Fic: Deceptive Appearances (Loki xover with Encanto)

[bookishwench]

She would not have liked being called lovely, not anymore, but it was still the word that leapt to mind when Loki saw the young witch for the first time. She was walking through the trees, a satchel on her back and a small spade in her hand, her eyes wary as she looked carefully for any potential predators. She missed him, of course, since at the moment he was cloaked from mortal eyes, but she still seemed to sense something. Smiling, he silently turned into a little green snake the color of summer leaves and peeled back his layer of invisibility, allowing her to see him.

“Oh,” she startled. “I didn’t see you there.”

The snake lifted its head to regard her, but nothing more.

“You’re not poisonous,” she said carefully, still wary. “You shouldn’t be any trouble.”

Loki fought back a snicker at the idea he was anything but dangerous, but he feigned innocence and went back to lying on the ground, about as intimidating as piece of green rope, while she foraged for new plants.

The Encanto had been renewed, the family’s powers restored, and all was well again, or so it seemed. Loki had found this odd glitch of a town in the mountains of Colombia decades ago, and it fascinated him. He couldn’t explain away the pretty little casita or the gifts the children were given, though he admitted, as he moved about the town, he gave a rather superstitiously wide berth to the old church. There were some places he knew he would not be welcome.

The family itself had been amusing, as good as one of dear Bruno’s telenovelas. Kind-hearted Luisa was always on the verge of an emotional collapse, Mirabel’s self-worth was constantly threatening to dissolve, Alma’s fear was driving her right into the arms of disaster, and Dolores? Well, she knew everything and couldn’t keep her mouth silent for longer than two seconds, which led to all sorts of fun. Camilo was the odd one, the shapeshifter, and Loki had laughed quietly at that. Until Mirabel’s disastrous ceremony shifted the scales, his gift made everyone think he was rather odd, for what possible use could changing forms be to anyone? Loki, still a snake, looked up at Isabela again with big, innocent, black, shoe-button eyes.

Isabela had been the one to garner the greater part of his pity. Luisa was too like Thor, and Mirabel, well, one somehow knew she would find her own way eventually. But Isabela had been given a responsibility that had rubbed her nerves raw. Perfection. It was too much to expect from anyone, and yet somehow she was told she must always, always, always be perfect or the moon would fall from the sky and the world would blow away. He had seen through her in a moment: it wasn’t that she was perfect. She had to imitate perfection constantly, never a mistake, a never-ending, ever-present lie of each movement, every identically and mechanically perfect rose, every carefully calculated toss of her raven-black satin hair.

He wondered how she hadn’t been driven insane.

As it was, she had developed a sharp tongue and an even sharper sense of perpetual jealousy that she buried so deep and under such pressure that it had been well on its way to becoming a diamond of hatred. The final test of her obedient perfection had been when the grandmother had wanted to offer her up in a marriage to a man she didn’t love for the family’s continuation. It had been just another form of a virgin sacrifice, and Loki had never cared for those. They always made him angry. So much potential lost.

Isabela was crouching on the ground now, digging up a new plant and studying it. It wasn’t especially pretty, a variety of fern that was rather lopsided but happened to be very good for treating a number of diseases, and the girl was realizing she knew that, in some way she couldn’t explain. It was as though the leaves spoke to her. The whole forest was speaking, telling what it could do, poisons and remedies, food and drink, beauty and ugliness. He remembered when he had first understood the magic of the plants around him, no older than she was now, perhaps, and the way the world opened up wide and drew him in. She was a virtuoso, and he watched as she called up vines and prickly cacti around her, playing with her power, delighting in it. He idly sniffed one of the large orange flowers that had bloomed near him, then lay back down in the sun, equally enjoying the heat and watching her.

It was the change in dress, he thought. The other one, the lavender, had been insipid. He rather liked lavender in general, and he wore it both as a man and a woman without irony. But the pretty little flowers and delicate iridescent fabric along with ruffles and lace and polka dots had been a bit too twee to be taken seriously. It was like she was playing dress-up, and he supposed that was exactly what she had been doing.

Now, she was in black streaked with stains of all colors. She no longer spent every moment posing as though an artist was about to draw her. Even her hair was splashed with errant pollen in myriad hues. He liked the effect. She looked like a dark rainbow or the aurora borealis on a winter night.

Her true power was only beginning to bloom. He waited, watching, for power always eventually meant a choice to tip one way or the other, towards order or chaos, and this one had been held captive by order for too long to choose that route forever. As she played, creating clouds of strangling figs and laughing as they launched themselves skyward, her laughter sounded like a familiar, faint echo of his own.

Loki would bide his time, and when the flower had fully ripened, he would pluck his new acolyte and lead her down paths of dreams and nightmares and into the dizzying void that shimmered like the colors in her hair. For now, he merely napped, and if a snake could smile, perhaps he did.