AUTHOR'S NOTE: As promised, here is the first installment. But I also come bearings gifts: Not one, but TWO CHAPTERS! Hope you enjoy!

I wish to say publicly a big "THANK YOU" to Hiddles-Skittles for creating the cover picture for the story. Her fanart is amazing! She is also the one who created the cover for "Of Madness and Mayhem" and the Lokara artwork listed on my profile page. Love ya Diana! :)

As always, responses to guest reviews are at the end of the chapter.

Born to be a King

Chapter 1

Standing on the sand of a beautiful beach, Barbara looked out towards the shining city on the opposite shore. The gentle ocean breeze danced in her black hair and teased the skirt of her gown, causing it to blow behind her as if a regal train. Her gaze was serene, as peaceful and resigned as the soft waves that lapped the shoreline. The sun shined down on her with loving warmth, making her tawny olive skin glow. Around her, Arik played happily with the wolf pup. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, inhaling the crisp, salty ocean air, soothing and invigorating. She smiled as the sound of childish laughter and the lapping of ocean swells caressed her hearing.

"Ahahahaha... Fenrir, you silly pup!" her son laughed. Barbara turned and her heart swelled at the sight of her son sprawled on the sand with the wolf pup on top of him. Together, they tussled playfully as the wolf nuzzled Arik with his mouth, nipping at him gently and causing him to erupt in fits of giggles. Arik now had his arms around him and turned him over, and the flailing of limbs and tickling continued.

She remembered the day Loki had told Arik the story of the large, mythical wolf of old. Arik had sat on Loki's lap and listened transfixed as his father told him of the fearsome canine that had ruled over the forest of Járnviðr. His brood had grown to such large numbers that the gods feared their might. They descended on his domain and lured Fenrir into a false truce. When he discovered their deceit, he bit off the hand of the god Tyr. As a result, he was banished, his brood destroyed and legend said he had died in the barren, icy wastelands of Niffleheim. Others said that the wolf still waited, hidden and angry, waiting for Ragnarok to arrive so he could execute his vengeance on the Realm Eternal.

"But why was he banished?" Arik had asked tearfully "he didn't do anything wrong to them"

"Well, sometimes, when you're different and powerful, you're misunderstood and unloved and the world casts you out" Loki said, finally realizing that his story hit closer to home than he had intended. Barbara had laid her head on his shoulder and held his hand tight. That night, Arik had gone to bed with a million questions on his tongue, and she could only watch as Loki struggled to provide the answers, finally lulling Arik to sleep using a subtle spell. The next day upon his return from the city, Loki had presented Arik with the wolf pup, and he was suitably named Fenrir.

Now back in the present, Barbara looked back to the estuary that separated the small island to the Asgardian mainland. The sun was setting, and Loki had yet to return. He now spent his days in the palace, not as the king, but as the unwilling, unofficial and remarkably able right hand of the new sovereign, the very rival and brother he both hated and loved. Civil war had finally ended, creating an unlikely alliance between the two princes. To the eyes of all, Loki had finally come to accept his fate and learned the error of his ways. To Thor's eyes, Loki's focus was now on surviving and making the best out of his new awkward position. But they were all wrong. He was technically still a prisoner. As a condition to his newfound limited freedom, he had disclosed the location of the secret paths between the worlds and everything he knew about the threats that loomed in the rest of the universe. He had relinquished the Odinspear, and thus, any claim he may have had on the throne. However, he had refused to return with his family to the palace, choosing instead to remain with Barbara and his son on the island that had become their residence, much to the dismay of Thor and Frigga who wished for nothing more than to make the royal family whole again.

Here, on this small and hidden speck of land that protruded out of an estuary, Loki and Barbara bode their time, waiting patiently for the day when Ragnar would deliver the news they desperately wanted to hear. Months had turned to a year, and then two. Nothing. No news. The small glimpses Ragnar had seen were nothing more than small, fleeting flashes of an unknown world. No location had been pinpointed; no concise view of what lay within had been established. The days ticked on. Arik grew. No longer a waddling, tiny toddler, he was now a blossoming child. Loki watched his son grow with a pride and satisfaction that Barbara hadn't seen in his eyes in a very long time. And yet, when the day was over, Arik was asleep, the night raged on and she lay in his arms, she saw that same wandering gaze, that underlying urgency he kept at bay. Memories of the past were spoken, days that were spent in leisure and sport when he was king of Asgard and she his lover turned queen. Yet no mention of what happened afterwards was made. Those days were unspoken but not forgotten, and those tragic events were always fresh in their recollections, but never revisited. However, they were silently unmade in the ardor of his touch, the tightness of her embrace, the ceaseless words of passion that poured from his lips, the intensity of her kisses, the consuming and unrelenting fire of their desire. Unfounded betrayal, deceit and death had now made them insatiable. They lived each moment as if it were their last, they craved life, they devoured it, they were drunk on it. None other could boast of sharing such a fierce and intense bond with their mate, not even Thor. Secretly, he envied them.

Still, deep down, Loki and Barbara were anxious. Restless, even. They still yearned for more. They kept a united front, they each wore the same mask of resignation and compliance while they waited in secret. The day would come when war would rage again, not on Asgard, but on another world in which Loki would finally snatch what he sought to claim all these years. Only this time, Barbara would be standing next to him, both on the field of battle and the height of victory.

It was with these thoughts in mind that Barbara sighed and turned once again to Arik.

"Come on darling, time for you to get ready for supper!" she called out to him. The child stopped his play and looked her way. He was positively filthy, covered in sand and wolf drool, hair disheveled and garments in disarray. His big, blue-green eyes shined with the careless joy of childhood. He rose and walked toward his mother, Fenrir in tow. Fulla and house servants waited at the doors to care for their beloved little master.

"Are father and uncle Thor going to make it in time for supper all the way from Nornheim?" Arik asked Barbara.

"Probably not. There's much to be done there" she quickly answered. Nornheim was a place she definitely did not wish to speak of. Yet Thor had ordered reconstruction of the once magnificent province. She knew the state Loki would arrive home in: Late into the night, somber and perhaps even angry.

Nothing a good sparring match of metal against metal and a night of furious lovemaking could not solve.

She relinquished Arik into Fulla's care and watched him be escorted into the home in a frenzy of doting and devotion. Upon entering the home, she instantly asked for wine and went into the library. Pulling out one of the thousands of tomes Loki kept on the tall shelves that lined the walls, she settled on a divan in front of the fire and opened the book to the page Loki had marked for her with a rose. It was an ancient text, one he had discovered buried deep in the ancient archives of the grand library of Asgard. A text long forgotten and deemed not of imperative importance by the keepers. In it, Odin's father king Bor wrote a manuscript describing an ancient sister realm harbored in the secluded and dark areas outside of Yggdrasil. It was a magical world, one of obscure origin and mysterious powers, hidden away amidst the dust of gassy nebulas. A string of realms, protected by obscurity and shadow. They were as beautiful as they were dangerous. Races unique and odd, creatures large and majestic, flora unlike any found elsewhere in the universe. Scholars had deemed the manuscript as nothing more than the detailing of one of king Bor's many mead-induced dreams, but Loki believed he described the realm Ragnar had detected. If he was right, it was the perfect place where the Infinity Stones would be hidden.

She took the cup from the servant's hands and took a large drink of the wine. She began reading, and soon became lost in the pages.

Little did she know that in only a matter of days, both she and Loki would set foot in the very places she now only read about. What had been deemed imagination would become reality.

The adventure was about to begin.

It was well past midnight when the unmistakable feeling of the ground shaking pulled Barbara from a restless sleep. She rose from the bed and ran to the window. She frowned in confusion upon noticing that Thor had landed unceremoniously in front of the residence. He quickly rose to his feet while he also struggled to lift a large bundle. From the height of the window, she heard him mutter something to it she could not make out. She donned a long robe before rushing out the door.

"Make something of yourself, brother. You can't let her see you like this" she heard Thor hiss at the bundle that turned out to be a figure covered from head to toe in a long hooded cloak. It was doubled over as if in pain, unable to keep its balance and it leaned heavily on Thor just to simply remain standing.

"See him like what?" Barbara asked at the top of the staircase. Her eyes were fixed on the figure who she now knew was Loki, and in her voice was the underlying tone of worry. She couldn't see his face. Upon hearing her voice, he hid further into the cloak and lowered his head, keeping his face completely covered. She heard him elicit a groan.

"Oh, Lady Barbara!" Thor exclaimed with an innocence that was borderline ridiculous and a slight slur to his speech "I hereby deliver your husband back into your care. He is in perfect condition, I assure you. 'Twas a very..." he hesitated, searching the walls for the words that failed him "a very... trying day for us and we are both very exhausted"

Barbara's eyebrow rose in curiosity at the state in which both he and Loki had arrived. Thor beamed from ear to ear like a Cheshire cat, his cheeks were flushed bright red and he had a slight sway to his step. His arm was securely wrapped around Loki and with the other he held onto the furniture for support.

"Well, Loki is more tired than myself as you can see, it is no easy task to... WHOA!" he suddenly stopped when Loki nearly fell over. He quickly caught him, but at the expense of almost falling over himself. "Whoa there brother, contain yourself!" he laughed, patting Loki on the back. Loki made an almost inhuman sound that somehow reminded Barbara of a wounded bilgesnipe. She quickly shook the image away to keep from laughing as she descended the steps.

"You're drunk!" she chastised, trying to sound as angry as possible "and you brought my husband home in the same condition?! Would you have our son see his father like this?! And why is he covered?"

"Lady Barbara, I promise you, he is well and unharmed but seeing him may not be the best decision at the moment. He uh... he is not in the most agreeable state. For the sake of his own pride and reputation, he must be seen to the comfort of his bed and away from all prying eyes, including your own"

"What happened?" she asked, now at the bottom step. This time, the worry in her voice was genuine.

"Now that is something you may have to take up with Volstagg" Thor explained. Barbara's eyes widened and she gasped, reaching for Loki. Thor immediately stopped her, holding his hand out "Oh no, no, it is nothing of ill consequence. 'Twas merely a jest, a playful wager that my brother apparently lost"

"A wager?" she asked, now more confused than ever "Thor, what the hell is going on?"

"It was naught but an innocent wager. I assure you, not a single scratch is on your beloved"

"Very well" she replied, deciding to play along "bring him up, if you can walk yourself"

She shook her head at the hilarious sight of an inebriated king of Asgard struggle to help his little brother up the stairs. Loki tumbled and seemed to forget how to make use of his legs. When he missed a step and almost brought himself and Thor down, he didn't miss the opportunity to hiss at Thor that he was a witless oaf. She opened the double doors to their private chambers and stood by the bed with her arms crossed. Just how much wine had they consumed? What had caused Loki to drown himself in drink? This was so unlike him.

Thor finally made it inside and clumsily deposited Loki on the bed, making sure that the cloak remained in place, shielding him from Barbara's view. Loki pushed Thor away and muttered something that sounded very close to Thor being a blabbering idiot and a pathetic excuse for a king. Thor simply laughed and turned to take his leave.

"Well, there he is, safe and sound and I have done my brotherly duty... BARBARA NOOO!"

The second he stood Barbara jumped on the bed and pulled back the hood of the cloak. Thor closed his eyes in defeat when he saw the shock and horror that came over her face.

She was staring at the mirror image of herself.

"Volstagg dared Loki to shift into Sif. But he was far too inebriated to do it successfully. He shifted into you and was unable to reverse it" Thor finally admitted.

"Ha" was all she could say, looking down at Loki who could only give her an apologetic look. Then suddenly, she burst into raucous laughter, grabbed a pillow and hit Loki with it. He only groaned and took it from her hands, putting it over his head to shield his spinning vision from the brightness of the moons coming from the balcony.

"So, Thor, tell me, what drove my otherwise conscious and sober husband to get this drunk?"

Thor shifted his feet. He knew the question was coming. He sighed. He remembered telling Loki the news upon their return from Nornheim. Everyone else present erupted in cheer and celebration, the banquet hall was instantly ordered to be filled with food and drink, and everyone else became lost to merriment while Loki remained quiet and somber. He had requested to be excused and return home, but Thor had insisted that he remain, pulling him aside and questioning him on the best course of action to take for his decision. It did not take long for Loki to reach for a jar of strong wine and down it in two servings. Then he had reached for another. And another. And another. Thor quickly realized that perhaps he should have allowed his brother to return home when he had asked, but by then Loki was far too gone.

"I announced my decision to wed. When I told Loki in private who my choice was and I asked his instruction on what to do, he asked to return home. I was too joyous to allow him, so he proceeded to drink heavily. It was my fault, forgive me"

Barbara smiled and shook her head. "There's nothing to forgive. You didn't shove the wine down his throat. Let me guess, Jane Foster?"

"Aye. I asked Loki how he took away your mortality, but he refused to divulge it. It was when I pressed the matter that he finally told me and then reached for the wine"

"Well, that explains it, but Thor, are you sure this is the course of action you wish to take? Have you any idea what I went through when I ate the apples? It's an agony I do not wish to fall upon my worst enemy"

Thor looked at Barbara. He knew she was telling the truth. He had heard his mother briefly tell of the events on that fateful day when Loki ordered that Barbara be fed the golden apples of Idunn. Frigga had almost wept as she described the pain Barbara had endured, the grief and despair that Loki succumbed to when he saw her cold and lifeless before the healers had detected the faintest trace of a pulse that had begun to hum in her veins. The long and excruciating wait of three days in which Loki did not leave Barbara's bedside, continuously wiping the sweat off her brow while she cried out in pain even though she was unconscious. Her body had undergone an entire transformation: Muscles grew in density, bones hardened, her heart had expanded and changed into a powerful muscle capable of sustaining a long life, and a scorching fever had ravished her body as it went through the metamorphosis from a weak mortal into a powerful being. From human to Asgardian. It wasn't until the third day when she had finally stilled, her writhing ceased, her fever broke, and her suffering ended. Then she had finally opened her eyes to the glory of her new form.

"She will die" Thor heard now Barbara say, pulling him from his thoughts "just as I did. She will suffer. What happened on those three days of my transformation is something Loki doesn't talk about. Not even to me"

"Is there no other way?"

"I do not know. But if you are sure that she is the one you want, be prepared to see her die before your very eyes"

"That's exactly what Loki said" Thor replied, lowering his gaze to his hands. Barbara watched him. Thor was a noble king, a great man and a wonderful leader. She thought of Jane Foster and the only time they had stood face to face. She had come very close to killing her, had it not been for Thor who now stood in front of her asking for advice on how to secure Jane's place by his side. She laughed inwardly at the irony.

"If she loves you as much as you love her, then this will be a very small sacrifice. What's three days when they will ensure thousands more spent by your side?"

Thor raised his head, surprise and delight written in his eyes. He finally had the confirmation he needed, and from the very person who had endured what he sought to ask of his very own beloved. He nodded with a beaming smile playing on his lips.

"I thank you, lady Barbara. My brother is the luckiest of men, having you at his side"

"He wishes he was as lucky as me" came the slurred voice from the bed. Barbara and Thor turned to see Loki (still in Barbara's form) looking at them. He was propped up on pillows, and he shook his head in utter disbelief.

"Indeed, I do brother" Thor replied.

"There is no other way. But don't expect me to be there to offer comfort when you can't stand the sight of her torment" Loki said drily "your subsequent days spent in the bliss of her embrace will always be marred by that memory. Trust me, I know you. Your delicate sensibilities will not be able to stand it. You're soft and easily affected, even for all your brute strength"

"Perhaps, but in the end, the decision lies with Jane. I will not have her partake of long life against her wish"

Loki scowled while Barbara tried not to smile. Touché.

"Rest, brother. Your advice and counsel can wait until you are of a more sound state of mind. Loki, lady Barbara, I take my leave"

He bowed and moved toward the doors. Barbara looked back at Loki with a fiendish smile and a look of surprise that said 'can you believe this guy?!' before following Thor to see him out.

End of Chapter 1

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Click next to read Chapter 2!

Responses to guest reviews:

Anon fan: Thank you so much! I can't believe you just said that about Thor 2 though! It had me doubled over in laughter. Even though I see what you mean about "patched up", it did seem rushed. I think it suffered from what I call "post production blues". It was butchered and chopped up in the editing room. It was too short and left no time to recover in between the big twists and turns. The performances were excellent and flawless, the storyline was there and it really excelled at its creativity, but like I said, the post production team kind of butchered it. The movie wasn't even two hours long and they crammed so much into it. Other than that, Thor 2 was an excellent film for me. It was fan service at its finest. I got my Loki fix until Thor 3! lol Thank you for your compliments!