She wakes in ashes.

She doesn't know her name, at first.

She doesn't know how she got here, or where she came from.

The sky over her is burning.

There's a few distant figures coming. Capes flutter behind them as they fly through the smoke. (She didn't get them all, she thinks, then wonders why she thought that).

The girl stares, confused, until one lands near her.

Her answer is a glowing weapon pointed her way, a strangled shout of "Loki!" and a hum of something charging.

That's not a good sound. She doesn't know much, but she knows that.

Clumsy, she climbs to her feet and tries to run.

The whine grows higher -

And then is cut off, as someone wearing a bright cape, wielding a rather large hammer, lands between her and her would-be attacker.

He glares back over his shoulder, then faces her. "Wait!" he calls. "Are you Loki?"

"I don't know that name! I don't even know my name! So leave me alone!"

"My name is Thor Odinson," he says. "I'm looking for a Loki Odinsdottir. My sister. You look like her."

Loki had never actually been able to not get mad at being called 'Odinsdottir', not since their falling out - of course, even in the rare times she tried, she'd never been a good liar, not to Thor.

She slows and stops, staring at him warily. "Then why'd that girl try to attack me?"

"Everyone's been kind of stressed and jumping at shadows. Look, even if you're not my sister, I want to help you - and this place isn't really safe."

"...Yeah, I guess." This place is giving her the shivers, actually, but she doesn't know if everywhere would. "But you gotta explain everything that's been going on to me. Including why people're jumping at someone who looks like your sister."

"I will. I promise."

"I can fly. Is it okay if I pick you up? That's going to be the fastest way out of here..."

"...Maybe. Sure. But I reserve the right to kick you somewhere painful if I want you to stop."

He chuckles. "Eminently reasonable, my lady."

And he scoops the girl - possibly his amnesiac, de-aged sister - swings his hammer, and takes flight.

She quickly starts laughing. Flying!!! (It feels like she should be able to do this, if she could just reach - just be the sort of her that flies - but it's like there's a black box in her head where all the hers she could be are all shoved away.)

He brings them pretty far off, away from the fire and the ash, to a golden platform that remains mostly undamaged. He's grim during the fight, and there's the ghosts of buildings still burning below.

"Hold on," he says, before throwing a lever.

In a rush of rainbow light, they're elsewhere, on a landing pad in a field outside a stately mansion.

"Where is this?" she asks, looking around. It's so green, so unlike the place they left. She can hear birdsong. (She's not sure how she knows what birds are, but she does, and she knows she likes them. They're free, usually.)

(A flash of memory races through her mind. Running through a market, the locks on cages holding back birds springing open in her wake - )

(Then the memory's gone.)

He sets her down. "One of the spare bases for the team I'm sometimes part of, the Avengers. They shouldn't mind us staying while we figure out where you should go."

"What are you guys avenging?" she asks, stretching and then spinning in a circle, marveling at the trees and small animals she can see.

"They never managed to explain that to me!" he says, lightly. "Come on, there's hot tea inside, and a library with some pretty neat books." Books and mayhem have always been the two best bribes to get his sister to do things.

"Books!" she calls, darting for the front door. "An explanation first, though!"

"Yeah, definitely."

He follows, beating her to the door so he can disarm the security systems. He identifies himself as Thor and a guest, and asks the resident artificial intelligence not to relay anything to the team just yet.

And then he leads the girl who's probably his sister to the kitchen, heats up some tea and scones (the best he can approximate her old favorites), and sits across from her.

"So, what happened's kind of a long story."

She digs into the snack like she's never eaten. Which, well, she doesn't remember ever eating.

"I don't think I have anywhere to be."

"So. My sister... To start explaining her - she was never our mother's favorite child. She was - wild in ways mother didn't prefer. She'd do things specifically because she'd been told not to. She'd free caged animals. She'd play pranks on dignitaries. We were close, but - I'd always be forgiven for helping her. Our mother claimed it was her fault, because she led me astray, and would punish her worse."

"So she, reasonably, left."

"Something festered in her heart, I think, or in her fate - our people are bound very tightly to the prophecies surrounding us. She hated not just our mother but our entire people. She resented me, and sought to foil me whenever I left our home world. She killed people, because she'd been told not to, and because she enjoyed it."

"And then she figured out how to burn our home. Asgard."

"She'd have to burn herself, too, but - "

"Asgard's end was prophesied. Woven into the great tapestry of fate. Even she couldn't escape that, in the end, and her death during it was there."

"...The tapestry burned," she says, voice distant, like it's coming from outside her head. "It was at the tree's root."

(She's not sure how she knows that, and it wasn't a tapestry, not really, like how Yggdrasil wasn't really a tree. But 'tapestry' and 'tree' are close enough, and fire is made to be the enemy of wood and thread.)

"...Good," he says, firmly.

"Anyways... Asgard got cut off, when the fire started. We were doing search and rescue, a few of us, once we could find our way back, but - you're the only one we've found alive. So far at least, but... People'd been talking about calling off the search."

"You cared about them."

"...Yeah. I did. Even when they were terrible."

"I'm sorry. You shouldn't be hurt."

"Now you sound like my sister."

"Do you think I'm her?"

"I don't know. I don't know if identity's in your body, or your memory, or your fate, or something weirder. But... You're still someone I want to help, and maybe get to know, like I'd get to know a long-lost sibling. If you'd let me."

"I think that'd be okay..."

"And I'll protect you from anyone who has a problem with you being connected to the old Loki. You're my ally, even if you're not my sister." He knows Loki had always had a perhaps odd focus on allies, so...

"Good. Allies are important, like books are important, I think."

He nods. "They are."

"Anyways... We should probably think of a name for you, to help distance things."

"I think Loki's right though, it's - me, or at least the person who burned the tapestry and - and broke fate. Breaking fate - that's a good kind of not doing what you're told."

"Yeah. It is. Loki - that's a heavy name, you know. It'll come with chains from people's expectations, but... That's the sort of thing you're good at breaking."

"Well, I'll do the opposite of what they tell me too, then."

He smiles, and says, "Now that we've got you caught up... How about that library?"

"Books!!!"

She's going to be occupied for quite a while, given she doesn't remember ever having read a book.

He's quite happy to see this side of his sister again.

(He's less happy about reporting this to the Avengers; they'll know she's Loki reborn, even if he tries to bluff them, so it's probably best to just come forward...)

The Avengers: are immensely torn! There's a lot of people of the opinion she's flat evil and should not be trusted, though they don't seem to agree on what to do then and whether they think this is a trick or not.

Captain America and Thor Odinson end up bracketing the young Loki for the bulk of the ensuing argument.

"Public opinion doesn't matter," Captain America says, voice not even raised despite a few people having already resorted to shouting. "It doesn't matter what everyone says is wrong or right. What matters is what we know the truth to be. Blaming a child for something she didn't do - something some alternate version of herself did in a future that can't happen again - is wrong. We're better than that, or we should be."

Is that the start of hero worship in her eyes? It might just be!

(She suspects 'emulating Captain America' is something quite unlike the old Loki, and she rather wants to prove everyone wrong about her. Set their little expectations on their head.)

It takes a lot of arguing, but Thor and Captain America have sway, and get the young Loki probationary status and tentative protection.

Captain America offers to stay with them, for a bit, and help them get settled in.

"Thanks," she says, skipping out of the meeting room. "How do I become a superhero, by the way?"

"Usually people are a bit older when it comes to punching villains," Steve says with a laugh. "It helps to have experience, there. But - being a hero, a true hero - it's about doing good. Even when people don't expect you to, even when every expectation and shred of common sense says you don't have to - especially then. It's about standing up to bullies - especially the powerful ones - and looking out for people who can't protect themselves. If you want to get started - I can point you towards some causes who could use some help." He has zero problems funneling Loki's apparent tendency towards mischief into very colorful protests against the assorted bullshit people in power keep pulling.

"Can't promise I'll do those ones, of course, but - I don't know anything about this world, really, so information doesn't hurt."

"I can also email you a list - has Thor explained the internet yet?"

"Nope! What's that?"

"I'm relatively new to it, too, but it's pretty useful..." And he explains!

"That sounds like something with potential!" she says, laughing.

"It does, though there's a lot of people who tend to forget that there's actual people on the other end of their connections."

"I won't do that, then. How do I use the internet?"

"I'll get you set up when we're back where you and Thor are staying, okay? - Though, speaking of, I'm not sure how twelve you actually are - you might want to look into school options. At least online education stuff, and maybe some way to meet other kids."

"Gods don't grow up like mortals," she says, confidently. "We're the age we're supposed to be, for as long as we're supposed to be it. I'm a preteen because that's who I am, right now. I might be a preteen for a few days or a few decades. Still, learning stuff sounds neat, and I guess I can meet some other kids."

"Might be good to start with introducing you to other super's kids - they'll be better about any secret identity issues, and you'll be able to use your magic around them without worrying."

"Why would I have to worry?"

He sighs. "Do you - remember the general concept of Asgard's disdain for male magic users? Earth - it's not quite like that, it's not a gender thing, but there are people who discriminate against people with unusual powers. Especially against one common type, mutants, who tend to manifest as teenagers and tend to have less control. Sometimes the discrimination is violent."

"Then I should be friends with mutant kids so I can protect them from bullies," she says, like she's testing the words.

Captain America nods. "You'll want to be careful you don't become a bully, but - that's a fine line to walk, sometimes. I can help you with figuring out what's enough and what's too far, though, if you want it."

"I haven't even tried to use my magic yet, so I don't know if I even have powers, but - yeah, I see what you mean, I think. I'll experiment, then we can figure stuff out?"

"Sounds good to me. But first, let's get you on the internet."

"Right!"

The internet turns out to be awesome. She gets shown Project Gutenberg and falls in love; she discovers online art museums and has to get up to spin around gleefully; she finds free programs for digital art and discounted programs for really cool digital art and breathlessly requests a way to draw on the computer from Thor, who has to pass it to someone who knows more about the ancient technology Earth still uses. There's entire sites for 'transformative fandom,' which Thor explains is because weird American laws made it arguably illegal to rewrite and rework Earth's versions of sagas, if those sagas were written recently, but of course transforming sagas is what you do with them, so there's a bit of a legal battle there. Currently the transformative parts tend to just try not to get attention. There's sites for specific interests, and fledgling journal sites where you can write about whatever you want.

Captain America takes his leave, and Loki starts trying to figure out which fandoms are popular, so she can get caught up on the original works. It's a bit hard, with decentralized fandom and all.

And Thor tracks down - if not education, then at least socialization opportunities for Loki.

He ends up several times circling back to Xavier's Institute.

Fortunately, they're willing to take even a de-aged supervillain technically using magic and not mutant powers. He gets help to get Loki set up with catching up to Earth's quite frankly paltry education requirements, so she can start school.

She already knows math, and there's not much to learn that's different about science (she writes up corrections for their courses), but English literature and history is new enough to be entertaining.

She blows well past the middle grades. She figures if she finishes all of their normal grade school stuff she'll be able to focus on her magic and making friends, so.

And then orientation day arrives. She's given a dorm room - single, small, with a shared bathroom, but it's hers - so she can stay here while Thor is out being a superhero.

And she's introduced to a mutant girl in her late teens, old enough to be considering joining the X-men next year, who'll be her dorm RA and her guide while she gets settled in.

"Call me Adela," the girl says, hands in her pockets. She's wearing dark, well fitted jeans and a nice red blouse, in contrast to the graphic tees most of the other kids are wearing.

"Hi! I'm Loki! I'm hoping to have a really good stay here!" Loki chirps, grinning.

"And I'm Thor. Thank you for looking after her," Thor says, smiling more gently.

"It's no problem at all. Let's get her settled into her room, how about?"

"Alright!"

She doesn't know a ton of magic yet, so she can't expand the space inside, which meant she had to bring only a few of her favorite physical books. Rude. (The rest are stored on an e-reader and on her computer.)

Then: "You can leave if you want, Thor. I'll call you if anything comes up, okay, but I'd like to go meet the other students now."

"Alright. I'll get out of your hair." He reaches out to ruffle hers. "Have fun."

She laughs and bats his hand away. "I will." Then a hug, goodbyes, and shortly thereafter she's waving to him as he flies off.

To her RA: "So... Meeting everyone else?"

She looks up from her flip phone. "Yeah. This tower's mixed ages. You guys are responsible for keeping your own spaces clean, including the bathroom. Your floor leader should help with a cleaning schedule for the common areas, though. Speaking of, I've texted your floor-mates to meet us in the lounge. You'll have to meet any other students as they wander through."

"Alright! Sounds reasonable."

She had a map pointed out to her earlier, which she remembers enough of to lead the way to the lounge, bouncing a little.

The lounge is rather nice, a long L-shaped room with a good sized meeting area full of comfortable couches in the middle, a piano and a small circular table for four in one leg, and a dining room table that can sit eight in the other leg. The floors are carpeted, and the walls seem to be designed somehow so acoustics are good. There's already two other students in the meeting area, a girl Loki's age and a boy a bit younger than Adela.

"Hey Kendra, Al, this's Loki," Adela says. The boy waves.

"Hi Loki! I'm Kendra," says the girl.

"Hey! It's good to meet you guys."

Adela gets Loki settled in, and then everyone else as the three other mutants on her floor trickle in. There's a fourteen year old, and a sixteen year old, who don't seem particularly enthused to be there but in a teenager way, not in a disliking Loki way.

Only one more's in Loki's age range, perhaps a year or two younger than her, a boy with wolf ears and a tail who bounces onto a bean bag. "Hey! I'm Silv Lowell, but when they let me on the team I'm gonna be Silver Wolf," he says, cheerily.

"That's a good name," Loki says, grinning.

"Thanks! I picked it myself."

"Now, let's get down to why I called everyone here - " Adela starts, interrupting further chatter. "As you guys probably know, you're getting a new floor-mate, Loki. Yes, she's related to that Loki. It's up to her if she wants to explain more, but I'm not going to let anyone give her shit, okay? We're all in the same boat, here."

"I can explain what happened," she says, and after some interested noises she takes a deep breath and continues: "The Old Loki destroyed Asgard. And she also destroyed the thing that makes fate for Asgardians. But she died doing it, and - somehow Thor found me in the ruins of Asgard. Maybe she made me. Maybe she restarted early - Asgard's fated to be destroyed, and when it is it's reborn, but I think the rebirth isn't usually instant. I don't remember anything from before waking up in the ruins, though, and don't really know how to control my powers or anything. I've decided I'm gonna be good, though. I'm gonna make stuff better."

"A good ambition," Adela says, gently. There's some nods. "Probably most people are going to round you off to Loki's kid, with that - reincarnation and all's a weird sort of thing, but people are familiar with kids of villains going a different path."

"Her kid probably isn't a bad summary, anyways."

"Well, I'll stick with you," Kendra says. "I'm super smart, so I'm going to be an engineer and change the world with my inventions."

"Thanks, Kendra."

The meeting's wrapped up pretty quickly after that - mostly in how Loki's going to be rolled into cleaning rotations - and the older kids leave the three younger ones to hang out.

"We should go out in the forest and play with some of our powers!" Silv says, bouncing.

"I'm not even sure what I can do," Loki reminds him, though she's grinning.

"Which is why we should be outside," he says, nodding sagely.

"Mine's not very forest show-y, though," says Kendra.

"Super intelligence?"

"Nah, I'm just that smart. My power's knowing all of a language if I know even a little bit of it. I've been doing some stuff with saving extinct languages, but that's not super exciting."

"Cool! I've got Allspeak, which is basically the Asgardian Universal Translator, so I don't really get a good look inside languages." Loki's watched Star Trek by now. Well, some of it. There's a lot of episodes.

"Huh. Is that magic?"

"I think technically, though I dunno how to give it to people yet."

"Could you give me a bunch of alien languages?"

She hums. "If I'm talking to you, you'll hear the language you're most fluent in or that gets my point across the best, but I can write a letter in a specific language if I focus - it's not like sticking translation software on everything I write - so if your thing does writing..."

"Then we're golden! For everything that has a writing system - maybe we should test if you can write a specific language in IPA, too!"

"What's IPA?"

"International Phonetic Alphabet. Might not work for alien languages, but I bet we could make an Interstellar one - "

"I bet we could!"

"Maybe later?" Silv says, hopefully. "I'm not too good with nerd type stuff."

"Sure. Kendra, do you mind tagging along with us outside? We could talk magic, maybe."

"Don't mind at all."

"Alright!" To Silv: "Let's go!"

"Cool!"

And he leads the way out near the outskirts, where there's old trees - many of them great for climbing, especially if you can change shapes - and cobblestone paths and neat things in hidden little hollows.

The best place is a hollow formed by the roots of one massive tree, the entrance to it entirely hidden from all but one angle. He's expanded it while he's been here, until it's a proper secret clubhouse, though the furniture's lacking.

"I've never brought people here before!" he says, excitedly, before leading the way back out and to a clearing with some neat boulders and fallen logs around it - "Figure this's good for magic practice!"

"Looks good to me!" She hums. "I think flight would be super fun, but it - feels like it'd be hard - "

"Can you do sensory stuff? Figure that'd be ahead of any actual doing."

"Probably? But that might be boring for you guys."

"It's cool. Silv and I can work on building stuff for the hideout."

"Alright! Listening to my surroundings it is, then."

"If you figure it out, promise you'll try to teach me? I wanna talk to plants and animals and stuff, not just shape-shift."

"Sure thing!"

And she settles in to meditate. It's a familiar motion, like she's done it a thousand times before despite not remembering ever doing this -

She turns her mind from that, focusing on her surroundings instead.

Slowly, steadily, she can feel something like a pulse. An answer to her breath. The earth thrums, and is echoed by the plants. Her friends - and the other mutants - seem not necessarily brighter, like this, but more concentrated. Faint, still, but present.

She gets excited enough to break her meditation the first few times, but eventually settles into it - at least, until her new friends get bored with designing the hideout.

She's skipping as they walk back, excitedly rambling to her friends about how cool magic is.

This is met with enthusiasm! The next two days are apparently also days off, which they can spend running around and exploring and trying to learn to meditate.

Monday, three days after her arrival, is not met with enthusiasm. Well, on her friends' parts, at least.

She's pretty enthused, though! She's tested out of everything boring, which means she should be getting the closest to magic classes they can manage.

The class for those with abilities best summarized as magical is small, led by a woman in a red costume with no particular effort spent to hide her face - her helmet instead frames it. She introduces herself as Cecilia Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, and clarifies she's a guest lecturer here, but that she'll be reachable even when off grounds. She won't always be able to respond right away to emails, given her variable duties as an Avenger, but she tries to keep consistent online office hours. Excepting emergencies, of course.

Loki recognizes her! She'd been at the Avengers meeting - one of the quieter ones, and while she hadn't been literally standing with Thor and Captain America she'd several times pointed out all the ex-villains the Avengers apparently have.

Loki waves, grinning.

She grins back.

"Since we have a new student today, I'm going to focus on getting established with her. Everyone else feel free to work on your projects from last week."

The students do so, a few splitting into groups but most working on their own, though there's continued curious glances sent Loki's way.

And Professor Maximoff comes to sit with Loki.

"Hey!" says Loki, smiling a bit. "What do you wanna know?"

"Mostly where you're at already, and a quick summary of your approach to magic."

"I haven't gotten much past sensing, and right now I'm just trying to feel things out. Meditate, and all. I don't remember ever actually using magic, so..."

"Then I suppose we can start with teaching you my method, and modify if it seems needed."

"Sure!"

So she explains acts of will, and knowing what is, and visualizing what should be, and different methods of concentrating to bridge the gap.

Loki takes notes! She discovered fancy hard bound journals, and rather likes writing in them with a variety of colorful gel pens. So her notes can be color coordinated, but also so she can put little pictures next to the important bits and doodle when she's bored.

And Professor Maximoff gives her some exercises to do - preferably with supervision at first, but she also explains how to tell where the safety margins on these are. They're mostly extensions of the meditation Loki's already been doing, and the first few, like lighting candles and changing the color of the flame, can be done in the classroom.

Then Loki can settle in to making an arrangement of rainbow flames! That change colors in interesting patterns.

Well, trying.

She gets a rainbow by the end of the period, but the flames tend to wink out when the colors change.

Their teacher helps a few other students with their own projects, doles out compliments and constructive criticism, and then dismisses them for the day. This particular class meets every class day barring emergencies (and when their Professor's called away they usually meet anyways to work without her), so she'll see them again here tomorrow.

Loki will collect some candles, put her notes together, thank the teacher, and then look around to see if anyone's looking like they want to talk to her.

There's two! Both teens, the younger of two a brunette who'd been playing with some circuits.

And a redheaded girl who'd been chanting lowly the entire class. The redhead walks up to Loki first, hands in the pockets of her pants - white with a loud floral print - and a friendly smile on her face.

"Hey! I'm Raine. You're Loki, right?" the redhead says, cheerfully.

"Yeah! New student and all that."

The technomage finishes packing away her stuff and comes over. "And I'm Mal," she says. "Good to meet you. You wanna hang out, maybe talk magic some? I've never really met anyone else who uses alien magic. Well, some, but not who'll talk to me."

"Yeah, that sounds fun! I don't know a lot of Asgardian magic, but I've got a feel for it, and I can probably bug Thor for some tips once I've gotten started."

"Awesome! Come on, I know a good group study area in the quad off the library."

She slings her backpack on and leads the way through the winding halls.

Loki follows!

"What kind of magic do you guys use? Where'd you get your magic from?" She has a weird thought in her head, both that technically all humans can use magic but that most never bother or even know it's possible. It's not like they're not good storytellers, good liars, but -

She doesn't know. She hasn't been around humans enough yet, so say why they are the way they are.

"I do incantations and all that, though I'm trying to ease into blood magic. It's more powerful, and I think easier for me. I'm a mutant, and my mutation interacts with magic somehow. Mostly makes it possible to do by accident so far. Also means I sometimes grow random feathers, but, hey, mutations."

"I'm a technomage, so I'm doing magic with circuitry basically. I'm not a mutant or from a long line of witches or anything like that. I'm just stubborn and too clever for my own good, so I ended up here."

"Neat! I've just been figuring out the basics. Professor Maximoff was helping me with just will magic... It's like telling the universe a story, you know?"

"I guess that's one way of looking at it!" Raine says with a laugh. "And yeah, we saw you with the candles. Pretty fun first step."

"It's not too hard to go from candles to light bulbs, you know," Mal says, also grinning. "Though easier if you know some of the relevant physics."

"So mages get to have the coolest decorations?"

Also she is totally planning to mess with people's electronics to spell funny things, now. No use pretending she isn't.

"Pretty much how it works."

They reach the library courtyard, a little nook screened by a trellis laden with spring vines. Mallory settles in to one of the corners, propping her backpack up beside her and pulling out a case with some assorted electronics.

"There's not a lot of good technical terms for magic that I've found - some mysticism, but I think those are mostly metaphorical rather than useful - and I was wondering if you knew any? Otherwise I'm left coining them."

"There's ones in Asgardian, but I think words from human languages would work best for humans picking them up. Still, you can probably just translate ours, since we kind of already did the classification work?"

She describes Asgardian terms for magic, what she can get of their etymology from Allspeak's historic modules.

"Thanks. I'll shoot you an email once I've figured out some good translations for these, and then we can really get into the nitty-gritty. In the mean time - I can teach you some technomagy, you can explain your sensing technique? I'm mostly flying blind, in terms of magic senses."

"Yeah!"

She excitedly explains everything she can remember or sort of half remember and half magically know about meditation and sensing magic.

Mal sets up a recorder, and then explains technomagy as applied to light bulbs. Which does involve explaining electricity and circuits and resistance and all that - how much does Loki know about that?

That's kid stuff, as far as she's concerned.

Good! Then they'll quickly have a glowing light bulb not connected to any power sources.

Raine's thing is less straightforwardly shareable, but she knows a lot more about the history of blood and incantation magic that she can share the basics of, and recommend some library books to Loki.

"Thanks!"

Loki trades emails with the other two girls, and makes loose plans to form a study group - they only have classes four days a week, so Friday's a good time for studying.

And then she needs to head off to her next class, which is one she'll only have Monday and Wednesday but for longer blocks - history. According to her schedule, Monday's for general history overviews, and Wednesday's for independent or guided study in special topics. Her history teacher's an excited mutant with electric blue hair and a smattering of dark green scales across brown skin, who claims to be able to touch an object to get a sense of its history. He doesn't draw any particular attention to Loki until class ends, when he holds her back to exchange contact information so he can make sure she's caught up.

Then it's arts class - another one that's all four days. Monday's on literature. And after arts, her last class is another Monday/ Wednesday one, modern geography and culture. She's in literature with both Silv and Kendra, and in history and geography with Silv. (Some comparing of schedules revealed that her technologies class tomorrow's going to be with Silv, but her sciences class will be with Kendra).

Basically all of the classes are small, and focus on the teachers helping students with their own learning projects instead of on lectures or anything.

As the week goes on, she gets better quickly at the small magics. Music class gives her a few ideas for using songs as a framework for magic, and technology class is fascinating - human technology of course is a bit primitive, but they do so much with what little they have, and (a little whisper in her mind insists) they don't cripple themselves by insisting on one aesthetic. Physical arts class is so-so, but the teacher doesn't mind if Loki changes her clay color with magic, so. (Loki ends up with a very glittery hammer she's definitely sending to Thor).

Theater, the last of the art class rotation, quickly asserts itself as Loki's absolute favorite. She's joining theater club. She's also downloading several old plays to read over the weekend, and seeing if the theater groups around grounds have room in their plays for her, even though it's pretty late in the semester.

She keeps Thor and Captain America updated through email, of course, and calls Thor every other day to ramble at him about stuff her friends are doing or what she did in class or did he know humans have multiple kinds of theater, it's not just reciting sagas???

Captain America seems more familiar with email than Thor. He tells her his non-secret identity (Steve Rogers), and says he might fill in for Thor on some of the parent-type duties as Steve, since Thor's been a lot busier than him lately. (He leaves off that this is because of fallout from the old Loki's destruction of Asgard).

He's very happy she's enjoying her classes, and actually has a few things to recommend - pieces of art history especially. Being able to magic your paint to another color does sound quite convenient, too.

And after her first full week there, there's an optional teacher-guardian meeting, which Thor can't attend but Steve shows up for. As a civilian, of course.

Loki meets him at the gate! And gives him an only somewhat impulsive hug.

She's not actually going to be in the meeting, but she shows him around the grounds excitedly before his appointment.

He is quite glad of the tour!

After the meeting (which goes well, if somewhat tediously), to Loki: "So, want to head into one of the nearby towns? Figure we can eat out, or get ice cream or something."

"Oooo! You know, I haven't had ice cream yet..."

"That is a great wrong that must be addressed, then."

She laughs.

Onward, to ice cream!

He never had ice cream in his old life, so he doesn't bother finding anything nostalgic and just goes for charmingly weird. Loki can have anywhere from classic chocolate and vanilla to lavender or green tea.

Once ice cream selections have been made, he finds them a little out of the way booth, and asks her how she's been doing, if people are being friendly...

She's been good! She has four whole friends she meets with outside of class, and most people have either been friendly or have been ignoring her in class. She also likes most of her professors, though some of them are boring...

Boring professors are a hazard of the educational field, sadly. Still, it's good she's getting to self-direct a lot of her education, having to sit down and listen to lectures is the worst.

Sounds it, definitely.

Ice cream gets eaten, eventually, and he drops her back off at Xavier's, with a promise to visit again soon.

She waves until he's out of sight, and then goes back to his dorm.

"Who was that?" Kendra asks. "I thought Thor was your guardian?"

"That was Steve. He's a really good friend of Thor's, so since Thor's busy a lot with the Avengers he's picking up some of the guardian stuff."

Actually she has no clue what her legal guardianship status is...

"Huh. Guess that makes sense."

"Yeah! So, anyways, were you going to see the spring break play..."

And the conversation winds on.

That evening she emails Steve to thank him for the ice cream, and also ask if he knows what's up with her legal status?

He does in fact know! Thor's not legally a United States citizen, and is technically visiting under some very complicated papers meant for alien superheroes, which wouldn't apply to her, and they couldn't easily get her refugee status. And bringing her before a judge might be complicated and end poorly given her past self has a local criminal record. There's been a few ideas floated, which he describes - getting Thor a family exemption to the alien hero status, getting her adopted by a US citizen, getting her asylum given her destroyed home world...

Can Steve adopt her? He's about as American citizen as it gets. (And he's also one of the only other adults she knows, and has been doing pretty good at this guardian thing so far, she thinks.)

That'd certainly be an option, and not one he objects to at all! He can put his name in for consideration if that comes up, if she'd like?

Yeah! He's already doing teacher/ guardian meetings, so.

He sends an agreement, and a reminder she can talk to him about anything, and also a note he'll let her know as soon as he hears an update about all the legal issues.

Thanks.

And back into the school routine.

They get told to have a demonstration for the class ready by the end of the semester in magic class. They can work individually or in teams, and the big thing their professor's looking for here is creativity and stretching their limits - with an eye to safety, of course.

Still, it'll be hard to do poorly on this, and she's available to help.

She heads over to Raine and Mal after class. "Do you guys wanna team up with me?" she asks. "We've got pretty different magic styles, but that'd be neat." And they're already her friends, too.

"Works for me. Usual place to brainstorm?"

"Yeah!"

Brainstorming goes well.

It's when Loki meets up with her magic-class friends for lunch that things turn sour.

Namely, there's a boy, maybe sixteen or seventeen, somewhat aggressively in Mal's space. His words are muffled and hard to make out, but he sounds angry.

Mal does not look like she's having a good time, and is glancing down and away, hunched in on herself.

Raine is walking over quickly from across the room. It's rather large, though, and there's students in the way -

So Loki's going to get there first.

"Hey! Leave her alone!" she shouts, before she's even close enough to hear what he's saying. It doesn't matter, anyways.

She's rather quickly in both teens' space, moving to shove the guy away from Mal.

Given she's an Asgardian, this is a rather hard shove.

He staggers back a bit, but doesn't go flying like some humans would. "The hell? - Oh, the new kid." He scowls at her. "What're you doing hanging around with a human like her, anyways? Or didn't she tell you?"

"Quentin, drop it. Loki, it's fine, he didn't hurt me."

"Drop it? You don't belong here, and your whole kind's a danger - "

"Shut. Up."

There's something odd beating in Loki's chest. Anger, maybe.

He steps closer to her. "Look, kid, maybe you don't read the news, but the humans - they've been killing freaks like us. Jumbo Carnation's death was last week. You really gonna stand up for a human?"

"I don't like bullies."

She wants him away from her - her intent's not firmed, but magic's lying to the universe and Loki tells such pretty stories that surely the universe can fill in the details -

Nope! She's not going to be taking any actions at all, actually.

Loki stops breathing.

"The hell did you do, Quentin?" Mal demands, stepping forward, the little bits of technology she keeps attached to her backpack starting to hum.

"She was attacking me - "

"Which you knew... How?" a voice - five voices, barely distinct, speaking at once - asks. Five identical blonde girls walk up, their steps in beat.

The hold on Loki releases.

Loki screams.

Unless Quentin has some other weird tricks, he's going flying.

It's really more like skidding. Top tier telekinetic, hello.

Still, he's shaken.

"Sophie," he says, directing his gaze at the foremost of the five girls. "Look, I was just talking to the human girl - "

"You're a creep, Kid Omega," say all five. "Leave it."

"All of you will be stopping it."

The voice is Professor Maximoff's.

She doesn't sound at all amused, nor particularly friendly.

"And you'll be explaining what happened in my office. Anyone injured?"

"We lifted the mental block on Loki before any damage was done," the girls say. "Kid Omega is unharmed, despite his whining."

"She was trying to banish me, or send me flying - that's assault, and I was just defending myself."

"So are mind reading and control. My office. Now."

Her tone allows no arguments.

Loki follows.

Though she keeps away from Kid Omega.

And Mal stays between her and the others.

Kid Omega stalks ahead of them, clearly angry.

And the five identical girls trail along behind.

"I want a step by step," Professor Maximoff says once they're all in her office and the door is shut. "Loki first. No one else interrupt."

"I was coming to meet with Mal and Raine for lunch 'cause we're doing the magic project together," Loki starts. "And then I saw this guy I didn't know crowding Mal and sounding angry. She looked upset, so I got between them and shoved him a bit so he'd get away from her. He started insulting us and calling her a human and telling me I shouldn't hang out with her, and started crowding me. I got angry and upset and was thinking about how to get him to back off, when my mind just - froze - like I couldn't even think or do stuff, and I stopped breathing even though I still needed air. And then he and Mal started shouting at each other and then those girls stepped up and I think made him stop keeping me from breathing, and I tried to throw him away from me so he couldn't do that again."

"Alright. Now you, Quintavius."

"I was just talking to Mal," he says, voice still angry. "Not threatening her. Nothing like that. And then this kid came up and attacked me, and yeah I caught a few stray thoughts from her planning to do worse - and she was about to do it, so I stopped her. It was just a temporary hold, and was just on voluntary actions, so she must've just been holding her breath to get me in trouble. Then Sophie and her sisters walked up and freed her, and she attacked me like she had been planning all along."

"And Mallory."

"Quentin was threatening me, pretty obviously even if mostly indirectly. And he does this pretty often, and he likes to make it clear he's more powerful than people, so I was trying not to provoke him. Loki hadn't done much more than would be normal in a schoolyard scuffle when he locked her. Especially since I know she can hit harder than she shoved him."

"And the Cuckoo sisters?"

"We observed the beginning of the fight when Loki began yelling at Quentin to leave Mallory alone. That was, notably, long enough before she shoved him that he could have stepped back on his own. He did not. He then reached out to Loki psychically, shortly before attacking her mentally. We approached to intervene, and acted only to lift his hold."

"Alright. I want all of you except Quentavius to step outside and wait for me to call you back."

Loki frowns, but heads out with the other girls, flinging herself dramatically into a seated position against one wall.

"He was the one doing something wrong," she grouches.

"Loki, I really appreciate you sticking up for me, but - I don't want to see you hurt, okay? And picking fights with people whose powers you don't know, over a couple of words, is going to get you hurt."

"Captain America didn't even have powers when he started standing up to bullies. People like that shouldn't be able to just be mean. It's bad."

"You're a good kid," says the leader of the five sisters - and not the other four. She's the one Quentin had addressed as Sophie. "And we can help make sure Quentin doesn't retaliate. We're his equals, at least."

"Thanks. But I should learn how to throw people like him off."

"We might be able to help with that, then," the five say as a collective.

She gives them a small smile.

And then the bully in question steps out.

"She wants to talk to Loki," he says, before storming off.

She glares after him, then smooths out her expression a bit (though she's still clearly annoyed) and goes in to Professor Maximoff's office.

"Hey Loki. You alright?" the professor asks.

"Yeah. Shaken a bit. I don't like that that guy was in my head."

"He's being disciplined for that, and we'll keep an eye on him. But, Loki - you did react outside of the bounds of self defense. Using magic against other students is fairly strictly prohibited."

"He was trying to suffocate me!"

"Yes. Some level of self defense was warranted there - but you could have easily killed an unenhanced human with that blast, and I don't think you knew he was telekinetic."

She scowls and looks away.

Her professor lets her stew for a few seconds, then, gently: "Because it's a first offense, and there were pretty strong extenuating circumstances, we're going to let this one go with a warning. We'll be telling your guardian about what happened, though, and if this happens again we might take disciplinary measures."

"That's not fair."

"Rules often aren't. But imagine what would have happened if his only powers had been telepathic? And you'd thrown him that far?"

"I already knew that he wasn't baseline though from shoving him! He barely reacted, and I know I'm stronger than a human even when I'm not pushing hard."

She sighs. "I understand that. Still, I'm going to be giving you some exercises on safety with magic use - not as a punishment, but to give you more tools in case something like this happens again. Alright?"

"Okay..." she mutters.

"Thank you. Can you let Mallory know I want to talk to her next?"

"Sure."

She jumps down from her chair and heads out.

And Mal heads in.

"You alright?" one of the five girls - not Sophie - asks, voice soft.

"She's telling my guardian, and she's giving me stuff to do for magic safety, but I'm not really being punished. Apparently." Loki's scowling, nonetheless, and leaning against a wall to wait for her friend.

"School can be unpleasant like that," the same girl continues.

"Especially when Quentin is involved," Sophie says.

She nods.

"So... I guess you guys know I'm Loki. What're your names?"

"Sophie," says Sophie.

"Phoebe," says a harsher looking girl.

"Irma Mindee," says a girl, quietly, glancing quickly at Loki then away.

"Celeste," says the girl who'd asked if Loki was alright.

"Esme," says the last, her assessing gaze focused on Loki.

"We're the Cuckoo sisters," Sophie continues. "We like going by Five-in-One collectively, but a lot of people have been calling us the Stepford Cuckoos. It's annoying."

"Sounds annoying. It's good to meet all of you." They're really identical, more than identical twins usually are, so she tries to hook her memory of their names onto their mannerisms and also their sort of magical echo. It's really similar between all them, but there are enough subtle differences for Loki to be pretty sure she can tell them apart.

They nod.

"We would like to help you with mental defenses," says Celeste. "We think we'd be good teachers. We're doing well on the theory in our psychics course, and we're not as natively powerful as someone like Kid Omega, so we know more about rising from the bottom, so to speak."

"Thanks. Do you guys want to meet up sometime then?"

"Yes. That would be best," Celeste says. "When are you free?"

Loki relays her schedule.

Sunday afternoon works best for everyone, then. There's a study room, well insulated psychically for better focus, that should serve them well.

"Thanks. See you guys then."

"You're welcome," they say as one.

Mal emerges shortly thereafter.

"Professor wants to talk to you all, Five in One," Mal says to the sisters. Then, to Loki: "Hey. Let's go find Raine and let her know we're alright, okay?"

The five file in silently.

And Loki turns to Mal. "Yeah, that sounds good. She must be really worried..."

"Pretty much what I figured, too."

And off, back to the cafeteria.

Raine meets them on their way there. "Hey, you guys okay?" she calls. "I saw the fight with that jerk - "

"We're fine. And not really in trouble."

Raine nods. "That's good. Though with Quentin pissed at us now, we might want to watch our backs..."

"Five in One offered me some lessons on psychic stuff, so I might be able to defend myself better next time," Loki says, shrugging.

"The Stepford Cuckoos? Don't know I'd trust them. They're creepy."

"They don't like being called that. And calling them creepy's rude."

A weird look flickers over Raine's face. It's quickly gone, though.

"Sure. Nice of them to offer, I guess."

She nods, slowly.

And Raine's back to smiling.

"Come on, let's get to lunch. Presentation won't plan itself."

"Sure."

And off to eat and argue about how to interestingly combine their magics.

Loki gets an email from Thor that evening.

Hey Loki. Heard about what happened in school. You alright?

Yeah. Annoyed. I'm not in trouble, am I?

No. Standing up for your friend was good. You're lucky Cecilia was the one who intervened, though - I don't think she actually has disciplinary rights but the other teachers don't want to contradict her. She's smart enough to arrange things like that, I guess.

Be careful, okay? I've misjudged my strength with humans before. It's not pretty, when that happens.

I've gotten that lecture from Professor Maximoff, too. I'll be careful. But I'm not going to let people like Kid Omega be bullies.

Yeah, reasonable.

Do you want help with psychic stuff? Even if you don't get into any more fights with someone like him, telepaths can be pretty scary.

Some of the other students offered to tutor me. More information would be great, though.

He forwards her some recommended reading, and a note he's trying to get in touch with some magic users he knows with anti-psychic defenses. Might be slow going, though.

She thanks him, then continues about her day.

Stuff in the halls are tense for a while - apparently Kid Omega's a major ring leader of some of the kids - but people pretty quickly forget about the fight in favor of some other drama. Apparently Kid Omega unveiled a different popular mutant, with a rival clique, as having an 'ugly' mutation he'd been covering with illusions. Which is a stupid thing for people to be gossiping about, but it loses the other kid his clique. The kid turns down Loki's offer to hang out, so other than keeping an eye out for bullies she drops it.

And then it's time for psychic lessons with Five in One.

The girls are where they said they'll be.

It's Celeste who speaks this time. "You're familiar with meditation, correct?"

"Yeah. Really familiar."

"The origin of our powers is a mutation, not magic, but we will explain the centering and sensing processes, from that meditative base, and hopefully it will apply to you as well," Celeste says.

"Magic's pretty much about telling the universe a really, really good story, so much so the universe changes what it's doing for a little bit, so I think if I give it enough of a reason it'll work."

Esme hums, focusing more intently on Loki, while Celeste nods. "That's good," Celeste says. "Now, the first step is to picture your mind - the shape doesn't matter, but contained images are harder to penetrate than uncontained ones, and the imagined defenses of the space are often at least somewhat in line with actual mental defenses."

She hums, settling in to meditate.

The shape of her mind is obvious.

It isn't contained, for one, the way fire can't be truly contained. It's an ocean and it's fire and it's a thousand chaotic shifting things and telling what it's doing now should be hard and what it's going to do next should be impossible, and she weaves a story into its unstable bones. She is Loki and Loki is chaos. She is the burned god who rose from her own ashes as a phoenix, she is the destroyer of fate and the breaker of chains -

She's calm, when she opens her eyes, centered, like her thoughts and emotions are a whirlwind around her, notable only if she wants them to be.

"May we sense your mind?" the five girls ask as one.

Loki nods.

And a thread, a gentle touch winds through her whirlwind. It's not as adaptable as she is, but it doesn't have to be, because it knows itself. (It's five things, and they're connected in a loop, but unstably, exacerbated by the buffeting chaos of Loki's mind.)

"Now. Try to throw us out."

Well, what does fire do, but burn things? Those links are looking awfully tenuous.

The five flinch - out of sync, Sophie's hand going to her head - and the intrusion in her mind retreats.

"Good," Celeste says. "I don't think you have a psychic instinct, but I think you're covering with magic well enough. That was clever, breaking our links. Separated opponents are weaker."

"Thanks. Are you guys okay?"

"Yes," they say together, then Celeste alone continues with: "When we're this close to each other reestablishing the links is a lot easier. Now, we want you to try that a few more times..."

They walk her through several variations on identifying and rejecting intruders. They can modify how hard their own mental image is to detect or impact and can change how it appears, which makes for a very good teaching tool.

Loki's not going to get past throwing off active mind readers - she's still not going to be good against passive readers, but it takes an active connection to mind control someone usually anyways, which is what she's really concerned about - this evening.

Her brain's tired and her head hurts by the time they're done, and she's thoroughly grouchy and ready to sleep, but she musters enough enthusiasm to thank them for the lesson and plan a similar one next week.

In the meantime: Silv has a very, very good idea.

Loki's not been here long, so she might've only kind of noticed, but their music teacher super plays favorites. Super super super. Silv's heard it's worse with the actual chorus and band sections for older kids.

They should maybe teach the teacher something. Nothing harmful, just a little prank... Embarrass her at worst.

"Oh, that sounds fun! What're you thinking?"

"I was kind of hoping you'd have some ideas? We shouldn't use our powers, though - the school leader people kind of ignore stuff that's happening if no one uses powers in it. We could get in a lot of trouble if we were abusing magic and all, but if it's just, like, paint, who really cares?"

"Huh! A prank without magic removes a lot of my obvious ideas... Do you know what we have to work with?"

"Just what we have or can find in the forest, though I think there's some supplies we can maybe borrow. Or borrow without permission."

Loki carefully mulls over the concept of theft for the sake of a prank. "Only stuff no one will miss, though," is what she decides is the best answer.

"Sure! That means it'll be longer before they catch us anyways."

"Sounds like the best of both worlds, then."

"Definitely."

And off to the secret hideout to plot their nefarious mischief! Silv has a lot of really weird and probably not entirely implementable ideas.

Well, they are still only brainstorming.

The buoyancy from planning some small chaos with Silv - even just planning, even if they don't do anything - carries her in a good mood all the way through Sunday and her next lesson with Five in One.

Today, Loki's going to be practicing throwing off more aggressive active attempts.

This is very hard and very, very exhausting to do repeatedly, it turns out.

She ends up appropriately very, very exhausted, and kind of running on automatic when she goes to get dinner in the cafeteria.

She bumps into someone on the way there.

She reflexively steps back. "Oh," she says, blinking. "Sorry. Didn't see you."

The person tenses, her eyes narrowing a bit. "You're that Loki."

"Yeah? The new one."

Person takes a step back.

"...Your mother killed my family."

"...Oh."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not - you can't just be sorry - they're dead!" They're rapidly tearing up, face going blotchy.

Quietly: "And I can't fix that."

"No - you - "

Person turns, running off.

Loki takes a deep breath, shaken, and goes about her day.

Luckily Silv knows what'll cheer her up!

Time to steal supplies for their prank?

...Sure. She's in a bit of a restless mood, a disobedient mood, and this is perfect.

A local crow seems interested in what they're doing, following them at a short distance, hopping around them, eyeing their supplies.

"Hey crow!" Silv calls, before making a few odd croaking noises, shifting his throat to do so. (He's offering a bit of food. It's good to be friends with crows, after all.)

The crow caws back, harshly, making a sound almost like laughter before hopping away.

"Guess that's a no. C'mon, let's get this stuff to the hideout..." Which involves cutting near the outer fence, for the most secret route.

The crow follows.

And, when they're close to the fence -

Takes off, cawing loudly, fluttering towards the fence.

"What - !" "- Damn bird!" "Hey, that's mine - " a few voices - teenagers, vaguely familiar perhaps, exclaim.

"Shut the fuck up, guys," someone says, lowly.

Someone quite familiar to Loki -

Quentin, or Kid Omega.

Loki goes very, very still.

Don't notice us, we're whispers on the wind, children holding their breath and never being seen - walk away, walk along, don't look back - (she whispers, to Quentin, to the universe - )

(It's a neat, tidy little story, the mischievous child hiding from the plot they stumbled upon. An easy little lie for the universe to believe, just long enough...)

And the teenagers continue through the fence - clearly sneaking out, but not noticing the shadows listening to them.

"We should follow them," Silv whispers, once they're clear. "I don't like that Kid Omega."

"It's not safe," Loki says, hesitantly, even as she chafes at the idea of fear holding her back.

Still, she knows she's not ready, not to face a pissed off Kid Omega with just her friend to protect.

"And they're probably just going out to do drugs or something dumb, and we've still got our stuff to hide."

The crow caws at them again, mocking, before flying off.

And the two of them can go to hide their supplies for a later date.

Loki, of course, is still working with her friends from magic class on their group project.

Mal thinks they should center it around enhancing technology, though technology can do so much it'll be hard figuring out something only magically enhanced tech can do...

Loki has any knowledge of how Asgardians blended technology with magic! Hopefully that'll be enough to show off...

Well, they can make a lot of progress on the planning, at least.

Still, Raine seems tense around Loki - pretty much the entire time, answering her a bit more shortly than normal, usually directing comments to Mal...

Loki lets Mal leave ahead of her, lingering and trying to catch Raine's eye.

"Hey. Something up, Loki?"

"I was kinda going to ask you that. You've seemed - really unhappy?"

"Oh. That." She waves a hand. "No big deal, just some personal stuff. School stress, mostly."

"Well - if you need anything, help or just someone to vent to, you can let me know, alright?"

"Thanks. You're a good friend, Loki."

"I'm trying!"

"Doing well at it!"

And then it's time to go their separate ways.

Loki focuses on her studies over the next few weeks, growing ever stronger in magic - and especially mental defenses. She won't be weak like that again, especially not with Kid Omega still angry at her.

Thor and Steve come over pretty often, sometimes together, sometimes apart. Loki perks up whenever they visit, especially when Thor brings old tomes on magic or Steve gives her the email of a sorcerer friend of his.

Her personal life is going a bit less well. Raine gets cold, and Mal gets ever more hesitant around Loki, especially once their presentation's done. Loki flounders in trying to figure out what's even wrong.

Still, she's an odd sort of friends with Five in One, now, learning more and more how to tell the quintuplets apart. (And there's something weird about those five. It's not like Loki doesn't refuse to talk about her past, too, but Loki's at least decently open about not having a past. The Cuckoo girls never mention family, or where they were before joining Xavier's Academy this year, or - anything.)

Kid Omega seems to be getting angrier, too, lashing out verbally more and more at other students - still not openly using his powers, though, at least not that Loki can tell.

And then, one day, when just Mal's there:

"Loki, I want to talk to you about something."

"Is something wrong?"

"I - "

"I think we shouldn't hang out so much anymore."

" - Why not? We're friends, right - "

"I'd rather not be."

Loki just -

Stares at her.

Disbelieving.

Mal shifts, seeming uncomfortable.

"Look, I'm not gonna start being mean or anything, I just - why don't you play more with the kids your age?"

Loki takes a deep breath.

And turns and runs in the other direction.

She needs to get away, needs to hide somewhere no one's going to try to talk to her about this hateful roaring in her chest - the urge to rip Mal apart will go away if she just ignores it -

There's a comfortable little tangle up that old tree, hidden from just about every view point. Someone small like Loki could probably wedge herself in, and the only one around's a single crow, who flutters away a bit when Loki runs past. (She might've missed the spot, if not for the motion catching her eye.)

Loki clambers up the tree and hides herself.

She doesn't want anyone to find her (she screams to the universe), that's not how crying goes, it's believable an upset little girl wouldn't be found by anyone -

The crow comes to investigate after a few minutes, when Loki will have had a chance to work past her initial shock of rage (because it's always anger, isn't it? Everyone leaves, even if you wrap your talons into them... Sorrow does no one any good).

"Go away, crow," Loki says, clenching her fists.

The crow just tilts its head, cawing.

Loki curls up tighter.

"Someone's gotta have made her do that. Mal's my friend. She wouldn't."

This caw's perhaps a bit mocking.

"Oh, shut up."

Innocent flutter.

"What are you playing at, crow?"

This crow, playing at something? No, never!

Loki turns away from the crow, curling up more, determined not to move.

And, eventually, the crow departs.

Loki stays there a while, then sulks back to her dorm room, avoiding her floor mates. 

No one bothers her.

She's still unhappy when she goes back to class the next day, folded in on herself.

She's at least present, though.

Her classmates don't bother her, especially not her ex-friends.

This really, really fucking sucks.

Loki focuses on her work and stubbornly ignores her classmates.

Her classmates return the favor.

She at least gets a lot of work done.

She heads back to her dorms in silence, sulking.

Kendra comes over to check on her.

"Is everything okay, Loki?"