Final steps

[st_ratagem]

Loki had spent the last hour or two before sunset preparing, and the first hour afterward. He’d taken ruthless advantage of the fact that the Inn staff was desperate to give people towels and had carefully interwoven the. On the floor such that there was no chance of getting at the actual carpet below without effort. He’d selected a dagger from his collection - a very old one that he hadn’t actively used since childhood, one of a pair given to him by his mother - and sharpened it to an almost perfect edge. He’d opened up the balcony door to let the early-winter night chill in. He’d even out together a little aid kit (disinfectant, pads, bandages, needle and thread) for afterward.

In many ways, the hardest part was settling on the towels with the in-etched staff resting in front of him and forcing Odin’s enchantment away, knowing that he wouldn’t be allowing himself to go back to normal possibly for hours. And that, as soon as Thor arrived with a bowl and his hands, it would all have a witness.

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[st_ormbreaker]

Thor thinks tricking Valkryie will probably be a few thousand times more difficult than Tony to trick. It wasn't that Stark was a fool - it was that Valkyrie seemed to see everything coming at her from a million miles away.

"What's my first lesson."

[st_ratagem]

“We’ll start with the easiest part of lying.” It would also be the easiest part for Thor. “Always include something true, even if it’s only in your head. That way, you can believe what you’re saying enough to sell it. So just lie to Valkyrie. Any lie. Make up things that never happened, try to start some kind of rumor.”

[st_ormbreaker]

"Give me a lie, Loki."

[st_ratagem]

“That’s not how it works! My lies won’t work for you, you don’t know the true part.” It wasn’t really that difficult, was it? “Tell you what, try me first. Pre-practice.”

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor frowns, frustrated by how lies don't come easily to him. True, he mentioned earlier that it wasn't his strength, but coming up with a lie is proving more difficult than Thor imagined.

"I'm not like you," he mumbles after a minute. "I don't go make up lies on a whim."

[st_ratagem]

“Stop worrying about whatever it is you’re worrying about. This is the easiest thing in the universe, I promise. Probably a lie, but an encouraging one. “Listen. Did you know Lady Sif used to be blonde?”

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor's brows furrow.

"No, because she wasn't."

[st_ratagem]

“Of course she was! She had the most beautiful red-gold hair, everyone agreed, and she was very proud of it.” A whopper, confidently told, tended to confuse people, they doubted and checked their memory on purpose. “Until she made me angry - some insult or other - and I crept into her room while she slept, shaved it all off, and burned it. Remember that?” Obviously not.

Loki didn’t wait for a response. “She was absolutely enraged, the more so because it wouldn’t grow back. Mother intervened and insisted I fix what I’d done, but then as now I was no healer. I also couldn’t find the right color of gold, apparently. So instead I went to Niflheim through one of those paths I know,” a truth, he did know a path to Niflheim, “and took a shadow. There were so many, no one would miss one. I made that shadow into hair and attached it to her head, again while she slept because I didn’t fancy getting stabbed by her.”

Loki nodded mock solemnly. “That trick ended up on me, though, because everyone agreed the dark hair suited her much better, and now no one even remembers her lovely gold hair.”

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor looks at Loki, befuddled, lips slightly parted while he tries to dig into the recesses of his memory for anything remotely resembling this tale. It sounds like something he'd do for the reasons he claimed to do it, but...

He knew some or part of it had to be a lie and he couldn't figure out which bits were true and which weren't, so he chose not to believe any of it. Still, there's one thing he's certain is a lie:

"For the record, I think you would fancy being stabbed by her."

[st_ratagem]

“Probably yes, now. Then, no. I was worried about lethal stabbing.” Sif probably would be more inclined to lethal stabbing, still, but Loki cared less. “But here’s the thing, brother. Any human, or the Jane here, would believe that story. It sounds exactly like something I’d both do and brag about. Even you sort of believe it, and you know better! So just... make something up. It's practice, I don’t have to believe you.”

[st_ormbreaker]

After another half-minute of frowning, Thor settles on a lie.

"Sakaar was a literal trash heap. Trash literally fell out of these portals in the skies. The only thing that was well-kept in that place was the Grandmaster's palace and his various belongings, the people he favored, and the stadium he had his people fight in. The place the fighters were kept before fights was pretty awful. You refused to be there physically, by the way."

All true so far.

"We had to escape Sakaar on one of the Grandmaster's ships, which were the only ships capable of leaving the planet." Or so Thor believed, anyway. Probably one of the Grandmaster's ways of keeping anyone from leaving. He's sure more people would evacuate the planet if given the opportunity. Who wanted to be on a planet with a psycho like the Grandmaster ruling, anyway? Or on a planet with the Grandmaster, period?

"You had the access codes to one of his ships. The orgy one and you had it because you were an active participant. Knew how to set off the fireworks for the ship and everything. Which helped us to stop the Grandmaster's right-hand woman when we were chased, by the way."

[st_ratagem]

“Good!” Loki nodded, even applauded a little. “It all hangs together nicely and sounds believable, even if the percentage of truth is a little high for me. Tell that story to anyone who doesn’t know better and some who do, and it would work.” In fact, the only reason that Loki knew which pars were lies was the number of times Thor had mentioned his Statesman and how he’d come by it.

[st_ormbreaker]

"It's not hard when you have something believable to work with," Thor says. All that? Believable. "What should I lie to Valkyrie about?"

[st_ratagem]

“Anything! Yourself, me, Midgard. Insist you’re a vegetarian.” Loki waved his bandaged hand. “Try to have fun with it.”

[st_ormbreaker]

"No one's going to believe that," he says. He doubts even Loki would be capable of selling that idea to anybody save maybe someone they just met.

And even then, he doesn't think he has the look of someone who spends a lot of time munching on carrots and cabbages.

"I'll try lying to Valkyrie and report back." What about? He's not sure. He'll figure that out when the opportunity arises.

[st_ratagem]

“Most animals are actually vegetables. Scientifically speaking.” Purest bullshit that no one would believe, but fun. “I look forward to hearing your results, brother.”

[st_ormbreaker]

"I'm sure it's not going to work, but I'll try it anyway." Thor's usually confident in himself and in his abilities, but he's more confident in Valkyrie's ability to see through bullshit than he is in his own ability to lie convincingly to her.

Thor nods at Loki's staff. "When's your stick going to be ready? I want to see you use it."

[st_ratagem]

Loki looked over at the staff as well. “The runes were the last thing. It’s as personal and cold as I can make it, so if it doesn’t work it’s not because I cut a corner anywhere.”

[st_ormbreaker]

"So you could try using it now?"

[st_ratagem]

“I could. I don’t want to freeze my room, though, on the off chance that it actually helps.”

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor nods a head towards the balcony. "Why not go outside?"

[st_ratagem]

Loki sighed. “Is it really that important to you? Watching me fail?”

[st_ormbreaker]

"Why are you so convinced that you'll fail?" It's obvious from his tone of voice that Thor isn't here to see Loki fail.

[st_ratagem]

“Because I’ve failed consistently until now, and I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ll fail until I succeed once, and then I’ll go back to failing because I won’t know what I accidentally did right.” Loki flexed his bandaged hand, letting the sting from the healing cuts scour some frustration away. “Healing all over again, except I actually know how healing should work. It just doesn’t.”

[st_ormbreaker]

"For all your ridiculous schemes, you'd think you'd have more confident in your ability to pull something off." Thor is in utter belief of the lack of Loki's confidence in himself sometimes, in part because Loki didn't seem to have any doubts in himself when it came down to things like usurping the throne or conquering Earth, but also in part because Thor had astonishingly few self-doubts.