Chapter 1
The next time he woke up, he instantly remembered that he was on Midgard, courtesy of Thor. He was because of the Aether and that infernal woman of Thor. He remembered being run though, he also clearly remembered dying and coming back. He had felt himself become free, finally, from the controls of Asgard.
He looked around the room. Some kind of hospital, knowing the oaf who had no doubt run to his mortal friends, he was either at a S.H.I.E.L.D. or at the ugly metal building of Ironman.
Looking at the ceiling, he decided it was the later. He waited, if they had tried to heal him, they must be monitoring him and would come to him soon.
He didn't have to wait long. Thor and his mortal pets came in. Hulk and Ironman along with Black Widow and the Captain of this band of heroes.
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Loki found himself being escorted to his new cell, not much different from the Asgardian dungeon. The past hour or so had been spent with lots of words and threats of which not many were even possible, and finally Loki was taken as prisoner by the Avengers who had decided he was to stay in his "room" with the AI, JARVIS as a sentry. His food would be delivered to his room and he had no reason, or permission, to leave his cell.
He had found this to be the perfect solution for his sudden boon and bane and he had tried very hard to keep the pleasure from showing on his face. He knew the one he had to watch out for, the Widow, had not suspected but he was also aware, the Captain had been paying special attention to him. The one who had volunteered to "walk him to his room."
The walk through the floor was silent and filled with a tension he could not begin to name. He tried his best to act as sullen as he could, to be the perfect defeated villain.
He was finally in his new prison.it was simple and bare and clean. The perfect place for him to strengthen his magic. He glanced down at his hands and the metal that circled his wrists and grinned hard. Thor had always been foolish.
These magical restrains were the standard fair for powerful sorcerers on Asgard, but what everyone conveniently forgot was that these restraints had been used on his when he was but a babe. modified in size, yes, but strength, no. He had been able to break out of this hold for many centuries. He was sure Frigga had known, but had never said anything about it or Thor would have truly tried to render him powerless.
With a half smirk, he sat on the cot in the corner and closed his eyes and started meditating on his magic. The universe was in for a very big surprise. He was excited about something after a very long time.
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The next few weeks were spent with hours upon hours of meditation where he tried his best to regain control of all the suddenly unbound and hence, unchecked magic. Over the past four centuries, there had been a vast amount of accumulation of seidr. It did not help at all that the seidr he had been using for the last few centuries had been just a small fraction of that which he had unchained.
He often grimly thought in these days that in a lesser being, the new seidr would have consumed everything they were. But Loki had always been more magic than even flesh. He had always been able to grasp even the most difficult and obscure branches and pieces of magic.
He had always wondered about it. Frigga had been a Vanir and could do certain magics but by no means had she ever been strong. She had run out of things to teach him when he was but a babe of a hundred and thirty, like a three-year-old Midgardian child. Afterwards his teachers had been the various books in the palace library and the Alphiem and Vanir ambassadors visiting Odin and Asgard. He had on occasion even approached the guild of sorcerers on Asgard, a small group of old maidens who looked no younger than Odin himself. Those had been some of the few people who had accepted him and his magic freely. But as he had grown older, almost all of them had died and with the attitude of the Aesir towards them and magic, it never surprised him that they would choose to go spend the rest of their few centuries elsewhere in peace.
Now he knew the answer to that question he had always silently asked himself and no one else. He was not an Aesir, who had no aptitude for seidr or any of his other arts. No! he was a Jotun, Laufey's get, which meant he was the direct descendant of Ymir, the first frost giant. No wonder he was so magically powerful, it was in his blood, he was a child of Yggadrasil, the world tree connecting the nine realms.
It was around his second week of his stay at the Avengers Tower that he had realized something very important while bitterly thinking about his lack of home and people. He was a frost giant! And he was a powerful sorcerer, if Odin was to be believed, since birth. There was no way he could have been abandoned by his parents or the palace staff. He was the first born of the King, he was the heir of the Casket. He was as powerful as the Casket.
It took him a month of searching his memories of the Jotun books he had read throughout his lifetime but he, finally, remembered that after Ymir, there were no more perfect Frost Giants, possessing strength, wisdom and seidr. Everyone could be any of the two and no one could be all of the three.
He had raged in his small cell upon learning of this. If an Asgardian library had such knowledge then there was no way, his parents were unaware of this fact. While he, himself had never seen a short frost giant, he had also only ever seen his father and his army, who had to have been possessors of strength to be able to make others fear them.
It was in his rage that he had remembered the custom of taking the newborn to the temple of the Norns to have their blessings. He had been found in a temple; such a time old custom could not be different just because they were different races.
When his rage had become silent fury had he let himself think of the fact that he had been found by Odin himself, ALONG with the Casket of Winters.
Which could only mean that Loki had been immensely valued by his people to be placed with such a powerful artifact and that he had not being abandoned but kidnapped. It was only his own seidr that had saved his life when he had taken the shape of an Aesir. The rest had been the work of Odin's cunning mind. Scheming ways to defeat the enemy even after they had surrendered.
Mistreating and making Loki miserable must have been a silent pleasure to him. His entire life had been for the silent and sadistic amusement for Odin and his people.
He remembered reading somewhere that Jotun were wild, not unlike beasts of nature, preferring nature and forests, open spaces and cold places. They were the children of nature and while they were civilized, they weren't tame. This explained so much for Loki who had been suffocated in his chambers and the palace walls. Always longing for the gardens and forests outside.
He felt the surge of power inside him and realized that he needed to calm down, control his power and not alert his wardens about the happenings around him. He took a deep breathe and started on the herculean effort that was trying to channel the torrent of seidr as powerful and harsh as a waterfall.
It was a long road ahead.
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