A Gods Favor

We Meet Again

A short while later Loki and Thor stood on the sidewalks of New York outside of Shady Acres Care Home. Except Shady Acres was no longer standing. In front of them construction machinery was breaking apart the remnants of the building and Loki could feel the white hot anger pouring from his brother.

"I swear I left him right here."

"Right here on the sidewalk or right there where the building is being demolished?" Thor quipped back as they watched a bucket full of the debris get dropped into a dumpster. "Great planning."

"How was I supposed to know," Loki shrugged. "I can't see into the future I'm not El-a witch." The near slip of her name from his mouth only partially shocked him. He hadn't spoken it aloud since the day she'd come to berate him in his cell. Maybe it was the anticipation of seeing her again, Yrsa having directed Thor to locate her after they found Odin, but his mind had been flooded with thoughts of her since they stepped into the Bifrost.

"No," Thor looked Loki up and down. "Then why'd you dress like one?"

"Hey-" He began to protest but Thor cut him off.

"I can't believe you're alive. I saw you die, we mourned you, we cried for you!"

"I'm honored." His reply was dry and ingenuine. After everything that he had done he doubted his brothers' words.

Two mortals approached them with eagers smiles before asking Thor to pose for a picture. He agreed and leaned down to smile between them as he spoke to Loki through a forced smile. "We'll go find El, she'll be able to locate father."

The photo was snapped and the girls began to walk away but not before one of them remarked, "sorry to hear that Jane dumped you." Causing Loki to snort.

"She didn't dump me you know. I dumped her, it was a mutual dumping." Thor muttered and Loki patted his brothers back making to walk away when a golden ring of sparks formed around his feet. "What's this, what are you doing?"

Loki glanced around as Thor backed away. "This isn't me," he said before the ground below him opened up and he found himself falling.

He landed hard on his side and looked around. He was no longer on the street but in a dimly lit sitting room, a small fire crackling in the hearth and a faint shimmer of blue surrounding him.

"Hello, Prince." He shot up from the ground his eyes frantically searching the room to find the source of the voice he knew so well.

Elora stood from an armchair that had its back to him and walked toward the hearth, holding a hand out to it's warmth before turning to look at him. They stared at each other for a long time without speaking and his mind catalogued every aspect of her. Her hair was oiled and pulled into a thick braid the rested on her shoulder but no bones were weaved into it. Her skin was the same perfect porcelain though she had dark circles under her eyes as if she hadn't slept in several days and her dress...she wore the same pale dress from the dream, the only dream in all these years, that he'd had of her.

It hadn't been just a dream; she had come to him in his sleep again. She'd claimed as much that night as they walked through the meadow but he'd thought it was his mind taunting him. Because if it was really her than...she knew, she knew of his charade and never said anything. But why?

"Lovely dress, witch," he said the words to let her know he recognized it without acknowledging the how and straightened his jacket and brushed the dirt that had clung to him from his fall back to the ground. "Have you been on Midgard this whole time?" He knew she had been but was stalling in a way, trying to get her to talk so he could pull what information he needed to navigate the situation correctly. She nodded and began to walk slowly towards what he now realized was a shield of her making, trapping him in place. She didn't trust him. "And my siblings?"

"They left some time ago," she clasped her hands behind her back to hide their slight shake but he'd already noticed it. She came close enough to the shield that the light from it turned her skin to an icy color as her eyes roved over him. "The night we last saw each other, actually."

Her eyes locked with his and he knew she was playing a game too, was trying to see what he might admit to.

"Odd," he began to pace the small length of the dome. "Seeing as I last saw you was before the three of you ever left Asgard." Her eyes narrowed and her chin dipped but she didn't speak and he couldn't help but smirk, a bit proud that she held her ground.

"Oh wait," he halted his pacing to stand in front of her, glaring down. "You must mean the last time you came to torment me in my dreams. That was what three, four years ago?"

"Two," she said, vexed. He'd known that of course but had lied just to get that very reaction from her, to get under her skin so he could gauge her anger. Because if she hadn't told anyone he was alive, if she had kept his secret, was she still angry with him? "And I hardly call that interaction a torment...comparatively."

"I suppose you're right," Loki let out a chuckle at the smile that crept over her lips and he silently cursed the shield between them, blocking him from being able to reach out and touch her. "If I had known you'd been here by yourself for so long..." His eyes roved over her again as he licked his lips but he was snapped from his imaginings at the angry snort she released as she crossed her arms.

"What?" There was fire in tone now, a deep smoldering rage re-igniting. "You'd have left your throne to visit me? Or better yet you'd have come to steal me away back to Asgard where I would need to play along with your charade and be your dirty little secret or worse, your prisoner, locked away so I couldn't tell a soul that you were parading around as your father?" Her own pacing started then. "Because you banished Sif, had Heimdall labelled a traitor, oh yes, Loki, I know all about the things you've done to keep up your act and I know you wouldn't have taken the chance that I might have exposed you either."

"If you know all that," his eyes narrowed on her. "If you've known for years what I was doing, what was really going on, then why didn't you expose me? I ran Heimdall off shortly after taking the throne and banished Sif not long after that, so you've clearly known since the beginning. Why keep it from Thor and Yrsa for years?"

She stopped and drew in a deep breath. "Because Odin commanded me not to."

"What?" The word was barely a whisper as he stepped back from the shield, stunned.

"Odin made me promise to keep the truth hidden until the time was right. To lie to Thor and Yrsa, to stay silent as my friends were exiled and chased off, to do nothing until he called upon me, which he did...three days ago."

He could see tears, of anger or sadness he could not tell, gather in her eyes and he raised his chin. "And what, pray tell, did he command you to do then?"

"Bring his sons to him." She looked behind him toward the door and nodded. "So be warned, Prince. You'll be seeing him shortly."

She waved a hand, the shield dropping, and walked past him but before he could move to follow the ground below him opened up and swallowed him again.