Possibly for the first time, Loki is grateful to be put in check, as it gives him a chance to focus on the game as these several revelations simmer in his mind. He'd grown careless over the last few minutes, he can see it as he steps backward through the moves on the board, but can he recover and continue to hold his own? Perhaps, he decides, moving a sacrifice pawn to block the path of check, and if that piece is taken, Reid will lose his queen. It's obvious, Loki doesn't expect him to fall for it, but at least he's conquered this particular obstacle.

And solving that little problem has resettled his mind. "Another time," he says quietly, sitting back again. "I would prefer you hear the whole story, and it begins a very long time ago." There was absolutely a time when Loki would have leapt at the chance to tell someone like Reid of the various injustices served him, but with Jotunheim broken and Asgard destroyed, the stakes are lower. He is beginning to see the value in the whole story.

"But rest assured, there are many colorful stories to be told," he adds with a smile that edges toward wicked. A humanizing representation of complex moral concepts? He could get used to that.