This is the second of three (I think/hope) parts of my Lightbringer-themed giveaway fic for @shine-of-asgard. Part I is here.

Sorry this one is shorter… and sorry I keep getting bogged down in weird negotiations. I think I’m going to switch to Thor’s POV for the third part; gotta get things moving. And since the horizontal line doesn’t show up on mobile, I’m just using a bunch of hyphens.

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All at once the world snapped back into vivid reality. Laufey’s
eyes widened and he made a wet choking sound before he slumped back into his
chair. Byleistr rose so quickly his chair fell with a clatter onto the floor
and started to lunge at Loki; Hvedra was only a little slower to do the same.
Loki was debating whether to slide off the chair and shelter under it or try to
climb onto it to hold them off, but the sound of Helblindi’s palm landing
heavily on the table froze them all.

“Be still,” Helblindi said, unnecessarily.

“He murdered our father!”

“I have eyes,” Helblindi said. His flat tone never changed.
He trained his eyes on Loki; there was no anger in them. “Speak well,
Asgardian, and you may yet leave this room alive.”

“I alone can give you the Casket,” Loki began. He still felt
too unreal to feel fear. His mind seemed clear and sharp as the blades of ice
that still gleamed around Byleistr’s and Hvedra’s hands; a plan had taken shape
as swiftly and easily as those blades.

“What stops us from invading Asgard in force and taking it?”
Helblindi asked.

“You would not find it. I told you: I alone can give it to
you.”

“And if we put you to slow torture, would you not hand it
over?”

Loki laughed. “I am a magician matched by none but Queen
Frigga herself. I can stop my own heart if I wish.” (He was lying, but he would
bet they could not know that.) “And if I die, the Casket is out of your reach
forever.”

“He’s bluffing,” Byleistr hissed.
Loki was nervous until he added, “Asgardians love their lives too much.”

Helblindi’s eyes bored into Loki’s; Loki gazed back coolly.
“I think perhaps this one does not,” Helblindi said. “Very well. Why should we
not kill you after you give us the
Casket?”

“Because I know things about Asgard’s defenses that none but
a member of the royal family could know. I will not only return the Casket to
you; I will help you wage war on Asgard to avenge the honor of your Realm.”

“Why?” Helblindi, like his father, did not mince words. “Why
attack your own kingdom? What do you want out of this?”

“Asgard is not my kingdom,” Loki said sharply.

“You are its king.”

“Temporarily.” Loki knew now that he was never meant to be
more than that; he was still keeping the throne warm for Thor. And much joy may he have of it.

“Do you think to buy the throne of Jötunheim with the Casket?”
Byleistr demanded. “Or seize it?” He raised his bladed hand threateningly.
Helblindi’s level gaze never left Loki’s face.

“Odin thought to install me as a puppet king,” Loki said,
almost spitting out his so-called father’s name. That was what he had meant
when he said that both Thor and Loki were born to be kings; that was the only
way he could have united their kingdoms or brought about a permanent peace,
given Laufey’s feelings about his third son. “This is not my kingdom either.”

“Then what do you want, Prince Loki?” Helblindi asked again,
calm and inexorable.

“Midgard,” said Loki, almost on a whim.

“Midgard?” Byleistr repeated incredulously, and even Hvedra,
who had been silent while the royals discussed bloodlines and high politics, blurted
out, “What? Why?”

Loki barely spared them a glance before turning back to
Helblindi; he knew which of them had been trained for rule and diplomacy. “That
was what started the last war, was it not? Jötunheim attempted to conquer
Midgard, using the Casket of Ancient Winters to make it hospitable for Jötun
settlers. Restore your kingdom, weaken Asgard, then let me lead a force to conquer
Midgard. I will rule it in your name and pay tribute to Jötunheim; I ask only
that you allow me the independence to govern it as I see fit.”

Byleistr was still incredulous. “And take no vengeance for
our murdered father? Our murdered king?”

Loki cast a prayer down to the Norns at the root of Yggdrasil
to strengthen the silver tongue they had gifted him, not to let its eloquence
tarnish now… but unexpectedly, Helblindi came to his aid.

“We heard the words that passed between them before Prince
Loki threw his blade. He avenged himself.”

“He should never have existed in the first place!”

“But he does, and he lived to return the Casket to us. The
gods give nothing without exacting a price. Our father should have died before
he let the Casket be taken; the gods have demanded that he die in order that it
be returned.”

“Is that what we’ll tell our people? That the gods killed their king? And just
when he happened to be in a room with an Asgardian and the next in line!”

“You’ll tell them the truth,” Loki cut in. “That the king’s cast-off
runt returned from Asgard to bring the Casket home and to punish the father who
tried to kill him—and who led Jötunheim to defeat. You’ll say it’s a sign from
the gods that the ‘children of air and snow’ are no longer to be sacrificed,
but will live among you… or in Midgard, as they choose.”

“That’s the truth, is it?” Byleistr scoffed.

“Yes,” Helblindi said calmly. “We have been given the chance
to restore Jötunheim to greatness. Would you throw that away for a misplaced sentimentality?
Or are you a patriot?”

‘Misplaced sentimentality’?
I take it their relationship with their father was about as good as mine.

Byleistr made a disgusted noise and slammed his hand against
the wall—which shattered the ice blade he had formed around his arm. He was unhappy,
but he had disarmed himself. Hvedra did not follow his lead; instead, she
seemed to warm her hand and arm from within, melting a layer of the ice and
allowing the blade to slide off and break on the ground. They both resumed
their seats; Byleistr had to right his first, and kept glancing significantly
at Laufey’s glassy-eyed corpse, near-black blood still oozing sluggishly from
its throat.

Helblindi turned back toward Loki. “If we are to present you
to our people as Laufey’s son—and if you are to lead a force of Jötun warriors—you
will need to appear Jötun. But we have only seen partial transformations, when
a part of your body is burned with cold.”

“We could have someone follow him around and burn him with cold constantly,” Byleistr growled. Loki wasn’t sure how much was sarcasm
and how much genuine malice.

“When I held the Casket, my whole body shifted,” Loki said. “I’ve
never tried shifting on my own…” He looked down at his hand and tried to reach
inward for whatever the Casket had found in him, the spring of that
all-encompassing warmth… but his hand remained stubbornly pink.

“See if you can hold the Casket and not shift back when you
let go,” Helblindi suggested.

Loki gave him a sharp look. “I will not turn it over to you
until we have addressed your people as agreed. I will present it to you only at
an assembly of your people—” He caught himself, paused. “Of our people,” he amended, testing out the
sound. “After you tell them that I have come to provide information that will
ensure Asgard’s defeat, and to conquer Midgard for Jötunheim.”

Byleistr rolled his eyes and made another disgusted noise;
Helblindi only nodded. Loki slid off the chair, less gracefully than he might
have hoped; Hvredra made a small sound of alarm and leaned forward, but
Helblindi put up a cautioning hand. Loki backed up to the far wall of the room,
putting as much distance as possible—little though it was—between himself and
the Frost Giants; he had other defenses, but every inch and every second might
count. Then he pulled the Casket out of the pocket dimension where he had
stored it.

As soon as he grasped its handles, he felt the warmth begin
to spread from his hands. Even more remarkable, his vision changed: the ice
around him seemed to glow, the dimness of the room to lighten, the features on
the Jötnar’s faces to become both softer and more distinct. All three of them gasped;
Hvedra glanced around in amazement, Byleistr swore softly, Helblindi closed his
eyes as if struggling to keep his composure. None of them moved to take the
Casket, but Loki, taking no chances, still dismissed it back to its pocket
dimension as soon as he felt the warmth reach every part of his body, from ears
to toes.

Some of the glow in the room dimmed again, but Loki found
that he could hold onto the warmth in his body; after a few moments of standing
very still and counting his breaths, it seemed to settle in. He looked down at
his hands: they were still blue. He dared to look up again at the Jötnar; they all
seemed shaken and a little forlorn. Loki thought that before his
transformation, he would not have been able to identify the brightness in Helblindi’s scarlet eyes as unshed tears.

“The Casket should never have been taken from you,” Loki
said. He had had a sense of it when standing before it in the Vault, but he had
not really felt it until now, had not known
it.

“You should not have been taken from us, either,” Helblindi
said, to Loki’s great surprise. “Welcome home, brother.”

“Yes, yes,” Byleistr said briskly; he was still
impatient, but not nearly as hostile as before. “Now we need to arrange a
funeral, an assembly, and a couple of invasions.”