There is not a healer. Or if there is, he is inexplicably not volunteering.

"YOUR KING REQUIRES HEALING! IF YOU HAVE ANY SKILL AT IT, STEP FORWARD!" Loki roars, checking her father's pulse. Be alive. Be alive while she collects her own courage or someone in the crowd collects their wits.

The king is, currently, alive. But there are no guarantees about how long that will continue. And no one is stepping forward.

There will be time for Loki to deal with the queen's anger later. First she's going to trip the likely accomplice and pin her to the ground by the neck with a forked Lævateinn. "Put Mjolnir on her," she suggests in a low voice to her sister. "So she can be questioned."

"You've captured her well enough," says Thor, uncharacteristically serious and unhappy for having just been in a fight. "Is Father—?"

"He's alive. I am - expecting to be called away. I suppose I can leave Lævateinn."

She sighs with relief, then frowns with concern. "Called away...?"

Loki looks over her shoulder at Odin.

When the prisoners are transferred to non-Lævateinn-based methods of capture Loki retrieves her blade and puts it back in its carrying-around shape and comes as called.

Thor gets an approving nod from their mother when she arrives back at the vehicle. Loki gets summarily ignored. Thor darts a confused glance at her sister, but doesn't give voice to any actual questions on the way back to the palace.

Loki sits quietly and wonders just how bad an idea it would be to just fly far, far away -

"No one else stepped forward. I hadn't thought we were so short on lesser healers," murmurs Loki.

"But... but how did you do it? You're not a sorcerer...?"

"When we were little," Loki tells Thor, "I went wandering through the palace and found a door that was meant to be locked, left open, and in it the Tesseract, which I did not know not to touch. And it taught me."

"It taught you sorcery? But - you're my sister. A princess of Asgard. Proper warriors don't do sorcery. But..." she looks at her father. "I..."

Maybe she'll get it, maybe she won't. Clarifying that it only taught her the alphabet and it took many decades of mindbending work to get an actual spell - wouldn't help right now. Loki shuts her eyes.

Loki relaxes, a little, when Odin is gone.

Thor remains lost and confused and unhappy.

"There's not a good reason why women don't do magic," Loki says softly. "And there never, ever has been."

"But... but it's... it's not right," she says. "Except... you saved Father's life, that has to have been right, I don't understand why Mother is so angry..."

"Because to save him, I had to know how to do it in the first place," sighs Loki.

"If the Tesseract taught it to you, then that's hardly your fault," says Thor. "It's... it's strange, but if you weren't using magic in battle, if you only knew how to heal, then... I suppose it's not wrong..."

"...Loki...? What is it?"

"Well - I knew that this would be my thinking, if it came to it. I knew that if I had the choice of healing Father or letting him die - healing you or letting you die - or Sigyn, though I didn't know him then - I knew that given this choice I'd rather heal. The Tesseract didn't teach me entire spells. It taught me enough to build them. But I knew that if I needed healing, I'd want to have it - so I built it."

"I know. If I'd thought you might, I - I'd've -" Loki trails off.

"You'd have what?"

"Told you, I guess. Earlier. Without having been wedged into a healing in front of an entire parade audience. If I'd thought you'd understand."

She frowns unhappily.

"Maybe Sigyn can explain it better than I can. He understands."

"Well, naturally Sigyn understands," sighs Thor. "He's... Sigyn."

"He has some idea what it's like to look at your options and say excuse me, this must have been meant for someone else."

...Despite herself, she smiles a little at the phrasing.

"I told you about how they're the other way around, on Midgard. They don't have any magic to divide up, but everything else, backwards. There's no reason to have it one way and not the other. There's no reason not to have everything both ways. There is no reason why I can't be a healer and Sigyn can't be a warrior. We can, we are, it's only everyone else insisting that it's not done."

"But it - it isn't done," says Thor. "Except you did it anyway."

"I did. And I'm better at it than anyone else I've ever heard of, too."

"That's no surprise."

"I appreciate that. I don't think she should either. But she is anyway, and I am not sure what she will do with me."

Unhappy conflicted Thor.

"I was seen. She can't decide it is so shameful that she'll help me cover it up like nothing happened."

"People will - I don't know what people will think," says Thor. "I couldn't have imagined that you'd be, a, a sorceress."

"Well, the way I see it there are two general approaches. She can decide that since it cannot be hidden she must pretend it is acceptable to her for me - in particular, anyway, if not women in general - to know magic, and we all proceed as though I had her blessing. Or she can decide that I am to be considered a pariah for my unexpected skills, at which point either she will banish me herself or I will find the proceedings so exhausting that I will leave."

"I would probably go to Midgard again given the option, and I would not make myself difficult to find, but I would miss you, too."

"I don't want Mother to exile you."

"Well, I don't think it would do any good if I asked her not to. She's never liked me much. She might listen to you."

Thor sighs unhappily.

"I won't blame you if you don't ask her. I'd hoped never to put you in a position like this."

"I... I don't know what to do."

"You don't have to do anything. She may well decide to make a special exception for Tesseract-touched princesses the same way everyone makes an exception for one-eyed queens doing things not technically sorcery."

She makes a conflicted face.

That was probably pushing it a little.

Apparently it was.

"Sorry."

Sigh. Nod.

She hesitates, then shakes her head.

And so, eventually: Sigyn's little house, where surprisingly few of his many acquaintances are ever invited to visit.

Knock knock.

"Hello. Someone shot my father full in the chest during a parade and he's currently in perfect health. Guess my mood."

"Displeased. That is my guess," says Sigyn. "Do you want to come in?"

"Yes. Frigg - has taken it rather well, but Odin is furious and Thor does not understand and at this moment I wish very badly to be understood."

He opens the door wider and makes a welcoming gesture.

She goes in. She flops on the nearest floppable surface. "Thank you."

"Spectacularly. My spell isn't flashy, but everyone near where we were in the parade on that side of the vehicle saw me shout for a healer and not get one and saw Frigg sit up regardless."

"Yeah. I'm betting either 'princesses who have touched the Tesseract are special and may be magic' or 'so, which planet that isn't this one would you like to spend the next forever on'."

"I hope for the first," says Sigyn.

"Yes, so do I. But if I do wind up banished to Midgard do you want to see if they'll let you come?"

"I might," he says. "I like you, and Midgard sounds interesting."

Snuggle. "It would be nice to have company, especially if I'm going to be there longer than three years. But I'm probably getting ahead of myself."

Snuggle. "Yes. It would be less disgraceful to her to pretend she allowed it, I think."

"That is my hope. Thor feels awkward about the entire matter; she doesn't want me banished or all-but-banished but she's always been fond of Odin."

"Hard for her, I'm sure."

"Yes. But it is frustrating for me that it is hard for her. She likes me, she's just always been... unobservant... and it took her this, this moment at which I most keenly need support, for her to even notice that liking me was in tension with anything else that has ever appealed to her."

"Yes," Sigyn agrees sympathetically. Snuggle.

Snuggle. Not a whole lot else to say about the matter.

Well, then, they can snuggle instead of speaking.

That is good. Sigyn is helpful.

He wishes to be helpful! It is good that he succeeds. Successful snuggles.