November, 2000

Jane was going to bash her head in if this teacher did not stop. The idiot droned on, philosophizing and preaching on the important of proper conjugation of French verbs, lest they all descend into an uncouth generation without morals or drives to learn anything other than crude English. She peeled her hand away from her cheek, and tried not to focus on the fact that graduation was two hundred and five days away.

Honestly, she didn't give a rat's ass about French. A good grade in French wasn't offering her full ride to Culver for an astrophysics degree a year early. Suppressing a long suffering sigh that extended back to when she had mistakenly signed up for this class for the language credit, she pushed her French book to the side. As surreptitiously as possible, she scooted her personal notebook in its place, trying to locate the last place she left off in her diagrams.

She had been trying to map constellations without looking at the official maps, to see if she was any good, as well as their celestial coordinates. So far, she had been spot on. Orion had been the easiest, and both the Big and Little Dipper had been child's play. But as she had moved on to others, she had had more trouble understanding the declination and how to determine right ascension on her own. Because right ascension was measured in minutes and hours, and that somehow lined up with longitude but she didn't know how because longitude was measured in minutes and seconds and her microscope at home was just not doing the job-

"Hey Foster," came the whisper.

Her head jerked up, realizing a second later that she probably looked like a very stupid fish caught on a hook. Mark, the class clown and arguably the most attractive person in the class, had just talked to her. Well, whispered at her. The teacher droned on.

She felt heat creep up her face; he was obviously waiting for a reply. She fumbled fo a response. Mark was really good looking, and he got B's, which was good for a guy who walked around thinking football was a religion and he was their redeemer. But her flattery became marred with confusion, and a vague sense of being mocked. Boys like Mark never talked to her.

"Um, hi", she whispered back, trying not to sound breathy and awkward. Yeah like you could be anything else, Jane, she thought.

Smiling confidently through a row of perfectly straight teeth, Mark leaned into the space between them, keeping an eye on the teacher.

"Was wondering if you wanted to hang out this weekend, me and my buddies are going to the movies after the game. Maybe you could take that pretty face out of your nerd books. You might go cross eyed." He knocked fists with his buddy in front of him, a fellow football player whose name Jane couldn't recall. She didn't know most people's names in this school. The backhanded insult didn't escape her, but Mark said things without really thinking.

"Yeah, sure, sounds great!" She heard herself say, too loudly. The teacher cast a look their way, and as she and Mark were reprimanded for talking during her teacher's very important lesson, she felt a heavy anxiety mix with a delicate hope. Maybe she should take her head out of her books.

"Loki, join the fun!"

Thor yelled from the practice field where he, Sif, Fandral, and Hogun were practicing swordsmanship. Loki barely looked up from his perch in the windowsill of his room on the second floor, flipping through a book on Dark Elf magic intently.

Thor's sword clashed with Sif's, ringing out sharply and making Loki's teeth grind. Must they insist on practicing the same weapon everyday for centuries? Did it not get tiresome? Thor's moves were entirely predictable, and as Loki glanced up from his text, identified Sif's swipe to the ribs a moment before she leapt to do it. It took Thor down, and after a good smack to the calves with the broad side of her sword, she relented.

"Brother," Thor staggered to his feet, his face ruddy, "come down and play. Sif has already knocked us to the ground twice."

Loki merely swung the leg he dangled off the edge of the balcony, squinting as he searched for anything that resembled the magic he was interested in. Nothing in his research had proven fruitful. The orb he had stolen from the collector a century ago had proven to be intensely fascinating. After weeks of straining the full extent of his magic, he had finally been able to overpower the metal shell's spells to reveal a small purple stone, which had glowed from within. It held immense power, that was certain, and Loki's own magical nature had spiked at its nearness, replacing his exhaustion with adrenaline. It had made him tremble with a terrible and powerful feeling that only increased as he reached for it.

It had thrown him so forcefully that he had to remove the indent his body had made in the wall with a spell he had to look up, because his normal spells had been inadequate. It had been immensely frustrating, and he had vowed to improve his magic and discover what exactly he had stolen from that Collector. He would conquer this unruly magic.

His brother's annoying voice resurfaced. "Come, Loki. Stop playing coy. Or are you too afraid that I'll best you in front of everyone for the thousandth time?"

He snapped his book shut. He should know better than to rise to this bait after six hundred years, he really should. He slid off the balcony, landing lightly in front of his brother and his friends. Thor grinned, knowing the look on his brother's face. He lifted his sword.

They circled each other, Loki pulling his dagger from his sheath. Thor scoffed at the weapon, "You think to beat me with that? Every time, brother, I beat you when you wield a regular broad sword."

"I think you'll find, brother, that my dagger will do well enough against a sword that can't beat Sif, even when she's sick and blind in one eye."

The reference to that incident did exactly as he intended. Thor rushed him, clumsy and ferocious. He dodged easily, letting Thor blow by him. He jumped back to dodge Thor's sword as he swung around to recover. They sparred, Loki's small dagger misdirecting Thor's thrusts by a fraction, but it was all he needed. A poorly aimed thrust at his shoulder was dodged, leaving Thor struggling to maintain balance. It was easy to magic himself directly behind his brother and pull mercilessly on that red cape he insisted on wearing at all hours of the day.

His back made contact with the ground. A heavy shudder rippled through the field. Loki kicked the fallen sword out of Thor's reach. Ten paces above Thor's face, small knives materialized out of the air, their daggers pointing directly downward. As if the strings of a catapult were suddenly cut, they sliced through the air towards Thor's face at breakneck speed. His eyes barely had time to bug out of his oafish face before they all froze, suspended a hairsbreadth from his eyes, cheeks, and forehead.

There was a moment of absolute silence, as everyone witnessed Loki's first victory in combat over Thor. Then, the daggers melted away into wisps of green smoke. There was another beat of silence, and Loki felt the satisfaction and pride slip onto his face. That was a recent trick he had learned, and it had taken much refining of his magic to finally conjure apparitions.

He expected Sif's right hook and Thor propelling himself off the ground straight into his midriff, both screaming about his lack of honor. What he didn't expect was the loud pop and the darkness that he was sucked into a moment later, as if a giant invisible hand kept pushing him backwards into nothing.

She ended up cancelling, and she hated herself for it. Mark had sounded genuinely put out, but Jane could not bring herself to stand amongst his friends and pretty girls who chased after him and cheer at a sport she didn't care about. Now, she sat in her dark room on Saturday night, comparing the charts she made to official ones by the light of her desk lamp, trying not to let tears fall.

Her dad had knocked softly an hour ago, asking if she needed anything, and she had sent him away with sharp words borne of her insecurity and self loathing. Why couldn't she have just gone? She would have had fun, made friends, created a social life for herself outside of movie nights with Darcy and her cat…

Anxiety bloomed like a poisonous flower in her chest.

Her lamp flickered. She turned it off, and then turned it on again, thinking it just needed a reset. It didn't turn back on. Typical. Damn lights hadn't worked correctly for ten years.

She sighed, and turned in her chair to go flip her overhead lights on. It turned on before she was halfway out of her chair. The switch was still down. A sudden feeling of all the air being sucked from the room invaded her body, stealing her breath from her lungs and raising the hairs on her arms. She glanced around the dark bedroom, adrenaline spiking as she froze halfway out of her seat.

There was a crack like lightening centered in the middle of her room that made her jump, and then a shimmering, distorted, vertical line appeared. The edges blurred her bed, and it was so subtle Jane would not have seen it if she hadn't felt all the energy in the room directed towards it.

She felt glued to her chair, eyes popping with curiosity and fear at the phenomenon. Her overhead lightbulb flared intensely, driving her eyes down to the floor. She heard a thump and a rustle, and another small crack before she could look up. The brightness faded. The vertical line was gone.

It took all Jane had not to scream. A very tall person was struggling to rise to their feet, low voice carrying the same tone people make when they curse. The back of their head sported pitch black hair that ran down to the nape of the neck. One pale hand grasped at her bed, using it to lift them upright in a space that just a moment ago had been unoccupied.

Jane struggled to find breath. The man was easily six feet tall, his long frame covered in what she supposed was leather. She couldn't see his face except for one feature. Sharp eyes met hers, flew around the room, and settled back on her. She was suddenly hyperaware of the six feet of space separating them.

"Where am I?" He spoke demandingly, and with a curious accent, leaning forward into the moonlight and raising a hand. A hand that was holding a knife.

The glint of the light off the dagger snapped her to her senses. She leapt out of her chair like a frightened rabbit, scrabbling at the desk behind her, ungluing her tongue from the roof of her mouth to scream for all she was worth. Her mouth opened but no sound came out. Her eyes bugged further as her hands clutched her throat. She couldn't speak, could hear nothing but the air rushing out of her throat uselessly, and her panic escalated to something out of her control. She was unused to aggression and hostility and in the face of danger her body shut down, but she felt the second of searing terror keenly before entering fight or flight mode. Red started to creep into the corners of her vision as her senses sharpened in anticipation.

"I said," the menacing figure took a step forward, his boots making no noise on her carpet. "Where am I, girl? Are you a girl? You look like a Midgardian, if your hideous attire is anything to go by."

His words rushed over, but were devoid of any meaning. All she could focus on was that knife still pointed at her, and how easily he could reach her before she could make it to the door.

She must have given away her intentions somehow, because she heard a small chuckle from the shadows, and the man took another step forward. His figure hit the moonlight from her window. Her terror spiked again at the sight of the angular face and sharp eyes, which were lit with curiosity and amusement, towering over her even from a short distance. His overwhelming presence nudged her over the tipping point of fear, into the wild instinct of an animal lashing at its predator. A red haze continued to creep across her eyes.

Her hands, which had been gripping her desk, lifted to wrap around the nearest objects out of desperation. She hurtled the one in her left. The man saw it coming, and stepped neatly to the side faster than should have been possible. Her pen hit the bed harmlessly and bounced onto the floor. He laughed. In the same breath he was in her space, towering over her and crowding her until her back bruised against the desk. The object in her right hand hit the desk with a worthless thud. She reflexively sucked in air to scream, forgetting it was useless.

"You are amusing," the man said, and she stilled as she felt the cold tip of his dagger brush under her chin. Up close she could see his teeth, arranged perfectly in a thin mouth stretched into a smirk. The red that was criss crossing her vision made them look bloody. Air wheezed out of her mouth.

"Now tell me exactly where I am, and don't think about screaming. I'll slit the man's throat." He jerked his head to the right, and it dawned on her that he was talking about her dad. He was threatening to kill him.

The room was abruptly cut off from her sight by a curtain of blood red. Shit. This hadn't happened in a year. Knowing what was coming, she struck her arms out to the side, blindly searching for a grip. Bile rose in her throat and her ears rang, the vision loss disrupting her orientation. She couldn't tell up from down or left from right. Dimly she heard a grunt of surprise, a sizzle, and a bang that broke the silence of the house. As quickly as the red took over it disappeared, like a shade rolling up a window. Her blood rushed in her ears as sight slowly returned to her. Scrabbling weakly at the desk behind her for purchase, she righted herself from where she had slumped over, surprised to find that the man was not towering over her anymore. She blinked one more time to clear her eyes, the panic and terror of a minute ago blending with the tiniest fraction of vindication.

The man had been thrown against the opposite wall, judging by the cracks Jane could see radiating out from an impact site. It hadn't been hard enough apparently, the man was already on his feet, staring at her with that same look of curiosity, but his amusement was long gone. A look she could only describe as wariness caused his eyes to flit over her form, but he made no attempt to go near her. Instead he raised his hands in a gesture she recognized as placating, and he made a show of sheathing his dagger. His face was a study in calm; she had no idea what she looked like, all heaving chest and wild eyes. For a moment there was silence, each regarding the other suspiciously across the darkened bedroom.

To her surprise, it was she who spoke first, not realizing that the pressure on her throat was gone until she heard her own voice.

"How the fuck did you get in here?"

He laughed quietly at her hoarse voice, the sound clear and full. The difference in mood jarred her, but the knowledge that she had some way to defend against him afforded her some courage. "I am definitely on Midgard. Your curses are so vulgar and poorly created. I'll applaud your fight though; the women of this realm are weak. Tell me girl, what magic have your people managed to finally master in this forsaken sewer to be able to throw me like you did?"

His tone was derisive, and she was sure he was catering to her fear for some reason, but she did not miss the honest curiosity in the way he leaned forward and regarded her. He was waiting for her to answer him. But his words made no sense to her. Midgard? Magic? Maybe he was crazy. No one talked like that either, so elegant and melodic. The thought that he was unstable doubled her hesitance, analyzing what was best to say to him. She opened her mouth, but found she had no idea what to say.

"Jane? You okay?" Her dad's sleepy voice at her door sent adrenaline skittering back into her veins. She dared not take her eyes off of the man across the room, and the corner of his mouth turned up as if he guessed her thoughts. He sat primly on the edge of her bed, one leg crossed over another. He smiled deviously and put one hand in the pocket of his pants.

"Perhaps another time," he said. Between one blink and the next he vanished, leaving a hint of curling green smoke that Jane watched dissipate into nothing.

"Jane?" Her dad's voice, more urgent this time, forced Jane to turn around, sluggish from shock. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up as she turned her back to the room to let her dad in. He was dressed in his sleeping clothes, the bags under his eyes seeming to be ten times larger than they were normally. She stumbled backwards.

"What on earth was that noise?" Her dad blinked through sleep, seeming not to notice her state or that she wasn't anywhere near bed.

"Uh," Jane glanced over her shoulder into her dark room, but there was nothing there. "Just, you know, I rolled out of bed. Fell asleep studying." She hoped and prayed her dad would just accept her words and go back to bed. Her heart was racing and she felt like puking.

"Alright. Be careful. Night." He turned and mechanically made his way to his room. She stood in the doorway until she heard his door click, before forcing herself to calm down and spin on her heel.

He wasn't there. She turned her lights on, thankful that they still worked. No one. She stared hard at the spot he had been sitting not one minute ago, her heart racing and her head still reeling from vertigo.

He reappeared in his chambers, the false smirk on his face sliding away into a tight line. In his pocket, his hand clenched around the orb and he brought it up to examine it. It looked innocent enough, sitting there in his palm. The intricate silver workings appeared as dull as they always had. The last vestiges of magic buzzing in the air around it like a hundred insects gave a different impression. Loki glanced around uneasily, noting through the window that night had fallen. How long had he been away? To him it had felt brief, a matter of minutes between the time he had been sucked into the darkness and when he vanished from the little mortal girl's bedroom using the power of the orb. But it had been midday when he had left the palace's practice fields. Now it was almost the middle of the night, judging from the deep streaks of purple that shot across the sky.

Of all places to take him, why take him to Midgard? To some little girl's bedroom? Midgard was an unruly realm, if the discussions he overheard from ambassadors and warriors were accurate. Tales of their short life spans, barely lasting a century, the way they slaughtered each other for years on end, were laughed at over feasts, used as the worst example of civilization. The only beings they ranked above were the Jotuns. Thor frequently boasted that he would soon travel there and frighten the mortals into worshipping him. What would the orb want with Midgard?

It was puzzling and altogether compelling.

At a loss, he slipped the orb back into his pocket. He had long ago accepted that the orb was beyond his control, but it was unsettling to realize it could manipulate him, could transport him anywhere it pleased. Perhaps he shouldn't keep it on his person. He immediately rejected the idea; this object was too powerful and too interesting to not know where it went when it vanished. That was, after all, why it had been with that Collector. No, what he needed was to master the art of magic; perhaps then he could control some part of the stone.

The next morning, he devoted himself to the library. It was the last place Thor would bother him. He climbed the ladder to the tallest shelves, dusted off the oldest books he could find, flipping through thousands of yellow pages for something that resembled his orb. He could not find much; the magic in the orb must be either so dark or so ancient that no one knew or dared to write about it. He shoved his last attempt back onto the shelf hard enough that dust five thousand years old puffed into his face in retaliation. He cursed the historians that had failed to document the creation of a clearly powerful and complex object, with energy itself as its fundamental structure. He was in the greatest library in all the realms; if this object's history could not be found here, it was not anywhere.

At the end of the afternoon he stood on the ground, at the edge of the dark magic section that was long neglected and unused. An enormous leather bound book crammed in the corner of the section caught his eye, the spine layered in dust so thick he had to magic it away to properly read the title: "The Sorceresses of Nornheim". This was the very last book in the section that he had not torn though, having gone from top to bottom. He flipped it open, sure that whatever the text contained would not be useful. Resigning himself, he made his way to the desk where he had pulled the most promising books. He became so absorbed in the spells of Karnilla and her sisters that he did not sense her approach.

"Dear, what are you looking for?" His head snapped up from his book at his mother's voice, glancing at all the books on dark magic he had strewn around him and left carelessly open. He considered changing the text on the exposed pages with magic, but she would immediately know what he had done. She came up behind him, placing one warm hand on his shoulder as she bent to look at the text.

"Nornheim?" Her other hand came up to caress his hair idly. "You've been taught the history of Nornheim already."

"Yes, but they failed to mention how powerful the sorceresses that reside there are. I became curious when I saw they were mentioned in another book. Their magic is second only to father's. How do they change pure wood to pure metal?"

"I know much of their magic, Loki, but some aspects of power they dabble with are best left untouched. Too many things can go wrong when you fundamentally change the material of what an object is made of." Her fingers rubbed circles on his scalp, finding his only scar from childhood when he had narrowly missed being decapitated by an angry goblin.

"But surely they are powerful enough to undo any mistake that they conjure. Look at what they have already created!" He gestured to the massive textbook to his right, and pointed at the drawing. "They produced a sword that can never break or grow dull. They have created entire realms for a day, only to destroy them with a simple spell." He looked over his shoulder at her excitedly.

"How I wish to be able to do that."

His mother laughed lightly and removed her hands from his hair. "My dear, I do not think such power would suit you. You cause enough mischief with what I already teach you. Your brother was quite angry the other day when you disappeared so suddenly."

He struggled to display genuine remorse at the image of his brother slamming into the ground after he vanished, and her eyes narrowed in a motherly way at his failed attempt to placate her. "You must be studying very much; I have not yet taught you to teleport more than a couple paces."

He was old enough to know when his mother's tone meant she was searching for different answers than the ones she was asking of him. There had been many moments in his younger days when his mother had been able to infer which of Thor's bruises were his own fault or because of Loki's tricks. It was here that he must be the most careful, the most believable.

"I didn't think I would be able to do it either," he said honestly, meeting her eyes before turning around to close the books. Truth wrapped around a lie would be much more palatable for his shrewd mother to swallow, particularly a lie by omission. "I was as surprised as Thor."

"Where did you end up?" she asked.

"I have no idea," he replied, sending the books floating back to the shelf with a push of his hand. He made a note of where the book on Karnilla was located. "Some servant's quarters I think. It was more annoying than anything." He turned and looked her in the eye. He felt genuine guilt at lying to his mother; she was his best confidante and most ardent supporter of his sorcery when Odin and Thor scoffed. But unless he wanted his father sniffing out his hidden source of untamable and curious magic, he would simply have to.

The look on her face at his reply was hard to read, despite having known it his whole life. It seemed to hover somewhere between curiosity and suspicion. The moment seemed to hang in the air. Then she smiled, and it was over.

"Come," she put a hand on his back and led him out of the massive library. "It's time for your defense lessons. Perhaps we can persuade Master Tyr to let you choose the dagger as your weapon of choice at your coming of age ceremony."

Loki snorted with contempt. "He'd sooner dress like a dwarf, dance in a circle, and sing songs of his lust for horses in the market square than agree to the idea. He despises my dagger."

She burst out laughing next to him, struggling to compose herself when the guards they passed cast questionable looks at them. Loki paid them no mind; his mother's laughter, especially by his doing, filled him with a particular shade of joy that he could find in no other place or person. He turned to look at her, finding he did not have to look up quite so much to see her face as he once did. His slick grin earned him a tweak on his ear.

"Your mouth is dirtier than the sewers. Mind your tongue. And Master Tyr is rooted far too deep in the old ways to appreciate your mix of magic and weapon. I will help him see reason."

The authority in her voice let Loki know that she was not going to help Master Tyr see reason so much as make him accept it. But she would do it quietly, he knew, in the way that he appreciated. Loki wagered she achieved far more in one day with her cunning and charm than Odin did in a century with that scepter.

Together they walked through the halls to the practice fields, his mother on his arm, making idle conversation. When they arrived on the practice fields, Thor yelling at him to hurry, he bid his mother farewell and made his way to the practice circles. He lunged, dodged, and thrust with the sword Tyr forced him to use until he was sweaty and red in the face. Tyr criticized his form and ordered him to try again and again against his opponent no matter how well he did. Loki simply grit his teeth and bore it; it was a matter of pride. He would never be as accomplished as Thor at these larger weapons, but he refused to be an imbecile when wielding them.

When Master Tyr finally released him from his practice it was with relief that he unsheathed his dagger, and began throwing it with relish at the targets, summoning it back to him with simple magic. Confidence that he had lacked earlier at practice came to him now as each throw hit exactly where he intended. Though, he could not help but note bitterly, no one save his mother appreciated what he excelled at. Her words from earlier resurfaced, and he could not help but fiercely hope that he would be able to use his dagger during his ceremony in a few year's time. If he would not be as lauded and fawned over as Thor, he would at least not make a fool of himself in front of Asgard. A habit Thor could not seem to break, yet seemed to somehow endear him all the more to the people of the realm.

Loki continued to let his thoughts wander between Thor's idiocy and the duties he and his brother would soon assume as he threw his dagger at targets in the fading light of day, often magicking more replicas out of the air around him to send a deadly bunch of them all at once. They would have to attend all council meetings, not just a few. When wars, famine, or treason reached Asgard they would be expected to defend, support, and uphold it as the shining example of the nine Realms. To ride at the front of Asgard's massive army with his father and inspire them. He was ready for this; he knew this as surely as he knew his dagger would hit the target's left eye. Expectation, though a weight that grew heavier as the days until his coming of age ceremony became less and less, did not become an anchor that would drown him as he knew it would Thor, but a burden he would assume with purpose and pride. And despite all of Thor's shortcomings, Loki's love for him won out every time, because though Thor teased him for his magic, he never made it seem like a fault. Yes, he would advise his bullheaded older brother before and after he assumed the throne, despite how unworthy Loki knew him to be to hold such a position. This had always been Loki's role in the royal family.

He threw daggers until he couldn't see the targets through the night, his serious thoughts consuming him until his mother summoned him for their nightly sit by the fire. Later, in the darkness of his chambers, he idly traced the patterns swirled in the metal of the orb's surface, fascinated to see it pulse purple light out at random intervals. While he was asleep, he missed the sharp crack that lasted less than a second, a vertical distortion appearing in the middle of the room, that blipped out of existence as quickly as it had appeared. It left nothing but a sharp burst of frigid air that swirled out of Loki's window into the mellow Asgardian night.