Thunder and Other Things

by illwynd

Summary:

To keep the peace, Thor, prince of Asgard, and Loki, prince of Jotunheim, are to be wed. While originally hesitant, Thor quickly becomes pleased with this arrangement when he gets to know his betrothed. Loki, however, has other ideas.

Notes:

Originally written for a norsekink prompt.

Also, I'm posting this here a little sooner than I ordinarily would, on the basis of a couple of requests, so I might come back and tweak some things later when it's had a chance to rest a bit in my head.

I.

When Prince Loki arrived in Asgard for the first time, hair still dusted with the sparkling snow of his home realm, there were crowds gathered at the foot of the Bifrost awaiting him.

He had come alone, without a retinue of any kind; this was the first aspect of his arrival that was surprising to many. When the Allfather and the Jotun king had met for their negotiations, it had been at the center of great gatherings of Asgardian warriors and nobles matched against Laufey’s guards and retainers, all interwoven with servants bearing trays of food and drink, great gilt goblets and overflowing silver serving bowls.

Towering, crude-faced giants—some of whom had rough-edged animal horns affixed to their brows, their blue skins marked with overlapping patterns, their sparse clothing secured with silver-blue pins and chains that seemed made of ice—bobbed uncomfortably among Asgardian warriors wrapped in furs that reeked of sweat and animal, and they stepped carefully around the obvious Asgardian nobility, notable through the gleam of armour and maille and haughty looks, looking down their noses even as they had to crane their necks up to look any but the smallest Jotun in the eye. And at the center of the room, Odin and Laufey had over the course of days come to an agreement: war, enjoyable as it was, benefitted no one in the end when it was between two forces so nearly matched. They would find a way to ignore each other peacefully, much as two families joined by an undesirable but unavoidable marriage.

The analogy had given someone a moment of brilliant insight.

Word had spread among the people of Asgard, then, that Prince Thor was to be wed to Laufey’s youngest child, who was quite luckily a Jotun so small as to be considered nearly a dwarf among his own people. Speculation also spread, and expectations grew, and a picture of the Jotun prince’s future was fixed in the people’s minds before the day ever came.

The Jotun prince, who had grown up small and weak among a people as proud of the strength of their warriors as were the Aesir themselves… surely, the people of Asgard thought, he would arrive dabbled with tears. He would be timid and quiet, for he had been promised to the Thunderer, whose many great and fearsome deeds are told in tales that pass among the realms like storm-winds, whose temper is a thing of legend. He would weep soft apprehension at being torn away from his home by an arrangement that must surely have intimidated him, at the prospect of spending the rest of his long days among a people so different. Yet the young one would likely choke them back, the dutiful youngest child of the royal house. The Aesir were fully prepared to spare a few thoughts of sympathy for the frightened little thing, fully prepared to whisper to each other about how strange and lost he must feel, the poor dear.

The people of Asgard did not know quite what to make of Loki when they saw him in the flesh. He was just as small as promised: only as tall as an average Asgardian man, though leanly thin. Soft, raven-colored waves fell just above his shoulders. He was clad in a sleek-looking garment of dark green, glittering with the same icy pins. His features were fine enough that even with the strange, cold blue of his skin, the Asgardians had to admit that he was… attractive. Handsome. Beautiful. And as he strode alone along the length of the bridge, he looked around himself with an impish little smile quirking the edge of his lip, red eyes sparkling as they took in the sight of so many onlookers, curiosity shining out in each tilt of his head. And not a tear in sight.

He subsided to a look that more closely approximated the seriousness due the occasion as he reached the end, where Odin, Frigga, and Thor waited.

The onlookers couldn’t hear whatever lofty words were said, but they watched as Loki bowed deeply to Odin, kissed Frigga’s hand when she extended it. And then as he bowed likewise to Thor. When he straightened, there was a brief moment of tension, and then Thor had Prince Loki’s delicate wrist in his hand and was pressing his lips to the back of it.

Everyone seemed to decide in that moment that things had worked out well enough, even though the Jotun prince was not quite what they had expected.

What with the sudden bout of cheering, probably only Thor noticed Loki’s fit of raucous laughter.

*

It was a month before the ceremony was scheduled to come to pass, a month in which there was a flurry of work around the storm’s eye. Preparations and planning, a heady business that Frigga led, lips pursed and determination overflowing—none would dare shirk their duties under her watch, for it was her son’s wedding and it would be remembered as the most joyous of occasions if she had anything at all to say about it.

And in the calm of the storm’s eye, the new couple were meant to get to know one another, and they did so, awkwardly at first, sitting and talking together in whatever out-of-the-way spot could be found.

In the weeks before the Jotun prince had arrived, Frigga had drilled into Thor’s head what he was meant to do during this time: “Do try to make yourself agreeable to him,” she had said, knowing her son’s temperament. “The Jotnar are different from us, but not so different, and he is taking an even greater chance than you.” Thor had promised that he would.

Yet he quickly discovered that his education regarding the Jotnar had been woefully inadequate when it came to making himself agreeable to one.

He learned that, while it was traditional among the Aesir for a bride to arrive in the land of her new family with guards, servants, relatives, and any other household members who could make the journey to assist her and assure themselves of her welcome (this was in fact how there had come to be a sizeable contingent of Vanir living in Asgard… for the entire extended family had simply decided to stay long after the wedding plates were cleared from the table), to suggest that a new Jotun spouse might need or want such assistance (or in fact even commenting in confusion on its absence) was a grave insult.

He learned that such insults might be repaid by the new spouse threatening to go find a large white bear to tame, as it seemed this was a task so difficult that among the Jotnar it could be used to prove one’s worth; a snubbed partner who returned on the white bear’s back was at the very least a determined one.

He learned as well, much to his surprise, that while it was a great feat among the Aesir to have hunted and slain one, the fierce white bears were revered on Jotunheim to the point that it was against Jotun law to kill one or to admit that one had done so. Even when one was offering a necklace containing the claws and fangs of one as means to make up for accidentally offending one’s betrothed.

However, he had also learned that, when one’s betrothed can no longer keep a straight face in the midst of one’s consternation and apologies, it is important to accept the fact with calm dignity.

Under the warm afternoon sun in their spot in his mother’s garden, Loki at last managed to contain himself as Thor’s embarrassment and confusion faded, though he continued to eye him with amusement.

Thor wondered whether that had been a test, and whether he had passed.

If it had been—well, Thor found himself becoming oddly pleased, returning that strange gaze. This was not at all what he had been expecting. In fact, he could not have possibly expected such a partner. The Jotun prince was quick-witted and fascinating, with a tongue that was both silvered and keen-edged, unlike anyone Thor had ever known.

For lack of any better idea of how to likewise impress his future spouse, Thor vaulted headlong into telling tales of the battles he had fought (though steering well clear of any mention of battles against the Jotnar) and other incidents that showed his prowess and skill. Loki listened, leaning close with his chin cupped in his hand, dark fingernails grazing the angle of his jaw. And in his garnet eyes there was a look of cool interest that both pleased Thor and made him itch to leave a deeper impression, such that he racked his brain for a tale of a different sort from the rest—like of the time he had outwitted a dwarf that tried to cheat him. Loki had laughed softly and given him a tap of near-silent applause when he reached the punchline—the final riddle that had stumped the dwarf, and how the sun rose while the little creature tried to answer—and a flicker of warm pride squirmed through his belly at that laugh.

When his mother asked in the evenings whether the two of them were getting along well, Thor was pleased to be able to tell her that they were.

The only point on which Thor felt less certain was rooted in the way that Loki was less forthcoming about himself. It was true that he answered when Thor asked about Jotunheim or about his life, fully and without any seeming compunction, even occasionally spinning off into an intricate tale, sometimes adding in playful lies and watching Thor slyly out of the corner of his eye to see if he would catch them. Yet Thor was always left with the feeling that he had missed something important. A strange, empty feeling, as if Loki had skirted some issue that Thor could only guess at.

Toward the end of the month, Thor worked himself up to ask Loki directly why it was that he seemed so unconcerned at leaving his homeland and his family, but Loki only answered that of course he would be free to visit Jotunheim now and then, wouldn’t he? And wasn’t it an honor to be bound to the Allfather’s son? What had he to complain about in this union? Thor did his best to set aside the unsettled sense of mystery, supposing that whatever it was, Loki would feel comfortable enough with him some day to reveal it, and he had no right to demand all of another’s secrets within a few weeks of having met them.

And by the time the month was up, Thor discovered that the prospect of a life spent with a Jotun partner—at least, with this particular one—no longer filled him with trepidation but instead with desire.

*

II.

The day of the ceremony dawned to a storm sky thick with thunder, sallow at the edges where the sun tried to peer through.

Frigga found her son standing on a high balcony long before he should even have been wakeful; he was dimly aware that she herself had gotten into a habit of early rising while there was so much to be done. But now, in the final few hours, she seemed able to breathe again; at this point everything would either come off as it should, or it wouldn’t.

“Mother,” he said in greeting as she approached, but he still leaned out on the parapet, letting the chill morning wind whip at his hair, his worries stirring the clouds to darker torment.

He remembered when he had learned of this arrangement, when Odin had first informed him of the shape of the deal he’d made with Laufey. Thor had been filled with horror. He had recalled every childhood tale of bestial Jotnar freezing Aesir skin with a touch, and remembered the sight of every cragged Jotun countenance he had ever faced in battle or towering over him in their shaky diplomacy.

So he had blanched and sputtered, but Odin had only clapped him on the shoulder and reassured him that there were plenty of Aesir warriors whose liaisons in the last war would vouch that Thor’s fears were unfounded.

At the time, Thor had not found this answer tremendously comforting, scowling with distaste at the idea that he would be expected to lie with a Jotun, even one so daintily Aesir-sized, and he had tried not to think about it. Now, though, his concern had a different source.

He could certainly imagine lying with Loki. He had imagined it, breath catching in his throat as he thought of how their bodies would look together, that icy-pale blue skin against his own, imagined the feel of it under his hands, imagined taking—but there, that was what worried him. He knew well enough that the Jotnar didn’t precisely have men and women the same way that the Aesir did, and everyone else seemed content to know that the marriage of the two princes would not be childless. But all he knew of how the Jotnar were built came from wild and likely exaggerated chatter and wandering gossip, and he did not know how much of what he imagined doing with Loki would actually be possible. Or which of it, if any, Loki would find pleasurable.

And now… now that the day had arrived… now that he knew that he would in fact care about more than getting it over with… now Thor was nervous to the point of nausea.

He did not know, and he could hardly bear it, and he stared out across Asgard, quietly petrified.

His mother brushed his hair back behind his ear with her fingertips.

“You already love him. Everything else can be dealt with,” she murmured, and he shut his eyes and let the voice that had comforted him through every childhood hurt lull his heart back from the edge.

*

The thunder crept down from the sky throughout the ceremony, even as the symbolic crowns of ivy twined with silver were placed upon their brows, even as their hands were joined upon the ancient altar, even as the cup of mead was tasted by both of them, with Loki’s eyes meeting his over the glistening rim as he drank. Loki kissed him to the sound of rain running in rivulets down the windows and plashing on the rooftop, and the candles and torches that lit the wedding feast were forced to compete with the brilliance of lightning, white and brief. Thor barely tasted the food on his plate as he watched Loki eat, watched Loki taking in the clamor and whirl of celebration around them, sometimes turning to him with a sly smile that made Thor blush.

The storm had not even let up by the time the new couple departed amidst the cheers and well-wishes of Thor’s family and friends. But such are the dangers of being wedded to the thunder god.

*

The next morning, however, dawned bright and clear, and Thor was not awake to see it. Instead he floated in warm dreams.

By the time the chamber door had closed behind them the night before, Loki had given up all pretense. He had approached, eyes glinting in the flickers of copper firelight, his fingers casually working at the little blue crystal fastenings of the fine, intricate tunic he had worn for the ceremony, taking great and obvious delight in the rumble of thunder and the way Thor seemed frozen in place, only able to watch as the garment fell away, leaving Loki bare to the waist.

Tiny dark-blue nipples on a slim-muscled chest, made all the more strange and enticing by the Jotun marks that traced their way down to his belly and up over his shoulders.

“At least it seems our two realms expect the same thing of a wedding night,” Loki said, drawing nearer.

Loki’s hands had lifted to the clasps of Thor’s tunic, nimble fingers plucking them open and then skimming along Thor’s skin, and all Thor could do was swallow heavily, trying to quash the flutter that had taken up residence in the pit of his stomach and slow the rapid beating of his heart.

The firelight glinted on Loki’s teeth as well as he smiled. “You really are nervous, aren’t you? I wouldn’t have thought it of the mighty Thor. Too nervous to even touch me.”

Finally mastering himself, Thor took this as the challenge it was.

And a few minutes later, with Loki’s mouth open under his, the taste of mead still on his tongue… with Thor’s hand slipped down into Loki’s breeches, curling briefly around the hardness he had felt pressed against him when they embraced, and then below, questing… Loki shivered then and his arm around Thor’s neck tightened as Thor’s fingers traced along the cleft he found there.

Thor felt something heat inside him at the confirmation, and he looked up. Heard his own breathless voice, amazed and excited. “So it is true? You can both bear and sire?”

There was a rolling pleasure in Loki’s laugh then as Thor explored, and Thor knew he couldn’t possibly have been happier. He had never imagined this, not truly, and now he wanted to taste all of it—wanted to suck Loki’s cock and then dip his head to lick his cunt until he screamed, wanted to slide into the waiting tightness (would it feel different from any of the Asgardian women he’d had? Thor’s head spun at the possibility) and wanted to stroke Loki’s cock as he fucked him. He wanted to hear his name on that silver tongue between cries, wanted to feel Loki spill over his fingers when he came, wanted to feel the pulsing of his climax inside him at the same moment.

He wanted all of it, desperately. And in his sudden determination to get it, he quite exhausted himself, such that Loki was the first to wake after first night of their married lives.

*

Loki woke first to find Thor’s arms wrapped around him, curled close in his sleep.

Taking care not to disturb his spouse, he got out of bed. Stretched. Wandered to the washroom where he drew himself a cool bath in which he washed away the dried remains of their lovemaking. Got out and clothed himself again in a robe and went to seek the tray of food and drink that he was sure were waiting in the antechamber—the newlyweds were not expected to make a public appearance for at least a week, of course—and sat down at the small table to nibble at whatever pieces of fruit and pastry appealed to his appetite, in a seat from which he could see the bed and its inhabitant perfectly well.

He’d never have admitted it, but this was not at all what he had been expecting when his father had returned from the Aesir lands and told him what would have to be done. What he would have to do for the future of their realm.

His father didn’t even have to explain his reasoning, why it must be Loki and no other. He was small. He was clever. He was a mage and a shapeshifter. He was the youngest prince—raised to power but with no expectation of ever holding it or doing more for his people than flitting about causing trouble when it pleased him to do so and keeping everyone on their toes. Loki understood that. He could be spared, and his skills were perfectly suited for the task.

And for the Jotnar, the war had never ended, and to Laufey most of all it went on.

“Yes, Father,” Loki had promised, nodding as solemnly as he was able, looking up at his much-taller sire, hoping to see a glint of pride in his grim eyes. “I will find their weakness and I will live among them until we can exploit it.”

But that was the problem, wasn’t it? He had come expecting to have to dwell among the Aesir perhaps for years until the time came when the illusion fell and he could return home. He would have to live with his spouse, eat with him, talk with him. Make love with him.

He had not expected to like the prospect.

He had not expected to enjoy it so thoroughly, had not expected the flutter in his chest when Thor had taken him for the first time, kneeling over him and pressing inside with a gasp, kissing him desperately, holding him tenderly as their bodies rocked together.

Loki huffed an annoyed breath through his nose, set aside the remains of an apricot with sweet flesh still clinging to its dark pit, and got to his feet. He took a few coltish steps toward the bed.

Thor had one arm crooked around the pillow, and his golden hair streamed over it. The sheet was pushed down around his waist. His chest, the perfect dusky-rose nipples and the taut-muscled belly. The massive shoulders. The low trail of pale hair that led down, down to a thicker thatch that Loki had only just become acquainted with the night before.

Loki stood over him, licking his lips and grinning. Of course. There was something missing.

Once, during their month of preparatory courtship, Thor had asked him if there was anything he might do so that Loki would feel more at home in Asgard, since he was giving up so much and Thor… Thor had only to adjust to the peculiarities of a Jotun partner. At the time Loki had waved away the sentiment with a casual gesture, saying that it was perfectly all right and he had known full well what he was sacrificing when he came.

When he woke, Loki would simply have to inform him that he had changed his mind.

*

III.

Thor floated in warm dreams. Dreams of long ago, of hunting white bears on Jotunheim, the moment of stabbing terror as the beast came close enough to breathe hot, rank breath against his neck before Mjolnir knocked it back as he roared the louder.

In waking memory, he had afterward gone home, clad his mother in a coat of soft white fur, kept enough to line his own cloak, gave the largest of the fangs to his friends for their own and kept a few, those deadly sharp little pearls, had them bound in a tracery of fine silver. He had thought, in some remote way, of gifting that necklace to his future bride.

In the dream, though, he remained, and everything around him blurred and the distant mountains of Jotunheim, ice-tipped and sparkling in the dim blue light, came clear into focus. He could feel the snow as it crunched underfoot. He could taste the harsh bite of the wind. The muffled silence audible to his Aesir ears under the warm wrapping of his cloak faded into a chorus of slow icy crackling, the patter of snow, the distant scuffle of creatures buried in dark dens under the ground.

And somehow he was warm, as warm as he had ever been, warm as he could never be in the Asgard sun, a warmth that came from deep within him.

“Loki,” a voice called, repeating the name like an echo, searching with lingering hope.

Moments passed in the dream, staring up at the white sky, before he realized the voice was his.

“Loki!”

His eyes opened to see Loki bent over him, the edge of his lip tilted upward. “Lie quiet, husband,” Loki said. “It’s almost finished. It’s almost done.”

Still fuzzy, the dream edging away from his mind as sleep fled, Thor shoved himself up on his elbows. “What are you talking about, Loki? What is almost done?”

“Nothing to worry about.” Loki’s hand in the center of his chest pushed him back down to the bed—a twinge to his touch, a hum turned into a sensation like blue-green light and the scent of winter flowers—but Thor gave in and relaxed down again when Loki leaned in to kiss him. As his head hit the pillow he let his lips go slack, inviting Loki to take what he desired.

“You are the most perfect creature ever to exist,” Thor breathed then. “I am most fortunate to have been paired with you, whether it was by our fathers alone or by fate.”

“I am glad you think so,” said Loki.

Thor wrapped his arms around his spouse more tightly, pressing their forms together so that Loki could surely not fail to be aware of his arousal. Waking up in this way he could certainly get used to.

Loki made a pleased sound against Thor’s mouth as they kissed and he shifted enough to slip a hand between them, fingers ghosting along Thor’s straining cock and down to delve between his thighs, and then abruptly their tips were circling in slippery slickness, the sensation wringing a moan from Thor’s throat and everything was hot and wet and…

Thor sat up all at once, pushing Loki away and shoving himself backward until his shoulder blades met the headboard.

He let his hand fall to the place where Loki’s had just been. And it was only with a tremendous effort that he didn’t do anything more than go entirely pale, holding his breath as woozy panic washed through him.

Loki stared at him with deep concern.

Thor swallowed with difficulty. His heart pounded against his ribs. “I’m… something has… I have…”

Loki tilted his head, brows knitted, a perplexed half-smile peeking out. “It’s a very simple spell,” he said.

Thor reeled. “A spell?”

“You did say you wondered what it is like,” Loki answered. “There’s really nothing to fear. It's not dangerous at all.”

It took a moment for this to work its way through Thor’s thoughts.

“Undo it,” he demanded, then, teeth gritted and heart stuck in his throat.

Loki laughed, a sort of thin titter as if he couldn’t understand what Thor meant or why he was upset. “But it’s only just now complete, you haven’t even…”

This time Thor was not quiet. “I do not care! Undo it right now!”

Loki had backed away a little at the roar of his voice and now eyed him as if he were a wild beast that might all of a sudden turn fang and claw on him. Wary. “What makes you think that I can?”

Thor stared at him, his ears ringing loudly in his head, and suddenly he could not breathe.

Loki had made him... had changed him—

Loki was watching him, leaning away as if fearing a blow, his eyes wide and his mouth slack with shock—

A spell, and he could not—

Thor could feel his fists tighten until the knuckles cracked, and he could feel the sky outside answer him with thunder, at the same time as every part of his being was aware of the moist flesh between his legs and his eyes were tugged unwilling to the hand that Loki had touched him with as his face flushed with heat.

Loki had changed him, made him like—

Not knowing what else to do and pausing barely long enough to dress, Thor fled.

As the door slammed behind him, Loki shrugged to himself and settled in to wait. It was touching that Thor had taken his words for what they seemed to mean and had so readily believed what he seemed to say. But mostly he thought that the look on Thor’s face, the expression of utter, comical dismay, would keep him amused for a month at least.

*

IV.

Along the vaunted hallways of Asgard Thor fled like a man running a gauntlet (well, he had forced himself to slow to a bit less than a brisk walk, in fact) entirely unable to turn himself invisible by dint of wishing for it but trying very hard.

He had to find a way to undo this, and without anyone finding out what had—

He dodged past a few acquaintances, a handful of guards, and he was not certain exactly where he was going but he was horribly aware of every glance that turned speculatively his way. He tried not to have the look of a guilty hound but wasn’t sure how much he succeeded.

What if... What if they could read it on his face?

As he rounded a corner he nearly knocked into a passing servant, who flinched at his glare and began to mumble out an apology only to be left in the dust.

Thor had to find a way to undo this, but he knew already that it would be easier attempted than accomplished. There were few options, few places to turn.

The seidkonur, witch women well-practiced in magic. But even if they could help him, and even if they could be convinced to keep his secret… he thought he might die of embarrassment in the process of explaining his predicament.

There were also some beings of other realms who had at least some sorcery, elves of either kind and dwarves, but he trusted their discretion even less and could hardly think of an excuse to seek them if he’d wished to.

That left Odin, who had exchanged one eye for wisdom, among which there had come some magecraft, and the remaining eye was all the sharper for it, even in shadow as he sat with ravens at his shoulder and wolves at his feet.

… No. No, Thor would not be going to his father for aid in this matter.

He came to this conclusion with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach (that somehow, cursedly made him again viscerally aware of that, heat springing up in his cheeks at the reminder), for that meant there was only one hope, if hope it could be called. And he stared up at it in the place his feet had brought him, however halting and reluctant at the end: the golden eaves of Asgard’s great library, a place he had little taste for and had hardly visited since coming of an age to no longer require tutors. But at least he could find his own way to the room that housed the magical texts. He hoped.

And the search as he began it, winding his way through tall stacks thick with leather bindings, felt as hopeless as any of the tales he knew from lore, of futility hallowed by courage, blood winning a warrior his place in eternal Valhalla—except that poring through books so old the runes were not in their present forms hardly had the same heroic feel.

*

Another difference, of course, between this and battle, was that this was an effort of patient endurance, which meant that before he could find anything remotely related to his problem, his concentration was broken by the protests of his bladder, reminding him that he had run from his chambers without taking care of any of the usual tasks of the morning. And that now the need was pressing and in fact could not wait any longer.

Thor pressed his hands to his eyes and then gave in and thumped shut an ancient treatise on Principles of Splanchnic Thaumaturgy, which had given him no answers but a paper cut, before getting up to face the world again.

*

And this, now… this was troubling. He had undone his belt before the thought occurred to him, but now he suffered from a moment of hesitation.

He did not want to have to sit.

He did not want to have to sit, and he had no way of knowing just how much Loki (again he moaned to himself: why had Loki done this?) had changed of his inner workings.

Closing his eyes and hoping, he aimed and let go, and he breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of a trickle squarely hitting the basin.

A minute later he had tucked himself away and washed up and was nearly ready to move onward when he paused and drew back. Uncomfortable, practically twitching with nervous energy, he stuck one hand down and… touched.

He was not sure yet exactly how Loki had changed him. He remembered everything from the night before, every detail of what lay between Loki’s legs, but Loki was a Jotun. He remembered plenty also from the maidens he had bedded on more than a few occasions, and his wrist nudged against his flaccid prick as his fingers delved experimentally between folds that were still a bit wet from his waking arousal.

Wet, and sensitive, and—ah, ah, where he had expected to probe a finger inside he instead met resistance, a hint of pain, a thin membrane that meant he was a virgin like this. Involuntarily he shuddered, fingers rubbing against the outer lips as he pulled his hand quickly away.

Somehow, this knowledge made it even worse.

Vigorously he washed up again before he left, not wanting to know whether his own scent would be appealing to him.

*

After the previous day’s feasting, the hall was half empty and quieter than usual when he arrived (he had not gone back to the archives just yet, convincing himself that he should take some fortification before returning to the futile search). But, of course, there had been no hope that he would not be recognized. That there would be no one there wishing to offer him somewhat baffled congratulations while they politely did not ask what he was doing away from his new spouse.

Volstagg it was who called out to him in happy greeting, though, and Thor found this almost pleasant; he took his plate to the table that his friends had staked out as their own.

For an hour he listened as Volstagg enlisted his support in extolling married life to their other friends. For an hour he picked at thickly cut bread, cold meats, and salty cheeses as Sif gave him a single-raised-eyebrow glance and Fandral seemed about to go out of his mind with not asking what it was like to bed a Jotun. At the end of the hour, he caught the slow tracking of Hogun’s gaze and, at the feeling of imminent disaster, spun on the bench.

Loki, looking as if nothing were wrong at all, had wandered into the hall and was smiling over the heads of the handful of others attending to their lunches as he approached.

Loki smiled when he drew up beside them, and despite the innocence of his look, Thor knew that Loki knew that Thor would say nothing when he bent to kiss him—only a brief chaste brush of lips, but so lit with Thor’s seething that he wondered if there were visible sparks from it.

“Hello, love,” Loki said as he sat, nonchalant, plucking an untouched slice of red cheese off Thor’s plate and delivering it to his own mouth. “You said you would not be long, and yet here I am, come looking for you. Someday I will repay this. But not during our honeymoon, I think.”

During the month prior, there had been little time for the couple to socialize widely and anyway they had been meant to be getting to know each other, not for Loki to become acquainted with Thor’s friends. But now the little group welcomed Loki, especially as Loki insisted that they stay for a little while; he did not, he said, wish to be accused of stealing Thor away from others who cared about him.

Yet he sat close and occasionally leaned in to whisper a few words in Thor’s ear, while they both ostensibly listened to a rather intricate story that Fandral told of a bet he had chanced at cards a few nights before, somehow involving a dragon's tooth at one point.

Loki’s breath was warmer than a Jotun’s had any right to be, and it stirred the fine hairs on Thor’s neck, and he spoke so softly that no one else could possibly have overheard.

“You left before I could tell you that it’s only temporary,” he whispered at one such interval, pausing then to make Thor wait until Fandral had finished speaking before he continued. “I can’t undo it, but the spell will fade after a few days, and everything will be as it was.”

With some difficulty, Thor managed to swallow his mouthful of drink. Only temporary.

“No one but us ever need know.”

Loki’s hand rested lightly on his shoulder, a persistent and maddening touch, and he was sure Loki could feel the tremble that ran through him there where he could say or do nothing in answer, nothing that would not invite questions he could not possibly face.

But if it was as Loki said, then in a few days it would be over and no harm would have been done. He tried to tell himself that, and held himself together long enough to give no sign as they bade his friends farewell and returned together to their chambers.

*

Thor stayed silent all the way back, and once there he remained so as he seated himself at the table where the remains of Loki’s breakfast—what should have been their breakfast—sat out, cold and stale. Loki perched across from Thor, elbows on the table, chin on one hand.

“Well?” Loki said.

Thor looked at him and scowled. “Well, what?”

“You’re still angry with me.”

Thor huffed but could think of absolutely no way to answer that didn’t seem obvious or childish, even when spoken in the privacy of his own mind. He settled on a terse nod, folding his arms across his chest.

“All right,” said Loki, spreading his hands and speaking in an infuriating voice of calm and patience. “If you will not say it, I will: I have stolen some part of your manhood, the source of your pride as an As. Perhaps even the root of your power as a god—although I certainly haven’t done anything to your root. You are furious with me, and you have only very generously refrained from choking me in retribution. So what exactly would you like as vengeance? It’s clear we’ll have no peace between us until you get it. So tell me what it is, and until the spell is over, you will have it.”

Thor considered this. He thought about how his heart had thumped in panic as he’d traced his fingers along his own slippery flesh. He thought of how it had been to walk through the palace, seeing people he had known for centuries and wondering what they would think of him if they knew that his body was no longer entirely that of an Aesir man.

He was furious. But…

“I just want to know why,” he said at last, the tense tangle of feelings coming to the surface as he spoke. “Was this some jest? Or did my form displease you that much last night? Was it so unpleasant that you wished to change it?”

Loki stared at him, and Thor supposed it was the first time he had seen such comprehension dawn so late on Loki’s face. But as it did, Loki got up, moved close enough to wrap his arms around Thor’s neck and speak against his hair. “Of course not. It pleased me greatly,” Loki said. “But I found myself thinking that it must be so… limiting. I thought you would like this; I did not think it would distress you.”

Loki nuzzled against him. With some inner struggle, Thor pushed him back.

“You did not even ask!”

Loki frowned. “For that, yes, I am sorry. I should have. I see now how foolish that was.” And then, he took a step back, straightened, drawing himself up and looking Thor in the eye. “But I will repay it. Since I have forced on you the body of a Jotun—a little bit of one, at least—I could repay you by taking on the body of an As, for the same amount of time.”

Thor stared at him in confusion. “What? How would you…”

“I’m a shapeshifter; I have had the ability since I was very young,” Loki said with a shrug. Thor, a little thrown, tried to imagine him with the blue turned pinkish pale, the red of his eyes perhaps becoming a clear, wild green. He tried to imagine Loki’s fine, strange beauty changed, and he was not sure what he thought of the vision. “Or if there is some other form you would like to taste on me, I would willingly oblige you as penance for upsetting you so.”

Thor thought of it only a moment more before shaking his head. “No,” he said. “Your true form pleases me. I would not ask you to change it.”

Loki pressed his mouth into a thin line. “All right. But then what do you want me to do? What can dispel your anger with me?”

Thor looked between him and the rumpled mess of the bedclothes, and his heart was heavy. This was the first full day of their wedded lives, and they were meant to spend it together, drinking deep of the pleasures they could bring each other. Not like this, in hurt and anger.

“Come back to bed with me,” Thor said. “And allow me to imagine that nothing has happened, that nothing is changed at all.”

And Loki, who realized he had just been invited to lie, gave him a sudden grin. “I think I can manage that.”

*

V.

What Thor was not counting on was how difficult it became to ignore something the harder one tried to pretend that it wasn’t so, though for the first day simple distractions sufficed.

Hours later, the high sun just beginning to travel down in the sky, sending rays of liquid gold pouring through the window onto their skin as they sprawled together in the bed. Thor lay listening with his eyes closed as Loki obliged him with tales, tales of things strange to him, Jotun legends—legends of beings even the Jotnar called giants, which they believed were buried in the ice under their world, forming its foundations; legends of the wrath of storm giants and the hapless travelers caught on the mountainsides in the midst of their rages (“though perhaps you, my dear lord of thunder, would find them more congenial than most,” Loki added with a soft laugh as he ran a hand down Thor’s bared chest, and he watched it as it traveled as if Thor’s Aesir appearance fascinated him as much as Thor was enthralled by the ice-carved lines of his spouse’s flesh). And tales of his own adventures in the outlands of his home realm, playing guest to beings many times his size, challenging them to various contests of skill and cleverness.

“There are quite a few in those parts who no longer underestimate me,” Loki preened, but Thor had to scoff at this, asking who would have done so in the first place.

Loki only eyed him in reply. “You have spent very little time on Jotunheim.”

Thor did not argue, for Loki chose just then to distract him in other ways. His mouth was sweet against Thor’s skin, and he was eager, and he was as good as his word in helping Thor to try to forget.

*

The second day, it grew more difficult, even as he more forcefully ignored it.

They’d woken together far more pleasantly than the previous day, Loki arching against him sleepily as his eyes blinked open, murmuring little demands until Thor gave in and got up to fetch them both food and drink from the antechamber, tea and scones with honey-butter—Loki had afterward scooped up the last dab, raised his glistening fingers to Thor’s lips, inviting him to lick away the sweet-salty sheen. Thor had done it, tongue sliding over knuckles as he licked and then sucked, until Loki moaned.

Soon, Thor had Loki on his back on the bed, kissing at his navel, hands smoothing over his hips, holding firmly. Loki squirmed wonderfully when Thor put his mouth on him, his grip turning almost painfully tight in Thor’s hair, babbling about the heat of Thor’s tongue—and then pleading with Thor to touch him as well, to put his fingers inside and fuck him with them while he sucked.

Thor’s heart pounded as he did as he was told, sneaking one hand between Loki’s legs to draw through the slick wetness there, feeling the tremor roll through him… he had done this on their wedding night, and it had excited him then, the strangeness of it, to have his lover squeezing around his fingers while he sucked him down his throat. But now there was a new edge to it. Now he could not help but—no. Shutting his eyes to violently quash the thoughts that sprang into his head, he let Loki’s cock slip from his mouth as he swallowed a few gasping breaths and instead pressed his face to his hip, the damp organ still grazing his cheek occasionally as he fingered him.

Then the fingers in his hair were soothing, prying the two of them apart.

When he looked up, Loki was gazing down at him with somewhat hazy tenderness, clearly aware of the turn of his thoughts. “Oh, Thor,” he sighed. “Slide up here.”

But instead of spreading his legs as Thor moved up atop him, Loki’s hands trailed down Thor’s back to the curve of his ass; his cock, still wet with saliva, pressed against Thor’s between them.

The feel of it, as Loki made a rough little undulation with his hips, wrung a gasp from Thor’s mouth, though he was not sure it actually took his mind from the thoughts that had invaded it.

“See?” Loki said, voice low against Thor’s ear. “Is this not a thing that men do in Asgard, a thing that only men could do together? Surely you don’t think me any less than what I am simply because you have put your cock in me and fucked me senseless, do you?”

“I would not…” Thor began, the words caught in his throat as he remembered what Loki had so glibly said about having stolen Thor’s manhood, but how else could he explain to Loki the reason for his distress? Did Loki think it was merely that he did not wish to be taken? He was not so foolish as to believe there was anything to be disparaged about women’s forms or women’s roles… but he was not one, and had no desire to be. To feel that strange warmth between his own legs and the tensed, curling twinge of pleasure that seemed to awaken there in sympathy whenever he touched that part of Loki…

Loki’s arms were wrapped around him, their pricks straining against each other, prodding at their bellies, and he could not get the thought out of his mind as Loki continued to rub and rut blissfully against him.

And when he came, the gush of wetness there, soaking him and dripping down to the base of his cock, nearly made him sob.

*

By the third day, it would have been obvious to anyone, even to someone who had not caused this change and goaded Thor on through every fresh moment of torment, and Loki was thoroughly amused.

Thor had asked Loki to lie to him so that he could lie to himself and pretend that nothing was different, that nothing was changed. And Loki had obliged him, agreeing with every lie and letting him distract himself when it suited, and now Thor was lying to himself so strenuously that it was all about to shatter.

For one thing, the strain of self-control was evident in his every gesture, the nervousness in his eyes. For another, they were going through their honeymoon mead rather more quickly than Loki supposed was normal, as Thor attempted to wash away the awareness that now flooded him.

And even so, it had gotten to the point that being sucked now made Thor quiver at the proximity, as if terrified at the idea that Loki might smell his wet arousal. It had gotten to the point that Thor’s cheeks would sometimes burn red-hot for what seemed no reason at all while they lay together, his desires tugging at him, so that Loki could guess it would not be much longer before proud, arrogant Thor was begging to be put on his back and fucked.

It was fascinating to watch, Loki thought—and the truly wonderful thing was that he had intended none of this. It had been an act of spite, and truly all he had expected to come of it was a tantrum from the god of storms, perhaps a few hours of amusement at his curdled dismay until Loki was forced to dissipate the spell before he ran himself ragged or turned it into a permanent grudge.

But this, this delicious little dance, Thor had come up with this all on his own, and Loki had barely needed to help it along.

So it was a calculated maneuver, at the end of the fourth day as they lay together in bed, Thor once again worrying at the edge of his lip with his teeth—he had already bitten it raw so that there was sometimes a taste of blood in their kisses, and Loki had with some curiosity caught him biting back on words that he would not yet let spill—it was then that Loki stretched his limbs and folded his arms under his head and said in a quiet, contrite voice that he suspected the spell would end soon.

“Most likely before the morn,” he added, glancing over. “And then we can put this whole mess behind us.”

“Oh,” Thor said, and Loki wondered if he knew how disappointed he sounded, how utterly crestfallen. “That will be… good.”

Loki gave it a few moments for this to sink in, and then, smiling a little, he moved to lie at Thor’s side, one hand trailing delicately up and down his lovely chest, past peaked nipples, edging down to his firm belly with its little trail of golden hair.

“Yes, it will, won’t it? You will never again have to wonder,” Loki breathed against his shoulder, and he felt Thor’s abdomen tense as his hand skimmed low. “You will never again have to imagine it…”

Loki’s touch veered aside at the last moment as Thor’s breath caught, moving to rub against the bones of his hip, and he took the opportunity to capture Thor’s mouth as well, licking at his bitten lip, kissing him deeply and stealing what remained of his air while he groaned—but the groan turned into a gasp as Loki’s fingers trailed carefully through the gathered wetness along his slit, just barely touching, just barely parting him.

“You will never again have to want it so terribly,” Loki said, panting against Thor’s cheek.

There was a choked sound, and Thor made no objection, willingly spreading his legs and staring up wide-eyed and stricken as Loki clambered on top of him and positioned himself, the thick head of his cock prodding and slipping at Thor’s entrance—there was no point in delaying, and this had been days of delicate play to prepare them both, and Thor was positively dripping with arousal.

It was only the way that Thor stiffened and clutched the sheets below in his hands, the hitched gasp and the feeling of slight resistance as Loki entered him for the first time, that reminded him that he had given Thor a maidenhead as well—and Loki could do nothing then but pepper tender kisses across Thor’s face, all while laughing silently inside.

Loki would have given up a hundred petty tricks for this, for the sight of Thor as he struggled to comprehend the sensations that coursed through him, the last of his shame-filled anticipation bursting into trembling pleasure as Loki thrust deep inside him. This was the mighty storm god, legs clamped around Loki’s hips, all tensed muscles and lustful cries—Thor could not have known how he sounded, how he looked, how he felt, oh, the tightness, the glorious heat of him—the proud thunderer with his head thrown back and neck bared, writhing into Loki’s every thrust, and his cock so fiercely hard between them that Loki knew it would be only moments before he spilled.

Sweat trickled down Loki’s brow as he worked, and he thanked the luck of his own mean whim that had given this to them both.

It was hours later that they separated, exhausted, to lie together in the dark—Loki had extinguished the low banked fire and the last burning candles with a wave of his hand just before the last round so that now the only light in the room was starlight, and Thor lay, skin sticky with sweat, with a wet mess between his legs and across his abdomen, every cell of his body singing with satisfaction. Aching limbs, the slight stinging burn where he had been stretched open.

His breaths slowed. His heart slowed. He tugged the sheets up over both of them and breathed the night-sea and moonflower scent that drifted in through the open window.

But it was a little while of staring upward before he gave up on sleep and disentangled himself from his spouse’s limbs, throwing on a robe and closing the door softly behind him.

With light steps he walked, the flickering torchlight making his shadow behind him shiver. He had walked those hallways countless times over his life, but he barely knew them; he wandered, passing guards standing at stiff attention, still and silent and nameless as the silhouettes of statues.

No one else was there to see.

He was glad of that. He wondered whether it was written all over him, what had happened—it was carved into his body, at least, the sensations flitting through him again and again, clinging to his skin. How his heart had pounded in his chest at the moment Loki breached him, and the sharp, sweet pain that came at that moment, such as he had never known.

The even sweeter fullness that followed, strange and foreign and delicious, of Loki’s hard prick spearing him, and how it felt to give in after resisting so desperately for so long. The feeling of Loki grinding his hips against him until Thor came, cunt clenching tight at the same moment as his cock spurted between their bellies, leaving him sensitive to the rush of throbbing wet heat as Loki then spilled inside him for the first time.

The thought had only struck him then, as Loki collapsed against him, panting in his ear.

“Loki,” he said, voice catching in his throat with a sudden exquisite fear. “Loki, if I am like a Jotun now, does that mean that I could… could become pregnant?”

Loki pushed back on his hands enough that they could see each other’s faces, and he gave Thor a funny little grin. “I suppose you might.”

Thor stared at him without speaking.

“Why? Are you worried?” Loki teased.

But Thor could barely answer beyond a slight shake of the head. Such a thing could never have been possible; no Aesir man could… he had never even considered… But the thought—

As the whole of that thought had struck him, a heavy whimper had escaped past his teeth. He could become… A flush of heat had coursed through his body with every heartbeat, and he had felt Loki sinking down against him again—Loki’s cock had not even softened, so that he merely continued rutting into him, sucking at his neck and whispering to him, the teasing tone gone and replaced with wonder. “Would you like for me to get you with child, my love? So soon?”

Thor had felt himself trembling, had let Loki hook one of his legs up over Loki’s arm so that he could drive deeper, the smooth slide of Loki’s cock inside him made all the more hot and slick by his first spill, the noisy squelch of it making Thor bite his lip and moan.

But Thor was still stunned with the notion now, hours later, as he wandered. It was what had kept him from sleep, that thought, and when he had rolled over to find Loki’s lids already closed, he had shaken him roughly awake, needing to know whether it was true.

“Loki,” he said. “Loki… were you jesting? Could I be…?”

Loki looked at him through sleep-slitted eyes. “I spoke truly. It is possible,” he said. And then he yawned, settling in again. “But the chance cannot be very great, after only the one night. I would not worry.”

“But it is possible,” Thor had said, and Loki gave a hum that might have been an affirmation before slipping deeper under.

Now Thor wandered out onto the balcony alone in the middle of the night as in the distance thunder began to roll.

*

VI.

It is a little-known fact that the gods are not born complete.

It was not until Odin quested and sacrificed—the well and the tree, the noose and the eye—that he learned fully what sort of god he was. It was not until Heimdall first set foot upon the rainbow bridge that he knew his purpose. Frigga did not know the shape of her own powers until she was a woman grown, until she cared for her first child.

Every god remembers that moment; for most it happens only once in their near-eternity of life.

For Thor, it happened when he first held Mjolnir in his hand and felt the sky above replying to his call. That moment he became the god of thunder—or discovered that he always had been—and ever since then the knowledge had been embedded in his soul. He had felt the storm sky like some strange, distant part of him; the rain pounded down when he was troubled and the winds howled when he raged. He was the god of thunder, and lightning was under his skin.

Tonight, as he wandered trying to understand what had happened—how his resistance had fallen away, how Loki had gotten him to welcome it, how it had all happened with such ease—the sky above grew dense with clouds. The stars were hidden in the grey as rain began to patter down to dampen his shoulders.

He felt…

Thor stood at the edge, hands resting upon the parapet, his mind still on the strange sweetness of what he and Loki had done, and the memory of a sly Jotun smile as it pressed against his mouth.

But that was not all, and Thor closed his eyes as the cool droplets fell to his face, aware of the tumult of the clouds and the wind’s cries.

Aware also of a candle-flicker hum. A sphere of dull heat low in his belly like a spark taken hold.

The first time it happened, it had come in an instant as bolts of startling white crackled down in an arc around the horizon, filling him with power in a single great rush until he gasped, mouth open and body bowed back under the heavy sky, hammer in his grip, the taste of lightning cool on his tongue.

This time, it was different but just as unmistakable: an unfurling that was also a coming together, as of the awakening of new green leaves in spring. A tantalizing awareness of his body throbbing through his blood, tingling under his skin. Rain fell and thunder slowly rolled, the storm overtaking the city of Asgard and Thor could feel it all, all things entwining as one.

The god of thunder he had always been, but now—his body changed, now he was a god with a Jotun’s dual parts, a god with a womb, and just as he felt the new facet of his power making itself known, he felt also the first tendrils of the new life within him. And he knew...

It was not until the voice called out his name behind him, soft and concerned, that Thor realized he was gripping tight to the railing as he stood there in the wet torrent, weeping from the whir of tender happiness that filled him to brimming and becoming thoroughly soaked.

He sniffled back the tears as he spun.

His mother’s voice, and there she was, standing under the awning with her own warm robe wrapped around her.

“I thought that had to be you,” she said as she stepped out unmindfully into the rain—just careless enough that he was forced to go to meet her, so that they would both get out of the weather—and she only waited patiently as he shoved a scraggle of wet locks out of his face and composed himself.

And this… he knew she was watching him, waiting for him to enlighten her on what had brought him out here at this hour, making a storm from the depth of his emotions and then standing out in it as if he’d been struck senseless. But how could he possibly explain? How could he tell his mother that he was—Thor felt his cheeks heat at the thought, a raw hot twinge of embarrassment that he would surely relive a thousand times over the coming months.

However, she demanded nothing, only taking him by the hand when he held his silence, and together they walked a few steps, keeping just on the dry side of the pouring line of rainwater splashing onto the paving stones.

“You feel different,” she said then.

He only ducked his head lower in answer, and at that she made them halt, gave him a keen-eyed look as both her hands cupped around one of his, looking at him with a hint of a gentle smile, as if she could see into his heart.

And then, well, he had no choice but to tell her, the words spilling out in a jumble that was soothed as she listened without a hint of judgment. As he should have known she would, of course. She was the goddess of children and families, the goddess of motherhood, and his own loving mother besides. And no matter the strange circumstances that had led to this, the child he now bore within him would be her grandchild.

His child. The skies gave another deep rumble as his heart swelled, as he imagined his future—their future—in lightning flashes, and as he felt his new powers becoming fully part of him, making him the god of thunder and… other things.

“I told you everything else would sort itself out,” Frigga said, patting his hand and sounding more amused than anything.

*

The storm was dissipating, leaving behind a few fast, high clouds and a few cold droplets, when Thor turned to head back inside.

The dazed feeling had passed, and even the heat inside him was leveling off into a sleepy glow. He wished for his bed, to lie beside his lover—perhaps if Loki woke when he returned he would tell him now, he thought, briefly imagining what Loki would say. He surely was not expecting it, and Thor nearly chuckled at that notion. And if Loki did not wake, good news could wait for the morning.

Thor was halfway back before he thought of it. The morning, when Loki said the spell would likely end.

But what would happen if it ended while he had this new life inside him?

Thor was barely cognizant of his mad dash the last distance back to his chambers, or of gripping Loki frantically by the shoulders to shake him awake. He barely realized that he was shouting a blur of questions, asking Loki when the enchantment would fade of its own accord, demanding that he delay it, that he strengthen it so that it would last long enough…

He became aware of Loki’s grip on his wrists, prying him away and speaking calmingly, telling him to please slow down and actually explain.

Thor tried, taking a deep breath before he began.

“Though it was only the one night,” he said, recalling Loki’s words from before, “your confidence was misplaced. I am with child now.”

He explained that he knew. That he could feel it. That it had brought about a change in him, deep and thorough and complete. And that most of all, it meant that Loki must not allow the spell to fade if its end would harm their child.

“You are telling me that because of… what I’ve done to you, you’ve become the god of fertility?” Loki said with a spreading grin.

Thor scowled. “Never mind that! We have more important things to worry about right now! If you do not do something quickly…”

Loki regarded him in silence for a moment, then pulled him closer, pressed a solemn, lingering kiss against Thor’s cheek. “There is nothing to fear, Thor.”

Thor gave him a wary look.

“There is nothing to fear,” Loki continued, “because I lied. The spell is not temporary. Not like that. I could have ended it whenever I wished, but it won’t fade on its own. I lied.”

With resolute defiance Loki met his eyes, and Thor felt his ears ringing just as they had the first day. Loki could have undone it. Loki could have undone it at Thor’s very first protests. Loki had deceived him, carried on the deception long enough to wear away at Thor’s resolve and pique his curiosity, long enough to…

Long enough so that tonight could happen.

Thor reached out and pulled a very surprised Loki very close to him, until he could feel Loki’s heart beating against his own. “I don’t care,” he said, the happiness overwhelming. “We will have a child.”

And after only a moment’s startled hesitation, Loki held him tightly in return.

*

Only a little while later, they lay curled together as the first dawn light broke wet and chill through the lingering greyness of the sky. Loki’s whisper, when he spoke, was almost pensive. “Do you know, I’m not sure I could have borne it if I’d had to turn you back now.”

Thor, half-slumbering already, made a curious noise, brow furrowed.

“Mostly because, well…” Fingers tickling along Thor’s hipbone beneath the blankets. “I think I will want to have you again as soon as you will let me.”

Thor found himself powerless to resist.

*

VII.

Envision this:

It was one month in and Thor was pacing back and forth in their chambers while Loki relaxed against the pillows, watching his spouse with a playful light in his red eyes.

This had been going on for some time, just as the day before—just as every day since the reality began to hit the pregnant thunder god.

After waiting a little while longer for a reply, Loki rolled to perch on his hands. “Think of it this way,” he said as Thor turned again, gnawing at the skin of his thumb and managing to look both worried and frustrated. “It is hardly a rare thing to have such news to share so soon after the wedding, so it won’t come as a great surprise. The only difference will be… the necessity of clarifying which of us is to be the mother.”

Thor glared back mid-stride as if to say that this was not the most helpful comment he had ever received.

“Not to mention that you’ll have to sooner or later.”

“It is a long time before that!”

Loki sank back again, giving every appearance of resignation.

It was one month and one day when they went together to the barren throne room, where Thor stuttered and stumbled and fidgeted his way through his explanation. How he now carried a half-Jotun child. How he was now the possessor of new godly powers. And Loki could feel Thor clutching at his hand as he told his father that he was in fact happy about all this, and squeezed back in silent support, moved a little closer by Thor’s side.

At the gesture Odin’s one eye sliced sharply between them, the wolves at his feet perking up their ears.

Loki held back his laugh only with difficulty: Thor’s father was delightfully perturbed. No, this was not at all what the Aesir king had envisioned when he shared the peace-cup with Laufey and promised his son in this arrangement.

When the Allfather gave them leave at last to go, he could feel the pounding of Thor’s pulse in his wrist, could almost feel him tremble in relief.

Back in their chambers Thor caught him in an impulsive embrace, thanking him for standing by him, wrapping his arms around Loki’s body as if all the certainty in the world were there.

And Loki was warmly pleased in anticipation of all the amusement the future would bring. Because that meeting was just the beginning.

*

It was nearly three months now, and Loki had spent much of the prior few weeks tending to Thor as he suffered through bouts of nausea and doubt. Loki had cooed reassurance and soothed him with kisses and stroked golden hair back from a clammy brow. Loki had fed him honeyed ginger water and consoled him and waited, and let him pretend that it was only the unaccustomed sickness that bothered him.

When Frigga came to see him (one time bringing with her Eir, which had made Thor blanch), he put on a much better show, appearing weakened but undaunted. It was similar the few times Thor’s friends came to visit him, perplexed at the oddity of such illness in the stoutest and strongest of the Aesir, baffled by the change in his habits.

Of course, Thor did not dare share the joyous tidings with them.

“They are your friends,” Loki said one time shortly after the little group had departed.

“I know,” Thor answered, shoulders sinking on a sigh.

“Then what are you worried about?”

Thor shrugged and stared out the window (it was, inexplicably, a beautiful day of crystal-blue skies, despite the storm god’s mood), but he did not have to speak for it to be obvious—what would they think of him when they learned of it? Would they ever look at him the same way again?

Loki let the subject rest and waited until Thor drifted off that evening to slip away for a while. He returned an hour later refreshed, with a spring in his step, and a little electric twinge of impatience racing around in his blood, wanting already to see the outcome of this part of the game.

Thor would never learn how the rumors started, and only knew that it was near that time when they began to spread.

*

It was at the end of the fourth month that further denial became futile as rumor coincided just too well with the slow change in Thor’s form no longer quite hidden under his usual well-fitted vestments.

And in what Loki was coming to understand was predictable Asgardian habit, the answer to the news was to throw a feast.

The great golden hall teemed with warriors and ladies and courtiers, crawled with servants, brimmed with tables piled with roasted boar and brown rolls and sweets of various kinds. Song and salute were lifted to the high, dim rafters in raucous celebration. And at the head of the room, at a table raised above all the rest, the royal family sat. Odin, impassive, took in the scene, and the shadows of raven wings flapped over his shoulder in the ruddy firelight. Frigga, a warm glow in and of herself, sat between her husband and her son and smiled as if there were nothing out of the ordinary about these circumstances at all. Thor, who had perhaps never looked more uncomfortable before a gathering of the Asgardian folk who had always held him in such high regard, picking at the food on his plate, shoulders hunched over as if to make himself small and unnoticeable—as if any could fail to notice the one for whom the feast was called. And the little Jotun prince at his side, watching the crowd with an amused glitter in his eye, shameless.

There was an undeniable undercurrent to the merrymaking, but even so in every hand across the room, cups sloshing with ale were raised, “To the thunderer! to the future heir of Asgard!”

Thor glanced over at his spouse nervously. Loki only gave him a grin, leaned close to inquire how he was faring, all while placing a concerned hand on the hidden curve of Thor’s belly below the table—the gesture obvious enough to fan the flames of prurient consternation among the celebrants below.

Loki had been waiting months to do that.

*

Afterward, the two of them were practically accosted by the Warriors Three and Sif; Volstagg clapped Thor on the shoulder and congratulated them. Fandral gave them an artfully raised eyebrow and said he hadn’t guessed Thor had it in him to keep such secrets. Sif only ran her gaze up and down his form, making Thor frown and cringe—yes, he thought, I know.

Most alarmingly, Fandral had slipped a silver piece into Hogun’s hand, receiving a silent nod, when they thought Thor wasn’t looking.

In all, they tried and utterly failed to treat him just the same as they always had, awkward both at the news and at having been excluded from it for that long.

Only Volstagg seemed able to slog through it, asking whether they had considered names and propounding on the importance of the naming of children and how he had admirably done the job with his own brood.

“Though you do plan to use a good Aesir name, don’t you?” the large man added with a nervous grin, taking in the both of them with his glance. “And not, well, any other sort…”

And Thor by now knew his spouse well enough that he could only try not to cringe too obviously when Loki’s lip quirked just before he delved into a series of curious questions regarding Asgardian naming customs, only to conclude with impeccable, inevitable logic that best compromise between the two cultures would be to give a firstborn son a name that honored his sire’s kin and the reverse for a daughter.

“I have an elder brother by the name Byleistr; I have always been fond of the sound of that,” Loki added with oddly perky innocence. “And to think I would not have known the right course of action if it were not for your good counsel; you have my gratitude.”

Volstagg gawped at him like a fish on the floor of a boat.

When they were alone later, Loki broke down into snickers.

“What was all that for?” Thor asked him, frowning, though in truth he wasn’t as upset as he should have been.

Loki responded by patting him fondly on the cheek. “Sif and Hogun understood my meaning, I think. And they’ll all behave better around us next time.”

*

By the time the sixth month began, Loki was practically in the clouds with glee; he had never before had such fun. He could barely contain himself. He felt at any moment he might burst. He reveled.

Loki reveled: They could not go anywhere without the whispers buffeting and swirling around them. Hopeful young wives daring for a touch from the new god of fertility. Salacious speculations flying from ale-loosened tongues. Loki could not miss a moment of it. Everywhere they went, Loki indulged in a show of ostensible protectiveness, playing the role of doting spouse to the hilt, arm snaking around Thor’s waist, nudging him to keep his head high. He felt the way they drew every gaze. He and the mighty prince of the golden realm, the fearsome thunder god… impregnated by his sorcerous Jotun lover, the evidence now plain for all to see.

He reveled in every breath of lush gossip that followed them, the feel of scandalized eyes upon them when Loki kissed his spouse in public—or even did something as simple and common as twining their hands together.

Loki reveled in Thor’s wistful looks as they walked by the practice yards, remembering how he’d had to usher Thor away from them months before. (“You must take more care with yourself now. Expectant mothers, even the most valiant of them, must set aside mock battle for a while.”)

He reveled in Thor’s determination not to let it all get to him, the way his quashed anger seethed and soured, the hammer useless to defend him, and how he found himself now, terribly, almost helpless. And in how unaware Thor was of his own obvious distress.

And when they were alone he reveled in the feel of Thor grown fat with child, reveled in the sight of Thor overcome with conflicted emotions as he watched his body change further, as he felt himself ridiculed and scorned and yet could not make himself regret what had happened, reveled in the occasional trembling tear that fell (despite feeling compelled to wipe it away with a tender thumb)—the sight of Thor downtrodden, miserable, yet stubbornly brave.

But Loki would hardly have let Thor struggle so if he hadn’t also taken on the task of shoring up his confidence when it seemed at last about to shatter.

*

There were many nights spent like this.

The dampness was still drying in Thor’s startled eyes when Loki beckoned him into bed, stripped both their clothes away, lay beside him, pushing Thor gently onto his side to press his chest to Thor’s broad back.

Thor was far enough along that his abdomen was a prominent roundness—the source of all his misery, which Loki had put there through just such acts as these—and Loki kissed his way along it as they began. Early on he had sometimes asked Thor if he was sorry he let Loki do this to him—if he would go back and undo it if he could. Loki asked it while deep inside, while Thor’s cock throbbed hot and urgent in his hand. Each time Thor gasped out denials that made Loki swallow back his wonder.

Thor, despite the flushed heat of his cheeks at every shame, was yet indomitable. Thor would suffer far more than this for his child, for his lover. There was simply no question of that.

More importantly, Loki had also discovered from that just what it took to strengthen Thor’s resolve again.

Like so.

Loki nuzzled against Thor's ear and began to rub a sensitized nipple in slow circles under his thumb until he felt the hitch in Thor's breath. His murmur was deliberately wicked, in just the way that set Thor ablaze, just the way that made him beg. “None of them know how you love this, no matter how they chatter to each other about what I must have done to you to get you into this condition,” Loki said, as Thor arched back against him, offering himself for Loki to slip inside, though for the moment Loki only teased. His cock slid idly back and forth in the wetness between Thor’s legs. His fingers splayed wide across Thor’s swollen belly, palm pressing into the warm skin. “None of them know how wonderful you feel, round and heavy with our child.”

"Yes, Loki, yes... please," Thor whined out and twisted to kiss him, mouth demanding but lips slack, and Loki held him close for a minute before rearranging their bodies. Pushing Thor’s knee up and straddling his other thigh—muscular now only beneath the softness that had come to his body—and entering him from that angle. Like that all Thor could do was lie there with his golden hair mussed on the pillow—what a picture he made, round-bellied and lazy, able to do no more than accept the pleasure Loki gave driving into him again and again in swift, firm strokes.

And Loki could watch him lose himself in it. Could feel his cunt clenching on Loki’s cock as Thor neared the peak. Could watch him writhe and groan and grope back for Loki’s hand, needing and wanting.

Loki leaned over him, stroking and whispering and kissing at his shoulder, running his hands along every part of Thor’s body and the curve of his belly especially, feeling each shudder. It was true; Thor loved this, excited all the more by the words that spilled from Loki’s tongue, and the unnamed feelings that had taken hold in Loki’s heart flared suddenly aflame.

Loki only stopped murmuring to him—how beautiful he was, how good he felt—when his own release caught him and stole his breath away.

Afterward as they lay panting close, it was Thor who spoke.

“I am glad,” he said. “I am glad this has happened. And I am glad that you enjoy it so.”

Loki only kissed him again and urged him to shut his eyes. “You need your strength for the trials of the morrow,” he added, his voice already rough with slumber.

Thor folded his arms beneath his head as he settled in. “Such good care you take of me.”

Loki nearly fell asleep with a quiet chuckle on his lips.

*

And then it was into the seventh month and Loki lay with his arm across Thor’s hips after spending some little while rubbing away the aches that had begun to plague him, digging dark fingertips into sore muscles and strained joints. He pressed his cheek to the curve of belly, Thor’s hand tangled loose in his hair.

“Do you feel that?” Thor asked, voice full of awe.

Loki nodded, pressed a kiss to stretchmarked skin. “She’ll be as strong and proud as her mother, I’m sure.”

“She?” Thor asked, sounding hilariously suspicious. “Is this something you have gleaned by magic? Have you…”

Loki interrupted him with a bright laugh. “No, I’ve done nothing! It is just my guess. But you—you would have a daughter.”

Thor let go a contented breath, then, the last tension easing out of his body as he chose not to argue, and Loki fell silent as well. At home in Jotunheim he had never thought much of having a family; even among the handful of suitable, like-sized partners he’d shared his bed with, none had ever stirred much more in him than brief lust or the thrill of the chase. Certainly he would have had little interest in the offspring of any of those unions. But this was far different, and sometimes his breath caught in his throat at the feeling of it, though he knew not why.

It was not until the next day, those thoughts resting heavily in the back of his mind, that he retrieved Laufey’s latest missive from the pile of letters he kept locked in a box with a few small treasures from his past.

He read it, and read it again, every cryptic pleasantry and every elliptical demand—all bristling with an impatience that made it all too easy to hear the words in his parent’s voice. He ran his fingers down the ink-marked page. And he knew. With icewater chill sinking into his stomach, he folded the letter again and looked over his shoulder to where his husband, the mother of his child, still slept. And he knew what he had to do.

*

VIII.

“What?” Thor said, staring, incredulous, as Loki told him that he would be making a brief journey back to Jotunheim. “Why?”

“It’s nothing to worry about,” Loki assured him. “It is simply family business. I’m sorry I didn’t mention it sooner; I merely thought I would be able to put it off until afterward, and now that it’s clear I won’t… well, isn’t it better I be gone now than a few weeks hence?”

Thor frowned even as he nodded his agreement. “And you do not wish my company?”

Loki set down the small leathern journeying pack that he had nearly filled and turned to his spouse. “No, there is no reason for you to come, and I fear you would only find it tedious. I will take you to visit some other time, if you want,” he added.

Thor made no other complaint, if one does not count the doleful looks he threw Loki’s way, trudging alongside as he accompanied him to the Bifrost.

Just before Heimdall granted him passage, Loki fished in his pack and pulled out one of the brooches of icy-blue crystal that the Jotnar wore and affixed it to the collar of Thor’s tunic, giving Thor a brief kiss as he did so.

When he pulled back, gazing into Thor’s eyes with an odd solemnity, Thor could not help but study the look of him, the blue of his skin against the stars that made the backdrop of the bridge, the highlights of reflected gold on his wind-tossed hair, the steady red of his eyes that no longer made Thor think of blood.

But then Loki grinned and broke the seriousness of the moment. “Don’t miss me too badly. I’ll be back before you know it.”

Thor tried to obey this command as he returned to the palace alone.

And that night, for the first time since his wedding night, Thor dreamed of ice and tall blue towers, and warmth in the midst of the bitterest cold.

*

And Loki, for his part… he crunched through the glittering crust of snow alone upon his arrival, adjusting once more to the feel of it after so long in the mild warmth of Asgard. He had sent no word ahead, and no one knew to be expecting him. Not that there was anything new about the youngest prince of the realm traipsing all across it on his own whim or the king’s orders.

But even his father would not be expecting him now.

Loki had come to a decision, and he was here to see it through.

Everything had changed. Loki had gone to Asgard knowing that it was temporary lie he would live for the good of Jotunheim. His marriage to the Odinson was meant to gain both an apparent truce and a means to worm his way into the Aesir’s confidence, to glean any secrets that could benefit Jotunheim when war inevitably came. Not to mention how it would allow him to toy with the belligerent, foolish boy who was so ridiculously close to attaining the high throne of Asgard, to find his weaknesses so that they could be exploited as well.

How finely that had once appealed to him.

But what would it matter that he now felt differently, that he now had no desire to betray Thor—that he loved him truly? How could that be said to change anything? The plain and simple truth was that the Aesir and the Jotnar had nothing but centuries of hate and blood between them, would forever be howling for each other’s destruction, and Loki felt like the only one in either realm with sense enough to see it and sense enough to see what little good it would do them.

And he, the little trickster prince, the one most easily dismissed, had been raised to deception and lies, to wield them like the keenest blades.

And now he would show how well he’d learned.

*

The trek was long, a matter of days, and cold enough to chill even Jotun skin so that at last Loki shivered a bit and chafed at his arms with his hands as he stalked through the shadowed doors of the palace, past old wounds in the walls that Jotun pride had refused to cover or heal, old marks of battle that would be taught to each new generation: here is the dent where fell an Aesir blade, here the ice still dark with mingled blood. Here was the heart of Jotunheim, and they cherished each scar on it as a mark of honor and memory.

Loki gave a little sigh, trying to recall if he had ever truly thought of this place as home.

Still, his return did not go unnoticed. In each dim and chill corridor, courtiers twice his height nodded in greeting, wise enough not to inquire what brought the youngest prince home so soon and all unannounced. He had always come and gone seemingly as he wished, and of course they had the courtesy to defer to the lie of his position.

Loki had not missed that, the ever-present awareness of his own precarious station and the necessity of defending it by ruthless wit and ready magecraft.

Or by simply not being worth anyone’s trouble, he thought darkly as he passed another set of guards who merely stared at the wall above his head as he passed.

What was the value of a bastard prince? A runt who had not been sired by the king but had never been permitted to call Laufey his dam. And no matter that Farbauti deigned to claim him publicly (despite how she barely tolerated him in private), it was known far and wide that it was not so, and that he would never rule. A child like that is only worth what he can make himself worth.

And so as he came before the throne, smile a knife-sharp twist upon his lips as he greeted his “father,” he had every appearance of the spy who has gathered his quarry and returned to gather his reward.

*

From the second night of dreams of ice and snow, Thor woke shivering with a bone-deep feeling of unease.

The day before, he had admitted to Odin that Loki had left for a brief visit home, and he had caught the look of shuttered wariness on the Allfather’s face at the news.

That evening, his mother had come to see him, looking him over with maternal care, remarking that he seemed quite well and failing to mention Loki at all, seeming to wait to see if he would bring up the subject on his own.

He hadn’t. He had not liked it in the least, letting Loki return to Jotunheim, no matter what promises he gave, but he had no real reason why.

He liked it less now, and after the second night of dreams, he thought he began to understand why. Loki’s long-forgotten reticence about some secret corner of his past, the thing that had made Thor wonder when they first came to know each other before they were wedded. The abruptness of his departure. The apprehension buried deep in his red eyes.

Thor thought on this, and uneasiness turned to dread, dread to tingling panic that grew with every heartbeat.

By midday Thor could no longer deny the feeling, and soon enough he could no longer ignore it well enough to stay.

He looked down at himself, nervousness fluttering in his chest and a bitter taste on his tongue, and he knew there was peril in this plan. But he was far from helpless, and he knew what he was doing. It would not be the first time he’d gone to Jotunheim—frost-footed adventures and bloody skirmishes still recounted in glorious song. And though he did not know exactly what he would meet, he could guess that this would not be a stroll in the winter’s first fall of downy snow, all the moreso if the nebulous fear he felt was rooted in truth. If Loki had come to some sort of harm...

He had to go. He was still Thor, god of thunder, fearsome in his own right. And this he meant to do.

Fortunately, he still had enough of a grip on himself to be practical. To dress as warmly as he possibly could, in the cloak lined with white bear fur; thick, soft boots to soothe feet that had begun to ache even when he didn't have miles to walk across foreign ground; sturdy gloves to protect the hands that would wield Mjolnir at need. (He also wore the sparkling little crystal pin Loki had given him, out of sentiment.) And he still had enough sense not to attempt to sneak past Heimdall but instead to face the watcher of the bridge with only the desperate determination in his eyes.

Heimdall said nothing, but his nose crimped as if in anticipation of pain as he stepped aside, letting Thor pass.

Thor walked the length of the bridge alone for the first time in his life, and when he came to the end of it that landed in snow, the final lengths of beam frosted with white under a dim, deep sky, he pulled his cloak tightly around himself as he looked around, tasting the bite of rime in the air.

There were still a few windblown footsteps in the snow, too small for any Jotun save one, heading off in the direction in which Thor knew the capitol city lay. But Loki had far too great of a lead on him to follow like that, and with his other arm wrapped cautiously across his middle, Thor spun Mjolnir quickly in the air and let it pull him into the empty sky.

*

IX.

“We would be fools to let go of this opportunity so soon,” Loki said, lounging on the edge of the dais where sat Laufey’s throne. “You would hardly believe how well it has gone, or how fully the Odinson trusts me now. Of course we will continue to plan for the eventual war, but what if it is not so inevitable as we have thought?”

Laufey turned dubious red eyes on him, but Loki had spent enough years at such games that the king did not dismiss the idea outright, and Loki stood then and stretched his arms above his head, nonchalant.

“Or at least… war by the usual means,” he added with a smirk. “What if I can find a way to poison them from within? As I said, the Odinson trusts me. When the Allfather passes, Loki will be co-ruler of Asgard. Now, Father, I ask you: has a more dangerous sentence ever been spoken?”

Laufey’s smile then matched Loki’s own. “Tell me then, my son, what you intend to do when you have that power.”

And Loki, who had been prepared for this, answered in full and horrific detail.

It was Loki’s great gamble, this ploy to buy time for himself to think of a more permanent solution, something that would keep the two realms from going for each other’s throats, and he used every fleck of silver and every glint of true malice that he had gathered in his long life: the Jotnar, no less than the Aesir, thirsted for blood. It would be difficult to convince Laufey that a victory of this kind could taste as sweet as one in which he got to crush hot Aesir flesh in his own hands. So as he spoke, Loki carefully watched his parent’s expression for any hint of doubt that he must remove or any unanswered query that he must face.

He did not know what to make of the distant, thoughtful gaze that Laufey sometimes cast over Loki’s shoulder, into the far corner of the shadowy throne room. Only when he had exhausted his words did he even think to turn and look.

*

Thor had ceased to struggle by the time the guards had dragged him there, one holding his arms with a bruising grip and forcing him forward as another kept a huge, calloused hand across his mouth so that he could not cry out.

It had happened so quickly when he landed before the palace that he could not react before he was surrounded and overwhelmed, only trying to protect the child inside him as he swore at the guards.

They had not recognized him at first. But when he shouted his name and his title and demanded to be taken to Loki—that had made them pause. They had peeled back his cloak and laughed at his belly and found the brooch, poked at it with thick, cold fingers.

“So he does belong to Prince Loki,” one mused as Thor fumed, wishing he had no reason not to use his hammer on them all now. The one who had spoken went on to cup a hand under his chin, turning his face this way and that, perhaps only to enrage him further and watch how he seemed to steam in the very air. “All right,” the Jotun said at last. “We will bring you to him.”

Thor’s heart had leapt when they led him through a tall archway, their steps silent on the ice-blue floor, and he saw Loki on the far side of a shadowed space. But it had fallen when the guard kept his hand across Thor’s mouth, no matter how he squirmed. They kept him quiet, made him listen as Loki told his father…

He could not help the tears that sprang to his eyes, even as Laufey glanced his way curiously as Loki spoke, his back to Thor.

And then at last Loki turned.

Thor could hear Loki gasp his name, in the space of that breath going so pale that he seemed carved from ice. Then all at once Loki was rushing forward, shouting at the guards to release him, what were they thinking, were they blind—

“No.” It was a voice deep and definite, a rumble as Laufey rose to stand at his full height and covered the distance across the cold floor in a few broad steps, and there was enough command in it that the guards halted as they were, still holding tight to Thor’s arms. pinching his skin in their steel grip. Even Loki stopped, turning to stare at his parent.

Laufey gripped Loki’s shoulder for a moment as he passed, murmuring something that Thor couldn’t catch, and then the Jotun king was crouching down so as to be level with the thunder god.

Massive red eyes and a frightful scowl peered at him as if he were nothing more than a captured beast being inspected, and then the giant tossed a glance back toward Loki. Thor could only just barely see him nodding, silent, eyes low, as if he dared not speak.

“So you have heard the truth,” Laufey said, turning back to his guest. “Is that what you came to learn?”

“I came to find Loki,” Thor growled, gathering courage even as the Jotun king loomed over him.

Laufey squinted at him. “But now you have heard: he was nothing more than a spy among your people, and whatever love you think he held for you was feigned. And you have delivered yourself into our midst now; why should I not make a hostage of you?”

Once Thor would not have hesitated to begin a war right there in the middle of the Jotun palace; once Mjolnir would have dripped with Jotun blood, would have spattered the walls with the muck inside their heads, and he would have stumbled out victorious, or not at all.

Now he only gritted his teeth, meeting the king's eyes. “You will do what you choose anyway; I will not grovel for your amusement.”

“Very well,” said Laufey, and with a snap of his fingers, the guards neatly lifted Thor from the ground (it was a disconcerting feeling, to be manhandled by beings so much larger than him, and Thor wondered whether this sort of disparity had led to Loki’s propensity for tricks and magic and clever words out of sheer defensive compensation) and began carrying him away. Before Thor could come to any conclusion, he got his first look at the inside of a Jotun prison cell.

*

Loki’s heart was pounding frantically when his parent turned back to study him after Thor had been carted away, but he mastered it with a few slow breaths and plastered a rough sneer across his face.

“Well, I suppose that is the end of that advantage; thank you so much for your intervention, Father,” he began, the annoyance quite real.

“But look how soon and how suddenly you wished to change the plan, my child,” Laufey answered. “I might almost believe you had something else in mind—a throne like the one you would never be granted here? Or perhaps… perhaps you have fallen for your own lie.”

Laufey gave him a pointed look, to which Loki gave no response.

“And as he was… you were very protective of him; I have never seen you so quick to leap to another’s aid.”

Loki dropped his face into his hands, sighing at the familiar bitterness in Laufey’s voice. The familiar image leaping to mind, though one Loki had never truly seen—of Laufey before Loki’s birth, as he carried him. Of bitter solitude, the sire gone, and Farbauti only forgiving enough to glare at him in silence. All the things that added up to why it was that he could never be more than a false prince, a clever little troublemaker of no import at all.

Loki made his decision in that moment.

“Whatever I planned doesn’t matter now, does it?” he said then. “Just grant me this: when the Allfather threatens war for this and we go to accept the offer, give me him.”

He turned his face to his parent’s, willing him to believe it. Yes, believe that I want him for my own ends, for desire, for a thing to toy with and nothing more.

Laufey peered through him for long moments before he acquiesced with a tilt of the head, giving his son a grim look of vindication and leave to depart.

*

X.

There were advantages to being a sorcerer in a realm of warriors, and prime among them was this: when the guards in the lower levels of the palace saw Loki coming, grinning fit to burst and walking with a sly bounce in his step, they rolled their eyes and wondered to each other what little game the young prince was playing now. And they were not at all expecting the breath of magical sleep that he blew into all their eyes when he drew close enough.

It was terribly easy; no alarm sounded, no cry went up. Without any trouble, Loki reached the door to the cell where they had locked Thor.

But as he looked through the little viewing hole, his heart wrenched.

The guards had not been foolish or cruel enough to try to take Thor’s warm fur cloak from him, and he lay on the icy bed wrapped in it, curled around his belly. His face was toward the door so that Loki could see the troubled turn of his brow and the chilled, bluish pout of his lips. In sleep he looked young and innocent, and only the urgency of his mission kept Loki from pausing to gaze at him for long enough to freeze the image in his mind.

The lock tripped with a touch. The door slipped silently open. And Loki made sure that the first thing Thor saw when his eyes opened was Loki with his finger to his lips, urging quiet.

“I would apologize to you for my family’s lack of hospitality,” he whispered as he crouched low.

Blinking sleep away Thor pushed himself up to sitting, his brow yet more furrowed, as Loki fussed over him, reassuring himself that Thor was unharmed, muttering under his breath of Thor’s stubbornness and idiocy and how had he been so foolish as to come here and endanger himself—endanger their child—

Thor stared at him with suspicion. “Loki, all the things you said…”

Loki stopped short and looked Thor in the eye. “Thor, you know by now that I am a liar, and you will be free to wring the entire truth from me at your leisure, through whatever tortures you wish, after you let me get you away from here. One thing I will promise you right now, though: I do love you, and I will not let you come to harm if I can do anything about it. Now, please… up with you, and hurry!”

And though the rankle of distrust lingered sour on Thor’s face, he followed obediently as Loki led him away, out of the palace, out of the city, and into the snowy wastes of Jotunheim.

*

Together they trekked across the white emptiness, the hush in the air deepening the farther they went into the wilderness, Loki stalking along in front, Thor behind. The tromp of Thor’s steps and the white puffs of his breath marked the minutes that ticked past. His thoughts were on the Jotun who walked before him.

It had not been a year yet since the first time he had met Loki, the first time he had seen him traipsing alone across the Bifrost, but he had never seen him like this. Here, in Jotunheim, apparently having just violated his king's command and committed treason against his whole realm, Loki was armored with a steely confidence and a bold determination, red eyes alert, motions quick and sure; this was the trickster with something dearer to lose than his own skin.

And as foolish as he knew it was… Thor trusted him.

“Loki?” Thor said as they walked. “If you will tell me now why you said all of that… I will believe what you say.”

Loki paused for only a moment, tossing a glance back at Thor over his shoulder as he gathered his words. “It was true,” he said then in a dull, flat voice as his eyes took in the sparkle of frost across the fields. “It was true at the beginning…”

*

By the time night fell, Loki deemed them far enough from the palace to risk a flight on the end of Thor’s hammer to speed their arrival at Bifrost, Loki’s arms slung loose around Thor’s neck as they flew.

The Bifrost. It was the brightest thing in the landscape, a ribbon of pale color winding away into the sky against the dim blueness of ice mountains under the stars, and Loki gasped at the sight of it from aloft.

He had told Thor practically everything. And all that remained depended upon getting Thor safely back to Asgard so that Loki could do the last thing he needed to do—although none of this was what he had meant to do when he left Asgard for Jotunheim. Now it was the emergency backup plan, the one that he would not have admitted to having, perilous as a drunken walk at the edge of a cliff in darkness, terrible as deadly betrayal, one that burned like poison in the bottom of his belly for having thought of it. And now inevitable. Now the only way.

He had not told Thor about that part.

They skimmed to a stop on the icy ground just short of the bottom of the bridge, and Thor was looking up at it so that the light reflected bright in his eyes. And he paused then with his foot on the Bifrost. “Come on, Loki,” he said, gesturing.

But instead Loki shook his head and darted forward to wrap Thor in his arms, feeling the bulge of his belly and the beating of his heart and the warmth of his skin. He buried his hands in the gold of Thor’s hair and put his lips to Thor’s face.

“There is one more thing I must do, and then I will follow,” he told him in an urgent voice. “Promise me you won’t wait—that you will go, that you will get as far from here as you can, as quickly as you can, because I swear to you, Thor, if you delay, it will destroy my work and I may never make it back at all.”

Thor’s blue eyes were wide.

“Promise me!” Loki growled, his fists bunched tight at the soft fur edge.

Thor nodded, shocked, and Loki gave a final laugh, all fears forgotten, and kissed him deep.

And Loki waited there, watching as Thor looked back once, twice, and then disappeared into the haze of the distant stars around the bridge’s first bend.

Then he sat down to focus all his power on this one terrible task.

*

XI.

It had to be done carefully. It had to be done right.

Loki found himself thinking of the blacksmiths’ trade: The fuming, steaming workshops he’d encountered on a long-ago journey through Nidavellir. The dwarves’ skill with the metals they worked, and their knowledge of how to heat and cool them, how to turn them malleable. The double bellows huffing sparks into the furnace air until the white-hot metals flowed. The bucket full of lukewarm water into which a smith could dip a length for cooling.

And the apprentice who had misjudged it, and watched as the handle he had been working all the morning snapped in two with the gentlest tap.

Loki, perched atop a table in the shadows, had laughed then at the boy’s comical horror as he realized the impossibility of repairing the error.

Loki thought of it now with less humor as he crafted the spell that would break the bridge, for he wanted the cleanest break, and as near to this realm as could be. Wanted, but could not be sure of; he could not know if the whole thing might shatter like a pane of thin glass to fall into the glittering abyss.

He had thought of it to himself before without realizing the truth of what he thought: as long as the Aesir and the Jotnar could reach each other, they would reach for each other’s throats. So he would keep them apart, by one act of brilliant destruction, until both peoples had time to come to their senses.

He looked up the slowly shifting lights of the bridge then one last time before he began, hoping beyond hope that Thor was far on the other side.

*

Thor had only stumbled a short way past Heimdall’s shack at the terminal end of the Bifrost when he saw it out of the corner of his eye.

A flash. A glow festering up out of the dark depths of the heavens with twists of color like the bridge’s own cool light, all in strict, dead silence. Thor stood at the edge and watched it for as long as it lasted, already knowing yet without a single thought passing through his mind.

Heimdall’s firm hand came to rest on his shoulder. “It is broken now, near Jotunheim. There will be no passage between our two realms for an age, until it can be rebuilt.”

Able to make no reply, Thor only nodded and turned to begin the trudge back home.

Loki was a liar—a good liar, deception a tool in his hand. Thor knew that, and he had known it in the core of his being as Loki kissed him farewell, and he had gone anyway because Loki also always had some scheme in mind, something to make the lies make sense.

Thor tried to tell himself it was the same this time.

But the days passed, and for each he traveled out to Heimdall’s observatory to ask, receiving only a solemn shake of the head. To wait there for him or for any sign he might send. And for each he grew more frantic, the worry welling up inside.

Loki did not return.

*

And then, it was in a dull haze of growing sorrow that Thor explained to his father what had happened.

In the empty room from which even the guards had been dismissed, Thor admitted that when Loki went home he had followed, foolishly, out of fear, only to receive what might be called a cold welcome. He glossed over a few of the details—his father frowned at him dourly enough as it was—but in the end, sitting with his head in his hands, he made himself speak, told Odin everything Loki had said of the deception planned between him and the Jotun king and how war would be brought by it.

Odin, god of the battlefield, god of battle-slain men, curled his lip in a snarl. “I might have guessed that such a treaty was deceit from the start; if ever we meet the Jotnar again we will be ready for both lies and blood.”

Thor shook his head and spoke around the lump in his throat. “But Loki has made it so that it won’t have to come to that. He went back to try to find a way to stop it, to keep the peace between our peoples. He broke the bridge to protect us, I know it; he broke me free, made certain that I returned safely, I know that’s why…”

Odin only put a hand to his son’s shoulder, vague and dubious pity filling his one eye before it was washed away with the gleam of distant plans and night skies and the clash of spears.

Thor knew that just a year ago he too would have been eager for an excuse for war. And he felt suddenly weak, exhausted by everything that had happened, and he made his excuses and departed back to his chambers to rest.

*

Stormclouds crawled thick and lugubrious across Asgard as the final few weeks passed, and thin grey light streamed through rain, past the glass pane of a window, to the form lying curled under heavy blankets upon the bed.

When he slept, Thor dreamed of Jotunheim. And when he woke—though he tried not to stay that way for long—his body ached. His chambers were hearth-warmed; he remembered the feel of the cold air wisping against his face. He drew the blankets in around his chin; he felt the ghosts of Loki’s hands against his shoulders the last time they embraced. He kept his eyes closed, unable to shake the weariness that had grown up in him as his belly grew bigger, and felt the stone of grief that weighed upon his chest.

A drop or two of hot salt water landed on the pillow, and he did not bother to attempt to brush them away.

But then a gentle hand smoothed down his hair and a soft sigh made itself heard from the bedside, and he tensed for a moment. He had a vague memory of the chamber door being quietly opened, waking him for a moment, though he could not be sure how long ago it had been.

“Eir said she wishes to come again today, to make sure you and the child are both well,” his mother said, her voice low against a backdrop of thunder.

Thor nodded a little. The day before she had told him that the exhaustion was in part typical for this late in a pregnancy and in part because his body was not truly designed for the task; it was an unaccustomed strain, no matter how many hardships he had come through far more easily than this. “Let her come,” he said, because there seemed little point in resisting; it was for his own good, and the healer was always efficient, her hands cool and her manner steady and serene.

“Is it all right with you if I stay?”

Thor frowned. “I would like to sleep more.”

“And you may,” Frigga answered mildly. “But I would like to sit with you all the while, if only to assure myself that my child is not suffering alone.”

Thor tugged the blankets up nearly to his nose, but he knew he had already lost. Just as he had the day before.

He allowed her to coax his eyes open, and he halfheartedly met her patient attempts at conversation and comfort, and he even ate a few bites when a servant brought lunch for them both. He permitted Eir to look him over when she came, and he nodded acquiescence when the healer told him what symptoms he should be concerned by and made him promise that he would call for her if any of those troubled him.

When she left, he slumped back against the pillows; even this little activity had tired him. And that—well, he tried not to feel too pitiful, though it was made difficult each time the child within him kicked and all he could do was remember Loki kneeling playfully before him, murmuring against his skin with his eyes turned up to meet Thor’s, telling the wee one to sleep and let its mother do the same.

Frigga caught his look as he cradled his abdomen with one arm.

“He will be back soon,” Thor muttered, to himself more than anything else, repeating the words in an attempt to make them so.

Frigga reached to stroke his cheek with motherly care. “I’m sure that if he can, he will.”

*

XII.

It was slow going, but Loki knew better than to become impatient.

He had made it already to the outlands; he traveled alone in a form that was not his own, for by now what he had done would be widely known. He would be hunted, and by more than just the palace guards. Everyone would be searching for the one who had marooned their realm.

Through the wilds he went, avoiding everyone, unwilling to risk discovery even so disguised. He drank from trickling streams beneath the snow; he caught snow-hares in swift traps when he grew too hungry. Especially he avoided the settlements he knew, where some lived who might guess at his identity. Even those he might once have called friends—he could not afford to give any of them his trust after what he had done.

And in Jotunheim, that left precious little safe territory.

But by the time the third month was nearly over, he had made it to the edge of the world, and he had found the place he remembered. The place where the roots of the worlds tree were very near the surface, accessible to someone who knew what they sought.

He was so far that only a few stars lit the night sky, so far that the sound of the world was like a distant murmur.

And there, at the farthest rim of Jotunheim, Loki knelt on the frozen ground and began to dig.

*

There is perhaps no better way to experience labor than to do so attended by the goddess of healing and the goddess of children and family.

The air, scented with lavender, was comfortable on Thor’s skin where he rested on the expanse of the bed, half clothed and covered by a light blanket. The room was dim with warm light, the quiet filled with reassuring murmurs and the soft rustling of busy motion, and Frigga was beside him, a comforting presence, her hand stroking his. When the pain began, Eir gave him a silver cup full of some pearly, translucent liquid, an herbal scent wafting from it.

“I have been wounded in battle many times; I can bear this,” Thor said, feeling petulant.

“Yes, I’m sure you can,” Eir replied, her tidy brown braid slipping from her shoulder as she turned. “But there is no need to suffer it. This will only dull the edge, anyway, and you will be glad for it later.”

Obediently he sipped, then, the drink cool and pleasantly sweet, and the effect was almost instantaneous. In the space of a few breaths the sharp agony faded to an ongoing ache.

It dulled the sense of time passing, as well, and the hours mingled. Gentle hands on his abdomen, voices telling him what to do, his mother stroking sweat-damp hair back from his brow and assuring him that Loki would be proud of him.

Thor squeezed his eyes shut then: Loki had said he would follow, but he had not come. And there, surrounded by the hum of the two women’s murmurs, pain in his body like a warm glow, Thor wondered for the first time if he had ever meant to.

And in the moment that he asked the question in his mind, he knew at once the answer: No.

Loki had lied to him, as Thor had long known. Loki had rescued him, had sent him home across the bridge… and then he had broken it between them, with no intention of returning to Asgard. And Thor could no longer say why he had believed otherwise. Maybe Loki was even now back to playing tricks on mindless storm giants in his own homeland. Maybe he had forgotten all about Thor, or maybe the only time he thought of Thor was to laugh at the idea of the predicament that he had abandoned him to.

Eir’s concerned voice broke through the haze, asking if the pain had gotten worse, and Thor shook his head in surprise, only then becoming aware of the tears pouring down his temples and his mother’s tightened grip on his hand.

He gritted his teeth, resolved not to think of it any more. He could not change what had happened, and all that was left for him to do was accept—

Later, when it was over, Frigga put his crying daughter in his arms. His daughter—his daughter, just as Loki had predicted—a tiny, delicate thing with a few wisps of black hair on her head and with wide green eyes that focused on him as he began to weep anew.

*

The following morning, after Thor had slept and at Eir’s judicious nod to confirm that the babe was healthy and strong, Odin came to look over his son and his granddaughter.

“I have named her Ljúfa,” Thor said, with a touch of defiance.

“And beloved I’m sure she will be,” Odin answered, accepting the child to hold for a moment, a wry twist to his smile as he studied her and she in turn regarded him with infant wariness.

Afterward, Thor held his wee daughter as with great ceremony the Allfather greeted the child formally, presenting her to the realm and recognizing her as a child of his line. The day’s early light slanted through the high windows into a throne room filled with courtiers and warriors, as many people as could seemingly be crammed into the great space, all of whom had come to welcome the new princess.

Now, the sounds of celebration drifted up from the mead-halls and from the streets as night fell, the clear sky deepening through cerulean blue to diamond-flecked black.

And somehow, Thor felt buoyed up, though he was still weary, still regaining his strength; everything threatened to return to normal, or to something very like it. A number of well-wishers had come throughout the afternoon, and now his closest friends sat with him, and he had for a while been listening as Volstagg regaled them all on the joys of raising little ones, pointing out to Thor bits of secret parenting knowledge that he had gained over the years. Thor could only smile and nod at all the appropriate places and accept Sif’s warm congratulations and the Elvish wine that Fandral and Hogun together gifted to him, and eventually shove them all out when Ljúfa began to fuss.

A little while later, after the wet nurse had been and gone, he lay down to sleep in starlight, alert for infant wails as he listened to the distant night sounds of the realm. He felt only a little lonesome and nearly content, and surely that was as close to happiness as he could expect to get.

*

In some ways, the dark cloud lifted as the days passed, and as Thor adjusted to the life of a parent he began to resign himself to many things.

He resigned himself to Loki’s absence. He resigned himself to the idea that he might never know what had happened, why Loki had not returned. He resigned himself to the growing feeling that it had been no more than a dream, that now everything would simply go back to the way it had been before he had ever met the strange little Jotun who had thrown his life into chaos and then disappeared once more.

Except that it wouldn’t. It had not been a dream, and he held the evidence in his arms.

And that part… there was no resignation in that. True, he had not before spent much time around babies and had much to learn (though again having the advantage of having Frigga for a mother) but he got nothing but joy from it and he did turn out to be something of a natural, no matter how far caring for an infant was from any of the skills for which he was more well known.

“It’s no surprise to me,” Frigga told him one evening as Ljúfa slept, swaddled secure and safe as he rocked her. “It’s only a different way to protect those you love. And you have always done that.”

He gave her a grateful look, and he fell asleep with that thought in his mind, once again slipping into dreams of Jotunheim, of glittering ice and snow and warmth in the midst of cold. Of the bright band of the bridge rising up as a glow of color growing ever larger as they neared. Of an impulsive kiss at its base, and a promise.

A different way to protect those you love.

*

And then, one day, after several more weeks had passed, a messenger came from the observatory at the top of the Bifrost, with news of someone at the gate.

It was unusual for Heimdall to send such word; usually those who arrived at Asgard’s gates were either known friends or known enemies. But this was a stranger, the messenger said, one who was Aesir in appearance but not known to the gatekeeper, one who claimed he had come from Alfheim by way of Vanaheim, and before that Nidavellir, coming by secret paths, taking great pains to walk in shadows to come to Asgard unseen. One who did not wish to give his name but asked with some urgency about the health of the god of thunder.

Thor rushed there with his heart in his throat, and he recognized the stranger the moment he saw him.

The green eyes were just as Thor had once imagined them. Just like their daughter’s.

And Loki practically flew into Thor’s arms, laughing.

*

XIII.

But things are never that easy, and Loki returned to Asgard only to land in the center of a whirling maelstrom.

The fact was that by then what had happened was commonly known, and the folk of Asgard would no longer have been satisfied with a closed council between the Aesir king and the Jotun prince to sort everything out. Instead—an assemblage of all the high gods of the realm. At their head was Odin, gleaming Gungnir officious in his hand, looking out over the shining array. And an empty place at the dead center of the room resonating with the hum of the crowd.

Stepping out from between two silent guards Loki strode into it, already planning out how he would make his case.

The gathered gods eyed him with suspicion, once again in his Jotun form, having dropped the Aesir mask in which he had traveled through the worlds. They questioned him. Demanded to hear the tale in full. Hissed at every admission of apparent guilt. They listed off Loki’s crimes and bickered amongst themselves, fists thumping on the table. They grudged the wait to retaliate against the Jotnar as a whole and blamed him for it; some seemed ready to deal with Loki in the Jotun army’s place. They recounted every ancient grudge, and those who stayed mute fidgeted or clenched their hands before themselves.

Loki, in the center of it all, spent much of the time answering their accusations, studying their faces to determine who could be won over most easily, and attempting to look and sound contrite and humble. No matter how difficult that might be.

… though in truth it was most difficult to take seriously the danger of it all coming out badly for him. Not with Thor sitting there like a living thunderhead, arms folded, glowering at any who dared to speak in favor of such things as swords and shackles. In truth Loki had to quash his grin at the image he made, though the few times Thor looked his way, anxious anticipation written in every motion, Loki could not help but offer a reassuring smile laced with just a bit of apology.

In the end, the story that became truth was this: that Loki, the Jotun trickster prince, was a friend of Asgard and would be allowed to remain.

“He is bound now,” the Allfather said over the ringing fall of the spear’s base upon the gleaming floor, “by bonds stronger than Gleipnir. Loki is bound now to the line of Odin by blood, and if we do not trust his oaths I believe we can trust in that.”

*

That was the whole of the tale as it spread from mouth to ear across all Asgard, rippling out from the servants who swept the steps of Odin’s hall to the farthest village in the midst of brown and golden fields; the story of how the Odinson married a prince of Jotunheim and of how their daughter resulted from the union, of how Thor was changed somewhat from the god he used to be and how two realms were sundered for an age (with the best of intentions, though the outcome has yet to be seen).

And there is but one final detail mentioned when the story is told, though good sense would question how it came to be known: some tell of how, despite all the practical matters that remained to be settled after the council dispersed, Thor, impatient, dragged his spouse back to their chambers, to the room that had become the nursery.

They say Thor held the child, a tiny bundle against his broad form, while Loki tentatively approached with wide eyes, taking in the sight of the little Aesir-looking infant. They say that neither said a word as a little pink arm escaped from the blanket to reach out toward him. They say that Thor watched as if he had doubted he would ever see that meeting, and that Loki grinned, eyes wet, as he extended a finger, allowing it to be gripped in the tiny hand.

Though rare, it sometimes happens that rumors are true.

*

Hours later, when darkness had long since fallen, Loki lay entangled with his spouse. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” he said, his nose buried in the crook of Thor’s neck and the words coming out a little muffled because of it.

Thor only nodded, his arm tightening around Loki’s bare shoulders.

He continued. “I wanted to be. None of it went as I’d planned. I meant it only to be a trip of a few days. I meant to be back long before…”

“I know,” Thor replied, his voice still scratchy and thin from their conversation; he’d told Loki everything. He’d stared up at the ceiling forcing out the words to answer all the questions Loki asked, and Loki had kissed him at each pause to fortify him.

“I wanted to be here,” Loki mused. “I think I feel somewhat cheated, actually. I had been looking forward to that. I wanted to see how you would manage.”

Thor shoved him but then calmed.

“You haven’t told me much of your journey, though,” Thor said at last.

“Lots of magic. Lots of lying. Lots of digging. Nothing terribly exciting.”

“Digging?”

Loki nodded and shrugged but chose not to elaborate, and Thor let his eyes close and counted the slow rise and fall of their breaths as they lay together for a while, relishing the feel of Loki’s hand resting contemplatively on the flat of his abdomen.

“So have you had your fill of this?” Loki asked then, the words slow and careful as his fingers trailed along skin, and it took Thor a moment to realize what Loki was offering to do, and then another moment to be amazed that it had not occurred to him before then that he could, that there was no longer any reason not to.

Surely he wanted to. Surely he should. Surely...

He accepted in a quiet, hesitant, guilty voice, saying that perhaps it would speed the last of his healing that still troubled him weeks after. And he sighed when it was completed, a strangely hollow calm taking up residence in the space left behind.

*

For his part, as the whirlwind died down around them and the chatter of gossip faded away, Loki found he was pleased enough with how it had all come out.

It had not come out as he would have expected. It had left him as the only full-blooded Jotun in Asgard, so that sometimes he felt like a breath of frost in summer, singing ice-lullabies to his daughter when no was else was there to hear, songs from the realm he would most likely never see again. He had given it up. He had weighed it in his palm and cast it aside. It was gone, and everything he had once known with it.

But he had been ready for a change anyway, hadn’t he? He had grown as tired of Jotunheim as it had grown weary of him, its supply of fools at last nearly exhausted, and nothing else to hold him there. And Asgard—Asgard was a whole realm of new and fresh possibilities only waiting for him to discover them! People to whom he was only a rumor and a name. Chances he had never imagined. Things he had never seen.

And the absolute best source of amusement in all of the worlds… was right beside him.

Foolish Thor, who let himself fall for every trick, trusting in Loki not to bring him to any real harm. Guileless Thor, who made no secret of his heart or what it held. Eager Thor, who craved the excitement the trickster brought to his life.

Beloved Thor, who had come to miss Loki’s little gift to him now that it had been gone a while. Loki felt a warm buzz of anticipation in the depths of his stomach.

It was nearly as good as the first time—no, it was better, the way Thor had to work himself up to ask Loki to cast the spell on him once more, and how Loki got to watch him grow restless with the growing discomfort of denial, got to watch him ache and want and bite his tongue while Loki pretended not to notice. It was better; this time he knew Thor would eventually give in, for he knew exactly what he was missing. And how enjoyable it would be to work the trick on a willing and wakeful subject; how Loki would drink in every shocked glisten of Thor’s eyes as he felt Loki’s magic thrumming through his most tender flesh. How Loki looked forward to toying with Thor, making him ask for what he wanted until his cheeks went crimson, and afterward teasing out the gush of his own spend from between Thor’s legs with deft fingers merely to remind him of its significance. And what fun it would be when the inevitable happened again (Ljúfa would at some point require siblings, after all)—the public scandal of the thunder god swelling with child a second time, the consternation and joyous chaos that it would cause. And this time, Loki would not be torn away by anything at all.

Tonight, Loki suspected—they had already enjoyed each other quite well, Thor pounding into him with fierce pent-up lust as the crackling of a storm burst across the skies outside, and now curled against him Thor squirmed where he lay—though he seemed determined to hold out for just a bit longer, soft puffs of breath panting against Loki’s ear.

Loki had to bite his lip to keep from laughing, and on the other side of the window there came a low rumble and a soft patter, as of grey skies and cool gentle breeze, and of rain bringing green to the fields.

***