Abashed the Devil Stood

That evening, lying against the soft sheets of her luxurious bed, Fiona forced her mind away from her friends long enough to consider the maimed pendant.

Upon closer inspection, she realized the material was organic - a petrified wood of some kind that had hardened into a deep jade. The ornate detail was actually carved knotwork, and would have been an extremely intricate and beautiful piece of artistry if not for the horrible condition of the stone. Fiona wrinkled her nose in frustration as she regarded the ugly scorch marks that seemed completely impervious to even her most valiant cleaning attempts. Loki had definitely gotten the better end of the deal in their exchange. And yet...

The queen had said that their tokens had to be personal. She also remembered Loki's reluctance to part with it, as damaged as it seemed. It definitely meant something to him. She wondered what could make something so broken so important to a power-hungry god. Fiona held it up to the light, squinting to find some trace of a clue. But if there was one, she couldn't see it.

Sighing in defeat, she leaned over to extinguish her bedside light and, without thinking, she slipped the gold chain over her neck, settling the weight of the pendant at her throat as she struggled to drift off to sleep.

~

Beneath the palace grounds, Loki sat in his cell examining the small silver ring he had won the night before.

The platter of food that Fiona sent had gone cold and untouched. His brother had been correct; he had only regarded the girl's act of kindness with suspicion and spite. He seemed perfectly content to puzzle over the ring instead.

It was almost maddening, the amount of power that he could feel pulsing under the ring's surface. And try as he might he could not find a way to break the containment charms placed upon it. He thought at first that she had done it to goad him, a smug reminder from that worthless girl that she indeed knew magic and intended to gloat about it. Upon further consideration, he deemed it more likely that she didn't know the extent of the ring's magical properties at all. Personal items such as these were bound to absorb some of their owner's magic if worn long enough, and judging from the way the silver was practically singing with power, she had been wearing it a long time.

But the protections sewn into the metal were deliberate enough, he conceded. If he tried to absorb the magic directly, a barrier deflected his attempts with frustrating ease. But he soon found that if he used a particularly tricky bit of sorcery to sidle along the surface of the magic, he could actually feel along the edge of the containment shield. He soon discovered a catch along the seam of the spell and found that he could actually sip lightly at the power there until the barrier slammed closed again. He frowned. Clearly, the mechanism was deliberately designed to ration the amount of power used, but the need for such a device confused him. It clearly wasn't created for his benefit; if she suspected he could access the ring's power at all she would have barred it from him completely, and the thought that he had outwitted her security measures brought him a good measure of satisfaction. No, this device was for her own use, but why she would limit herself that way, he could not fathom...

As he ruminated on this information, he traced a thumb idly over the intricate carving on the metal's silvery surface. It was a continuous series of interwoven knots - Celtic, unless he was mistaken. He approved of the Celts; they had been sufficiently reverent during his few, early excursions to Midgard. And despite its age the band was in good condition. Loki suspected this had to do with the magic infused into the metal.

At the thought of magic, he found himself thinking of that yawning canyon of it stretching out into the ethereal horizon, at a loss as to how to steal that vast amount of power from the girl. He still couldn't understand how that much raw magical energy didn't simply burn through her mind and body. He'd seen what happened when fully trained gods tried to tamper with amounts of magic that seemed minuscule in comparison to the vastness he'd witnessed inside her head. Some went mad or simply combusted under the strain. Some had their very essence ravaged by the power until they were nothing more than husks, living in a soulless, vegetative state... and yet she was still standing.

The girl was an impossibility. An inconvenient impossibility, but one he would suffer through nonetheless. It was only a matter of time before he found out how to break her, and when he did, all of that glorious power would be his to claim. Then she would die screaming, and he could exact his revenge upon those fools who had thought him broken and regain his former glory.

~

The next morning, Fiona stood with an armed entourage at the entrance to Loki's cell. Even with the doormen and the handful of guards dogging her own steps, she knew that Loki could slice through the guards' defenses like parchment paper if he was feeling particularly murderous. She would have felt a tiny bit more confident if Heimdall had been present - the man's sheer size was reassurance in itself - but he had resumed his watch at the end of the broken Rainbow Bridge. It would be completely up to her to provide her own defenses from here on out.

Sobering at that thought, she reached up and knocked at the glass by the entrance. Loki didn't face her, but at the vague sound of assent issuing from inside Fiona approached the dais. The large gauntleted hand of the lead guard paused over the magical mechanism, halting the door's movement.

"My Lady," the guard said somberly. "It would not be wise to enter. Who knows what traps he may have set?"

She smiled reassuringly up at him and politely nudged his hand to continue the movement. That small bit of contact was enough to make him fidget uncomfortably and blush when she smiled up at him. "Thank you for your concern, but I really do have to speak to him. Alone. And this might take a while. So if you could please wait outside. I'll take full responsibility." Without giving him a chance to recover from his sudden shyness Fiona stepped stealthily inside, letting the door close behind her.

She immediately noted the change in the light, a much dimmer shade than the usual blinding assault on her eyes - probably courtesy of the guard at entrance, she thought. She hadn't noticed it before, but there were new furnishings in the cell - probably masked from her view earlier by one of Loki's illusions, she thought sourly. And judging from his apparent absence in the room, he was using one to shield himself from her sight.

"Loki?" She called out uncertainly, taking another step into the room. Her eyes were beginning to adjust slowly to the shadows and she squinted slightly to make out the decor. The new hangings against the far wall were, of course, dark shades of green and gold, as was most of the painted detail on the wooden chair and table set nearby. There was a small bookcase crammed full to bursting near a tidily-made bed, and Fiona took a few steps away from the center of the room, trying to make out some of the titles adorning the shelves.

"Find anything interesting?" a cold voice drawled from behind her.

She jumped about a foot, and spun around quickly to face him.

Immediately, she registered how much healthier he looked. His hair, although still longer than she had seen on the S.H.I.E.L.D. briefing videos, had been trimmed and cleaned until it hung in its previous shiny lengths. He had changed out of the dirty tunic, into a cleaner and better fitting garment that reminded her vaguely of the designs on his armor. His skin and eyes still held a bit of that ghostly, pallid look, but his upright posture and relaxed frame told her that he was much more in his element now. She would have to be more careful...

She scowled, but then glanced back at the books behind her. Her expression when she turned back to him was more inquisitive than upset. "Have you read all of these?"

The question was not one he was expecting and so he chose to ignore it. "Our lesson," he crooned in his most polite and sarcastic voice, "is not until tomorrow. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I came to give you the full details of our arrangement."

Loki had to quickly school his features to hide his greedy expression. "Oh?" he said nonchalantly. "Words are written just as well as spoken. A courier would have sufficed."

"I thought you deserved to hear it in person."

Although he approved of her straight-forwardness, he concealed it with overt sarcasm. "I was under the impression that the All-Father, in his most wise sagacity, deemed me unworthy of this particular information."

"Until you had agreed to his terms," Fiona corrected him primly. She took a look around the room and said dryly, "It looks like you made a few terms of your own. Being a royal prisoner certainly has its perks."

He shot her a decidedly unfriendly grin. "Those details, girl."

"And while we're on the subject of terms," Fiona said in a waspish voice, "No more of this 'girl' or 'mortal' business. I have a name, Loki and I want to be addressed as such."

"A difficult feat, since you have not chosen to grace me with it," he replied dryly.

She was silent for a good moment. "Fair point," she conceded finally, and extended her hand. "Fiona Winters."

He regarded her extended hand with a haughty, mildly disgusted expression, and she expected him to refuse the gesture. Instead, he reached forward with deliberate slowness and said in tones dripping with insolent sarcasm, "Lovely to make your acquaintance." He slipped his fingers, surprisingly cool and soft, into hers.

They both gasped as a thick shock pulsed through them at the contact. Fiona practically jumped out of her skin at the unnerving sensation. It was warm and tingly and sent darts of concentrated energy up her spine - not altogether unpleasant, but definitely foreign. And to her further amazement she realized that she could actually feel Loki's consciousness, the suspicion and haughty annoyance only just overshadowed by his immediate unease and curiosity. But there was something else there as well - a lingering, bitter sadness that ran deeper than any of these other petty emotions...

"That's enough!" he said sharply, pulling his hand away suddenly and breaking the connection.

He had been teetering on the edge of that magical abyss that she held inside her, ignoring the sudden onslaught of her surprised emotions as he focused on the magic itself. He was prepared for the pull on his mind this time and he managed to anchor himself securely enough to study the raw energy teeming before him. But before he could make any further investigation he felt her mind inside his, coming too close to memories and emotions that she had no right to witness, and he had pulled away. He silently cursed his lack of judgement, and glared at her through slitted eyes.

"Trying to peek inside my mind, little spy? You'll have to try harder than that."

She frowned, only half registering his words. "That's never happened before." She studied her hands for a second before looking up at him. "Could you... Did you see it, too?"

She seemed genuinely confused, and he quickly deduced that the connection had not been intentional. Even more curious, she seemed apprehensive at the thought of him seeing too deeply into her mind. He wondered what she wanted to keep hidden from him.

"No," he lied easily, sinking into a nearby cushion. "And I imagine it would take some time to find anything at all in that extremely vacant head of yours."

She glared at him. "Well, then I guess I should leave since I don't have anything of value to tell you." She spun around and stalked to the exit.

He was faster. He was on his feet and blocking her passage in a few strides.

"Move," she hissed, just as unwilling as he was to make physical contact again. He merely shook his head and smirked down at her, his tall, lithe frame towering immovably over hers. She set her jaw stubbornly. "Fine." She reached out to signal the guard, who was eyeing their exchange with narrowed eyes.

In a split second, his hand shot out to grasp firmly at her wrist. She barely had time to register that he was suddenly wearing a pair of soft leather gloves, before his grip tightened to near bone-crushing pressure. She hissed in pain, but held up her free hand to halt the guard who had surged forward at the first signs of altercation.

"You're hurting me!"

His grin widened evilly, showing rows of glittering teeth and too-sharp canines. To his utter surprise, she returned it with one of her own, and suddenly his fingers were closing on thin air.

She stepped back out of his reach, smirking wickedly when her hand passed easily through his as though she were a ghost. He looked down at his own hands, dumbfounded for a moment, but his face went stony with anger when he saw her mocking expression.

With only a second of thought, he hurled a spell at Fiona... and it passed right through her. She laughed outright at his crestfallen expression, and Loki realized that he could see through her like some kind of gossamer fabric. But her laughter suddenly died into a panicked squeak as she began sinking through the floor. With what looked like a colossal effort she managed to pull herself upright and out of the floor, solidifying before his eyes once again.

"And that," she said, panting with effort, "is why I need your help." She flopped onto the floor, breathless with her exertion.

He snorted. "You seemed to be doing just fine." And then he cursed himself for inadvertently paying her a compliment. To his relief, she hadn't noticed.

"Until I started sinking through the floor. I can't control it when I need to. It's... inconsistent."

"Was that an illusion?" he asked suddenly.

"No. I just changed my own density. Useful if you want to move around. But as you can see, still susceptible to gravity."

Loki's face was impassive, but his mind was reeling. How could she possibly say she had no control over her magic when she had manipulated the very atomic structure of her own being? He was frankly confused, but even more excited at the prospect of what exactly he could accomplish once he got his hands on that power. This was the first actual display of any magical ability on her part, and though he refused to show any admiration for the complexity and strength of her abilities, he felt a savage hunger growing at the thought of having all of that for himself. Only years of practiced deception kept the eagerness out of his voice when he next spoke.

"And this lack of discipline is the reason for your furtive dealings with my people? I don't see why the secrecy was necessary. I would have thought you a simpleton either way."

She blinked owlishly up at him. "I need to learn how to control it, or it could get so out of hand that I destroy every living thing in the cosmos."

He stopped, completely unable to form a response to that admission, and she watched his reaction carefully.

"You're lying," he said finally.

"I wish I was."

"Your people miscalculated, then."

She shook her head. "S.H.I.E.L.D... worked with me for a year or so, ever since you triggered the Tesseract." He could hear the accusation in her voice. "And they realized that if I tried to do anything too big, I lost control. Your fa-... The All-Father confirmed it," she said carefully. "He even realized that I was farther along than they'd originally thought."

"Farther along?" he breathed. "So there is a time limit? I thought you were just trying to speed along my acquiescence."

She hesitated only slightly before answering. "If you hadn't agreed to the terms, then this time today they would have taken me to the Norns for an ancient ceremony. From what I understand, it would have essentially separated my soul from my body." Loki involuntarily winced. He was familiar with that particularly unpleasant piece of magic, though it was forbidden in all but the most desperate of times. "Then they would have jettisoned me from the planet and hoped that I flew far enough into dead space that I only blew up a third of the universe when the power eventually overtook me."

"That kind of cataclysm is unlikely," he scoffed half-heartedly. "In all likelihood that magnitude of energy would simply implode."

"You think so?" she said, her voice suddenly chilly, even to his ears, "Because I don't. You saw the power, don't deny it." He didn't. "I think you know exactly what kind of damage that could do."

"So don't use it." He snapped. "If life as we know it depends on your magical stability, why not forgo using it altogether and avoid the risk of having it run away with you."

She looked at him coldly. "If it was that easy, I would have sworn it off a long time ago. It doesn't matter how much I use, just how much is there. And even if I abstain, it... it finds its own way out," she said stiffly, looking away uncomfortably before she continued. "I'm human, Loki. I'm not meant to have magic at all, much less the crazy amount that I seem to have been born with. I should be dead, and everyone I've met is quite frankly amazed that I'm still here."

He silently agreed, though he said nothing.

"But I... I'm dying," she continued softly. "This much magic... It's eating me up from the inside, no matter what I do. It's too much for me to handle on my own. I need to find a way to contain it or it's going to spill over. And it's not just that I'll die, although that thought sucks on its own. Everyone will die. My planet, Asgard... even the Frost Giants will be gone."

"Why should I help you, then?" he demanded, in a tone of affected boredom. "You'd be doing me a favor wiping out worthless inbred livestock. It would save my armies a great deal of time."

She just looked at him. "And Asgard?"

"So be it."

She crossed her arms over her ample chest, and he had to tear his eyes away from the movement. "I don't believe you're nearly as heartless as you pretend to be."

"Then you're a fool," he snapped.

"I still think that you had a place reserved for your family in your plans. And nothing you say is going to change that."

He turned away from her, scowling. "My family," he sneered, "proved long ago that I am no son of theirs. I doubt they would have let precious Thor endure imprisonment and torture at their command, regardless of any infraction he may commit. I doubt any of them know what a year of torture feels like."

"I'd imagine its still shy of the agony you put my planet through," Fiona said sharply.

His eyes slanted toward her over his shoulder, a smug smirk playing at his lips. "Such vitriol, little one. Can you really trust a man that you hate so much?"

"I don't hate you," said Fiona simply. "And I'm not stupid enough to trust you. But I trust your mother and that ceremony of hers, which - if I'm not terribly mistaken - is powerful enough to keep even you in line."

He scowled at the reminder, taking a few angry strides further away from her, his arms crossed stubbornly. But his voice when he spoke was almost vulnerable. "Why must this be my task?" He didn't seem to be asking anyone in particular.

"You were the only one with experience in this type of magic. No one else would understand."

"Surely the Norns could have found a suitable replacement," he bit out. "They are, after all, the keepers of magic and the seers of fate."

"I asked Karnilla first," Fiona admitted.

Loki spun angrily to glare at her. "Odin would not have plagued the Norns with your-!"

"We've been over this before," said Fiona sharply. "The stakes being what they are, he absolutely would have. But I never actually got to meet them. Before I left my planet the Norns told the All-Father flat out that they wouldn't do it. And Karnilla recommended you."

Loki's mouth set into a hard, thin line as he contemplated this information. Truthfully, he was flattered that his old teacher would hold him in such high esteem, but for the Norns to go against the oldest traditions of magical education was unheard of...

Fiona edged quietly toward the door. "Look, you obviously have a lot to think about. Tomorrow we can try -"

"Just get out," he hissed, his gaze still fixed resolutely away.

He felt more than saw her freeze at his outburst, and then the door to the hall beyond was creaking open. Just before the door clicked shut, she stopped.

"For what it's worth," she said quietly, "I really am sorry."

And then he was alone once again.