Chapter Text
Loki sits at the Allfather's bedside because it is the place Thor is least likely to stumble upon him.
The room is lit by a warm golden glow, a soothing, healing light centered on the motionless figure dwarfed by his enormous bed. The sight unsettles him. Odin is laid out, arms folded and legs perfectly straight. He is not wearing his armor, but neither is he in the soft robe he prefers for sleeping. Instead, he wears an outfit of rich silk and soft leather, decorated as though to remind any who visit of his station. Loki finds the resemblance to funeral clothes uncomfortable. The impression he gives is not of a man at rest or an invalid in recovery, but of a corpse on display, an impression only contradicted by the touch of color in his cheeks and the slight rise and fall of his chest.
The Allfather's face is peaceful, but Loki can't get the image of his rage the last time he was awake out of his mind. It plays out behind his eyelids whenever he fails to distract himself. The shouting when they had returned from that ill-fated trip to Jotunheim. The livid purple of his face when Thor shouted back, a fury that melted to an icy, dangerous calm while Thor, oblivious, ranted on.
For a moment he had been sure that Odin was about to do something drastic, and afraid that his own plan to discredit his brother had gone too far. The feeling was like a missed step at the edge of a cliff.
When the color had drained from his face instead, when he'd choked on whatever retort he had for Thor's words (you are an old man, he'd said, and a fool), when his knees had given out beneath him and he'd clattered to the observatory floor, already deep in the Odinsleep, Loki hadn't known whether to be horrified or relieved.
Time passes differently in this room, the soft golden glow making no distinction between night and day. The hours seem hardly to pass, and it is easy to lose sight of the world behind the chamber door. Perhaps that, too, is a part of why he shelters here. There are several things he'd rather not think about.
The mess he made with his foolish plan to disrupt Thor's coronation, for one.
The fact that Thor will probably still be crowned and almost certainly will try something foolish immediately thereafter, for another.
And beneath it all, a litany of it turned blue it turned blue runs through his mind like a constant itch, one that nags at him until he wants to scratch out his brains. The curse—if it is a curse—hasn't begun to manifest yet, but he's not looking forward to whatever symptoms that may entail.
So far he feels fine, though, which is almost worse. What sort of curse leaves a man feeling perfectly normal? The half-formed theories that bubble in his mind are all too awful to acknowledge, so, for now, he doesn't.
A soft knock at the door startles him out of his carefully maintained unthinking daze.
He takes a deep breath and quiets his suddenly racing heart. It isn't Thor, Thor wouldn't knock, and even if he did it would be loud and boisterous and aggressive like everything else Thor does. That leaves his mother, and he has nothing to fear from her.
And why should he fear Thor? part of his mind insists, but he shies away from the thought. No, there is no reason to fear his oaf of a brother, either. Loki would just... prefer not to deal with him just now.
"Oh," Frigga says when she sees him. "I didn't realize you were still here."
She must mistake his unease for worry about the Allfather's state, because she smiles gently at him as she collects her dress to sit at the edge of the bed. "Your father is strong," she says, "and though this is early it is not unexpected. He shall recover as he always does."
He takes a deep breath, grabs a corner of his tunic to stop the slight shaking in his fingers. Once he is composed he makes a show of very deliberately studying her face. "With such a lovely sight awaiting him when he awakens, I do not doubt it."
She smiles a genuine smile through her worry and cups his face in her hands to plant a kiss on his forehead. "Flatterer," she chides him fondly. A soft touch of magic trails over his skin with her fingertips, soothing the headache he hadn't mentioned to her. "You should go now, get ready. Your brother will take the throne soon. You should be at his side when he does."
"They still intend to crown Thor?" He doesn't feel a stab of fear at the thought, no, because that would be ridiculous. He holds concerns about his brother's rule, yes, but that doesn't mean he's afraid of it.
It turned blue why did it turn blue?
She misunderstands the look that crosses his face, because her expression softens with sympathy. "Thor will serve as regent while your father sleeps, yes," she says, "but he is in need of wise counsel now more than ever. I know you are angry with him about Jotunheim—" a brief flash of panic and he thinks, she knows, but he remembers that he was against the trip from the beginning, so far as she knows, that he sent for the guard and had every reason to be frustrated and upset, curse or no, "—but promise me you'll help him?"
"Yes," he says, because it's the only thing he can say to her. "Of course."
She smiles again, and pulls him into a quick hug, murmuring "thank you" into his ear. When she pulls back and squeezes his shoulders, her eyes are shining, and he thinks there might be pride mixed in with the affection and worry. "Now go," she says. "I'll stay with your father."
He nods and leaves reluctantly, something inside tugging him back towards the room and its soft, unchanging golden light.
He takes the long way back to his chambers because he feels like stretching his legs, because walking burns off some of the perfectly understandable nervous tension that's curled in his belly.
He doesn't do it because it means less chance of encountering Thor.
No, that isn't his reason at all.
At the ceremony he stands off to the side of the throne, in its shadow, and looks out over the gathered citizens of Asgard.
The cheering crowds from only hours ago are gone. Before, Thor had been prepared to accept the throne from Odin, a planned transition in a time of peace. Now, he is to accept the position of regent offered by the council, a young, inexperienced ruler taking the helm on the eve of a probable war.
It is not as satisfying to Loki as it probably should be that there are limits to the mindless trust his people place in his brother.
His brother who kneels at the foot of the throne, accepting Gungnir from the Allfather's Council. His brother who, he notes without any particular satisfaction, is no longer smiling as he gives his vows. When they get to the part about preserving the peace, Thor agrees with a straight face and not a trace of irony. He is almost impressed, almost disgusted, but then, the first step to a convincing lie is believing it yourself.
It is the first time he's had a chance to truly look at his brother since their return from Jotunheim. He sees the tension in his shoulders, the set of his jaw, and the part of him that is Thor's little brother translates the signs to 'trouble brewing'.
Thor doesn't even look at him, but it doesn't inspire the same resentment it had the first time. If anything, it is a relief.
When it is done his brother stands King of Asgard, and the gathered crowds disperse quietly. Loki himself slips away without offering congratulations, and no doubt many would call it jealousy, the bitterness of a second prince not fated for a throne. Thor himself likely wouldn't read so much into it, if he even noticed his brother's absence.
That isn't the reason, not that any would believe the liesmith on that count. No, he's put off thinking about it for as long as he can, but it's been more than a full day and still no symptoms of the Frost Giant's curse have manifested. He's almost convinced himself that he imagined it, that it was the poor lighting and the adrenaline of battle that deceived his senses and made him think he saw—
It turned blue.
He wants to believe it, that it was all a mistake. He wishes he could just decide that and be done with it, let the entire thing go.
If he could do that, he wouldn't be Loki. He has to know.
There's one way to test it once and for all, to disprove all of his worst-case scenarios or confirm them. He knows exactly what it is, so he walks the shadows back down to the weapons vault, returning, quite literally, to the scene of his latest crime. The guards let him in because he is their prince, surely he must be, otherwise they would never give him access, he's being silly, it's a curse if it's anything at all, and he picks his way over to stand before the Casket of Ancient Winters.
Part of him wants to draw this out, to prolong the inevitable, to savor what could be his last few seconds of innocence, but the need to know draws his hands to the sides of the artifact, and before he has made the decision to touch it his fingers are pressed against its cool sides.
In the light of the Casket his pale skin already looks blue, but he can still see the other skin crawling up his arms like a stain. Worse, he can feel it, and it doesn't feel wrong or unnatural, doesn't feel uncomfortable at all except that the coolness of the room is stiflingly warm against this foreign flesh.
It turned blue again, his mind supplies with an almost childish clarity. A curse wouldn't do this. His mind is racing, searching for another answer, but the blue of his skin doesn't have the comfortable predictability he would expect from a lie.
The world around fades out until it is just him and the Casket and this new revelation, spinning in a void of nothingness.
Soft footsteps at the edge of his hearing draw him back.
When he turns he finds himself face to face with his mother. No, he is facing the Queen of Asgard, regal and beautiful, and now he is almost entirely certain they aren't even related.
She looks at his face, taking in the monstrous blue of his skin and meeting blood-red eyes with concern but not confusion. She is not surprised; she already knows the truth of the monster she calls son.
"What am I?" he asks, and tries not to dwell on how small, how frightened his voice sounds.
"You are my son," she says, and there isn't a hint of dishonesty in her voice. However much a lie the words may be, she believes them.
He sets the casket back down, shivering as a sharp wave of magic sweeps back over him, stripping away his true appearance and cloaking him in the familiar disguise he once believed. "And what more than that?" He is careful, this time, to keep his tone even, not to let it break.
"Hm," she says in pretended contemplation, and a brief smile dances upon her lips. "What else are you? Prince of Asgard, though that is nearly the same thing. A sorcerer, one of the most powerful in the Nine Realms. A scholar. A warrior, through tenacity if not by inclination." She brings a hand up to his face, brushes a thumb over his cheek, and despite himself he leans into her touch. "Intelligent, handsome, driven, and according to some outlandish rumors, the loving mother of an eight-legged horse."
"Mother," he protests, stepping back and away from her touch, "I am being serious!"
Her smile fades, leaving behind a quiet intensity. "As am I. I will tell you everything you want to know, dearest, but first I want you to remember that the whole of your identity is composed of many parts. What I am about to tell you does not dictate who you are."
She waits until he nods his reluctant acceptance to continue.
"You are our son," she says carefully, "but not by blood."
"I think I figured that much," he says drily.
"See?" She smiles weakly. "Intelligent." He doesn't respond, so she goes on. "You've heard stories about the war with Jotunheim. What we didn't tell you is that your father returned with a tiny baby tucked under his cloak. He told me he found you abandoned in the temple, and that he intended to keep you. Apparently he had somehow managed to hide you from everyone for the few days between when he picked you up and when he returned home. I personally have no idea how he managed it."
"I'm Jotunn," Loki says. The casket had already confirmed it, but there is something different about hearing it from Frigga herself.
"Yes," she says. "Your father told me later that he's fairly sure you are of Laufey's blood."
"But why?" he asks, and the room suddenly feels uncomfortably small, the walls too close. "Why would he take—" he means to say a baby monster, but Frigga's expression convinces him that would not be well-received "—me, if I was—the son of his enemy," he finishes when she gives him another look. It is absolutely unfair how much preemptive disapproval she can communicate with only her eyebrows.
She smiles mischievously, a smirk that, until just now, he thought he'd inherited from her. "You were the cutest baby. Half the ladies I know would've made off with you if they thought they could get away with it."
"I am being—"
"Serious, yes, I know." She sighs. "He took you because he couldn't leave an innocent child to die, and he kept you because he loves you. You should've seen him when he came back, so excited to introduce our new son that he couldn't understand why I was making a fuss about his missing eye. The only way I was able to pry you out of his arms to send him to the healers was by convincing him you needed to be fed. He lost the eye the same day he found you, by the way, and he used to joke to me he'd gotten the better end of that bargain."
Loki shakes his head because this doesn't make any sense. The Odin he knows wouldn't be thrilled about adopting an enemy king's unwanted runt. The words sting him, so he repeats them to himself. Unwanted runt. It hurts no less the second time.
"I was with child at the time," she says, and the sadness in her voice jars him out of his self-pitiful reflections. "We originally planned to keep you in secret until the baby was born and present you as twins." Her face spasms with remembered grief. "When we lost the baby we introduced you as our newborn second son." She smiles weakly. "I think you know the rest."
He's breathing too fast, now, and she notices. Going slowly, as though being careful not to spook a skittish horse, she moves her fingers to his temples and he can feel the soothing numbness of a calming spell taking effect. He allows it.
It's a mistake. As soon as he starts to calm, to move past his own reaction to the news, another thought hits him like a sledgehammer to the stomach.
"Thor doesn't know," he says, because he can't. Thor hates Frost Giants, and there's no way Thor could know he was Jotunn and keep quiet about it.
His mother shakes her head. "No, and though the decision is yours, I don't believe it would be wise to tell him now. It is a conversation we should have as a family when your father awakens."
He nods, feeling something sick and uneasy settle into the pit of his stomach.
Loki is Jotunn.
He doubts Thor's said it in front of their mother, but he plans to slay every last one of the Jotnar, of the monsters.
This really can't end well for either of them.