Asgardians

Once a year in Asgard were the games. They were a series of competitions involving sports such as fighting and running and weight lifting. There was also drinking, because no Asgardian event was complete without a drinking competition. Sometimes there was also a riddles competition, which was the only one Loki enjoyed, though knife throwing was not too bad.

The games started at dawn with a run.

The idea was that they emulated some long ago competion that taught humility. A boy had had to race against thought without knowing who it was that he raced. As no one could outrun thought, the boy lost and continued to lose each time he demanded a rerun. At last, after coming so very close, he was forced to admit defeat. It was not until later that the boy had learnt who it was that he had raced and that it would have been impossible to defeat his oponent.

There was more to that story, but that part explained the presence of a challenging race that included at least one mountain, depending if the judges were feeling kind or not. The judges were Odin and Heimdall, so there were usually more. Throughout the race competetors were supposed to find it impossibly hard and humiliating and rely on their pride to push them through.

Loki had always like the story. She appreciated a good trick and did not mind an occasional humbling. However, she did not like the race.

As a prince of the realm Loki always had to take part in the games. She looked for every excuse to get out of them, but rarely succeed in finding one good enough to sway her father.

It was not so much the games that were the problem. Despite not being as good as her brother or her other friends, she was by no means bad and easily better than many others in the games.

The games were split though. Male and female. The men took part. The women, theoretically did the same thing, just seperate, in reality the games were warped so much for the women to protect them or whatever that they were much different. Especially on a day like today, Loki struggled with this. Despite the women's biases, Loki hated being classed as male and made to act as such infront of the watching eyes of the entire realm. It was just further proof that she would never really be seen as anything else.

It was an obligation though, and as little as she cared for her responsibilities in general, there was only so much her father would allow.

So now she found herself standing shoulder to shoulder crammed between her brother and a random soldier she thought she had seen before but could not recall the name of. The others were on her brother's other side, except for Sif, who, despite her widely acknowledged prowess, was not allowed to participate in the games. They had all argued strongly against this, but the all father had been firm; this was a line he would not cross.

Loki was not sure where she was, but she wished more than anything that she was with her right now. Anywhere would be better than here to be honest.

Despite the early hours, the first bright rays of the sun had already burnt away any lingering morning fog and dried the due on the grass. It cast the buildings arround them in a falsely golden light.

They were on the edge of the city here, looking out over the veiw of mountains and nature in the middle of Asgard. Soon the horns would blow and the race would begin.

"Looking forward to this?" Asked her brother, elbowing her in the rib.

Loki had no idea why he was looking so excited. She could not see anything to be excited about.

"Sure," she hissed, it had been an unnecessarily hard elbow.

"Nothing like a morning run to prepare for a hard day," continued Thor.

"Mhm,"

"Scared you'll lose, Loki?" Snorted Fandral, looking past Thor to Loki.

"No," she said, with more confidence than she felt, "Why? Are you?"

The sudden blast of the horn echoed before he could answer and they were all soon swept apart in the stampeed of pounding feet and dashing bodies.
The odour of sweat was already in the air as Loki fought for space in the disordered charge of men, but she ignored it. For now all she need concern herself with was getting out of the crowd.

She had no doubt Thor and the rest of them would regroup somewhere ahead, but she had no intention of joining them. It probably looked bad or something, but that wasn't really her problem, at least, not yet.

For now, she focussed on get ahead of the main throng, but not quite catching Thor.

It was not hard. Despite everything, she had never really been too much worse than Thor. She had been forced to train just as much as him and did not always hate it.

Just ahead there was a tight turn in the path as it ran in a gully between two climbing slopes.

Beyond that point she would be incisible to the runners still someway behind her for a short while and it was unlikely anyone infront would look back.

After turning the corner she lept nimbly off the path amd began to scramble a short way up the steep slope.

The stones slipped beneath her feet and hands as she pulled herself up, but she was fimiliar with this path by now.

Reaching for the sparse shrubbery on the rocky slope, she managed to haul her self onto a small ledge that looked down on the path as it wound through the gully.

Loki smiled to herself.

With a quick flick of her wrist a shape appeared on the path below. Another Loki.

Illusion Loki began to jog at a fair pace down the path.

Providing no one attempted to interact with it, it would run the race in place of real Loki amd no one would be the wiser. If someone did try to interact with it... well, Loki would just have to deal with that later.

Loki watched the rest of the runners jog past from her vantage point before continuing to climb.

The run was a loop, all she need to do was take a bit of a shortcut, then wait close to the end to intercept Illusion Loki and finish the race.

Prehaps her brother would be annoyed that she did not seem even slightly tired after the run. She hoped he would, it was entertaining to see him trying to wrap his head arround the idea that someone might actually be better than him. The race was in honour of a great illusion designed to humble the participants, really, Loki was only honouring that tradition.

The walk to the finish was a leisurely one.

The first time she had done this, it had taken a while to find and easy, short route that did not come in veiw of the crowd waiting in Asgard, but now she was well used to this route.

It zig zagged through the hills with spectacular veiws next too it. She had a prime view of the final part of the sunrise as the sky faded from brilliant hues of pink and gold to a bright clear blue.

This was her idea of a perfect start to a day, not Thor's idea of a crowded run up and down a harsh path: a leisurely stroll through the strinking countryside of Asgard with some of the best veiws the realm had to offer.

The run was supposed to take an hour, but Loki made sure to arrive in plenty of time

It took another ten minutes or so before Thor came charging fast, closely followed by Hogun, then Fandral, then Volstagg. They all looked satisfyingly out of breath and red in the face. She was also fairly sure she could smell them even from where she crouched in a bush at the side of the path.

After another short while broken only by a couple of the very best soldiers, Illusion Loki appeared.

Making sure no one was insight behind, Loki fliched her wrist again and the illusion vanished.

Real Loki quickly rook its place.

Despite herself, she did have some pride and she ran as fast as possible without being too suspicious.

There was something satisfying in the short sprint. The pounding of limbs and the quick rushed breathing. For a moment it was exhilerating.

She had soon passed the soldiers and ran level with Volstagg as they at last crossed the finish line.

There were great cheers from the crowd.

Thor had won, of course, and his people loved their prince.

Loki appeared to have done well enough not anger her father, though her mother probably knew of how she had cheated and probably did not approve of it. She would not tell her father though and that was all that mattered.

Soon she found herself standing quietly in her usual place by her brother's side, just a little behind him.

He was basking in the congratulations and praise of the Asgardians and enjoying it immensely, but he always did. Loki just stood there. A few people spared her a quick congratulations, and she acknowledged them politely, but most gazes slid from her back to the glowing form of her brother.

Volstagg, Fandral and Hogun were also chatting aimably and very loudly with the crowd and gratefully recieving their fair share of complements.

Loki thought, if she wanted to, she could probably recieve similar appreciation, but she did not want it. She knew many though she only hung arround with her brother to recieve the second hand complements and attention from him, but really it was the complete opposite. He sucked all attention into him like a ravenous beast so no one had a second glance for Loki. She was still there though, and that was good enough for her father.

She caught a glimse of their reflection in a shining building.

There they both were. Perfectly filling the roll of Asgardian princes. It was a mask Loki had spent years perfecting, and an expression that came naturally to Thor.

It was sickening. It just looked so wrong. It was no who she was. She wanted to insist the reflection was wrong in its unfair portrail of her, but she had seen that view enough times by now to know how true it was.

It sent a wave of nausea through her. She just looked so... princely. It wasn't her. Each and every woman in this crowd she would gladly swap places with, despite knowing they had their own problems and struggles. That would just feel so much more natural.

It was not fair though. She knew she could appear that way, if she wanted to. She was better of than some, she was just too much of a coward. So no one knew, and no one would ever know that prince in the reflection was not her, at least, not always.

She hated it. She hated herself.

Tearing her eyes from the image, she refocused on the cheering crowd swarming arround them, all caring so much for her brother. Her perfect brother. If only she could be like him.

Actually, no, being him would be far worse than whoever she was. Easier, maybe, but she did not want to be her brother, for so, so many reasons.