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Thor was an idiot. Loki was, as usual, deeply frustrated that he was the only one who could realize this very simple and obvious fact. Occasionally, he believed his mother was aware of her older son’s penchant for stupidity, but as Frigga was kind by nature, she said nothing. However, even she couldn’t keep the irritation completely out of her voice today as she spoke to Loki in the privacy of her sitting room.
“I am afraid I must call on you to do us a service. Thor has…” she paused, blushing slightly before continuing, “… given offense to the Fae.”
Loki reassessed his judgement of his brother. If Thor had managed to earn the ire of the Fae, he wasn’t an idiot. He was a moron.
“How?” Loki asked, half feeling giddy at what was certain to be a ridiculous answer and half terrified given his mother’s reaction.
She paused, glancing around the room briefly. Loki did not blame her for her paranoia. The Fae could be anywhere, and while here was unlikely, it wasn’t impossible.
“He has been guilty of indiscrete behavior,” she said, then added, “with their queen.”
“Thor bedded Titania?” Loki blurted out rudely, looking both horrified and deeply amused. He also realized that Thor’s behavior had now slipped from moronic to borderline suicidal.
Frigga gave him a warning look, and Loki obediently wiped the grin from his face, realizing this was indeed a problematic situation. The Fae were not to be laughed at. Their power was immense and very difficult to comprehend, and when they sought revenge, it was both inevitable and exceedingly violent. They also had a twisted sense of justice that Loki had often found very funny, so long as it was directed at someone else. Now, though, it was pointed directly at Asgard.
“What would you have me do?” Loki asked.
“Your skill in diplomacy is formidable,” Frigga said, “and this will require delicacy and tact.”
“And possibly my brother’s head on a pike,” Loki said, feeling less than confident.
“I have faith in your ability to navigate this problem,” Frigga said, smiling encouragingly at him. “Offer them anything that would not be an affront to our honor.”
Loki considered for a moment, remembering the basic rules of dealing with the Fae.
“Do they know that the one you are sending is I?” Loki asked.
“Not yet,” Frigga said.
“Leave it that way,” Loki said. “I would prefer—”
“—that they remain ignorant of your true name,” Frigga said, nodding. “Always wise. If you have need of anything, let me know and it will be granted.”
“And Father? Is he aware of Thor’s, ehm, indiscretion?” Loki asked.
“No, and I would prefer to keep it that way.”
“Of course. Where is my brother now?”
“On a quest with Hogun on Alfheim.”
“And away from the repercussions of his actions, as usual,” Loki muttered, but he could not withstand his mother’s pleading look. “Very well, I will clean up his mess, but I hope this puts me in a better light in the future.”
“You have my gratitude already,” Frigga said.
“Almost enough in itself,” Loki said, bowing to kiss his mother’s hand before leaving.
After putting a few books and other necessities into a pocket universe, he went to the Bifrost. Heimdall regarded him warily.
“You have never yet been to the Fae court of Midgard?” Heimdall said.
“You know I have not,” Loki said. Something about the gatekeeper always made him uncomfortable. Maybe it was because he never seemed to blink, like predator looking at prey.
“Neither have I, even through my gaze,” he said, surprising the prince. “Their magic is strong enough to block my view, and I am blind to all that happens there. Take care, young prince, for you will be truly alone.”
Loki raised an eyebrow, but inclined his head in appreciation at the information. A few moments later, he arrived in a burst of light and power in a clearing in the midst of a deep forest on Midgard. It was just past sundown, and the stars were slowly appearing in the sky as a full moon hung overhead. Every detail was filled with magic that felt both ancient and somehow seductively lethal. A few moments later, a Fae courtier appeared, his perfectly handsome face grim.
“You are the Asgardian envoy?” he asked, his violet eyes piercing Loki unpleasantly.
“Yes,” he said, careful not to mention a name.
“Follow me.”
Loki followed respectfully behind him as he led the way along a moss-covered path into the forest. It wound this way and that beneath the heavy canopy of leaves, but they encountered no one else save a magnificent deer that bounded away at the sight of them. Everything was entirely too quiet.
All at once, Loki found himself standing inside a palace. He did not remember walking through a door or entering the vast white marble chamber lit by thousands of fireflies; he was simply there. Some sort of glamour, he supposed. It appeared all the Fae of the region had assembled there, and at the far end sat two thrones. Upon one sat someone who was unmistakably Oberon, his massive bat-like wings tucked behind him. He looked livid, and it did nothing to improve his pug-like features. But Loki barely glanced at him before taking in the occupant of the other throne.
He wasn’t precisely certain what he had been expecting from Titania, but he was utterly thunderstruck. Without exception, she was the most singularly beautiful being he had ever laid eyes upon. He felt his mouth dropping open against his will as he realized that given a chance, he, too, would be as idiotic, moronic, and borderline suicidal as his brother. He quietly swore under his breath as lust shot through him like electricity.
“What was that?” the courtier said, raising an eyebrow.
“Puck,” Loki invented quickly, trying to pull himself together with smooth haste. “My name. It’s Puck.”
“Puck,” the courtier repeated, giving him a look that said he believed that as much as he believed the moon was made of sugar. “Of course. I shall introduce you to their majesties by that name.”
The queen’s lips lifted just slightly from across the room, and Loki knew she had seen and heard everything. As Puck, the envoy from Asgard, was announced, Loki walked quickly towards the throne and followed court etiquette to the letter, keeping the proper distance and performing the ritualistic and unnecessarily complicated bow that the Fae preferred. The fact he knew it seemed to mollify Oberon the smallest iota.
“Your manners are better than most of your boorish lot,” Oberon said, “but that does not detract from the offense your crown prince has given.”
“It does not,” Loki said, “and I would know what would mend the good will of our Fae brethren.”
The queen looked at him, her iridescent dragonfly wings fluttering discreetly, and his eyes were drawn to hers. She didn’t move, but slowly, deliberately, her irises turned from deepest cornflower blue to a green that matched his cloak. They sparkled, and he had the distinct impression she was making her own offer. It took every ounce of willpower he had to direct his gaze back to Oberon.
“A trade,” Oberon said.
For one horrible moment, Loki feared the ugly old fool meant to even the insult by demanding to lie with Asgard’s queen in return, and in that second Loki’s eyes blazed with infuriated power at the affront to his mother’s honor.
“And what, tell me, would you have us trade?” Loki said carefully, though if the answer was what he suspected, he intended to murder Oberon right there and have done with it, and to Hel with the consequences.
“We will hold you as an honored hostage, Puck,” Oberon said, “for the length of one hundred Midgardian years. It is a fairly common punishment for mortals who blunder into our circles, and it seems fit enough for an immortal as well. In that time, you will serve the court however I see fit. After the century has passed, provided no new offense is given, we will consider this one paid. If not, then Asgard will be made to pay in other, more bloody ways.”
Loki hid his shock rather well, all told. Oberon spoke the truth, but then the Fae could not lie. It was indeed usual for mortals to be held in Fae circles for so long, only to return and find their families and friends long dead. He would have no such ill awakening, but he had certainly not intended to spend a century stuck on Midgard, unable to use his own name, hidden from Heimdall’s view. Added to that, Titania was a temptation so strong that he doubted his ability to resist giving a “new offense,” as Oberon said, particularly since she seemed more than taken with the idea herself. However, he had little choice in the matter. He either accepted or the consequences would be a possible war.
“Your terms are agreeable,” Loki said.
Titania smiled at him slowly, and he felt his knees go weak. It was going to be a very long century.
That evening, Oberon held a ball in honor of his new “guest.” Loki carefully ate and drank nothing that was offered to him, fully aware of the dangers of dining with the Fae. Instead, he produced apples and wine from his pocket dimension and ate beside them for politeness’ sake, watching the dancing but avoiding tracing the potentially lethal steps himself. As dawn began to break, another courtier showed him to his new chamber, a bed beneath the boughs of an oak tree, enclosed by tall stands of wisteria and hydrangea. He sighed, sat on the rumpled silk counterpane, and was only slightly startled when it moved.
“Good morrow, Puck,” the queen said, allowing her golden head to slowly lift from where it had lain on his pillow.
“Good morrow, fair Titania,” he said, trying very hard not to notice that the arm that stretched out to sweep her hair back from her face was bare of the pale lavender sleeve of the dress she had been wearing earlier at the revels.
She said nothing, only looked at him, though the offer was clear enough. She slowly sat up, and the satin bedding pooled around her waist. Loki swallowed as he silently catalogued the fact that, yes, she was indeed the most perfect example of the female form he had ever witnessed, imagined, or thought might possibly exist in his wildest dreams.
“Damn,” he said quietly.
She laughed, a sweet, silvery sound, and he shook his head to attempt getting any blood at all flowing in the correct direction.
“I should retire for the rest of the day,” he said pointedly.
“Then do,” she said, making no move to leave. “There is room enough for us both.”
He knew that if he offended her, the next century would be pure torture, but if he accepted her, Oberon might well kill him. For a moment, he wildly considered that Thor’s problem hadn’t been taking her as a lover but only getting caught, and he was far more clever than his brother. Unfortunately, he was also clever enough to realize this was almost undoubtedly a trap.
“Titania, I am enjoying your husband’s hospitality,” he said.
“Then continue to enjoy it,” she said, smiling, “as well as my own.”
“But I should also like to keep all the parts of a man attached to my person, and I highly doubt he will permit that if I am as indiscrete as the crown prince was,” he said, “regardless of how tempting it may seem.”
Titania made a show of sighing in regret, then proceeded to get out of the bed as Loki averted his eyes, which caused another round of giggling.
“I believe I am going to enjoy the next century very much, Puck,” she said, blowing him a kiss as she used magic to wave aside a hydrangea and left.
“And I believe this may be the longest century of my life,” Loki muttered, “if I manage to live that long.”
Titania showed up in his bed the next morning. And the next. And the following one. In fact, aside from the times Oberon had Puck travelling with him, she was a regular fixture of the room as much as the bed itself. Each time, Loki gallantly managed to evade her overtures, which he noticed were never specifically stated, a technicality that the Fae were used to employing. After the first ten years, he was starting to be less titillated and more aggravated. She was still beautiful beyond mortal or immortal comprehension, but he became used to it. At various times, to attempt to keep some freshness, she slightly changed her appearance: she became a redhead or had hair the color of seafoam, sometimes she was taller or shorter, she smelled of a thousand different flowers, she spoke in a throaty voice or sang sweetly, just to keep him off-balance. The result was always the same: he regretfully but firmly denied her.
What frightened him was that around fifty years, with half his sentence to go, she was starting to become angry. Titania was not used to being denied. In fact, at one point she mentioned that not only had Thor been unable to resist her charms, but she had managed to seduce him on his first night at the court before he was even fully down the hallway to his chamber.
“And you are far handsomer than the crown prince,” she said with a pout.
That one compliment alone would normally have been enough to make Loki delightedly lose control, but the practice his self-denial was getting had made him almost completely immune. Almost.
There were a few benefits to the court. Oberon’s sense of humor was much in line with his own, and if Loki suggested little things like swapping a tailor’s head with an ass’s or confusing love potions, well, the merriment was a welcome distraction. He took to pulling tricks on local humans, shifting from one shape to another and causing general mayhem and hilarity for the Fae, who were quickly beginning to adore him.
The decades ticked by, and at long last Loki had but one more night remaining until the agreement was complete. For over ninety-nine years, he had provided his own food and water, concealed his true name, followed every complicated rule of Fae culture, and generally proven himself.
He had even briefly taken a lover, an unattached and pretty little Fae called Peaseblossom, who had enjoyed listening to his exploits. He told her of turning into a filly and beguiling a fat pony, a story that had amused her so much that for once Titania found his bed otherwise occupied upon her arrival. It was a mere dalliance, though, and the girl was soon gone again. In truth, Loki was homesick and lonely for the faces of Asgard that haunted his memory, which was why he had sought some brief companionship and pleasure. Soon, he told himself, he would be home.
That final night, though, Titania seemed determined to have her will. She was in the same form as when he had first seen her, and it would have taken a blind man not to marvel at her beauty. He tried all his usual ways of guiding her firmly yet gently to the door, but this time, she only laughed.
“I have guessed your secret,” she said, smiling at him triumphantly.
“Have you? Well done,” he said, trying to remain polite. “And what might that be?”
“You are the younger brother of Thor Odinson,” she said. “You are Loki.”
A moment of panic swept through him as telling a Fae one’s name was a sure way to fall under their power, but he honestly wasn’t sure what the consequences were in a Rumpelstiltskin scenario where his name was guessed.
“What led you to that conclusion?”
“Oh, please! Even on Midgard we have heard the story of you turning into a mare and giving birth to Sleipnir,” she said. “Peaseblossom is lovely, I grant you, but she is incapable of keeping her lips silent. That was a foolish slip. Still, you must have impressed her in some way, for she did not tell me that tale until yesternight. I made the connection at once.”
“You are wise,” Loki said, turning pale.
“And you have not confirmed it,” she said. “You have always weighed your words most carefully.”
“I crave your pardon, but I would not wish to make my condition any more perilous than it is,” he said. “I am certain you understand in your infinite kindness.”
She waved away the polite words and drew closer.
“I believe I may have made a slight miscalculation in my attempts to woo you,” she said, her form shimmering. “Perhaps one of these might suit you better?”
In a moment, the forms of several ladies of the Asgardian court replaced her own in turn, illusions all, but Loki remained calm, betraying nothing.
“No?” she said, putting a pout on the lips of a particularly stunning beauty who was the daughter of an Aesir merchant. “Well, then, perhaps Thor was right in his babbling when he was last here and plied with drink.”
“And what secrets might that oaf have spilled?” Loki asked, mentally rolling his eyes at the stupidity of his brother for drinking what the Fae gave him.
Her form shimmered again, and this time it was an exact copy of the Lady Sif who stood naked before him. He drew in a sharp breath.
“Ah, I see he did not lie,” she said, and it was Sif’s voice as well. “With your reputation, I had thought it might be a family trait.”
Loki was rooted to the spot, staring at her in a way she had never before inspired.
“And yet, though the Fae do not lie, what is this form you have taken but a lie made visible?” he said.
“It is not a lie any more than the actors in the plays you so love are lying, for we all know they are not who they pretend to be. I would let you have this form as your lover,” she said. “I am perfectly willing, and obviously so are you. Why do you hesitate?”
“Because it is not real,” he said, arguing with himself but shaking slightly and taking a single step closer. “Because it is only an illusion.”
“And are not illusions enough sometimes, my Loki?” she said, closing the distance between them and pressing her lips against his own.
He didn’t move besides his hands clenching into fists at his sides. She even smelled like Sif, the wild wind of the open plains and the sweat of her horse mixed with the sweetness of wine. He felt himself crumbling. Suddenly enough that Titania gasped in surprise, he gripped the bare skin of her back and glared into her eyes.
“Do you swear to me that you will not tell Oberon of this?” he said, his words harsh and war-like. “Do you swear no spies are here and you will not bring knowledge of what we do to the king through anyone else?”
“I swear it,” Titania said in Sif’s voice.
Loki buried his hands in the dark waves of the false Sif’s hair and allowed himself to be lost.
Sunset came, and the enchantment Titania had cast dwindled away into nothing. One moment Sif lay in his arms, and the next it was the Fae queen in her indescribable beauty, dewdrops like diamonds scattered through her golden hair. Loki saw the change and knew which he preferred, but he said nothing. She stood, looking down on him in triumph.
“My husband will set you free today, and you have nothing to fear,” she said. “I truly must compliment you. In all my centuries, I have never encountered a man who could withstand me so long. Your will is like adamant.”
“I thank you for the compliment,” Loki said graciously, “but as you have proven, though immortal, I am still but a man.”
“Yes,” she said, smiling in satisfaction, “and one who was worth waiting for almost a hundred years. A bit of free advice, my darling? Go to her. Though I do not understand her allure for you, it is obvious that, body and soul, you are hers, and that is a rare gift among your kind and my own. May you have joy of her someday, prince.”
Titania left, barely remembering to settle her shimmering gown of rose pink around her form once more as she parted the leaves of the hydrangeas.
Barely an hour later, “Puck” was summoned before Oberon, who actually expressed regret that one with such a delicious taste for mischief would be leaving his palace. He was invited to return at his whim, and the king offered him gifts, which Loki made certain to politely but firmly refuse. Fae gifts were rife with peril, even when so charmingly pressed on him.
Loki quickly retraced his path of a century ago to the clearing, and at once, the Bifrost enveloped him. With a deep breath of relief, he allowed his shoulders to slump as he saw Heimdall standing before him inside the golden dome.
“Welcome home, Prince Loki,” he said in a perfectly even tone. “You have been sorely missed.”
“Have I?” he asked. “What? Has Thor gotten in more trouble that I was not present to undo?”
“No,” Heimdall said, “but the queen would see you. She has spoken of you often.”
At that, Loki smiled. He retired to his rooms to bathe and dress, then greeted his mother.
“I had no idea you would be kept so long in your task,” she said, wrapping her arms around her younger son in a fond embrace. “I apologize. If I had known—”
“No harm was done, and I think we now have a stronger relationship with the Fae than before,” Loki said.
“And you have returned unharmed,” she said, looking relieved. “You must have been remarkably strong willed.”
He blushed slightly and did not answer, merely sipping from a mug of mead as his mother was wise enough not to ask further questions.
Nigh on a year later, Loki’s prediction of a stronger alliance with the Fae proved correct as they sent a missive inviting Odin and Frigga to a celebration in honor of the birth of Oberon’s long-desired heir.
And if that child inexplicably happened to have eyes as green as the hills of Asgard, all involved had enough sense to remain silent.
summerof16 Tue 10 May 2022 07:18AM UTC
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Meltha Tue 10 May 2022 03:55PM UTC
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