All of the characters used here are drawn from actual Norse Mythology, though I take obscene liberties with their nature and portrayal, so, if anyone wants to be nit-picky about the truth of some things here...don't.

Five of the six figures crept nearly silently through the forest, while the sixth and slightest of them ghosted in their wake, moving on feet that were like the air flowing through the massive forest.

Stilling abruptly as he spotted their quarry, Thor motioned for the Warriors Three, the Lady Sif, and his little brother to stop. Moving in tandem as they had done countless times already, Sif, Hogun, Fandral, and Volstagg arranged themselves on either side of their leader, while Loki hung back in the role of diversion/support that he had practically been forced into.

Loki bit back a sigh as he saw the anticipatory smiles spreading across the faces of his five hunting companions. He could admit that he was slightly impatient to be done with it, but the hunt – which had been Thor's idea, and backed by Odin – was somewhat important since the princes' fifteenth century anniversary was in a few months.

It was going to be a celebration of such splendour that it would be sang about for eons to come. As was customary for the House of Odin, the two princes would be expected to present trophies to their parents, demonstrating their might and skills as warriors. The feast which would then follow, would last for ten days and be attended by ambassadors from all over the Nine Realms.

Thor, of course, was eagerly anticipating the event, and as a trophy, he had roped Loki into joining him and his group as they hunted down the legendary boar, Beigad, the most ferocious boar in all the Nine Realms.

Standing with its head at the shoulder level of a full grown Asgardian male, the fabled boar was a ferocious and frightening beast which was said to possess the strength of a hundred warriors. Many respected the boar for its tenacity and cunningness.

Yet Thor was confident in his ability to bring down the beast that had evaded Asgard's best hunters for over a thousand years, and in so doing, obtain its fabled golden tusks as trophy.

Gripping Mjölnir tighter as he prepared to launch himself at the boar which was in the process of drinking from the stream, Thor was only peripherally aware of a sigh from somewhere behind him.

Waiting for the last few seconds it took the rest to get in position, he flicked a glance behind him to find Loki standing there with an unimpressed look on his face as he stared Thor down with his cutting emerald gaze.

Flashing a brilliant grin at his little brother, Thor burst out of hiding like a gold and red blur with Mjölnir raised in anticipation of delivering a mighty blow.

At just under fifteen hundred years in age, Thor severely overestimated his battle prowess.

Turning its head, Beigad fixed the loudly bellowing nuisance with a gimlet eye, before suddenly executing a counter attack which left everyone present gaping in stunned shock, save for Loki who was rolling on the floor in laughter and Thor who was in no position to be doing much of anything.

A few yards from its back, Thor's eyes widened in surprise as the towering boar leaned forward on its forelegs and kicked back with its rear ones. He was barely able to get his hammer into a guard position when the mighty hoof met his body.

With an impressive boom of sound which left the trees around them swaying, Thor was launched like bullet into the base of one of the thickest trees in the area.

Once the dust settled, Sif, Hogun, Fandral, and Volstagg all bore stupefied looks on their faces as they took in a dazed and confused Golden Prince embedded in a tree a few hundred feet away.

Delighted peals of laughter had them reflexively scowling as their eyes landed on Loki, whose mirth was so great that he was actually bent over, grasping the tree next to him to keep his balance.

Beigad, for his part, merely went back to drinking from the stream while the Warriors attempted to gather their scattered wits.

With a grunt of effort, Thor extracted himself from his resting place and stumbled as he regained his footing.

Now with a fierce glare on his face, Thor fixed his eyes on his prey and prepared to show the beast the might of the son of Odin.

However, just as he was about to pounce, Beigad suddenly tossed its head up and without any warning, took off for deeper parts of the forest.

The boar moved so fast that neither Sif nor Fandral, whose job it had been to keep the boar in the clearing, were able to react in time.

Just as it looked like the boar would escape the clearing, thus making the hunt infinitely more difficult, it suddenly ground to a terrified halt as a huge black dragon crashed down in front of it with a bellow which caused the very air to tremble.

With the whites of its eyes showing in terror, Beigad hastily spun around and barrelled back towards the center of the clearing, obviously choosing to face Thor as the lesser of two evils.

Thor and his Warrior companions paled in alarm as they took in the new arrival, which was so huge that the top of its head almost cleared the ceiling of trees in the millennia old forest. However, before any of them could think of facing the dragon, it smirked at them before vanishing in a myriad of green and silver sparkles.

As one, they all turned to Loki who had a smirk identical to the one that had just adorned the draconian visage a moment ago.

Finally realizing that their pray was still present, they refocused on the now calmer boar, none of them even taking the time to thank Loki for his efforts, though the roll of his eyes clearly showed that he was not expecting any gratitude.

Now sporting a vicious grin, Thor slowly advanced on the huge boar while the rest of the Warriors approached from the other sides, keeping the great beast boxed in.

When they were close enough to it, they all shared bright grins before leaping forward in tandem, with identical battle cries on their lips.

And the rest, as they say, was history.

Making sure that he kept pace with his brother as they approached their parents' receiving room, Loki's face was blank though he was fuming inside.

Thor, the bloody oaf that he was, had managed to damage one of the two tusks of the creature, and he obviously saw nothing wrong in taking the untarnished tusk for himself.

Loki, when he had confronted Thor about it, did not bother to mention how it was his blow that had finally felled the might boar – having long since learned that Thor had something of a selective hearing when it came to such things – but rather, he had merely asked whether Thor expected him to quietly accept the lesser of the two trophies as his own.

Thor, with his customary lack of tact, had merely said,

"Well, everyone knows you are more of a seiðmenn than a warrior, no one would fault you for presenting that as a trophy."

Even after centuries of knowing him, Loki had still found himself speechless at Thor's unthinking remark.

Thor himself had been too oblivious to understand what the sudden blanking of his brother's face had meant, and instead had boisterously clapped him on the back and proceeded to saunter in the direction of his parents' rooms, never knowing that his words were the final straw for his already disillusioned brother.

Throwing open the doors to the Royal Chambers, Thor strode in with a bright smile on his face while Loki glided in behind him, all the while completely silent and stone faced.

Frigga took one look at her younger son's face and gave an aborted wince.

Rising from her seat, she moved forward to take him aside, hoping to undo whatever damage her other son had managed to wrought with his thoughtless words; she loved him dearly, but she had long since made peace with his occasional thoughtlessness.

However, before she could act, her husband came into the room and noticing the presence of his two sons, began to eagerly inquire about their hunt.

She didn't need the foresight of her race to know that this was not going to end well.

Loki swept passed the group of serving girls, absently noticing the alarm on their faces as they scrambled to get out of his way.

How dare he?

That was the one thought playing on a loop in his mind.

Odin had – in his own subtle and roundabout way – looked down upon Loki's part in the successful hunt, indirectly reaffirming what Thor had said earlier concerning Loki's general achievements as a warrior and a seiðmenn.

He would not stand for it.

Just as he arrived at the unused door that was his final destination, he spared a moment to glance around with both his eyes and his already powerful magical senses, before he slipped silently into the dusty old storeroom which was empty of anything save the barely detectable rift in the fabric of the universe.

With a determined stride, Loki did not hesitate as he walked into the tear in space, dropping into the regions between the realms, and effortlessly navigating his way towards his final destination…Muspelheim.

Loki panted harshly while he waited for his healing spells to finish their work. Once again, he thanked his own foresight in crafting the frame retardant gear that currently graced his lithe form – even if it had taken him twelve years of experimentation and failed results; it was the only thing keeping him alive at this point.

Across the hellish battlefield, his foe also recovered from their recent bout, putting off such vast amounts of heat that Loki, standing hundreds of feet away, was forced to maintain a low level shield to keep himself from slowly roasting alive.

Across from the dark haired prince, and standing at the height of a small mountain, the crimson colored dragon breathed small licks of flame from its nose while it tended to some of its own injuries. An offspring the renowned dwarf Hriedmar, the dragon was a magnificent beast whose reputation as a ferocious fighter had spread across all the Nine Realms. Its command of fire magics, combined with its prodigious strength made it one of the most powerful fire elementals in existence, second only to the legendary demon king Surtur.

With a rumbling that seemed like an ancient volcano waking up, the great fire drake, Fafnir, suddenly broke out into deep laughter even while the great gouges which marred his magnificent scales bled with molten blood.

Loki, slightly confused, though he was still on guard, aimed a quizzical stare at the chuckling dragon.

Getting over his mirth, Fafnir spoke to the perplexed prince,

"Long has it been since another has matched me so well in battle. For three days and three nights now we have warred, and still I see you are able to press on."

In response to the implied question, Loki simply bared his teeth in a fierce smile, thus eliciting rumbling laughter from his opponent once more.

Speaking up before Loki could actually resume the fight, Fafnir continued,

"However, I sense that a battle was not your initial purpose in seeking me out. You have shown valour in this battle, and for that reason alone I will give ear to your plea."

Pausing for a moment to dissect the creature's words, Loki finally asked,

"You have given your word to give ear to my request, yet you make no mention of actually granting it."

Loki's words caused Fafnir to throw his head back at roar with laughter for a handful of minutes. When the laughter finally died down into the occasional chuckle, the great dragon fixed one of its huge slitted eyes on Loki, and contemplated his words for a few seconds, before finally nodding to himself once he reached a final decision.

"Very well, little ice prince, though you have battled well these three days and are willing to continue, I see the fatigue in your body. Come, show me one last act of your might and if I am impressed, I will grant your request."

Thinking carefully on the creature's words, Loki finally gave a nod of silent agreement.

Taking a deep breath to center himself, Loki began to gather the remnants of his vast magical reserves in preparation for one last weaving. Marshalling his flagging energy, Loki dug deeper than he ever had before…past the point where Frigga – as his instructor in magic – had warned him never to go. When he felt that he had harvested all that his body had to offer, he began to tug and pull on the accumulated energy, coaxing it with a master's touch into the form that he wanted.

Once he was satisfied that his spell was ready, he flashed a slightly maniacal grin at the Fire Drake, delighting in his widened eyes just as he released the spell.

On account of the feeling of the torrent of energy rushing out of him, Loki failed to notice two facts.

One, as the spell was taking form, a part of him, hidden beneath golden and powerful magic, surged forward in eagerness at the working taking place, managing to slip a sliver of itself past the golden lid placed on it.

Two, Fafnir's surprise had nothing to do with the magic he had managed to accumulate, but rather was as a result of the brief flash of red eyes and black markings that had appeared on Loki's face for an instant.

Once all the energy had left him, Loki found himself collapsing to his knees, thoroughly spent and unable to do anything but watch as the white light – with a tinge of arctic blue – began to coalesce in the air between the two combatants.

The light collapsed in on itself, again and again, as though it were being folded by some great hand, until finally, only a speck, so tiny in comparison to its initial size, was all that was left.

The speck of light finally resolved itself into a single snowflake of such startlingly detail that for a moment, Fafnir was impressed with the tiny work. However, it was not impressive enough, and as he opened his mouth to point this out to the harshly panting dark haired prince, the snowflake finally landed in the middle of one of the pools of lava which dotted the landscape.

To the great dragon's surprise, it did not immediately melt into oblivion.

It exploded into a snowstorm.

It was thanks to his reflexes, honed over countless millennia, that Fafnir was able to wrap himself in the hottest flames that he could summon in the short time as a veritable Ice Age was brought down upon the lava plains of Muspelheim.

A front of cold rushed past both fighters, leaving Fafnir almost shivering and Loki feeling somewhat rejuvenated.

Once the last of the wave of frost had passed, Fafnir looked around and felt his jaw drop in disbelief as his reptilian gaze took in the numerous formations of ice where before there had only been molten rock and lava pools.

Once his gaze had finished roving the vastly transformed landscape and returned to face Loki, he stilled when he noticed the ice structure reaching towards the darkened skies.

Rising up like the monument it was supposed to be was a cone of ice, as wide as a man at its base and half as tall as Fafnir himself, bearing at its pointed peak, a larger version of the initial snowflake, now big enough for all the details to be appreciated. In the center of the snowflake was an emblazoned spinning wheel set up against a back drop depicting heron plumes…the insignia of the goddess Frigga.

For a few heartbeats, both occupants of the now frozen landscape just silently observed all that the one had wrought, before Fafnir finally moved.

Dropping the fire magics that had cloaked and protected him, he gazed down at the slightly recovered prince.

"Very well, young one, though it is not a direct display of might as one might expect, I am still impressed."

As a wide smile was breaking out across Loki's face, Fafnir moved his massive head forward until his snout was able to touch Loki's chest.

Loki, who was relaxed now that the battle was over, looked up at the Fire Drake in silent question.

In lieu of a verbal response, Fafnir coaxed the eternal fires that burned in his soul, and using them, he forged a connection with the kneeling ice prince.

Loki felt his eyes widening in humbled awe as the connection revealed to him the sheer power contained in the majestic dragon before him. He was now aware that all his efforts had only managed to put a small dent in the creature's vast stores of energy.

While Loki was marvelling at the godly power contained in the dragon, Fafnir was weaving a spell of his own, and with a great shudder that Loki felt down to his very core, the spell was loosed.

Immediately Loki felt a gentle warmth beginning to take root in the center of his being, and the moment his focus had turned to it, it flared with the brilliance of a new born star, causing him to let loose a soundless scream of ecstasy pain as the scorching heat began to change him on the most fundamental level.

After what seemed like years, the heat receded until it was just a soothing warmth again, prompting him to come back into his body to find himself lying against a warm body which resolved itself into Fafnir who was curled up around him.

Shakily getting to his feet, Loki felt his strength returning far faster than he expected, and he thus he opened his mouth to snarl at the dragon when the beast beat him to the punch,

"I have given you a gift, Dark Prince…I have given you…Fire."

Halting his diatribe before it could begin, Loki sent his senses searching inward and marvelled at the change he found. Where before he had been experiencing a subtle drain on his energy on account of the heat of the realm he was in, now, he felt a soft influx of energy which was returning vitality to his body.

Fafnir observed as the little prince discovered the changes done to him with a look of wonder on his face. The connection he had forged with the mageling had revealed the magics shrouding the young one's true nature from even him. However, he was old and cunning, and the brief flash of red eyes and black markings which he had seen, as well as the current state of his domain, let him draw his own conclusions about what that hidden nature truly was.

Thus, now that he had bestowed upon the princely sorcerer his little gift, he had removed the weakness the prince's people had, and granted him a strength no one else would expect. He chuckled lowly to himself as he thought about what delicious chaos would follow in the little one's wake.

Loki snapped out of his reverie at the sound of the deep chuckle coming from his companion, and turned to look at him.

Noticing the sorcerer's attention, Fafnir uncurled from around Loki and got to his feet, causing some tremors in the ground as he moved his bulk. Letting loose a small snort of flame, he turned his gaze onto the patient prince and spoke, while crouching down nearer to the floor,

"I have seen into your mind, princeling, and I will grant your request. Climb on, and I will take you to my father that his craftsmen might see to your demands."

With a grateful nod of his head, Loki crouched and launched himself skyward, effortlessly clearing the distance to the top of Fafnir's shoulders, where he chose to seat out of the way of the Fire Drake's wings.

With a mighty bellow that shook the air, Fafnir launched himself into the sky, traveling far faster than a creature of his size had a right to.

Mounted on his back, and sporting a joyous grin, Loki's happy laughter was snatched up by the wind as the pair flew into a portal that Fafnir had opened up.

Odin's single eye roved across the hall as numerous dignitaries mingled with their voices running together into a background hum of noise while everyone waited for the main event to begin.

Loki was late.

Odin closed his one eye and bit back a sigh as his thoughts turned to his estranged younger son.

Sometime in Loki's childhood, he had begun to pull back from both his father and his brother, electing instead to spend time in the presence of his mother, Frigga. At first, Odin had seen nothing wrong and had easily written off the vague sense of unease he had felt as a small feeling of loss when only one blond haired child trailed after him begging him for stories instead of one blond and one brunette.

However, that vague seed of unease had bloomed into a stronger sense of worry when Loki had made it clear that he would pursue the mastery of seidr over the sword. That is not to say that he was not a skilled warrior; no, for all that Odin knew he often times over looked his younger son's exploits, even he had to accept that Loki was unusually gifted with bladed weapons of all kinds, though he seemed to prefer twin swords.

Still, now with his sons at the cusp of adulthood, Odin could say with some faint amounts of shame that he only truly knew one of his sons.

His wife, Frigga, had even ceased in her efforts to get him to spend more time with his younger son after Odin had, ironically, accused her of favouring one son over the other. Even now, hundreds of years later, he could still remember the look of pity mingled with sadness as she had looked him in his eye, before finally acquiescing and dropping the topic.

And as Odin looked around the hallway at the various ambassadors from across the Nine Realms, he was forcefully reminded of an incident months before when his two sons had returned victorious from hunting the fabled boar, Beigad. Thor had come bearing a magnificent tusk made of luminous gold, while Loki had possessed the lesser and blemished of the two.

Odin was not a fool.

He could easily divine the truth from his son's words but in this matter his hands were tied. Thor was to be king of Asgard and to that effect, the people had to see him as Odin's natural successor. That meant that of the two brothers, Thor had to be the stereotypical golden child.

The loss of Odin's eye had only made his eyesight keener, and so he saw that although Thor was a great warrior already, his younger brother far outstripped him in sheer talent. Odin was aware that if Loki applied himself to the study of the sword, as much as he did to the study of seidr, then in a few hundred years, he would be Asgard's greatest warrior. Not the strongest, no, for on account of the very blood that flowed in Thor's veins, Thor would always possess greater strength than his brother. But in the application of that strength, Loki would always be the better.

He had gotten glimpses of his younger son's intellect, gleaned from the comments of the tutors employed to teach his children, and he was already wary.

He had once hoped that Loki would serve as his brother's counsel, using his cunning and sharp mind to balance and direct Thor's forceful nature, but as he recalled the expression on Loki's face when Thor had spoken of the battle with Beigad, he knew that it was already too late.

Somehow, while they had not been looking, Loki had slipped away from them, somewhere they could no longer reach him.

Odin's thoughts would have continued in this spiral but a sudden rise in the volume of the voices around him had him refocusing on the feast in time to witness the arrival of his second son.

Adorned in elegant clothes of green, black, and silver, Loki was the very picture of royalty, and as he moved, the light reflected off the few adornments in his hair, drawing the eyes to the simple yet striking ornament in his rich black locks.

Flowing through the crowd with a smile on his face, Loki charmed all the guests who had chosen to grace the halls of the Golden Realm, and thus by the time he reached the dais where his family sat, he had left in his wake, a crowd of admirers composed of some of the most powerful ambassadors from places like Alfheim, Svartalfheim, and other lesser realms.

Odin, seeing that they were all present, rose to his feet and slammed Gungnir into the floor, eliciting a wave of silence originating from his position.

Once he had the attention of all those present, he began,

"Honoured guests and visiting dignitaries, Asgard welcomes you into our halls and to our tables. We gather here in this hour, to celebrate the lives of my sons, the princes Thor and Loki Odinson. As is customary, they have obtained trophies demonstrating their might as heirs of the house of Odin and the golden realm. Together, they hunted down and slew the legendary boar, Beigad, obtaining from him his fabled pair of gold tusks."

At his words, the entire hall erupted into raucous cheering, though the loudest was from Thor's band of friends, the Warriors Three and the Lady Sif.

Once the hubbub had died down, Odin motioned for Thor and Loki to step forward, and the two did so, standing side by side…the sun and the moon.

Stepping forward, Thor produced his own golden tusk with a flourish and raised it high, once more prompting a round of cheering from those gathered.

Turning to his father, he bowed respectfully while offering the trophy to his sire as was customary.

Odin received the offering with a smile on his face and a loving pat on his son's shoulder.

Standing back up and moving aside, Thor made way for Loki who moved forward to repeat the same actions.

Once he produced his own tusk, some of the warriors of Asgard, seeing how the tusk paled in comparison to Thor's own, broke out into laughter though they along with everyone else still applauded him. However, some people – Odin included – noticed that the loudest cheering came not from the Asgardians present, but from the other visiting dignitaries.

Like his brother, Loki turned and bowed to Odin, while presenting his own gift.

Smiling at his younger son, Odin received the gift from him and patted him on the shoulder as well.

Straightening up, and instead of returning to his place next to his brother, Loki turned to face his mother, causing a wave of confused mumbling to spread through the hall.

Odin raised his hand for silence as they all watched Loki enact a part of the coming of age ceremony that had long since fallen into disuse.

Odin, knowing how much Loki was fond of Frigga, was the first person to realize what Loki was doing.

It was customary, in the coming of age ceremony, for the child to present trophies to both his parents. However, Asgard, being such a patriarchal society, had long since discontinued the giving of gifts to the female parent, leaving it only for the father.

Now, Loki was doing just that.

As those gathered realized what was happening, certain individuals sat up and took notice.

Looking on from the safety of her disguise as just a visiting noble, Alflyse, the Queen of the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim, smirked as she watch the Asgardian warriors shift uneasily all around the hall when Loki made it clear that he intended to honour the queen with a trophy of her own.

She knew that Asgard was alone in its philosophy of male dominance since all the other Realms recognized their own women as equally important, as evidenced by her own position as queen and sole ruler of her realm. Still, she delighted in the chaos that the second prince was staring up and she made a mental note to run into him sometime during the course of the celebrations.

Bowing to his mother, Loki looked past her and nodded his head to someone no one else could see.

Suddenly, like shadows emerging from the darkness, the Asynjur, eleven hand maidens sworn to serve and protect the lady Frigga to the death, assembled in a loose arc around the queen, causing many of those present to draw back in surprise at the appearance of the fabled shadow guard of the queen.

Steeping forward and once more drawing the focus of those present to him, Loki spoke up for all to hear,

"To the daughters of Freya, who serve and defend Asgard's most beloved treasure, I offer you these tools, that they may aid you as you protect the Queen of the Golden Realm."

And with a small gesture, the air in front of Loki shimmered and fell away to reveal eleven gleaming pieces of armour, beautifully crafted and humming with powerful magics.

The people present gasped as they took in the dwarven crafted armour.

Speaking up after everyone had gotten the chance to marvel at the armour, Loki said,

"Crafted from the freely given scales of the Great Fire Drake, Fafnir, and forged in the fires of the heart of Nidavellir by the noble dwarf, Hriedmar, may they serve you well."

The eleven hand maidens bowed in gratitude to Loki, having come to develop a soft spot for the prince who spent so much time with their loved queen and brought a loving light to her eyes.

Some of those gathered, knowing something of the disposition of the dragon Fafnir, enthusiastically speculated about the means by which Loki must have convinced the dragon to part with some of his scales.

Hriedmar, Fafnir's sire, hearing some of these speculations, spoke up, thus silencing some of those who were suggesting that Loki had used treachery of some form,

"Anyone who can impress my son in battle as the young prince has done deserves such a trophy, and my skills as a craftsman."

Eyes widened when their owners understood that Loki had actually battled the great fire drake and thus obtained the gifts from him. Many of those in the crowd now gazed at the second prince with new eyes, wondering if they had been too hasty in their judgement of him.

As the maidens prepared to return to their posts, the pieces of armour shimmered before vanishing only to reappear on each of their bodies, fitting perfectly to their curves.

Then the foreigners present broke out into cheers and applause as the handmaidens finally took their leave.

As he patiently waited for the noise to die down, Loki calmly met Odin's eye and gazed back steadily at the piercing stare being directed his way. He was not unaware of the consequences of his actions before the entire court of Asgard, but he found that he had no regret in his heart.

The moment he noticed the silence, he turned to his mother and offered the last and greatest of his trophies.

Reaching his hand into the air in front of him, Loki slowly drew it back, revealing a beautiful sword in the grip of his hand.

Once the sword was fully drawn, Loki thrust it above his head for all to gaze and marvel at its fine craftsmanship.

Possessing a length slightly shorter than the one handed swords favoured by the Dark Elves, the sword's blade was made of a material which gave the impression of countless galaxies with stars dying and being birthed anew. It was a blade that was at once transparent and opaque and seemed to contain a piece of the cosmos at its center. The mind boggling blade was mounted on a silver hilt adorned with Frigga's emblem.

Loki handled the blade with noteworthy skill and the sword cut through the air leaving in its wake a symphony of such sweet music that some people caught themselves thinking that it wouldn't be such a tragedy to get slain by the blade.

As soon as they realized what they were thinking, many of them flinched in shock and centered their gazes on a now smirking Loki.

Turning back to his mother, Loki dropped to one knee and presented the magnificent sword to her.

Frigga rose with envious grace and moved forward to accept the tribute.

Drawing her son up from his position, she enfolded him in a hug to the loud approval of those gathered.

With the presentation of trophies out of the way, the feast really kicked into high gear, and as people once more began to mingle and talk about the recent events, they were not talking about Thor's golden trophy or Loki's blemished tusk, no, they spoke only of Loki's gifts to Frigga and her handmaidens, and how they eclipsed Thor's gifts to Odin.

And as Odin had foreseen, though perhaps not exactly as he had hoped for, word of the magnificent trophies presented by one of the princes of Asgard spread throughout all the Nine Realms, and many were in awe of his might…Loki, the Dark Prince as he was called.

The chattering of hundreds of people reached his ears long before his footsteps took him to the grand doors adorning the entrance of his destination. With the ease of long practice gained from meandering through countless worlds, Loki slipped into the great dining hall with no one the wiser. That is, no one save Frigga who had been watching out for his arrival.

Gracefully rising to her feet, Frigga waved away Thor's questioning look as she stepped forward with her arms rising to embrace her beloved son.

Those present in the hall, having their attention drawn to the raised dais where the royal family dined, fell silent as they finally noticed the presence of the younger prince in their midst.

Firmly embracing the woman whose love had saved him from a life of bitterness and self-hatred, Loki took a moment to breathe in the scent of home and acceptance and love, before finally stepping back with a small smile on his face.

Beside his mother, Thor found that he couldn't take his eyes off of his little brother, though little was no longer a word he could ascribe to him.

In all the confusion of Amora's thwarted attack, no one had had the time or the opportunity to notice the changes that time had wrought on the dark haired sorcerer prince in the three hundred years of his absence.

Whereas before Loki had always been slight to the point of seeming frail, with cheekbones that were too sharp and skin that was so pale as to be sickly, now he was another vision altogether.

Standing at a height that was a scant inch or two taller than Thor himself, Loki did not possess the sheer bulk of Odin or his son, but he could no longer be called thin; his was a figure that would be the envy of swordsmen across all the realms. His smooth gait and his elegant physique clearly spoke of a body that was forged to dance with steel to a melody of death.

Most of the seasoned warriors in the crowd noted the similarity Loki's physique bore to the Ljósálfar (Light Elves) of Alfheim, though he moved with the fluid gait of one of the Svartálfar (Dark Elves) from Svartalfheim. Knowing what they did of the combat prowess of those races, many of them revised the threat level of the dark haired prince.

Catching movement from the corner of his eye, Loki turned to find Odin standing from his seat at the table, prompting a curtain of silence to descend upon the entire hall.

With a voice that effortlessly carried to all present, he announced,

"It pleases me, as I am sure it pleases you, to see one of Asgard's sons returned home. And now, to celebrate, let us feast at the return of one of our own. Welcome back, my son."

Raising his goblet towards Loki, Odin nodded his head just as a cheer of approval went up from those gathered in the hall.

Inclining his head respectfully at his monarch, Loki straightened and took in the celebration currently unfolding around him.

If he wasn't aware of Asgard's penchant to find an excuse to celebrate and consume mead at the slightest provocation, he would have thought that they were actually happy to see him.

Still, he was not so blind as to fail to notice the remorseful looks on some of their faces as they took him in, and although no mention had been made about his effort in thwarting Amora – after all, it wouldn't do for the Allfather to acknowledge Asgard's weakness – he knew that many minds were disquieted by Amora's gloating words.

Sighing softly to himself, he turned at a touch on his arm to meet his mother's soft and knowing smile. Shaking off his heavy thoughts, he followed his mother's gentle urging and took the seat next to her, allowing himself to be drawn into a discussion about his travels, while ignoring the slightly saddened look in the eyes of his brother.

Even though Loki tried to lose himself in the conversation going on around him, there was a part of him that suddenly felt out of place in the golden halls of Asgard…a part of him that longed not for gold but for arctic blue…and not for gentle warmth, but for biting cold.

Somehow, when he thought of home, Asgard was no longer the place that came to mind.

And so, with the image of towering ice spires and red eyes set against a blue face adorned with elegant black markings in the back of his mind, Loki finally dedicated all his focus to his mother's words as he tried to enjoy the feast around him.