xxi.
"Ah, lo and behold, the Great God of Mischief and Trickery approaches," the cat said with sarcastic grandiose. It walked halfway to Loki as he was brought in, then turned around and went away as though to say it didn't care. "Methinks that escape attempt didn't go so smoothly."
"How was I supposed to know that Sleipnir would betray me?" Loki grumbled, earning an odd glance from the unfortunate Asgardian forced to carry the greatly bandaged Loki in. He dismissed him angrily and the Asgardian happily fled. "Odin has kept him so long that he has managed to turn my only offspring against me!"
"You sure he was against you?" the cat asked.
Loki looked over at it, not having to turn his head down so much due to his location in a chair. "What?"
"No matter." The cat stepped into its bed and settled down comfortably. "You look to be more bandage cloth than Trickster God."
"The trickster has been tricked," Loki said wryly. "I once thought I was the best at my trade, until of course, the day I learned that I had been played as the fool more than all."
"What happened, Frosty One?" the cat queried. "Did Sleipnir throw you off or attempt to trample you to death?"
"He threw me," Loki grumbled. He paused, and then added, "Off the side of the Bifrost."
"Onto shallow ocean and sharp rocks." The cat's face twitched in what might have been sympathy, were it anyone other than the cat. "My suspicions that your escape didn't go so well as planned have been proven accurate."
"Hurrah for you," Loki muttered.
"So it seems you shall be immobile for the next sum of days," the cat mused.
"So it seems."
The cat smiled, a terrifying expression at this particular moment. "How fun."
Loki had a very bad feeling about this.
xxii.
When Thor walked into Loki's chambers that eventide to check on his recuperating brother, he did not expect to find him in his chair positioned at the centre of the room with the cat on his lap.
Loki was glaring daggers at the contentedly situated creature, bearing a deeper and more offended scowl on his face than Thor had ever seen.
Thor stopped just inside the doorway, staring at the odd picture before him. "I take it he is not there by your invitation," he said.
Loki didn't distract his scowl away from the cat for one moment. "It most certainly is not," he stated, glaring at the cat as though willing to incinerate its bones. The cat purred. "Thor, would you be so kind as to remove this pestilence from my lap?"
The cat's purr hitched in a manner similar to a laugh. The tip of its tail, curled around its body, drifted up lazily. If the expression on Loki's face was anything to go by, the cat was obviously saying something.
Loki exploded indignantly and immediately cringed at the pain it caused. "! )(&$ (!* #!" he snarled at the cat securely nestled in his lap.
Thor's brow furrowed. That was another swearword he hadn't heard before. Was Loki inventing new ones again?
It became evident that if Thor didn't intervene Loki's fit would probably cause him to combust. Quickly he stepped forward and gently lifted the cat out of Loki's lap, giving it an apologetic look. The cat didn't seem to care.
It turned its head to look over at Loki. "Well, this is certainly dignified, having your big brother move the kitty because you can't move it yourself."
"You—you—" Loki sputtered furiously in response to the feline's unheard comment.
"Loki, calm down," Thor said in concern. "You're in bad condition as it is."
"Yes, Loki, listen to your big brother." Again, Thor could not be certain, but it looked like the cat smirked. "After all, he does know best. You certainly don't see him falling off bridges into the sea."
Loki promptly started making up gibberish cursewords again.
"Loki, I don't think any of those really count," Thor said.
"It's the unrestrained hatred that matters!" Loki spat.
Thor decided now would be a good time to vacate the premises. He took the cat with him, earning its cooperation with the promise of a fish luncheon. The cat happily consumed its treat, and Thor marveled at how such a threatened creature could be so calm.
"Thor, when you've watched Loki run around as much as I have, he's just not so intimidating," the cat told Thor. It observed his puzzled expression and shook its head, returning to the fish. "Never mind. You can't hear me, anyway."
xxiii.
"Ah, a visit to the healers," the cat remarked as it strolled in. "I thought you could be found here." It looked around. "An odd place, this. Funny how creatures need things like medicine."
Loki glared at the cat, then quickly had his head turned back to its original angle by an impatient healer. A couple of them were changing out his bandages, checking the splints and seeing how Loki's bones were mending. He still couldn't move much on his own; attempts to do so had consistently resulted in pain.
It did not help that the cat would cheekily remind the Trickster of the fact that it didn't need splints or bandages or healers – since thus far, after so many months, Loki had failed to slay it.
"So," the cat sprang up onto the bed beside Loki. "What's the verdict on this frail form of yours?"
"I'm not frail," Loki muttered. The healer gave him a fierce glare that communicated stop moving! and turned his head back again.
"Sure, of course not. All it took was a short fall to render you paralytic. Temporarily, of course, but still it worked. Whereas you fling me from Asgard's highest tower, bury me in Jotunheim, and drop a giant anvil on me, and I walk away with nary a bone fracture." The cat gave Loki an unspeakably sassy look. "No, you're not frail at all."
The healer once again readjusted Loki's head. "You have the advantage of being curse-empowered spawn of Hela," he pointed out. "What with my muddled genetic origins, I'm not even sure what I can do anymore."
"Well, you certainly can't walk away from a drop of the side of the Rainbow Bridge," the cat replied.
"That wasn't a 'drop', I was thrown by Odin's warhorse," Loki said. "There's a difference."
"Yes, I suppose the difference is measured by amounts of lost dignity."
Loki frowned at the cat. The healer made a growling noise and roughly pushed Loki's head back into position. Loki frowned at the healer.
"Are you trying to force me to stand on the bad side of these healers?" he demanded of the cat.
"Well done, Loki, you figured it out," the cat applauded him. "What a terrific, deductive mind you possess."
The healer turned Loki's head back yet again, but this time held his jaw in place while giving him the evil eye.
"Sven, could you move that cat out of here?" he asked his fellow healer. "It's interfering with the work."
Sven nodded and without a moment's hesitation picked the cat up by the scruff of its neck and carried it off.
"Ha! Not everyone likes you!" Loki called after it triumphantly.
"No, but I'm still more popular than you," the cat replied.
Loki paused. "No, you're not."
"It's the tail, Loki. It's all in the tail."
Loki pouted. The healer moved his head.
xxiv.
"Brother, are you feeling unwell?" Thor asked, brow creasing in worry as he set his hand on Loki's shoulder. "You're not eating. These are some of your favorite foods."
Loki winced and then scowled. "How do you expect me to eat a meal when this sack of fleadirt is providing company?" he snapped, sending a pointed glare to the cat.
The cat raised its head out of the bowl of creamed fish it was delicately eating and gave Thor and Loki a look that had to have been the inspiration for the word innocence. Loki gave it one of blazing wrath in return.
"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, Loki," the cat said, continuing its mood of total blamelessness. "My company is simply the best to be had, especially by you."
Loki's eyes narrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"And I haven't seen a flea since I was a kitten, much less been a sack for their dirt. If you're going to insult someone, Loki, you should at least do it accurately. Otherwise you only embarrass yourself."
The cat's head tilted, and its roving eyes expressed humor. "Oh, what I am trying to do? It's pointless to tell you, you're already going to go ahead and embarrass yourself anyway. Continue as you will, Laufeyson, forget I said anything."
Loki looked over at Thor. "If you don't get rid of the cat, I'll starve to death right here," he said.
Thor hesitated.
"Nice move, Loki," the cat complimented the Asgardian as it was carried away.
"I thought so," Loki said smugly. He carefully lifted his spoon and dipped it into his bowl.
He looked down and his eyes grew wide. There, scattered amongst the creamy red of tomato soup, were unmistakably green hairs. Green, cat-length hairs.
Loki groaned and pushed the bowl away.
xxv.
"Extensive amounts of Midgardian explosives – didn't work," Loki muttered to himself as he slowly scratched away at the notebook beneath his hand. "Encased in a block of ice – didn't work. Destroyer's throat, miles inside Jotunheim, grand-sized anvil, highest tower of Asgard, lightning-powered shocks…" He sighed. "Didn't work, didn't work, didn't work, didn't work, didn't work…"
"What'cha doing?" the cat inquired, speedily hopping up onto Loki's writing desk and peering down at the words Loki had thus far written. "Ah, a list of failures, I see." It looked up at him. "Getting too long to keep in your noggin now, is it?"
The hand holding Loki's pen shot forward. The cat blinked the one eye that could fully close and tilted its head curiously. "Well that… is a strange sensation," it decided. "I see you're feeling better, Loki."
Loki sighed and picked up another writing utensil. "Pen through grey matter – didn't work," he muttered as he added it to the list.
xxvi. (bonus! yay!)
Loki's chair had been placed out on the balcony, as it was a sunny day and pleasingly warm. Loki had no complaint for any weather that was the opposite of Jotunheim's. He was to the point where independent movement was possible but limited. His hands and arms were mostly there, anyway.
He was currently in a place of half-sleep, head tilted back against the chair and fingers curled loosely around the armrests. The gentle sunshine had caused his muscles to relax as they so rarely did.
Loki wasn't exactly asleep. He was still vaguely aware of what was around him, but his body was in a state of rest and his mind moved at a significantly slowed pace.
"Ah, now you're seeing why cats like a good snooze so much."
Loki instantly tensed, jerking out of his doze to direct a baleful look upon the cat, who had come out onto the balcony. The cat glanced over at him and started to walk, staying on the balcony but further away from Loki.
"Relax, Frost Midget, I'm just here to take a nap," the cat said, springing up onto the balcony ledge and settling down. "Can't bother you so much if I'm asleep, can I?"
"You'd be surprised," Loki replied. His baleful look had been so far maintained.
"Shush, Asgardian." The cat set its head down, a foreleg already slipping off the side of the ledge. "This is too good a day to lose a nap upon. Go back to your doze. Dream of the soon-coming days where you can try to kill me again."
So saying, it closed its eyes, sighed contentedly, and delivered comments to Loki's mind no more.
Loki was surprised that the cat had decided to leave him alone. Perhaps there were things it enjoyed more than driving Loki out of his mind – things that weren't totally evil in their nature. That was… puzzling.
Loki decided there was no more point in thinking about it. He eased back into his chair, returning to his nap. The cat opened one eye and smiled, thinking to itself that it wouldn't be seeing Loki this relaxed for a long time. He seemed almost cat-like.
Wow. We've made it all the way to 5 chapters and 26 scenes. I didn't think this would happen. It's kind of cool, accomplishing more than you thought you would. :)
It was a different tempo for this chapter. I wanted to see how things would play out if Loki were in a position where he couldn't physically try to harm the cat. Mostly I wanted to explore the conversation between Loki and the cat, and try to give a little more depth to the character of the cat.
Totally unrelated, but frequently when I'm writing "the cat" I find myself typing "that". It gives me a chuckle.
And I promise the next chapter will have more Wile E. Loki. ;)