moonshadows

Tuesday.

As far as days of the week went, Loki was not fond of Tuesdays. Mondays were for reaffirming routine; visiting the coffee shops and cafes, the bookstores and galleries, a comforting repetition of “Good morning, Mr. O’Kee!” and “How was your weekend?” as the people of the city picked themselves up from their Sunday revels and returned to their lives. They were back in the swing of thing on Wednesdays, sailing along smoothly on Thursdays, cheerfully anticipatory on Fridays, and of course the weekends were full of hustle and hedonism.

But Tuesdays…Tuesdays dragged as the average person steeled him- or herself for the rest of the week. He preferred to spend those days searching for entertainment elsewhere, outside recreation where penance and punishment met most delightfully in destruction.

This Tuesday, the self-exiled prince closed the door to his workroom and sat on the carefully-runed floor, hands on their usual sets of sigils, the Odinsight bent to the riddle he studied every Tuesday.

Show me a threat to Earth that I can stop before anyone gets hurt.

The image formed slowly, haziness resolving into the face of a middle-aged man. He hardly looked like a threat, with his stout figure and cheery expression, but Loki never took anyone for granted.

Show me how he will become a threat.

A man, screaming in rage, swinging a heavy metal staff against a backdrop of fire and ruin. Loki’s forehead crinkled slightly as he frowned; that wasn’t the same man. Clearly a visit to gather information was in order.

Who is the man? Where can I find him?

Elliott Randolph. Seville, Spain.

“Lawrence O’Kee,” he said, introducing himself with a false smile as the door opened. “I do hope I’m not interrupting.”

“Oh, not at all, not at all. Come on in,” Randolph said, gesturing Loki into his warm and tastefully cluttered office. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, I was browsing a gallery in London, and I saw the lost amazing piece,” Loki lied. “It was a painting, very evocative, of a man screaming in rage while holding a thick metal staff engraved with Norse runes. There was fire and ruin all around him.”

“That…does sound very evocative.” Oh, shit, said his heart.

Loki smiled again. “I’m contemplating adding it to my collection but I thought, since you’re the man to come to about Norse myth, I ought to do my research and see if there’s any history behind the image or it it’s merely a fancy of the artist.”

“Well, there might be,” the professor hedged. He reached for a book among several others, flipping to a page he seemed to know by heart. “It sounds like the artist was inspired by the legend of the Berserker. Here, see for yourself.”

“Mmm.” Grey eyes skimmed the page; a warrior in an army of berserkers who fell in love with life on Earth and broke his staff, renouncing violence and remaining behind when the rest of the army returned to Asgard. That staff would cause significant trouble in mortal hands; although arguably before his time, he remembered vividly the lessons he’d had on the short-lived experimental army the Allfather had pitted against the forces of Jotunheim. “Does the legend say where the pieces are?”

“Well, there’s clues…after all the hubbub in New York, Norse mythology is very popular and several people have been searching for it.” But I didn’t tell them where it is.

Loki handed the book back. “I may have to put in an offer on the painting after all. Thank you; you’ve been most helpful.”

“Always happy to share my knowledge,” Randolph smiled.

“If I could get your opinion on one more thing, though…the incident in New York. Loki and the Chitauri. What are your feelings on that?”

Sleepy eyes suddenly turned wary and dropped. “The sons of Odin fighting? I’d rather not have anything to do with it,” he said while his heart shrieked, don’t let them find me!

“Tell me where the pieces are, and you won’t have to.”

Now the older man turned back, expression blandly smug. “Is that a threat, Mr. O’Kee?”

“I don’t threaten.” Words he’d once said to The Other. “If you would have your comfortable mortal life remain intact, tell me where to find the pieces of your staff before they are discovered by someone unable to resist Odin’s sorcery. Do this, and I will forget we ever crossed paths. Refuse, and you will answer to the Allfather for your desertion.”

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken.” Randolph gave him a smile that was as fake as his name. “I’m just a professor.”

The self-exiled prince shrugged. “If that’s the way you want it…I’d prefer not to go home while my brother is there – Thor does so love to shout and hit things, and I’m afraid we’re having a misunderstanding at the moment – but I’m certain the Allfather will agree that simply breaking and hiding your staff is not enough to excuse leaving it on Midgard in the first place.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that,” the stout man half-apologized, secure behind his mask of harmless mortality.

Loki summoned his armor.

“…and that will do nicely. Loki, I presume? You’ll have to forgive me, I missed the birth announcements.”

He ignored the shift in attitude from security to near-fawning. “The pieces, Randolph. Where did you put them?”

The professor sighed. “I’ll write it down for you.”

Randolph turned to hand the first piece over with an odd reluctance, gloved fingers caressing the surface slightly, eyes glinting in the magelight Loki had summoned to guide them through the catacombs. His heart whispered smug anticipation as he offered the metal shaft to Loki.

“That will do nicely,” the half-Jotun said calmly, one bare hand extended towards the surface. “Thank you for your assistance.” A twist, and the piece vanished into a subspace pocket. The former berserker frowned. “I am well aware of the spells laid on it,” he said with a lofty expression, “and I have quite enough to be angry about without having any of it artificially amplified. Sorry, but if you want to see a Son of Odin fly into a rage, you’ll need to find my brother.”

The other Asgardian smiled unapologetically. “It was worth a shot.”

Inside a quiet little church in Ireland, Loki opened a lovingly-polished relic box and gestured the other end of the staff into the subspace pocket. That only left the middle section, and finding a tree surrounded by a “halo of stones” in a protected Norwegian forest. The end sections pulled towards their missing piece, leading him straight to the tree and straight up – either the berserker had climbed up to hide his staff there, or the tree’s growth had carried it. Loki was betting on the former. Regardless, a climb wasn’t going to stop him. He scrabbled his way up the trunk with more agility than one might have expected, going several yards before stopping to feel the bark with a frown. Invoking the subspace pocket while clinging to the side of a Norway Spruce wasn’t the most awkward thing he’d ever done, but it was less graceful than he usually managed to be. Regardless, he had the third piece a few moments later.

What to do with the completed staff? It was too dangerous to keep on Midgard, even in one of SHIELD’s protected vaults, but even as a prince of Asgard the fates of the other staves had been kept secret. Odin alone knew where they were, and so Loki squared his shoulders and sought the hidden pathways between worlds again. He would use the path that had led the frostgiants into the Vault, and leave the staff there. The guards would know better than to touch, and Odin would recognize the object and be able to dispose of it the way he had the others.

The Vault was the same as Loki had left it on the day that he’d taken the Casket. The empty plinth still stood at the end, nearest the Destroyer’s grate, and carefully he maneuvered the staff out to balance on that narrow surface. A yellow Post-It note, incongruously bright, clung to its runed surface: From Midgard, with love.

As Tuesdays went, Loki thought as he made his way back to Earth, this one hadn’t been so bad.