Feel Something

Chapter 9: Like Fire and Ice

Loki continued to be amazed by the Midgardian's creative compensation for their lack of seidr. When he first visited Midgard as a boy at Odin's side, the mortals were much smaller in both numbers and reach across their own planet. Even with his less developed capabilities as a youngling, Loki was in tune enough with the energy moving around him to sense the hollowness within Midgardians where a seidr core should be.

Even now, he could at least sense it faintly within himself—though reaching for it was not worth the excruciating pain—but his ability to sense it externally was severed. Loki shivered at the mere thought of a complete emptiness in his core, imagining how it would feel for his seidr to be truly gone rather than barred. He would surely go mad. Perhaps he was on the brink already.

The aircraft was not dissimilar to the ones they used occasionally on Asgard, though certainly more primitive and powered by Midgardian ingenuity rather than seidr. It wasn't his first time in a Midgardian flying machine, but the technological advances over the last several decades were evident in the speed and fluidity of their flight.

Loki sat across from Coulson, absorbing the bombardment of information about SHIELD with relative ease. The conversation flowed much more smoothly than that with Fury had, Coulson being much more accommodating as well as patient with Loki's quips and qualms...and questions.

Knowledge to Loki was like cool water in the sweltering heat of Muspelheim; he thirsted for it constantly, never truly quenched and always desiring more. Once he accepted Coulson's willingness to divulge information—and determined it was in his own best interest to place a small shard of trust in the mortal—Loki was just as quick with his questions as Coulson was in answering them.

By the time they landed on the roof of SHIELD's facilities, Loki felt much more comfortable in his understanding of mortal politics, technologies, and SHIELD's position in the midst of it all. Complete trust must be earned—on both sides, it would seem—but some of the tension Loki had been holding since the moment that frost giant grasped his wrist relaxed from his shoulders.

This was just another realm, and Loki had visited and studied them all. He would not be a lost little orphan any longer. Loki was ready to play their games, and he always came out the victor. One way or another.

Still preferring the comfort of solid ground and his own autonomy over where his body was taken, Loki was out of the jet before the engines died down, followed directly by Coulson. Darcy and Jane followed shortly after, still deep in conversation as they pored over the tablet of information regarding SHIELD's research laboratory and the data they had collected separate from Jane's own research. Jane was glowing like a bride on her wedding day, completely enamored with the renewed opportunity to further her work. Darcy, for her part, was practically bouncing as she stumbled over to Loki, speaking to him for the first time since they boarded the jet.

"Well I think Jane's gonna do just fine here. How about you? Looked like you and Coulson were really getting into it back there."

Loki scoffed, refusing to admit he actually liked the man, "He simply had the information I required to prepare for my new circumstances. It is amusing how you mortals find new ways to make innovation out of mediocrity."

"Umm...thanks, I guess? Glad our mediocrity is so impressive to you, oh godly one." Darcy rolled her eyes and bowed with a sarcastic flourish, "You can be a real dick sometimes, y'know?" Watching as Darcy turned her back on him to follow Jane and the other agents inside, Loki felt a slight pang of guilt for his brusqueness with his first mortal ally. It isn't worth troubling yourself over, he pushed back internally. She won't like you forever. They never do.