For we once so loved the world by HowlingDarkness95

Chapter 35

Percy led Loki down a winding hallway, coming up to a familiar nondescript door. He walked in confidently, while Loki lingered in the doorway, fingers tracing the walls as he entered the room, remembering the way Percy had lain on the bed, still and unmoving.

"Hey." Percy said softly, standing before Loki, "What are you thinking?"

Loki kept his eyes on the bed, his hand reaching out to find Percy's, "I'm thinking of how I failed you. Watching you fall to Amora, seeing your lifeless body on the bed..." he looked Percy in the eye, "I cannot even think of how lucky I am to have you standing here, before me, alive and well." He whispered.

Percy held his hand, intertwining their fingers, "I told you, that wasn't your fault. If anything, it was mine – no, don't say anything – it was mine for being stupid and naive. I trusted my back with the wrong person, and I paid for it. I'm glad that I managed to come back, believe me, and I intend to make the most out of my second chance at life."

Loki stared into intense green eyes, leaning down to press his lips against Percy's. Percy smiled into the kiss, then pulled away, ignoring Loki's noise of protest, "Come on, if we keep doing that, my father will be waiting the whole day. You need to wash up and change and we need to have an audience with the king. You don't plan on defying that are you? Cause you might end up drowning."

Loki scowled and yanked the clothes that Percy was holding out of his hands, marching into the separate bathroom. He stopped short at the sight of modern equipment decorating the interior. Truth be told, he was expecting something like Asgard's bath, a simple basin filled with water for washing one's hands and a larger tub for the individual to soak in. he wasn't expecting a shower head combined with a heater.

Where do they even get electricity to power up these things anyway? Loki wondered, stripping the clothes off him and switching on the shower. He sighed contently at the feeling of warm water cascading down his back. Jotun he might be, but he still preferred a hot bath over an ice cold dunk anytime. He smirked to himself, it was amazing how he could think of himself as a Jotun without feeling so disgusted with his own skin. Of course, it didn't take one clearing of his mind to completely change his view on the frost creatures, but at least now, without the pressure of the throne and impending war with said monsters, he could actually think properly and form his own opinions. Curious, he switched off the water and concentrated, pulling away the glamor that had concealed him for his entire life. He watched, slightly fascinated, as the glamor dissolved, blue skin creeping up his arm and his entire body. With only a slight hesitation, he walked over to the mirror that hung above the basin near the door, a stranger looking back at him. Loki swallowed, raising his arm, watching the blue man in the mirror copy his movement. He exhaled softly, turning his hands back and forth, observing the raised markings on his body curiously. He marveled at how he could look at his true form and not cringe, how Percy had changed him. He had accepted that he was a Jotun, but Loki wondered if his dark thoughts would ever come back to haunt him.

Oh he still felt anger alright, anger at Odin for lying to him. It wasn't the lying per se so much as what Odin encouraged silently. He could understand, to a certain degree, why Odin would keep his birthright from him, but he couldn't understand why Odin would allow him to grow up in a society which slandered Jotuns at every opportunity they got. What did he hope to gain by raising a Jotun child in a community who hated Jotuns? Loki remembered vividly the nightmares he got from stories the other warriors told about the frost monsters, how they struck down their soldiers, chewing off their limbs even when they were down, desecrating their dead. He remembered the warriors regaling their heroic tales of slaying the frost monsters, severing their heads from their bodies, and the sayings that mothers told their children.