Mutually Assured Destruction (Tink in Asgard AU)

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/51789193.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All
Media Types
Characters: Loki (Marvel), Tink (Rávamë’s Bane), Original Female Character(s),
Thor (Marvel), Fandral (Marvel), Volstagg (Marvel), Hogun (Marvel)
Additional Tags: Tink/Rávamë in Asgard AU, an alliance of mutually assured destruction,
Enemies to Friends, Shapeshifting, two semi-divine drama-queens help
each other out, Loki learns non-illusory shapeshifting from a wayward
maia, Unhealthy levels of sass, an angelic being and a folklore god walk
into a bar, Tink hasn’t been able to enjoy food in a very long time, Loki
needs more friends, Tink gatecrashes Odin and Frigga’s anniversary
dinner, is this flirting or is this a death threat?, yes the alligator is a Loki
Series reference, And I’m not sorry, AU oneshot, no beta we die like
men, minor Ravame's Bane spoilers
Language: English
Series: Part 2 of Rávamë's Bane AUs
Stats: Published: 2023-11-23 Words: 10,886 Chapters: 1/1
 Mutually Assured Destruction (Tink in Asgard AU)
by RealityWarp

Summary

“I wonder,” he said conversationally, “would you be so brazen if I shouted for assistance

in detaining a dangerous fugitive, and every guard and good citizen within a half-mile
all dogpiled on you?”
Tink gave him a smile that would have looked at home on a shark.
“And I wonder, would you be so condescending if your brother and father found out it
was your blood they found inside my cell that spooked the guards, and got them to so
kindly open the door for me?”
Loki felt his face twitch into an annoyed sneer at the reminder of that little mistake that
had snowballed into such a blunder.
“You do realise you’re picking a fight with a Prince and a God of this realm right now,
yes?”
“Lowercase ‘g’ god,” she shot back, through another mouthful of food. She pointedly
ran her eyes over him with unmasked disdain. “At best.”

Someone asked me what would happen if Tink and Loki from the MCU ever met. This is my
unhinged answer, and it was a lot of fun to write.

Notes

A/N: In honour of the show’s finale, someone left an ask on my tumblr account a few weeks
ago what would happen if Tink and Loki (MCU) ever met – since they’re both tricksy, semi-
divine drama queens with extremely grey morals, and arguably more power than they should
have. This is my unhinged answer to that question, and it made for quite a fun little exercise
to try and help get over my chronic writer's block (and seasonal depression). Truthfully, my
bet is if these two ever did meet, they’d either murder each other in a spectacular bloody
mess of a fight, or they’d turn into the universe’s most over-dramatic frenemies.

This AU assumes Tink was torn from Eleanor’s body back on Arda, thrown across planes,
and was forced to body-jump into an Asgardian (pre-Thor films) who’s weaker personality
she immediately subsumed. She also would have regained a lot of her old maia powers back
since an Asgardian body would be durable enough to withstand the physical and mental
strain of them – unlike a certain flimsy elleth we all know.

There will be a few smallish spoilers hinted at for Tink’s pre-stuck-in-Ellie’s-head history, but
I’ve deliberately kept them as minimal as possible – mostly by virtue of Tink being
 annoyingly evasive under interrogation. And yes, Tink/Ravame at even a fraction of her full
strength is a shed load of fun to write, and I really hope I get to do it more.

See the end of the work for more notes

Inspired by Lapsus Memoriae (Rávamë's Bane: Book 1) by RealityWarp

There were inch deep claw marks criss-crossing the blood-smeared floor of the Asgard throne
room, and for a change it was neither Thor nor Loki’s fault.

That honour belonged entirely to the entity that had quite literally gatecrashed their parent’s
wedding anniversary banquet.

It was by far the most chaotic thing to have happened in the palace in a very long time, and it
had all happened in the space of a few seconds. The party to celebrate the king and queen’s
500th year of matrimony had been in full (rather mundane for the number of years, in Loki’s
opinion) swing. Dinner was finished, half the guests were already drunk, and the dancing had
moved past the awkward warm-up stage to the phase where even the most stoic of attendees
were joining in.

One moment Loki had been sat enjoying the last of his wine, avoiding his fully ale-drunk
brother and his friends, and idly watching his parents dancing and laughing together…

The next, there’d been a blinding flash of light outside from the direction of the Bifost, like a
bomb going off but with no sound or shockwave. Then, what could best be described as a
comet of amber fire had exploded though one of the arched windows in a shower of shattered
glass and psychic screams. The eye-searing light gave off no heat as it surged over the heads
of the shrieking guests, and soared right past his shoulder leaving a trail of golden flames in
its wake…

Then the light slammed straight into the eldest daughter of one of the minor noble houses.

And the real screaming began.

The young red-haired noblewoman – Loki dimly remembered her being introduced as Astrid
– had dropped to the marble floor of the throne room like a puppet with its strings cut, and
began convulsing like she was being burned alive. That golden fire that had lanced into the
room like a meteor spilled from her eyes, her open mouth, and cracks appearing and
disappearing in her skin like she was lit from within as she screamed. Despite the shock and
collective drunkenness of all those around her, a handful of the revellers who’d been nearest
immediately went to her side to try and help…

They were the reason there were now blood smears across the floor.

Loki had watched from barely ten strides away as Astrid’s body had twisted, warped, and
shifted, that gold fire coiling and expanding around her…

Until a wolf the size of a hellhound took form where she’d been writhing on the floor a
heartbeat before.

One of the dinner guests had screamed in pure terror, and it seemed to set off a primal instinct
in the creature, because it instantly lashed out mindlessly with teeth and claws at the people
nearest. Several of them went flying and skidding across the floor with gash wounds all
across their bodies. More screaming erupted all around, and out of the corner of his eye, Loki
saw his brother and several of the guards rushing to intervene. Before they could get close
however, that golden fire flared around the wolf once again, and its shape rippled violently,
knocking back several more people and taking chunks out of the floor as its thrashing body
reshaped over and over in the space of heartbeats.

A polar bear. An enormous panther. Some kind of feathered basilisk creature. An ice-age
wolf again. A horrifying amalgamation of a dozen different predators all in one…

Then finally the body of a woman again.

For a few moments that twisting amber fire still coiled around where she was curled on the
floor, but finally it subsided, and the body of Astrid began to struggle to push herself to her
knees. Loki heard Odin shout for the guards to subdue her, and they all immediately raced to
surround her with spears and shields lowered.

Someone from the crowds cried out in objection – probably one of the girls’ family – but
Loki didn’t hear what was said.

He was too distracted by the fact that when Astrid looked up at them all, her eyes were
completely wrong.

They were a luminous amber shifting with the same colours of the fire that had surrounded
her only seconds ago, the pupils slitted like a cat. She blinked a couple of times between
gasps for breath, and the vertical pupil vanished while the odd colour remained, some kind of
awareness seeming to gradually return to her. She’d knelt there on the marble floor, breathing
like she’d run the length of the Bifrost bridge for several moments, surrounded by claw
marks and blood, the shreds of Astrid’s gown hanging off her…

And looking around at them all, she softly asked one question.

“Where am I?”

At first, no one had answered her, too shellshocked, confused and horrified by what they’d
just witnessed.

He still wasn’t entirely sure why he had.

“Asgard,” Loki had answered into the silence.

She’d taken one look at him through the cage of spears, then around at the rest of all the
staring people again, golden eyes going wide with…

Shock? Confusion? Horror?

Then she’d folded in on herself like someone had punched her, wrapped her arms around her
middle and made a sound like a wounded animal. He hadn’t realised until much later that it
had been a cry of utter disbelief mixed with bone-deep sadness.

She hadn’t struggled as several guards seized and restrained her with an inhibitor torc,
locking off her ability to draw any magic. She’d been as boneless and weak as a kitten when
they’d dragged her off to containment – a stark contrast to the furious forms she’d taken just
moments before.

The previously lively party had dispersed almost instantly following that scene, all the guests
vanishing away to let their leaders deal with…whatever the Hel had just happened. Astrid’s
family had fought to remain, demanding to know what had just happened to their daughter,
but the queen had assured them she would personally inform them as soon as they had
answers.

And get answers they would.

Astrid had apparently not struggled or fought at all when the palace healers had examined her
under heavy guard, not even when they’d put her under the Soul Forge. Whatever they’d
found, it clearly hadn’t been anything close to what they’d been expecting, because they’d all
filed out of the healing rooms a few hours later looking perplexed and unnerved. The chief
healer had spoken quietly to Odin and the head of the guard, and Astrid had immediately
been taken below to the dungeons by the king's own interrogators. A few more hours later,
when they too had come out, the news they’d collectively brought was unsettling.

Loki couldn’t say he’d known the noble woman who’d been afflicted well, let alone been
particularly fond of her, but it had still been deeply disturbing to hear both the healers and
interrogators both grimly relay their findings:

Lady Astrid was entirely gone.

Her body was still perfectly intact, but whatever, or whoever, had taken control of her during
the scene in the throne room had completely subsumed her mind. All trace of her soul was
gone, replaced only by the strange, chaotic power they’d witnessed spilling from her as she’d
shapechanged. The entity residing in their dungeons wearing her form now was not of
Asgard, nor any of the other Nine Realms.

Whatever they were, they were an intruder within their reality.

A threat.

But… also a potential opportunity, Loki had found himself thinking, as he, Thor, the Warriors
Three, and the most trusted of the guard listened to the proceedings.

Thor had already begun arguing that they needed to put it/them/her down quickly – whatever
they were they’d badly wounded several of their own guests after all. But Sif and Hogun
pointed out that there was no way to do so without also killing Astrid as well. What might be
left of her anyway.

Loki himself was content to let them all argue morals and ethics. He was far more interested
in the impossibility of what he had seen happen. A sentient being able to possess the body of
another, and not only change their shape but also change their mass with that ease and speed
was unheard of, even here. It was something not even the best sorcerers of Asgard – namely
himself – had been able to accomplish.
Yet.

Now a creature able to do just that had fallen squarely into their captivity, and for a change
they weren’t even able to dispose of it for moral reasons. The opportunity was so perfect it
might as well have come gift wrapped. All he needed to do now was find a way to study them
in isolation, ideally without anyone else knowing.

The entity now possessing Astrid’s body included.

Odin had ordered Asgard’s newest prisoner confined to a solitary level cell block of the
dungeons, with guards posted on the entrances at all hours. The only person who had the
authority to gain access to those isolated levels and command the guards within them, besides
the king himself, was the captain of the guard.

So naturally that was who’s form Loki took when he descended into the dungeons after the
darkest phase of the night had fallen.

As expected the guards on duty looked more than a little surprised to see their commander
down there at such an hour, but also as expected, they were too well trained to question it.

“You’re relieved of duty,” Loki told them from beneath his illusion, his magic turning his
voice into a perfect mimicry of their captains baritone. “The next rotation will be down
shortly. I will remain here until they come. Go, get some rest, it’s been a long night.”

It took them a moment, but eventually they went, leaving the hall outside the cell block
empty and quiet as a tomb as he walked down it towards where their prisoner was being
held.

Someone had given her a set of ugly beige infirmary scrubs to wear in lieu of the evening
gown she’d destroyed in the throne room, and the muddy colour clashed badly with her red
hair. She was sitting with her knees up against her chest, back to the wall of her cell, and she
didn’t look up immediately as he came to a stop just outside the yellow forcefield that acted
as the doors of her prison. When she did, he was struck again by the wrongness of those
amber eyes where Astrid’s blue-grey ones had been.

They were uncomfortable to meet directly – too sharp for the docile face they now lived in,
and something about the constantly shifting colour was more reminiscent of a jungle cat than
a woman.

“Another round of questions?” She asked from the floor, not taking that predator's gaze off
him as he walked over to the door controls. “Or are you here to just take my head off?”

She said it so casually she might as well have been asking him about the canapes from the
party she’d crashed. It also wasn’t until now that he was closer that he also noticed the
slightly reddish tint of the skin around her eyes.

She’d been crying…

Which was strange, but not of any particular interest to him either.

“Further questions,” he answered her in the bland, deliberately even tone all the guardsmen
used with prisoners. “The Allfather wishes to be more informed on the danger of keeping you
alive before passing judgement. You badly wounded eight of his personal guests.”

He was honestly a bit surprised to see her face fall at those words, and it made her look very
small where she sat curled on the floor.

“I didn’t mean to do that…” she said so quietly he almost didn’t hear her. “I’m sorry they
were hurt.”

She sounded like she truly meant it.

Then again, she might also simply be a talented liar.

He raised a hand and tapped in the combination on the door controls he’d easily swiped from
the guard captains' records, and a section of the forcefield big enough for a man to walk
through shimmered and vanished.

She eyed him with surprise and suspicion both as he stepped inside, using a keyband he’d
also lifted from the guard quarters to close it behind him.

Entering a prisoner's cell wasn’t strictly protocol for obvious security reasons, but he wanted
to be able to observe her more closely while they spoke. And anyway, Astrid had been a bit
smaller than average for an Asgardian, and had never trained as a warrior as far as he knew.
She was also still fitted with an inhibitor torc around her neck to keep her from drawing on
any magic. He was confident that without the ability to shapechange into a feral monster in a
confined space, he’d be able to handle her should she decide to try and cause problems.

“We only have a few more questions for you, then the king will make his decision, come the
morning.” He gestured to a small bench off to the side – the only piece of furniture in the cell.
“Please sit.”

The entity wearing Astrid’s body watched him carefully for a few slow heartbeats, her
expression never changing, but a dozen different things going on behind her eyes all at once.

Then, finally, her shoulders slumped and she sighed tiredly.

“Very well, I don’t suppose it can make things any worse,” she said, clambering up to her feet
and stepping towards the bench…

He didn’t see the three inch claws she’d shape-changed in place of her fingernails until they
were buried to the first knuckle in his side.
The illusion of a guard captain Loki had donned before entering the dungeons flickered with
shock as sudden pain lanced up his torso. His mind had enough time to be confused – she
was still wearing the torc, how was she still able to shapechange?

Then his focus slipped completely as he felt her dagger-sharp talons scraping against his
floating rib, and the glamour fell away as he threw himself away from her. A grunt of pain
escaped through clenched teeth as her claws sliced open his side as they came free, and for
the briefest second he saw her expression change from cold calculation to recognition.

He saw her mouth form the words; “You…”

Then he threw an elbow at her face faster than she was able to completely dodge. Though it
only caught her in the chest, his strength was enough to throw her smaller form bodily across
the cell. She hit the opposite wall hard with a cry of pain but recovered fast, bouncing up
from the floor with a furious snarl and blurring towards him…

But not before he took a step back through the entrance and closed the field behind him.

She skidded to a halt before she ran face-first into it, leaving them staring each other down,
their noses just inches from each other through the yellow-tinted barrier. He smirked at her,
feeling a surge of petty enjoyment at the sight of that frustration on her face, teeth bared like
the forcefield was the only thing keeping her from going straight for his throat.

But internally his smugness was diluted by the fact that he was literally having to hold his
shredded side closed with one hand. She was much faster in her humanoid form than he’d
expected. Another millisecond’s hesitation and she could (and might, judging by the look on
her face) have torn out a handful of his small intestines.

“Rather rude behaviour for a guest,” he said mildly, standing as straight as he could behind
the safety of the forcefield while still keeping pressure on his wounded side.

“Says the man who just walked into my cell wearing a mask,” she answered, mirroring his
mild tone, unblinking as she watched him.

He gave a swordsman’s nod at her right hand which still sported the knife-like talons she’d
stuck him with.

“Nice trick with the claws. Was ruining my tunic with them truly necessary?”

“You lot put me in a cage,” she said simply, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Did you really expect me to not try and get out the first chance I got?”

“Not in such a thoughtless way, no. Ten paces up that staircase and you’d have run into at
least two heavily armed patrols. I had rather hoped a…” He made a show of searching for the
right word, “ Creature like you would be a bit more cunning.”

For a few long moments they just stared each other down through the forcefield, neither of
them willing to blink or look away first.

“Who are you?” She finally demanded.

He’d only ever really heard Astrid speak once before, when they’d first been introduced to
the court. She’d been quiet and rather mousy at the time, with a voice that was easy to miss in
a crowd, and a difficulty meeting anyone’s eye for too long. This being staring out at him
from her face spoke like her words were blades, and she could and would unapologetically
pierce you with them if you gave her reason to.

“Funny,” he smiled at her faux-politely. “I was going to ask you the same question.”

“You first.”

“Loki of Asgard,” he told her with a deliberately condescending little bow. As much as he
was able to bow with four fresh gash wounds in his side at least. “And you’d be well advised
to not lay a hand on me again, if you want to live long enough for another escape attempt.”

Her eyes narrowed very slightly.

“So that whole thing about asking more questions instead of executing me was, what? Just a
nice lie then?”

“Not strictly a lie. I do have plenty of questions. The king may still decide to take your head
off though.”

She scoffed lightly, closing her eyes for the first time to shake her head in exasperation. It
was the first time since her attack that she showed anything other than grim calculation.

“I’ve already told your healers and bad-cops all they’re willing to hear, lordling.”

“Prince, actually.”

“Truly?” She raised an eyebrow at him. “I don’t see your crown anywhere, your highness.”

“I left it upstairs along with the thumbscrews and hot pokers,” he drawled. Her eyes
narrowed at him as she absorbed the thinly veiled threat, and he smiled sweetly back at her.
“Indulge me.”

She stood there as still as a statue for several long seconds, still glaring at him, the promise of
a violent, messy death still lingering in her eyes. The fresh blood on her hand was dripping
from her once-again humanoid fingers to form a little puddle on the stone floor by her bare
feet.

Finally she sighed in defeat.

“Fine. Ask.”

He took a moment before speaking, partly to see if she was easily annoyed, but mostly to
consider the best route to get to what he wanted to know.

“First tell me your name,” he ordered.

She offered him a crocodile grin through the barrier.

“Say please.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, but she only continued to smile in return. Clearly she was
exploring how easily he was annoyed too.

“Fine,” he conceded with a carefully controlled sigh of his own. “Let's try another. What are
you?”

“I’m a maia ,” she answered swiftly. When she didn’t elaborate further, he pressed her.

“And that is…?”

“Complicated.” She started slowly pacing the length of the forcefield as they spoke, as if she
couldn’t stand to remain still anymore. “But the abridged version is; a maia is the name for…
I suppose you’d call it a primaeval spirit of creation. Or at least where I’m from, that's the
case.”

He gave her the most sceptical look he was capable of, which was substantial.

“A spirit of creation?”

“Yes.”

“As in a primordial being from the formation of the universe?”

“Just so.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Says the man calling himself a god and yet bleeding generously onto the floor,” she quipped
without missing a beat.

She jerked her chin toward the blood running down the side of his tunic and trousers, and he
made a point not to move or show any pain. He was healing fast – as all Asgardians did. But
the claw wounds had also gone deep, and it was going to be at least a few hours and a trip to
the healers before he was able to move without stabbing pain in his side.

“You might want to put a bit more pressure on that,” she told him idly. He might have been
misreading her, but just like when he told her about those she’d hurt in the throne room, he
could have sworn he saw a glimmer of guilt in her face when she looked at the wound she’d
made across his ribs.

“Actually, I believe I’ll be just fine given a little longer,” he informed her tonelessly, taking
his hand away briefly to show the bleeding had already started to slow to almost nothing. He
was more than a little satisfied to see her expression shift to surprise at the sight. Whatever
she was, that clearly wasn’t something she was used to. “You seem rather… personable for a
primordial being.”

She shrugged.
“I have a lot of mortal friends. They’ve rubbed off on me.” Her expression shifted again, and
this time she didn’t even try to hide the sadness creeping onto her face. “Or had, at least…”

And there it was. The opening he needed.

“You had friends?” He asked, deliberately pitching his voice to be lower, gentler. “Mortal
friends you left behind when you came here?”

She nodded.

“Yes… I did.”

“Why did you leave then?” He pressed, still keeping the softer tone, but unable to fully
restrain his curiosity. “How did you even get here? How are you possessing the body you’re
in?”

“That’s three questions, princeling.” She held up her un-bloodied hand, and counted them off
on her fingers as she answered, still pacing. “One; I didn’t leave willingly, I was thrown here
forcibly. No clue why or how. Two; I don’t know. And three; I don’t know.”

He blinked at her.

“You don’t know...”

“Correct.”

When he gave her the full scope of his disbelieving stare, she threw her hands up at him in
exasperation.

“You’re more than welcome to not believe me, but it’s the truth. My original body was…
unmade a long time ago. I’ve been body-jumping ever since. Any time one becomes
uninhabitable for whatever reason, it just happens. Whoever this was,” she gestured down at
Astrid’s body standing there in the ugly, blood-spattered scrubs; “she was just in the wrong
place at the wrong moment when I came through.”

“So this has happened before?”

“Yes.”

“Ever since your… ‘original body’ was unmade?”

“More or less.”

“What does that mean ?” He suddenly snapped, unable to keep the impatience out of his
voice any longer. “How? By what?”

She stopped pacing as something like the bone-deep sadness he’d seen on her face in the
throne room mixed with an ocean's worth of bitterness crossed her face.
“By whom,” she corrected very quietly. “Some one unmade it. And someone you’re in no
danger from, and beyond understanding anyway. Next question.”

Loki shook his head, narrowing his eyes on her.

“No. Not until you’ve given something even resembling a useful answer, creature,” he
growled, taking a step closer to the barrier separating them. The laugh she gave didn’t have a
drop of humour in it.

“Sad for you, since they’re the best answers you’re going to get from me.”

“I could always get the thumbscrews if you prefer.”

“Next question, princeling,” she snarled, actually snarled at him, teeth bared and golden eyes
flaring. “Or I’m done. You and your thumbscrews be damned.”

Loki felt his own expression dissolve into an angry sneer in return, his own temper flaring
enough to break what was left of his smug facade. For the second time in just a few minutes,
the pair of them stood there exchanging glares that promised brutal, slow murder – both of
them utterly refusing to be the first to look away.

Whatever glimmer of vulnerability Loki thought he might have seen and been able to exploit
had vanished from her expression entirely. Something about this whole interaction had also
stripped away his own mask of patience more effectively than any argument with his brother,
so he didn’t bother with niceties when he asked the question he was really here for:

“How are you able to change shape as you do?”

Her brows furrowed in genuine confusion, the anger vanishing so quickly it was like it had
never been there. She was looking at him like he’d just asked her for a step-by-step guide on
how to breathe.

“You’re… going to need to be far more specific.”

He gestured to her blood soaked right hand impatiently, not even trying to mask his irritation
now.

“You’re able to shapechange your entire form as well as isolated limbs in seconds. And you
don’t seem to be constrained by differences in mass or body composition.” Or inhibitor torcs,
but he left that part out. “How?”

She blinked at him.

“I’ve always been able to. Any creature that belongs to the wilds I can take the form of.”

“But how ?” He all but seethed.

“How are you able to be as over-confident as you are conniving? Because it’s presumably in
your nature.”
“That still isn’t an answer.”

“Isn’t it?” She asked innocently.

And he saw the corner of her lip twitch up with a tiny, unpleasant smile that he wouldn’t have
spotted had he not been standing so close.

She was toying with him, he realised with a jolt.

In the same way he’d used that tiny glimmer of vulnerability she showed earlier against her,
now she was using that frustration he’d shown against him too, fanning that fire until the
anger and lost patience was all but blinding him…

No different than Thor losing his temper whenever he didn’t get his way.

That realisation drove Loki’s temper off a cliff. He felt his eyes sharpen on her like blades as
his mind did what it did best; running back through everything she’d told him over the last
few minutes, pulling out details until he was able to paint a mental picture of what had likely
happened to her…

A picture he could use against her.

“If what you say is true, maia ,” he started, his voice taking on the same unpleasant venom he
usually saved only for taunting opponents into mistakes in a sparring ring. “And you’re
stranded here outside your home realm against your will, then I’m going to guess that means
your previous host body became… how did you describe it?” He made a show of searching
for the phrase. “ Uninhabitable somehow. What was it? Shapeshifting into a mouse and
getting stepped on? Another ‘unmaking’, whatever that means?”

He leaned close to the barrier and let the poisonous smirk twist his face.

“A knife in the back by one of those former friends you mentioned?”

He knew taunting her wasn’t going to get him any more answers, but in that moment his
boiling temper didn’t care. All he cared about was using those silver-tongued words of his to
wound her just as she’d wounded him with her claws.

And the words he’d chosen did their job well.

He watched through the barrier as her expression went from quietly smug, to guarded, to
livid in the space of a breath, those unnatural eyes going flat with scolding anger. She’d
stopped pacing the moment he’d mentioned the loss of her previous body, tightening with
rage on the spot, but with the last word out of his mouth she’d surged right up to the barrier
so they were almost nose-to-nose.

“I had my fill of arrogant tricksters like you a long time ago, princeling,” she told him, low
and quiet with barely restrained wrath. “The next time you come down here to interrogate,
torture or try your best to kill me, at least have the balls to wear your own face from the
start.”
She flicked some of his own blood at him, the droplets hissing and burning as they came into
contact with the forcefield. Then she turned and stalked back to where she’s been curled
against the wall, tucking her knees up to her chest as she sat, clearly done with him.

He held that triumphant smirk that had crept onto his face for a solid ten seconds just to
make a point, soaking in the satisfaction of getting the metaphorical last word. But not
enough to drown out the frustration with himself at being goaded into losing his temper so
easily.

Truly no better than Thor.

He turned away from the cell before letting the smug look drop, starting to move as leisurely
as he could manage towards the stairs. The pain in his side was dimming but still strong
enough to be uncomfortable now that he didn’t have the verbal sparring match to distract
him. He was going to have to invent a pretty creative excuse for the obvious claw injuries
when he stopped by the healers on the way back up to his quarters…

He honestly wasn’t expecting the being to say anything more to him at all, so it was a bit of a
surprise when her voice came from inside the cell one last time.

“Tink,” she called just before he reached the stairs. “My name is Tink.”

He blinked, stopping mid-step.

Whatever grandiose title or moniker he’d been expecting a creature like her to have, it hadn’t
been anything like that.

Against his better judgement he turned back just a moment to give her an incredulous look
over one shoulder.

“Really?”

She was watching him through the barrier, her eyes flat and expression unreadable.

“It’s the only name that matters to me now,” she said quietly. Then she shrugged, the
nonchalant smile she sent him not reaching her eyes. “And the only one I feel like sharing
with you now, princeling.”

He scoffed and turned to start up the stairs again.

But not before catching sight of her waving goodbye to him with the hand still coated in his
blood.

Loki lasted all of twenty-four hours before he found himself drifting through the palace in the
direction of the dungeons again.
His side was still a little tender though it had healed over nicely after the trip to the infirmary.
The healers had been deeply sceptical of his “hunting accident” excuse for why there were
four obviously fresh claw marks in his side, but they hadn’t questioned him further. He’d left
too swiftly for them to pry once they’d done their job, and he’d immediately headed straight
to the palace library with only a short stop at his quarters for some fresh clothes.

If the creature (honestly, what kind of name was ‘Tink’ for something claiming to be a
primordial spirit?) was unwilling to answer any more of his questions, he would simply do
what he did best:

Take what information he had, expand on it, and use it to his advantage.

And if whatever he found benefited him directly at the same time as helping secure Asgard’s
safety, so much the better.

So he’d gone straight from his quarters with no other detours and began scouring the palace
library and his own knowledge of magical theory for everything he could find on primaeval
spirits, shapeshifting, transplanar travel, and body-jumping. Several hours, a couple of missed
meals, and his mother insisting he at least eat something off a tray brought up to him later,
most of what he’d found had been interesting but not helpful or relevant to his current
problem of figuring out what Tink really was, how she’d got here, or how she was able to
change her shape with such ease.

He had however found an explanation for why the torc hadn’t worked on her, and he’d be
lying if he claimed it didn’t unnerve him slightly.

Asgardian inhibitor cuffs and torcs worked by cutting off a sorcerer's ability to draw on and
channel magic from the external world through their bodies and minds. Most beings didn’t
contain enough innate power to fuel magic on their own – needing to draw on the power of
the outside world to supplement anything more substantial than the smallest illusion. He
himself would have been severely limited (though not completely) if anyone dared try to
restrain him with one.

The only way that being calling herself Tink would have been able to shapeshift while still
wearing one was if she herself was a source of magic.

Meaning that her claim about being a primordial spirit trapped in a series of mortal bodies
might not have been an exaggeration after all…

Which was why Loki now found himself stalking swiftly back down towards the dungeons
again.

His brother and the Warriors Three had gotten wind of his marathon research session in the
archives (though not the subject matter), and he already knew they were looking for him in an
attempt to drag him out riding as a distraction. Before he got snatched up he at least wanted
time to make the point to her that he knew more of her situation than she assumed, that he
was better as her ally than her enemy, and that perhaps working with him rather than against
him might be in her best interests. Odin had ordered her to remain confined until Asgard’s
researchers and interrogators could collectively give him more information to make a ruling
and mollify Astrid’s family.

But that didn’t mean his famously short-tempered father wouldn’t impulsively decide to have
her beheaded just to be safe, and…

And he was reluctant to admit that, infuriating as he’d found the interaction with her for the
lack of any straight answers (and the utter destruction of one of his favourite tunics), in
hindsight, he realised there was a part of him that had rather enjoyed their barbed talk. It had
been a long time since there was anyone who was capable, let alone willing to verbally cross
swords with him – longer still since anyone had done so and been able to keep up.

Loki made a disgusted noise under his breath, irritated with himself. He made a point to
shove that moronic idea into a deep dark place at the back of his mind where it would
hopefully die on its own, and quickly descended the stairs to the solitary wing of the
dungeons.

He knew something was wrong before he even stepped through the entranceway.

It should have been guarded at all times, yet the posts on either side of the archway were
vacant, and he could hear the muffled sounds of shouting from further down the cellblock.
Without hesitation he ran straight for Tink’s cell, coming to a halt right where he’d been
standing the evening before…

And found the guards who had been posted on the door trapped on the wrong side of the
cell’s forcefield, shouting and desperately trying to search for a way to break themselves out.

There was no sign of Tink anywhere.

“What the Hel happened?!” Loki shouted at the guards, unable to fully believe what he was
seeing. “Where is she?!”

But he realised what had happened a second before either of them could speak the words.

He looked down at the polished stone floor and saw slightly bloody mouse tracks leading out
of the cell entrance. They changed to a woman’s bare foot prints about five feet from the
doors, leading right up to a small bloody handprint on the same door controls he’d used the
previous day to shut her in.

She’d managed to shapechange into a mouse, hidden, leaving only the blood from their
conversation behind. It had clearly been enough to fool the guards into thinking she’d
somehow physically broken herself out. Then when they’d come in to investigate, she’d crept
out, changed back, and locked them inside before making an easy escape out into the palace.

The oldest damned trick in the book.

And he’d unwittingly helped her do it.

Loki cursed furiously, and blurred back up the stairs taking them three at a time, shouting as
loud as he could manage for the other guards that there was a prisoner on the loose. He left
the two fools who let her escape in the cell where she’d trapped them.

He’d barely made it to the top of the stairs before almost running head first into Thor and the
Warriors Three. Thor caught him by the shoulders and beamed at him.

“There you are, brother! Care to join us for a–”

“She’s escaped!” Loki interrupted before he could get any further, not bothering with
subtlety. Thor’s face shifted from surprise to confusion to realisation as he finally seemed to
register where Loki had just come from.

“What?”

“Father’s prisoner,” he explained as fast as he could, his mind racing to try and determine
where she would be most likely to run to. “She got out. She’s loose somewhere in the
palace.”

Behind Thor, Fandrel and Volstagg looked both equally baffled and disbelieving as his
brother had.

“What in the–?”

“How did she even–?”

“Then we must find her,” Hogun cut them all off, the only one other than Loki who’d ever
proved capable of thinking strategically under pressure. “I’ll alert the other guards. The rest
of us should spread out.”

“Yes,” Volstagg nodded. “There’s no way she could get far without being spotted.”

But Loki — thinking of how that torc around her neck had done absolutely nothing to stop
her shapeshifting — had the sinking feeling that wasn’t going to be true at all.

He and Fandrel decided to cover the east wings, while Thor and Volstagg searched the west
and Hogun covered the central halls with the guards.

“How in the realms did she even manage to get out of the cell in the first place?” Fandrel was
muttering as they both stalked down the halls.

“Would that I knew,” Loki answered quietly, only partially lying.

The two of them couldn’t have been hunting the corridors near the kitchens and wine cellars
for more than three minutes before Loki felt the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end
like someone was watching him. He let Fandrel keep walking ahead as he turned to look back
down the hallway. Nothing immediately stuck out as unusual; a few scullery maids hurrying
to attend to their duties, a flock of birds flying past the windows outside, the busy sounds and
scents of dinner being prepared on the floor below, a dark brown kitchen cat perched on the
window ledge, its tail curled neatly around its paws watching them pass by…

With flickering amber gold eyes.

Loki’s arm blurred, and before Fandrel even had a chance to turn and ask why he’d stopped,
he’d conjured one of his knives to his hand and flung it across the room straight at the cat.

With a speed even a feline creature shouldn't have been capable of, it twisted to the side half
a breath before the blade pierced its head, the knife burying itself to the handle in the window
frame instead. As it did, that same gold fire he’d seen glinting in its eyes coiled around its
small body as it grew and shifted into the familiar shape of Astrid – or Tink, as he knew her
now – crouched on the lintel in exactly the same spot. She had the same feline smirk on her
face that she'd worn as a cat.

“Well spotted, princeling,” she praised, and sounded genuinely pleased.

His only answer was another knife hurled straight at her face. She dodged again, and the
blade struck the window behind her with such force that it shattered outward with a loud
crash.

“She’s here!” Fandrel bellowed behind him, drawing his blade just as Thor, Volstagg and a
cadre of other guards came around the corner.

Tink sent them all a sunny smile and a wave, made a point to throw Loki an insulting hand
gesture…

And promptly threw herself backwards out of the broken window.

“What the–?!” Volstagg cried out, but Thor and Loki both were both already racing to look
out and down after where she’d fallen. They both got there just in time to see her plummeting
head-first like a stone down the side of the palace…

Before her body twisted in midair, shifting into the shape of a falcon, her wings flaring wide
to catch the wind moments before she would have hit the stone of the courtyard below.
Beside him, Thor let out a furious shout and launched Mjollnir in a powerful overarm throw
after her. The hammer flew straight at the fleeing shapeshifter, almost catching her left wing
as she pulled out of the dive, but the shout gave him away. She barrel-rolled to the side just in
time to evade being punched clean out of the sky, gave one last mocking cry at them in her
flacon form before shifting again in mid-air, this time into a dove. Then she banked left,
vanishing into the nearby flock of hundreds of other identical birds that had been passing by.

Thor let out another frustrated shout and rounded on the others left in the hallway.

“Find her!” He bellowed at them all, Mjollnir returning to his outstretched hand a second
later. “Take out as many search parties as needed! Do not let her escape the city!”

Every single guard within Asgard had been put on high alert, but also instructed to keep their
search for the prisoner as quiet as possible.
Besides not wanting to alert the people of the city that a dangerous body-stealing fugitive had
somehow escaped the king's own dungeons (which was embarrassing enough, Loki felt), they
also hadn’t wanted word getting out that it was an Asgardian noblewoman whose body had
been taken. The last thing Odin wanted was to cause panic and paranoia among his people as
they looked for her.

The search had been going on for almost three days and Loki still hadn’t told anyone what
he’d discovered about the entity now possessing Astrid’s body. If he did it would have meant
explaining exactly how he’d discovered what she was and the extent of her abilities – which
would also require him revealing his part in her escape, and that was out of the question.

For all the affection he felt for his family, his father and brother were not the forgiving sort,
and this was a transgression that would not end well if they discovered the truth.

Which was why, despite the fact that Thor and the Warriors Three had long since chosen to
return to Odin's halls, regrouping to form a plan to track her down, Loki was still out in the
city. He had been using his illusions to sneak out of the palace to cause mischief since he was
a child, so getting out unnoticed in order to conduct his own search hadn’t been an issue. The
real problem had come with the fact that he was one person looking for a shapeshifter in a
city of tens of thousands.

He’d tried using a tracking spell on the inhibitor torc she’d been wearing, but when that
turned up broken in an alleyway outside a blacksmiths next to a pair of pliers, he’d realised
he was going to have to find her the old fashioned way. So he’d been combing the city in
sections over the past few nights in disguise, looking and listening for any signs of anything
even dimly unusual.

Thus far, his efforts had turned up absolutely nothing.

Asgard remained as uneventful and unchanged as it had even been, despite having a
primordial being hiding somewhere in its depths.

Frustrated, tired, and in dire need of a scented bath and a good glass of wine, Loki had started
to make his way back towards the palace from where he’d been scouring the lakeside
districts. He was just passing a small drinking house by the waters edge filled mostly with
local workers, barely paying attention, when he heard a familiar voice laughing…

He’d looked up, and just like that, there she was.

Barely ten paces away, sat at a side table tucked away in the back of a tavern hall, drink in
hand, happily chatting away with a trio of workers who all looked like they came from the
lower city. One of them was obviously relaying a heavily exaggerated story for them, because
he was gesticulating wildly with the hand not holding his drink, and she was smiling and
laughing along with them in seemingly genuine enjoyment.

He just stood there staring incredulously at her through the open doorway for a few seconds,
unable to quite believe what he was seeing.
It took him longer than he was willing to admit to put together that she’d clearly realised that
they’d all be hellbent on looking for her in one of her animal forms, especially after that stunt
back in the palace. So she’d hidden herself exactly where she knew they wouldn’t think to
look:

Among the people.

And she looked like she was having a grand old time doing it – she’d even found some
simple commoners clothes to replace the ugly bloody-spattered scrubs.

Loki realised must have looked like a perfect moron standing there vacantly in the entryway
gawking at her, because a few of the patrons near the door had glanced up and started
pointing and whispering. Quickly composing himself, he strode into the tavern and straight
up to them as if he owned the place – which to be fair, he more or less did as a prince of the
realm. One of the men who wasn’t in the midst of trying to impress her with wild stories
looked up and saw him striding towards their table, and his jovial expression melted into a
mix of surprise and alarm.

“Prince Loki,” he stood quickly, looking like he was about to bow. Loki waved an imperious
hand at them all, not taking his eyes off Tink.

“Leave us.”

He didn’t make it a request. All three men immediately took their drinks and quickly scurried
away, leaving Tink sitting there on her own. When they’d gone, she turned to him with a
deliberately patronising smile that looked eerie on Astrid’s face.

“You could have at least said please. Very ill-mannered of you, your highness.”

He immediately flicked a hand and threw up an illusion over them to make it sound and look
to anyone nearby that they were simply friends meeting for a quiet talk. Then he leaned down
with an incredulous glare at her.

“What the Hel are you doing here?” He hissed.

She held up her glass to him like it was obvious.

“Drinking…” She peered curiously down at the half-finished wine. “Honestly I’m not sure
what this is, but it’s delicious.”

“You know what I mean,” he snapped. “What are you still doing in the city? You managed to
evade my fathers guards, my brother, and my brother’s band of idiots. You could have
escaped Asgard completely.”

“And gone where?” She asked bitterly, taking another deep swig from her glass. “Asgard,
from what I can tell, is a big beautiful rock floating in the middle of literal space – honestly,
how do you people even have a functioning biosphere out here? I got here in my ethereal
form. Now I’m stuck in a body I’m not familiar with, in a realm I have no idea how to get out
of, with a powerful royal family of demigods who are on the fence between sticking me back
in a dungeon, or just whacking my head off. I might as well enjoy myself while I’m still
free.”

One of the servers came over with a platter loaded with what looked like every item of food
they offered on the menu. Tink beamed up at the friendly young woman, thanked her heartily,
and immediately started loading up her plate. She met his eyes curiously across the table as
she did so.

“I think the more interesting question right now is; why aren’t you immediately dragging me
back to the palace in cuffs and claiming your glory?”

He eyed her.

“Morbid curiosity?”

She gave him a sceptical look that was almost as good as his.

“If you say so,” she said, taking up her cutlery. “You’ll have to forgive me, it’s been a few
thousand years since I had tastebuds of my own, so…”

She gestured unabashedly to the plate she’d loaded to near spilling over, and dug in before he
could say anything.

For a few seconds he just stood there looking down at her in genuine bemusement. When it
became apparent that she had absolutely no intention of running – at least not until she’d
finished her meal – he snorted and made himself comfortable in the chair opposite her.

“How did you do it?” He asked when there was a gap between her mouthfuls.

She looked up from dipping a chunk of bread in her rabbit stew.

“Do what?”

“Shapeshifted,” he clarified. She almost rolled her eyes.

“This again?”

“You not only did it multiple times, changing your mass, but you also did it with an inhibitor
torc around your neck. I need to know how, and you’re going to tell me.”

She shook her head, tossing the bread into her mouth and chewing to avoid answering
immediately.

“I already told you–”

“You didn’t actually,” he interrupted, leaning towards her over the table. “You evaded the
question quite neatly last time we spoke. Hence why I am asking, again.”

She offered him an annoyed glare.

“And I am once again neatly evading.”

“You can’t evade forever.”

“I’ve managed reasonably well thus far.”

He watched her masked expression carefully from across the small drinking house table, eyes
narrowing. Something about that question specifically made her uncomfortable, but he
couldn’t understand why.

“I wonder,” he said conversationally, “would you be so brazen if I shouted for assistance in

detaining a dangerous fugitive right now, and every guard and good citizen within a half-mile
all dogpiled on you?”

She gave him a smile that would have looked at home on a shark.

“And I wonder, would you be so condescending if your brother and father found out it was
your blood they found inside my cell that spooked the guards, and got them to so kindly open
the door for me?”

Loki felt his face twitch into an annoyed sneer at the reminder of that little mistake that had
snowballed into such a blunder.

“You do realise you’re picking a fight with a prince and a god of this realm right now, yes?”

“Lowercase ‘g’ god,” she shot back, through another mouthful of food. She pointedly ran her
eyes over him with unmasked disdain. “At best.”

He felt that surge of irrational anger that was becoming annoyingly familiar whenever he
talked to her, and had to work not to say something that would shut her down again
completely. Instead they both sat there in antagonistic silence, glaring daggers at each other
for a solid minute.

“Why do you want to know so badly anyway?” She finally asked, clearly growing tired of the
staring contest.

For a moment, he considered just fabricating a lie. It wouldn’t be difficult, she said herself
she was unfamiliar with this plane. But as he met her hardened expression, he decided that
maybe a little glimmer of honesty in his answer might help his case this time.

“Because I intend to learn how to do it for myself.”

That made her stop chewing entirely.

She studied him closely, like she was trying to see something hidden in his expression. She
clearly didn’t find it because she returned to her stew a moment later with faux-nonchalance,
breaking a fresh roll in half and dipping a piece in her bowl.

“This is really good, by the way. Want to try some?”

She offered him the other half of the roll. He ignored it completely, leaning back in his chair.

“I really don’t.”

She tutted disapprovingly at him.

“Not one for mingling among your own people are you, princeling?”

“Stop trying to dodge the question again,” he all but growled, trying to ignore how much her
calling him that was starting to grate on his nerves. Then with an impulsive rush of
compromise he couldn’t really explain, he sighed; “Please.”

Even in the short time they’d been interacting with each other, Tink seemed to understand the
weight of that particular word coming from him. She paused eating, looking from her dinner
up to him. She didn’t set her cutlery down, but she did lower it to rest by her plate, taking a
moment to wipe her mouth with a napkin before finally speaking again.

“Why?” She asked softly.

“Why what?”

“Why shapeshifting,” she clarified. “You're obviously already a skilled sorcerer. You can
make convincing illusions, and are no slouch in close-quarters combat. Why would you need
to know how to shapeshift too?”

“I have my reasons.”

“And those reasons are?”

“Personal,” he told her. When she didn’t look pleased with that answer, he just shrugged at
her with a lazy smile. “You’re not the only one adept at dodging prying questions, maia .”

She waved her fork at him like a fencer accepting a hit.

“It wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with one-upping that brother of yours, would it?
The first-born brother and heir I’m guessing?” His mask must have slipped very slightly at
the mention of Thor, because she nodded her head knowingly, but didn’t look smug about it.
“Thought as much. Well, petty vindictiveness against an over-popular sibling is at least a
motivation I can get behind.”

Outside the tavern a band of guards went by, marching double-time in the direction of the
lower city. In the seat opposite him, Loki watched Tink clock them, her amused expression
turned carefully blank, and she immediately turned her face in the opposite direction to avoid
them recognising her. He let a smirk slip back onto his own face, and the sight clearly
annoyed her because she snorted, still not turning her head in the direction of the window.

“And what exactly are you offering in return for that knowledge?” She asked.

He leaned forward over the table again, partly for dramatic effect, but also so he could speak
more quietly.
“I can keep you safe here,” he said simply, and when she looked at him in genuine interest he
went on. “I can glamour you, the same way I did with the guard disguise in the dungeons.
You would be able to move about the palace and city without detection. At least as long as
you’re near me. And until you share your knowledge.”

She considered that for a few moments, clearly considering the weight of that claim..

“Your illusions are really that good?” She asked, and sounded genuinely curious.

He gave her a cocky smile.

“They’re better.”

She eyed him for a moment, then leaned forward over the table too.

“Show me.”

He was sorely tempted to make her look like a cantankerous old woman just to be petty, but
he restrained himself, trying to be diplomatic. Instead he pictured a clear, precise image in his
mind, letting his magic mirror and assume the same shape around her like a veil.

One moment the form of Astrid with the wrong posture and the wrong eye colour was sat
staring at him from the other side of the table. The next, a woman the same height and stature
with reddish brown hair, a sharp but pleasant face that seemed to fit her better, and bright
brown eyes was looking back at him. The glamour was close enough to Astrid’s original form
and colouring that it wouldn’t take much effort to hold the illusion in place automatically, but
still different enough that it wouldn’t arouse suspicion.

Tink looked down at herself and blinked in surprise. She picked up her soup spoon off the
table and began inspecting her reflection in it, her newly coloured eyes going wide.

“Wow,” she breathed, turning her new face this way and that to get a better look. “Even the
eyes? Really?”

He nodded with a wry smile, not even bothering to hide his pride.

“ Especially the eyes. They do rather give you away.”

“That's… genuinely impressive…” she murmured, running her fingers over her cheek and
through her hair, and he felt himself preen just a little at the compliment. She set the spoon
down a moment later with a frown. “Even so, I can’t do it.”

He narrowed his eyes dangerously at her.

“You’re hardly in a position to negotiate a steeper price,” he told her.

She shook her head at him, meeting his eyes seriously.

“You don’t understand,” she said, and she sounded genuinely frustrated with him now. “It’s
not something I can just teach. The wilds and all the creatures in it are my domain , my
essence, not something I chose to study. It’s literally what I was created for, what I am at my
core. Trying to teach someone, anyone, to shapechange the same way I do would be like
trying to teach a cat how to fly.”

Frustration and impatience barbed his tongue again as he frowned at her.

“Then I hope you’ve grown fond of that cell,” he said coldly. “Because you’ll be down there
a good long while.”

Her glamoured face twisted into a snarl, the gold of her eyes burning through the illusion for
half a breath as she looked like she was keying up to fight.

But then she stopped, the hostility dissipating from her face. She was looking at him
thoughtfully, as if trying to put a puzzle together in her head.

“What…?” He asked slowly, feeling abruptly uncomfortable under her gaze.

“You can conjure right?”

He blinked at her.

“What?”

“Conjuration,” she repeated, waving a hand impatiently at him. “I saw you do it back in the
palace with those knives you threw. Taking an inanimate object, breaking down its physical
structure, and reconstructing it in a different pla–”

“Yes, I know what conjuration is, thank you,” he snapped, annoyed. “ Why ?”

A tiny smile lost somewhere between self-satisfied and excited pulled at her lip.

“I can’t teach you to shapeshift the same way I do,” she said plainly. “But I might be able to
teach you how to do it using your own magic. I change my form purely instinctively, but if
you already know how to conjure; deconstructing and reconstructing inanimate objects with
your magic–”

He saw what she was getting at.

“Then you might be able to show me how to do the same with my own form too,” he finished
for her, his own interest piqued too. It was a conceptual use of magic he’d never really
considered before now. Her face split into the first real smile he’d seen from her, lighting up
her entire face from within, her eyes glinting even behind the glamour.

“Yes, exactly.” Then her expression fell a little and she grimaced. “Although…”

Loki eyed her suspiciously.

“Although?”

She sat back in her chair, tapping her fingers against the side of her glass.
“Well, there’s a fairly good chance it could kill you,” she shrugged without even trying to
sugarcoat it. “Changing the makeup of your own material form consciously is dangerous, and
takes a ludicrous amount of focus to do right.”

That had occurred to him too, but still didn’t make the idea any less intriguing.

“Focus will not be an issue,” he told her, and she inclined her head in assent – an instant,
unquestioning acknowledgment of his ability there.

He wasn’t comfortable with the rush of pride that gave him.

“Fair. But focus might not be the biggest problem.”

“Then what is?”

She considered it for a moment.

“Mechanics. You’d also need to learn to pull mass from the world around you to pad out
larger forms, or store it for smaller ones. And that’s on top of reconstituting your own body,
right down to the bones on demand. That’s a shed-load for a mind to manage all at once. And
if it goes wrong, it can go very wrong.”

“Define ‘very wrong’ .”

“You could end up turning yourself inside out. Or give yourself permanent brain damage. Or
mangle a bodypart so badly it can’t be restored to its original shape.” She shrugged again,
picking up an olive from one of the bowls between them. “Or you could end up shape-
changing into an alligator and just get stuck that way forever. Anything and everything in
between really.”

She popped the olive in her mouth, then immediately went for another one while he just sat
there and absorbed all she’d described, contemplating the magnitude of what he was
potentially about to do.

If this hypothetical scheme they’d formed worked, then he’d eventually have access to an
ability that no Asgardian in living memory had ever mastered. But if it didn’t…

Was he truly so desperate to outshine Thor that he’d risk harbouring a dangerous fugitive
right under his father’s nose? Risk mangling his own form for a type of power his brother and
father could never have? Risk his life falling apart completely if it was ever discovered what
he’d done…

Be he wouldn’t be discovered, that stubbornness in him argued.

He had been pulling tricks on his brother and hiding secrets from his parents since he was old
enough to speak. This would hardly be the first elaborate plan he’d executed without any of
them being any the wiser…

Just perhaps the biggest.

“I’ll handle it,” he said at last, and he wasn’t just talking about the shapeshifting.

Tink glanced up incredulously from where she’d been finishing off the last of the olives. She
looked as if she’d genuinely expected him to back down or bottle out – which proved she
wasn’t as observant as she clearly liked to believe.

“Seriously? You want to outshine your brother so badly you’ll risk… all that? Why? ”

He met her eyes seriously, keeping his expression carefully blank this time.

“You don’t have to understand my reasons. So; your instruction on shapeshifting for my
sheltering you from my family until you discover a way home. Are you willing to take that
deal or not?”

When she didn’t immediately respond, just continued to stare intently at him, he gave her a
deliberately hard stare across the table. “Or I could just as easily give you up right here and
now if you prefer. Your choice.”

She blinked out of her thoughts to glower at him, and he immediately felt more at ease again
– something about her annoyance was a lot easier to manage than the weight of her
contemplation.

“And everyone would know it was you sheltering me this whole time,” she responded tartly,
and he smirked.

“Perhaps. But it would be the word of a fugitive against the word of a Prince of Asgard.”

“The word of someone with nothing to lose against a well known trickster and master
illusionist. I’ve heard enough to know your moniker, God of Mischief,” she drawled the title
as if it was funny. Then her tone went serious one more time as she held his gaze. “In all
seriousness, are you convinced this will work? You can keep me hidden from your father?”

“I can,” he said firmly, and believed it.

She looked at him long and hard for several breaths, then the tension went out to her shoulder
and she nodded.

“Alright,” she sighed, slumping back in her chair. “I still think you’re likely going to get
yourself stuck as an alligator though.”

He barely resisted rolling his eyes.

“Let me worry about that.” Then he tilted his head at her, allowing another taunting smile to
cross his face as their eyes met. “And just so we’re clear. If you even consider turning on me,
I will kill you in your sleep.”

“Bold of you to assume I wouldn’t end you first,” she quipped without missing a beat.

“I try to betray you, you try to betray me?”

“More like you betray me, I disembowel you.”

“You’d try.”

She gave him a vicious little smile, and despite his glamour still holding strong around her,
those unsettling amber eyes managed to burn through for the briefest moment.

“Yes I would.”

He found himself returning that feral grin, something close to real excitement stirring in him
for the first time in a long time.

“Then I suppose we have a deal, Lady Tink,” he murmured. She inclined her head in a small
nod.

“I suppose we do, Prince Loki.”

He picked up the empty glass on his side of the table, conjuring a rich red into it as he raised
it towards her.

“To mutually assured destruction?”

Her smile turned positively vulpine, taking up her own glass and raising to clink it against
his.

“To mutually assured destruction.”

End Notes

To anyone who read the “Point That Thing Somewhere Else” Hobbit AU and are noticing
some similarities between these two scenarios, yes that was intentional. Tink and Ellie have
become a lot more alike than I think even they realise, and I firmly believe they’d behave in
hilariously similar ways in those situations. I’m not the biggest MCU fan, but I really enjoyed
the Loki series and this was a lot of fun. And I honestly needed a bit of fun in my life right
now.

Plus I just really love writing the enemies-to-allies-to-friends trope.

Hope anyone who happens to enjoy both RB and the MCU got a little kick out of this too.

Rella x

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