splinteredstar | that thor/kh from ages ago

So this thing still exists, though I haven't typed nor written on it for some time. I should. After finals. *is mostly dead*

This bit is mostly Loki being exhausted and Riku being awkward, and both of them being Suspicious at each other. With a side dish of Thor being a well meaning idiot.

Riku sliced through the magical lock and then kicked the door open. The Way to the Dawn sang in his grip, almost tugging him forward – the darkness was deep enough that he needed no prompting.

Shadows rustled in a rough half-circle around Loki, one half-way through a strike –

Riku was faster.

The shadows disappeared like smoke, run through with his blade. Loki barely reacted, only narrowing his tired eyes in confusion. Not afraid – but it didn’t look like he’d summoned them on purpose.

No, as Loki looked up with dead-tired-broken eyes, Riku could imagine what had happened.

The blue fled from Loki’s skin as he slowly stood up and stared Riku in the eye.

…shit, normally Kairi handled this bit.

Kairi froze for a second as she felt the darkness flare up, buzzing against her eardrums –

-distantly she was aware of Odin freezing as well, his eye drawn to where she felt Riku heading –

Only a bit of darkness, though, a ripple of shadow and Riku was close. Nothing he couldn’t handle.

“Are you well, maiden?” Thor asked, a large hand on her shoulder. She stared at him – he was so bright, how could he not feel it?

“No, I’m fine. You were explaining the war, right?”

Distracted by past glories, Thor smiled. “Ah, yes, now as I said the Jotun are terrible monsters…”

Loki felt – numb, exhausted, but his reason was returning, his *sense*. He straightened his back, resisted the urge to scrub at his eyes, no matter how sticky with tears they were, and tugged on his sleeves to straighten them.

This boy had seen him at his weakest. Best to pretend that he saw nothing of note – if one pretended hard enough, outsiders could be fooled until one had a chance for privacy.

That being said…. “How did you get in here?”

Nothing short of Mjolnir should have been able to break that lock. The boy’s weapon – Way to the Dawn, he’d called it – flashed into this realm. “Keyblade.” Riku tapped it with a fingertip. “Nothing it can’t open.”

Loki frowned – covering up lingering panic – that was more than he expected. He opened his mouth to order the boy to leave, but –

“My turn now.” Rude child, but Loki couldn’t even summon the energy to fake offense. He braced himself for accusations, demands to know what trickery he’d gotten involved in this time. Instead, “What does the blue skin mean?”

This boy -! The outrage covered the sickness, covered the bile in the back of his throat for a moment. “That is none of your concern.” No, wrong kind of lie, that just makes it obvious that it matters –

-but he was too tired to be able to cover, too numb, and did it matter if this stranger knew –

-suspicions burned in his lips, clung to the inside of his teeth like frost – he was calmer now, or at least too tired to hurt – now he could see reason, he had to be logical, sensible, explore all of the options, there had to be an explanation –

He realized that Riku was still staring at him, arms crossed.

The feast wound on and Thor regaled the visitors with tales of quests and recounting the stories of the great war.

The boy listened with rapt attention, asking for more tales and demonstrations. It was glorious and Thor easily impressed him with his hammer and his feats, of course.

If his brother were here, with sharp wit and sarcastic corrections, it would be perfect, but… he would visit later. Loki claimed to hate the noise of a feast, after all.

Riku narrowed his eyes at Loki, but sympathy made him sigh, decide to back off. He probably wasn’t going to get any answers tonight, anyway – the guy looked dead on his feet; faking it well, but clearly exhausted.

Interrogations could wait.

“All right.” Loki blinked, surprised at the reprieve. “Just be careful. I can feel when the heartless break through, so if they bother you again you’ll have back up.”

Loki stared, suspicion making the darkness around him twist – but only half of it was directed at him. Riku had the sudden feeling that he was only barely on Loki’s radar right now. He didn’t mind. More comfortable for him that way.

“I appreciate your assistance.” Loki bowed, perfectly composed except for how his fingers shook, just a little. “Please, enjoy what is left of the festivities.”

Riku shrugged. “No, I don’t like feasts much. Too loud.” Not even a lie, though the real reason was tied up in memories of both Maleficent’s balls and fighting through crowds. Belatedly, he added, “Thanks though.”

Riku closed his eyes for a second, checking the darkness. Better. Still deeper than really ideal, but no immediate danger of heartless. And Riku would keep an eye out regardless.

It wasn’t like he slept much anyway.

His eyes opened, and he nodded. Suddenly awkward, he put his hands in his pockets and shrugged. He never knew what to say. He was half way out the door when he turned back and hesitantly offered, “Hey…. Get some rest, if you can.”

Not that that was going to happen – and from the sardonic twitch to Loki’s smile, he knew it too.

As the feast wound down, Thor wished the guests a restful night - gladly promising more of a tour to Sora - and accosted one of the servants helping clean up food.

"Ah, prince!" The woman smiled broadly, reaching for a covered dish on a nearby table. Thor opened his mouth to ask for some of the leftovers, but the servant offered the dish to him before he could. "Your brother's absence was noted, my prince. We have some of the choicest meats and a tankard of fresh mead here for him."

Thor smiled, warmed in his heart. A dreadful many of the servants had been turned off by Loki's trickery. "Thank you, matron. I will tell him of your kindness."

The woman bowed. "Just make sure that he sleeps eventually, my prince"

Thor chuckled as he took the dish. "I will do my best."

Loki sat at his desk, a notebook laid out in front of him, possibilities and maybes scrawled out in a frantic script. There had to be a solution, had to be some other option, something other than -

-his fingers flashing Jotnar blue, linage lines wrapping around his digits, feeling like a spell being stripped away -

It was possible that it was an illusion; he didn't know the nature of the ice conjuring spell the boy had used -

-but later, when he brushed a heartless and the cold shocked the blue back onto his skin - and he wasn't thinking about why he had reached out, towards a thing that could kill him or worse -

There had to be a way to be *sure*. He'd cast diagnostic spells on himself, but there was nothing unusual -

-of course there wouldn't be, would there, if he had always been a -

He was broken out of his thoughts for a moment by a knock on the door.

Riku is fairly good at Loki. Erg, the longer I go the less I like this....