Skin Deep

An Avengers Fanfiction

A/N- Yes, I know I made crazy!fem!Loki OP, but it fit with the creep factor I'm going for.

Fourth and Final Part: Cutting the Cord

Without his eyes, the Observatory loses nearly all its purpose. A pair of palace guards are dispatched to monitor the ignition chamber though the key -Heimdall's sword- lies still and bloody where it fell from its wielder's hands. It is a dark reminder of the guard's orders. If Loki, the thing that was Loki, reappears they are not to attempt to bar his, her, its passage but to report.

Heimdall himself lies in the healing chambers tended by the best, but not even Asgard's magic can give back what was taken. As it was for Odin. As it is doubly so for the gatekeeper. Yet, even without his Sight Heimdall's senses are still far superior to any other's -save Odin on his High Seat- and though it takes him far longer to pinpoint the disturbance than he should… the trouble is conspicuous by absence.

He can't hear anything coming from Jotunheim. Not even the howl of wind.

He tells Thor this, and doesn't see the blood drain from his prince's face.

Jotunheim is very different from what Thor remembers. It had been a dreary place, the light from its too-distant sun filtering through soot-colored clouds, and each step a hazard to one not born there. In between moments of battle-frenzy, blood pumping like war drums in his ears, he'd seen nothing but ruins: long fallen column and broken down walls. Now, there is not even that.

Thor looks around from where the repaired Bifrost dropped them, and the sky is clear with not a cloud to be seen. Yet snow falls from no known source blanketing the landscape and turning broken cities to shadowed dips and cream-white hills. Once the flurry kicked up by their transport has died down, there is nothing but the fog of their own breath to disrupt the stillness.

"Shall we be off, then?" Fandral asks, voice filled with false cheer. Thor nods, and the crunch of frost under boots is nearly blasphemous in the silence of the snowfall.

It's unreasonably difficult to walk through snow that comes up to his thigh -in some places up to his neck- and without any real landmarks Thor just has to hope they are going in the right direction. In another time their slow progress would irritate him, and he'd swing his hammer with enough force to fly leaving his friends behind… friends who are even more miserable than him with memories weighing them down more than any melt-wet cloak.

It was here everything started.

It was Jotunheim that ripped the truth out of Loki, and his soul -his sanity- along with it. Jotunheim that speared Fandral and burned Volstagg. Jotunheim, their first venture in too long that was as far from any warrior's victory as could be.

"Thor, is that a tower?" Sif tugged her Prince's cloak, gesturing to what might have been a spire in the distance. "The city, perhaps?"

"'Tis likely." Thor conceded, adjusting their path to align with the gray-white line that clashed with the horizon.

Hogun's voice, grimly practical at the best and worst of times, drifted to them hushed and full of trepidation. "Friends, I… I cannot… see."

Not for the first time, Thor wondered if he shouldn't have just let Loki destroy the place.

Hogun was uncertain if he should be grateful the blindness had only been temporary. Snow-blindness, as Volstagg had identified, was a common ailment among Aesir during the first Aesir-Jotnar war though at the time it had been thought a dishonorable curse cast by Jotun mages. Given the choice he would have happily taken blissful ignorance to the tower-throne of ivory bone that greeted his eyes now.

The Lokadottir -Not Loki, never Loki, Loki had been many things but not this- sat dressed in a gown of body-hugging blue leather, a skull in her blood splattered hands. "Alas, poor Garm, I knew him well."

"What, what have you done?" Thor's voice was layered in hurt and confusion. No king should sound as such. "Why?"

"Do you hear that, sweet wind?" She questioned the air that seemed to collect about her, a warm breeze playing in her hair. "It seeks enlightenment from its goddess! How novel!"

"Loki!" Sif screamed, eyes wide and red and javelin drawn. "For what you have done to my brother… for what you have done to Jotunheim, I WILL HAVE VENGEANCE!"

"Sif!" Fandral.

"Wait!" He spoke, because couldn't Sif see that was not Loki. You could not speak or reason with Her as they would Loki - and when was the last time they had talked to Loki instead of going behind his back like… like they so often accused the trickster of?

"Sif, Stop!" Thor, desperation ringing true.

Their calls were unheeded, and unnecessary. She shifted on the throne of her people -bones, all ages and sizes, hands and heads and arms and children- and Hogun could taste bile as the leather -skins- rippled.

Sif's knees hit the ground as she clutched at her throat, her chest, and the Lokadottir smiled. "How many times must I tell you? The elements themselves bow to me. The sun is my suitor and the moon my handmaiden. You think the air is free? I hold his fealty, his loyalty. It is merely a matter of desire for the air to decide your lungs are unworthy… or for the water of your humors to think they would make the most wondrous home." Sif was coughing, now, each hack accompanied by a splash of red-tinted liquid that froze into a reflective pool. The Lokadottir's smile was gentle.

"You live on my sufferance, little gnat, and I grow weary of your buzzing."

She smiled, and she flew, following the voices of the distant stars. She danced, and contents cracked. She sung, and oceans rose. Fire licked at Her skin, Her loins, pleasured Her in ways she never dreamed.

And Loki, Loki became a cherished memory, a name spoken of in soft tones with longing.