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Trickster's Gambit	By : Andartha Category: Marvel Verse Movies > Avengers, The Views: 2529 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own the Avengers. They belong to Marvel. Like all the other fans, I only get to play with them a bit, in an entirley non-profit kind of way.

Chapter List
- 1-Burned
- 2-Stolen
- 3-Split
- 4-Bound
- 5-Hunted
- 6-Fallen & Cracked
- 7-calmed
- 8-Settled
- 9-Sparked
- 10-Sneaked
- 11-Pranked
- 5
- 6
- 7
Fallen

Author’s note:
This chapter makes a lot more sense if you've seen the Thor movie. ^_~

For those who haven't, I hope that it'll still be comprehensible.

Two years ago.
The Bifröst is collapsing in on itself and he is falling with it.
Swirls of multi-coloured energy are whirling and twisting, tearing, merging, throwing him wildy around until he loses all sense of direction.
There will be patches of exploding light which shake him like a ragdoll and send him off shooting into space, there will be holes of nothingness where he is almost swallowed by the darkness, only to be picked up once more by stray shoots of rainbow.
The Bifröst is breaking, shattering, dissolving and once the last vestiges of energy have disappeared into oblivion, he will be left in the neverending void between the stars.
Will be left to die.
He welcomes it.
It is a fitting end for someone whose whole life has been nothing but an empty lie.
Everything he ever believed in, fought for....would have laid his life down to protect....it was nothing but smoke and mirrors.
All his dreams, his hopes....they were never real to begin with.
For the last few days, he has so desperately tried to hold on, has tried to find a way to hold on to the only life he knew, despite his whole world crumbling around him...has done things that make his insides churn if he dwells on them too long….all for the sake of having a chance....and it was all for naught.
He was doomed to fail from the start.
Odin should have left him to die when he found him as a babe, abandoned in that temple on Jotunheim.
It would have been more merciful.
The only thing he has left is death, to put him out of his misery, to end the crushing ache that has taken the place of his heart, leaving him shattered, the fragments of his self piercing and cutting him from the inside out, like fragments of broken bone lacerating the flesh and skin surrounding them.
He is bleeding to death inside, mortally wounded by the loss of his heart, his family, his past and his future.
He'd thought Odin's love real...Frigga's....Thor's....
It was the only thing that made it bearabel to live at a court where he was always the odd one out.
Always on the outside, looking in.
Trying so hard to be worthy, and eternally failing.
But it he’d never stood a chance, had he?
It had all been a sham.
He'd NEVER BEEN beloved, either as a son or a brother.
All he'd been was a convenient political game piece.
He'd never truly been Asgardian.
They’d hidden it behind pretty lies….but in truth, he'd been Jotun. Hated enemy.
How they must have laughed behind his back.
In retrospect, his desperate scramble to prove his worth, his loyalty, once he’d discovered his true parentage…it must have seemed droll in its’ facetious futility.
He had killed his own father-by-blood to prove his dedication.
To make testament of his devotion to the realm of Asgard.
….Only to be shunned by those he had thought to please.
Oh….how they must be laughing now.
In one fell swoop, they had gotten rid of an age-old enemy…and of the changeling they’d never wanted.
All without dirtying their own hands.
He should hate them for it.
Given time, he probably would.
But here and now, all he wants is for the pain to stop.
For life to stop.
To die.

Soundtrack for this chapter:
“Oceans” by Evanescence

Cracked

Asgard is still blinking in the distance, a beacon of hope to all its‘ children and a funeral pyre to all he held dear.
At some point, he can’t bear the sight anymore and closes his eyes, and all that’s left is the cosmic wind howling in his ears as it rushes past.
If he’d cared, cared at all, he would have noticed the tone of the wind’s song changing.
Would have felt the weightlessness of the void between the stars exchanged for the unforgiving pull of gravity.
But he doesn’t care, is beyond caring, and so the cruel impact on the snowy slopes of a vast mountain-range comes as a bad shock.
The only reason why he survives, is because the snow, almost a mile deep, a lot of it freshly fallen and fluffy, cushions his fall.
Despite this, the impact pretty much breaks every bone in his body and leaves him bleeding at the bottom of an icy crater.
It takes him more than a week to heal.
For most of it, the pain in his body overpowers the pain in his heart, leaving his mind blissfully blank.
When he fully comes to, the snow and the frost have turned his skin the dusky blue of imminent nightfall and the raised patterns that proclaim him Jotun adorn his skin.
For all that he’s grown up hating the Frost Giants, the enemies of Asgard….
….for all that he tried to annihilate Jotunheim, hoping to gain Odin’s respect and recognition…
….for all that, finding himself changed into his Jotun form is almost a relief.
He certainly has never hated any Jotun, not even Laufey, as much as he hates what has become of Loki Odinson.
NOT being Loki Odinson….and more something else….something new?
……Having almost died, he finds he doesn’t really want to give it another try.
But he doesn’t want to live anymore as Loki Odinson either.
Having a new skin…a different skin.
For now, it makes things…..bearable.
Healing takes energy and so, when he’s finally able to move a bit again, hunger is gnawing at his innards like a bilgesnipe would gnaw at a cow’s thighbone.
At the break of day, the weak sunlight suffusing the landscape with a twilight glow, he gathers about him what scraps of his garments remain and sets out into the valleys below, moving with the slow deliberation of a tottering dotard.
He has no idea what kind of sustenance the frost-bidden terrain of Jotunheim might offer, but he’s hoping for some roots….or maybe a stream, with fish natant below the frozen surface of the water.
After a few hours, he comes across rabbit-like tracks and it does not take long until he can hunt down the furry creature that made them. A tiny bit of magic, the practice of which leaves him drained and winded, secures his prey.
So ravenous and thirsting that his hands are shaking with it, he slits the creature’s throat and drinks its’ blood, taking care not to spill a single drop.
It is astonishingly hot and sweet.
He catches and eats two more, then his luck runs out and the forest he has entered remains dead and silent.
Blood and flesh of the creatures is enough sustenance to keep him staggering along…but not enough to take the edge of the hunger tearing apart his insides.
As time passes, the shadows deepen. Usually, his night-vision is excellent. Always had been. Better than that of Thor or any other Asgardian he knew. In retrospect, he realizes bitterly that it must have been due to his Jotun heritage.
Right now though, his vision is blurred by fatigue, as if he were looking up from the bottom of the sea, and if doesn’t want to stumble and fall over roots and stones in the darkness, he should stop somewhere.
Letting his gaze wander through the dense foliage, in the search of some place that might offer a bit of shelter for the night, he realizes with startlement that he can see a light, a tiny golden glow, through the trees, a little to his right.
He heads towards it.
After an hour or so, he finds himself at the edge of a clearing. There’s a barn and a farmhouse sitting in the middle of it, light shining from a crooked window in the upper story of the house.
It must have been a nice little steading, once, long ago, the proportions generous and the design pleasing to the eye. Now, the windows on the lower floor are boarded up and what was intricate, brightly coloured scrollwork along the windows, the door, the porch and the eaves is cracked and splintered, the paint peeling and faded.
From the barn, he can hear the baaing of goats.
He’s not in the mood for talking, least of all to Jotuns, and even less willing to ask for help.
He belongs nowhere, is no man’s kith or kin anymore, and as such, he owes no man nothing.
But he does know how to milk a goat and it should be easy enough to slip into the barn undetected and sate himself on fresh warm milk. It won’t take long.
Maybe, if there’s a kid goat, he’ll take it with him when he leaves, so he’ll have something to keep him fed the next day.
The barn is dark and warm and the goats, well gorged on some of the sweet smelling moss that is stacked up in bales at the back of the barn, don’t protest when he starts milking them, making use of a bucket he found beside the door.
When he was small, there were nights where he was plagued by nightmares and woke up shivering and crying. On such nights, Frigga would come to him, bearing a cup of warm goat’s milk, sweetened with summer honey, and she would sit by him, holding his hand and stroking his brow until he fell into a dreamless slumber.
The memory comes to him with the taste of goats’ milk, and what should have been a much welcome sustenance curdles in his mouth, leaving behind a sour taste that makes his throat go tight as if someone were choking him.
But he is in dire need of nourishment, and so he drinks it all up.
After this, he should be going….but the warm comfort of the soft bales of moss beckons him, to rest but a moment. Just a few breaths to close his eyes and gather himself, before he heads back out into the dark.
What wakes him, the morning sun falling in through an upper window and dappling the floor with pale spots of light, is the door of the barn creaking as it is being opened.
A girl slips in, a jotun, her skin a greenish blue, not the dark grey-blue of the frostgiants he’s met so far. Black hair hanging down her back in a thick braid. Leather skirt and vest, embroidered with a knotted pattern in dark green.
There’s barely enough time to rise up to a sitting position, never mind the time to hide, and so they end up staring at each other and he curses inwardly as he sees her eyes, red as his own, go wide.
For a moment, he contemplates tackling her, but she stands a full head taller than he is, and as he tries to move, he notices that his ordeal has left him weaker by far than he would have guessed and overtaxing himself the day before has not helped matters.
With nary a dagger to defend himself and too feeble to run, he will have to come up with another way to get out of this precarious situation.
Well, he does look Jotun, and with a bit of luck, he might be able to talk his way out of this.
The girl stands frozen in place, her mouth gaping like a fish, and, damn his bad luck, of course she hasn’t moved much and is still blocking the door.
He starts to make some soothing noises.
In his current condition, it would be unwise to provoke a fight and maybe he can even sweet-talk her into assisting him? Bugger, he’d even settle for her just letting him go without a fuss and without calling anybody else.
And then the girl drops into a deep courtesy, head bowed and whispers "My Lord" and it is his turn to gape at her, mouth open wide enough to serve as a trap for flies, if there were any flies around.
"Meara?" A male voice from outside.
Loki has just enough time to gather his rags around him in a more dignified fashion and then the door is pushed wide open and a second Jotun enters, a head taller than even the girl, same greenish-blue skin, short black hair shot with grey and his hips girded in no more than a loincloth and a wide belt that holds a satchel and a long knife.
His eyes sweep over the scene before him and he too stills for a heartbeat. His eyes widen just as his...daughters?...had and, his eyes fixed on the ragged figure sitting on his bales of dried moss, he bows.
They bow to him.
His heart is racing so fast, it seems to try and beat its' way out of his chest.
It must be because somehow they know.
Know that for a Jotun, he is of royal descent.
Laufey 's son.
Their king’s son.
How?
What has given him away?
And do they know that he killed their king? That he tried to destroy their world and kill them all?
They must not find out.
Being recognized as the king's son...no more than a month ago, when he was still Loki Odinson, he would have ruthlessly used the privileges that such rank conveyed to better his situation and cheat these dull brutes out of as much as he could.
But the way he suddenly has trouble breathing makes it clear that he has NO desire whatsoever to be recognized as royalty by such base creatures as Frost Giants.
The male rights himself and touches the girls’ shoulder.
"Meara. You must run to Eistla and bring her here. Quick!" The girl jumps up and before Loki can utter an objection, she is gone.
Turning back to his unexpected guest, the giant bows once more, curtly and the only thing that keeps Loki from trying to bolt is the fact that he knows that weakened as he is, he doesn't stand a chance of getting away.
Whatever they plan to do to him, it is too late to do something about it now, and he'd rather suffer his fate in dignity, rather than finding himself chased and caught like a headless chicken.
Only a little over a week ago, he wished for death. He doesn’t anymore, but there’s a hollow, barren space where his heart used to be and he finds that, apart from wishing to be left alone, he does not care much about anything.
But he has been discovered and even if he runs now, it will not keep people from hunting him down.
And whatever these creatures will do to him now, does it really make a difference?
The Jotun standing in the doorway clears his throat.
"I am Tjalar and this humble steading is what remains of my lands. It is little enough, but you look weary, lord, and I would offer you a hearty breakfast and a soft bed to rest yourself."
The man's face is calm as he speaks, with maybe the hint of a friendly little smile lurking at the corners.
Loki should not find himself greeted with smiles of affable welcome by those who should, by right, still be his mortal enemies, and the sight of that kindly welcome fills him with the ardent desire to ram a spear through the blue-skinned monster's heart.
But he doesn't have a spear, wouldn't have the strength to lift it if he did, there are others who would come after him if he killed the man...
….and isn't he one of the monster's too?
His stomach chooses that very moment to cramp painfully with hunger. A cutting, self-depreciating sneer flits across his face. If he can’t run and has neither the courage nor the will to end himself….why not breakfast?
So as the man turns and beckons, he trudges after him, only to find himself seated in a comfy little kitchen where a pot of porridge is heating over the hearth’s fire and Tjalar busies himself with serving him the breakfast he promised. Sharp cheese, coarse bread, pickled fish and a large cup of honeyed tea.
It is cheap peasant fare, in no way comparable to the costly delicacies served at the court of Asgard, but somehow, it tastes better; so even though recent developments have left him with no appetite at all, he finds himself nibbling at bread and cheese, even taking a bite of the fish and drinking down the cup of tea.
Tjalar busies himself with household tasks, hardly looking at his guest at all.
How different from an Aesir. Had this been an Asgardian household, Loki would have found himself badgered with questions, some polite, some less so. And if he hadn't answered to people's satisfaction, it wouldn't have taken long for people to start whispering behind his back.
Tjalar just does the dishes and fills up his cup when he runs out of tea.
It is....peaceful.
The door, to the left of where he's sitting, opens and Meara slips in. Behind her follows another Giantess, her skin a dark midnight blue, her grey hair done up in a simple knot at the nape of neck and her body clothed in a vest of white fur and a long skirt of doeskin leather. The deep lines around her eyes speak of age and grief.
She stops abruptly in her tracks as she catches sight of him and covers her mouth, but it is not enough to hush her sudden, sharp intake of breath.
If she had seen a wraith, she could not have looked more stunned.
Within a breath, her eyes brim with tears which flow unchecked down her cheeks.
His hair stands on end and the precipitous pressure on his chest couldn't be greater if he'd taken a full hit from a giant's axe.
He knows this woman.
He does not know from whence or where, not her name nor her circumstance...but he knows her.
He, who used to be so slick with words, suddenly has trouble finding his tongue, and when he does, his voice is no more than a croaked whisper.
"Lady.....Lady, why do you cry?"
Her hands fall to her side and her lips stretch in a tremulous twist that makes it impossible to tell whether she is laughing or crying.
When she speaks, her voice is shaking.
"Because, child, you look so much like your mother did. You have her eyes." And she wipes at her face with the back of her hand.
For a moment, his heart stills and he must struggle for breath, as all air seems to have deserted him.
"My….my mo-mother?"
He’s stumbles over his words, his tongue tripping over the syllables like his feet would have been tripped up by the ground suddenly breaking open and shifting beneath them. And for once, he does not care whether this makes him look like a fool or not.
The Giantess nods, eyes sad and grim.
"Farbauti, daughter of King Ymir. Courted by Laufey. Married by Laufey.....and slain by Laufey."
“I….”
The first thing he wants to say is “I have a mother?”, but that would be the most inane question he has ever uttered in his life.
Of course he had a mother.
Only…..he never gave it any thought.
For him, his mother has always been Frigga, and even as he learned that Laufey had spawned him, he hadn’t remembered to consider the fact that there had to have been another involved. A woman who carried him under her heart for 18 months, who gave birth to him, suckled him.
And for all that the Aesir know true and well who their enemies are….no one had ever mentioned Laufey having had a wife.
The second thing he wants to say is “Laufey slew my mother?” and he can’t help but think of Frigga.
Frigga who is NOT his mother, but who read him bed-time stories and rocked him to sleep when he was small.
Frigga who dried his tears and introduced him to the library, when the other children had laughed at him, because he had been the only one who had tripped over backwards when the armsmaster had shown them a new blow, an overhead strike, and the weight of the sword had been more than he could safely balance.
Frigga, who patted Thor on the cheek when he told of his adventures and said “Well done, son” and then, after Thor had run off to find new games to play and new foes to vanquish, retired to her solar, him in tow, to badger him about every detail of his cunning exploits over a cup of tea, eyes wide with excitement when he described the details of how his shrewd schemes had played out and laughing delightedly as he told her of his clever pranks.
Here and now, he does not want to ask questions he knows are stupid, and he doesn’t want to think of Frigga anymore, and so he swallows down the salty taste that now suffuses his mouth and stays silent.
There’s a forlorn smile curving the lips of the Jotun woman.
“You look dazed child. I take you did not learn of this before?”
All he can do is nod, mutely.
She sits down opposite to him. Tjalar sets a cup down before her and she pours herself tea.
Meara, who, until now had stood by the door, quietly picks up a bucket standing by the sink and leaves, muttering something about the goats needing milking. She pats the woman’s….Eistla’s…hand as she passes her by.
Eistla stares at her cup, as if it held the answer to some life-or-death riddle at its’ bottom, then her gaze shifts to him.
“Once, long, long ago, the Jotun were ruled by a king good and wise, Ymir. There was peace and prosperity…and much time for wondrous exploits and merrymaking. Where Ymir was, his friends, Freya, Heimdall, Odin….they could often be found there too….and oh, the adventures they had.”
Raising the cup to her lips, she takes a sip and grimaces.
It is good that neither she nor Tjalar seem to pay notice, because his whole body is shaking like an aspen tree at her words.
Odin.
FRIEND to the king of Jotunheim.
FRIEND to the jotun who had ruled before Laufey.
FRIEND to the man who must have been the grandfather of Laufey’s son.
….and…..as such…..someone who….might….
…who might have seen Laufey’s son as more than just a political game piece.
The memory crashes over him, making his head spin like a boat caught in a maelstrom at the edge of the world.
“Why do you twist my words?” Odin had cried before he collapsed, overtaken by the Odinsleep.
Heart beating like a war-drum he can’t help but wonder.
Had he done that? Twisted Odin’s words?
Deafened himself to Odin’s entreaty, scared out of his wits that the only things he would be told were more lies?
Afraid that Odin would attempt to weave a web of deceitful words to placate him, so that he might still be useful as an instrument of Odin’s scheming?
Afraid that if Odin lied to him once more, he would let himself be wooed by these deceits, would have settled for a hollow and deluded fantasy, because it was less painful than being discarded like a broken tool?
Eistla sets her cup down, the clacking sound as she places it on the table bringing his attention back to the matters at hand.
She looks past him, her eyes seemingly focused on something far away…or long past.
“Ymir had but one child, Farbauti, the apple of his eye. When Farbauti came of age, many men courted her, but only one managed to win her heart. A young Jotun of only moderately noble descent, but overwhelming ambition. Laufey.”
Her lips curl in a derisive snarl.
“At first all was well….but then Ymir fell ill. It was a strange illness, no one could discern either cause nor cure, and less than half a moon’s turn later, Ymir lay dead.”
She turns to Tjalar, who, without ado, had sat down at the table while she talked and had begun peeling roots.
“Say, Tjal….you wouldn’t have anything stronger than tea?”
Tjalar nods and gets a bottle and three glasses from one of the cupboards. He plunks one down in front of each of them and then pours a generous dollop of sharp-smelling alcohol into each glass.
Eistla takes a deep draught of hers and continues.
“Laufey, being married to the dead king’s daughter, ascended to the throne and at first, all seemed well. His rule especially appealed to a lot of young warriors at his court, for he set much store by their strength and prowess, never ceasing to praise them as the most fearsome warriors of all. Then things started to go bad. It started small.
Warriors were given special privileges they had not enjoyed before.
Mocking a warrior, even in a kindly way, became something you just didn’t do anymore, for you were bound to be chastised for it by others.
Then a friendly contest with the warriors of Vanaheim and Asgard…turned less than friendly.
A visit to Midgard, where a small disagreement escalated into a fight that left people dead….and the warriors of Jotunheim returned from it with riches, ostensibly claimed as blood-price for injustice suffered.
Bit by bit, the good relationship the Kingdom of Jotunheim had entertained with the other realms began to deteriorate to the point where there were no more friendly exchanges and barely even trade.
Our furs and leathers, soft and supple as they were, were no longer in demand in the halls of Asgard or Alfheim…or anywhere else for that matter.
There were no more fishing boats for us, crafted in the fjords of Vanaheim.
No more eternal lights, spun in the halls of Muspelheim.
And our people suffered for it and grew restless.”
Eistla lifts her cup and drinks it down. Tjalar refills it, then returns to peeling his roots. He does not look at either of them, but now there’s a tension in his shoulders that betrays long-seated anger.
Loki had hated Laufey from the first time he heard of him…but it had been the un-ripened hatred of a callow youth who followed the example of his elders.
When he encountered Laufey for the first time, trading poisoned verbal barbs with Thor, that hatred matured into something sharper, deeper.
Now, the back of his neck is prickling. He knows his history. He knows where this is headed.
And he finds his hands clench and unclench as he unexpectedly wishes for the ability to change the past, to go back in time and slay his blood-father long before his machinations plunged the realms into an era of war and bloodshed.
Going by the look that Eistla and Tjalar trade, their thoughts follow similarly grim and vengeful paths.
Eistla mutters a quiet curse.
“There was worse to come. For the realm….and for Farbauti.
There were rumours…rumours of Laufey hiding a leman, of being unfaithful to his wife.
Farbauti, young and in love, yet still shaken by the death of her father, mentioned the hurtful gossip to her husband, hoping he would put an end to people’s talk.
Instead…..instead he hit her, bruising her eye and splitting her lip, accusing her of lack of loyalty for even mentioning such slander in his presence.
And then, Laufey brought his doxy to court, and she pregnant; he claiming with words that he knew her not, not beyond her being one of his humble subjects…and proving otherwise in the lavish attention he paid her.
Wounded and shamed, your mother withdrew to her chambers, shutting herself off from the court, from her people….from her friends.
She would see no one, talk to no one. Hardly ate or drank.
And thus, she did not learn of Laufey’s plans until it was too late.
Did not learn that he had placated the growing discontent among his people by promising them riches untold, fertile lands to graze their flock, wide mountain-ranges where to build their steadings.
He had promised them Midgard.
Laufey gathered an army and set out with the intent to subjugate the middle realm, either killing or enslaving the mortals.
But Odin Allfather learned of Laufey’s plans….and intervened.
A full-out war was not something that would pass by Farbauti un-noticed, even as Laufey had hidden his wartime preparations from her and even as withdrawn as she was.
She was her father’s true daughter.
She shared his vision of wishing for peace and harmony amongst the realms.
Enraged that Laufey had not only betrayed her, but also her father’s legacy with which he had been entrusted, she ended her self-chosen isolation, ready to confront her husband once he returned from the front.”
Eistla looks up and she locks eyes with the young Jotun, who so unexpectedly had ended up sitting at Tjalar’s kitchen table.
She notes the helpless fury now burning in his eyes….a fury that mirrors the one burning in her own heart, even after all these years.
“To the shock of all, when she emerged from her chambers, it became clear that Laufey had seeded her before leaving, as her belly was rounded with child. She had not only hidden herself away in her misery…but her pregnancy too.
People found renewed faith when they saw.
An heir to the throne.
Someone who was of Ymir’s blood.
Someone who would help our people return to the old ways and mend the bonds that Laufey had broken.
Hope.”
She watches the young man flinch and look aside.
This was not a burden he had expected to bear….and with the way things have gone so very wrong lately, she does not blame him.
Inwardly, she sighs.
Odin should have told him, but the old goat had stubbornly insisted that things would go more smoothly this way.
She would gloat that for once, she was right and the Allfather was wrong…but seeing pain and confusion chase each other across the younglings’ features, she finds that she only wishes that the child did not have to bear the brunt of the errors of his family.
Her cup is empty again and she flashes Tjalar a grateful smile as he refills it yet once again.
Without the numbness brought on by hard liquor, this would be hardly bearable for her.
How much more difficult must it be for the boy, who hasn’t even touched his cup since they began, and who has nothing to cushion him from these hard truths?
But then, he has to know, he has the right….and with the blood that gives him claim to Jotunheim’s throne also comes the duty to his people. If in the end, he chooses to take up the crown, then he must do so fully aware of what this entails…and at what price it was bought.
Throat burning, whether from Tjalar’s gut-rot homebrew or from the truth she is about to utter, she cannot tell, she goes on.
“It was not to be.
Laufey returned.
Farbauti challenged him.
He beat her bloody, uncaring for the fact that she was heavy with his child, and he left her lying on the floor of the great hall.
There, her labour started much too early by the beating, she gave birth to a baby boy.
You.”
The youngling’s hands, balled into fists on the table, tremble so hard the earthware on the table rattles, and he is hunched over, as if trying to weather a heavy storm. She reaches out and pats his hand.
He speaks, and it is barely a whisper, voice broken, cracked.
“And then?”
“And then, hearing that his son had been born, Laufey returned.
He did not wish for Ymir’s grand-child to grace the throne after him, much favouring the bastards his doxy had given him just a few weeks earlier.
He did not like the thought either, of Ymir’s daughter and grandson serving as a rallying point for those amongst the Jotun who opposed him, and at that time, their numbers were steadily growing.
And so he slew Farbauti with his own hand, slitting her throat and letting her bleed out on the floor in front of the throne that had been her fathers’.
Afterwards, he had the child removed to the temple, so it should starve to death, claiming that, in holding with ancient and almost-forgotten tradition, a child so small and delicate should be left to die.”
The young man’s gaze rests upon her, intense, burning, and she feels as if she was watching a dragon emerge from his cave and spread his wings, ready to take flight.
He speaks up, his voice harsh like the howling wind that tears through the deepest chasms high up in the mountains, and finishes the tale:
“But Odin and his troops, after having defeated the jotun army on Midgard and after having taken the Casket of Ancient winters, had followed Laufey.
They came to drive the Jotuns to their knees, so they would not wage war on the other realms ever again.
And Laufey was defeated.
And Odin entered the temple….found the child….and took it with him to raise as his own.”
She nodded, a short jerk of the head that locked all that had been said into place.
“Yes.
Odin defeated Laufey.
Odin took the Casket of Ancient Winters.
Odin took the child, for the love of his best friend, his blood-brother sworn.
And Odin took one more thing.”
The boy frowned, puzzled.
“What?”
“The Tesseract.”

For Sinclaire_Threnody
*g*
Great minds think alike?
No seriously, there are so many things unexplained about Loki between "Thor" and "Avengers"....and then so many things hinted at but LEFT unexplained....you just can't stop yourself from trying to fill in the gaps somehow.
Also, Loki gets the short end of the stick in "Thor" and the way you could watch his heart break, several times over, as he feels that he's losing all he thought true and all that he loved, the way it leaves him crying and suicidal....even if he makes a couple of really bad calls, you can't help but sympathize and ask yourself if you would have reacted to such devastating news any better.
I mean hey, from his side, it totally looks like all this "You're part of the family and we love you" was just an ugly little ploy to turn him into a convenient game piece in a political scheme of Odin's...and the way he's been lied to all his life?
No wonder he DOESN'T take those reassurances that "yes we lied, but it was all for the good and we do consider you part of the family" to heart and instead tries to somehow cement his position by other means.
As for Clint, I completely agree with you. You don't get to be a SHIELD field operative and special ops if you're dumb. Nope, for the jobs he does, they'd only pick the best.
And while he might not be able to pick up on subtleties the way Natasha does (but then, who can?), he definitely sees things other people don't.
I mean heck, remember how baffled Fury was at the beginning of Avengers when Agent Barton casually remarks that the Tesseract is a kind of door and that someone might be trying to open it from the other end?
Fury didn't see that one coming and he's the Director of SHIELD (and as Hawkeye remarks in a deleted scene Fury, has an admirably "clear line of sight").
As far as shout-outs go, I'm the one who has to thank you. I desperately need some people to fangirl with, and trading observations and perspectives with you is a true delight!
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Trickster's Gambit