Feel Something

Chapter 11: And I Thought, What Could I Do?

Sleep didn't evade Loki so much as Loki rejected it outright. He had faced the monster within once today already and was not keen on doing so again in his dreams.

Seeking privacy from the prying eyes of his hosts—or perhaps captors at this point—Loki sought refuge in the bathing room, it being the only unmonitored corner of his meager little living space. Although the lack of sight played tricks on his mind, Loki still sat stubbornly on the floor of the shower in total darkness. At least in the darkness, the monsters were nothing more than hallucinations in the shadows. In the darkness, he could pretend for but a moment that he wasn't one of them. A Jotun. A monster.

Scalding hot water burned his skin, pouring from the showerhead over his still-clothed form. It had over an hour and the water still burned with heat as it soaked him, and yet it did nothing to chase away the ice that sat dormant in his center—a direwolf waiting for the opportunity to leap upon its prey.

Surely this is another of Odin's punishments, Loki mused, For why else would the monster be permitted to roam free while my seidr remains barred from me still?

Even as he thought it—and as much as Loki craved further reason to loathe Asgard's king—Loki knew it was a lie. Odin had not intended for Loki to ever know the truth of his parentage, and he certainly would not drop Loki defenseless on Midgard in such a beastly form that would only serve to get him killed.

No, somehow, Loki had brought the Jotun forth. And he didn't have the faintest idea how he had done it, which meant he also didn't have a means of preventing it from happening again. And that thought was even more terrifying than anything else about his banishment. If he could not restrain the monster, then what was to stop it from overpowering him? What was left to help him maintain the lie that he was nothing like the monsters of his greatest nightmares? How could he accept a mortal life when the worst part of his immortal heritage reared its ugly head without preamble?

Eventually the water did turn cold, spurring Loki from his catatonic musings. Removing the sopping wet combat gear, Loki closed his eyes and turned on the light. When he dared to look upon his naked form, he was relieved to find the familiar Aesir features he had once believed were his. No, he argued, They are mine. It may be a lie, but it is my lie, not Odin's. I will wield it as such.

Loki exited the bathing room and grabbed dry clothes from where he had folded them upon one of the empty bookshelves. The freshly laundered Asgardian tunic and leather pants were a comfort to him, though he still found he preferred his new trench coat to the sorcerer's armor. The coat he had worn to Jotunheim was lightweight and perfect for the use of daggers and sorcery, but without his seidr it just did not feel right. It wasn't who Loki was anymore.

Loki was anxious to know what SHIELD intended to do with him and spent the next few hours plotting various escape routes in response to every possible scenario. He eventually found this exercise tiresome and sought a more soothing means of focusing his mind and avoiding sleep. Loki selected another book from the shelf to keep him busy until morning, when someone would surely be sent to retrieve him to meet with Phil Coulson.

The tome he selected was a weighty volume of Midgardian fairytales, many of which Loki recognized from his own studies in the literature of mortals. This particular collection began with a tale Loki had always despised, for he honestly did not see what the maiden did in the cursed prince. Honestly, who could ever love a beast? Loki mused, knowing even as he said it that it was not the beast in the story of which he spoke.

Pushing aside darker thoughts, Loki flipped through the pages of the book until he found one of his personal favorite stories: Jack the Giant-Killer. Loki had always admired Jack's ingenuity, for he rarely took the obvious approach to the dilemmas he faced. He was a mischievous scamp of a lad and a trickster to boot, but the people adored him nonetheless as he conquered the giants that terrorized their villages. And Jack never failed to slay his giants.