"I would like to teach him seiðr," the Trickser said, his eyes not twinkling with mischief for once, giving him a seemingly sincere look that may have been convincing if his mouth wasn't stretched into a wide grin.

"What?" Mom asked, stepping in front of me almost protectively, her face screwed up in an unusual scowl.

Loki sighed in mock exasperation, shaking his head.

"You see, mother, when I was young, you taught me seiðr, as you were the very best there was. Now I have exceeded you at this role and therefore it is my duty to teach this young út-lænninge the art of the Norse trade."

"No," Mom said, firmly, "I will not allow my son to be put into more unnecessary danger."

"Uhh, Mom–" I started, but Loki cut me off. Rude.

"It is more dangerous if he does not know. Does shielding a lamb's eyes stop it from getting hunted by the wolf?"

Mom's blue eyes flashed. I had never seen her like this. Whatever had happened between them, it hadn't been good.

"Percy–"

"Sally," Paul said gently, getting up from his place on the sofa and touching her shoulder, "don't let him affect you like this. Percy can choose for himself. That's what you want, right?"

Mom bit her lip in annoyance, clearly not liking this new perspective.

"Percy?" she asked, turning to me.

I met her pleading, deep blue eyes, filled with centuries of wisdom and knowledge. They were painted with just a hint of sadness, though there was something else clouding the general clearness of them. Something like... pride.

"Umm," I said, faltering, squeezing my eyes tights as if it could block the wave of nightmares that flashed, quickly, but effectively behind my eyes. "Look, when the draugar came, I was caught off guard. I had no idea what to do. Greek weapons, Greek powers did nothing to help my case. Nothing."

"Draugar?" Loki asked, one eyebrow raised as Mom gave a soft nod of her head, as if she didn't want to admit it.

She looked up, an almost desperate note to her carefully balanced tone. "Do you know a cure?"

Loki looked thoughtful for a moment.

"I may know of an old friend who may be able to cure him. However, it is not a safe journey and the only way I would be comfortable in bringing him is of he had some kind of protection. Seiðr."

He looked at Mom, a calm confident look on his face as he turned back to me.

Mom's eyes softened and she sent me a sorrowful look, alternating her gaze between Loki and me.

"You don't have to do this, Perce," she said, at last, her voice giving away her lack of confidence in her point.

I shook my head, my heart cracking a little as I saw Mom's face. "I want to. I want to learn how to use my powers."

Mom nodded, forcing a weak smile.

"That's understandable."

Loki turned to me, an unnaturally bright smile on his face.

"Let's do this," he said, his forest green eyes twinkling once again with crazed mischief.

***

"The basics of seiðr comes from learning to trick the eye," Loki said, muttering some ancient words until his glossy black hair melted into blonde and his eyes turned a deep cinnamon brown.

"It's still me, obviously," Loki said as he turned back into his regular form, "your brain knows but your eyes disagree. And often that is the key to most magic tricks."

"I think I get that," I replied, clearly not getting anything at all. This was way too like a school lesson for me to pay any attention.

Loki's mouth quirked up in a lopsided grin. "Sure you do."

I laughed. "So how do I do this again?"

"Close your eyes," Loki instructed and I obeyed slipping into the darkness of my mind.

"Clear all thoughts from your brain. You need to put full concentration for this."

"Your telling a kid with ADHD to concentrate. Ha," I mumbled, but tried my best to stop the random thoughts from slipping into my brain, of course making even more random thoughts come in. Smiling slightly, I pushed the last purple dancing carrot from my mind, only to catch a basketball playing rabbit just behind me.

"Now focus your energy. Imagine you are gathering it all into a big glowing ball."

I did as he said, definitely not imagining that purple haired girl from that one anime series I definitely did not watch.

"Now picture what you want to do. For this time, I want you to imagine someone you know and love dearly."

Blonde curls and gray eyes melted into my mind, erasing the last traces of Nomu and All Might's fight. Most of the traces.

"Now imagine that energy melting into you, slowly painting over you, turning into whoever you chose."

A felt a blanket of warmth hover over me, like dark clouds before a storm, a feeling that even though you couldn't always see them, they were there all the time.

A big explosion made me jump about 10 feet in the air, breaking out of my hard earned concentration. Bummer.

"Well that's never happened before," Loki said, studying the air with a slightly amused tinge to his grinning mouth.

"What?"

"It seems like you know how to harness your energy to create outward explosions. That has never happened before. How interesting," he mused, his eyes taking on a faraway look, making wonder if it had actually happened or not.

"This power... This power... changes things. Just a little," Loki said, like he couldn't care less.

"Okay?"

He looked back at me, his eyes seeming to not really see me at all. "We'll have to work on this. I'm not exactly sure how to solve it, but I'm sure a little experimentation won't do you any harm. Or a lot of harm."

I glanced back at the black smoke pouring out of the kitchen.

"But first, rest," he said, patting my shoulder in a way that could almost, almost be described as brotherly, "we have much work to do."