The torchlight in the chamber casts long shadows across Loki’s face, catching on the sharp lines of his cheekbones, the tension drawn tight around his mouth. When he speaks, his voice is quieter than you have ever heard it. Stripped of theatrics, of mischief, of the polished arrogance he wears like armour.

“I’m not Asgardian,” he says slowly. His thumb traces a small, absent arc over your knuckles. He hasn’t let go since the revelation, since the cold clarity of the Casket cracked his world clean in half.

“When I touched it, the Casket, I felt it. Some sort of freedom I have only felt in distant memory.” His jaw tightens. “My skin answered it. The way it did on Jotunheim. When that creature laid a hand on me and I turned blue beneath its grasp.” A sharp, humourless breath escapes him. “That was not coincidence. That was my blood remembering itself.”

Loki’s gaze drops to your joined hands, then lifts again, searching your face with naked apprehension. It's an unfamiliar look on a God who has always been so certain of his masks. “I am Jötunn,” he says at last, the words heavy, irrevocable. “I am… one of them, child of Farbauti and Laufey.”

His free hand lifts, hesitating near his own wrist, magic already whispering at his skin. “If you wish it,” he murmurs, softer still, “I will let you see me as I truly am.”