Chapter 6 : THE ALL-SEEING GATE
The observatory hummed with residual Bifrost energy.
Golden light pulsed through mechanisms Loki didn't understand, casting shifting shadows across faces locked in various stages of horror. Thor stood defiant, jaw set, Mjolnir crackling with stubborn lightning. Odin faced him with the terrible patience of a father who'd known this moment would come and dreaded it anyway.
Between them, the rest of the expedition arranged themselves like chess pieces waiting for the board to explode.
"Father—" Thor started.
"Silence." Odin's voice carried no heat. That was worse than shouting—the absolute cold of controlled fury. "You invaded a sovereign realm. You threatened their king. You nearly restarted a war that cost us tens of thousands of lives to end."
"They invaded us first! They—"
"The warriors responsible died in our vault. Justice was served."
"Justice?" Thor laughed, but the sound was brittle. "A handful of corpses is justice for breaking into the heart of Asgard?"
"Yes." Odin stepped closer. Gungnir's light intensified with each movement, power building toward something inevitable. "That is exactly what justice looks like between realms. Not glory. Not vengeance. The quiet balance that prevents entire worlds from burning."
Loki stood apart, watching his forearm where blue skin had briefly surfaced. The sensation lingered—not cold, but a kind of recognition. Like meeting a part of himself that had always existed beneath the surface.
Focus. This is the moment. Thor's banishment. The stripping of power. Everything changes now.
Sif tried to intervene. "All-Father, the prince acted with good intentions—"
"Intentions." Odin turned that single eye on her, and she visibly wilted. "The road to Ragnarok is paved with good intentions. You are all dismissed. Return to your quarters. Await my judgment."
The Warriors Three practically fled. Sif lingered a moment longer, casting one unreadable glance at Thor, then retreated. Heimdall remained at his post, golden eyes fixed on nothing and everything.
That left three people in the observatory: a king, a prince, and a shadow who wasn't sure what he was anymore.
"Loki." Odin's voice called him forward. "You will remain."
Ethan stepped closer, keeping his face carefully neutral. Loki's face. The mask he'd been wearing since waking in silk sheets that didn't belong to him.
"Father, whatever punishment you're considering—" Thor began.
"I have considered no punishment." Odin's grip tightened on Gungnir. "I have rendered judgment. You, Thor Odinson, are unworthy."
The word fell like a sentence.
"Unworthy of the loved ones you have betrayed." Odin raised his free hand to Thor's chest, and something began to glow—the armor, the very essence of what made Thor the God of Thunder.
"Unworthy of your title."
Power began draining. Thor gasped, staggered, reached for Mjolnir—
"Unworthy of the realm you would destroy in your arrogance."
Odin's hand closed around Mjolnir's handle. The hammer that only the worthy could lift—the hammer bonded to Thor's soul—transferred to Odin's grip like it had been waiting for this moment all along.
"I cast you out!"
The Bifrost activated without warning. Light swallowed Thor before he could speak, could argue, could do anything but reach toward his father with an expression of broken confusion.
Then he was gone.
Loki stood in the aftermath, pulse racing, watching Odin hold Mjolnir with the weariness of a man who'd just amputated part of himself.
"You knew this would happen." The words escaped before he could stop them.
Odin's eye fixed on him. "Did I?"
"You didn't stop us from leaving. You let Thor walk to his judgment. You wanted this."
"I wanted my son to prove me wrong." Odin's voice carried exhaustion that had nothing to do with the magic he'd just worked. "I wanted him to turn back, to choose wisdom over pride. He didn't."
"So you sent him to Midgard." Loki had seen enough movies to know where this was going. "To learn humility among mortals."
"To learn worthiness." Odin examined Mjolnir, running his fingers over the etchings. Then he began murmuring—words of power, bindings that would transform the hammer into a test. "Until he can lift this again, he remains exiled."
"And if he never learns?"
"Then Asgard loses its crown prince." Odin's eye found him again, searching, evaluating. "And you become heir apparent."
The words landed like a physical blow.
Heir. Me. The Frost Giant changeling that Odin adopted as a political tool.
The transmigrated soul wearing his son's face.
"I have no interest in Thor's throne."
"Then you are wiser than I credited." Odin set Mjolnir on the observatory floor, the bound hammer awaiting its journey to Earth. "But your interests may not determine your duties. If Thor fails, someone must rule."
"Mother would make a better regent than I ever could."
"Perhaps." Odin straightened, and for a moment his age showed—millennia of ruling, of sacrificing, of making impossible choices in the dark. "You've changed, Loki."
The statement hung in the air. Not an accusation, exactly. More like an observation being made into the universe's record.
"People change."
"Not like this." The same words Heimdall had used, carrying the same weight of scrutiny. "Your mother noticed it first. She said you seemed more... present. Less consumed by shadows that existed only in your own mind."
Because those shadows belonged to someone else. Because the resentment, the jealousy, the desperate need to prove myself—those were his burdens, not mine.
"Nearly dying tends to clarify one's priorities." A lie wrapped in truth—he had died, technically, even if the death had been in another body entirely.
Odin studied him for a long moment. The All-Father's gaze was different from Heimdall's—less omniscient, more personal. A father trying to understand the son he'd never quite figured out.
"Go to your mother." The words came softer than expected. "She'll want to know what happened. And she'll... she'll need comfort. Losing Thor, even temporarily, will wound her."
Losing Thor. Not losing you.
The distinction was probably unintentional. Probably.
"Yes, Father."
Loki turned to leave, but Odin's voice stopped him at the threshold.
"Loki. Whoever you're becoming... I hope it serves Asgard well."
He didn't respond. There was nothing to say that wouldn't be either a lie or a revelation.
The corridors outside the observatory stretched toward the palace proper. Loki walked them alone, processing everything that had happened in the last twelve hours—transmigration, the failed coronation, Jotunheim, the heritage confirmation, Thor's banishment.
I should be overwhelmed. I should be spiraling like the original Loki did.
But his mind kept working with academic precision. Thor was on Earth, powerless, beginning the journey that would transform him into a worthy king. The coronation was delayed indefinitely. Odin had acknowledged that Loki might become heir—information that would have driven the original Loki to desperate action.
And underneath it all, the memory of blue skin pulsed like a second heartbeat.
He found an alcove—a small meditation space overlooking one of Asgard's lesser gardens—and stopped walking. His hand lifted to his forearm, the place where contact had happened.
Test it. See if you can control it.
He closed his eyes and reached inward. The mana core sat dormant in his chest, barely responsive. But beneath that, something else stirred—something colder, older, connected to a heritage he'd never earned but now owned.
His skin shifted.
Blue crept up his forearm like frost spreading across glass. Not the complete transformation—just a patch, a window into what he actually was. The color was deeper than he'd expected, almost purple in certain lights, marked with lines that might have been hereditary patterns or ceremonial scars.
Beautiful, he thought, surprising himself. In a terrible way.
The original Loki had seen this and felt horror. Betrayal. The shattering of everything he'd believed about himself.
Loki saw it and felt... curiosity.
He was Frost Giant. The biological son of Laufey, the king who'd left him to die. He'd been adopted by Odin as a diplomatic tool, raised as a shadow prince, never quite belonging in either world.
But he hadn't grown up with those burdens. He'd arrived fresh, carrying knowledge without carrying trauma. The facts of his heritage were just facts—data points in a complicated situation.
I can use this. Cold resistance that no one expects. Powers that might develop differently than traditional Asgardian magic. A connection to Jotunheim if I ever need one.
And a secret worth protecting, because no one else knows what I really am.
He let the blue fade, skin returning to its pale Asgardian norm. The transformation responded to will—not perfectly, not reliably, but it responded. Something to practice. Something to master.
A servant passed the alcove entrance, and Loki resumed his walk toward Frigga's chambers. The palace bustled with confused energy—word of Thor's banishment spreading through whispered conversations and shocked expressions. The golden son, exiled. The heir to the throne, cast out like a criminal.
Loki ignored the chaos and focused on what mattered.
Frigga first. She needs to know what happened, and she needs to see that I'm... functional. Stable. Not spiraling into the kind of breakdown that would make her worry.
Then I start planning. Thor's exile won't last forever—he'll find Mjolnir, prove himself worthy, return as a better prince. But in the meantime, Asgard is vulnerable. Odin's grip is weakening. And somewhere in the shadows, whatever actually caused the Frost Giant infiltration is still operating.
He reached Frigga's door and knocked.
"Enter."
She sat near the window, much as she had this morning, but the serenity was gone. Her eyes were red-rimmed. Her hands clutched a piece of fabric that might have been one of Thor's childhood cloaks.
"Mother."
"Loki." She rose, crossed to him, pulled him into an embrace that surprised him with its intensity. "I heard. About Jotunheim. About Thor."
"I'm sorry." The words came automatically, but he found he meant them. "I should have tried harder to talk him out of it."
"You couldn't have." She pulled back, studying his face with that penetrating maternal gaze. "He was determined. He's been determined since the moment Odin started preparing him for kingship—determined to prove himself through combat, through conquest, through force."
"And now he's on Midgard, learning a different way."
Frigga's eyes narrowed slightly. "You seem... calm. About all of this."
Careful. Don't seem too unaffected.
"I'm processing." He let some of the day's exhaustion show in his voice. "It's been a very long morning."
"Sit." She guided him to a couch, sat beside him, kept hold of his hand like she was afraid he might disappear too. "Tell me everything."
He told her a version of the truth. The march to the Bifrost. Heimdall's reluctant cooperation. Jotunheim's frozen hostility. Laufey's cryptic accusations. Odin's arrival and Thor's banishment.
He didn't mention the blue skin. Didn't mention what it meant.
That conversation comes later. When I've figured out how to have it without everything falling apart.
Frigga listened with a mother's attention, her grip on his hand tightening during the dangerous parts. When he finished, she sat in silence for a long moment.
"Your father did what he believed was necessary."
"Did he?" The question came out sharper than intended. "Or did he do what was convenient? Thor's humiliation, followed by redemption—it's a story. A narrative. The kind of thing kings craft when they want a particular outcome."
"You think Odin planned this?"
"I think Odin knew Thor wasn't ready. Has known for years. And I think he saw an opportunity to fix that without taking the blame for it."
Frigga's expression shifted—not disagreement, exactly, but discomfort. "That's a cynical interpretation."
"I've learned to be cynical."
She reached up, touched his cheek the same way she had this morning. Her eyes searched his face for something—the son she'd raised, maybe, or some trace of the shadows that had always clouded his thoughts.
"You really have changed."
"Is that bad?"
"I don't know yet." Her thumb traced his cheekbone. "But I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're... present. Whatever else happens, whatever your father decides, I want you to know that I love you. That hasn't changed."
The words settled into his chest like warmth against ice.
She means it. She loves Loki—whoever and whatever Loki is—unconditionally.
I will not let her die. Whatever it takes. Whatever I have to become.
"I love you too, Mother."
For a moment, the masks fell away. He was just a person sitting with someone who cared about him, in a world where caring was dangerous and love was a weapon that could be used against you.
Then he remembered what he was, and what was coming, and the walls rebuilt themselves.
"I should let you rest." He stood, extracted his hand gently from her grip. "It's been a long day for all of us."
"Stay." The word was almost a plea. "Just for a while longer. I don't want to be alone with my thoughts yet."
He sat back down.
They talked about nothing—small things, safe things. Memories of Thor as a child, getting into trouble. Memories of Loki as a child, getting Thor out of trouble (or into worse trouble, depending on the day). The gardens she was planning to redesign. The book she'd been reading.
Normal things. Family things.
Loki listened and responded and played the role of a son who'd always been there, while behind his eyes the calculations never stopped.
Thor returns in a few days, if the timeline holds. The Destroyer might attack Earth—need to figure out how to prevent or redirect that. Odin's Odinsleep could trigger at any moment. Laufey is still out there, and whatever caused the original infiltration might strike again.
But right now, in this moment, I'm sitting with a woman who loves me, and she's alive, and that's worth something.
Outside the window, Asgard's sky shifted toward evening. Somewhere on Earth, Thor was probably having the worst day of his immortal life—powerless, confused, and completely unaware of the journey that awaited.
Somewhere in the frozen depths of Jotunheim, Laufey sat on his broken throne, red eyes fixed on nothing, planning revenge for a humiliation that hadn't quite happened.
And in Frigga's chambers,Ethan let himself be Loki for a while longer—the version of Loki who stayed, who listened, who chose presence over plotting.
At least for tonight.
Tomorrow, the scheming could resume.
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