Loki lay in his bed, staring at the ornately embellished ceiling of his bedchambers, the flickering flames from the burning cauldron along the far wall casting the room in dim, warm, orange light. A myriad of different emotions, none of them on the positive side of the spectrum, were reflected in his eyes. Verda lay on her side facing him under the silky soft sheets, propping her head on her arm, reaching out and tracing her index finger along his breastbone, down the center of his bare chest.

"This can't continue." he finally said, breaking his silence.

"What do you mean?" Verda asked, confused.

"I should never have allowed it to go this far. It's why I had you reassigned...after the first time. I thought that would be the end of it."

"I don't understand." Verda said, hurt and confusion in her voice. Unlike some kingdoms in the past and present throughout the universe, on Asgard a servant was as equally suitable a candidate for a prince or princess, a future king or queen, or another member of nobility. There was no shame in loving whomever one loved for their merits whether opposite sex or same sex and regardless of their station. Frigga, Loki's mother and Asgard's current queen, had not been born royalty and had first entered the palace as a simple lady of the court.

"I think you do. If my mother were to learn of it...far worse if my father were to do so. She supported your appointment even knowing who you are."

"I am not my sister. I'm nothing like her. I have not enchanted or bewitched you." Verda said to Loki, it clear from her tone that she disliked being linked with her sibling.

"I know. It's why I wished to help you. I know all too well what it is to be forever compared and measured against another, to be trapped within their shadow, of course the circumstances differed, but nonetheless….considering Lorelei's crimes, what she is capable of, you must know how it would look, especially now that I am to ascend the throne, what my mother and others might believe…"

Lorelei, a highly skilled sorceress, was one of Asgards most infamous and dangerous criminals and a power hungry megalomaniac, though few would believe it upon seeing the petite and beautiful, harmless looking woman with the coppery brunette hair so much like Verda's own. She had spent the last six centuries a prisoner, sentenced by Odin to the dungeon, her ability to enslave the minds of men to fall madly in love with her and do her bidding simply by the sound of her voice curtailed by the collar she was forced now to wear around her neck at all times. The only man Sif had ever loved aside from Thor had been one of Lorelei's many victims and it had cost him his life. Loki thought the sorceress should actually consider herself lucky to be where she was. If she was not safely kept contained in her cell, it was unlikely she would still draw breath as Sif would have long ago had her head on a platter.

Loki had almost forgotten about Haldor, Sif's long ago lost lover. Sif had now lost not one but two men she had set her heart upon. The state she had been in when last Loki had seen her hours ago was even more understandable now. Loki thought that she must think herself cursed. Loki recalled the enmity Sif bore Lorelei for the death of Haldor. He knew he was now looked upon by her with the same, if not an even deeper hatred, Sif believing him to have orchestrated Thor's demise. Perhaps his father should assign guards to see to his safety, Loki thought to himself.

Loki had met Verda in the tavern, she sitting alone looking forlorn. It wasn't in Loki's nature to care much about such things, few ever showed much care for or interest in him when he was in the same state after all, so why should he? However, something about her drew him to her and he had sat down beside her, striking up a conversation. He had learned of her story, how she was distrusted and shunned and even feared by others once they learned who her elder sister happened to be. Her story and her situation had struck a chord with Loki, he feeling a sort of kinship with her, both of them suffering through no fault of their own simply due to the identity of their sibling. He had spoken to his mother asking for Verda to be given a position in the palace. Pleased at Loki's display of altruism and due to her own and her desire to make her son happy, Frigga had agreed.

Verda had been assigned as a chambermaid to the area of the palace where Loki's own chambers were located. She had proven herself industrious and hard working, pleasing all who resided in the rooms under her purview with how well she kept them.

When one day after falling victim to another of Loki's pranks she had expressed an interest in his magical and illusionary abilities, he had out of curiosity and unbeknownst to her tested her aptitude and found her to have a natural foundation on which to build. He knew that his mother and certainly his father would disapprove and Loki himself, of course aware of her familial connection, questioned the wisdom of it, but what could it hurt to teach her a few simple tricks? Of course he had ended up teaching her far more than he had intended and loaning her books on the subject from his personal library for her own private study. To his knowledge, however, she had respected his request to refrain from speaking about or displaying her newly acquired abilities in the presence of others.

Loki could not recall the exact details of how things had ended up progressing so far but it had all started out innocently enough as is usually the case...a few good natured pranks, a bit of sport and fun and flirting that would be natural between two young people. Eventually it had escalated to Verda providing him with services that went beyond merely tidying his chamber and making sure all was in order. Things had gone on that way for some time, she seeing to certain of his needs without the two of them going so far as to actually be lovers in the strictest sense. It was the sort of casual, non-exclusive relationship that Loki generally sought, there seeming to be no expectations from either side of the equation, though uncharacteristically for him, he had begun to feel somewhat guilty after a time...surely she was not getting as much satisfaction out of the arrangement, though he had from time to time seen to her pleasure as well. But then the day had come when for whatever reason, perhaps something as simple as a particularly alluring scent she had worn that day, something of that nature paired with the longevity of their association, Loki wasn't quite sure, the line Loki had previously been so careful to toe had finally been crossed.

"Why should you care what your mother thinks? What anyone thinks? You're no longer a child. You're to rule Asgard. You're free to do what you please, to love who you wish." Verda replied.

"I'm the heir, I'm not yet the king."

"Do you truly believe Odin would deny you the throne? Would he pass you over for one of the cooks in the kitchen?"

"Perhaps he would if he thought them to be more worthy. You don't know my father...not as I know him." Loki responded in a grim tone. "As far as love is concerned...a mare and a stallion cross paths in a field and nature follows its course...is that love?" Loki asked. Verda was struck silent in disbelief of Loki's analogy.

"Is that all I am to you?" she finally asked in a quiet voice tinged with a hint of despair and disappointment. Turning away from him, she slid out of the bed, reclaiming her discarded gown from the floor and dressing. "I suppose in that case this mare should return to her own stable." she said haughtily though at the same time her tone reflecting the pain of the emotional wound Loki had inflicted.

"I'm sorry, that was rather crass." Loki said sitting up, by this time Verda had already donned her shoes and was making her way to the door of his bedchambers. Verda gave a sarcastic chuckle.

"You are soon to be the King of Asgard but it appears you are already the king of understatement."

"I meant only that anyone can do as we have done. That particular sentiment is far from necessary. I believe love requires more. I care for you, I do...but I don't think we're quite there yet." Verda continued on her way as he spoke, his words seeming to fall on deaf ears. She reached the doorway preparing to step through it. "Verda...wait." Loki called to her. Verda stopped and stood with her back to Loki before turning to face him.

"Earlier this day you told me to leave you, to go, displeased by my presence. Now you wish me to stay. You had told me you wished to be king yet now you claim you never wanted the throne. Do you even know what it is you want?"

"No, I don't know. I haven't a clue what I want. I thought I did. I'm not sure of anything anymore. I suppose that's not entirely true. There is one thing I'm certain of. I want this day to have been only a nightmare from which I'll soon wake. I want my brother to-" Loki broke off, unable to continue, his voice breaking. He standing helpless and incapacitated as Thor was run through, Frigga's sorrow, Thor's last words to him, his brother's last moments of life as Loki watched him die all replayed in his mind. He bowed his head, putting a hand to his mouth, stifling the sounds of his sobs that bubbled up out of him, unable any longer to hold them at bay, finally allowing his grief free reign over him.

Verda's expression transformed from one of hurt and anger to one of sympathy and sadness. Leaving the doorway, she approached Loki, sitting down on the edge of the bed near him, once again taking him in her arms.

"It's because you do not desire it that you will be a good king."

*********************

The Kynsblot festivities had naturally been cancelled. Instead, Loki spent a long, arduous day in the throne room, watching as whole families of Asgardians filed through the throne room to view Thor's body laid out on his bier before the throne, Frigga standing near it as if a sentinel, accepting the condolences of the people. His father, who would be overseeing the funeral that evening once the sun had slipped below the horizon, had not yet made an appearance. The line of mourners stretched through the palace and into the plaza outside and beyond. Loki doubted there was a single soul alive on Asgard who had not already viewed his brother's corpse or did not wait among the crowds to do so. Asgard had not experienced such a dark day since the death of his grandfather and Odin's father and predecessor on the throne, King Bor. Thor lay on his bier, his hammer gripped in his hands, the head of it resting on his chest, appearing to merely be peacefully dozing. Loki could not help but think that perhaps Thor had slept thus in life. He wouldn't have doubted it.

Loki had managed to get a few hours of sleep after his emotional display, Verda returning to the bed to lie beside him until he at last succumbed to slumber. When he had awakened with the daylight he had found her gone. He had not seen her yet this day. Likely she was one of those waiting amongst the crowd, though she would not have needed to do so. Had she still been with him he would have taken her to have her own private viewing before the others had arrived and been permitted entrance as had Sif and the Warriors Three. Sif, though still in the throes of sorrow and grief, appeared far more subdued than last he had seen her, paying little attention to Loki as he stood far to the side of the throne room near a gold leafed column . She looked as if she had slept as little as he had and what sleep she'd gotten had been poor. Loki didn't look a great deal better, dark circles to match Sif's under his eyes.

The sounds of weeping and wails echoed throughout the expansive throne room. He could no longer endure the cacophony of mourning. Just as he was about to take his leave and exit through the entryway at the far side of the room into the corridor that led to his chambers, hoping perhaps to get some additional rest before that evening's proceedings, an einherjar approached him.

"The King requires your presence in the vault." he told Loki. Loki nodded silently in acknowledgement, the einherjar turning and walking back the way he had come.

Loki entered Odin's vault, descending the stairwell into the subterranean chamber, feeling the cool air on his skin. Why would his father wish to meet with him here? Was it perhaps some sort of initiation, the beginning of his training to take the throne as king? Loki knew of every relic that the vault contained, or at least believed he knew, their origins, and their unique powers, those that had one. There were a few that were simply historic artifacts of great significance.

Odin awaited Loki at the bottom of the stairway in silence, Thor's hammer held in his hand at his side. Loki realized that the one Thor gripped as he rested on his bier was a convincing fake.

"You wished to see me, Father?" Loki asked, reaching the bottom of the stairs and starting towards Odin.

"This belongs to you, now." Odin said, presenting Loki with the hammer, holding it out before him. Loki reached out, Odin passing the hammer to him. Loki looked down at it in his grasp. It looked and felt out of place in his hand. "Join me." Odin said, turning and walking farther into the vault, Loki following behind him.

Odin and Loki passed various relics on their stands or in their niches. Reaching nearly the center of the vault, Odin stopped, turning to Loki.

"You know what these are and with what powers they are imbued. You also know the danger of many of them which is why I have brought them here. It is Asgard's and my...and soon your own sacred duty and imperative to protect the nine realms and the greater universe as well from the devastation that could be wrought if they were to fall into the wrong hands." Odin finished, falling into silence for a moment, appearing as if he was reconsidering what he was about to say before going ahead.

"Look around you. Quiet your mind and listen. Is there one that calls to you?" Odin asked. Loki wasn't quite sure what Odin meant but did as his father instructed. Loki looked around the vault. Nothing particularly caught his attention or 'called' to him as his father had put it. Loki stepped forward,

Loki slowly made his way through the vault, stopping and pausing before various relics but nothing struck him as out of the ordinary, though he could sense the energy in the air around each one. Loki continued on. He felt a sense of being led though he had heard no voice calling out to him, no palpable energy pushing or pulling him along. Finally he entered the chamber that held upon a pedestal what was perhaps the most powerful relic in Odin's collection. He stood before it, bathed in its blue glow. Loki felt a frosty chill in the air surrounding it. He stared down at it for a moment, then looked to Odin questioningly.

Loki knew what it was. The Casket of Ancient Winters had once been the greatest, most powerful treasure of Jotunheim, the realm of the frost giants, creatures that had been the boogeymen of the stories Asgardians told their children. Cold, both literally and figuratively, and cruel were the Jotuns and merciless, fearless warriors...or at least they had been. Odin had defeated them on their home world around the time of Loki's birth and had taken the relic, their source of power, back to Asgard to rest safely in the vault. Their civilization had descended into ruin. Laufey, their king, now reigned over a crumbling world with little hope of ever again ascending to greatness in the realms or the universe. Why, Loki wondered, out of all the relics that rested there would he find himself drawn to that one?

"Before I pass the throne to you, before you take on the mantle of King and protector of this realm and the others that look to us to guide and safeguard them, there is something you must know." Loki wordlessly looked to his father expectantly. "Your mother and I raised you up alongside your brother from an infant. You are my son, yet you did not spring from my seed, nor from the womb of she who you know as your mother."

"What do you mean? What are you saying?" Loki's expression reflected his shock and confusion at Odin's revelation.

"Reach out and put your hands upon it." Odin directed Loki. Loki sat the hammer down at his feet and did as he was instructed, grasping both sides of the Casket. He felt as if the blood in his veins had transformed into ice. He watched in wonder and fear as his hands turned blue, the color creeping up his arms. "After the Battle of Jotunheim, after the final defeat of the frost giants and after I had taken the Casket from them, rendering them powerless to ever again threaten the peace of the realms, I entered the temple. There I found an infant, helpless and weak, small for a Jotun...Laufey's son, left to die on that icy rock. I brought him here and raised him as my own."

Loki stared at his father aghast. He could barely make his lips move to form words.

"You speak of myself?"

"I used the dark magic to transform you into Asgardian form. You are Asgardian, yet you still carry the echo of your past, your true origin. I thought someday it may be possible you would be an instrument of a permanent and lasting peace between our two realms. Perhaps you will be." Loki stood stunned. He had spent his entire life believing he was one thing only to learn that he was another. He removed his hands from the casket, realizing they still rested upon it. The blue color of his flesh faded, returning to its normal tone. "You now have a choice. You may raise the hammer, strike me down for my treachery. I am old and weak. I must rest soon, I have put it off long enough, perhaps too long..."

Loki continued to study Odin, baffled. He realized then how weary his father appeared,

"...or you can accept yourself for what you are and make peace with it, realize that it changes nothing as what you have learned today was equally true yesterday and the day before and the day before that, then think on it no more. The decision is yours."

Loki took hold of the handle of Mjolnir, Thor's hammer, now his own from where he had sat it at his feet, lifting it from the floor.

"Let us leave this place." said Loki.

*********************

Thor's body had been carried on its bier and placed into the boat in which it would make its final journey. All of Asgard it seemed had assembled to see their golden haired warrior prince sent off to his final rest, the crowd stretching back as far as Loki could see. He wondered to himself what the point was for some of them as they would be unable to see any of what was taking place.

Loki standing at Odin's side, his mother on the other side of his father, all dressed in the finest of their finery and Odin and Loki their helmets and armor, looked down for the last time on the serene face of his brother as the boat was launched, it floating away towards the border between Asgard and the void of space. After it had gone some distance, Odin subtly signaled to an archer who raised a flaming arrow, carefully aiming and then releasing it to shoot across the water, landing within the boat. A moment later flames erupted from within the craft.

"Farewell, my son." he heard Frigga say.

The flaming boat had almost reached the drop off into the darkness of space when Odin, holding Gungnir, his spear, passed it to Loki. Loki took hold of it and as he stared out over the water, with the knowledge of Asgardian magic his father had just that day passed onto him that he had not previously possessed, raised it and brought it down onto the ground, producing a loud, reverberating sound. Thor's body within the boat transformed into a sparkling mist of energy that rose from the boat up to disperse among the stars as the burning boat plunged downwards into space.

"Farewell, brother."