Darkness There, and Nothing... CH. 14 - Talk of Spoon-Shanking in the Eye (aka Eat Your Heart Out, Cindy Crawford)

Chapter Fourteen

Talk of Spoon-Shanking in the Eye

(aka Eat Your Heart Out, Cindy Crawford)

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"And you believe him?"

Thor gazed back at his father the day after Loki had ordered him from the dungeon, seated in a comfortable chair before the fire in the queen's sitting room. It was Frigga the crown prince had requested to speak to, but both his parents had been waiting for him when he'd been let in. While Thor related all that Loki had told him over the last several weeks—he'd spent so much time with Loki that he hadn’t had a chance to report to his mother in some time—Frigga sat stiff and remote at the window. Her slender fingers twisted and knotted a handkerchief as she gazed beyond the glass, listening

But it was Odin the prince was worried about. His father had made no comments, asked no questions, exhibited no emotion at all during Thor's recitation. He simply sat and regarded his second-born throughout the telling of the tale. And now he asked if Thor believed.

"I do," he told his father. "I must."

"Why must you?"

"Because even Loki is not so talented a liar as that," Thor replied. "There is real pain in him. He is mad, yes, and clever—this I know—but the grief in him, Father…it is genuine. He mourns this woman and it has been nearly a year since she was killed. This woman and this child…he loved them. Loved them enough that I know he would not defile their memories by using them to fuel his lies."

Odin sighed and closed his single blue eye. "How is it that this girl could have earned his loyalty after so little time, when we—his family—are considered to be unworthy of it after centuries? He betrayed us; why not this mortal and her child?"

"He believes we betrayed him," Thor said softly. Odin straightened in his seat. Frigga, one hand flying to her heart, twisted around to stare with wet eyes at her son. Trying to ignore her—if he let himself be distracted by his mother, her tears, he wouldn't be able to say what was needed, and it had to be said—the prince added, "Father…I was too blind to see it before, but Loki was…for a very long time, Loki has been unhappy here. Long before what occurred on the Bifröst. But this woman made him happy. She understood him in a way we never have."

The king frowned. "Why should he be unhappy here?"

I remember a shadow…they always wanted you. You were Father's favorite. You never saw how our so-called friends hated me…It was never good enough, for anyone, that I excelled at the things I put my hand to. I had to excel and best you at the things you excelled in…and I never could.

Loki had been unhappy because everyone, including their father, had treated him as second-best to Thor…and Thor had never seen it. Aloud, the crown prince said, "Because he wasn't me, and everyone wanted him to be."

"Thor," Frigga protested softly. "That isn't true. We love Loki. Surely he knows this."

He shook his head. "That isn't what I mean, Mother. Of course we all loved him, but he was never accepted here. You know how people viewed his predilection for sorcery, and the way he fought in the practice ring was frowned upon by the older courtiers as relying too much on trickery. Loki has always been more of a strategist than a soldier, and Thea…she accepted that. She didn't care. That was how she won his loyalty. And he needed her."

Odin scoffed. "Loki, needing a mortal? For what?"

Thor drew a breath. He hadn’t known how to tell his mother the most important part of Loki's tale thus far. He didn't want to hurt Frigga; all that had happened to Loki had wounded her deeply enough. And if Thor did tell, and his parents didn't believe him…but they needed to know what the Chitauri had done to Loki before he'd ever succumbed to their darkness.

"To keep him from going mad in the hell of the Chitauri dungeons," Thor murmured. He sensed his father's sudden stillness, but his mother's expression was what arrested him. The color drained from her face and her hand drifted up to cover her mouth.

The king leaned forward in his chair, every movement deliberate and slow as he leaned his forearms on his thighs. Single blue eye burning, Odin demanded, "What do you mean?"

So Thor told them everything: how Loki had fallen from the Bifröst, been broken by the fall, and found by the loathsome Chitauri; how they'd bound the worst of his wounds and offered him a place among their lords and officers if he would betray Asgard and help them invade it; how he'd refused, and been cast into the dark pit of their dungeons, half-starved, locked away in the rotting dark of the earth, only to be brought out every so often to be tortured in the hopes of swaying him to the side of the Chitauri. When the recitation was ended, Frigga was weeping silently against Odin's shoulder and Odin looked troubled.

"My son," Frigga whispered. Her fingers tangled in her husband's shirt-sleeve. "My son, my child. Odin," Frigga added, lifting her head at last to gaze at her husband with pleading in her eyes. "Thor believes it to be true, and I…you should have heard Loki speak of this girl when I went to him last night."

Her husband's eyes narrowed as he looked down at her. "You went to see Loki?"

She nodded. "He loved her. I heard him confess it. The pain in his voice…he wasn't lying, Odin. He loved this girl, this Althea. Thor is right, there is more here than we know. Perhaps Loki is not the villain he was thought to be."

Odin shook his head. "We cannot set him lose based on a 'perhaps.' And that doesn't justify all that he did before his fall."

"I'm handling that, as well," Thor replied. "Loki's reasoning thus far is…unwise, but not truly evil."

"My son…your brother tried to kill you," Odin said softly. Frigga bowed her head. The tears coursed silently down her cheeks like liquid diamonds and her shoulders trembled. Odin gently clasped her slim hands in his own. "I cannot overlook this. The Destroyer broke your neck. I saw it as it happened. What explanation could your brother possibly have that could justify such?"

Thor shook his head. "Father, I am willing to admit that Loki may not have any justification for that single act…but he's had his reasons for everything else thus far. And there was a time on Midgard when he had the chance to slay me and chose instead to spare me. If he wanted me dead, he wouldn't have done such a thing."

"You mean when he dropped you from that mortal flying fortress?"

"When he slid a Chitauri blade between my ribs," Thor corrected his father. "If he had aimed just a little higher, I would have bled out at his feet. He knows the assassin's ways of killing well enough to know that. If he'd wanted me dead, he could have slain me then. But he didn't."

Frowning, the king closed his eye. Wrinkles snarled between his thick white eyebrows as he considered his son's words. Thor waited, counting his heartbeats, to hear what his father would say. He hadn't spoken to Odin specifically to have Loki released. The crown prince wasn’t quite ready for that yet, wasn’t sure he could trust his brother enough. Loki was mad, after all. But perhaps Odin could heed Thor's words and start trying to mend the breach between himself and his foster son. And surely that could only help Thor with Loki.

At last Odin said, "I will have the entire story before I make any decision. Coax it from him, and bring me the tale, and we shall see what we shall see. I want to know who this girl, Sophie, was. Loki's daughter, perhaps? That would certainly change a few things."

The crown prince shrugged. "I do not see how she could be. She favors him a little—dark hair, fair complexion—but that describes any number of people, including Thea and the man I suspect of having been her husband. And the child is too old. At least…the illusion I saw of her was too old."

And yet there was the fact that Thea didn't speak of having a child thus far in Loki's tale. She didn't act like a woman wed, either. She acted like a maiden unpromised. Was that simply her way, or the way of Midgardian women these days? Or was she in fact not married? But Loki had spoken of Thea having a husband. Perhaps they were estranged? That would explain Coulson speaking of pursuing another lady. Yet Thea spoke of Coulson with affection, as if they were friends. And where did Sophie fit into all of this? Unless Thor was entirely wrong, and Thea wasn't her mother. But then, where had Sophie come from? Was she perhaps one of Thea's students? How had Loki known of Sophie's mother, then?

Could Sophie be Loki's daughter by Thea? She'd had the means of sneaking into his cell. Pain and the threat of death had hounded them both for months upon months. Perhaps they'd succumbed to a moment of reckless desire in the aftermath of some fresh torment. After all, in Loki's drawing, Thea had been obviously pregnant.

But Loki had said Sophie's father was dead, that he'd killed him out of vengeance and justice…and Loki wasn't lying. Somehow Thor knew his brother was being truthful.

"Perhaps the best course in this matter would be to ask Loki," Frigga suggested, wiping her eyes.

Thor hesitated, a jolt of unease churning in his stomach, but Odin rose to his feet. Clearly his father believed the queen's suggestion to be a sound one. Unfortunately, Thor didn't share in that sentiment.

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Loki stared at the king of Asgard for a long moment, then raised a cool eyebrow. Thor kept his face blank, but he wanted to wince. He knew that quirked brow and all it meant. Loki was disgusted by Odin's question, by his very presence here in the dungeons. If Frigga had been there, Thor wouldn't have been worried, but the king had asked his wife to remain behind.

"After all this time, you come to me now…and you come to ask if you have a bastard grandchild somewhere on Midgard?" Loki asked, voice dripping disdain like acid. "Is that all I am now? A means of furthering the family line? Ah, but wait—I'm not of your bloodline. So what could you possibly want with me, All-Father? Do you intend to hunt down any fruit of my loins and cull it from the Realms?" Outrage suffused Odin's weathered face, but before he could snarl a retort, Loki flicked a savage glance at Thor and added, "Or has someone been telling tales?"

The king slashed a hand through the air. "Silence. Why I have come is my own business and none of yours, Loki Odinson."

"I am not your son."

"You will answer my question, the question of your king," Odin growled. Thor flicked a glance at his father's face, crimson with anger and the single blue eye smoldering like a cobalt ember, before looking back at his brother, who seemed wholly unimpressed. "Do I have a grandchild?"

That knife-thin ebony brow quirked higher. "Do you? I'm sure Tyr and Víðarr have bastards aplenty for you to choose from if you want to play Hobby-Horse."

"Loki—" Thor began, exasperated, but fell silent when his father raised a hand to halt his rebuke.

Odin folded his arms across his chest and stared at his foster son for a long moment in chilly silence. Finally he said, "I want to know if you have a child, Loki. Do I have a grandchild by you?"

The green-eyed prince scoffed. "Odinson," he said to Thor, "the All-Father appears to be going senile in his old age. Clearly he has forgotten that I am no child of his blood, and so any child of mine is no kin to him."

Thor cheerfully considered strangling his brother for a moment. Fighting for calm, he said, "Loki, whatever your current feelings toward our father, he is the king of Asgard, and you will respect him." When Loki only sneered, Thor took a gamble. "What would Thea say about your blatant disrespect of your king?"

The question didn’t have the desired effect. Instead of pushing back some of the foster prince's hostility, it only served to twist Loki's thin features into something akin to repugnance. "You dare mention her name in front of him," he flicked a dismissive hand at the king, "and then ask how she would rebuke me for my 'wayward behavior,' as if I were an errant child? You wish to know what Thea thought of Odin Borson, king of Asgard?" Focusing on Odin's face, Loki spat, "One of the best women to ever breathe was disgusted by you, by your condemnation of the very thing you yourself wrought. She believed you to be a hypocrite and a liar, a coward and a betrayer."

"Loki!" Thor snapped, because there was the slightest waver to his brother's words. Loki wasn't lying…but he wasn’t being entirely truthful, either—the first time he hadn’t been so when speaking of his lady in all the time he and Thor had been talking. "You shame yourself."

"I? You are the one who's brought shame here this day, Odinson. How dare you tell him about Thea? About Sophie? How dare you bring him here?" Loki snapped. "Why would you do that? Simply to vex me?"

Thor rolled his eyes. "Of course not. You're acting like a…" He trailed off. He'd been about to say "like a child," but given what Odin was trying to discover, the crown prince knew that wasn't the best choice of word. Letting the insult fade, he instead said, "Loki, Father simply wants to know about Sophie. Can you blame him? Thus far, you've told me nothing about her—where she came from, what she was like. Who her father was."

"None of which you deserve to know," Loki spat. "He certainly does not."

He'd known, Thor thought. He'd known bringing Odin here had been a foolish notion, but his parents had been so adamant. Odin wanted to know about Sophie. Why, the crown prince didn't know; perhaps because the All-Father had some inkling that the child was important in some way. Whatever the reason, Odin had insisted on speaking to his foster son about it.

Unfortunately, he was going about it all wrong. Thor could have told him that. When it came to Thea and Sophie, for the most part one had to tiptoe around Loki in order to keep him from lashing out, spewing the venom that had festered in him since their deaths.

"Answer me, Loki Odinson," the king said softly, sharply. "You will answer me. Did you sire a half-mortal child with the Midgardian known as Althea Valerian? Did I ever have a half-mortal grandchild?"

Loki tilted his head back slightly, lips parting in a silent "ah" as if he'd just discovered something. His gaze flicked to the table in front of him, littered with several drawings he'd made since Thor's last visit. When the crown prince stepped closer, he caught a glimpse of a few sheets of paper with Loki's cramped handwriting filling up the whiteness with midnight viridian ink. One pale hand reached out to touch the nearest page. The foster prince bit his lip. In the depths of his gaze, tendrils of electric blue threaded through the deep jade. He closed his eyes and sighed. Then he looked directly into Odin's eyes.

"No," he said firmly. "No, I have no half-mortal bastards. No half-mortal children, alive or dead. I never lay with a mortal. Any woman I lay with, if she gave birth to a child, lays that offspring's paternity at the feet of another. And before you accuse me of lying yet again, hear this: I vow and pledge by the Norns themselves that I have never sired a half-mortal child or lain with a mortal woman. Satisfied, All-Father? Have I at last dashed your hopes of using a child of mine as a tool against me?"

Odin met Loki's coolly condescending gaze with his own inscrutable one. The king nodded once in acknowledgement. Loki sneered. Fixing his elder son with a look that spoke volumes, Odin then turned on his heel and stalked away down the hall, leaving Thor and Loki to their own company. Half-dreading what would happen next and furious with himself, his father, and with his deliberately unhelpful little brother, Thor turned from watching his father go to focus once more on the green-eyed prince.

"Why did you bring him?" It was a whip-crack demand, for all the voice was so quiet.

Wondering if he were about to undo everything he'd managed to accomplish thus far, Thor said, "Mother and Father deserve to know that you did what you did for a reason. An understandable one."

Loki scoffed. Thor felt the disdain in the sound like a fist in the belly. "What do you know of it? Nothing. You have no idea what it is, to know that the two people who are dearest to you in all the Nine Realms are in danger because you couldn't simply control yourself…" Loki trailed off, biting his lip hard enough that it reopened the ragged wound and drew a fresh spill of blood. "My fault," he muttered. "If not for that night…Sophie and Thea would both be alive. We could have gotten away from the Chitauri. I could have healed her…if not for that night."

Cautiously, the Asgardian prince asked, "What night, Brother? What night are you talking about? What happened?"

"And why should I tell you anything?" Loki demanded. "You'll simply run off to Odin like a good little boy and tell him all my secrets, like some filthy spy. Why should I bare my soul to you, Odinson?"

"If you don't wish me to tell Father your story, all you need do is say so, and I will keep your confidence," Thor said softly. Dark brows rose at the prince's words. Thor merely shrugged. Time to take another gamble. Hopefully this one would pay off better than the first. "Besides, what else are you going to do? Draw more pictures and then feed the fire sprites with them? It's a shame to burn such beauty as what you can create, Brother. And Thea is very beautiful."

What I can see of her, he added silently.

But Loki was nodding now. "She was," he murmured. His gaze had gone distant, mellowing from that shocking and bizarre blue to pure emerald once more. "So beautiful. So vibrant. She loved life." Loki swallowed audibly. "She shouldn't have died, Thor. Not her."

Strange, he thought, that Loki didn't speak of Sophie, how she had been. Why not? Thor knew his younger brother mourned the child even more than he mourned the woman. So why did he never speak of Sophie's charm or sweetness or aught else? Thor asked him exactly that.

A sneer that was almost a snarl twisted the thin, haggard features. "Have you ever tried chewing shards of broken glass, Brother?"

Thor raised an eyebrow. "I realize you believe me stupid, but surely not that stupid."

"Then if you're so clever, why do you ask me to do something that cuts even deeper than a knife of glass? Why ask me to carve out my own innards? I would rather have Odin cut out my tongue than tell him what he wants to know of my Sophie."

"But you will tell me?" After a moment of silence, Loki nodded. "Why?"

Loki shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe Thor's stupidity. "I have already told you—because I want you to know what you've done. I want you to know the true depth of your sins, to know what it was you murdered when you stopped the Chitauri invasion. Thea and Sophie…my älsklingar."

"I know you loved them, Brother—"

"You think you're so clever, think you're so wise," Loki muttered. "You know nothing…but I will tell you everything. How the weeks passed, and the months pressed on us with darkness and emptiness. And how the Chitauri left me alone to heal from my wounds at last, but took her again and again, hurting her. I could hear her screaming…but she was brave. So brave, and so strong. She never called out for me, no matter what they did. And those nights…those three reckless nights…they sealed her fate."

Nights, Thor thought. Not "night" this time, but "nights." Aloud all he said was, "Tell me of these nights, my brother."

Slowly, as if coming to some weighty decision, Loki nodded. "Yes," he murmured. "Yes. Those nights…but I must start at the beginning. That day in the snow. I should never have made that offer…"

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Even two full months after the Chitauri had first hurt her, Thea was different. The smiles she gave Loki were strained around the edges and her cheerful, spontaneous manner took on an edge of mania, as if she were forcing herself to continue acting as if nothing had happened. After that day when she'd broken in his arms and whispered of being hurt while she wept, she didn't speak of it again. When the Chitauri took her several days later, she'd screamed until her voice broke and dwindled to nothing; when she'd been returned, Loki had tended the cuts and burns, but she hadn't said a word about what they'd done. The same thing occurred after the third, fourth, and fifth torture sessions.

In the meantime, Loki began to heal. Thea had been feeding him, two of the countless "energy bars" she had in her bags, every day. That, in addition to the Chitauri forbearing from ripping him apart again and again, allowed his broken bones to mend. And once they were healed, Loki regained a bit of his magic. Not a great deal—he couldn't escape with it, or cast the illusions Thea could in an attempt to amuse her—but enough that he could access the small space-pocket between dimensions where he stored a few things.

There were no weapons. Even if there had been, they would have been of no use. But there was a little food, a bedroll, and some medicines. The wooden flute his mother had given him several decades before, for his birthday. The box of boyhood treasures he'd always guarded so jealously. His helmet, a gift from his father when he'd come of age.

Most precious of all was the last half of a single Golden Apple of Iðunn, preserved with seiðr. Or rather, it would have been precious if it had been a whole apple, instead of only half. But half of one of the Golden Apples would do Loki little good. It wasn't enough to restore his magic completely or heal him of all that was wrong with his starved, tortured body. But every so often he would pull it out of the little dimensional pocket just to look at it while Thea slept.

The Apple, sealed in a thin layer of its own shimmering seiðr, glowed faintly in the dark. Its amber light was soft as a golden moonbeam. It illuminated nothing, but the familiar soft ambience was a comfort in the dimness nonetheless. The metallic sheen of the thin skin belied the soft, ivory flesh of the fruit.

The Golden Apples of Iðunn were powerful indeed. A whole one, eaten by an Asgardian warrior, could heal almost any injury short of death. And even half could heal nearly-fatal wounds in Midgardians…but that was forbidden by Asgardian law, and punishable by death. Giving one of Iðunn's Apples to a non-Asgardian for anything short of marriage was against the law, because it bestowed more power than the law decreed a Midgardian ought to have. There were exceptions, of course…but Loki wouldn't give the Apple to Thea. Her wounds pained her, but they weren’t life-threatening. He wanted to give it to her, because he loathed how she would return to him shaking and battered, but unless she was dying, he could not. The green-eyed prince had made his fair share of triage decisions in the past.

And Loki wouldn't eat it himself. The Apple's magic didn't work so strongly on Asgardians, their bodies already suffused with the fruit's power. It would have no effect, save to briefly assuage some of his hunger.

No, he wouldn’t waste it. He would only look at it, find comfort in its light, and try to remember home without the agony that always tore at his chest when he thought of his brothers, his mother, his father. Had they given him up for dead by now? Had they mourned the treasonous foundling?

A soft rustling came from beyond the stones. Loki's attention sharpened at the sound. He pushed the Golden Apple back into its place between Realms and focused on the present, shoving the past away where it lacked the power to tear him with its claws.

"Loki," Thea called from the other side of the wall. She stifled a yawn as she poked her head through the hole. Her hair snagged on the sharp edges of the stone and she winced. Without thinking about it, Loki reached out and freed the trapped strands. Thea's hair was dirty, rough with the grit from her cell, but her tresses were still like silk compared to the hard, unforgiving stone Loki had been sleeping on until recently. "Morning," she added, though neither of them knew if it were morning or night on the Chitauri home-world, or even if the planet they were trapped on had a sun. Loki hadn’t seen any hint of sunlight in the days he'd lain beneath the stars, bleeding out into the dust.

He canted his head. "Good morning." He indicated the plate of gray mush the Chitauri had left him. Hers was no doubt waiting in her cell, beyond where he could see."Breakfast."

She made a face, visible by the glow of the flashlight. "Mmm, yum. Slop. Great. So what should it be today? Any requests?"

"Waffles," Loki replied with a small smile. "Whipped cream, strawberries, powdered sugar—if it pleases the lady."

Thea groaned. "Oh, my gosh, you're making me hungry. Or fat. I'm not sure which. I think I could get fat thinking about waffles if I tried hard enough. Okay, hang on, back in a sec." She scuttled back into the dimness of her own cell and came back with her plate of mush and the small, spoon-like scoop the Chitauri gave them to eat it. "Okay, waffles with whipped cream, strawberries, and powdered sugar coming up." She crossed her eyes, wrinkled her nose, and the next moment the delicious aroma of fresh waffles, sweet summer strawberries, and vanilla sugar wafted up from the plates. She picked up her spoon. "Viva la resistance."

It was another of their little pieces of defiance toward their captors. The Chitauri gave them slime, hoping to break them with hunger to the point that the prisoners would willingly lick up every drop of the scummy food to get some nourishment. Thea used her abilities to make the food taste like something else. Originally she'd made it look like something else as well, but after the first torture session, it had been so difficult to incorporate their actual physical bodies eating into the threads of the illusions that Loki had told her just to focus on the taste and conserve her strength.

Loki took a spoonful of the slop and closed his eyes. He knew what the filth ought to taste like, but the sweetness flooding his tongue drowned out the memory. Sweet, fresh strawberries soaked in their own juice. Vanilla sugar and frothy cream whipped into a cloud. The sweet, bready waffles doused in both with just a touch of the white powdered sugar Midgardians put on such things. He made an appreciative sound.

"Delicious," he said. She beamed, but as before, there was strain around the edges of her smile. Loki hid a frown. Where was his Thea, his carefree girl who didn't give a toss what the enemy would do so long as she could be with him? "Where shall we go today?"

"We could go skydiving again," she suggested softly, taking another spoonful of her own meal. "Or horseback riding. I want to go nuts today. Or…or we could maybe build a snowman." She flicked her eyes up at him, then back to her plate. "I know snow isn't really your thing, but—"

"No, no," Loki hastened to assure her. "By all means, let us build this…snowman." What in all the Nine Realms was a snowman? Snow forts, he had heard of. He'd always been good at building the things for Thor during their boyhood. Even Tyr hadn't been able to build a better one. And he knew of snowball fights; they were the reason snow forts were necessary. But he'd never heard of a snowman.

Thea grinned at him, a ghost of her old mischief sparkling in her eyes. "We could go to Jötunheim and do it." Loki frowned. Thea bit her lip, looking rather like an imp bent on temptation. "Come on. We could build a really ugly one on Laufey's throne. Pay him back for being such a douche cookie."

Like most of her insults, he didn’t know what a "douche cookie" was, but the thought of humiliating Laufey, even in such a petty and unknown way, kindled his own inner trickster. "You're a little imp—you know that, don't you?"

She winked. "My horns are adorable. See, look?" For a brief moment, a pair of delicate red horns poked through Thea's hair. Loki chuckled, and the horns disappeared. "I'm not feeling very horny right now, though…wait." She scrunched her face and dropped it into her hands. "Not what I meant. Totally not what I meant. That did not come out right. I didn't mean it like that."

He raised an eyebrow. "Was there some Midgardian way to take that?"

"I shouldn’t have used the word 'horny.' Midgardians don't mean that word the way Asgardians do."

"What does it mean?"

Her head shot up and she stared at him in mortification. "You can't ask me what 'horny' means. You can't."

"Why not?"

"Because!" She shoveled spoonfuls of waffle-flavored gruel into her mouth and swallowed. Loki could see the delightful color spreading through her cheeks—which she somehow cleaned every day, leaving her a bit less bedraggled than the prince. When Loki only looked at her expectantly, she sighed. The warmth of her breath reached Loki's bare forearm; the hair prickled. His fingers twitched. "Because you're hot," Thea added, as if that explained everything. Loki's brow rose higher. He simply waited. Eventually she sighed and said, "'Horny' means 'sexually aroused.' There? Happy?"

Loki chuckled. "You needn't be embarrassed."

Thea gave an unladylike snort. "Says you. You're so smooth."

"Like butter," he agreed.

"Butter with no cow hairs in it?" She asked impudently. "Or butter with cow hairs in it?"

He shot her a mock scowl. She'd recently read him a book where a boy compared the grace of a girl of his acquaintance to "butter with no cow hairs in it." Loki had been disgusted on behalf of his gender. "Which do you think?"

She grinned. "I think if you were fresh butter, you could pull off having cow hairs in all your smooth, creamy, buttery-ness. If anyone could pull off having cow hairs in their butter-selves, it would be you. You could be cow-hair-flavored butter and people would totally buy you."

"Would they indeed?" Loki shook his head, losing the battle against the urge to smile. "You're mad, you know."

"Yeah, but you like me better this way."

"I do. Shall we?" Food finished—they weren’t given much—Loki held out his hand to her. Thea settled her head on one arm and took his proffered hand. With a smile from her, and that familiar tingling warmth at the nape of his neck, the illusion settled over them both.

.

Flmph!

Snow hit Loki in the chest, spattering clean and white against his green shirt, his open black coat, and his dark trousers. He could feel the meltwater trickling over his skin, cleansing the grit and grime of his prison cell. If only…

Thea whooped and pelted him with another snowball. They'd never gotten around to building that snowman. He'd distracted her by instigating this wintry war. It had simply been too great a temptation to resist. She'd trusted him so foolishly, like a lamb with a wolf, and he'd had to scoop up some of the soft, cold snow—as soft and cold as real snow, yet it didn't bite his fingers with its bitter chill—and throw it at her. His warrior's aim had been true.

He'd hit her in the back of the neck. Her squeal of happy outrage had been priceless.

Only now…he appeared to be losing. He suspected her of changing the landscape of the illusion, giving herself more ammunition and slowly wearing away his own defenses and resources. It might have been cheating, but it was also something he might've done.

"I've got you in my crosshairs, Green Eyes!" Thea cried, launching another missile. It smacked Loki in the shoulder with a muffled whumph. Loki hurled his own snowball and somehow missed.

"Are you cheating?" He demanded, laughing, as he threw another snowball.

Thea laughed and scrambled to avoid the "ball of frigid doom," as she'd named it. "Maybe! Why? Having trouble?" She initiated another volley. Loki dodged behind a tree as snowballs whizzed past, wetting the fringes of his hair. When he was certain the coast was clear, he pitched his own missile. Thea squealed. "Gah, it went down my shirt!"

Laughing still, Loki stepped out from behind the tree…and took a very loosely-packed snowball in the face. He spat crisp, clean snow out of his mouth. The meltwater on his tongue was sharp and delicious and cold. He folded his arms and looked at the mortal, who was leaning against the snow bank, laughing herself silly. There was indeed a patch of wetness running down the front of her indigo sweater.

"Enjoying yourself, suetyng?" Loki asked, then could have bitten his tongue. It was the fifth time in the last two moons the endearment had slipped off his tongue. He couldn’t fathom why. He'd tried to swallow it back, but it kept spilling out. And whenever it did, he was forcibly reminded of the time Thea had pressed her lips to his jaw after he'd doctored her wounds. Even now, the flesh where she'd kissed him tingled pleasantly. It was almost as if…but no. He couldn't even consider the idea. Not now.

She waved to him, still laughing too hard to form words. Clearly having "a blast," as she often put it. Loki strode to her and threw himself down on the snow beside her. Thanks to the rules of this newest illusionary world, the snow would melt if Thea wanted it to melt. Otherwise it remained sharp and pristine. And since she didn’t want them to get frostbite from being out in the cold, they didn't. It was the perfect snowy day—the sun shining down on the vast blanket of white, making the snowflakes sparkle like diamonds, and with a cheerful little breeze that tickled Loki's cheeks and threaded through his hair—without any of the drawbacks. It was cold, of course, but pleasantly so.

"You know what I want?" Thea said. Loki raised an eyebrow at her. "I want hot chocolate. Hot chocolate is like ambrosia, except in liquid form, and it won't make you immortal. It should, though. It should give you super powers. Like, one sip gives you x-ray vision, and the next sip lets you fly. Except then I'd smack into skyscrapers because I can't steer for Skittles. Great, now I want ice cream with Skittles in it.

"Oh, my gosh!" She suddenly bolted upright. "I just had a stroke of genius. Absolute and utter genius. Light bulb! Light bulb in my brain! It's glowing and everything!" She turned to Loki with shining eyes and for the first time he saw excitement in her without any of the strain he'd grown accustomed to. "Oh, my gosh! You know what would be cool? You know what would be freaking epic? I'm serious, totally epic. Snowballs that taste like Skittles! And we could practice hitting each other in the face with them. It would be like being happy-smacked with a candy rainbow."

Loki stared at her for a long minute in utter silence. Thea blinked. Loki's brows rose slowly toward his hairline as he continued to look at her, thinking too many things to fully register. For this moment, she was back, vivid and effervescent and smiling without shadow. He felt the corners of his mouth curl into a broad grin.

"What?" Thea asked. "What's so funny?"

Without thinking about it, without really considering consequences or reasons why it was foolish or even really pondering why he would do such a thing in the first place, Loki reached out and grabbed Thea, crushing her against him. She yelped, startled, before relaxing against him. Her head fell comfortably to his shoulder. She sighed, that same contented sigh as the first time—the only time—they'd embraced. Her arms slowly came around him and she settled completely and comfortably into his arms.

"What was that for?" She asked, pressing her face into his shoulder. She was warm, even through his shirt and coat. Her fingers curled in the collar of his shirt, brushing his skin as lightly as snowflakes falling.

"You brilliant girl," Loki murmured. "You brave, brilliant, delightful girl."

"You like the idea of me hitting you in the face with a candy-flavored snowball, don't you?" He could hear the laughter humming beneath the words and chuckled. "Masochist."

After a second's hesitation, Loki let his cheek rest against the top of her head. Mingling with the floral scent that always clung to her in the world of her mirages, he smelled the sweet chill of frost and winter winds—softer and lighter than the heavy bite of northern darkness that saturated the air of Jötunheim. "You may hit me in the face with as many snowballs as you like if it will make you happy, Thea."

She laughed. "Never had a guy tell me that before. I like your pickup lines." She tilted her head back to gaze up at the dove-gray sky, heavy with snow-laden clouds. Thanks to her gift, the pale sun peaked through a break in the gray. "It should be snowing."

"Oh?"

A decisive nod, and Thea wrinkled her nose and crossed her eyes. She'd told him once it was a habit she'd picked up as a child during practice. She didn't need to do it to make her powers work, but when creating what she called a "snap-illusion," she made that face. She'd seen something like it on a special type of Midgardian play called a television show about a woman with magical powers.

As she uncrossed her eyes, tiny flecks of whiteness began falling from the sky. She grinned and stuck out her tongue to catch one of the snowflakes. It landed on the tip of her tongue and stayed for almost a minute before melting. The snow wasn’t cold, but it made that delightful hush falling snow always did in the depths of winter.

In Thea's worlds, Loki thought, the laws of physics needn't apply.

"We'll save me smacking you around with snowballs like a drunken North Pole dominatrix until after we get something hot. Do you want hot chocolate? Or am I slurping my chocolate-crack all by my lonesies?"

"Is our intention to become…what was the phrase you used that one time…chocolate wasted?"

Thea laughed. "Oh, my gosh, I'm gonna get so chocolate wasted! It's like getting high off sugar. Sugar is my anti-drug. It's my crack. It's like a G-rated meth party in my mouth." She paused for a moment. "Meth party in my mouth. Meth party in my…meth party…meth…It sounds like I'm lisping…except if I was, I'd be saying 'mess party in my mouse.' Which makes no sense. Gah, stupid English language. Anyway, time to get chocolate wasted! Care to join me?"

"Do you truly need to ask?" Loki replied with a smile.

He had tried the Midgardian drink a few times in Thea's memories; it had been delicious. And while the cold wasn’t oppressive, something hot to drink would be pleasant. A hefty clay Asgardian mug appeared in his hand. In the mug, a dozen tiny white things—Midgardians called them "marshmallows"—floated in his hot chocolate.

Loki glanced at Thea's mug. Hers was heaped with marshmallows, whipped cream, a thinly drizzled web of chocolate sauce, and a dusting of cinnamon. Chocolate-wasted, indeed. Steam wafted off the top. Even as he watched, the cream began to melt. Thea put the mug to her lips and gulped some of the drink down. When she took the mug away, Loki laughed; whipped cream decorated her upper lip. She gave him a haughty look.

"Bite me, Green Eyes," she said. "You wish you looked as beautiful as I do with a milk mustache." Loki grinned and shook his head, sipping his drink. "I can hear you thinking about my splendid self over there," Thea added. "Go ahead, worship the love goddess. She thanks you."

"Do you make a habit of referring to yourself in the third person?"

"Don't be jealous of my Bohemian chic self-narration. You have other gifts, like that dimple in your cheek." She poked him lightly just above the spot where she'd kissed him two months before. "See? See? There it is. It comes out when you smile. I can see it," she added in a sing-song voice. "You can't hide it from me. I know you're trying to keep your stud status on the down-low, but it's not working."

"Well, then, I must try harder."

"You give that a shot; lemme know if it works." Then she sighed, and some of the shine faded from her smile. The shadows returned to her eyes.

Wondering if he were making a mistake, Loki murmured, "Thea…what is it?"

She didn’t pretend not to know what he meant. She didn't even bat an eyelash at the question. She set her mug on a shelf of air—since none of it was real, she could manipulate the strands of the world in any way she chose—and leaned back against the snow bank. Her lashes drifted down to make feathery black crescents against her cheeks.

"I miss my family," she murmured. "I miss my mom and Phil and my brothers and sisters and the professor and my coworkers and…" Her voice trembled, then firmed as she continued, "And I miss going out."

He set his own mug on a small drift of snow near his feet and leaned toward her, elbows on his knees. "Going out? What do you mean?"

"Like…I don’t know. Like dancing. We used to have dances at the school every month. I miss those. And I missed trick-or-treating this year—I always go with my younger brothers, they're only thirteen and fifteen, and it's a good excuse to snag free candy, you know?—and I missed Thanksgiving. I mean, that's not going out, but it's still kind of a party sort of. I just miss…I don't know. It's just kind of wearing on me. I'm sorry if I'm screwing things up."

Loki laced his fingers together and brought them up to his lips as he considered Thea's words. At last, he murmured, "You have many friends on Midgard. A family who loves you. It is understandable that you miss them."

"I don’t, actually," came the puzzling reply. "Have a lot of friends, I mean. Not real friends. Most of us didn't stick around at the school post-graduation. Just me and Marie. Everyone else did their own thing. You're actually one of my only friends. I'm okay with that, though. You're like, my favorite person in the history of ever. It's not even that I miss friends. I miss people. You know? I don't even need to talk to anyone. I'd just like to be in a crowd every now and again. Lose myself in a crowd at a dance with a lot of music and voices and…I don't know."

"Why have you said nothing of this before?"

She shrugged. "I didn’t think you'd want to be in a situation like that, even if it was just an illusion. I don't know if you'd like Midgardian music—modern Midgardian music, I mean—and I know you don't like crowds. And what would you do while I was busy making a happy little goofball of myself?"

He had no idea what possessed him to say it, but he found the words tripping off his tongue before they'd even fully registered in his mind. "I could dance with you."

Her mouth fell open.

With a casual shrug, he added, "I would be the envy of all the illusionary Midgardians at the ball. No one else would have so fair a companion as I. We can do it now, if you wish. Take us to one of these dances."

Thea swallowed. He could see the temptation in her eyes. Inwardly, Loki wanted to bash his head against a tree. She was right—he didn't like crowds. And to be trapped in a room full of sweaty, barbarous Midgardians while the rubbish that passed for music in that Realm these days pulsed through the room…it was almost unbearable to even think about.

But it would make Thea happy. He couldn’t stand how melancholy she'd become since the Chitauri had begun routinely torturing her. He wanted her happiness. If he had to chew off his own arm to get it for her, he would.

"You'll need different clothes," she murmured hesitantly. Loki inclined his head to her, silent permission for her to outfit him with the proper garments. Thea closed her eyes and frowned. In a matter of a few seconds, the cold from the snowy landscape faded into comfortable spring coolness. The weight of his coat vanished.

Loki glanced down at himself and saw that he now wore crisply ironed black Midgardian trousers, an emerald belt-like contrivance, an ironed white shirt with black buttons down the front, and a light but oddly-cut black coat that was obviously meant to be worn open. His collar felt a bit tighter than he was used to. Pale fingers stole up to touch his throat and encountered a closed collar tied with a stiff piece of fabric shaped like two dull arrowheads facing each other, point to point. He raised an eyebrow at Thea.

"It's called a tux," she replied, smiling a little. "That thing around your neck is a bowtie." She bit her lip. "You look…"

"Foolish?" He offered in a forcedly light tone. But she shook her head.

"You look wonderful," the girl murmured. Her silver-blue eyes kindled with open admiration. A strange warmth spread through Loki's chest and belly. "Very dashing. I wish all my dates looked as good as you do."

Rising to his feet, he offered her a hand. "Did you have many suitors on Midgard?" The thought that she might have gave him pain for some reason.

Thea shook her head as she ran her fingers through her long, dark hair. "Nothing serious. Surprisingly, people don't want to date girls who can waltz through their brains for some reason. And a lot of the toy-soldier boys back home were intimidated by my classic Grecian beauty and the razor-steel trap of my genius brain. Can't really blame them. It's tough dating perfection."

"I would imagine so," he replied with a smile.

"There was this one guy, though, Theoric—he was kinda hot. I thought he was nice…but I was wrong. Total zombie douche-bag. I wonder if he ever went back to the radioactive ooze he schlurped his way out of."

"Schlurped?" Loki echoed.

"Yeah, schlurped. Like, he was a walking bag of rat guts and toxic waste that sludged around instead of actually taking steps with actual bipedal feet because he was such a creeper. I don't even think he had toes. They were probably stumpy, deformed squid tentacles."

"You really don't like him."

She offered him a poisonously sweet smile. "No, I really don't. I have no respect for a guy who dates a girl just so he can get her panties off, then cheats on her when she won't put out. Guys like that should be spoon-shanked in the eye. Unless they have pretty eyes. Then you should geld them with cheese graters."

Normally any male with a healthy appreciation for being male and a healthy respect for a woman's wrath would have winced at such a threat to masculine apparatus. However, Loki's thoughts had snagged on the first part of Thea's statement. In a voice trembling with a dark fury he could barely understand himself, he demanded, "This boy, this…wretch…betrayed your trust and slept with another woman simply because you wouldn't let him take you to his bed?"

"Pretty much. I haven’t had any really positive experiences with guys in my life except my teachers, my brothers, and Phil."

The name suddenly scraped at Loki's temper. Still, he managed to keep his voice relatively neutral when he asked, "And what was so special about Phil?"

Thea shrugged. "He's just…he's a decent guy. You know? Like you. Sweet. Totally romantic. I've known him for, like, ever. My mom loves him. Everyone in my family loves him."

"Do you love him?" Loki asked quietly.

She laughed. "Well, yeah. Of course. We're like this." She held up her middle and index finger, twined around each other for visual effect. A sharp, prickling sting lanced behind Loki's breastbone. "So," Thea continued, not noticing, "we going dancing or what?"

"Are you dressed for it?" Loki asked, feigning nonchalance. Yet all he could think of was Thea's casual affirmation that she loved this Midgardian, this…Phil.

Glancing down at herself, she laughed. "Not that I couldn’t totally rock the dance floor with my smexy, smexy jeans and my Frosty the Snowman sweater—because I could, you know. I totally could. But it would start a trend, a brilliant but terrible trend that would slaughter couture dress sales and leave fashion designers crying in the gutters of Paris and drowning themselves in buckets of overpriced wine. And it would make me too beautiful. Men would fling themselves at my feet, begging to touch the hem of my sweater, and writing poetry comparing me to Helen of Troy."

Loki raised an eyebrow and Thea grinned puckishly.

"Oh, you know it's true. The only reason you haven’t fallen down at my feet, struck by a swoon of adoration, is because you're an alien with a natural resistance to my sweater's nefarious mind control."

"Indeed?"

"Yep. So I'll try this instead." Closing her eyes, Thea drew a deep breath. Leaning her head back as far as it would go, she raised her hands to her face and slowly smoothed them over the contours of her features before flicking them toward the ground. The snow around her feet melted away, leaving soft green grass.

Her jeans and sweater faded, to be replaced with a long, slim gown that Loki thought at first to be of ebony silk…but when Thea glanced down at herself, twisting and turning to admire the swish and sway of her shin-length skirt, Loki noticed an emerald sheen to the fabric. Modest in cut, it still emphasized every soft curve of her body.

Thea's hair no longer hung down her back in a thick braid, either. Instead it cascaded down around her shoulders in elegantly styled curls burnished copper, bronze, auburn, and chestnut by the sun. A touch of makeup to her lips made them gleam, and her eyes seemed suddenly more vibrant and almost impossibly blue, her lashes longer and thicker somehow.

Her feet, however, were bare.

"Oops," she mumbled, and snapped her fingers. A pair of slim, midnight jade heels appeared on her feet, adding a good two inches to her height. A grin blossomed across her face. "Booyacashah. Love goddess, version two-point-oh. Eat your heart out, Cindy Crawford. Who's the supermodel now? And I'm so tall. Yay-uh!"

"You look beautiful," Loki blurted. Thea stopped preening to herself and stared at him, eyes wide in obvious astonishment. He cleared his throat and bowed to her. "My lady…if you would honor me by allowing me to escort you?"

Soft rose color spread across her freckled cheeks and she tucked a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. "I'd love that," she replied. When he offered his hand, she took it. "Thank you."

"Shall we?"

And in moments, they were at the familiar ballroom of the Disneyland hotel, music already echoing through the vaulted space. Dozens of mirages of people murmured and moved in various parts of the ballroom, but Loki only looked at Thea. She smiled at him as a warm tingle spread down the back of his neck. He knew then what to do as a waltz began to play. Leading her into the formation, they began to dance.