[ that was what he had told the All-Mother, when they had asked how he wished to be compensated for his service to the throne: erase the old stories, write new ones, and remake himself as he wanted to be, without the weight of expectation.

Loki crosses his arms over the table that he's in front of, tapping dark nails against light colored wood. ]

There aren't just Nine Realms—there are Ten. The tenth, hidden from all by the rage of the All-Father, was locked away in a war with the angels. Odin One-Eye is many things, a good father—eh, debatable—but he will move heaven and earth for his family. So, during a war of the realms, the Queen of the Angels slain his newborn girl in cold blood, casting her off into the furnaces. In his fury, he exiled the realm itself.

Little known to him that the babe lived.

Fast-forward a few millennia: my brother, privy to a secret long kept, recruited me to find this lost sister of his. Ah—or rather ... ours, I should say. He flies in as he usually does, biceps a-blazing, hammer in the air, ready to both fight and flirt his way through the angelic realm. It doesn't work very well, but he's not usually the one with the plans, I am. The queen was easy to track down as any queen would be on her throne. While my brother battled the armies of Heven by his lonesome, I took it upon myself to try for a little regicide the easy way.

[ he taps his fingers again. ]

The queen had other plans. I did the dangerous thing and listened to her, and she and I struck a deal.