I can't thank enough to all of you for your lovely reviews and also for favouriting and alerting. Though I hope my second chapter has not caused any discouragement? As not many of you came back from the first one it seems and I hope it was not me responding to you, lol! If so, just kick me! I would be ever so excited and grateful if you could please leave a review as otherwise my silly drivels seem so meaningless, bah! Shout at me if you hate it or like it! :)
Varying POVs here, hope it will not be confusing.
CH3 - Somebody get the mortal a Danish
Thor truly was lost for words. Not only had Loki possibly spared him from an embarrassing folly, his much lighter brother had been able to shove him out of the way far too easily. How could this be? He was Thor, the undefeated warrior and the crown prince to the mighty Asgard. Unable to think otherwise, he had been so certain that this was all some kind of a dream, a masterpiece illusion perhaps spun by Loki's extraordinary mind.
Yet as he watched his younger brother splayed out on the ground, a shaking hand squeezing brokenly against his chest, he realized that this was no lie. Loki's deceptions would always shatter after he was brought down, and as far as he could tell, now that he was in fact looking with his two opened eyes, nothing had changed, nothing at all.
Stunned at the truth that had been refusing to visit his mind, for the first time in his life Thor felt this strange, unpalatable pressure in his gut, thinking it a small sensation of guilt and uncertainty squirming in the corner of his stomach like a serpent biting with an unknown poison. Then again, maybe it was simply hunger?
Yet still, knowing what to do had always felt natural to him, a feat as easily accomplished as breathing, unquestionable and entirely subconsciously performed. Granted, just like breathing, his thought process was generally unanimous in what needed to be done, which usually involved smashing everything in sight.
But now, without the feel of the power of Mjolnir slotted rightfully into his hand, what should he do? Had Mjolnir been truly in the centre of all his thoughts and actions? Well, yes, but if his banishment was a test to the source of his true might, his father need not worry. For hammer or not, he could still feel a very compulsive urge to punch something right now, and very, very hard.
Indeed. Loki must have experienced a moment of utter foolishness, thinking that Thor needed to be saved. After all, Loki had never possessed the same physical hardness and battle prowess as he, or as any Asgardian warrior for that matter. This puny beast might have caught him off guard once before but it would not topple Thor so easily again, if at all! For having the undue insolence to hurl his little brother to the ground, he'd re-educate this monster of metal on who was in charge. In the Norns honour, he would slay it where it stood with his bare hands if he had to, and father would see he needed no Mjolnir to do so!
Yes…indeed, but perhaps after he had filled this rumbling belly of his with so much needed sustenance.
Feeling over every single fracture of his ribs again, Loki contemplated whether there was such a thing as a spell casting speed contest, because if there were, he had no doubt he would have been the winner. Thor's bolts of lightning were nowhere near as fast as Loki's frantic healing attempts at that very moment, because he'd rather be chained to Mjolnir's handle for all eternity than to be dragged back to that ego crushing torture chamber humans dared to call the hospital despite it lacking any hospitality whatsoever. Well, at least they did not lack in a sense of humour which was mildly encouraging.
So he bit back the pain whilst his beaten mortal tissues were still repairing and hauled himself to his polished black shoes as majestically as he could muster, standing up no sooner than the human Valkyrie and her Warriors Two came rushing alongside their ghastly beast and headed speedily towards he and Thor.
Loki was about to step forth all determined and intrepid looking with his cunning ploy flowing through his head when from the corner of his eye he discerned Thor's tell-tale swagger head towards the three, a dumbass determination pinned to the blond stubble of his face.
Oh no, Hel no…Thor was to delicacy like a Jotunheim beast to a goat and diplomacy in his brother's dictionary spelled swing Mjolnir faster, which would only beg the question what would Thor swing without his impressive tool?
Not exactly thrilled at the prospect of finding out the answer to that, Loki attempted to cast pacifying thoughts into Thor's mortal head, promptly mortified to discover that it didn't work. It appeared that his most powerful, higher function abilities had been ripped out after all, to his bitter, grievous disappointment. Honestly, where was the fun in that?
Just as well his nimble mind could not have been so easily detached like Thor's and was therefore very much firm in its rightful place, serving as Loki's saving grace. It took one discreet gesture of his hand, and an invisible rippling of energy sprung up directly in Thor's path, and Loki watched with stifled satisfaction as the mammoth of an oaf clanked against what looked like thin air and rebounded backwards with a befuddled face.
Loki took an instant advantage of the large vacated space, swiftly taking the front line position to greet warmly the armed and dangerous assembly of humans.
It may have been painfully disappointing that thought-control was out for the count, but Loki was more than content to equip himself with the next best thing, slashing on his most disarming, charm exuding smile. His bow that followed was an epitome of elegance and courtesy as he extended one arm to the brown eyed woman, the seeming leader of the three despite being also the shortest, and hence to his instant liking.
"How delightful to see you again," Loki whipped his voice into its most delicious of qualities, all smooth and enticing with extra pure molten honey cascading down his tongue as he pulled the earthling's hand to his mouth to brush her knuckles gently against his brilliantly grinning lips, his eye contact unfaltering in its delivery of diplomatic manipulation.
And then, a lot of things happened all at once, all bizarre and inexplicable, worrisome and exciting at the same time. For start, a delicate and pleasing scent he was not able to place wrapped itself around his senses as an eager curiosity surpassing the entire universe reflected in her brightly sparkling eyes. That was utterly unexpected from a mortal, yet that was not the worst. He pulled slowly back from her but still held onto her fingers in a momentary, and utterly perplexing hesitance to let go, the contact causing him to relish her openly given warmth. Relish? Granted, all the Asgardian women he had ever touched were so openly cold, they might as well have been born on Jotunheim, but still. He never relished, he controlled!
And as a final blow to his masculine pride, his forest green, deeply ponderous gaze lingered on her in some mutual otherworldly entrapment, and Loki could not help but haltingly marvel at the completely natural yet damnably striking beauty of her face, free from the paints and glitter that Asgardian women tended to wrap their skin in like another layer of clothing. And for a split moment, spontaneously, before his inborn ego snapped it out of him, he wondered if any of those he had ever looked upon would, like her, be able to unfold before him like some rare and prized flower that bloomed miraculously in the farthest reaches of the darkest cosmos.
"Good to see you too," the brown-haired beauty answered slowly as if taken by surprise, shrugging her small shoulders with a gently creeping blush across her cheeks as she gave a shy and demure smile. She glanced about at her companions before directing her wonderstruck eyes back at the younger prince.
Unbeknownst to her, her reaction created another unprecedented and surreal one in Loki, stirring an utterly contrary revelation and shock in the God of Lies in turn. Given the very much close-by proximity of Thor, she was swooning…at him instead? After all, and by the Asgardian law, were not all the covetous and blushing reactions always entirely reserved for Thor? Then why should this encounter be any different? Ah yes, they were far away from Asgard.
All that said, he found himself so unexpectedly frozen that he had in fact forgotten about the delivery of his cunning ploy. Instead, he felt a sudden compulsion to double-affirm himself that her eyes were not indeed turned to his brother, and hence rendering Loki a total idiot, or that his genes had not suffered a sudden, inconceivable mutation and turned him into a Thor lookalike. Although he would have been disappointed with the former, he truly feared the thought of the latter.
But the God of Thunder had by nature snuffed out the moment by barging in with his shining blond annoyance, swooping in with his all-encompassing, universe birthing grin.
"How fares My Lady?" Thor snatched unashamedly the same hand Loki still held and planted his own stubble-fringed, manly lips to the same knuckles, though the brown eyes belonging to those knuckles still held Loki's gaze exclusively, causing an uncertain smile twist the thin line of his mouth. Loki was thrown, hard, and by that he knew he was definitely still not Thor. Different laws or not, it must have been this side of the star speckled space, possessing some gravitational anomaly that have crazed this world with madness, or having an opposite polarity which made her eyes drift to him and not Thor.
"My…Lady?" The mortal questioned curiously whilst her eyes were still ponderously locked on Loki, finally tearing away and turning to Thor long after hearing his smoothly delivered words.
"You are a woman, are you not?" The blond brother tilted his head with a hint of worried puzzlement, soon a dazzling grin adding even more light to his face. All he was missing was a halo to allow him to happily fly off even without his hammer, Loki discerned with an inward grunt of displeasure.
The dark God would have rolled his eyes if they weren't still inexplicably pinned to the human.
"The last time I checked, yes," a light laugh flowed from her well-formed lips with an uncertain head gesture as she tried to figure them out as if they had plummeted down from outer space. Neither entirely surprising nor untrue, Loki admitted, since they technically had, and trying to blend in with Thor by his side was akin to prancing about whilst holding hands with a frost troll of Nifleheim who was having a riveting convo with Slippy, the eight legged horse.
"Oh, I am Jane. And this is Darcy and this here is Doctor Selvig," Jane told them with a frozen smile, turning to point at her companions to introduce them.
When she turned back though, the riveting smile and a splash of colour was all but gone from the younger looking man whilst the rather big guy filled the entire space in front of her after suddenly dropping her hand.
"I assure you that we are both no longer in any need of a medical attention," Thor proclaimed with a puff of warlike air, sending a reassuring look to Loki though noting he didn't seem quite thoroughly reassured.
"Oh, no, no, He is not a medical doctor at all," Jane rushed to explain, seeing the tension rise in the leaner of the two as he slightly backed away. The muscle man though instantly switched from harm to charm.
"Then, it is nice to make your acquaintance, Jane," Thor turned into a fountain of allure, overflowing like an opened faucet missing a valve, capturing and lifting her hand back up for another kiss. As they posed no immediate threat, he found himself more than willing to set aside the punishment of the abhorrent beast that had dishonoured Loki, for this warrior maiden was its master it seemed, and he mastered maidens even better than beasts, especially the beautiful ones – beautiful maidens that was, not beasts.
"Is it a custom to have one name for a woman, and devise two for men in this realm?" Thor questioned in genuine interest as family names were of much importance back on Asgard and in the Nine Realms. Well, one needed to know how to honour those slain in battle properly, after insulting them in the same battle, but he was not sure of many other uses for knowing names.
"Oh, um, no. Doctor is not a name either, it's a title," Jane explained patiently, trying her best to tug her hand away from Thor, more so encouraged by her sidelong glance to Selvig who was circling a finger around his temple rather meaningfully.
"I must say, I do enjoy titles. I happen to have one myself," Thor started to share happily, his grin at its widest as he lived on admiration and wasn't going to miss out on it here. Loki, however, felt a sudden need to seal Thor's mouth shut with a permanent spell, finally snapping from his temporary, inconvenient imbalance. About time as well, he should have been devising ways to either get he and Thor back to Asgard or to take over this realm should the former fail. What he should not have been doing was concern himself with fears and attentions from an inferior race that he had no intention to be attended by.
Strangely though, his actions were not quite obeying his thoughts. And that was one to add to a lots of inexplicable firsts that had happened already. As Loki found himself instead busy projecting an image of Thor's gruesome disembowelment into his own head upon seeing him still fondle the leading warrior's hand. His rapid and astonishing mental compulsion to end his brother in such a violent way was truly new to him. Well, mostly.
Then, something stirred from behind the one called Jane.
"Hey, Darcy here." A face swum up from around Jane's shoulder, beaming lustfully at Thor. Ah, some normalcy at last, Loki mused inwardly, unsure if he should be pleased or disappointed as it seemed that gravity functioned in this place just fine, after all.
"Sorry I tased you," the woman said in a tone that lacked any sincerity, which Loki could completely relate to, apart from the lacking to convince part of course. "And you," she added as she swung her bouncing locks of chestnut to Loki, her normally armed hand extending towards the princes, causing them both to jerk back ever so slightly in reflexive apprehension.
"Are you planning on doing it again?" Loki tilted his head to her, his voice laced with perfectly convincing dark politeness, not a trace of the interstellar hostility he felt very strongly at that moment showing on him at all.
Still, a small revenge was in order, whether or not she in fact intended to electrify them again or not. Loki's finger twitched behind his back and her glasses fogged up like a shower screen hit by an angry explosion of hot steam. She really did utilize the strangest of fashion accessories. First a woolly headgear that served as no protection whatsoever and now equally baffling eyewear that seemed so distorted, she could not possibly see anything at all.
"No! At least, I don't think so," Darcy assured them, taking off her ocular accessory to rub at it intently with a vivid expression of earthly annoyance. The manner of her so called assuredness however spurred even Thor into obtaining a more assuring assurance.
"Do you swear?" Thor turned to Darcy after finally letting go of Jane's hand, to Loki's cerebral relief. He had not realized until now how much hard work killing Thor in his mind truly was.
"Yeah, quite a lot," Darcy admitted, still cursing her fogging glasses.
"Quite a lot, what?" Thor shook his head, appearing lost.
"Swearing," Darcy made a face, lengthening the word. She put her cleaned glasses on, only for them to gain a healthy film of condensation once again. "You know, since you asked?" She shook her eyewear in the air as if that would help, side glancing Jane, who only shrugged in helpful response.
"I do not understand." Thor's expression confirmed as much.
"Me neither," Darcy mumbled more to herself as she battled with the humidity surrounding her eye accessory in the otherwise dry air.
"Maybe he got out of the hospital too early," Selvig whispered louder than he wanted from behind to Jane.
Just hearing the word hospital made Loki want to swim through space back to Asgard but since he couldn't and Thor was gaining too much attention, Loki quickly pulled Thor away from the three by his bulging arm. He had some slightly embarrassing difficulty in his mortal state to throw the solid bulk of Thor behind him and out of the way, but things really needed to be put back on track and away from this pointless banter.
"May I inquire as to where we might find a place to eat? It appears that hunger has made my dear friend here a little confused," Loki intervened smoothly, a placid smile offering an apology for his demented brother. Though he did not qualm about steaming up Darcy's eyewear at least one more time.
Ignoring Darcy's battle with her glasses that she could not help with since she was an astrophysicist, not a meteorologist, Jane slid her eyes to Loki instead and blinked. Was this guy for real? She was sure she had hit him twice, bone-crunchingly hard, with her SUV, and despite that, he was the one who appeared completely…well, polite? And where on earth did they come from anyway if it was from earth to start with? There was not a soul in this ditch of a town that was this elegant and actually had a demeanour to match. She had seen a few well-dressed feds creeping around that morning, but that's where the word 'well' ended as there was nothing good about them apart from their deceiving, arrogant getups.
Her cautious female side was screaming at her to stay away from these creepy men as they spelled trouble in the most extreme of senses, but the scientist side of her screamed back not to listen. And her scientist side was much, much louder and persuasive, given that they were the only evidence she had, and an evidence that could talk and happened to be charming and rather handsome was a massive bonus.
"You…may. In fact, there is a lovely little place right across the street," Jane pointed out with increasing enthusiasm and before Erik could have a say, she added like it was the best idea she had that day, "let us take you there, you know, for all the trouble we've caused you. Our treat." She could literally see Erik's disapproving head shake behind her, given that his suspicions of the two were rammed into her head just about every two minutes since their first rather weird contact.
"That is very kind of you." Loki presented her with a gentle bow and gestured for her to lead the way.
When all four turned away from him, he grudgingly dispelled the 'Kick Me' sign from Thor's back, thinking it for the best not to encourage aimless violence now that they were making such an adequate progress towards…let's call it diplomacy. Meeting these humans again was unexpected but perhaps beneficial to gleaming some better insight into this world alongside them, well, as any benevolent and studious future King would, of course. He'd never admit even to himself that it could have more to do with his inborn curiosity and obsessive need to unravel inexplicably intriguing female demeanours, which, unless he ventured as far as completely differing species, he had not encountered much of on Asgard. There even the goats offered more diversity than the pathetically uniform mould of nobility.
This unwelcome turn of thoughts to goats was however overturned as they entered the eating place and a surprisingly pleasant scent of something dark and aromatic lifted its way to Loki's sense of smell, mixing in a wonderful harmony with something sweet and buttery, throwing him back into a sense of intrigue. The feasts on Asgard had always smelled of the strongest spices and heavy meats that mingled with spills and breaths of mead, Thor's being the mightiest needless to say, all-together too pungent and revolting for Loki's refined tastes, but this he could get to like.
In fact, once this world would fall fully under his rule, he would introduce these divine aromas to the human healing rooms instead of that dreadful concoction of chemicals that made him want to voluntarily depart for Valhalla.
Still, with all these teasing temptations dancing in the air, two questions were begged to be asked. Why on Midgard were all these people so miserable looking, and where was the actual food?
"Where is the food?" Thor demanded as he haughtily glanced about, his hollowly booming voice echoing like the stormy vortex of Bifrost in the small space of the diner.
Jane shared an amusedly embarrassed look with Darcy before deciding to humour him with a response. The things she would do for science and her own damned curiosity, following two positively crazy men, thinking that they may have been beamed down through outer space on a readymade Einstein-Rosen bridge from another planet. God, was she really that desperate? "Um, probably in the kitchen, behind the counter?" She said tentatively, unsure of the big guy's question.
"Then, bring it here!" Thor smacked his bear palm against an empty table, rousing all the patrons from their zombie like state to look at him which he seemed only overly pleased about.
"No, no, you need to order it first," Jane uttered at him in a hushed tone, not liking the sharp build-up of mixed gazes in their direction at all. It was enough that she had been stapled with many unpleasant labels already, including the deranged seeker of swirly dust things and twiddler of bizarrely useless stuff, she didn't want to add a keeper of random strangers with insanity issues to the list as well.
"Then I order you to bring me the food!" Thor exclaimed commandingly, having added some whispering now to the general head turning event.
"What? No, no. I mean order from a menu," Jane close to face palmed, her voice showing a sign of stress as she picked up a menu from the table, trying hard not to use it to fan off the excessive heat that decided to stage an invasion on her blushing face.
"Please do excuse his inexcusable ignorance. He does not get out much and he hunts for his food, well, mostly…being from a very remote place," Loki swept in, taking the menu that Thor was completely ignoring from her hand gently and shoved it in front of his brother's blanked out face while pushing on his wide shoulder to sit him down.
"Wow, you mean like from the north of Norway? I've never dragged my lazy butt up there myself but I've heard they had Trolls there and all that, not that your friend here is a Troll cause he is way too gorgeous looking for that…" Darcy started to extrapolate with an impressive loudness and a blatant indisposition to subtlety and restraint equal to his brother.
"Close enough," Loki interjected pointedly, fixing Darcy with his hypnotizing glare and an underlying restraint to throttle her in his broadening dazzle of a smile, realizing only belatedly that his thought-rearranging ability was out of order. What a shame. Now he was reduced to practicing the more primitive methods of manipulation and diversion, promptly proceeding to slide his intensified gaze from Darcy's eyes purposefully and slowly to the curve of her ample chest and leave her well and truly open-mouthed and very pleasantly speechless.
Well, what did he know? Perhaps there was some fun to be had in the old fashioned methods after all. As a nice bonus, practice never hurt and a challenge was never considered an obstacle in his life. Speaking of obstacles, Thor was gazing at Jane again instead of the menu, which caused Loki to work double-time on his diversions, though looking at Thor's strong pecks might have had a much less desirable effect, not to mention the total eww effect, so best to return him to the menu already in hand.
With that in mind, Loki directed his emerald gaze to his brother, though debating whether he was quite prepared yet to reveal his relation to him in front of the humans. He had his pride to uphold which would have been a much harder feat to accomplish upon being genetically connected to a single-minded buffoon who had lost his primary source of focused thought. Loki, on the other hand, had already gathered much from this simple place, from the way the patrons sat and read from their list of meals, ordered them, waited around, ate them, and then handed over some sort of a paper based compensation in turn. Indeed. Humans were so bizarre. They chose what to eat from a writing on a paper without seeing or tasting the food and then waited for it - with no entertainment? No wonder they all appeared so despondent!
"Have you not chosen your meal yet?!"
"This writing. I cannot read it," Thor announced with an authoritative puzzlement as he returned his gaze to peer over the laminated paper, fair brows furrowed in knits together.
"Perhaps, this may help." Loki leaned over nonchalantly and swivelled the menu the right way around, sparking a bright grin of recognition on Thor's face which soon promptly vanished again.
"Ah. Now I can read the words but I do not understand what they are saying." Thor shifted the menu up and down a little, finally giving up and tossing it aside. "Just give me some roast beast, and lots of it," Thor demanded, visibly self-satisfied with his ingenuity of bypassing the need to make a selection. Whoever heard of such stupid thing anyway?
"Roast what?" Jane asked with a slightly confused interest as she started to look for the said item herself, not remembering it on there before.
"Beef. He said roast beef. Guessing from the severity of his disorientation I would suggest three," – Loki paused at the dissonantly roaring sound that tore out of Thor's stomach like a freshly defrosted beast of Jotunheim, - "or best make it six orders for him. And…what is that over there?" Loki asked with piqued interest, gesturing towards another table, to an older woman eating something fragile and buttery in actual enjoyment, a rarity in this place it seemed.
"That's a pastry. It's got a really yummy raspberry sauce inside. It's a house specialty," Jane divulged happily seeing the flash of ravenous delight pass through Loki's eyes, like he'd never heard of such a thing in his life.
"Wonderful. I shall have ten of those, and that dark drink as well." The raven-haired prince nodded to a mug full of that magical aroma he had smelled upon entering this establishment. He simply had to taste it.
"Coffee?" Jane asked and Loki affirmed with a light nod of his head, having no idea what she said.
"Two of those," Thor's enormous, resounding voice announced to everyone in the diner, even those in the kitchen heard him loud and clear, now peeking in through a pane of glass in the kitchen door.
Jane shook her head with an amusedly occupied smile as she got up from the table and went to make their order, though suddenly she realised just how much they were ordering. How could anyone be so hungry or did they simply not know how much they could eat? Either way, she'd have to ask Erik to pay for all of this, or maybe she could do a boot sale with the stuff Blake had left behind? That idea suddenly plastered a big cheeky grin on her face.
"Sup," Darcy meantime cut the prolonged moment of awkwardness with her bout of wisdom, realizing that she had begun to rub her chin against the palm of her hand nervously as both of the strangers stared at her as if she was meant to turn into an alien at any moment or pull out her taser again. Well, one of them already managed to unashamedly check out her boobs so maybe she could ask them something equally appropriate?
"So, you guys are like together-together, or together for some completely non-sexual reason?" She produced an innocent smile accentuated by her pursing lips as her eyes visited their blankly stern faces one at a time. Revenge was so sweet sometimes.
"Darcy!" Jane let her reproachful voice ring out close to her ear as she sat back down, keen to take over this fruitful conversation now that the ordering was finally done and dusted. She had been pining to ask those two weirdoes questions ever since Darcy's discovery of the two smudged humanoid shapes splayed out in the photo of the funnelled cloud. But how on earth does one bring out the subject of someone stumbling out of a tornado stretched across space?
"So how did you…could you say how…what…you were doing in the middle of the desert last night?" Jane tried to look indifferent as she leaned closer to the two eagerly after fishing out her notebook from her jacket as subtly as she could, noting as the stubbly one's perpetually smiling blues simply turned to her blankly whilst the elegantly dressed man's keen eyes of green instantly drifted to her fiddling hands. Darn, did he not miss anything?
"When exactly last night do you have in mind," Loki adorned her with supercilious tone of voice, tilting his handsome face towards her with a devil's glee hardening the edges of his eyes.
Slightly taken aback, Jane's tongue stumbled but she relented nevertheless. "I mean…when we first met?"
"Then, would you like to know what we were doing before you nearly killed us or after?" He said so glibly, Jane's mouth was left open, staggered at his interpretation of the night's events. Well, she supposed he could have taken it that way.
Before Jane could slip into a fully shocked embarrassment though, Isabela brought two large mugs of coffee and a plateful of pastries and placed them on the table, dispelling the brief awkwardness from the air.
Pleased with her embarrassment and the genuine regret that flowed in her eyes, Loki snapped instantly back to all pleasantness with a smile to match, just in time to observe the incoming large platter stacked up with pastries in the likeness to the opulent dome of Asgard, all shiny and golden and smelling of mildly spiced and luscious divinity itself. He dove in with an eagerness of a wild cat that had just made a kill after two weeks of carnivorous abstinence, downing two pieces with the speed of light, finishing by pushing a few last crumbs from the corners of his mouth with an elegantly curved forefinger to be scooped up by his ravenous tongue.
The stares that he had gained when he looked up truly made him want to bring some of this heavenly sin back to Asgard, if only to cause his father some sweet irritation.
Odin hated all things sweet. He called them useless temptations that weakened one's physical strength. He oft attributed Loki's lighter physique to consuming too many sweets, even going as far as accusing him of eating all of those ever found on Asgard since they were so rare. Honestly. It never once occurred to him that it might have been his mighty air of bitterness causing the rarity of all things sweet?
Indeed, Loki would bring some back with him. A whole multidimensional pocketful of those pastries. Thinking on it some more, he shall teleport this whole establishment across the Yggdrasil to his father's private chambers to put the Allfather's inexplicable disrelish to the test. After all, his father loved tests, did he not?
Amidst the delightful imaginary sight of Odin's beard twitching in brewing anger, Loki let his soaring senses appreciate the sugary goodness he never expected to be offered to him by Midgard, when he discerned a giant hand going shamelessly for his private pile.
Oh, no, no, no. He might have allowed Thor to take his things away on Asgard, well, ever since his gilded brother could hold his hammer straight, even if to drop it right back onto Loki's foot that was, but now that the tables were turned in Loki's favour he'd rather suffer eternal torment in the confinement of that dysfunctional healing place run by demented humans than to let Thor take away even a crumb of his secret pleasures.
Loki would have preferred a more creative and educationally beneficial approach of retaliation against Thor, however the presence of ladies unfortunately begged for more subtlety than he would have enjoyed.
Still, not all subtlety had to be so subtle, Loki's inward grin was truly evil as he saw Thor's hand withdraw from atop his mound of pastries faster than flying Mjolnir, fingers curling in on themselves in a desperate attempt to hide. Loki never dwelled too much on trying to justify why he felt that pink suited Thor more than all that silver and red he wore, but he never missed an opportunity to reaffirm his strong belief. In fact, he thought that the slightly shimmering rosy hue he had chosen for Thor's nails was particularly befitting.
Unfortunately Thor didn't seem willing to agree with his fashion advice, anger already starting to boil in his darkly flashing eyes and Loki thought for a moment that he would become the victim of some hammerless crushing when two giant platters loaded with meat and a lot of something else saved the day.
The switch in Thor was astounding as if he had bent down to drop his voracious wrath and picked up an incarnation of bliss instead, reflected so duly on his face and he had not even noticed that his nail polish was now well gone. Thor looked close to seeing Valhalla as he sized the generous portions of sliced meat trapped in bosom shaped mounds of dough and two heaps of potato wedges on the side.
"You suppose you have quite enough there or should we get you six more?" Loki quirked an eyebrow at the impressive mountain sitting in front of Thor and at the way he was not fazed by it in the slightest.
Thor only took a large bite out of one multi-layered roast beast and answered with his full mouth, large crumbs shooting like stars from his chewing teeth. "Wook who if talking."
"Ah yes, good point," Loki admitted with a shrug, plunging into his own heap of pleasure, both princes oblivious to the attention they were gathering, including the gadgetry that started to pop out of nowhere to document this unlikely event.
Jane tried to give all the gaping onlookers a disapproving stare but she could somewhat sympathise with the townsfolk enthusiasm given that the most excitement anyone got in this godforsaken hole was her dishing out a new instrument. Eventually, even she could not help but stare in wonder, completely forgetting to ask more questions about the phenomenon she actually should have been interested in, instead pondering about the phenomenon right in front of her. How could anyone eat this much food and look this fit? They really knew how to live in Norway!
"Congratulations, I believe you have just put Volstagg to his ultimate shame," Loki appraised his brother's valiant effort at eating everything on his plate and still looking hungry.
Instead of taking it as an insult though, Thor appeared entirely ecstatic, downing his whole cup of coffee in a few mammoth-sized gulps before proceeding to peer at the emptied mug with a sizeable, beaming grin.
"This drink. I like it!" He announced to the entire building again, and before Loki suddenly remembered what usually followed, Thor already hurled the fine piece of ceramics to the ground, delighting at the clear chink of it smashing to all sorts of tiny pieces.
"Another!" Thor's grin spanned galaxies at that very moment and he expected to light up everyone else's smiles in turn, as had been the natural custom, yet his busy facial muscles soon started to lose their usual spring.
It strangely appeared that no others shared his jovial enthusiasm and Thor's smile froze on his face. In fact, if he didn't know better he could have imagined that he was right back on Asgard as the silence that cut into his ears was on par to father's angered bang of Gungnir, or rather what always followed it. Yet what followed that silence now was not his father's enigmatic speech, it was some incomprehensible and angered language that would have sounded rather pleasing to the ear was it not for the scraping high-pitched voice of the woman that hurled it out. For a Norn's grief, have this human woman not heard of gentility and grace? No, he was definitely not on Asgard anymore!
"Sorry, Izzy! A little accident," Jane called with a demure cringe at the heavily venting proprietor, already resigned to having that label of 'attracting destructive lunatics' added to her already overlong list of all things weird. Her mouth still ajar from her shocked disbelief, Jane glanced from Isabela back at the frozenly grinning Thor, lingering there for a moment until finally landing her defeated gaze on Loki. "Norway?" She guessed dejectedly.
"Yes, you would not believe the number of times I had to remind him not to smash everything he touches, it has become endlessly exhausting," Loki feigned a tired sigh, secretly smirking at the epic truth of his words and the fact that Thor actually picked up on it as well, the fanned out lines of his smile hardening to the frost of Jotunheim at the edges.
Loki only gave Thor a rebuking shake of his head. "Have I not warned you before of the differing customs of each…place that we come to visit? Now, be a dear and pick up what you dropped or would you like the lady to do that for you?" Loki was almost, almost thinking of somehow sending his father his utmost gratitude as he had not had this much fun in…well, in at least a millennia for certain.
Thor frowned at that, confusion skimming across his well-trimmed beard. Whatever nonsense this was to pick up after oneself since he was the crown prince to the throne presiding over all of the realms? But Loki may have had some point on the matter. These humans did not appear too keen on waiting on him, in fact they appeared rather impatient. Even his charming smile that had never failed before was decidedly faltering now as he flinched at the face the proprietor had given him, flinched! - So he almost instinctively reached down to pick up the pieces of his breaking pride…and to get out of the view of that angered beast of a woman.
His frown deepened some as he tried to find the pieces that were not there, surprise gripping his already hurting head as instead his big finger hooked around the smooth handle of the mug. As he brought it up, Thor stared at it unsurely whilst putting it back on the table, remembering it empty but in most certainty not completely intact.
"What is that? I'm sure I heard it break!" Jane exclaimed, perplexed.
"Yeah, me two, and from Izzy's swearing that makes her three," Darcy added eloquently, looking at Erik for number four but Erik just stared blankly ahead, visibly exhausted.
"Well, perhaps he is not as destructive as he appears to be," Loki insinuated with a sly wink and slowly spreading grin aimed at Thor. Indeed, he'd find a way to send Odin a message informing him of his biblical enjoyment.
Thor however, was ready to throttle Loki's very much sincerely grinning face, adorning his brother with a very much pretend grin in turn, one promising a very imminent death to the God of Lies, with which Loki appeared thoroughly impressed, even anticipative of the delivery of Thor's facial threat. Indeed, Thor would pummel him at first opportunity, which would never come unless he would miraculously gain back Mjolnir in the next few hours, before he had forgotten about the whole incident all together.
Then, a commotion at the door broke their brotherly moment, causing them all to eye two townspeople who stumbled into the cafeteria with a good waft of heat and a gust of dust from the street.
The two men were covered with layers of dirt as if they had just danced with the dust devils in the middle of the desert, looking rather weary and bedraggled, flopping themselves at the counter to order their usual and then started to have a chatty moment.
There was some odd drivel at first, about a satellite crashing into a crater, or maybe causing the crater, they weren't entirely sure, or maybe it wasn't even a crater or a satellite at all, which was all rather pointless to everybody, but when they mentioned having their hands all over something really hard that was impossible to move, it propelled Thor and Loki from their seats with the speed of Bifrost's energy being shot out of Heimdall's impressively shaped cannon.
Time for some pummelling at last, Thor thought with an unrivalled joy and a massive grin aimed at Loki before he darted toward the two mortal men as though he was clanked to Mjolnir's handle already, leaving Loki to stand gracefully but somewhat in hesitance behind.
Thor, feeling the might return to him already, placed his hand on the shoulder of the newcomer to question his hammer's whereabouts when he side-glanced Loki who seemed to have enchanted the brown-eyed woman yet again, conjuring some kind of stack of green and crisp paper that he pulled out of his prissy clothes and placed it on the table in front of her, leaving her smile back up at him with much appreciation.
He would never admit this to Loki's face but he felt jealousy for the first time at his brother's magic, an advantage that he could not have without his otherworldly might. Was that how Loki felt of his strength and power? If so, then that truly sucked. Yes, he would get Mjolnir fast so he would not need to feel jealous for too long. And then he would get the woman as well, if only to put his little brother back in his place.
Loki stood all quiet, thinking that he should savour his last moments of having power over Thor, on so many delicious levels, but he knew that a certain state of affairs never lasted. That said, this particular state of things was still terribly short and being ever the grim optimist, Loki began to believe with growing confidence that Mjolnir's presence was anything but the start of their banishment, not the end.
In fact, this was truly, wonderfully priceless. Loki would have almost been proud of their father's cunning, for playing this game with his sons, that was if he was not one of those being played. Father must have had a moment of genius delusion to think that Thor could become worthy once more of his hammer so easily. Did Odin truly think that Thor would learn his lesson by rescuing fair maidens from their earthly slights? Or by enduring his magic-wielding brother long enough to break his belligerent and stubborn spirit?
No, only now did it make sense. This was a trial for both of them, and as far as Loki was concerned, he was as good a contender as Thor. After all, anyone could hold the hammer should he be deemed worthy, and Loki was as Hel not going to be left out from the uptake. Not this time. No way.
Hearing that Thor had already obtained the directions to this so called crater, Loki set off for the exit in graceful haste. Then seeing as Thor had also vacated the space near the brawny human and began to speed up for the door, Loki did not waste time to match the God of Thunder's pace.
Soon running like mad goats they reached the door simultaneously, colliding in the narrow space, horns against feathers, neither able to get outside without the other stepping aside.
"Out of my way, brother," Thor bellowed in his thundering voice. "The hammer is mine!"
"I beg to differ, Thor, the hammer belongs to whomever is worthy of it. And as fate has it, I have my magic still, my wits and cunning as well as my impeccable looks…and what do you have?"
"This!"
Thor drew back his oversized fist and thumped Loki's oh so impeccably looking face so hard that he too lost balance and they both popped out of the door like twin new-born Bilchsteim expelled out of a pressurised womb in a tangled, kicking and punching heap.
"Yup, this is so going on YouTube," Darcy muttered to herself as she held out her cell, capturing the best ever event this town has ever seen.