Loki scraped his knees as he collapsed to them when they arrived through the Bifrost.

It was so bright! He had never been in so much direct light, and he was blinded by it, a powerful spear of ache lancing through his head from his eyes. Tears leaked down his cheeks; he clutched Litner so hard the wolf keened in pain. He immediately eased up, the light powerful even through his clenched eyelids, and felt Litner wash his face with his tongue—felt but did not see.

Dimly, through his pain, he heard the Aesir laugh at his weakness. Shame pierced him and he bared his teeth like an animal. Someone wrenched Litner from his arms, and thick fingers, calloused and frighteningly strong, clawed through his scalp and took a fistful of his hair, yanking his head back with prickling lines of agony to expose his neck.

Something happened to his skin then. The heat cooled, until everything was still too warm but a much more comfortable temperature. His hair, so rare in Jotnar men, felt different, softer. Loki let a light pulse of magic show him the room, the crowded, wary Aesir and Litner whining and snapping against his hobbling with leather thongs, a muzzle being fixed over his snout.

The hand in his hair loosened from shock. "What sorcery is this?" a voice exclaimed.

"Laufey's son is half Aesir." This could only be the All-Father. He sounded much more tired than he had. "Bring him to a guest chamber. We will decide what to do with him there."

"No."

"Thor—"

"They murdered Balder! By the nine realms, father, how can you treat this bilious filth as our guest? I will lead our warriors back if this unfair recompense isn't dealt with properly!"

"You would betray the direct order of your king?" Odin sounded dangerous when he said it, so dangerous that Thor, the powerful golden man, said no more for a few minutes.

"If I do not spill the blood of one of those monsters, I cannot rest easy. Please, father."

At least there was reluctance in the bastard's voice when the All-Father finally, and to cheers, said yes.

"Bring the mutt," Thor said.

The hand in his hair, now revealed to be Thor's, dragged him outside in a frog-march, and then tossed him by his hair over some soft, earthy-smelling beast's back, probably the horses he had read so much about. The pain, on top of what was burning from the light, was excruciating enough he screamed. Then muscular thighs spread next to him, and he rode somewhere he couldn't see, the world a mess of the animal's shoulder blades jerking against his chest, crushing out breath, and colors that were slowly solidifying to shapes behind his streaming eyes.

Hard thumps of the beast's hooves changed to sharp clacks against flagstones, and the scent the animal's coat was giving off multiplied by the thousands, entwined with the scent of excrement and grains Loki had only seen on Nornheim and in imports. Horses eat a coarse grass called hay, his mind supplied.

It felt unreal to be here. Loki had read about it so many times, this foreign place full of brutish people, and wished he could see the great architecture that paintings and drawings could never capture in full. Unfortunately, things were still hazy, though it was a little easier to see once they passed out of the direct light of Asgard's sun and into the stables.

The beast's leathery sides were leaking salty water and minerals, heaving with breath. Having once read a treatise taken from Asgard on the difference between Jotnar and Asgardian secretions, he knew the name of this too: sweat. Jotnar didn't sweat, which was the main reason he was surprised to be feeling dampness trickling down his back and collecting underneath his own arms, which, when he clutched himself, he found frightening.

They were soft as the finest silk, and his ridges were gone. The swirl that had led up to his elbow since his earliest memories was yielding and smooth. It felt foreign, and evil.

"What have you done to me?" Loki asked, his first real addition to the otherwise lack of conversation.

Thor snorted, now blurry but recognizable as himself. "You think I do not see your tricks, Jotun?"

"If I were tricking you, Asgardian, I would not be so obvious about it, believe me. You would never suspect the trick," Loki hissed in return.

"Treacherous little snake, aren't you?"

"Treachery against a porcine object like yourself wouldn't be worth the effort," Loki sneered.

In punishment, Thor gripped Loki's two wrists in one hand and yanked him unkindly past the muted browns of the stable, through a door and across a courtyard, Loki dizzy from the momentary sun, and then into a palace. Loki was marched down a series of wide, sumptuous halls hung with richly-colored cloth that swayed, as if from breath. It was littered with man-sized statues of precious metals—gold, silver, bronze—that were slowly gaining definition to Loki, lit by pots filled with fire. Most of the statues held weapons, unlike those of Jotunheim, where statues were primarily pictured in simple, day-to-day tasks.

Loki tried to catch glimpses of the stranger filling his space in the metal mirrors Asgardians put where a Jotnar would put wall-ice. He saw flashes of a pale white face and large eyes of a barbarian green, a halo of black hair pulled down into a short braid, and long, lanky, but still graceful limbs. Whenever the fair Asgardian and his strange captive passed a mirror, Loki dug his feet in to resist, bewildered by his appearance and wanting a better look, but was merely dragged, making him stumble over carpets and stairs. Servants passed him, kowtowing and staring. Non-servants, Aesir nobles or similar, bowed and watched the spectacle the two were making with baffled curiosity.

Though Loki was near Thor's height, his build was slight. Thor was pure muscle, and used it to his advantage, nearly dragging Loki's arm from its socket.

Loki was feeling distinctly petulant, his headache calming finally, by the time they turned around a bend where there were less people and walked through a door with guards standing at the ready outside, the first door since the entranceway they'd actually used.

This led to a comfortable series of halls and sitting rooms farther in. Thor knew where he was going, leading past cushy chairs and tables with carved feet of men and animals thoughtlessly, until they reached a locked door. The Odinson had its key. No sooner was the portal opened than Loki was hurled through it, almost falling flat on his face. His pride in his ability to catch himself was swallowed by his embarrassment for yelping and clutching at his right arm, which had let out a loud crunch from the force of the throw. His arm tingled unpleasantly to the fingertips, but it wasn't dislocated.

A rack of armor and weaponry, practice and otherwise, took up an entire wall twenty paces from the entry, which was only one of several doors in this room. Few books graced the shelves on the other end, which mostly held trinkets and fine statues from all the nine realms, including several Jotnar. Most of the books that there were had more to do with weaponry and battle than sorcery or statesmanship, Loki saw.

He turned, back straight, and faced his tormentor with pride that befitted a prince of Jotunheim.