Mending Broken Minds

Chapter 2

The sun that filtered through the shades was golden, like the rest of the realm, tinted green by the curtains. Loki blinked his eyes open and groaned. "Who opened my godsforsaken-"

"Brother...?" Came a familiar, gruff voice. Loki shot up right and stared at the burly, muscled blond in his doorway. Loki vaguely remembered him, but there were many broad blonds in Asgard. If he was correct, he'd only seen this man 7 times in his life.

"Are you Thor?" Loki asks, tipping his head to the side. His hair was curlier, his eyes greener, he looked a little less broad, but Thor had still recognized him. He didn't recognize the youthful, curious expression in his face. He'd been told about the sentence, warned that when he next saw his little brother he'd be a person with completely different experiences. A person who doesn't have a brother who can look him in the eyes. "They didn't say you would be here today. I have a meeting with the former ambassador and three conferences with the council, I needn't your distractions. Come back another time." Loki got out of bed, sheets falling to the floor and Thor coughed and looked away, reddening quickly. He heard Loki pawing through his clothing as he scrubbed his face.

"You were never so... Brash..."

"I am a lot of things, embarrassed is not one of them. If you had come here to apologize for your absence in my life, it is a bit too late."

"I came to all of your name days, did I not?"

"You did not. You came to only every hundredth, and I can't ever remember you looking me in the eyes." Loki scoffed when he saw him still covering his eyes. "Uncover your eyes, you oaf. Come help me braid this, if you are so eager to repent." He sat at the plush green stool before his vanity and brushed the knots out of his hair.

"Have you always braided it?"

"Today we speak of Helblindi's illness. It's... Upsetting. He is not dying any longer, but he cannot battle for his left arm was rendered useless. A crippled King is not a king at all, as Laufey put it. And yes, I have."

"Laufey? When did you speak to Laufey?" He asked, sounding somewhere close to angry.

"I'm Jotunheim's Ambassador. It's kind of mandatory to speak to the Jotun's, isn't it? Do you know how to make a traditional braid, the ones you see in Jotunheim? Braided down the middle with beads, the rest left alone? If not just hold that mirror up so I can see what I'm doing."

"Aye, I think I've seen that before. Why didn't they tell me you would become the Ambassador?" Thor started braiding, watching as Loki grabbed little golden and green beads with curiously indented runes on it.The god handed them to him one at a time, and Thor obediently braided them in.

"I may have to take the throne of Jotunheim. I've learned how to project my illusions into other realms, so I'll probably be able to handle it while I go to Midgard. But it will be bothersome... I do not wish to be a king." Loki stands, eyeing his hair from both sides. "You did well, Faurbauti will be pleased..."

"Who is Farbauti?"

"My Dam." He replies with a smirk. "She's a light elf, last of them, actually. It's why I'm so small. Did you know potential Dam's have different marks than the regular frost Giants?"

"No, I did not, and a Dam? Is that not the term for the women of Jotunheim?"

"No, it is the term for the Jotun's who are dual sexed rather than male. And... My marks came in a year ago. Would you like to see?"

"The scars? I suppose. Will they not be the same?" He asks. Why else would Loki be telling him this, so close to the date he travels to Midgard. Thor was being thick, as usual, in Loki's eyes. Loki rolls his shoulders, and Thor watches as a light, airy blue bled through the young gods body. When the lines rose Thor paused, because instead of the hard, perfectly symmetrical patterns of before, these lines were swirling and curving and fluid. Instead of marking his forehead and jaw, they curled into a spiral on either of his cheeks, and at his temples. They slithered out along his collarbones, and spun in tiny swirls around his neck. It was mesmerizing, but it was also not the same.