Chapter 3
Sparring with Loki was mildly entertaining. Valkyrie put him on his back nine times out of ten, but Bruce and Hulk were working out their violence issues privately, fighting the King of Asgard felt far too complicated, and she’d done enough damage to the Sakaarian refugees. Kicking Loki’s ass was worse than being properly drunk, but better than staring at the walls.
Thor would sometimes stop by, only to watch, or to test some new aspect of his power against Loki’s magic. Eight weeks in, watching them with growing amusement in his eyes, and a half-hidden flicker of something else, he laughed and said, “Loki, stop playing.”
Loki grinned up at her, mouth bloodied and eyes bright, and Valkyrie felt it in every bone of her body.
After that, sparring was fun.
*
Thor made a point to take the evening meal with his people. Those few Sakaarians who had remained on board instead of disembarking at the supply station had already been welcomed into their midst, and worked and ate and slept alongside the Asgardian refugees. So it was that, most evenings, the only faces missing from the tables would be those few on watch according to the rotating schedule, and Loki.
Unless Loki was there, and only Thor was blind to him. The idea filled him with embarrassment. But as the days passed and each face became dearly familiar to him, he knew that Loki was only keeping to himself, and he tried to put the problem from his mind.
One evening an elder, a warrior named Cul, well-known to Thor from his younger days, came and sat at his side. They spoke in a companionable way of many things that had been lost, and many things they hoped would come to pass. After the meal came to an end and people began to drift away, Cul cleared his throat and said, "Your Majesty, in our first days aboard this ship, I noticed you looking hard at some of the faces in this hall."
"My apologies," Thor said, aghast. "I'm sure I was only lost in thought."
"I worry that you harbored some suspicion, which would be my privilege to allay if possible."
Moved by the old warrior's good faith, Thor said, "In truth, the only suspicion I feel is toward my own readiness. I was ignorant of many truths that seem obvious now in hindsight. But my faith in our people is inviolable."
"Your majesty," Cul said, smiling, as some subtle tension went out of him, "I am happy to hear you say so."
Thor leaned forward and refilled both their mugs. "My friend, let me beg some further honesty from you."
"Of course, your majesty."
"When I returned to Asgard and unmasked Loki, I felt that I was removing a veil that had been drawn across our people's eyes." Thor met Cul's shrewd gaze evenly. "That wasn't quite right, was it?"
"No, your majesty."
"His identity was known."
Cul took a long pull of his drink, considering. "It has been some years since Loki's minor glamours could shield him from our familiar eyes."
Thor shook his head. "So I'm the only one he fools?"
"Since we're truth-telling," Cul said, amused, "the consensus has long been that you must be fooling yourself."
Fooling myself! Thor mouthed, rueful, and got a sympathetic shrug in return. "Another area in which I must learn to see with new eyes." He scrubbed a hand over his beard. "One more question, Cul, and I implore you to speak freely. What of my father the king? Was not his displacement a cause for concern?"
"Odin..." Cul shut his eyes briefly, and sighed. "In his prime Odin was truly a king of kings. Asgard was secure in his wisdom and his strength. But in the latter days of his reign, he was increasingly guided by the worst impulses of his character. I think you were witness to some of this."
"Yes," Thor said quietly. How easy it was, to let grief wash away the sting of his father's sins. He was gone, and Thor would rule differently - was it necessary to remember his cruelty? His arrogance? How much had Thor's sense of his father, at the last, been guided by that one golden moment, when his father had truly listened to him, had seen deeply into his heart, and had released him in love from the weight of an unwanted crown? And now Thor knew that boon had been granted neither by the man nor for the reasons he had supposed. "I can see that Loki's rule might have been a welcome change."
"We could have done without the statue," Cul said, laughing as Thor snorted into his own mug. "We did send to Midgard, to confirm your father rested comfortably. But no, we weren't deceived. I might even say - " He hesitated.
"Please," Thor said, gesturing for him to go on.
"It means something, to those who are ruled, that their king is eager to be loved by them."
"That can be a double-edged sword."
"Indeed, your majesty. But to a people in distress, perhaps it is no little comfort to know that someone so powerful prized their affection so highly."
"Thank you, my friend," Thor said sincerely. "I will take your wisdom to heart."
"You honor me," Cul said, and bowed his head. Then, chuckling again, "And I will say, the songs weren't half-bad."
*
The only rule was: no more memory tricks. At first Loki dazzled her with illusions. Dozens of narrow male faces with glaring eyes filled the cargo bay where they sparred, and the diffuse magic buzzed like static under Valkyrie's skin. The lightest touch dispelled the shades into a shimmer of green light, but working through them took too long; Loki won match after match through brute information overload.
Thor, when she asked for his strategy, turned out to be absolutely useless. Apparently in all their long life together he'd never learned to tell the real Loki from the fakes. There was something in that, but she was absolutely not volunteering to care. Anyway, Thor had options unavailable to the average combatant. A torrent of lightning screaming through an enclosed space overwhelmed Loki's illusions just fine.
For her part, it took Valkyrie less than two weeks to know unerringly which Loki was real, to barrel through the shades in her path and strike without hesitation. The first day she did so, she turned to watch the remaining copies flicker out of sight as Loki glared and coughed beneath her. “Lucky guess,” he ground out, so she laughed and did it four more times.
The next day one of the illusions blocked her charge, ducked her shocked belated blow, and swept her legs out from under her.
“Do not presume to know what we’re capable of,” a second copy purred, straddling her waist and setting a heavy hand on her throat. For a long moment Valkyrie only heard her own thudding heart, and then Thor, who had been watching intently, asked in a low voice, “Could you always do that?”
"No," Loki said, unfolding herself from the shadows in the far corner of the room. "But it seemed terribly useful, and terribly useful things are generally worth learning."
The illusions winked out, one by one, save the last, which removed its hand from Valkyrie’s throat and stood to face its maker. Loki ran a finger thoughtfully down its chest, then pushed it a little. It swayed, just like a real boy. "This is me," she hummed to herself, "but is it the me I mean to be?" The illusion wavered, smiling, and Loki banished it by shoving her hand into its heart and making a fist.
Valkyrie watched her, and felt a flicker of something half-hidden, and hungry.