a space. He nodded. "Would you be inclined to set my mind at ease, then?"

He was silent for a moment, a dull foreboding thudding in his head. If he told her, then she would fear him. It was quite simple, really. But, if he kept it from her, he would possibly deprive himself of any sort of release that speaking of it might bestow. Eventually, he said, "No matter what I told you, should it be true, your mind would not find itself any more at ease than it is at the present."

She looked at him as only she could. "You can tell me," she whispered, and he knew it. She had always been safe. A steel trap for secrets. "Good news or bad, the closure must be worth something."

"There is no closure," he told her, and he abruptly felt the need to avoid melodramatically claiming that his entire life has been a lie. Despite the truth of it, it felt childish.

She glanced behind him to ensure that they were alone, and, upon finding that not a soul – servant or otherwise – stood in the hall, she reached out and put a hand on his. "You can tell me anything," she said.

He stared at her for just a moment before swallowing and saying, "As it turns out, I was never from Asgard anyway."

He knew he had not given her much preamble, and the look of alarmed confusion on her face was exactly as he had expected it. Soon, realization would dawn, coloring her face with fear instead. He waited and waited, but no such thing happened. "You mean to say –" she muttered, though he could sense that she already knew the extent of things.

"I mean to say that I was never Asgardian. I was never Odin's son – or Frigga's, for that matter." He paused, taking a breath that he willed not to shake with revulsion. "I – I was born on Jotunheim to Laufey and his mistress Farbouti." There. He said it. So why did he only despise himself that much more?

She took a deep, slow breath. "You are a Frost Giant," she said, too calmly for Loki's taste, and she didn't trip over the words nearly enough. He watched her carefully, waiting for something in her face to change – to match the contempt for the species (his species, he reminded himself) that she undoubtedly felt inside. They had all been raised to loathe the Frost Giants, to fear them, and to avoid them; even speaking the word Jotunn could inspire abrupt silence in a crowded banquet hall or make even the most seasoned of warriors tighten his grip on his weapon. Sif, however, only looked at him. "It does explain a fair bit," she muttered.

He couldn't help but blink at her, trying to make sense of what she'd said. "I'm sorry?" was all he could manage.

With a shrug, she said, "Well, you have always hated the summertime." He was still gaping at her, so she took a breath and continued. "You are the best sorcerer in a generally un-magical realm. The cold has never been an insult to you, and you have never needed nearly as many layers of warm clothing as the rest of us – even in Jotunheim. You . . . you look very different from most others too, with your dark hair."

"So do you," he was quick to point out.

She just arched a brow at him. "You, of all people, know why that is." When he looked away darkly, she continued, "The point is, Loki, you have been peculiar all your life, and now, you have finally got a name to place upon it."

It took everything in him to keep himself from snarling at her for that comment. He knew, logically, that she was only trying to make him feel better – to remind him that he is still the same man he was yesterday, and the day before that. But he couldn't stop himself from snapping, "When I woke up for Thor's coronation, I was a prince of Asgard. By that afternoon, I was a prince of Jotunheim. Have you even got your head around that? Because I haven't, and it's my struggle." He shook his head. "I hate the Frost Giants as much as anybody. Yes, even you Sif. Don't pretend you weren't reviled when I told you I was one of them." The words tasted bitter on his tongue; never before had he so badly wanted to spit out of disgust.

"Loki—"

"You know," he mused darkly, "I seem to remember a day, many centuries ago when we were mere children. You, me, and that oaf that I called 'brother' for so many years—we were playing a game that we called Aesir and Frost Giants. Because neither of you could stomach the idea of portraying a Frost Giant and I was simply sick of it, we three teamed up against a rather unfortunate tree." Sif remembered. He could tell by the hot flush searing pink in her cheeks and the wary look in her eyes. "I can quite vividly recall a certain little girl hacking away cruelly—mercilessly—at the tree, proclaiming death to all Frost Giants. Even long after her friends had stopped, she continued." He paused, stepping down from the throne to stand level with her. He hoped the accusation in his eyes burned her. "Are you trying to tell me that this same little girl grew up to harbor a soft spot for the Jotunn monsters? Because I would have quite a job of believing that."

"You're not a monster, Loki," she said. "You're not—"

"—not one of them?" he finished, arching a brow at her. She didn't say anything in response, only closing her mouth and staring at him with the kind of nervous expression that made him want to smack her. "I think it's time we all grow up and stop pretending to be things we aren't." With as much coldness as he could muster, he turned away from her and re-ascended the steps to the throne. "Goodbye Sif," he said.

He kept his back turned until he heard the door close again behind her. As he sat down again, he mused, "She forgot to thank me for the audience. Bad form."