Work Text:
"I choose this time?" Loki raised a brow.
"Everything here is about you," Mobius nodded. "Browse all you like."
Loki poked through the open box and noted that the wrapped reels appeared to be grouped by century, then decade, then a truncated description of content type. He glanced over at the small stack that Mobius had set aside on the table.
"Which are those?"
"A few personal selections of my own," Mobius grinned. "We don't have to watch them, though. They just kinda jumped out at me."
"You've seen them, then?" Loki asked.
"Oh, no, not yet. While I was studying your case I found mention of them, and now I kinda want to see them for myself."
Mobius had an almost childlike enthusiasm about the whole thing. Loki had to admit, it was rather infectious. Now he was also curious about what the TVA would have about him which could evoke such fascination. He certainly didn't remember all ten and a half centuries of life, but it seemed that now he wouldn't need to try --- someone else had gone through the trouble to remember it for him.
He grabbed one of the reels at random from Mobius' stack and held it up.
"That one?' Mobius confirmed.
Loki nodded.
Idunn's Orchard, The Royal Gardens
Asgard, 982 CE
A leaf fluttered down from the branches overhead and landed softly onto the page of Loki's book. He took it between his fingertips and shifted his back against the trunk of the tree behind him, itching a shoulder blade through his tunic. It was a beautiful summer day in the south garden and he was nearly halfway through his favourite volume, nestled comfortably in the shade of one of Idunn's apple trees.
He closed his book and held the leaf delicately in his palm, focusing carefully. He studied each vein from the stem, each tiny ridge in the ovate edges, drawing another shape over it in his mind. It budged in his hand. He focused harder. Slowly the leaf folded and tipped, over and over, curling itself into strips, and its strips curling into legs and wings. He raised his hand up closer to his face to inspect its progress. It flicked leafy green wings that tickled his nose.
He gently held his hand out, following it with his eyes as it fluttered and took flight.
"I did it," he whispered, smiling to himself.
Several rows of trees over, a pair of foxes played boisterously, getting closer with each round of chase. After a moment of quiet, from the corner of his eye Loki spied a red and black face peeping up from beneath a nearby hedge. He smiled without turning to look. It snooped silently through the grass, watching him with nosy interest. Such interest, in fact, that it failed to notice its companion slinking up from behind, leaping gracefully in a playful arc, and taking the other by surprise in a sneaky tumble.
Loki laughed in spite of himself. Such beautiful, majestic buffoons.
They batted one another around a bit more and then disappeared back into the trees. Loki watched them go and sat reminiscing about each and every time he had snuck up on Thor and deployed some dirty trick or another, all in good fun (and only mild hostility). He set down his book and stood up, stretched, and pondered the walk back to the courtyard.
The next thing he remembered was crashing into the underbrush to the sound of Thor's battlecry and his own screaming.
"Ha! Got you, you little snake!" Thor instantly had him pinned by the shoulders in the damp soil.
"Get off me, you revolting bilgesnipe!" Loki shrieked venomously.
Thor squared his massive frame and rested upon his elbows, his forearms crossed over Loki's wrists as though they were nothing.
"I'm not bothering you, am I?" Thor jeered playfully, his greasy hair dangling down in Loki's face.
"What in Hel did you have for breakfast, a chamber pot?" Loki fumed as he wriggled beneath his brother's weight.
Thor chuckled down at him. "You seem annoyed, Brother. Something the matter?"
"I mean it," Loki snarled, "You'll get the daggers again!"
Thor's eyes lit up at the challenge. "Go on, then," he dared. "Do it."
Loki exhaled sharply, his face red with exertion as he clenched his fists. Thor watched him with a boyish fervor. Loki's fingertips prickled with energy, but even if he materialized his blades, he wouldn't be able to do anything with his wrists pinned.
"You aren't even trying, Loki!" Thor twisted his face to match his.
Loki seethed more threats under his breath. What would really teach him, Loki thought, was turning him into something ugly. Not for life; just until it wore off. He glared up at Thor and pictured him as a giant boar, or an ox, or a slug, or a myriad of other unsightly creatures. He opened his hands and felt his power pooling within them. He could hear himself snarling as he struggled harder, but Thor didn't budge. His mind was racing. His anger was boiling over.
"Let! Me! UP!" he growled, and gasped at the surge as it left him, enveloping them both in a flash of blinding energy.
Loki blinked at the clear sky as his senses returned to him. His ears were ringing. Something heavy landed on his stomach and scrabbled for footing. He slowly leaned up, squinting through a lingering daze, and looked directly into the face of the largest frog he had ever seen in any of the worlds.
It flopped about, disoriented, and Loki's eyes widened. He stared at the struggling mass of rubbery wrath and clapped a hand over his mouth, uttering an expletive under his breath. It toppled from his abdomen and croaked angrily.
Loki sat up with a start, staring down at the frog as it flailed wildly, upside-down in the trampled grass, and finally flipped itself over to look at him. It glared at Loki as he pushed his hair out of his face and leaned forward.
" … Thor?" he whispered, a panic growing in his chest. A raspy grunt emanated from its wide, mottled neck as it ballooned out and back in. Loki crept forward on his hands and whispered to it again.
"Thor? Is … is that you?"
It squawked and lunged angrily at him, slapping his face with its webbed feet. Loki cried out and scrambled backward across the grass. The frog followed him, leaping forward on powerful legs, bellowing things that sounded eerily like words. Loki could swear that it sounded like it was rasping his name.
He jumped to his feet and looked around frantically, hoping to all of the gods that this had merely been a prank, that he'd simply passed out and Thor had set the frog upon him and hidden himself somewhere close by.
But he was alone. Just a gawky sorcerer getting chased backwards by an enormous, screaming frog.
It was definitely Thor. And he was furious.
"Father's going to have me flogged for this," Loki muttered. Thor might actually do it himself once he was a boy again. He cringed as he watched Thor leaping after him in circles. Loki stopped and put his hands out to try to calm him, but it only seemed to offend him more. Thor threw himself forward between Loki's feet and began battering his projectile tongue against the hard leather of his boots, squawking irately between each ineffective impact.
"That … doesn't hurt," Loki informed him, looking down. "Always have to punch something when you're upset, don't you?"
Thor squawked again and charged, sending Loki skittering backward. Loki kept his distance as they circled in the grass, maneuvering toward his shoulder bag which was still laying back where he'd been sitting beneath a nearby tree. Somewhere in his notebook there had to be a helpful counter-spell or cantrip, or something. Anything.
Thor followed him persistently, croaking furiously at his feet.
"I don't know!" Loki snapped. "I am looking!"
After a long pause, another bellow of discontent came up from the ground.
"You're not helping!" Loki waved him off as he pawed through his bag and then his spell book. He felt something smacking at his foot again and looked down to see Thor back at it, slamming his tongue aggressively on the toes of Loki's boots, undeterred by the futility of it.
Loki sighed down at him. "That still doesn't hurt, you know."
Thor gurgled indignantly and flounced in frustration.
Loki poured over page after page of his scribbling, looking for anything that he might use. Transmutation, hemomancy, curses, hexing, somaturgy, taxonomancy, servitor magick … he couldn't even pinpoint what he had used to transform his brother in the first place. It had just come out of him in the moment. He had no explanation.
He noticed that it had been quiet for too long. He looked up from his frantic page-turning and realized that Thor was no longer in the grass. Loki stood up and looked around.
"Thor?" he called out nervously.
A movement on the opposite side of the clearing caught his attention. He crept closer and called out again. A guttural grumbling came in response. Loki continued closer --- closely enough to discern that it was Thor, balancing himself up against something on his hind legs, his front feet clumsily grasping at it. And then Loki saw what it was that he was fumbling with.
He strode cautiously, calling out to him again. Thor ballooned his throat loudly at him, jostling about more quickly now, the strange elastic toes of his front feet wrapping carefully around the handle of the hammer.
"Thor, no!" Loki pointed at him sternly. "Don't you dare throw that at ---"
He had barely ducked in time as Mjölnir went soaring past, close enough to blow his hair aside as it went, crashing violently between the trees behind him. A wave of startled birds darted up from the tree tops in its wake. Before him, Thor barked and screeched with renewed zeal. Loki threw his book down into the grass and balled his fists at his sides.
"You idiot! You could have killed me!" Loki stalked closer to him, matching him in his noise and intensity. "Do you want me to help you or not?" he demanded through gritted teeth.
Thor's shrill caterwaul echoed through the orchard and set Loki's teeth on edge.
"No, you're ridiculous!" Loki rebuked. "Belligerent as always. I should feed you to Freya's cats!" He picked up his book from the grass and turned to walk away. He felt an old bitterness rising to the surface.
"Perhaps I could present you to Sif. She might kiss you, and turn you back," Loki derided over his shoulder, his voice heavy with poison. He shoved his spell book into his bag, slung it over his shoulder, and turned back, folding his arms and glaring down.
Thor's cry had dwindled to a hoarse croak.
"You see?" Loki tilted his head at him. "Now you've lost your voice from all this screaming. Are you happy now?"
But he knew this wasn't the reason. That last jab had hit home a little too perfectly.
Loki gazed down at the miserable creature.
Thor, his only brother, who loved him unconditionally; his only peer who was still always happy to see him; the only one who had always stuck up for him. Thor wasn't a bully, he was just an insufferable oaf. Something twisted in Loki's chest, a twinge of what he could only surmise was perhaps empathy.
He didn't know how in Bor's name he had done it, and he certainly had no idea how he was going to un-do it. He exhaled heavily and crouched down.
"Come on," he said to Thor as he gently gathered him up.
"I am taking you to Mother. She will know what to do with you. We'll make you right again, I promise."
Thor flailed defiantly as he was lifted from the grass.
"Oh, stop being so dramatic! I'm not going to hurt you," Loki scolded. Thor ballooned an exasperated grunt.
"Would you rather walk?" Loki challenged. "You'll get tired, and hungry, and end up eating something that will give you nightmares for the next thousand years."
Thor's impossibly long amphibian legs stopped kicking and he croaked with resignation. Loki tucked him under his arm and they started for the courtyard.
"This is not the worst I've done to you, you know," Loki chided as they went. "I've not stabbed you at all today, have I?"
Thor grumbled.
"Just as I thought," he replied, and looked more closely at him. "Are you … drooling?"
Loki made a face.
"I can't decide whether or not your breath was worse before. And do not pee on me, either," Loki added. "We've a long walk back to Mother, and we both already stink badly enough as it is."
Thor whined loudly.
"Yes, actually, you do."
Odin's Private Study
The abrupt call of a raven at the window stirred Odin from his reading; he turned to find Muninn fidgeting expectantly upon the ledge and rose to investigate.
"What say you?" he asked, inviting his agent onto his arm.
Reportedly, a sibling scuffle was brewing in the south garden. Odin paced casually down the corridor, hands folded behind his back, to the southernmost facing balcony and peered out into the greenery below. After a long moment of nothing, a sudden burst of green energy shook the trees and sent startled wildlife scattering in all directions.
Odin sighed loudly. Muninn chittered from his shoulder. "Indeed," Odin nodded.
Moments later, an unusually large amphibious creature could be seen leaping around in the open grass, circled frantically by a tall, slender teenager with messy black hair. Odin leaned his elbows onto the ledge and smiled in amusement. Muninn hopped down beside him and began grooming his feathers.
Below, the scene had become comically unhinged: the creature had flung something at the boy, who barely dodged it in time --- Odin surmised it must have been Mjölnir, judging by the work it did on the trees in its path. More arguing ensued, and now the boy was struggling to pick the creature up from the grass, shouting as it kicked at him.
"I'll tend to him once they get inside," Frigga said as she strolled up beside Odin at the balcony. "After all, it is my turn."
Odin turned to her with a snort, and they shared a look of bemused resignation.
Mobius was laughing into his knuckles as he leaned forward to pause the reel. Loki was slouched in his chair, leaning on his hand, quite visibly trying not to laugh himself.
"So," Mobius asked between clearing his throat. "How much trouble did you get into for this?"
"Not nearly as much as one would think," Loki replied. "We got to Mother's chambers and she was, of course, waiting for us. I thought I'd have to explain myself but … she knew it was him."
"She took care of him, I guess?" Mobius rested his chin on his hand.
Loki nodded, staring up at the ceiling. "He was right back to his usual odious self by the next day."
"No more Thor Toad-inson," Mobius quipped.
Loki involuntarily snorted and glanced sideways at him.
"What?" Mobius smirked. "You mean my worst, best, pun ever … isn't even original?"
Loki cringed, mostly to hide a smile. It failed.
"Plenty more where that came from," Mobius said dryly.
"Now that sounded like a threat," Loki smirked down into the pile of reels he'd picked up from the table.
"Be very afraid," Mobius warned as he fiddled with the player. "I've got dad-jokes for weeks."