The Whispering Hallways.
The morning after the celebratory banquet, the Golden Palace hummed with a quiet, lingering energy. Hela and Rose—the parallel "Ruth"—had returned from their trek across the stars, the resonance of the Power Stone vibrating faintly in the Uru gauntlet tucked beneath Hela's cloak.
Female Loki, her nerves frayed like a worn rope, didn't waste a second. She cornered her "brother" (Hela) in a secluded corridor.
"Good morning, Loki," she whispered, her eyes darting toward the shadows. "Brother, I have something vital to tell you. Somewhere quiet. Now."
"Very well," Hela replied, adopting Thor's low, rumbling baritone. "My bedchamber."
Once inside, Female Loki performed a frantic sweep of the room, checking behind tapestries and under the bed. Her insecurity was palpable, a cold sweat beading on her forehead.
"Sister, speak," Hela commanded. "What has you in such a state?"
"Brother... Father is a fake!"
Hela's heart skipped a beat, but she kept Thor's face perfectly still. "What? You... what are you saying?"
"Believe me!" Female Loki grabbed her arm, her voice trembling. "Mother is enchanted. She won't listen to me. She tells me I'm overthinking, that I'm stressed. But she's going to sleep with that man tonight, Thor! We have to stop it!"
Hela let out a small, measured cough. "Let's start from the beginning. You think the All-Father isn't himself. Do you have evidence?"
"Subtle things," Female Loki hissed. "Habits. About a week ago, I overheard the maidservants gossiping. They said Father is... incredibly vigorous. He favors women until dawn, every night, for six months. This isn't medicine, Thor. This is something else."
She paced the room, her hands flying. "He's preparing for your succession. He's obsessed with the armory. And the way he looks at me... every night at the banquet, I can feel it. He genuinely cares. He's like a saint—no, he's utterly evil!"
She looked at her "brother" with tear-filled eyes. "He laughed last night. An eerie, knowing laugh. Mother saw it, but she's deceiving herself. What do we do?"
Hela's mood turned complex. My poor, silly sister, she thought. Is there a possibility that I am also a fake? She realized that this Loki had seen a truth she herself had only learned in the darkness of Hel: kingship is a rivalry. Odin's sudden "generosity" was the most suspicious thing about him.
"You're right," Hela said, patting her sister's hand. "I will speak to Mother. We must handle this with extreme caution."
The Mirror's Feast.
The family gathered for lunch in a garden that felt too harmonious to be real. Loki, Frigga, and Rose sat together, looking like the picture of a happy royal family.
Hela noticed Rose winking at Loki the moment they arrived. "Can't you be more reserved?" Hela projected a sharp mental spike toward her parallel self. "At least pretend to be a daughter!"
"Children, you've arrived," Loki greeted them, his golden eye sparkling. "The Dwarf King worked through the night. Your new armor is ready. Go, try them on."
"Is there one for me as well?" Female Loki asked, her voice lacking any shred of confidence.
Loki's smile widened, his syllables drawing out like a slow-moving river. "Of course, my dearest daughter. Your father has prepared a very special gift for you."
When they returned, the room was transformed. Frigga wore a golden circlet and a breastplate of conservative, luxurious design.
Female Loki stepped out in exquisite half-body armor that accented her slender waist. At her neck hung a small cubic pendant. As the power of the armor settled, her skin momentarily flickered to the blue-purple of a Frost Giant before returning to a pale white. She wasn't surprised—she had known of her heritage for centuries—but she was stunned by the gift. Loki had miniaturized the Casket of Ancient Winters into a wearable pendant, a direct tap into her ancestral power.
"Do you like it, daughter?" Loki asked.
"I... I love it," she whispered.
[Chaos Points +100]
[Reward: Talent - Succubus's Charisma (Target: Female Affinity).]
Loki blinked at the reward. "What kind of development is this? At least it's limited to women," he thought, breathing a silent sigh of relief.
Skins for the New World.
Later, behind the sealed doors of the study, Loki laid out the final designs for the "Lola Squad."
"Everyone in the Multiverse wears black necro-armor and spiked crowns," Loki said, flipping through his sketches. "It's a cliché. I suggest we break the mold. 'Clothes make the man,' after all. Packaging yourselves as radiant goddess figures—hypocritical justice—is far more efficient for conquest than raw terror."
He showed them his own "skin"—the A Song of Ice and Fire armor, a sleek, devastatingly cool set that retained his iconic reindeer antlers.
"I choose this," Rose said, pointing to a sketch of a tight-fitting combat suit. It was stark white with black textured lines tracing her silhouette, accented by golden runes at the collarbone. It was the look of a "Battle Angel"—mature, sexy, and fatally dangerous.
Loki suggested a small, pink crystal forehead ornament with a black gem at the brow to replace her massive crown.
"And for you, Sister?"
Hela looked at a set of bright silver Valkyrie armor. It was designed with black lining at the joints and meant to be paired with her massive Evernight cape.
"This is the one," Hela said, her eyes reflecting the silver metal. "It's elegant. It's lethal."
"Now," Loki said, his voice dropping into a professional whisper. "Choose your weapons. We're going to Nidavellir."
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