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.

Comments

[st_ormbreaker]

"The why doesn't matter," Thor says. "What matters is that you tried."

[st_ratagem]

“The why matters to me.” Loki held up his bandage dhand - still blue like the rest of him - and looked at it. “I hate this, you know.”

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor looks down at Loki's hand, then up to Loki's face and frowns. "Being frost giant?"

[st_ratagem]

Loki nodded, closing and repening a fist as if watching it fascinated him. “The nightmare Asgardian mothers frighten their children with. The monster you wanted to destroy for most of our lives. And yet I have to be one. A defective one, at that.”

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor watches as Loki opens and closes his fist.

"For the record, my stance on Frost Giants has since changed," Thor says. He is still ashamed of his previous position. He was even before Loki called him out directly; he'd just never talked about it."My opinion here probably doesn't matter, but I never saw you as defective. Different, maybe, but not defective."

[st_ratagem]

“It’s not a question of opinion. It’s a fact. I was thrown away for being defective. Too small, not particularly strong. Probably other reasons about which I know nothing.” He shrugged, “I’m not anything, really, which is appropriate for me, and maybe if I have some minimum level of competence it will bother me less.”

[st_ormbreaker]

"How much do you know about the Christmas stories Midgardians tell their children?"

The question probably seems to come out of nowhere given the current topic of conversation, but Thor is going to use it to drive a point.

[st_ratagem]

“Very little. It’s nothing I’ve had cause to learn.” Thor thought it was relevant somehow, so Loki was willing to play along.

[st_ormbreaker]

"There's this person named Santa Claus who has this little workshop up at the North Pole. On Christmas Day, he delivers toys to all the good boys and girls on a sleigh driven by flying reindeer."

The basics, first.

"There was this one reindeer, Rudolph, though, who wasn't normal. His nose was red and it glowed and he was mocked and cast out for it. He tried to hide the nose -- tried to cover it up so he looked like everyone else, but that didn't really work, either."

[st_ratagem]

“Ridiculous story so far.” And obvious, but Thor wouldn’t be satisfied until he told it in full.

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor continues, choosing not to address Loki's quip.

"Christmas came one night and it was too foggy for anyone to be able to see anything. There was no way that Santa would be able to fly his sleigh and deliver toys around the world. It wasn't until then that Santa and the other reindeer realized Rudolph's worth. It had always been there -- they had all just failed to see it."

[st_ratagem]

“A very sweet story of a world populated by gormless idiots incapable of lighting lanterns. What of it?”

[st_ormbreaker]

"You're Rudolph here," he says, directing a finger at his brother. "All the other reindeer thought Rudolph was defective because he was different, but those aren't one in the same."

[st_ratagem]

“I shall bear your idiot story in mind should I ever go to Jotunheim to bring it to heel.” It was an possibility, with Asgard going to be gone, his not-arrived-yet welcome on a trash world worn out, and Midgard not an option.

[st_ormbreaker]

"I like the story!" Thor protests.

[st_ratagem]

“It is a very you story,” Loki granted. “Saccharine, simplistic, reliant on the nonexistence of normal objects like lanterns in order to get to the moral point you want to make, ending very tidily before rational consequences follow so it can stay ‘happy’.”

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor huffs in response. "Why can't you just enjoy the story, Loki?"

[st_ratagem]

“I’m sorry, have you met me?”

[st_ormbreaker]

"You know what I mean, though. You. Rudolph."

[st_ratagem]

“And if I was concerned by the rejection of my fellow Jotunn it might be closer to equivalent on the stupid versus heartwarming scale. But I am not and it’s a ridiculous story.” Loki made an effort to keep his tone even rather than letting it sharpen: it wasn’t Thor’s fault he had no concept of feeling uncomfortable in one’s own skin. “I’m concerned with myself, nothing more. When I say I’m not anything it’s because that’s how it is, and I’d like to be as much at peace with it as I can.”

[st_ormbreaker]

"You're not concerned by the rejection of your fellow Asgardian?"

[st_ratagem]

“Happened a long time ago, got used to it a long time ago.” Loki opted to leave aside the ‘also, not actually Asgardian’ argument. His mind was Asgardian, more or less, and that had always been the more important part to him.

[st_ormbreaker]

"Getting used to it doesn't make it any less unpleasant," Thor says. He nods his head towards Loki's staff. "Can I pick it up? It won't do anything to me, will it?"

[st_ratagem]

Loki turned the staff in his hands, then shrugged and tossed it at Thor. “It shouldn’t. I doubt it will feel pleasant to you,” it was almost Loki in inanimate stick form, and he was not a pleasant person, “but I put no locks on it.”

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor catches it and by reflex braces his arm, as if expecting it to do something despite his brother's assurances. As much-improved as their relationship has been lately, Loki was still the God of Mischief and magical items were still magical items.

But, when Thor's fingers clamp down around the staff, he finds that there's nothing more than the normal expected magical enchantments. It's cold and unhappy and feels like Loki even though it's just made of wood and blood and magic.

Thor turns it around in his hand, feeling out the weight of it. It feels solid and strong.

"So how much practice do you need to get in before we can make snow?"