The White Hart

by Sigridhr

Summary:

Darcy gets invited along to Álfheim by Thor and Jane. After some drinking and Elvish merry making, she runs into an unexpected acquaintance. But when what was meant to be a bizarre-elvish-harvest-tradition induced one night stand turns into a series of increasingly awkward mistakes, Darcy finds Loki is fitting into her life in a much bigger way than she ever intended.

More affectionately known as: Darcy Does the Nine Realms.

Notes:

Repost (Original posted 29/12/12 - 24/11/13). I've had a lot of questions about this (and other fics) coming down which I have largely avoided. Without too much detail it involved a lot of stress and unmedicated issues which are now better resolved. I'm not re-editing this but reposting it for posterity and with apologies.

Any further questions (within reason) can be PM'd to me via my tumblr: sigridhr.tumblr.com.

Chapter 1: The White Hart

“So, this is Álfheim, huh?” Darcy said, looking around with an air of profound skepticism. “I have to say, Thor, when you said we were going to see the Elves, I was expecting a little bit more ‘wisest and fairest of all beings’, and a little less ‘Tra-la-la-lally’.”

“They are a merry folk,” said Thor, looking like he’d understood only one word in four but couldn’t be bothered to ask about it.

Jane chuckled into her wine, the firelight flickering off her mask, casting long shadows on her face.

“So, explain this to me again,” Darcy said.

“We have each drawn masks,” said Thor. “The men are disguised as stags, and the women as does. But one man will draw the mask of the great, white hart. Throughout the evening he will scope out the does, and choose his favourite. If he is fortunate, she will accompany him.” Thor gave a wide, knowing grin at that.

“What are the rest of the stags supposed to do?” Jane asked, leaning comfortably up against Thor’s side.

Thor let out a low chuckle. “There is no rule prohibiting them from choosing a doe, if they should so desire.”

Even through their masks, Darcy could tell they were shooting each-other looks that said alternately, ‘I love you’ and ‘I would like to take your clothes off’. She sipped her wine, staring out at the crowd of Elves and feeling more like an awkward third wheel than ever.

The Elves were, indeed, as Thor had put it, a ‘merry folk’. They were pretty much all drunk as frat boys, and seemed to have no compunction whatsoever about simply grabbing one another and swinging them around the imaginary dance floor that seemed to take up the four metre-or-so circle around the two bonfires in the centre. Darcy also noticed, as she watched two Elves wearing stag masks get their antlers tangled up, that the seemed to have no compunctions about grabbing someone of the same gender, either.

From the ring of spectators around the dance circle, two of the Elves sprang forward, with what looked like giant sparklers. They dropped one on each of the bonfires, and they went up with a bang, sending a plume of flame and smoke up high into the sky. There was a loud cheer from the crowd.

“Come!” Thor called. “We must walk between the fires.”

“Are you insane?” Darcy demanded. “They’ve gone all pillar-of-fire! I like my eyebrows un- singed and on my face, thank you very much.”

Thor just laughed loudly and slapped her on the back so hard she stumbled forwards. “It is quite safe, I assure you,” he said, taking Jane by the hand and heading towards the flames.

The Elves certainly seemed to think so. They were lining up and dashing between the two plumes of flame, sometimes alone and sometimes in groups, twirling around each other and dancing dangerously close to the fire. Darcy saw Thor give Jane a spin around before wrapping one of his huge arms around her waist and holding her close to him.

“Oh, good,” said Darcy aloud. “I’ll just go by myself, then.”

The air was stiflingly hot and close as she stepped towards the flames. A group of Elves skipped past her, singing a song that had a charming, whimsical melody and seemed to consist entirely of synonyms for genitalia. The smoke was so thick she could barely see more than a foot or two in front of her. The sound of the Elves’ laughter and song seemed to fade, until all she could hear was the crackling of the wood and the soft whispers and snaps of embers on the beaten earth.

The smoke ahead of her cleared, and she could see a figure, tall, slim and clothed in a dark robe, standing at the end of the passage. He was wearing the mask of the white hart, thought it seemed to glow almost bright red from the light of the fires. The smoke swirled around him, and it looked, from where Darcy was standing, as if the tongues of the flames were licking the tops of his antlers.

He turned, slightly, and she suddenly felt his gaze on her. She stopped, utterly heedless of the fire around her, and the smoke. She couldn’t see his eyes, but she knew he was looking right at her. She felt his gaze travel down the length of her body, and then even more slowly back up, taking her in. His head tilted slightly to the side, and the movement cast a shadow from the snout of his mask over the bottom of his face. Then, he stepped back, fading back into the smoke.

It took nearly a minute for her to regain control of her own legs. She stumbled out of the passage, and suddenly the roar of the celebrations seemed to start back up again. She was grabbed almost at once by an over-exuberant Elf, who picked her up by the waist and swung her around three times before dropping her unceremoniously back down and grabbing someone else. She staggered away before he could think better of leaving, and leant back against a tree, panting.

She looked around, but saw no sign of the white hart anywhere. She couldn’t find Jane or Thor either. She wondered if she ought to go poking around the shrubbery to see if they’d gone to make out somewhere, but she decided that if they had, she definitely didn’t want to see it.

So, that left drinking – which was what pretty much everyone else was doing. And, hey, it was Halloween, and she was spending it at some kooky harvest festival on another planet, so why not live a little? The wine was sweet and tangy, and her cup had an odd tendency to never empty, no matter how much she drank. It was nearly impossible to go anywhere in the crowd without someone coming around with a jug to refill it, or, on one memorable occasion, drink it, kiss her soundly, if a bit sloppily, refill it and saunter off.

She couldn’t decide whether she really liked, or really hated Elves.

She was starting to get sleepy, and a bit tipsy, and was thinking about tracking Thor down to ask if she could go home, when she caught sight of a flash of white horns moving through the crowd. He was by the other bonfire, circling through the dancers – not participating, but winding his way through the couples, watching.

He turned in her direction, and she felt her mouth go dry and her pulse begin to race. He paused a moment, and was nearly run into by a dancing couple. Then, he began picking his way through the crowd towards her.

She stood, completely still, unable to move even if she’d wanted to, pinned like a butterfly under his gaze. He came to a stop in front of her, and, very slowly, placed a single, slim-fingered hand over his chest, and bowed. Then he straightened, and held out his hand to her.

She looked down at it for a moment, the small, rational part of her brain insisting that this may not be a good idea. Mild inebriation won out, however, and she placed her hand in his.

It was surprisingly warm, and his fingers tightened around hers instantly. He gave her a tug, and she stumbled forwards into his chest. She felt the fingers of his other hand tangle in her hair, running over her scalp and trailing down the nape of her neck. She shivered, the sensation travelling straight to between her legs.

He smelt like smoke and cedar, and the smell of fresh, crisp snow on a cold, clear winter day. She inhaled deeply, too caught up in the moment, and having drunk too much wine, to care about silly things like dignity. Not when there was the offer of potentially the best sex of her life on the table.

He kept his hand on the back of her neck, his fingers dipping under the neckline of her shirt and trailing over her upper back.

He led her away from the fires, and the laughter, into a quiet grove. The stars were bright – brighter than Darcy had ever seen them at home, even in the desert, and they cast everything in a pale light. He knelt down before her, letting his fingers trail slowly down her body as he did so, coming to rest on her hips. Even kneeling he was ridiculously tall, his head came up to just past her shoulder, and the horns made him seem even taller. She reached forward to take his mask off, but he stopped her hand, holding her arm by the wrist.

“Not yet,” he said. His voice was low and smooth, and she couldn’t help but shiver. “It is not yet time.”

He released her wrist, each finger uncurling slowly, and she let it fall by her side. He slipped his fingers under the hem of her shirt, and then lifted it. She raised her arms, and he managed to pull it over her head, keeping her mask in place. He traced the strap of her bra, and then along the top of the cup until he reached the valley between her breasts, and then he went back up again. He seemed more inquisitive than anything else – Darcy supposed the Elves probably didn’t have bras, at least not of the same make – but it raised goosebumps on her skin nonetheless. He hooked a finger under the strap and pulled it up, releasing it with a snap.

“It unbuckles at the back,” said Darcy. “Here, let me –”

He brushed her hands away, rising to his feet and circling around to look at her from behind. She felt his hands brush her hair aside, and then trail down her shoulder-blades to the clasp of her bra. She felt him tug it once, almost experimentally, before the clasp released. He slid the straps down her arms, pressing himself up against her back as he did so and running his hands down her arms until he reached the end. He interlaced their fingers together.

She felt the wood of his mask against her cheek, and he placed a feather-light kiss on her shoulder. Then, without warning, he spun her around until she was facing him. He took her breast in his hand, covering her nipple with his thumb and tracing slow, lazy circles around it. She could just barely see his eyes through the mask, glittering with mischief, and the corner of his lip turned up in a smirk.

She reached out and slid her hands under his outer jacket, and pulled it off him. She made quick work of his jerkin and tunic as well. He was thin, with the build of a swimmer – muscled, but not buff. It wasn’t her usual type, to be honest, but there was something positively magentic about him, and she wasn’t stuck up enough to say no when a good offer was put down in front of her.

He’d moved down to her pants, undoing the clasp and the zip, and then kneeling down in front of her as he slowly slid them down her legs. She stepped out of them, more awkwardly than she would have liked (curse you, skinny jeans!), but the feel of his hands on her calves more than made up for it. His hands drifted up her thighs, thumbs along the inner side, and stopped, teasingly, at the apex where they met. Slowly and deliberately, he ran his thumb along the line of her panties, and her legs almost bucked. He chuckled, low and baritone, and ran his thumb back down and pressed it, unmoving, on her clit.

Instinctively, she reached down and tangled her hand in his hair, closing her eyes and breathing deeply. He seemed to be waiting, still, for a moment, and then he tugged her panties down and pulled them sideways with enough force that they tore.

Almost at the exact same moment, a great cry went up from the bonfires, and she heard cheering. “Midnight,” the white hart said. “It is time. Take off your mask. I want to see your face.”

Her fingers were shaking as she undid the tie at the back of her head that held the mask on. She let it drop to the ground, and she heard a sharp intake of breath from the hart.

“What?” she asked, worriedly. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” he said, after a moment. He reached up and slowly undid the ties on his own mask, and let it fall.

Darcy scrambled back, grabbing her shirt and clutching it over herself as best she could. “Loki.”

He sat back on his heels, watching her with a curiously open expression. He shifted his weight, and she could see the shape of his erection outlined where it strained against his trousers. He followed the line of her gaze, and gave a faint half-smile.

“I have chosen you,” he said, “in the time-honoured custom of Álfheim. I stand by that choice. I am yours for the taking, if you will have me.”

Darcy stared at him in astonishment. “You tried to take over my world. Why on Earth would I sleep with you?”

“Well, for starters,” said Loki, “we are not on Earth. Secondly, I have made reparations to your people – such as they are, and I bear no ill will against you. And thirdly, because you want to.”

Darcy swallowed.

“The meeting of the doe and the hart happens only for one night,” said Loki. “After tonight we go our separate ways – but I can ensure that it is a night you will never forget.”

It didn’t take much imagination to conjure up precisely what that might entail. It was tempting – horribly tempting – like the crown jewel in all of Darcy’s long history of bad-decisions-made-while-inebriated.

“One night?” Darcy asked, hesitantly.

Loki’s smile made it clear that he knew he’d won. “One night,” he echoed.

She nodded, and took a deep breath. “Okay.”

He rolled forward in a fluid motion that nearly made her mouth water, and reached towards her, plucking the shirt out of her hands. Her arm went unconsciously to cover her breasts, and he grabbed her wrist. He was surprisingly gentle as he pulled her hand aside. “You have nothing to feel ashamed of,” he said. “Least of all tonight.”

He pressed a kiss to her collarbone, and scooted forwards, pushing her legs apart with his knees, until he was kneeling between her legs and leaning over her. He trailed kisses down her chest, before taking one nipple into his mouth, running his tongue over the head of it. She grabbed the back of his head, and hooked her legs around the back of his thighs, pulling him closer.

He continued moving downwards, dipping his tongue into the hollow of her belly button, before slipping his arms under her legs and pulling them up, until they rested comfortably over his shoulders. He looked up at her, as if waiting for confirmation, his expression surprisingly kind.

She nodded slightly, biting her lip. He grinned widely, and then bent down and flicked his tongue over her clit. She jerked upwards, and he reached out to place a firm hand over her hipbone, holding her down. He was slow, meticulous and exploratory. He’d gauge her responses surprisingly effectively, focusing on the things that made her body jerk and her hips lilt upwards, until she had to cover her mouth with her hand to muffle her moans. Slowly he slipped one long, slim finger into her, and curled it back towards him in just the right place. She arched her back, digging her heels into his shoulders, trying to pull him even closer.

She was so, sosososo close, his tongue alternating flicking and swirling over her clit, his fingers working inside her, moving faster and faster. She felt every nerve, every muscle in her body clenched in anticipation, winding her tighter and tighter around his fingers and his tongue, and she just needed it that little bit faster and right there – and suddenly she came apart, shuddering and shivering.

Loki sat back, pulling his fingers out of her slowly. He held them up, rubbing them experimentally with his thumb, before he brought them to his mouth and licked them clean.

Darcy promptly died, resuscitated, and died again.

He was watching her, waiting for her to indicate the next move. She sat up, still shaky, loose- limbed and content, and pushed him down onto his back. His hair splayed out around him like a dark halo, and the stars reflected in his eyes. She straddled him, planting and hand on either side of his head and looking down at him. Her hair tumbled over her shoulder and brushed against his cheek, but he remained utterly motionless.

She could feel his erection through his trousers, pressing up against her. Slowly she rocked forwards and back, and his eyes flickered shut and his lips parted slightly. She smirked, rolling forwards and back a little more firmly. His hips tilted up to meet her, and his eyes opened, his pupils wide and dark as he watched her.

She crawled down his body, undoing the fastenings of his trousers and pulling them off as she went, before coming back up to straddle his thighs. He rose up onto his elbows, leaning back and watching her.

She wrapped a hand firmly around his cock, running her thumb over the head before stroking him once, twice. He swallowed, and she saw his adam’s apple bob.

He looked astonishingly vulnerable. His eyes were wide and cautious, and the starlight made him look young. His brows were drawn up slightly, and she could see his chest rising and falling rapidly as he breathed. On impulse, she leant forward and kissed him, cradling his cheek with her hand.

When she pulled back, he looked startled. They stayed like that for a moment, just looking at each other, until Darcy felt his cock twitch in her hand.

She rose up onto her knees, aligning herself over him, and then sunk down onto him, keeping eye contact with him the whole time. His eyes shut and his head fell back, and she gave her inner muscles an experimental squeeze. He groaned, low and sultry, and that was all the incentive she needed to wrap her arms over his shoulders and start moving.

He bent his knees and sat up, wrapping one arm tight around her waist to hold her to him and using the other to brace himself, and his head dropped forward as he pressed his nose to the hollow where her neck met her shoulder. His hips were canting upwards erratically, and all she could do was just wrap her arms around him and hold on tight.

He came apart, shuddering, with a gasp. She wouldn’t have heard it at all if his face hadn’t been pressed against her neck – as it was, she felt his exhalation against her skin. He clung to her, his hand tight around her waist for a long moment, and they stayed there, shivering together, under the light of Álfheim’s stars.

She felt him press a kiss against her collarbone again – it had an odd sort of symmetry to it – before he sat back, gently, but firmly, pushing her off him. He rose, a bit unsteadily, and gathered his clothes, dressing in a perfunctory fashion. Feeling oddly numb, Darcy followed suit.

When she was dressed, he bent down and picked up her mask, examining it for a moment, before reaching out and handing it to her. She took it, and his hand darted out to grab her wrist. He looked at her, an inscrutable expression his face, and she felt his fingers move in a gentle, oddly intimate, caress along the inside of her wrist.

Then, he let go, and stepped back. He inclined his head towards her, and said, “may the wealth of your harvest be great.”

Before she could come up with a reply, he had turned and was gone, leaving her alone.

Chapter 2: The Lyre

Summary:

What happened in Álfheim was supposed to stay in Álfheim, but things don't always go according to plan...

Svartálfaheim reminded her of a medieval market. It bustled with a vivacity that she found as unbelievably charming as it was utterly overwhelming. The market stalls were all but overflowing with some of the most incredible pieces of craftsmanship she’d ever seen – beautiful wood-carved harps and instruments, side-by-side with jewellery of colours so remarkably bright that she’d swear they’d been photoshopped glinting off of stones cut with such precision they seemed to radiate their own light. Interspersed through it all were stands of fruit, some varieties of which she’d never seen the like of, and bolts of cloth in bright green, turquoise and deep, radiant gamboge. All around her shouts went up, calling out prices and wares on top of one another, in a cacophony of city life.

She loved it here. She felt like a kid in a candy store, darting left and right almost simultaneously, picking up pots and necklaces and turning them over in her hands in appreciation. Thor followed along at a more sedate pace, chuckling as he answered her questions and translated for her like an indulgent papa. Jane seemed much less enthusiastic by all the hustle and bustle, sticking close to Thor’s side, but she was curious by nature, and Darcy could practically see Jane planning a write- up of the whole event in her mind.

Darcy fingered the small amount of coin she had in her purse. She’d forced Thor to work out an acceptable exchange rate for her (which, in the end Jane had done, and Thor had absent-mindedly nodded his approval in the general direction of), and she’d changed some of her cash and a promise to buy Thor dinner at the restaurant of his choice in New York for some of the local currency.

Because, if you’re going to go shopping, go big or go home is really the only approach to take towards a trans-dimensional trip. She wasn’t sure how far it would go, though, but she was starting to get an idea based on the prices she’d seen. It wasn’t a huge sum, but it would be more than enough for a couple bolts of cloth, or small pieces of jewellery as keepsakes. What she wanted most of all was one of the harps, but she hadn’t needed to ask to know that they were well out of her price range.

Thor didn’t seem to have a price range. Darcy couldn’t help the thought – though she’d never voice it aloud – that Thor was pretty much Jane’s sugar daddy, the way he was carrying on. He kept foisting jewellery on her, that Jane awkwardly attempted to refuse, but caved in on the ones she really took a liking to. They were early wedding presents, Thor insisted, and promised many more once they were wed.

Sugar. Daddy, thought Darcy, grinning. Still, there was something both painfully envy-inducing (though she’d never admit it), and really pleasing about seeing Jane so obviously happy. It didn’t do much to get rid of the awkward feeling that she was currently what you’d get if you looked up the expression ‘Third Wheel’ in the dictionary, but she was first and foremost Jane’s friend, and she wanted Jane to be happy. With her super rich, super buff, viking space god boyfriend.

Jane wrapped her arm around Thor’s waist, snuggling against his side looking content. Thor gave her a distracted smile, and tightened his grip around her shoulders, looking through bolts of cloth to find something his mother had requested.

“Are you guys gonna be a while?” Darcy asked.

When Thor didn’t reply right away, Jane gave him a gentle nudge. He looked down at her, smiling like a content puppy.

“Darcy asked if we were going to be a while,” Jane said.

Thor looked over to Darcy with a smile. “My apologies, Darcy,” he said. “My mother was not overly specific in her request, but I fear she may expect a specific colour nonetheless. I have found it is safest to make an informed decision in such matters.”

Darcy grinned. “Oh, I know that feeling. My mum’s exactly the same.” She shoved her hands in her pockets and looked around. “Do you guys mind if I just wander for a bit? I think I’ve got the hang of how to ask for the price now. We could meet back here in a couple hours?”

Jane seemed torn between concern, and pleasure at the idea of getting some time alone with Thor. “Are you sure you’d be OK?”

“Sure,” said Darcy. “It’s safe here, isn’t it?”

Thor nodded. “Here,” he said, detaching one of the clasps of his cloak. “Take this.” He pressed it into her hand, and she turned it over with a frown.

“Uh, thanks,” she said, at something of a loss.

Thor grinned. “It bears the insignia of my house. Should you run into any trouble, declare yourself as under the protection of Thor Odinson, and call for me – I shall come.”

“Wait,” said Jane. “What do you mean ‘if she should run into trouble’? I thought you said it was safe.”

“Nowhere is truly safe, Jane,” Thor said, softly. “But Svartálfaheim is a friendly realm, and its people are good, if not the most pleasant. She should come to no harm in a couple of hours.”

“It’s fine,” said Darcy, tucking the clasp into her purse carefully. “You kids have fun. Stay out of trouble, stay out of trees!” She gave them a wave and sauntered off. Behind her, she could hear Thor asking Jane why Darcy thought they might be interested in climbing trees.

Without the imposing figure of Thor the tumult of the market seemed to be much more oppressive. She could smell meat roasting in what looked to be a Dwarf version of a shady kebab stand, and she was very nearly tempted to try some. But food poisoning was a pretty ignominious way to go out, all things considered. She passed an armoury, and actually paused and did a double take, before walking over.

They were magnificent. She remembered Thor mentioning once that Mjolnir had been made by the Dwarves. She doubted that the weapons she saw here were anything near the same calibre, but they looked impressive to her – long, thin, graceful daggers, thick broadswords, and fiendishly- sharp looking axes were laid out side by side. One had a decorative pattern etched into the blade like climbing vines. The armourer was eyeing her suspiciously – she could guess why: she probably didn’t look like the sort to go buying broadswords.

She was busy looking at a pair of throwing daggers, with cloisonné hilts decorated in patterns of red, blue and gold, when someone came up beside her. The armourer sprang to life with a pleased ‘Ah!’, brought out two larger throwing daggers from the back of his shop and laid them out on the display bench.

They were gorgeous work – inlaid with green glass in the hilt, and curved wickedly at the end. It was only when she saw the hand that reached out to take them that she realised who she was standing next to.

She gasped, and took a step back.

Loki glanced over at her, looked her up and down once, and returned to admiring his daggers. It was odd, seeing him again. She sometimes thought that she must’ve imagined the whole harvest festival on Álfheim thing, because it seemed so impossibly surreal that she had slept with Loki. Except she had a very real souvenir from the experience: the delicately carved wooden mask that lived carefully hidden away in the back of her underwear drawer. She tried to ignore the implicit symbolism of that particular hiding place.
And here he was again, turning up out of the goddamn blue. And he hadn’t even called.

Loki seemed satisfied with the craftsmanship, thanked the armourer and tucked the daggers away, before turning back towards her.

“Where is Thor and his new intended?” he asked.

“Seriously?” said Darcy incredulously, her anxiety at seeing him melting away in favour of annoyance. “We have sex in some weirdo Elven harvest ritual, I don’t see you for six months, we run into each other randomly in a Dwarf market, and that’s the most important question on your mind?”

“Obviously,” said Loki, his lips thinning with irritation.

“They’re buying cloth for your mother,” said Darcy sullenly.

“She’s not my mother,” said Loki shortly, his voice curiously toneless.

Darcy shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Loki scowled at her.

“Well,” said Darcy, with exaggerated cheer. “Fun as this has been, I think I’m just gonna... go.”

“No,” said Loki sharply.

Darcy went very still, beginning to think that she might be in a lot more trouble than she’d realised. Loki was still staring at her, apparently oblivious to the loud sounds of the market around them, and the cries of the merchant next to him who was desperately trying to get him to look at some goat cheese.

“What are you going to do to me?” she asked, nervously.

“I haven’t decided,” said Loki. “Why are you here?”

“Jane and Thor are buying things for the wedding,” Darcy replied.

Loki’s face took on a pinched look of distaste at the mention of Thor’s impending nuptials. “That’s not what I meant. Why are you here? Alone?”

“I am actually capable of looking after myself, you know,” said Darcy. “Thor and Jane wanted some alone time, I wanted to wander freely – we’re all adults, so that’s what we did. Why is that so odd?”

Loki was looking at her, eyebrow raised and lips quirked upwards in amusement. “No doubt,” he said, drily. “However, I was under the impression that Thor kept a tight leash on his... toys.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Darcy asked, flatly.

“It means that I have twice now found you alone in places where I ought not expect you to be,” he said. “And I do not believe in coincidences.”

“I suppose the better question is whether coincidences believe in you,” Darcy said, crossing her arms. Loki gave her a look that spoke volumes about how unimpressed he was with that statement.

“Why are you following me?” he demanded.

“I’m not! I don’t want to follow you. I don’t want anything to do with you. I don’t want random sex in the woods, or to get murdered or anything else that might happen that doesn’t involve me walking away in one piece right now.”

“No?” Loki asked, stepping forwards, and dropping the tenor of his voice to a sultry purr. “I was under the impression that, when last we met, you very much did want ‘random sex in the woods’.”

Darcy raised her hand, pointing her finger threateningly under his nose. “Whoa, no. No, no, no. You stay right there. And put that voice away.”

“What voice?” Loki asked, his lips curving upwards deviously. “That’s just my voice.”

“It’s your sex voice. And we,” she pointed back and forth between the two of them, “are not having sex. Got it?”

Loki looked her up and down, ostentatiously taking his time. “No?” he asked, lightly. “Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it – I know that you enjoyed yourself thoroughly.”

“Enjoyed. Past tense,” said Darcy, tersely. “Besides, why are you even doing this? I thought you suspected me of spying on you for reasons unknown – as if I literally have nothing better to do than follow you around the cosmos.”

Loki gave her an odd look, his brows furrowing in confusion. “You aren’t what I expected,” he said.

“Sorry,” Darcy replied glibly. “Look – the whole thing on Álfheim – it was a mistake, and I’m sorry. I had a crisis of judgement, and hormones, and it shouldn’t have happened at all.”

Loki hadn’t moved, nor had his expression changed.

Darcy shoved her hands in the pockets of her jeans, and rocked back on her heels. “Right,” she said. “Well, if that’s everything...”

“You believe it was a mistake,” Loki said, watching her face closely as if he were searching for something.

“Well, yeah,” said Darcy, a bit flabbergasted. “I mean, it was uh... I had a good time. But, you’re... you and I’m friends with Thor and Jane, and it’s weird.”

“I chose you,” said Loki, with that same oddly intent expression. “Couplings of the harvest festival are meant to be fleeting, but not taken lightly.”

“I don’t understand,” Darcy said.

Loki sighed, and ran his hand through his hair in frustration. It caused it to lose some of its hold, falling around his face instead of staying slicked back close to his head. He looked around the crowded market before scowling, and stepping forward to grab hold of her arm.

“This is not a conversation I wish to have in the open,” he said by way of explanation, as he led her through the crowded streets.

“Wait,” Darcy said, tugging at his grip on her arm. “Where are you taking me?”

“Relax,” snapped Loki. “Your virtue is safe with me.”

“I think we’ve already crossed that bridge and burnt it,” Darcy muttered.

He lead her into a small alleyway off one of the side streets, away from the crowds. The busy clamour of the markets faded to a low hum, and the jetties above cast the alley into dark shadows, despite the midday sun overhead. He released her, stepping back and crossing his arms.

She made a show of rubbing her arm where he’d grabbed it. Served him right.

“The harvest festival is a time-honoured tradition on Álfheim,” he said. “While it is not unheard of for couples who meet as the white hart and doe to remain together, it is not a common occurrence. However, the bond between the hart and doe is symbolic of a successful harvest, and signifies a good reaping of the crops and good fortune for the coming year.”

“Okay,” Darcy said, slowly, not entirely sure why he’d dragged her all the way here to tell her this.

He gave her an exasperated look. “To say it was a mistake is to render it unsuccessful, and nullify their good fortune.”

Darcy stared at him in astonishment. She let out a low bark of laughter. “You’re not serious.”

Loki glowered furiously. “This is not a joke. I gave you the chance to refuse – better to have not
completed the ritual at all, then to go back on it now.”

“How can anything I think about what happened have any effect whatsoever on the outcome of the harvest on another planet.”

“I thought you knew,” said Loki quietly. “I would not have permitted it if I had suspected this might occur.”

“You are actually serious,” Darcy repeated, a bit dazedly. “The harvest on Álfheim depends on me not regretting having tipsy sex with you.”

“There’s no need to sound like it was such a chore,” Loki snapped. “I gave you every opportunity to refuse.”

“You had most of my clothes off!” Darcy shouted.

“You came willingly,” Loki sneered. “And I heard nothing but the mildest of protestations.”

“So, what, you’ve dragged me down here to prove a point? I’m a lowly mortal, you’re a sex god, and I should grovel at your feet for the sake of a fucking harvest, is that it?”

“You shouldn’t involve yourself in things you do not understand if you are not prepared to deal with the consequences,” Loki said, his voice low and dangerous. He took a step towards her, moving right into her personal space. Unconsciously she took a step back, and found she was right up against the wall.

“You should have explained it to me,” she said furiously.

“You took a mask, you took my hand.” He stepped forward again until there was barely an inch between them. He leant his hands on the wall on either side of her shoulders, pinning her in place. She swallowed, and felt herself blushing, much to her consternation.

She’d never hated the disconnect between her brain and her body more than she did in that moment, because her brain was creating a systematic list of all the reasons why this was a bad idea – at the top of which was the fact that the last time she’d done this, she’d apparently taken on the responsibility of ensuring food supplies for an entire people for a year –, but her body was practically screaming at the closeness of Loki. She felt light headed, and her legs went wobbly as her heart began to race in anticipation.

Loki was breathing deeply, his face held in a carefully neutral expression, but she could sense, from the tightness of his body, like a coiled spring, that he was carefully – and barely – keeping himself in some kind of check.

“I didn’t know what it meant,” she said, her voice sounding slightly hoarse.

There was a flicker of something – remorse, possibly – that ran across Loki’s face. He looked away, turning his head and exposing the long pale line of his neck.

“What do I need to do?” she asked, quietly.

He looked back at her, startled.

“For the harvest,” she said. “What would I need to do?”

He didn’t move back, but something in his posture seemed to relax slightly and his face softened. “You must simply accept within yourself that you have taken on this charge, that you entered willingly into congress with me, and that it was not done by mistake.”

“And if I can’t?” she asked.

His expression closed off, like the shutters dropping over a window. “Then you cannot. And I extend my apologies for any harm that I have caused.”

Darcy fell silent, thinking back on that night. She’d be lying if she said she felt wholly comfortable with it. But, then again, she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t enjoyed it. It felt almost dream-like in her memory, like a faded echo of a memory rather than something she had genuinely experienced.

The hangup was, essentially, the morning after effect. Because, good sex or no (and it was good sex – there was no denying that), it was Loki. Loki who had tried to destroy her world, who had sent a weapon through the Bifrost to kill his own brother.

Who had gently kissed her clavicle after he’d chosen her – without knowing who she was – out of the crowd.

“Why didn’t you say no?” she asked. “When you found out it was me. You said I had ample opportunity to back out. So did you. So, why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t want to,” he said, softly. He was looking straight down into her eyes, his face close enough to her own that it would take only a few inches’ movement to close the gap between their mouths.

“Why did you chose me, then?”

“The harvest is about plenty,” he said. “About celebration, and feasting. It is about indulging in the things we enjoy before the long, patient rationing of winter.”

She felt her heart leap up into her throat at that. Loki took the plunge.

He bent his head, pressing his lips to hers, and the list of reasons why this wasn’t a good idea went straight out the window. She wrapped her arms around his neck, giving herself better leverage to press herself up against him. He wrapped his hands around the back of her thighs and lifted her up, wrapping her legs around his waist and pinning her to the wall. There was something frantic and frenzied and dirty about it all – outside where they could, conceivably, be spotted by a passerby.

His fingers were already undoing the button on her jeans and sliding her zipper down. He yanked them down over her hips, only far enough that he could slip his fingers into her panties and start working circles around her clit. She gasped, arching back against the wall, clutching at his shoulders, and he pressed an open-mouthed, desperate kiss to her neck.

The angle was awkward and his fingers were pressing so hard it was nearly painful, but she just dug her fingernails into his back, scraping them against the leather and pressing as hard as she could. He was rubbing himself against her, she could feel him pressing against her inner thigh as he thrust into her in a frantic, erratic rhythm. She tightened her legs around him, moving her hips to rock against him, and he groaned, low and loud.

She thought for a second that someone must have heard them, but he twisted his wrist and slipped one finger into her, and she leant forwards against him, stifling her cry in his shoulder. She bit down on the fabric of his jerkin, as his finger curled inside her – it wasn’t enough, not enough, but she didn’t want to let go in case this desperate, fragile rhythm came apart.

He was panting against her shoulder, and she grabbed his face in her hands and pressed a bruising kiss to his mouth, taking his bottom lip between her teeth and scraping them across it in an almost feral gesture of pure want. He gasped into her mouth, and rocked up hard against her, slamming her back into the wall. His thumb worked quick circles around her clit, and she heard herself making desperate, breathy noises of a kind she’d never, ever imagined herself making. His free hand slid under her shirt and up her stomach and pulled her breast free of her bra pinching her nipple between his thumb and forefinger, and she cried out aloud, clutching at him as she shook with white-hot pleasure.

She felt him thrust against her thigh once, twice, and then sag against her, pressing his forehead against her shoulder and panting. Slowly he pulled his fingers out of her panties, and stood motionless, resting up against her with his head bowed.

She ran her hands, with a tenderness that surprised even herself, up his arms, wrapping them around his neck, and she just hugged him, standing still together in the dark alley, panting as the sounds of the busy street hummed in the distance.

“I wanted you,” he said, roughly, resting his hands on her waist. “I wanted you to want this.”

“This isn’t a thing,” she said, firmly – or, as firmly as she could manage while her legs still felt like jelly.

Loki stepped back, his jaw tight, and he straightened his clothes with as much dignity as he could muster. Darcy blushed, redoing her jeans. Her fingers fumbled on the button as her hands shook.

“I just mean – this isn’t a regular thing,” she clarified. “I don’t regret it. I mean that. I just... don’t think it’ll happen again.”

This seemed to mollify Loki somewhat. He nodded. Then, he reached out and ran his hand through her hair, and straightened the collar of her shirt. “I expect you do not wish Thor to know what we have been doing,” he said, when she stared at him.

Darcy felt herself go bright red. “Uh, no. Thanks.”

He nodded. “If we are not to meet again,” he said, “then I bid you farewell, Darcy.” “Uh, yeah, you too,” Darcy replied, feeling extremely awkward.

Loki looked her over one more time, before turning down the alleyway and slipping silently back into the crowd. Darcy leant back against the wall, shaking from head to toe, and slid down until she was sitting, dropping her head onto her knees.

It took her nearly ten minutes before she could stand up again. The light when she emerged from the alley was so bright she squinted. The shouts of the merchants swelled around her, like a bright, irrepressible cacophony of motion and life, but she felt oddly detached from it. She wandered aimlessly around, none of the shops holding the same interest as they had before.

She finally gave up and began to head back to the square where she’d planned to meet Thor and Jane, hoping she didn’t look too dishevelled. She wasn’t sure what she would rather they think: that she had sex with Loki, or that she had sex with a random Dwarf.

She was almost there when she passed the music stand, and the luthier called out to her by name. She stopped, and stared at him in astonishment.

“Your order is ready,” he said, passing her a parcel, wrapped in a deep green cloth. “I didn’t order anything,” she said, stupefied.

“He said you’d come to pick it up,” the luthier said, grinning. “He described you – we don’t get many wearing clothes like yours around these parts.”

“But I haven’t –”

He waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal. “It’s all paid, Miss. Here you are.”

She turned the bundle over in her hands, and carefully untied the cord. The cloth fell aside, and she that it was an elegantly carved lyre. She ran her finger along the delicate pattern of runes etched into the neck. Her chest felt oddly tight as she strummed the strings, and it made a sound clear and bright like a running river.

The luthier was still grinning at her.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, awestruck.

“We do good work. The finest around,” he said with a grin. “Good day to you.”

It was obviously Loki. She wanted to give the harp back – but there was no way to return the money, and it was extremely beautiful. He had to have been following her. She’d spent a good ten minutes admiring this specific harp earlier when she’d been browsing with Thor.

She scowled, wrapping the harp back up in the cloth and heading back to meet Thor and Jane. She’d return it, she vowed to herself, if she ever saw him again. And if not – well, it was a beautiful keepsake.

Now all she needed were lessons on how to play.

Chapter 3: The Carnation

Summary:

Darcy attends a May day festival on Vanaheim. Loki turns up to fuck things up, and winds up fucking Darcy instead.

If it hadn’t been part of the lead up to the wedding, and if Jane hadn’t pulled out the full guilt-trip ‘you’re coming, right?’ just as she’d been about to say that she was sitting this one out, she’d never have gone. She probably would have kicked herself for it – Vanaheim was beautiful, and she would have regretted missing it.

They were also going for the May day celebrations, which, given it seemed (from a cursory google search) that ninety-nine percent of pagan summer rituals boiled down to the words ‘fertility rite’, seemed like a plan that was going to backfire spectacularly given her not-so-good track record of keeping it in her pants while on foreign planets. Even Jane had looked a little wary when Darcy’d shared her concerns (though without mentioning Loki in any way whatsoever) – especially since Thor (and more emphatically Frigga) was dragging them along to receive a blessing on their impending union.

Darcy tried to imagine little baby Thors running around with chemistry sets and a complete and utter lack of any fashion sense to speak of, and decided this was either going to be really, really good, or really, really bad.

Vanaheim, however, was stunning. There was an air of indefinable gravitas to it – and it seemed permeated with a sense of great age and venerability, like it was rising from the depths of a memory she’d once held, but since forgotten. It was odd, after hanging around Thor and literal gods who had stepped straight out of legend and into Jane’s trailer in the New Mexico desert, that it was Vanaheim that, for the first time, made her feel truly small and very, very inconsequential.

Stepping out of the bright whirlwind of the Bifrost, the first she saw of Vanaheim was a great hill, rising above her. Atop the hill sat a great hall, thatched with gold that seemed to catch the light and appear as if it were ablaze. A long path snaked its way up the hillside, dotted with houses and market stalls, and it seemed to be buzzing with energy as people milled about.

Darcy stood there staring, until Jane gave her a nudge.

Odin and Frigga led their procession, decked out in full honours – all the pomp and circumstance got broken out for special occasions, apparently – and passed through the great gates at the foot of the hill. The doors to the city were wrought of wood, but inlaid in gold upon them was a emblematic pattern of two great hounds, coiled around one another. They stood at least ten feet high, towering over Darcy, and the great jaws of the hounds were at head-height as she passed through them.

She felt painfully underdressed, in the simple blue gown that had been loaned to her upon Frigga’s request. She wasn’t accustomed to full-length skirts, and had felt awkward and ungainly to start with (especially since it had been sewn – hand-sewn, she’d noted – for someone slightly less well- endowed than she, but there had been no time for alterations, so she’d settled for draping an embroidered shawl over her shoulders). At first she’d almost refused, thinking it was too nice a gown for her to borrow – and worrying that she’d wind up ripping it, or running through mud or something else equally stupid, and very, very like her before the night was through – but she realised now that it was actually quite plain, compared to the dresses of the Vanir.

Jane seemed to be coming to the same conclusion. Darcy saw her tugging awkwardly at her skirts.

The procession up the hill was slow. Odin and Frigga seemed to be milking their public appearance, and that of their entourage (which included Thor, decked out in a the most ridiculous helmet Darcy had ever seen) for all it was worth. They stopped to talk to several people along the way, and Darcy was half expecting a photo-op with Odin holding someone’s baby to happen any second. Apparently some things were universal, and politics was certainly on that list.

Nevertheless, it gave her a chance to look around. She could tell that her presence, and Jane’s, had elicited some comment. More than once she’d caught people looking their way and speaking softly to one another. Thor, too, seemed to pick up on it, and made a point of taking Jane’s hand in his own and staring defiantly forwards with a smile fixed, if a bit rigidly, on his face. Darcy wanted to hug him. But it did mean that, once again, she was playing third wheel.

She didn’t have much of a chance to wander or ask questions, but it seemed as if the hill was divided into quarters. They passed through a residential area without stopping. There were longhouses, spread out spaciously upon the hill, and behind them, from what she could see, farmland and pastures. The animals were housed inside the homes, from what she could see, and each had a great firepit in the centre. Thor pointed out further pasturelands outside the gate, and mentioned that many of the animals were taken up into the hills to pass the summer, and to rotate the grazing on the pastureland. Cutting through the rolling green fields as a clear blue river, running swiftly. On the far side, to the west, were great mounds, like barrows, that cast long shadows in the early evening light.

There was a mercantile quarter, too. She knew when they passed the tannery – it smelt absolutely godawful, and both she and Jane had to cover their noses. Thor laughed and blithely informed them that the awful smell was the urine used in the tanning process, and Darcy gave him a flat look before marching on as quickly as she could manage without stepping on Frigga’s heels. But the spinners and weavers fascinated her. She stopped in her tracks, and had to be pulled along by a chuckling Thor, who promised her he’d take her back to have another look later. There were great looms, with half-finished patterns of looping celtic knots, and great, (albeit stinky) vats of dye, laid into the ground. There was a long hall, decorated with an inlaid gold motif depicting the sun and the moon above its red doors.

“That is the hall of the weavers,” said Thor, leaning over to speak in what was Thor’s approximation of a whisper (which was amply loud enough for Jane to hear from where she was standing on his other side). “The Vanir have some skill at foresight. Their tapestries depict things that may come to pass.”

“May?” asked Darcy, curiously.

Thor gave her a lopsided grin. “Predicting the future is a tricky business. There is not one future, but many. So it is difficult to say that they have not predicted a future, but it is certainly not always that they have predicted the future.”

Darcy grinned widely. “Skeptic? I dig it.”

“I merely maintain a healthy dose of uncertainty when it comes to things I have not yet done,” he said.

“Are there predictions about you?” Jane asked curiously.

Thor shrugged. “Very likely. But I wouldn’t worry, my Jane.”

“But some of them do come true,” Jane said, frowning. “Aren’t you curious?”

Thor laughed, and wrapped an arm around her waist, tugging her to his side. “And if they do come to pass, then I will discover them in due course, and if they do not, I shall not be weighted with false expectation. To know the future is a dangerous thing, for if it is indeed the future, it cannot be changed.”

“If it is a future,” Jane replied. “You sound almost like you believe in quantum theory, Thor.”

Thor really ought to have known better than to ask what quantum theory was. Both he and Darcy were looking slightly dazed as they continued up the hill.

Away to the side, near the tannery, where the wind blew the worst of the smell out into the valley, were the forges, that belched smoke and steam like sleeping dragons. The best of their weapons were purchased from the dwarves, Thor informed her, but the Vanir themselves were not incapable of producing their own blades.

They came at last to the steps of the great hall. The steps were decorated with the same pattern of two great hounds that had adorned the gate, laid out in stones of red, green and grey. Darcy noticed that the pillars on either side of the hall doors were carved like two great sentinels, their swords crossed atop the entrance. Odin and Frigga stepped into the hall, side by side, and the door warden announced them, and their full formal titles.

At the far end of the hall, Freyr and Freyja descended from the dais. They, too, were announced, with full honours and titles, and Darcy resisted the urge to shrink back behind Thor.

It was odd. Perhaps it was because she’d tasered Thor the first time she’d met him, or because she’d seen him wearing Jane’s old ex-boyfriend’s clothes and watched him make eggs in the morning and generally be normal (or as close to ‘normal’ as Thor ever managed, really), but he never seemed that god-like to Darcy. Asgard had been a bit overwhelming the first time she’d been, but even then, it was Thor’s family and they were pleased (or at least put on a good show of being pleased) about Jane’s engagement to Thor and had pretty much treated Darcy with as much kindness and welcome as they’d extended to Jane.

But here, in the hall, Freyja and Freyr genuinely seemed like gods. She knew that, really, they were aliens. Somehow that didn’t help much.

They were tall, Freyja as tall as Thor and nearly as stocky. She was beautiful despite that, however, her long, unbound hair flowing down her back, and her face was bright with joy. Brísingamen practicaly glowed upon her breast. She and Freyr greeted each of them in turn, clasping hands with Odin, Frigga and Thor. To Darcy and Jane’s surprise, they showed them equal welcome, clasping their hands tightly and formally welcoming them to Vanaheim.

Freyja’s grip was tight and vice-like around Darcy’s hand, but her eyes were warm and curious as she unabashedly looked her up and down. “Welcome, Darcy of Midgard, to Vanaheim,” she said. “May our good fortune be yours also.”

Feeling a bit like her legs were jello, and trying not to sound as wobbly as she felt when she spoke, Darcy said, “thank you, my lady.” She immediately wondered if that was a little bit too Renaissance fair, and whether she was supposed to address Freyja some other way, but Freyja simply nodded and released her hand.

Freyr paid her much less attention, but was courteous and repeated Freyja’s greeting. He released her hand as soon as he’d finished, though, and didn’t spare her a second glance. Darcy got the feeling he might, in other circumstances, have wiped his hand off after shaking hers.

After the pleasantries were exchanged, Freyr raised his hands above his head and gave a great clap, like rolling thunder, and at once the hall sprang to life. Fires roared to life in the torches upon the wall, and Vanir poured out from the wings, carrying great platters of food – heaped piles of fruit, roast hogs, bread and great bowls of honey-coloured mead that made Thor’s eyes light up in delight.

Dinner was, in a word, pandemonium. It seemed like all of Vanaheim had come, and great, long tables were placed in the hall. Thor, Jane, Odin and Frigga were placed at the high table with Freyja and Freyr, and several other Vanir Darcy hadn’t met. For a long, awkward moment she’d been left standing in the middle of it all, turning round and round trying to figure out where she was supposed to go, but Sif had seen her and kindly offered her a place with herself and the Warriors Three. Within moments of seating themselves, however, things got very rowdy, very quickly.

It was common for someone to jump up at a moment’s notice and launch into a rude song about someone else (presumably someone they were sitting with), which was often followed by cheering, mead-drinking, and an equally rude rebuttal, in that order. Fandral got in on the act almost immediately (there were, apparently, quite a few people who were inclined to write rude ditties about Fandral), and he spent most of the evening drinking and coming up with (occasionally impressive) rhymes about certain Vanir (one of whom seemed to have a greater- than-average affection for his cattle, which pretty much put Darcy off her dinner). It was like a giant, weird, rap battle-cum-food fight, as loaves of bread were tossed over plates piled high with meat, gravy and pickled cabbage. Volstagg seemed to be in his element, methodically working his way through each dish with a sort of aplomb that Darcy envied. She was already full.

“Just nibble,” said Sif, softly. “It’s rude to finish altogether while the meal is still in progress.”

“Is it always like this?” Darcy asked, wonderingly.

Sif shrugged. “This is not so bad – they’re not much in their cups yet.”

Given she’d seen Fandral polish off four great bowls of mead already, she was wondering precisely how much it took to get an Asgardian ‘in his cups’.

The eating, however, seemed to be winding down, and, just when Darcy was starting to think that if she nibbled on any more bread she wouldn’t be able to move, Freyr stood and clapped his hands once more.

The hall fell silent.

“Come,” said Freyr. “The wheel has turned once more, and it is time to celebrate the spring and the advent of summer. It is the cross-quarter day. Let us usher in the summer months with dancing and drink!”

There was a great cheer at this prospect, primarily from people who had already begun a great deal of ushering with drink. There was a great scraping of chairs as they all stood and left the hall, most bringing their mugs or bowls of mead with them. Sif placed a hand on Darcy’s back, gently guiding her out of the hall through the crowd.

They walked back down the hill in smaller groups, the Vanir laughing and chattering to one another around them. Some stooped along the way to gather flowers, and Darcy saw several Vanir girls run by with flowers braided into their hair. At the head of their procession Darcy could see Jane, looking very, very short between Thor and Frigga.

“What’s going on now?” Darcy asked.

“Maypole dancing,” said Sif. “And then they will light the fires.”

“Sorry,” said Darcy, stopping in her tracks. “Did you say pole dancing?”

Sif looked at her in a mixture of curiosity and amusement. “Maypole dancing,” she repeated. “And a great deal of other dancing as well. It is also customary for the men to give flowers to the women. If you collect seven kinds, and place them under your pillow, you will have dreams of your sweetheart. They are usually given in receipt of dances.”

“You do realise that all this sounds like you’re all in middle school, right?”

Sif ignored her, continuing down the hill. Fandral looked over at her curiously. “Middle school?” he asked.

“Nevermind,” Darcy said, waving her hand dismissively.

“Well,” Fandral said, cheerily. “In that case, will you do me the honour of a dance, Darcy?” He held out a small white flower.

“I don’t really –”

“It’s the beginning of summer,” Sif said, laughing and giving Darcy a gentle shove in Fandral’s direction. He deftly caught her, and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, tucking the flower behind her ear. “Give him his dance,” Sif continued. “He’ll not stop pestering you if you don’t.”

“Indeed not,” said Fandral, grinning. “Here, stop a moment.” He spun Darcy around like a child, and tucked the flower he’d given her behind his own ear for safekeeping.

“What are you –?” Darcy began, but he simply tutted her, tilting her head downwards. He gathered her hair in his hands, running them through it to separate it into sections, before quickly braiding it into a winding plait.

“He’s remarkably good at that,” Volstagg commented, grinning.

“I have had the good fortune of a great deal of practice,” said Fandral, primly, taking the flower from behind his ear and tucking it carefully into Darcy’s braid where it gathered at the crown of her head. “Excellent!” he said, cheerfully. “And now, we must away, or we shall miss the dancing.”

He kept a firm hold on her, his arm slung over her shoulder, but she felt more like a pet than a girlfriend of any sort. Still, the attention, while it lasted, was nice.

Fandral did indeed get his dance, once they’d reached the foot of the hill and entered a glade that was tucked behind, at the far side from the front gates, and out of the wind. In the centre of the glade there was a tall pole, with a hoop suspended around it, hung from the top by four ropes. Darcy didn’t doubt for a second that the imagery was intentional. Long, gauzy strips of fabric in bright colours hung from the hoop, fluttering in the evening breeze and there were tall lamps that flickered warmly in the pale light of twilight.

As soon as the music started up, Fandral grabbed her hand and all but dragged her out into the centre of the glade. She stepped on his feet several times as she tried to learn the footwork, but he just laughed and said the steps aloud for her until she’d learnt them. It was an easy enough dance, once she’d got the hang of it, with swooping turns that made her skirts flare out. She was laughing by the end of it, as Fandral had a great deal of panache as a dancer that reminded her of ballroom dancing competitions she’d seen on TV at odd hours when she’d been at university. At the end of the dance, he grabbed her by the waist and lifted her up, turning her around, and she’d shrieked in surprise and delight. He thanked her politely at the end, and, with a grin and a wink, went off to pick more flowers.

She found herself at the edge of the dance floor, so to speak, watching Jane and Thor laughing in one another’s arms. She was surprised to see Sif go by, three flowers in her dark hair, as she was spun around gracefully by Hogun, of all people. She shot Sif a grin, which Sif returned happily. Much to her surprise, Darcy was asked by a couple of the tipsier Vanir, who tucked their flowers into her plaits and led her out – but they were a little less forgiving than Fandral of her stepping on their toes.

After her third dance, she made her way towards Thor, who was leaning over to hear something Jane was saying to him. She had just reached them and barely got the word ‘hi’ out before Frigga came over and, without saying a word, plucked Jane’s drink of her hand and passed it off to a grinning Thor, before taking both Jane and Darcy and leading them out into the centre of the glade. They were each handed a strip of fabric to hold on to, and, before Jane could finish asking Frigga what was going on, the music started up, and all around them the dancing began.

Frigga made a point of demonstrating the steps to Jane and Darcy as she went, holding up her skirts as she grinned and twirled around. The swept around the pole in a great circle, weaving in and out of one another like the ebbing and flowing of the tide, their fabric strips tangling above their heads into a great colourful pattern that began to wind its way down the pole. Darcy saw Sif and Freyja go by, laughing brightly, and she grinned widely at Jane, who looked so completely out of her element that Darcy wanted to throw her arms around her. She could see Jane carefully counting out the steps – ever the perfectionist – as the circled around one another, linking their arms for a moment.

Jane reached down, clasping Darcy’s hand and gave it a squeeze, grinning widely. Darcy squeezed back, and then let go, throwing herself back into the fray in time with the steps, dancing around Frigga as she went. They wound the circle tighter, closing in on the pole as their fabric strips shortened, packed in like madly twirling sardines. The beat of the music sped up to a frantic tattoo, and Darcy found herself running into other dancers, who grabbed her arms, laughing, as they spun each other around in a sort of mad, joyful frenzy to keep hold of their fabric and keep the dance going.

All at once it seemed to collapse laughter, and they fell back. The music stopped. Darcy was leaning against a Vanir she didn’t know, who was giggling like a schoolgirl and half leaning on, half holding up Darcy. The fabric strips had been wound along the pole in a great, criss-cross pattern that wove different colours in and out of focus. A great round of applause came up like a roar around her, and she found Jane in the crowd and rushed forward.

“That,” said Jane, between giggles, “is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done.”

“You ran over a god!” said Darcy, incredulously.

“On purpose,” Jane, amended, still giggling.

“You did very well,” said Frigga, coming up behind them. Darcy noticed she had four flowers braided into her hair.

“Thank you, again, for inviting us,” Jane said, somewhat breathlessly.

“Yes, thank you,” Darcy added.

“You are to be my daughter,” said Frigga. “It would have been impossible to leave you behind. But, come, it is seven flowers for good dreams, and I see you have only one.”
Jane blushed, to Darcy’s surprise, and Frigga gave her a conspiratorial grin.

Darcy turned to Jane, eyebrows raised. Jane stuck her chin out and said, “I see you’ve got three already.”

“Yeah,” Darcy replied, grinning. “And I stepped on the third one’s toes so many times he’s got a limp. I suspect that’s probably it for this evening.”

“I doubt it,” Jane said, laughing. “Thor was making noises about dancing with you.”

“Thor?” Darcy said, in mock-surprise. “Blond? Cut like a bodybuilder? Dancing with little ol’ me? I’m surprised you’re permitting it.”

Jane rolled her eyes. “Just bring him back in one piece.”

Thor did dance with her, and made nearly as much a show of it as Fandral had. He complimented her on her footwork, though Darcy was fully aware that he was being polite, and danced with the same sort of boundless exuberance he seemed to always have – her feet barely touched the ground the whole time, and he flung her around in a way that was both terrifying and made her giddy with joy. He carefully tucked a red azalea into her braids when he was done.

To Darcy’s astonishment, Thor passed her off to Odin, who, as regally as one can possibly do so, held out a bright yellow daisy and offered her his arm. She’d never actually said much to Odin, save a thank you for allowing her to visit Asgard and stay in his house. She had absolutely no idea what to say now. Odin turned her and tucked the flower into her hair himself, before starting the dance.

He was surprisingly light on his feet, and didn’t seem to mind that she was stumbling over hers – mostly out of nerves.

“I have wondered,” he said, out of the blue, “where you fit into all this. You are not Jane’s kin, and Thor claims you a friend, but does not say whether you are here at his request or hers.”

“Both, I suppose,” said Darcy, wondering why he was asking, and, more importantly, if there was a wrong answer. “I am happy for them, and a friend to both.”

“So I see,” said Odin. “It is uncommon for us to find friends among your people.”

“More uncommon to marry them, I expect,” Darcy said, and wondered immediately if that was the wrong thing to have blurted out.

Odin gave her a stiff smile. “Indeed,” he said. “And yet... Thor has spoken of his comrades in arms on Midgard. That he has fought beside such great warriors as your world can offer, and considers them friends also.”

“But he has not fought alongside you,” Odin continued.

“No,” Darcy said, carefully.

“I wonder why he has chosen you to accompany him and his intended, when no such accompaniment is required.”

The music stopped, and Darcy stepped back. “Is there a problem with me being here?” she asked, bluntly.

“That depends on why you have come,” Odin said, studying her closely. For the first time, Darcy got a true sense of the gravity of his presence – and the extent of the power he commanded. Even in the glade at night, filled with laughing dancers and free-flowing mead, he looked every inch a king, wise, venerable and vengeful.

“I’ve come because Jane and Thor are my friends, and I believed I would be welcome,” she said, nervously.

Odin stared at her for a moment longer, before resting a hand with surprising gentleness on her shoulder. “And so you are. I have given you leave to stay in my house, it is not rescinded.” He gave her a kindly look. “Do not look so afraid. My son’s choice in company leaves me with many unanswered questions, and you have not such long practice in dissembling as he.”

“Have I answered them, then?” Darcy asked.

“Some,” said Odin. “But as with many things, your answers have also raised questions of their own.” He caught the eye of someone behind her, then, and said “Ah!”

Volstagg came up behind her, bowing low to Odin, who took Darcy’s arm and placed it upon the newcomer’s. “I leave her in your capable hands,” Odin said, smiling.

Volstagg offered her a flower with a grin. “I had thought I might miss you,” he said. “It seems I am not so unfortunate.”

It was a more complicated dance than any of the others, but Volstagg was a kindly soul and walked her through it with remarkable patience. It was a quick-paced dance, that seemed to involve a lot of hopping and partner swapping, and quite a few lifts, which Volstagg seemed to enjoy immensely. By the end of it she was hopelessly confused and felt like she had two left feet, but they were both laughing.

“You did well,” Volstagg said, clapping her on the back so hard she stumbled forwards.

“No, not at all,” Darcy replied. “But thanks for saying so.”

“Ah, a little more mead and you’ll be dancing beautifully,” Volstagg replied, dragging her over to the side and filling a huge cup for her. She suspected that drinking it all might push her well over the line from tipsy to unconscious, but she thanked him anyway and focused on taking small sips.

Before she could think of what to say Volstagg was dragged off again by a plump Vanir woman with well more than seven flowers in her hair. Darcy gave him a cheeky wave as he wandered off, and he returned it, before swinging the woman around and launching them both into the fray.

For her part, Darcy was content to take a break and watch. The mead felt warm in her stomach, and she could feel her cheeks flushed. The firelight from the lamps warmed her skin, and the swirling forms of the dancers combined with the cool night air on her face made her feel light headed.

The only warning she had was a faint prickling on the back of her neck, and then there was a sharp tingling sensation, like pins and needles behind her. She tried to whirl around, but a hand clamped down over her mouth, and she was pulled back against a hard, leather-clad chest. Loki, it could only be him – she could smell smoke and cedar, and that odd indefinable smell of cold that seemed to permeate his skin. He plucked her cup from her hand and took a long draught, before placing it aside.

“Come,” he said, his breath ghosting over her ear.

She considered screaming or struggling, but neither seemed particularly dignified, and, more importantly, likely to be effective. He lead her away from the dancers, up an unlit, winding path that climbed up the hill towards the hall. He seemed content to let her walk on her own once they’d passed out of the lit circle, and he took his hand away from her mouth and released his hold on her.

She considered bolting, but he seemed to be waiting for her to do so. So, instead, she stuck her nose up and walked past him. She heard him chuckle, faint and deep behind her.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“To the hall,” he replied. “I have a stop to make.”

“What are you doing here?” Darcy asked, as she hitched up her skirts and steadied herself against a rock as she climbed. Loki held out a hand to her and helped her up the rocky path, his eyes glinting in the faint light of the stars. “Celebrating the cross-quarter day,” he said, grinning.

“And what do you need me for?” Darcy muttered, rubbing dirt off her palm.

“Company,” Loki replied, glibly.

“Did we seriously have to come this way? It’s dark, and I’m going to break my neck.”

Loki turned and looked down at her, considering. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he replied. “No matter.” He stretched out his hand again and pulled her to his side, wrapping an arm around her waist.

Darcy figured out what he was going to do only a second before he actually did it. “No, no, no,” she said.

He simply grinned and lifted her up, hoisting her over his shoulder.

“Put me down!” she shouted, wondering whether kicking him in the face would result in sending them both tumbling down to an untimely death at the bottom of the hill.

“Stop squirming,” said Loki, who seemed to be thinking along similar lines.

“Put me down,” she countered.

“I’m doing you a favour,” Loki replied, clambering up the mountain in a way that made Darcy, who had no choice but to look down the hill behind them, or stare fixedly at his backside (which, she told herself was entirely beneath her dignity).

“Put me down, put me down, put me down,” she said, closing her eyes and going rigid with fright. Loki came to a stop, and slowly lowered her to the ground. For a moment she thought very seriously about kicking him in the balls.

“Do not ever do that again,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow at her, and simply looked infuriatingly smug.

“I’m going back down.”

“What?” he squawked, grabbing hold of her arm.

“Let me go!”

“Wait,” he said. “We’re not finished.”

“Oh, we are so finished,” Darcy said, rolling her eyes.

Loki made an odd gesture with his free hand, and a purple carnation materialised in his hands. He twirled it between his thumb and forefinger once before holding it out to her.

“No,” Darcy said, flatly. “We don’t dance. We don’t talk. We don’t do this.”

“Then why are you here?” he asked, quietly.

She stopped, her hands dropping to her sides, and she felt his grip on her arm relax, though he kept his hand resting there, his skin warm against hers.

“Because I have very, very poor judgement skills, and because you practically kidnapped me,” she replied.

“Come with me,” he said.

“Why are you here?” she asked again. “What is this?”

“There’s something I need to pick up,” he replied, evasively. “But I should have known you would be here. When I saw you...”

“You thought a spot of kidnapping might be in order?” Darcy asked, sarcastically.

“You only have six flowers,” Loki said, holding his out once more. “Just take it.”

“We are not dancing,” Darcy said, emphatically.

“No,” said Loki, grinning, “we’re doing something much, much better.”

Then, he placed the flower in her hair, and turned to head up into the hall. Darcy stood alone in the dark for a moment, watching him go, before cursing under her breath and following.

“Where are we going?” she hissed as she caught up with Loki, who was crouching at a doorway inside the hall. He put his finger to his lips in a gesture to be silent, and grabbed her by the wrist, dragging her along behind him.

“I can walk,” she whispered. Loki ignored her.

“Ah!” he said, at last, as they came to a closed door. “Here we are.”

“What – ?” Darcy began, but at that moment Loki released her arm and held his hands up, muttering under his breath. There was a low, green light that flickered out from his palms, and she heard a click as the lock turned and the door swung open.

Loki looked at her, his eyebrows raised and his hands stretched out in a gesture that Darcy could only sum up as meaning ‘Ta Da!’

Darcy felt her heart sink. “Where are we?” she asked, with growing dread. It was a lavishly decorated bedroom, with great, heavy fur pelts atop the bed, and beautifully carved couches. The chairs were decorated with fine textiles, embroidered with gold, and she could see that each of the legs was carved like the head of a boar.

Loki had already wandered in and was rooting around in drawers and trunks. “Freyja’s room,” he said, blithely, over his shoulder.

“Oh, god,” Darcy said, covering her eyes and sinking down into a chair. “She’s going to murder me, and then Odin is going to murder me, and I am going to be banned from everywhere, but it won’t matter because I’ll be dead...”

“Execute,” Loki said, throwing open a chest at the foot of the bed and rifling around inside it.

“What?” Darcy asked.

“Kings don’t murder, they execute,” he said. Then, he reached in and pulled out a great cape, covered in feathers. “Aha!” he said, holding it up and looking pleased with himself. “Come on!”

“That’s it?” Darcy asked, incredulously.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Loki said, cheekily, ushering her out of the room and shutting the door behind him.

“Why are you stealing...” she searched for the right word, and settled for waving her hand in the direction of the cape and saying, “that?”

“I have a minor situation that requires the temporary borrowing of this cape,” he said, enigmatically.

“Borrowing without permission,” Darcy added, pointedly.

“But with the best of intentions, I assure you,” he replied.

“So, what did you need me for, exactly?” Darcy asked, following him back down the corridors.

“I told you,” Loki said, distractedly, as he peered around the corner to ensure the coast was clear. “Company.”

“Wait, just wait a second,” Darcy said, yanking on his sleeve and pulling him up short. “This has to stop.”

He frowned, looking down at her in bemusement. “What?”

“This,” she said, throwing her arms up. “You kidnapping me, us running into each other all the time, acting like we’re friends.”

Loki’s face went blank. It was a look she was starting to recognize as the one he put on when he was hurt. She softened her tone. “I just don’t see how this works, and I don’t understand it at all,” she said. “I think it would be best if we didn’t meet up anymore.”

“But you chose to come up here,” Loki said, emphatically.

“Doesn’t mean it was a good choice,” Darcy said, with a sigh. “And I want you to take the harp back.”

Loki frowned deeply. “You don’t like it?”

“It’s beautiful, possibly the most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned, but I don’t want it.”

Loki stared at her for a long, drawn-out moment. “I don’t pretend to understand the minds of –”

Darcy cut him off, poking him in the chest with her index finger. “If you are about to spring some ‘women are crazy’ BS I will make you sorrier than you have ever been in your upteen billion years of farting around the galaxy, do I make myself clear?”

Loki looked like he couldn’t decide what part of that sentence offended him most. “If your intention is to dispel me of the notion that women are ‘crazy’, as you put it, you’re not helping your case.”

“Take back the harp,” Darcy ground out, punctuating each word with a jab of her index finger.

“Tell me why you came up here with me,” he replied. “And I will.”

Darcy stopped short, frowning. “I came because...” She stopped, suddenly unsure of why she was there at all.

Loki’s hand covered hers that was resting against his chest, running his fingers along the length of her own. “Am I so horrible that you cannot admit to yourself that my company might be worth having?”

“Why do you care?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Because I consider your company worth having.”

She felt oddly like she was drowning, like the tables had been turned and suddenly she was much further in over her head than she’d thought she was. He traced his hand up the path of her arm, and over her shoulder to gently cup her neck in his palm. He traced his thumb across her cheek. His face was guarded, but there was something vulnerable in the way he looked at her, like he was waiting and expecting rejection.

His fingers touched the petals of the flower he’d put in her hair, and she looked away, staring at the wall feeling overwhelmed and more than a little lost. He seemed to take that as a sign, and he stepped back, his hand dropping to his side.

“What do you want from me?” she asked.

“Company,” he replied, softly.

She looked up. Torchlight cast most of his face in shadow, but she could see the long line of his nose, and she remembered the press of his fingers against her skin, and their desperate, frantic coupling in an alley. She remembered the fevered rush of it all, like he wanted to be in ten places at once, to do everything in one go, like he was simply desperate and needy.

Company.

Like all things concerning Loki, it went against her better judgement. But in his own, odd way, he’d been nothing but kind, and, though she loved them both dearly, spending time with Jane and Thor of late had given her some notion of what it felt like to be alone. So, she said, “I believe you owe me a dance.”

Loki looked up at her in surprise, and she gestured at the flower he’d given her.

He smiled, genuine and warm, and she felt her heart flutter. Oh, not good, she thought, but she reached out and took his hand anyway.

“Down here,” he said, tugging her along. He ducked into another room, this one smaller and less elegantly furnished than Freyja’s had been.

“Whose room is this?” Darcy asked.

“One of the guest rooms,” he replied, brushing her question away with an impatient gesture. “It doesn’t matter.” He bustled about, shutting the door and locking it – Darcy wasn’t sure how she felt about that – and then shoving chairs and a table aside to clear a space in the centre of the room.

He turned and held out a hand towards her. “No music, I’m afraid,” he said. “But we’ll have to make do.”

She gave him a smile, before stepping forwards. The dance he lead her on was slower than any of the others she’d learnt. He moved gracefully, and managed the trick of leading without being pushy about it, gently guiding her through the steps that had them slowly drifting through the room in a wide arc. It was something like a waltz, she thought, but the steps were more complicated. She kept looking down, watching their feet to try and keep time, but the warmth and the closeness of Loki’s body served as a constant distraction.
Without music it seemed oddly intimate. There was no sound, save that of their own footsteps as he guided her through the room, and, as she learnt the steps, the dance began to take on a life of its own – three quick steps and then a glide, and turn, like water flowing downstream, or the ebb and flow of the tide. He spun her around, and around again, and her skirts swung out in a wide arc around her legs. Then, abruptly, he stopped, holding her in place his hand against her cheek and the other on her waist. Her skirts settled, and then, suddenly, everything was still, save their breathing.

She heard a roaring in her ears, like the sea, and Loki seemed to be looking down at her waiting for something. His fingers tightened in her hair, tangling curls of it between them, and she felt his other hand slide down and his thumb trace a wide arc across her hip.

This was something far, far more dangerous than dancing. But Darcy had been lost since the beginning.

She was the one who moved first, reaching up and grabbing him with such force he let out an ‘oof’ of surprise. She pressed herself up against him, and he responded immediately, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close as they kissed. Loki turned them, and they walked, ungainly and haphazardly across the room to fall on the bed. He fell backwards, sitting on the end of it and resting back on his elbows. Darcy managed to hike up her skirts and straddle him without breaking the kiss. She had her hand tangled in his hair, the other already working on the clasps of his jerkin. He brushed her hands aside and undid the ties in quick, deft movements, before shrugging it off. She pulled off his vambraces, tossing them aside, as he ran his hands up her legs under her skirt. She rocked back, and he rolled his hips up to meet her with a groan.

It seemed like a good moment to divest him of his shirt. They broke the kiss only long enough to pull his shirt over his head. He ran his hands up her inner thighs, rubbing circles with his thumbs that were just scant inches from where she wanted his fingers to be. He traced the line of her panties, and she bit at his lower lip in warning.

He chuckled, and removed his hands, undoing the fastenings of her dress with the same quick efficiency and pulling it over her head.

“Ah,” he said, happily. He reached out with an amused smile and tugged at her bra strap. “You know, I’m not usually fond of Midgardian works, but this,” he said, tracing the top of the cup of her bra and rubbing his thumb over her nipple through the fabric, “I am quite fond of.”

“Ever so pleased to hear it,” Darcy said, drily.

“Hmm,” Loki replied. Then he licked a wet, filthy stripe along the top of her breast, and she gasped, rocking forward into him. He gently nipped at her skin, cupping her other breast in his hand and rubbing slow, tantalizing circles over her nipple. It was just enough friction to tease, but not enough for anything more than that and she couldn’t decide whether to beg him to keep going or strangle him. He seemed, for his part, to be content to trace the line of her bra with his mouth and his hands, kissing the skin between the valley of her breasts. He worked his way up to her collarbone, and along to her bra strap, which he took between his teeth and dragged downwards.

She’d had a boyfriend who’d liked to take off clothing with his teeth once. She’d thought he was a complete idiot when he’d done it. But there was something about the curl of Loki’s lip, and the dangerous, teasing glint in his eyes, that made her heart race with anticipation.

He unhooked her bra and slowly pulled it off before sitting back to look at her. She felt suddenly self-conscious, the way he stared at her, his lip curled up in pleasure. He grabbed her hands before she could move to cover herself, interlacing their fingers, and not for a second breaking his gaze. Then, he tugged her forwards and took her nipple into his mouth, biting gently down on it so she cried out, arching her back and digging her nails into the skin of his shoulder.

He swirled his tongue around it and she rolled her hips to the same rhythm. She could feel his erection against the leather of his trousers, and she ground down on it. His tongue faltered for a moment, and she rocked forwards, bending her head down to press a kiss against his temple.

He seemed to freeze for a moment, and then pushed her back, looking up at her with his cheeks flushed red and his lips parted. “Lie back on the bed,” he said, his voice hoarse.

He throat went suddenly dry, and she crawled onto the furs atop the bed and lay back. He hooked his finger under her panties and she obligingly lifted her hips to let him pull them off. He took the slippers she’d been wearing as well, and then stood to remove his trousers and boots. She shifted back on the bed, her legs spread and propped herself up on her elbows, watching him.

He knelt on the edge of the bed, and she saw his gaze travel down the line of her body. “Touch yourself,” he said.

She froze, looking at him in surprise. “I want to see...” he said, then he licked his lips, and Darcy felt her heart race so fast her head spun. “I want to see what you like.”

His expression was open, and vulnerable and wanting, and she found her hand was shaking as she slowly reached down. His gaze snapped to her fingers like a moth to a flame, and she closed her eyes and let her head fall back, starting with slow, gentle circles around her clit. She felt Loki shift on the bed, as she began to rub faster, using two fingers, and her hips began to cant up and down. She bit her lip, clenching her free hand in the furs.

Loki made a soft sound, like a quiet gasp. She was close, her fingers moving erratically now, just desperately seeking friction. She felt Loki come forwards, running his hands slowly up her legs, arched her back, turning her head to the side and biting her lip. He slipped one, long finger inside her and curled it, and she let out a gasp. He barely had time to add a second before she came, her muscles clenching around him as she shuddered.

He was watching her, wide-eyed when she opened her eyes. Then, in a single quick movement, he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her up. He covered her hands with his own, wrapping them firmly around the headboard of the bed, and positioned her on her knees, pressing himself up behind her. Then, with that same, desperate economy of motion, he entered her. She grabbed hold of the headboard tight, pushing back against him, and he pressed a desperate half- kiss, half-bite to her shoulder.

He stayed still like that for a moment, his face pressed against her shoulder blade. Then he brought his hand down, using one to steady himself against the headboard and the other to slowly circle her clit. She closed her eyes turning her head to rest against her upper arm.

Then he began to move, thrusting into her hard enough to shake the headboard, his fingers keeping pace with the movement of his hips. It was the same pace she’d set for herself, she realised – he was copying her, what she’d liked. She arched her back, trying to get every inch of skin she possibly could touching him, and he moaned, low and guttural. His fingers were faltering on her clit, and she brushed them aside, taking over with her own. He grabbed hold of her hip, digging his hand deep into her skin as he thrust into her over and over.

She was making odd keening sounds she didn’t even recognize as her own, and he was covering her shoulder with sloppy, desperate kisses, his fingers squeezing her hips so hard it almost hurt as his thrusts came so close, so very close to where she wanted them. She arched back, lifting him up, and he thrust again, hitting precisely the spot she needed. She covered his hand that was braced against the headboard with her own, interlocking their fingers in a grip so tight it left her knuckles white as she made an odd half sob, half scream. He thrust up into her once more, and she felt him come, his body suddenly going slack and heavy against her.

She was shaking. He wrapped his arm languidly around her waist, falling over onto his side and tucking her body against his. He buried his face in her hair at the crook of her neck, pressing his lips to her skin as his fingers splayed out on her stomach. She reached down and covered his hand with her own, and he made a soft, contented sound.

They lay like that for what felt to Darcy like a long time, too lazy and languid to move. He felt oddly warm and soft wrapped around her like this, his thumb idly tracing over her index finger where their hands lay clasped on her belly. Finally, however, it was clear that they needed to move.

The moment she tried to sit up he tugged her back down, pulling her towards him like a petulant child and wrapping his arms around her tightly.

She couldn’t help but grin. “Loki, we have to get up.”

“No we don’t,” he said, covering her leg with his to pin her to the bed. “Someone could come back.”

“Door’s locked,” he muttered, sleepily.

“Thor and Jane will notice I’m missing.”

“So?”

“Freyja will find out you stole her hideous bird cape.”

That seemed to rouse him, finally. He sat up with a scowl, his hair sticking up at odd angles making him look like a disgruntled vulture. She contemplated not telling him about it and letting him wander around looking like that for the rest of the day. He rolled over, flinging her hand aside, and wandering around the room, gathering up their clothes. He tossed her dress and her undergarments at her, and she tried to get redressed with as much dignity as she could scrape up.

He was fumbling with his vambraces when she finished, and she brushed his fingers aside impatiently, doing up the clasps. He traced his fingers gently along the bustline of her dress as she did so, and she had to bat those away impatiently too. He was looking down at her with unexpected fondness, and it took her by surprise. Carefully he reached out and re-arranged her hair, plucking the flowers out (some were looking much the worse for the wear by now), and rebraiding it before replacing them all. He made sure his was in the centre, however.

She decided this meant she should probably tell him about his hair. It was still worth an enjoyable few minutes watching try and pat it down, and be defeated by a particularly determined cowlick.

She picked up the cloak from where it lay, draped over the back of a chair. “What precisely does it do?” she asked.

He picked it up with a flourish, and tossed it over one arm. “I shall demonstrate,” he said. Then he paused, and gave her an odd look. “Will you say goodbye?”

“For good?” she asked, suddenly hesitant.

“I doubt it,” Loki said, shrugging his shoulders. “I have resigned myself to the fact that you seem to have a way of finding me.”

“You find me,” said Darcy. “You picked me out of the crowd on Álfheim, you walked up to me in Svartálfheim! You kidnapped me here. If anyone is finding anyone, it’s you.”

“Then I look forward to finding you once more,” he said, and he flashed her a naughty grin. “But until then, I am afraid I must fly.”

They slunk back through the halls like co-conspirators back from a kitchen raid. Loki looked at the dark path down the hill, and then at Darcy. “Ah,” he said. “I shall see you down, I think. It wouldn’t do to have you fall.”

“I can manage a hill,” Darcy replied, scowling.

“Nevertheless,” Loki said, breezily, heading down the hill and leaving Darcy no choice but to follow.

“Sometimes I actually hate you,” she said. However, he seemed to be in something of a hurry, and he said very little as he ushered her down the hill and back to the glade. They stopped, just outside the ring of torchlight, and he gave her an odd sort of frown.

“Goodbye, I guess,” said Darcy, awkwardly. “I suppose you’re not going to tell me what the cape is for, then.”

“I am about to demonstrate,” he said. “Farewell, Darcy. Until our paths cross again.” He pressed a light kiss to her forehead, and then vanished into the night.

“I am so fucked,” Darcy said to herself.

She blinked as she stepped back into the glade. The laughter and dancing seemed oddly surreal, like it wasn’t truly happening around her. She made her way quietly over to the mead and poured herself a cup, sipping it with shaking hands. She felt oddly stripped, like it was obvious to everyone looking at her precisely where she’d been and what she’d been doing.

At the first sign of commotion, she whirled around, looking for Loki. He emerged out of the shadows, clad in the feathered cloak. Something indefinable about his appearance had shifted. He was harder around the edges, like a cornered animal prepared to defend itself at any cost. He smiled, but it was sharp and brittle, more like the baring of teeth than anything of genuine warmth.

She heard Thor call out Loki’s name in a low, broken voice that made everything she’d done with him sting with the bitter taste of betrayal. She felt suddenly ashamed.

“I understand that congratulations are in order,” Loki said, looking at Thor. She saw Frigga blanche. “Many felicitations, brother.” He all but spat the last word at Thor, who visibly flinched as if it had been a blow. “I wish you joy,” he said, as if he were swallowing glass.

Freyja let out a low roar, and Loki turned to her with a grin. “Ah, yes,” he said. “Terribly sorry. I’m just planning to borrow this for a bit. I do hope you won’t mind.”

Freyja rushed forward, drawing her sword, but Loki, to Darcy astonishment, gave a great leap and flew up into the air, the cloak spreading out like dark wings around him. He laughed, loud and triumphant, and he gave Freyja a taunting wave and flew off into the night.

“He’s gone,” said Odin, holding Freyja back. “We will find him.”

“You will,” Freyja spat at him, wrenching her arm from his grasp. “Or I will have his head.”

Jane was standing next to Thor when Darcy found her, looking pale. It was Thor she seemed mostly concerned for, and he barely said a word to Darcy when she arrived, looking blankly out into the dark forest with his jaw tight and his fists clenched.

“I think it may be time to go home,” said Darcy, softly. She pulled Loki’s carnation from her hair, intending to toss it aside. But when she got home, she found that she’d slipped it into her pocket instead.

Chapter 4: The Codex

Summary:

In which all the characters have issues, but Loki has more issues than everyone else put together. So, pretty much the usual.

Notes:

ETA: I've had some feedback that's indicated that the sex scene in this chapter requires a warning. While there are no consent issues at play, it is much rougher sex than any of the other chapters in this story, so if that is something that is potentially problematic for you, you might want to give this one a miss. If you're at all unsure, please drop me a note.

Darcy was seriously contemplating taking a nap, despite it being both the middle of the day, and her being a guest in Thor’s household. The somewhat frantic pre-wedding fever pitch Jane had been working herself into had begun to rub off on Darcy, who had taken up an inner mantra of swearing to herself that if she was ever crazy enough to get married, she’d elope.

This was the first five minutes of silence she’d managed all day after their late night on Vanaheim the night before, and she was starting to seriously feel the lack of coffee. She’d just toed off her shoes and thrown herself back onto the bed when there was a knock at the door.

With a silent curse, Darcy dragged herself back to her feet and said, “come in.” Jane peeked her head around the door and gave her a grin. “There you are.”

“Here I am,” Darcy said, sitting back onto the bed, hiking her skirt up to cross her legs. Jane flopped down on her stomach beside her.

“I can’t tell whether I want this to just be over, or whether I want it to never end,” Jane said.

“Over,” Darcy said feelingly. “Definitely over.” She flopped backwards onto the bed beside Jane, who let out a low chuckle.

“I’m sorry we haven’t spent that much time together,” Jane said. “But it’s been a constant stream of meeting people and wedding questions and playing nice for the in-laws...”

“Hey, it’s OK,” Darcy said, grinning. “You’ve given me a free ride to, what, four different planets now? I think I’ll cope.” There was a beat as Darcy took in what she’d just said. “Uh, not that I’m just here to mooch off you or anything. I have missed you too. I’m just saying, I get it.”

Jane chuckled again. “Liar. I know you’re just here for the sightseeing and the food.”

“Guilty as charged.”

Jane sighed, running her fingers across the bedspread pattern thoughtfully. “You know I had to stop Thor from paying Erik brideprice yesterday?”

Darcy choked on her own spittle and sat up, sputtering. “What?!”

Jane rolled over and sat up beside her. “Apparently it’s tradition. I need a male to stand-in for my family, and Erik agreed, and well...”

“Oh my god.”

“Yeah,” Jane said, chuckling. “It took a lot of convincing to get Thor not to do it. I had to explain that he would consider it an insult.”

“That you would consider it an insult,” Darcy added.

“That too.”

Darcy gave Jane a gentle nudge with her shoulder. “So, out of curiousity, how much was Thor gonna pay for you?”

“Oh, my goodness, Darcy, you should see it,” Jane replied, laughing. “I think a part of Erik will be genuinely disappointed I told Thor not to send it. It was literal chests – plural – of gold-worked jewellery, drinking cups and the like, and gowns.”

“I can’t tell if that’s a good or a bad thing,” Darcy said. “I mean, they have gold coming out the wazoo here.”

Jane shrugged. “Well, apparently some of it was specially-made by the dwarves for the occasion.”

“What the hell would you do with all that gold?”

Jane grinned. “Buy CCD cameras and a proper spectrometer.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Of course you would.”

“It’s just weird,” said Jane softly, fiddling with the sleeve of her shirt. “Marrying Thor, marrying into all this.” She waved her hand to encompass the room. “I mean, Thor is over a thousand years old. Sometimes I don’t think I can bear it, and then other times...”

“You can’t bear to go without it?” Darcy prompted, gently.

Jane gave her a soft smile. “I’m not normally saccharine at all. I’ve always considered myself to be a rational being, all books and equations and numbers... But Thor takes those numbers and he makes them magic.”

Darcy leant over and wrapped her arms around Jane, resting her cheek on the top of Jane’s head. “I’m so happy for you.”

Jane let out a slightly choked laugh. “This is ridiculous. I swore to myself I’d never be like this, and then here I am.”

“Hey,” Darcy said, leaning back. “Thor’s fit, dude. I get it. I go a little teary-eyed myself.”

Jane grinned. “He is though, isn’t he?”

“Jane,” Darcy said seriously. “It’s fucking criminal.”

Jane let out a deep, almost smutty cackle and got to her feet. “Come on,” she said. “I think it’s nearly dinner, and I suspect my wayward criminally attractive fiancé will be looking for me by now.”

“The only part of that sentence I’m enthused about is the food,” Darcy said, clambering off the bed and putting her shoes back on. “But, to be fair, I’m pretty excited about that, so it evens out.”

“Ha,” said Jane, then she turned and looked at Darcy with an expression so solemn and serious that Darcy froze, her shoe halfway on her foot. “I really have missed you,” she said. “It was nice – to just talk like this.”

“Yeah,” Darcy said. Then she cleared her throat and added. “Don’t worry. I’m notoriously hard to be rid of. We’ll hang out more, once all this wedding stuff dies down.”

Jane grinned. “I’ll make sure of it.”

“Great,” Darcy said, shoving her shoe on and standing up. “Now, you said something about food?”

Darcy was pleasantly surprised to find that dinner was not a formal sit-down affair, but more of a free-for-all buffet (which Volstagg was apparently giving a run for its money). Jane was almost immediately engaged in conversation by one of the lords of Odin’s halls, and she flashed Darcy and apologetic look before politely answering his questions. Darcy barely managed to sneak in a goodbye to Jane when she’d finished, as the lord in question seemed positively determined to pontificate at extreme length about some finer point of Asgardian architecture as regards the carving of the pillars in the hall.

It had started out interesting, but by the fifth subclause Darcy’s eyes had started to glaze over, and Jane was leaning on her elbow, looking uncharacteristically vacant.

Darcy almost felt bad for abandoning her. Almost.

However, this did mean she’d been left to her own devices. Asgard was uncharacteristically still (from what she’d seen of it, at any right). The furor regarding Loki’s (frankly melodramatic) appearance last night on Vanaheim had Odin conspicuously absent from their plans for the day, and Darcy idly wondered whether they’d caught him up yet. However, she tried hard not to more than idly wonder, since her relationship – or lack thereof – with Loki wasn’t something she really felt up to dealing with at present.

She’d kept his flower, pressed carefully between tissue paper in the pages of a book. Just as she’d kept the harp and the mask. There was something undeniably sentimental about it – like they were tangible proof that their encounters meant something to her, though she couldn’t say what. She couldn’t bring herself to part with them – that was clear. But she also kept them secret, tucked away in drawers, like she couldn’t face the reality of it all, even when she was alone in her room. She hadn’t yet learnt the harp, or even played it more than once, half-convinced still that she was going to return it, and, a deeper and more cynical part of her convinced that she would keep it hidden away forever in this odd sort of limbo where she had sex with Loki and tried very, very hard not to feel anything about it.

She found herself wandering through the wide halls of Asgard. It had a kind of tomb-like oppressiveness when it was quiet. The halls echoed, and Darcy could hear each footstep as she walked. There was something sparse and cold about the design of Asgard – the halls of Odin, at least. They rose like a cathedral spire above a bottomless sea of cloud, gleaming gold and bright and ostentatious.

The walkway from the great hall was decorated with engraved knotwork, surrounding scenes Darcy assumed were from Asgard’s past. She recognized some of the figures, particularly Odin Thor and Loki. There was one scene that evidently depicted the Aesir arriving on Earth, and fighting the Jotun. Another, she noticed, was Thor receiving Mjolnir, which featured an engaging group of ridiculously surly-looking dwarves in the bottom right corner.

She – almost reverently – traced her fingers along the lines of Mjolnir engraved into the walll, slightly worn from the passage of time. It was an odd sensation, the feeling that Thor, her friend, and Jane’s fiancé had lived long enough for the wall to have worn, to have been worshipped by the people of a culture that was nothing more than archaeological fragments, scattered historical documents and hangover place names now.

A chill ran down her spine and she stepped back, her hands dropping to her sides. For a flickering moment she wondered how Thor could put up with her at all – so brief and young and foolish.

She wandered aimlessly, through a part of Odin’s house she’d not yet explored. She found herself coming to a wide, open balcony that looked down upon the realm. She went and peered over the edge, something primal within her curling in terror at the sight of clouds below the city, and no Earth at all visible beneath that. It wasn’t until she stepped back that she realised she was not alone.

Frigga was leaning against the railing on her elbows, watching Darcy thoughtfully. “I’m sorry,” Darcy said, automatically. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“You have not,” Frigga replied kindly.

“Oh,” said Darcy, awkwardly.

“It is an odd thing, as a parent, to see one’s children grow up,” Frigga said, looking out towards the sunset. “To learn to treat the child you once bathed, kissed and carried as an adult in his own right, and entitled to make his own decisions.”

Darcy frowned, a gnawing nervousness growing in her chest as she wondered where this was going, and why Frigga had chosen this, of all subjects. She leant up against the balcony rail, echoing Frigga’s posture.

“I have made mistakes,” she said, softly. “Which, like planted seeds have grown now to full bloom. I have, in the past, been afraid to speak, that I might turn my son away from me. And unwilling to speak, where doing so would spare harm.” She looked down at her hands and said, “I wonder if I make that same mistake again now, but I have lost one son already.”

Darcy was at an utter loss for anything to say, but Frigga didn’t seem to mind much. She smiled softly, and placed one hand atop Darcy’s, giving it a kind squeeze.

“Is this about the wedding?” Darcy blurted out suddenly, without thinking. As soon as she’d said it, she cringed. “Sorry, it’s none of my business.”

Frigga gave her a wan smile. “I like your friend Jane very much,” she said.

After a moment, Darcy said, “I’m sensing a ‘but’.”

Frigga arched an eyebrow at her in amusement. “But,” she said, “I find Thor’s insistence on marrying her inexplicable. I have known many of your kind, and become their friends and grown to love them, and, in turn, their children. I held babies in my arms that seemed to grow into adults with children of their own as soon as I had turned my back. I would barely begin to know them, and they would be snuffed out, with nothing but a hole where they once were that slowly drew closed until I could no longer remember the sound of their voices, or the songs of their prayers. Your kind has brought great joy to my people, but also our greatest sorrow. Such ephemeral joy is not what I would wish for my son.”

“Are you going to try and talk him out of it?” Darcy asked warily.

“I can think of no other time in which my son has so refused to accede to his father’s wishes, and has so steadfastly refused as to change the mind of the king,” Frigga replied. “Thor’s course is set. He has made his choice.”

Darcy mentally filed away that little nugget to discuss with Jane.

“You must not think me heartless,” Frigga said. “I speak only out of love for my son. I find Jane Foster to be remarkably intelligent and kind, and in other circumstances I would unequivocally welcome her into my family.”

“He loves her very much,” Darcy said.

“That is what frightens me most,” said Frigga gravely.

“We have a saying, back home: ‘better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all,’” Darcy said, smiling gently.

Frigga let out a low laugh. “Perhaps, but for us the loss is greater still for it lingers far longer. You are a much more tempestuous people.”

“With all due respect,” said Darcy, “I’ve read sagas that say very differently.”

Frigga made a soft noise that seemed to be a mixture of agreement and amusement. “Every great story deserves some embellishment.”

“It would have to be quite a lot of embellishment,” Darcy said.

“Well, you have seen our home, would you say we are ‘tempestuous’?” Frigga asked, teasingly.

“Thor is a bit – or he was, when I first met him. And –” She was about to and ‘And Loki certainly is’ but caught herself just in time. However, Frigga’s gaze sharpened in a way that made Darcy feel a little bit like she might be harbouring some secret telepathy, or, more likely, that her discomfiture was written plainly across her face. “But, uh, on the whole no. You’re uh, a pretty mellow bunch from what I’ve seen,” she finished, awkwardly.

Frigga was giving her a long, searching look, her expression oddly calculating. “Did you enjoy the festivities on Vanaheim?” she asked.

Darcy reeled a bit from the abrupt change in subject. “Yes,” she said, “very much.” Especially the bit where I helped steal something from our host and then had filthy sex with your son in the spare bedroom, she added mentally. She prayed to whatever deity would listen that Frigga wasn’t actually a telepath.

“I saw you danced with a good many,” Frigga prompted. “Did you receive seven flowers?”

“Uhm, yes,” Darcy said, thinking very, very hard about not thinking about the flower Loki had given her. Or about what he’d done with her afterwards. Or about Loki at all, really. This was not going very well.

“If you place all seven beneath your pillow,” Frigga said, her voice conspiratorial and her eyes twinkling with amusement, “you will dream of your sweetheart.”

“Really?” Darcy tried to say casually, though her voice came out oddly squeaky.

Frigga gave her a knowing smile. “I do not fully understand my son’s devotion to one of your kind, but I have known him long and loved him for both his strengths and his failings. He is much changed of late, and, while I fear the hurt that may come of it, I am not so old nor so foolish to be blind to the good.”

She cupped Darcy’s cheek in an oddly maternal gesture, stroking it once with her thumb. “Enjoy your time here, Darcy, it is a gift granted to only the extraordinary.” And with that, she turned and walked back into the halls, leaving Darcy standing alone.

...

She felt oddly ridiculous as she lined up the flowers – most of which were wilted, save the one she’d pressed – beneath her pillow. Leaving beside her tremendous inherent scepticism in the idea that this sort of thing could work because, well, she was in the house of a Norse god, she was fairly certain this was a bad idea. Because the last thing she wanted associated were the words ‘Loki’ and ‘sweetheart’, but she had a feeling that turning up in her dream was precisely the sort of irritating thing Loki would do.

She removed the flowers, and placed them on the night table, before hesitating, and then putting them all back under her pillow.

“Oh, this is ridiculous,” she said aloud. Then, with a look of grim determination she blew out the lamp.

...

Loki was perched atop the desk in her room, examining the flower he’d given her, turning the tissue paper over and over in his hands.

Darcy took one look at him and said, “Oh, god, it is you.”

Loki let out a low chuckle. “There is no need to call me god,” he said.

“Go away,” she said. “I’m sleeping.”

“You’re dreaming,” he replied smoothly, crossing the room and sitting down primly on the end of her bed. “There is no point in pretending to sleep in one’s dream. It is both redundant and puerile.”

There was something so grating and insufferably smug in his tone that she started ostentatiously snoring. She could literally feel Loki roll his eyes in exasperation.

“Come,” he said, grabbing the covers and yanking them off with a great tug. She let out an indignant squawk and grabbed at them. “I have something to show you.”

“Why you?” she said. “You’re not my sweetheart, why am I stuck with you?”

Loki’s expression shifted to a grimace, but then smoothed out into an impassive expression so quickly she thought she might have imagined it. “I am not responsible for the workings of your subconscious,” he said. “But thank you for your considered belief in my omniscience.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean – I just don’t really understand what’s going on.”

Loki was staring at her in bemusement. “You are dreaming,” he said slowly, as if explaining something to a particularly dim-witted child. “We are going to look at something. This requires you get up.”

Darcy scowled. “Yeah, thanks. Not quite what I meant, but nevermind. Lead on, MacDuff.”

“Who?” Loki began, but Darcy quickly cut him off. “Seriously, never mind.”

With an odd shrug of his shoulders he swung the door open and, like a well-trained butler, gestured for her to exit before him.

“I’m in my nightgown,” Darcy said.

“It’s your dream,” Loki replied. “I very much doubt anyone will care.”

The halls weren’t empty. People, some no more than will-o’-the-wisp-like phantoms, the sketchiest outlines of forms that seemed to lurk in the corner of her eye but that she could never quite get a good look at. Others, people she recognized, walked fully-formed down the halls, talking to each other but taking no notice of her or Loki.

“Curious,” Loki said, looking around.

“What’s curious?” Darcy asked.

“You,” he replied, but didn’t elaborate further. He seemed to be on a mission, making his way briskly through the halls, leaving Darcy scurrying behind him. Occasionally he’d turn corners and then scowl and mutter to himself, before looping back the way they’d come.

“Where are we going?” Darcy asked in frustration after the third time he’d turned back.

“Library,” he replied curtly. “If we can find it.”

“Didn’t you grow up here?” Darcy asked, incredulously.

“Yes, but you didn’t,” Loki replied. “Your mind is recreating the halls based on your memories – and they are exasperatingly inaccurate.”

“I have had other things to do than memorise floorplans,” Darcy said, drily.

“Like prepare for Thor’s wedding?” The question was thrown out carelessly, but there was a hard edge to Loki’s voice that made Darcy nervous.

“Is everyone against it?” she muttered aloud.

Loki frowned and stopped, turning to look at her. “What do you mean?”

“Your mother,” Darcy began.

“She is not my mother,” Loki snapped.

“That’s not what she said.” Darcy glared defiantly back at him. Loki’s eyes narrowed.

“She spoke to you of me?”

“She talked about how it could be hard, watching her children – plural – grow up,” Darcy said.

Loki scoffed, and sneered derisively.

“And she talked about making mistakes as a parent,” Darcy continued. “And about losing you, and Thor’s wedding.”

Loki’s sneer deeped. “Even still I am only spoken of in the same breath as Thor,” he said. “Not so great a loss indeed, when one still has son and heir.”

“That’s hardly fair,” Darcy said.

Loki cut her off. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he snapped. “One conversation with my mother does not make you an expert on me, nor Odin’s family.”

“So explain,” Darcy pressed.

“You would not understand,” Loki replied quickly, looking away. “And we have work to do.”

She rolled her eyes and threw her hands up. “We’re in a dream! No one is going to interrupt us. I’d say if we have one thing, it’s time. And, despite what you apparently think of me, I’m not actually an idiot or an emotional guppy. If you’re going to insist on company then you have to put up with all of it – actual, real, emotional communication and everything. Because I am not just your interstellar pit stop.”

Loki was staring at her in shock, his posture defensive. Volstagg walked up behind him, and then, much to Darcy’s alarm, walked straight through him seeming to take no notice of him at all. Loki flinched visibly.

“I do not think you are an idiot,” he said, finally.

Darcy let out a growl of exasperation. “Do you actually listen when I speak?”

“I have no conception of how to put these things into words you can understand,” Loki said, spreading his hands in an oddly apologetic gesture. He seemed a bit lost. “Your world is very small, and you...” He made an odd shrugging motion. “You are inexplicable to me – so how can I possibly explain myself to you?”

Acting purely on instinct she reached out and grabbed his hand. “We’re not very different at all, Loki,” she said. “Not being able to explain how you feel is a tremendously human experience.”

Loki looked offended, and the tenderness she’d been feeling towards him after that startling admission vanished abruptly. “Do you listen when I speak?” he echoed.

“Look, Loki,” she said firmly. “We have more in common than not. We’re both just people at the end of the day. We both get happy, and sad and everything in between, but just because you’re older doesn’t make what you’re feeling any more mysterious. Beneath the skin we’re both the same.”

Something shifted precipitately in Loki’s expression. A look of absolute, pure, unadulterated rage seemed to flick across his face for a moment, before it took on a dangerous look of rigid control. He stepped forward, taking her by the shoulders and pressing her back against the wall.

“You have not the slightest idea whereof you speak,” he said sharply, a tone of bitterness laced through it that seemed to almost physically strike her. He grabbed her wrists and pulled them up above her head, pinning them to the wall with one hand and looking down at her. “You believe we are the same?”

He was shaking – and she was as well. He looked jagged and broken, like she’d pulled the wrong string and now he was unravelling in front of her, the threads of his composure slipping through her fingers. She reached down as best she could and awkwardly stroked her fingers along the back of the hand that pinned her wrists. A slow, repetitive, soothing rhythm.

Then, in a sudden movement he ripped open the front of her nightgown, tearing it straight down the front. He bent down and pressed a bruising kiss to the crook of her neck, sucking hard at her skin until it burned. His hand covered her breast, rubbing hard circles over her nipple and she arched upwards, wrapping a leg around his waist, hooking it over his hip.

“You presume to know what lies beneath my skin?” he said, in that same biting tone. He scraped his nails down her stomach and she let out a low moan – pain or pleasure, she had absolutely no idea by this point. He ripped what was left of her nightgown completely and tossed it aside. Then, with a frantic fumbling urgency worked at the ties to his own trousers. He hiked his jerkin up and to the side and pulled himself free, not bothering to properly remove any of his clothing. He ran his hand along the length of his penis once, rubbing the head with his thumb at the end of the stroke. His fingers pressed vice-like into the bones of her wrist where he held her pinned against the wall.

Then, for a brief moment, he met her eyes, and she nodded.

He was not gentle. He grabbed hold of her thigh with his free hand, pressing hard enough into it to be painful. She felt a sharp stinging pain as he entered her, and she bit down on the leather of his jacket to keep from crying out, digging her fingernails into the back of his hand. He thrust into her, slamming her back into the wall. She could feel the hard pattern of the engravings pressing into her skin, marking her.

The hand that held her wrists in place turned suddenly, grabbing her own hand and entwining their fingers, clenching them tightly. She brought her free hand down and cupped his cheek, pressing her face into the crook of his neck and he slammed into her over and over again. It was too fast, and too rough for her to do anything but cling to him, wrapping her legs tightly around and holding him while he raged like a hurricane, his hand clasped tightly in hers like it was an anchor, the only thing tethering him between here and madness.

He thrust into her once more, and let out a guttural cry, his nails digging into her thigh as he came. They collapsed downward as his legs gave out, tumbling to the floor in a heap. She let him slip out of her and rolled onto her side, tangling her hand in his hair and stroking it softly as she wrapped her leg around his waist and held him to her. She pressed a long kiss to his forehead.

He still had not let go of her other hand. It was pinned between them at an awkward angle.

For a very long time, Loki did not move. He had pressed his face against her shoulder, and she could feel his breath against her skin, but otherwise he was utterly still. She felt utterly shaken by the strength of his reaction, like she’d just survived a tornado. She could still feel the imprint of his fingers on her thigh, and she was sore, a low, grinding ache that matched the one in her heart.

At last, when she was just about to move because her arm had fallen asleep, Loki stirred. He pressed a kiss to her shoulder, and then another along her collarbone, following it down to the centre of her chest. Slowly, with a tenderness entirely at odds with his previous behaviour, he ran a hand up the outside of her leg.

He pressed a kiss to her sternum, and then traced his tongue along the underside of her breast. “Loki,” she said, warningly.

The hand on her thigh gave a gentle squeeze, and he took her nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it in a way that made her toes curl.

“What?” She tried again.

Suddenly, he shifted his weight and rolled, using the leg on her thigh to guide her until he was on top of her, his knees between her legs. He looked down at her, his weight resting on his arm as he brought their entwined hands up to his lips and took her knuckle into his mouth. It wasn’t a kiss – more of a gentle bite, really – but it was so oddly tender she had to look away.

Slowly he bent down, pressing a kiss to her belly button and then working his way downwards. He let go of her hand, then, running it along the back of her leg and hooking her thigh over his shoulder. Then, gently, he licked a long line along her vulva. He swirled his tongue over her clitoris before placing a gentle kiss there.

She arched back, digging her heels into his shoulderblades. He worked his tongue slowly, almost too slowly, circling around her clitoris before sucking gently at it in a way that made her reflexively grab at his hair and tug. He brought one finger up and teasingly brushed it against her entrance.

She tugged at his hair again. “Stop teasing,” she ground out.

He responded instantly, slipping his finger inside her – still gently enough that it didn’t grate against her – and curled it back towards him, rubbing slow circles inside her that matched the speed of his tongue and made her close her eyes and press the back of her hand to her mouth to keep herself quiet.

He picked up the pace, and suddenly everything he was doing seemed to come together at once. She arched back, trying to get that tiny bit impossibly closer to his tongue and his finger and everything at once working in that maddening rhythm that just wasn’t quite enough. She traced shaking fingers across his temple in a caress and he sucked on her clitoris, causing her to cry out and turn her head to the side, biting her lip.

Her fingers clenched and unclenched, and she clutched at him, wrapping her hands in the fabric of his sleeves, the texture of his hair, silently pleading, begging. Her heels were digging hard into his back now, every muscle in her coiled tight like a spring as the pressure built. He kept drawing her closer and closer to the edge and then slowing down, backing off, like the ebb and flow of the tide.

She felt oddly lost, like there was nothing but the sensation of his tongue, wet and smooth and devastatingly dextrous, like her limbs were no longer under her own control, lost instead in a sea of hazy pleasure. She heard herself making desperate keening sounds, half-voiced pleas and desperate moans. She arched back, her hands clenching as she heard her own voice crying out in a litany of desperate ‘oh god yes, oh pleaseohfuckohoh – oh over and over until Loki gave a final, decisive flick of his tongue and she shattered, shuddering and senseless. She lay, languid and sated, and she felt Loki pressing kisses back up along the line of her body, and then lying down beside her.

She rolled over and traced the back of her fingers across his cheek, and again he took her knuckle into his mouth and repeated that same odd, affectionate bite. She gave him a satisfied half-smile, but he merely took her hand in his and placed it atop her breast.

Then he sat up and leant his back against the wall, one knee bent with his arm resting straight out upon it, and he stared blankly down the hallway away from her.

For the first time since this had all begun, Darcy felt oddly exposed. She sat up, wrapping her arms around herself and gathered the tattered remains of her nightdress. She felt sticky and sweaty and suddenly cold.

“Are you alright?” she said, at last.

“Hmm?” Loki said in surprise, turning to her and looking startled, almost as if he’d forgotten she was there. “Yes.” He rose to his feet and then, looking almost sheepish he asked, “and you?”

“Uhm,” Darcy said, awkwardly. “I could do with some clothes.”

“No one will notice if you walk unclothed here,” he said, waving his hand dismissively.

“I will,” said Darcy emphatically.

He looked her up and down perfunctorily, taking in the shredded remains of her nightgown, and then removed his cape, handing it to her unceremoniously. She wrapped it around her like a bedsheet, holding it shut with one hand. “Uhm,” she said again. “So, are we going to talk about what just happened?”

“Do you need to?” Loki asked tightly.

“I just thought it might be nice,” Darcy said, somewhat sarcastically. “Given it was a bit unexpected.”

“Really?” Loki said archly. “It takes three times to make a pattern, you know. And you and I seem to be in the habit of having sex each time we meet. I should have thought this was entirely expected.”

To her own chagrin, Darcy flushed hotly. “There’s no need to be rude. Or take your mood swings out on me.”

“You exasperating –” He cut himself short, his face contorted in an ugly snarl. “Just come. I have something I must show you.”

He wasn’t taking any chances. He grabbed hold of her hand and dragged her along behind him like an errant child, while she tried not to stumble gracelessly over the ends of his cloak. He lead her through the winding halls, arriving at last at what appeared to be the library.

“Here,” he said, letting go of her at last. He crossed the room in long, quick strides and traced his hands along the shelf, looking for a particular book. Darcy bit her tongue to keep back the million sarcastic comments that were threatening to spill out.

“Here,” he said again, at last, pulling a heavy codex off the shelf. “You see it?” He pressed it into her hands and she turned it over, frowning.

“I can’t read it,” she said.

He rolled his eyes. “I don’t require you to. I require you to recognize it.” He took it back and replaced it on the shelf. “It is here – the third shelf from the middle.”

“Right,” Darcy said, uncomprehendingly.

“I want you to take it.”

She gave him a look of extreme scepticism, and then reached forward.

“Not now,” Loki said. “When you awake. Return here, find the book and take it with you.”

“I am not stealing from Asgard,” she said. “No.”

“It is essential that you do this,” Loki insisted.

“No!”

“I will protect you, if that is your concern,” he said.

“No, it wasn’t. My concern is it’s theft.”

“I require it – you must do this.”

“You could try saying please,” she said, sarcastically.

Loki looked taken aback. “Please,” he said hesitantly.

“What for?” she asked, crossing her arms as best she could while keeping the cloak still in place.

Loki looked like he was debating how much to tell her. “It contains information about the worlds that lie between the nine realms,” he said at last. “I am seeking a certain object –”

“Masterfully vague,” Darcy said.

He glared at her. “I have not yet been able to find it, but I believe it lies somewhere in one of these uncharted realms. The cape I took when last we met will aid me in reaching these realms, but I should like to have some idea of what I might find. Though hardly comprehensive, this book contains the only written account of these realms.”

“And this thing you’re looking for?” Darcy prompted.

“Does not concern Midgard,” he replied. “I am doing nothing that will be a threat to your people.”

“What about other people?”

His mouth thinned out to a sharp line. “Unless it is utterly unavoidable, I seek to amend damage rather than cause it.”

Darcy searched his face for a moment, before nodding. “Oh, alright. I’ll get your stupid book.”

“Thank you,” Loki said. Then, he stepped forward and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I believe it is now time for you to awake.”

“Wait,” she said, grabbing hold of his sleeve. “How am I supposed to get the book to you?”

“We will meet again,” Loki said, enigmatically, then, he plucked her fingers from his shirt and stepped back, and the dream world seemed to fall way around her, books collapsing off shelves as the floor gave in beneath her feet.

...

She spent nearly an hour standing outside the library, wringing her hands, before she convinced herself to go in. It was utterly empty, which was a pretty sorry state of affairs in her mind, but was convenient for her first foray into a career in international trans-planet burgling.

The book was precisely where he’d shown her. She slipped into into her drawer in her room, and left Loki’s flower pressed between its pages.

Chapter 5: The Two Knives

Summary:

Darcy gets dropped unceremoniously in Muspelheim, and winds up involved in a lot more than she bargains for. Loki is forced to confront his feelings about his relationship with Darcy.

There was something disturbing about the way the back of her underwear drawer was looking increasingly shrine-like. Which was wrong, on so many levels.

But Darcy wasn’t sure what else to call the collection of artefacts she’d put back there, carefully wrapped up like they were precious to her (and, perhaps, they were). She could hear the melodic pitter-patter of rain outside her window, and she curled up on the carpet of her bedroom floor, feet tucked into warm slippers and a wrap thrown around her as she pulled them one by one out of the drawer and lay them out on the floor in front of her in a semi-circle.

She’d kept the mask and the flowers together. The lyre she’d had to keep next to her dresser, protected by a dark cloth. She unwrapped it now and gave it a slow, speculative strum. It sounded indescribably foreign. It had a surprisingly resonant sound, for a lyre, like a fall of pebbles heralding an avalanche. She wondered what it would sound like if someone played it properly.

She wasn’t much musically adept, save a few awful recorder lessons in school and a year of piano that she couldn’t much remember, but there was something about the cadence of the instrument that reminded her very much of the market at Svartálfheim. Colourful, bustling, bright – and otherworldly.

But it was the book she was most curious about. Loki had been very emphatic about it, and she couldn’t help wondering what on Earth he meant to do with it. It made her eyes cross the more she stared at it. It looked like it was written in the Roman alphabet – but at the same time, not. Like she could only catch it out of the corner of her eye, but not focus on any of the words. Each time she tried to read she felt like she was reaching for something just beyond the stretch of her arm, that she couldn’t quite see nor grasp.

It gave her a headache, but it also drove her slightly insane. She kept pulling it out, thumbing through it, trying to read what was on the pages. The more she tried, the less like words they seemed, until the letters almost seemed animate, running around on the page and scuttling out of sight. She squinted at the page of the book, holding it up under the lamp to get a little more light, but it was no use.

Frustrated, Darcy slammed the book down on the floor and said, “Typical. Loki would make me pick up a book that can’t be read.”

She jumped up as the book flipped over on the floor and the pages turned like a shuffling deck of cards. Then the room fell eerily quiet. Cautiously, Darcy knelt down and picked the book up. The pages were charred and covered in a fine red dust. She brushed them off, then rubbed her fingers together examining the dust. It felt hot, and smelt vaguely burnt, and it crumbled into even finer particles in her hand.

It was in Norse. Or, at least, what Darcy assumed was Norse.

“What are the odds that if I read this, Norse zombies are gonna turn up in my bedroom?” Darcy muttered to herself.

The book seemed to be waiting.

“Oh, balls,” Darcy said, and picked it up. She couldn’t quite bring herself to put it down – curiousity gnawing at her as she ran her fingers over the vellum pages.

“What do you want from me?” she said quietly, tracing the letters on the page.

There was an uncanny rustling sound from the pages of the book, almost like a whispered answer, and she felt the page grow warm beneath her hand. Her heart was pounding frantically in her chest, and she could hear it thudding in her ears like a dull roar. She could smell baked earth, dry, arid and blisteringly hot.

She tried to pull her hand back, but it was already too late. The heat wave hit her like a punch in the gut. The air felt thick and heavy in her lungs, and it almost felt like it was burning her it was so hot. She could feel the heat from the ground beneath her through her thin slippers.

She was in hell.

Or, at least, it certainly looked like it. The landscape was pitted and barren, and punctuated with a great river of fire that moved slowly through the craggy, red and black land. The flames rising from the river licked at the blood red sky, and belched smoke that blotted out what few stars could be seen. She could smell it, even from here, sharp and putrid, like sulphur.

Loki’s codex was still in her hand, and she very nearly resisted the urge to rip it apart right then and there in frustration. She flipped through it frantically, but she couldn’t find the page she’d been looking at. The writing seemed to shift and move, like she couldn’t quite focus on it more than to simply discern that there were words on the page. She shut the book with a snap, and clutched it to her chest to keep from throwing it into the fire.

The land stretched out before her, vast, empty and forbidding. She was completely, and utterly alone.

Her first priority, she decided, was shelter. She could feel her skin drying in the heat, and the air was almost too thick and hot to breathe. The landscape was pitted with holes and caves. Squaring her shoulders and trying hard not to think that this might be the last sight she’d ever see, Darcy set out towards the closest one.

It was a small, uncomfortable shelter, but it was shelter at least. She didn’t relish the thought of trudging onwards, with her small slippers she wasn’t sure how far she’d get before she was shoeless entirely. And, of course, there was the slight problem of precisely where to go. The landscape, as she squinted out to survey it, was utterly barren, and looked entirely uninhabited.

Darcy sank back against the wall of the cave, tucking Loki’s codex to her chest and wrapping her arms around her knees. She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek to keep from crying at the prospect of being alone, and possibly marooned, in a place she was so unlikely to survive. She wondered desolately how long she could manage without water.

The heat made her dizzy and dulled her senses. She let her head fall forward onto her knees, and half-dazed.

She was brought up with a start at the sound of a small rockslide to her left. She caught a glimpse of someone, humanoid, but with a thick leathery skin of deep red, as they scrambled over the rocks away from her, climbing the cliff face above the cave’s entrance. She scuttled backwards in surprise, dropping the codex. Her back hit the far wall of the cave, and her heart sank as she realised she was trapped. For a long moment she could hear only the sound of her own laboured breathing. Then, slowly, she heard movement outside the cave, and she saw the face of a fire giant peering curiously around the entrance at her. As soon as their eyes met, it ducked away.

“Hello?” Darcy tried cautiously.

With careful deliberation, as if approaching a wild animal, the fire giant came slowly around the corner and moved towards Darcy. Now that Darcy had a better look at her, she could tell that the fire giant was a girl. She was unclothed, and her skin seemed rough, as if toughened by the heat and dust. She could make out a faint patterning of scales, in bands of lighter and darker red, and her eyes were a bright red that reminded Darcy of the flickering of firelight. They were watching her now, with unabashed curiosity and a healthy dose of wariness.

“What realm do you hail from?” she asked Darcy.

“Earth,” Darcy replied nervously. “Midgard.”

The fire giant made a soft noise of surprise and cocked her head to the side. “How did you come here? Are you lost?”

Darcy laughed bitterly. “You could say that. I wound up here by accident.”

“Where are your parents?” the fire giant asked, edging closer curiously.

“My parents?” Darcy echoed in confusion. “At home, I suppose. Why?”

“You are alone,” the fire giant said sympathetically. “I will take you to my parents.”

There was something childlike about the statement, and her manner, and it twigged in Darcy’s mind. “How old are you?” she asked.

The fire giant gave Darcy an odd look, evaluating her and evidently deciding she was a bit dim. “I am nearly fifty.”

“Oh,” Darcy said, quietly. “I thought... You seemed... younger,” she finished, awkwardly.

The fire giant screwed up her face and glared. “I am nearly grown up,” she said, straightening up to her full height – about two or three inches shorter than Darcy – and looking as supercilious as she could manage. “I am not young.”

“My apologies,” Darcy said placatingly, with a grin. “I’m only twenty-two, so you’re much more grown up than I am.”

The fire giant stared at her, and then, disconcertingly, blinked twice with an inner eyelid, that closed sideways over her eye, and leaned towards Darcy. She smiled consolingly and placed a comforting hand on Darcy’s head. She could feel the heat radiating from her skin, almost too hot for her to stand. However, the fire giant simply stroked her hair gently, if curiously, and said very softly, “You are brave to be so far from home and so young. I will take care of you. I grant you shelter, in my home.”

“Thank you,” Darcy said.

The fire giant stepped back, dropping her hand to her side. “What is your name?” she asked.

“Darcy. You?”

“Darcy,” the fire giant echoed, pronouncing her name with an odd accent that sounded vaguely like guttural Danish. “Mine is Sólveig.”

“Pleased to meet you, Sólveig,” Darcy said, kindly.

Sólveig grinned at her, displaying a neat row of yellow teeth, and said, “my house is this way. Come!”

Sólveig was very patient as Darcy, worn out and sluggish from the heat, scrambled slowly along behind her over the cliffs and through the dust. Darcy was sweating awfully and her feet were blistered, leaving her limping. It was entirely clear that Sólveig found her utterly hopeless. Still, she waited for Darcy, scaling the rocks with elegant ease and perching at the top to watch Darcy’s progress, murmuring kind encouragements all the while. And she never once complained at Darcy’s slow progress, which did quell the anxious worry Darcy couldn’t quite shake that Sólveig might abandon her here if she were too slow.

At last they came to a tunnel, which descended into a pitch darkness that made Darcy shiver involuntarily despite the heat. Thick stalactites and stalagmites ringed the entrance, looking like gaping jaws. Sólveig pressed ahead, gesturing for Darcy to follow. She wound her way through the stalagmites with practiced ease. Nervously, and wondering just how much she might regret this later, Darcy followed.

As they plunged into the darkness, Darcy was startled to see torches flicker to life on the wall, as if of their own accord. They cast long, eerie shadows down the tunnel, and the air seemed thinner here, lending an oppressive and claustrophobic feel to the place. She trudged slowly, her feet aching as she dragged them along, making a frankly ridiculous amount of noise that echoed down the tunnel. Sólveig looked at her in mixed pity and exasperation.

“Can you walk no more quietly?” she asked.

“Sorry,” said Darcy contritely, and she attempted to tiptoe along behind as quietly as she could manage. It wasn’t a complete success; the ground was heavily littered with loose stones that skittered and crunched beneath her feet, and she was much too exhausted to be truly dextrous, but she was quieter than before.

She began to see a deep red glow emanating from the tunnel ahead, and she felt the temperature gradually rise from ‘fry an egg on the pavement’ to somewhere around ‘the very fires of Mount Doom’.

“What?” she asked inarticulately, panting in the thin, dry air. Sólveig looked at her in concern.

“I had not realised Midgardians were so fragile,” she said. “We are nearly there. Do you require a rest before we continue?”

Darcy attempted to swallow and winced at the feeling of her try throat working. “No,” she rasped. “If I stop now, I’m not sure I’ll get back up.”

Sólveig looked doubly concerned at that. “Are you injured?” she asked, placing her hands on Darcy’s shoulders and then pulling them back instantly as if she had been burnt, peering curiously at Darcy’s sweat on her hands.

Darcy wrinkled her nose in embarrassment. “Sorry –“ she began, just as Sólveig said, “you are wet.”

“It’s sweat,” Darcy explained with a grimace. “It’s a response to the heat. My body is attempting to keep itself cool.”

“Heat?” Sólveig echoed curiously. “It is the cool season.”

Darcy decided right then and there that, as much as she liked Sólveig so far, she was getting the hell off this planet and never coming back.

“It is much cooler where I live on Midgard,” she said.

Sólveig was frowning in consternation. “I will take you to mother. She will know what to do. Can you continue?”

Darcy nodded, forcing her tired legs to keep walking. The tunnel ahead seemed to end in a wall of bright red, rippling and shifting like flowing lava. Given the heat, she had the awful, sinking suspicion that they genuinely were headed for a lava waterfall. There certainly didn’t seem to be a turnoff at any point.

“Um, Sólveig,” Darcy said. “Are we going to walk through that?”

“Yes,” said Sólveig blandly.

“I... can’t,” Darcy said, stopping dead. “It would kill me. And probably melt my face off. I really like my face un-melted, if it’s all the same to you.” She began unconsciously backing away.

“I have thought of that,” Sólveig said, looking pleased with herself. “I will carry you.”

“Uh,” said Darcy in incoherent terror. “No offense, but I really don’t think that will work.” She was still shuffling backwards, tottering over the pebbles in her tattered slippers.
“I will protect you,” said Sólveig confidently. She held out a hand.

Darcy stared at it for a long moment. Sólveig had long nails, curving over the tops of her fingers and her skin was scaled and coloured a deep red. She could see raised patterns, like pronounced fingerprints, running over the palm and up her arm. It was odd to see so obviously an inhuman hand extended out to her in friendship. She couldn’t help the brief rush of superstition as her mind ran through all the depictions of the devil she’d seen and compared them unfavourably with the hand outstretched before her. But she looked up into Sólveig’s eyes, bright red like a living flame all the way through with a single, slim black pupil. They were utterly alien, but the expression in them was one she recognized: kindness, patience and a desire to help.

Taking a deep breath, Darcy reached out and placed her hand in Sólveig’s and gave it a gentle squeeze. Sólveig tilted her head to the side and blinked twice with her inner eyelids, then, to Darcy’s surprise, flapped her arm up and down in a motion so fast it was practically a blur. She heard a high-pitched, undulating whistling sound, and, as she stared in astonishment at Sólveig’s expression, she had the odd, uncertain feeling that Sólveig might have been laughing.

Sólveig picked her up carefully, but didn’t seem at all to find her a burden to carry. She held Darcy close to her breast, like a mother cradling a child, and Darcy found the embrace almost unbearably sweltering. Sólveig’s skin radiated heat like an oven, and Darcy felt like she could barely breathe from the heat of it. It almost burnt her skin, and she had to physically resist the urge to squirm away.

Sólveig walked resolutely towards the cascade of lava. It was beautiful, if utterly terrifying. It had a much more viscous consistency than water, and it flowed slowly, ribbons of lighter and darker colour shifting through it like living marble. Sólveig didn’t slow as she approached, and Darcy bit back an involuntary squeal of terror as they grew closer. She took a deep breath and shut her eyes, pressing her face into Sólveig’s chest. She felt Sólveig bend over as they passed through, shielding Darcy from the worst of it with her own body, but she must have done something else as well because Darcy felt her skin tingle all over, like pins and needles, and suddenly the temperature seemed entirely comfortable.

Once they’d cleared the falls Sólveig put her down, and the feeling faded almost at once. They were standing on a plateau, shielded by an outcropping of rock and an overhang. Behind her the lava ran down and seemed to pool in a lake before running out into a tunnel. There was a path too, which wound away from the lava flow.

She peered curiously around the rocks and looked down. A great city stretched out beneath her, with houses carved out of the rock of the cavern scattered across the great space below. There was a large ball of flame hovering near the ceiling, like an artificial sun, illuminating the cavern with a pale yellow light.

To her left were a great pair of gates, rising from floor to ceiling of the cavern, and, at the moment, stood shut. On the far side of the cavern was a great carving of Yggdrasil embedded with some kind of orange paint so it stood out against the brownish-grey of the rock. Its branches twisted and coiled into knots, weaving a breathtakingly beautiful pattern that crawled up the walls and onto the ceiling. Gems were set into the branches like stars glittered brightly, and all around it were calligraphic inscriptions, thin sharp lines and thick curves in a kind of hieroglyphic script that reminded Darcy of dancing firelight.

Sólveig seemed extremely amused by Darcy’s open-mouthed astonishment. “Come,” she said, starting down the path. “My house is this way.”

The path was steep and uneven, and Darcy had to go slowly to keep from tumbling down headfirst.

Sólveig seemed to grow nervous as they entered the outskirts of the city, looking around furtively.

It was only then that Darcy realised how young Sólveig must have been. The buildings loomed over her head, doorways standing a good fifteen or sixteen foot high. There weren’t many fire giants around, but Darcy could see how tall they were, and they all stood at least twice her height. Adults, it seemed, wore clothing, which seemed to consist of thin sarongs or kilts. Sólveig tried to block Darcy from view with her body as they passed, but Darcy stuck out like a sore thumb and she could see fire giants peering as curiously at her as she was at them. Sólveig kept shuffling her along, however, and they ducked into an alleyway and away from the onlookers.

They came quickly to a house, larger than the others on the street, with an open colonnade surrounding a courtyard out in front. Sólveig ducked inside, traipsing quickly through the centre of the open courtyard, which looked a little like a garden. Rocks were placed carefully in a winding, intricate pattern, and surrounded by small, cactus-like plants with thick, broad spiky leaves. On the far side of the courtyard was a tall doorway, covered with a thick, draped cloth.

Sólveig held it aside and ushered Darcy in. It seemed to be an open plan house, with areas partitioned off by large screens. She could see a great heap of bedding in the left-hand corner, where two young fire giants were sitting sleepily. They looked a little older than Sólveig, but not by much. Two other fire giants, one male and one female, were stooped low over a fire pit on the far side of the house, and Darcy could hear and smell sizzling meat on the pan. They looked up at once when she entered, and the woman rose sharply and stalked towards them.

“Sólveig,” she said, grabbing her by the arm. “What is this?”

A third adult emerged from behind the screen, and he stared at Darcy for a long moment, looking utterly taken aback. “What realm do you hail from?” he asked her, examining her intently.

“Midgard,” she said, nervously. “I’m very sorry to drop in. I mean you no harm; I’m just lost.” She held up her hands in an unconscious gesture of goodwill.

“Midgard,” echoed Sólveig’s mother, releasing her daughter’s arm and looking Darcy over. “How came you here?”

“A book,” Darcy said, handing the – now, very battered – codex over. “It was an accident, I assure you.”

Sólveig’s mother murmured something in surprise, taking the book from Darcy’s grip and flipping through the pages. She gazed at Darcy in undisguised suspicion.

“She was lost,” Sólveig piped up. “I gave her shelter. I thought you could help.”

“Silence,” her mother said, firmly but not entirely unkindly. She never took her eyes off Darcy, looking her up and down as if trying to puzzle her out. At last she spoke. “What would you ask of me?”

Darcy felt like a little girl caught doing something she shouldn’t, and she trembled slightly. “Shelter and water, please, and your help to return me home if you know a way. I’m not sure how I can repay you, but if there is anything I can do in exchange...” she trailed off awkwardly.

“It is no small thing to ask for water on this world,” said Sólveig’s mother slowly.

“I’m sorry –“ Darcy began, but Sólveig’s mother waved her hand in a gesture of dismissal.

“I do not know what help I wish to give you, but my daughter has granted you shelter – foolishly and precipitately perhaps – but we are people of our word. My name is Hjördís, this is my husband, Bröndólfr,” she gestured to the fire giant who had spoken to Darcy earlier, “and my brother-in-law, Eldjárn.” She indicated the third adult, who had remained standing by the fire pit. “Your name?”

“My name is Darcy.”

“I grant you the shelter of my home, Darcy,” Hjördís said solemnly. “If you have weapons, relinquish them now.”

“I’m unarmed,” Darcy said, chewing her lip nervously.

Hjördís hesitated a moment and then said, “you will permit a search?”

“Of course,” Darcy replied, holding her arms outstretched like she was presenting herself for airport security. Bröndólfr stepped forward and gently patted her down, and she was grateful that he seemed to be touching her as little as possible. He stepped back, and turned to Hjördís, who nodded.

“Sit,” she gestured towards the heap of bedding. “I will discuss what is to be done with you.”

Sólveig dragged Darcy off to the corner, where she sat on a low, fur-covered bench. She was introduced to Sólveig’s sister and brother, Skírlaug and Bjartmárr respectively, and they seemed to regard her with mixed trepidation and interest. Skírlaug was apparently old enough to warrant clothing, and she wore a beaded sarong decorated with a beautiful pattern that caught the firelight every time she moved.

Sólveig’s brother seemed utterly fascinated by Darcy’s hair, and he reached out unabashedly to touch it. Darcy wished that it wasn’t so limp with sweat and stuck to her face, but he didn’t seem to mind. None of them seemed to have any hair at all, so she supposed it would be a rather unusual sight. Before Darcy could decide how she wanted to handle this, Skírlaug slapped her brother’s hand away with a firm, “don’t touch.”

The adults had retreated to the opposite corner and were watching her carefully as they spoke amongst themselves in sotto voices.

“You have a lovely family,” Darcy told Sólveig, hoping it turned out to be true. “And a lovely house.”

“It is very big,” said Sólveig. “Mother is cousin to the queen, so we have much cattle.”

“And your uncle lives with you?” Darcy asked, curiously.

“Where else would he live?” Skírlaug replied acerbically.

Darcy shrugged and tried to look as non-confrontational as possible. “With his own family? Do you have any cousins?”

Sólveig frowned at her in confusion. “We are his family.”

“I just meant, maybe he might get married and have children of his own,” Darcy floundered, wondering if she was stepping all over their culture’s toes.

“We are his children,” Sólveig said, as if that would clear things up.

“Oh,” Darcy said, a bit helplessly. “I thought...”

Skírlaug leaned forward with a malicious grin. “Do your people’s uncles turn their backs on their brother’s children and leave them to be raised by their mother and father alone?”

Darcy glanced in bewilderment between the three of them. “Well, if the family is on good terms uncles will usually see their nieces and nephews often, but they don’t raise them.”

Sólveig looked at her in curious astonishment. “You have only two parents?”

Skírlaug snorted derisively. “Once again we see how little other races care for their young.”

“Whoa, hold on,” Darcy said. “That’s not fair.”

Skírlaug simply rolled her eyes, and Sólveig seemed to be looking at her piteously.

“Don’t be cruel, Skírlaug,” said Bjartmárr, giving her a shove. “She may have only two parents, but you have three who all hate you.” He flapped his arms the same way Sólveig had earlier, throwing his head back and rocking back and forth in time with the odd whistling noise.

Skírlaug shot him a withering glare, but said nothing.

The adults seemed to come to a decision then, because they brought a great platter of cooked meat over, along with a pitcher of a thick, green, pulpy juice, which they poured into bowls and passed around carefully. When Darcy asked, Sólveig explained that it was harvested from the cactus plants she’d seen outside. Remembering what Hjördís had said to her about water being scarce, Darcy made a point of thanking them effusively and being very careful not to spill any. Her thanks seemed to mollify Sólveig’s parents somewhat.

The juice was thick and unpleasantly bitter, but she was much too dehydrated to be picky at this point and she had to resist the urge to down it in one gulp. They all ate with their hands, gathered in a circle around the platter, feeding each other with small bites of meat. Sólveig offered her a piece, holding it up with greasy fingers towards her mouth. Darcy watched as everyone around her took food directly from the hands of their neighbours, so, throwing caution to the wind, she did the same. It felt uncomfortably intimate to her, but Sólveig seemed genuinely pleased, so Darcy reciprocated the gesture.

They ate in silence, and Darcy, though she was grateful for the hospitality, was glad when it was over.

At last Hjördís spoke. “Sólveig has given you shelter; that we have fulfilled. You have asked also to be returned home. This I cannot promise, but I will take you to the queen to ask her blessing to return you to your own world. I can offer no more than this.”

“Thank you,” Darcy said, honestly. “I cannot thank you enough.”

Hjördís nodded as if this were entirely self-evident. “Sólveig,” she said, turning to her daughter. “Take our guest to wash.”

Sólveig jumped to her feet, tugging Darcy along behind her. They went behind one of the screens, where there was a large basin filled with fine, red-coloured sand. Sólveig plunged her hands into it, scrubbing them together with the sand and then brushing them off, gesturing for Darcy to do the same. It felt oddly soothing, and she figured she was probably getting a good exfoliation out of it, but it left her hands feeling dry and the sand stuck unmercifully under her already filthy fingernails.

Hjördís seemed to be a woman of tremendous efficiency, as everything had been cleared away and washed by the time Darcy came back out. Sólveig’s father and uncle seemed to be assisting her siblings with hanging the cooking implements up and putting away the bedding. With a cheerful “goodbye, then!” Sólveig rushed off to join them. Her uncle fondly inspected her clean hands and wiped a spot of grease from her face.

Hjördís was watching Darcy impassively. “He’s good with her,” Darcy said, smiling.

Hjördís brushed her off with a dismissive shrug. “He is her uncle. How else should he be with his children?”

Sólveig’s father looked up, then, searching his wife’s expression questioningly. He seemed to receive a wordless answer, as he nodded and began to usher the children outside. Hjördís turned on her heel and gestured for Darcy to follow.

Hjördís’ strides were easily twice that of Darcy’s, and she had to jog slightly to keep up. The streets were busier now; apparently the city was settling into its daily rhythm, and she was the recipient of undisguised stares as she followed along in Hjördís wake. Hjördís seemed better dressed than many of the others they passed. Her sarong was embroidered and beaded with a complicated pattern, and she wore gold bands on her upper arms. She remembered what Sólveig had said about them being related to royalty, but it seemed they also lived on a quiet street in a respectable neighbourhood.

They turned onto what appeared to be a main thoroughfare. The houses grew smaller, many using the open courtyard space at the front to advertise wares for sale – pottery mostly, but there was some beautiful glasswork and she could see (and smell) at least one tannery. She stuck close to Hjördís’ heels, feeling oddly like a child amongst literal giants.

At last they turned away, onto a wider street, lined with what looked like carved obsidian. It led to an open gate, with a great palace rising up behind it. The gate itself was decorated with a series of carvings depicting, as far as Darcy could tell, the history of their world. Some of it was inlaid, and the sun at the top of the gate had been done in gold foil so that it reflected the light and seemed to shine of its own accord. She wanted to stop and examine it more closely, but Hjördís hurried her through.

Hjördís announced herself at the gate, and introduced Darcy as “an errant Midgardian seeking return to her proper realm.”

“I have a name,” Darcy muttered under her breath.

Hjördís steadfastly ignored her, and, with the approval of the guard, swept onwards and up the steps towards the palace doors. Scurrying behind in an effort not to get lost, Darcy followed.

The palace was beautifully lit by a series of skylights, which cast light down in a knotwork pattern on the floor in the shape of an emblem that reminded Darcy a little bit of a star. At the far end was a throne, canopied and covered in furs. The queen leant forward in her chair, peering at Darcy.

“What have you brought, cousin?” she called out in a voice that was surprisingly high-pitched.

Hjördís shoved Darcy forward and inclined her head in greeting, spreading her arms out before her with her palms facing upwards. “Eybörg,” she said. “My daughter found a Midgardian who became lost in your realm. She wishes to return to her own. Sólveig has promised her shelter, which has been given, but I should wish to see her returned.”

Queen Eybörg stood and stepped forward into the light. She had only a small, golden circlet around her head, but her clothes were richly embroidered. She was shorter than Hjördís by a good eight inches, but she carried herself well, and she looked down her nose at Darcy with a mixture of curiosity and annoyance.

“How came she here?” she asked, gesturing towards Darcy. “Midgard does not yet have a bifröst.”

Hjördís produced Loki’s codex, and the Queen plucked it at once from her hands, flipping through the pages. “How came she by this?” she demanded.

Hjördís turned, and looked pointedly down at Darcy, who swallowed nervously. “It was in the library at Asgard,” she said. She neglected to mention that she’d nicked it.

“Odin,” Eybörg said with a scowl. "So he has taken to Midgard again. Fool. And you –“ she turned, addressing Darcy directly for the first time. “What permitted you to walk the halls of Odin’s house? You appear too frail to be a warrior of such great valour.”

“My friend engaged to marry Odin’s son, Thor,” Darcy said.

Eybörg looked scornful. “The house of Odin sinks low indeed if it looks for its brides on Midgard.”

It took every ounce of Darcy’s will to not look outraged at that statement.

“And this book?” Eybörg pressed, holding it up for emphasis. “It is an artefact of considerable power. Was it freely given? Or have I a thief now in my halls?”

Darcy desperately hoped she didn’t look as guilty as she felt. She settled on the literal truth. “Odin’s son asked me to take it. I didn’t know what it could do.”

“Thor gave this to you?” Eybörg seemed extremely sceptical.

“No,” Darcy replied nervously, after a moment’s pause. “His other son.”

“Odin has no other son,” Eybörg said sharply. “That vile viper he cast out of his own nest is no son of his, by his own admission. You steal from your hosts and keep poor companions. Why should I welcome your presence here?”

There was an awful, sinking feeling of dread in the pit of Darcy’s stomach as she faced the genuine possibility that this might be her last few minutes alive.

“I assure you,” she said, shakily, “I mean you no ill will. I just want to go home. I intended no harm to the house of Odin. I was mislead.”

Eybörg scrutinised her for a long moment. Darcy straightened under her gaze, tilting her chin up and looking the queen in the eye. Her mind desperately clinging to the hope that if Eybörg had to face her as a fellow being, she might be less inclined to bother disposing of her and just send her home.

“You have some courage, then,” Eybörg said at last. “I will consider what is to be done with you.” She gave two loud claps of her hands, and guards seemed to melt out of the shadows, flanking Darcy at once. The queen gave them a hand signal which apparently meant something to the effect of “to the dungeon” (at least, Darcy hoped it meant that and not “off with her head”) and she was led out of the room through a side door, and down a long, winding set of stairs.

It became darker and more stifling the further down they went. She was led to what was unmistakably a cell, with nothing but a rock-cut slab for a bed and a filthy chamber pot in the corner. The door slammed shut behind her with an ominous clang, and she heard the footsteps of the guards recede slowly back up the stairway, leaving her alone.

It was like a sauna. Dry and almost unbearably hot. She could feel her clothes and her hair plastered to her skin with sweat, and she was fairly certain she’d lost whatever moisture she’d regained from the cactus juice. Her tongue felt uncomfortably dry and her head pounded. She wondered grimly if she was about to succumb to heat stroke.

Somehow, based on what Hjördís had said about water, she doubted very much that a request for a tall glass would go over well now. Just when she was about to throw the tatters of her dignity to the wind and beg for one anyway, she heard someone approaching down the stairs. She stumbled dizzily towards the door, unsteady on her feet from dehydration. She was shivering all over, oddly cold despite the heat and, dimly, her brain began to bleat in alarm.

The conversation she had through the bars with her rescuer was somewhat hazy, since her motor function seemed to be going, but she remembered a kind, reassuring voice speaking to her as they unlocked the cell door and carried her back up the stairs. She was too far gone by this point to really appreciate the fact that she was literally being sprung from jail (a new level in badassery, to be sure, although the fact that she was being carried out might have to be left out of the official story), but she managed to mumble a garbled “thank you” and a request for water before she passed out.

When she came around again there was a cool, damp cloth pressed against her forehead, and a cup at her lips. Greedily, if very unsteadily, she tried to sit up and gulp some of the bitter juice down. She felt firm, cool hands press down on her shoulders.

“Easy,” said a familiar voice, and she very nearly spat her juice back out.

“You absolute dillhole,” Darcy rasped.

Loki laughed. “I am pleased to see you are recovered.”

“I am so not recovered,” Darcy said, squirming away from him. “I’m furious.”

“Infinitely preferable to invalidity,” Loki said, infuriatingly mild-mannered.

“What are you doing here?” Darcy demanded, with as much malice as she could scrounge up. “What am I doing here? Your stupid book dragged me here. You did this to me on purpose, you insufferable, self-centred, smug, selfish prick.”

“Well, your vocabulary has certainly improved, though you still seem awfully confused. I shall choose to believe you are delirious and meant none of those hurtful things,” Loki said, his voice tinged with barely-suppressed amusement and affected offence. Darcy wanted to strangle him. Or possibly bludgeon him to death with his stupid book. At that last thought, she remembered.

“I lost your stupid book, by the way. The queen has it.”

“Yes, I know,” said Loki. “A temporary setback.”

“Oh, good,” said Darcy, scowling. “I’d hate to think I’d unduly inconvenienced you.”

“Not unduly,” said Loki with deliberate obliviousness.

He was fucking dead. As soon as she could sit up without shaking.

“Where am I?” she ground out between clenched teeth. “And, please, cut the crap. I have the worst headache and I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.”

Wordlessly, Loki leaned over and took the cloth from her forehead. He rinsed it in the bowl of cactus goop, and then murmured something under his breath as he replaced it on her forehead. She gasped as it went pleasantly cold under his fingertips.

“You are in the halls of Bergljót, sister of the queen. She removed you from custody, upon my request,” said Loki, in a softer voice.

“Thanks,” Darcy said, flatly. “And why am I here at all?”

“I miscalculated,” Loki said, awkwardly.

“You miscalculated,” Darcy echoed. “I nearly died.”

“You are inconveniently frail,” Loki agreed. “It is proving a difficulty.”

Darcy lifted the corner of the cloth on her forehead to glare at him balefully. “I hate you,” she said, feelingly.

“Nevertheless, your presence is fortuitous,” said Loki, ignoring her. “Well,” he amended, “the presence of the codex is.”

“Oh, good,” Darcy said again, sarcastically. “I’m so glad my trans-planetary courier skills are so very helpful to you.”

Loki looked down at her reproachfully. “You are upset,” he said.

Darcy let out a bitter laugh. “No, really, I’m fine. I’m absolutely OK with the way you manipulated me into stealing, got me stranded here with no supplies and no warning and left me at the mercy of people I know nothing about with nothing to my name but a book with a bad attitude that decides when it feels like letting you read it. It’s been much fun. Especially the bit where I nearly died.”

“I would not have allowed you to come to harm,” said Loki, his voice low.

“Then where the hell have you been?” Darcy snapped.

Loki sat back, looking defensive and disgruntled. “Are you quite finished?” he asked.

Darcy let out an hysterical giggle. “Am I finished? I have been imprisoned, marooned and deathly ill, and all you have to say is it’s ‘fortuitous’ that I brought the goddamn book you tricked me into stealing for you.”

“My words were perhaps ill-chosen,” Loki said, “but your actions are your own. If you were unwilling to take the book, then you would not have done so. I have not compelled you.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Darcy said, rolling onto her side away from him.

“You have,” Loki said with a sneer.

Darcy rolled back over and flung the cloth away from her face, and then slapped him before she could even process what she was doing. “Don’t you dare, don’t you fucking dare.” She was shaking all over, from fury and exhaustion, and Loki was staring at her in wide-eyed disbelief.

She could see the stark, red outline of her hand on his cheek, and they froze for a moment, barely breathing, before Loki’s face contorted in ugly fury.

“You are clearly recovered. Since you find my presence so repugnant, I will depart.”

“Yeah,” Darcy snapped. “Woe is you. I find your attitude repugnant. I find your treating me like crap and dragging me around whenever you need something, and then dropping me when you’re done repugnant. I’m not a tool, Loki, but god knows you are.”

If he looked angry before, he looked utterly livid now. He rose to his feet towering over her. “I haven’t taken anything from you that wasn’t freely given,” he said.

“Hitting me below the belt isn’t going to work,” Darcy said. “And you’re just proving my point.”

“I rescued you,” he said, managing to sound both furious and petulant at the same time.

“You’re the reason I needed rescuing,” Darcy replied. “That’s the point.”

Whatever Loki’s retort would have been, it died on his lips as the curtain in the doorway was drawn back, and a tall, regal-looking figure entered.

Her sarong was embroidered with the same emblem Darcy had seen in the throne room, and she wore a cap on her head made out of a gold mesh, with gems woven into it so that they sparkled like stars when she moved her head. There was something indefinably commanding about her presence, and she seemed otherwordly and remote, like a goddess, as she surveyed the scene. Her eyes lingered on Darcy, and Darcy felt very scruffy and self-conscious.

“I am pleased to see you recovered,” she said, looking back and forth between Loki and Darcy. “I am Bergljót, daughter of the late Queen Eydís.”

“I am honoured to meet you,” said Darcy awkwardly, tugging at her shirt and tucking her tattered slippers beneath her. “I cannot thank you enough for your help.”

Loki snorted at that. Loudly.

Both Bergljót and Darcy turned to look at him, but he simply schooled his features into an inscrutable expression and addressed Bergljót directly. “I have plans to attend to if we are to proceed this evening. If you will permit me to depart?”

Bergljót nodded in dismissal and Loki strode briskly out of the room without acknowledging Darcy’s presence.

Bergljót glided elegantly across the room, refilling her cup of cactus juice and sitting down next to Darcy on the bed. She was watching her curiously, but she smiled kindly as she handed the cup to Darcy.

“Thank you,” Darcy said again.

Bergljót nodded, and the gems in her cap tinkled together. “I trust all your needs have been seen to? Is there anything else I can bring?”

“No,” Darcy said, gratefully. “I’m fine. I’d just like to go home.”

“That is not yet possible,” Bergljót said regretfully. “There are things I must see to first. But, if all goes well, I may, perhaps, be able to give you what you wish.”

“I really cannot thank you enough,” Darcy said. “If there’s anything...”

“Yes,” Bergljót said, musingly, “Loki intimated that you might be of use to me.”

Darcy forced herself not to scowl. Of course Loki had. He’d loaned her out like a servant. Trying to keep the bitterness she felt out of her tone, she asked, “In what way?”

“That is not yet clear. I had anticipated a warrior, but it is clear you have no strength with a blade,” said Bergljót. “Loki is useful, but untrustworthy. I expect no less of his friends.”

“We’re not friends,” Darcy blurted out before she could stop herself.

“Bergljót gave a dismissive flick of her head. “The complexities of alien relationships are of little interest to me.”

Darcy was having a hard time processing being referred to as an “alien”.

“You will remain here,” Bergljót continued. “Your needs will be seen to – you may ask for anything you wish, and if it is within reason, it shall be granted. I may return if I decide you are needed, but Loki was clear that his cooperation hinges on your presence so you have, at least for now, some assurance, if you believe him a reliable ally.”

With little option but to concede, Darcy nodded, and Bergljót stood and swept elegantly from the room.

Then, at last, she was alone again. She fell back on the bed, feeling bone-weary and miserable. She had, apparently, exchanged one cage for another – though there was no denying that this was a much more amenable cage to be trapped in, for now at least. She had also successfully pissed off her best chance at a ride out of here, because she wasn’t counting on Bergljót coming through on her offer to send her home, especially if Loki pulled some double-crossing stunt liable to get them both killed.

Carefully she sipped more juice, making an involuntary face at the taste, and she stood, a bit wobbly at first. She picked up the cloth from the floor where she’d thrown it. It was still cool, and she remembered the way Loki had seemed to genuinely be playing nursemaid before they’d argued. She wondered if he simply viewed her as an asset that needed restoration.

But, he had been honest with her in the past at times. Reckless and thoughtless with her, certainly, but also honest and desperately needy. He seemed broken and alone at times, treating her as both toy and saviour, like he couldn’t quite process what she meant to him.

She knew the feeling. She pitied him sometimes. And those moments of honesty held glimpses of a person she liked, a person who – god help her – she wanted. But not badly enough to die for, and her present cage was an unpleasant reality check about where she currently placed in Loki’s list of priorities. Throwing herself upon the sword of his thoughtlessness wasn’t a martyrdom she was particularly keen on.

Shakily, she surveyed the room. There was only the one exit (guarded, she discovered accidentally when she got too close) and nothing that could be used as a weapon if necessary. Not that she honestly thought she could take on someone more than twice her size, but it hardly hurt to assess all her options.

Captivity, she discovered, was really very boring.

She’d circled the room three times before returning to the bed and, for want of something better to do, picked at the soles of her slippers. The temperature here was much more tolerable, which left her free to think, but everything kept coming back to the harsh reality that she was trapped and utterly without options. Night seemed to be falling at last – the light coming in through the skylight above grew dimmer and darker, fading to a deep red that cast long, spooky shadows across the room. The air began to chill and her sweat cooled pleasantly on her skin.

She was fighting off sleep when she heard the unmistakable sounds of a fight in the hallway. Sitting up with a start she moved as silently as she could towards the door. The sounds of struggle ended abruptly with a sickening, meaty sound and a wordless grunt. She heard a slick, wet noise as a weapon was pulled from the unfortunate victim’s body, and a thud as he dropped to the floor. She heard the sound of feet slapping against the dirt floor fade away down the corridor, and the hall feel eerily quiet.

Cautiously, she peeked around the curtain. The body of a male fire giant lay supine, his face turned towards her and his eyes, unseeing, fixed upon her. There was a dark stain of blood pooling from his abdomen and staining his pale kilt. With shaking legs, she reached towards him and gently shut his eyes. She found herself fighting back tears, and she snatched her hand away.

His skin had still been warm.

She stumbled to her feet and made her way down the hall as quietly as she could. She had no idea where she was heading, but she was fairly sure this might be her only chance and she wasn’t about to wait around to get caught in the crossfire.

The passageway was dank and empty. There were rooms all along the corridor, but she wasn’t quite brave enough to poke her head in. None of them seemed like exits. The corridor, however, had other plans. It ended abruptly in a doorway, blocked with a thin embroidered drape. Cautiously, her heart pounding frantically in her ears, she lifted the corner and peered around.

It was the throne room where she had been presented to Eybörg, but it was not empty. The bodies of guards and attendants lay strewn like abandoned dolls, their limbs horribly akimbo in an awful parody of sleep, and a thick, dark stream of blood ran towards the centre of the floor.

She half-stifled a scream, falling back and clapping her hands over her mouth. There was a shuffling sound of movement and a low groan from within, and Darcy went white and still with fear.

“Who goes there?” Eybörg called out in a rasping, strained voice. “Have you come at last to finish me, you cowards?”

Darcy thought of proud, haughty Eybörg upon her throne, and the sight of the floor running red with spilt blood, and mustered her courage. She stepped inside the room.

Eybörg was dying. That much was immediately obvious. She was slouched over on her throne, a great gash running across her chest still bleeding sluggishly, and she took shallow, painful breaths that rattled audibly in the stillness of the room. She looked up and stared straight at Darcy, and for a moment Darcy saw the same terror she felt bubbling up inside her reflected in Eybörg’s eyes. She seemed suddenly very fragile, her feet barely touching the floor as she sat on the throne. With a sickening lurch, Darcy wondered how young Eybörg actually was.

“You,” Eybörg said, with a rough sense of resignation. “Your coming was the herald of death upon my house.”

Darcy swallowed thickly. “I never meant –“

Eybörg waved her hand, and it fell heavy in her lap. Darcy could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest as she struggled for breath, and Eybörg slumped forward again, coughing. Darcy stepped towards her, reaching a hand out in a futile attempt to help, but Eybörg struck at her and fell back.

“Leave me in peace,” she said. “Let me die.”

“Why?” Darcy asked, both unable to watch and unable to look away from the way Eybörg’s hand shook as she pressed it to the open wound on her breast.

“I succeeded an old mother with too much youth and not enough strength,” she said, and she laughed bitterly. “It seems I was too quick to pass judgement on Odin, for I too have nursed a viper in my own nest.”

Darcy’s heart fell to the floor as she put the pieces together. “Bergljót,” she said, hollowly.

“She is not done,” Eybörg said, slumping forward with a groan. “She intends to eliminate all possible challengers to her succession to the throne.”

Darcy crouched down before the dying queen, placing her hand over Eybörg’s and squeezing. This time Eybörg didn’t push her aside.

“Who?” Darcy asked. “What can I do?”

If Eybörg intended to answer, she didn’t have the chance. For a moment her fingers clamped tight over Darcy’s and she gave a full-body shudder before collapsing forwards onto Darcy’s chest. They sank to the floor, and Darcy turned, cradling Eybörg’s lifeless body across her lap. There was a dark smear of blood across Darcy’s shirt, and Eybörg lay utterly still, heavy and boneless in her arms. Oddly detached, Darcy carefully placed her body on the floor, arranging her limbs in a facsimile of comfort and rose jerkily to her feet.
There was blood on her hands, and she wiped it off on her shirt. She could hear a dull roar, like the sound of the ocean, and she couldn’t seem to walk properly. Her legs felt foreign, as if she couldn’t remember how to control them. She stumbled blindly out into the courtyard. Walking zombie-like she made it to the road and stopped, too numb to decide what to do next.

It was then that Loki found her. He stopped in front of her, his face so pale he was very nearly translucent. He placed a hand on her shoulder, then cradled the side of her face before placing it back on her shoulder like he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.

“Darcy?” he asked, his voice oddly hollow. “Are you injured?” He patted at her abdomen, checking her for wounds.

“Everyone’s dead,” she said. She gestured back towards the palace. “Bergljót...”

She stopped then, snapping back to her senses, and stepped away from Loki. He was holding the codex in his other hand.

“You knew,” she said, quietly. “This is what you were planning.”

“Darcy...” Loki said, coaxingly, looking anxious.

“You knew!” she shrieked. “They slaughtered everyone.”

“I had nothing to do with that,” Loki said slowly. “I regret that you became involved.”

“You regret?” Darcy repeated incredulously. “You knew this was coming. You knew and you did nothing. And for what? That book?”

“Bergljót has been planning this since her mother died and Eybörg took the throne,” Loki said. “It is an internal matter.”

“So you sat there and watched?” Darcy said, her voice thick with emotion. “You make me sick.” Loki recoiled, but recovered quickly, his expression becoming even more phlegmatic than usual.

“We must leave,” he said, reaching for her. “Darcy.”

She staggered back. “Don’t touch me.”

Loki’s hand hung outstretched in the air between them for a moment before he clenched it into a fist and dropped it by his side.

“You have been here less than 24 hours and you believe you know what is best for this world?” he asked acerbically. “You know nothing about this conflict, about these people. This is your pride and arrogance talking, thinking you must intervene in things you do not fully comprehend.”

“Well at least I didn’t stand by while Bergljót slaughtered her entire family –“ Darcy stopped short with a gasp as the final pieces clicked into place. Her heart lurched as she realised where Bergljót was headed next. “Sólveig.”

“Who?” Loki snapped.

“Her mother is Bergljót’s cousin. They’ll be killed.”

Loki’s face took on an expression of uncharacteristic panic. “No, no, Darcy,” Loki said, stepping in front of her. “No, we have to go now.”

“Get out of my way,” Darcy said, squirming away from him.

“No,” Loki said again, almost pleadingly. “This is no place for you. There is nothing you can do here.”

“Then go, you coward,” Darcy spat furiously. “She’s just a child. I’m not leaving her to die.” She didn’t wait for a reply; she ran. Behind her, she heard Loki swear loudly.

She traced the path she and Hjördís had taken that morning, her slippers slapping loudly on the empty street. Loki caught up with her almost immediately.

“Stop, Darcy,” he said. “This is madness. You will be killed.”

She ignored him, pushing herself to run faster, barely heeding the sensation of burning in her lungs.

“We should go,” Loki called out. “There is no time.”

When she spotted Sólveig’s house, she ran full-tilt inside. Sólveig and her siblings were in the far corner, huddled together. She very nearly tripped over the prone body of Sólveig’s father, which lay sprawled just inside the doorway. Two guards, at least fourteen feet tall, stood between her and Sólveig, and another four had Hjördis and her brother-in-law pinned to the floor. Darcy didn’t even stop to think, she simply launched herself at the nearest guard, pummelling every inch of her body that she could reach.

The guard twisted around, grabbing hold of Darcy’s upper arm and wrenching it so that Darcy was forced to double over to keep from dislocating her shoulder. She heard something go whistling through the air above her head and she was splattered with something warm and wet as it connected with its target. The guard’s grip on her arm went slack as she fell lifeless to the floor.

Darcy was grabbed by the other arm and yanked backwards into Loki’s chest. He spun her around and shoved her behind him, reaching forward to pull his throwing dagger out of the guard’s fallen corpse.

With a scream that chilled Darcy’s blood, Sólveig launched herself at the second guard. Her siblings were quick to follow. With a single swing of her arm, the guard batted Bjartmárr away as if she were swatting a fly, and he hit the wall with a sickening thud and slid unmoving to the floor. Loki darted forward, adjusting his grip on his dagger and lunged between Sólveig and Skírlaug, sinking it deep into the guard’s belly and pulling it upwards and out.

He shoved Sólveig and Skírlaug equally curtly back towards Darcy and stopped short, suddenly. Bergljót emerged from behind one of the screens, moving with the same proud grace here as she had in her own halls. But here, amid the carnage she had wrought, she was not so much remote as monstrous, like a tiger stalking through a village.

“Bergljót,” bellowed Hjördís from the floor. “You will not be forgiven for this.”

Bergljót ignored her entirely, staring fixedly at Loki. “A turncoat to the end, then?” she said, blandly, pulling a long, wicked-looking dagger from its sheath. “I believe you were meant to be leaving.”

“My departure has been regrettably delayed,” Loki replied in the same tone of feigned disinterest. “I, apparently, had unfinished business.”

“As do I,” said Bergljót coldly. “Step aside.”

Loki glanced quickly back towards Darcy, swallowed, and said, “no.”

“Do not play games,” Bergljót said menacingly. “I would have let you live, but if you will not move then I will remove you.”

“Stop,” Darcy said, pleadingly. “They’re your family.”

Loki and Bergljót regarded her impassively, but Darcy could see Loki’s hands shaking slightly as they clenched at his sides. Bergljót’s gaze shifted slowly to Loki and she smiled coldly.

“Perhaps it is not you I must remove,” she said, and Loki’s jaw visibly tightened, but he said nothing.

“Face me, Bergljót,” snarled Hjördís. “If you would kill me at least do it by your own hand.”

Bergljót stiffened and her face contorted in fury, all interest in Loki and Darcy forgotten. “You question my honour?” she spat. “You who are nothing more than the child of a second, lesser daughter?”

“You would know more about lesser daughters than I, Bergljót,” said Hjördís coldly. “Face me, and we shall see whose blood runs swiftest.”

Bergljót gave a sharp nod to the guards, who stepped back at once, releasing Hjördís. She rose to her feet and stared at Bergljót with undisguised malice.

“Give her a knife,” said Bergljót.

For a moment it looked like the guard was going to argue, but he seemed to think better of it. He handed his blade over, and Hjördís twirled it experimentally, adjusting her grip and testing the weight of it. Sólveig let out an odd, low moaning noise next to Darcy and rocked back and forth on her heels.

Loki stepped backwards, holding his arm out in front of Darcy to keep her still, but he kept his eyes fixed on Bergljót. “We should go,” he said in a sotto voice. “Whatever the outcome here, we have overstayed our welcome.”

“No,” said Darcy, resolutely.

Loki’s fingers tightened on her shirtsleeve like he was going to drag her bodily from the room. She clamped down on his arm, digging her nails in as hard as she could. Loki went still, the muscles beneath her fingers firm and unmoving as granite. Beside them, Sólveig continued to rock back and forth over and over.

There was a pregnant hush over the room, and Darcy felt the air prickle with expectation. Her skin itched anxiously and she shifted nervously as Hjördís stepped forward, dropping into a defensive stance, blade out in front of her. Bergljót’s expression was grim and merciless as she raised her knife before her and crouched, preparing to strike.

They sprang at one another simultaneously. Their knives were too short to permit anything but close-contact fighting, so it was hard for Darcy to gauge who was winning, but she could hear their blades grinding together as they struggled. Bergljót seemed to get the edge, backhanding Hjördís hard enough to send her staggering and then leaping, cat-like, upon her. But Hjördís squirmed away, using their momentum to roll them both and her knife went skittering out of her hand and slid out of reach.

Bergljót let out a low, feral snarl that seemed to awaken every primal terror instinct in Darcy’s body.

They wrestled with a frantic intensity that had Darcy physically wincing with each blow. Loki remained utterly rigid, his hand clenched so tightly on her sleeve that he was pulling her shirt off her shoulder.

Bergljót had Hjördís pinned, and Sólveig let out a scream, darting forwards. Loki sprang into action then, catching her as she moved and tugging her back even as she struggled in his grip.

At Sólveig’s cry Bergljót looked up, and, raising the knife high above her head and staring directly into Sólveig’s eyes, she smiled cruelly. It was enough to give Hjördís a chance, and she took it. In a single motion she pulled Bergljót towards her and off-centre, and they rolled. She snatched the knife from Bergljót’s hands and plunged it, two-handed, deep into her chest.

Bergljót gave an odd, thick cry of pain, wet with blood, and Hjördís, face terrifyingly impassive like an avenging angel, brought the knife up and down again, over and over, until Bergljót fell silent.

Hjördís stood, her back hunched and the dagger hanging loosely in her limp hand. Then she looked up and addressed the surviving guards, “the queen is dead. The rule of Muspelheim falls to me. Release my brother and stand down, and your lives will be spared.” It was a cold pronouncement, almost as if Hjördís had, in killing her, taken something of Bergljót into herself.

But it was effective, certainly. The guards stepped back, dropping their weapons to the floor with a clatter.

Darcy turned to look at Sólveig. She was standing still, a stark splatter of blood across her face, her expression hard and cold.

Darcy shivered and looked away.

...

In the end she wound up back in one of the many rooms of the palace. Loki had been dragged away from the house to a holding cell, but it seemed Darcy was back in everyone’s good books for the moment.

At this point, all she wanted was to go home. Night had fallen, and her room was lit only by a cluster of candles. The temperature had dropped sharply enough that she felt a chill, and she wrapped herself in furs and curled into a ball under the blankets.

Everything she had been holding back through the day’s events bubbled up within her at once, and she started sobbing, pressing her face into the pillow. She curled tighter into herself, trying to disappear into the mattress and force herself to see something other than the dead face of Eybörg when she closed her eyes. She felt watched by unseeing eyes, and over and over in an endless loop she heard the sounds of people dying.

She felt someone place a hand comfortingly on her head, stroking her hair, and she shrieked, rolling away and off the bed.

Loki was sitting, stripped of his armour, on the side of her bed, his hand resting on her empty pillow. He looked solemn and reserved, and Darcy wiped her face with her hands, hiccupping and trying to will herself to stop crying.

“Two prison breaks in one day,” she said, as nonchalantly as she could manage. It wasn’t a particularly convincing display of insouciance, but it was the best she could do. “Must be a record.”

Loki just stared at her hollowly, and she shuffled her feet and asked resignedly, “what do you want?”

He was silent for a very long moment. Finally, when she was beginning to think he wasn’t going to speak at all, he said, “companionship.”

She snorted, wiping her face again. “Now’s not a great time, Loki.”

“I wasn’t asking,” he corrected, quietly, “I was offering.”

She paused, sniffling. “Why?” she asked, suspiciously.

“I have recently had cause to re-evaluate some of my perceptions,” he said. “You offered me companionship once, it seems only fair that I reciprocate.”

“So you’re repaying a favour?” Darcy asked flatly, rising to her feet. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

“You misunderstand,” Loki said, leaning forwards. “I asked you without comprehension of the enormity of my request, or its consequences. I believe I comprehend them now.”

Darcy went still as she tried to parse that statement. “What do you mean?” she asked.

Loki glanced down at his hand and then back up at her. “You rushed headlong into a battle from which you had no chance of emerging victorious –“

“If barging in without knocking and then insulting me is your version of ‘companionship’, Loki, you should probably stop offering,” Darcy cut in with a scowl.

“I was afraid,” said Loki, with such raw honesty that Darcy stopped short. “When confronted with the possibility of your death, I realised that there was nothing I would not do to prevent it.”

Darcy gaped at him. She suddenly wished she wasn’t sweat-soaked, red-eyed and wearing a now thoroughly ruined pair of PJs for this conversation. “Are you trying to tell me you care about me?” she asked, slowly.

Loki looked away, uncharacteristically demure.

Darcy sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “OK, apparently we’re having the talk.” Loki looked back at her, eyebrows raised quizzically.

Darcy sat down on the far side of the bed, rubbing her temples to find off her oncoming headache. “What do you want from me?” she asked wearily.

“Only those things which you are prepared to give,” he replied quietly.

Darcy considered him thoughtfully. He seemed unusually vulnerable without his armour on, and a lock of hair was tumbling across his forehead distractingly, making him look younger than she’d ever seen him. He looked out of his depth, earnest and contrite. She wondered if she ought to add ‘dangerous’ to that list.

“We’re not in a relationship,” she said. “And if I want to end this – whatever it is –, I ask you to leave and you will leave me alone, no questions asked.”

Loki swallowed. “Is that what you want?”

“No,” Darcy said honestly. “But I don’t trust you, and I think it’s probably what I should want.”

Loki shifted away from her and stared resolutely at the far wall, unblinking. “I see,” he said, tonelessly.

“But right now what I want is for you to stay.”

There was a kind of wary hopefulness in Loki’s expression that almost made her heart hurt. He sat rigidly on the edge of the bed as Darcy crawled back into it, wrapping herself up in a blanket and pulling her knees up to her chest. Gradually, Loki relaxed, inch by inch, and he tucked one of his legs under himself and turned towards her.

“Are you going to take me home?” Darcy asked, picking absentmindedly at the blanket.

“Queen Hjördís intends to honour you for your actions tomorrow, and then return you through the bifröst. It would be best if you remained,” he said. Then, after a moment he added hesitantly, “I could return you now if you do not wish to stay.”

Darcy very nearly said yes on the spot, but caught herself in time. It was the middle of the night, and she wasn’t quite prepared to leave without saying goodbye, no matter how much she longed for her own bed. “No,” she said, and Loki looked relieved.

“Did you get what you wanted here? You must have had some reason for working with Bergljót. I assume she’d given you whatever it was before you ran into me.” Darcy carefully avoided looking at him.

She felt him go still before he answered tersely. “Yes.”

“I hope it was worth it,” she said hollowly.

“It was... necessary,” Loki replied. He pulled something seemingly out of thin air and held it out to her. It was a gemstone, with veins of pale yellow and orange running through it. It had been cut in such a way that they seemed move as she turned it, catching the candlelight.

“It is a firestone,” said Loki.

“What does it do?” Darcy asked, turning it over in her hands. It seemed to give off its own warmth, and she could almost swear it pulsed slightly like a heartbeat.

“It is the last artefact I require,” Loki explained. “The codex is a manual. It will instruct me on how to use the stone’s power.”

“To do what?” Darcy asked, handing it back to him. Loki took it, holding it up to the light in his slim fingers, and it cast a faint orange glow across his pale face.

“To descend to Helheim,” he said.

Darcy blinked at him in surprise. “You’re trying to go to the underworld?”

“The analogy is not precise,” Loki said, tucking the gem away. “But, effectively, yes.”

“Why?” Darcy asked.

“Business,” said Loki, evasively.

“That’s... not reassuring,” Darcy said, and Loki, to her surprise, grinned faintly at her.

“I will allow no harm to come to you,” he said.

“And to others?” she pressed, watching him closely.

He simply shrugged. “That depends entirely upon their actions.”

“And yours,” Darcy said pointedly.

“And mine,” he agreed. “But despite what you think of me, I have no great love of bloodshed.”

Darcy pressed her lips together and looked down at her hands. Loki reached out and took them in his own, tracing his thumbs over the inside of her wrist.

“I am sorry,” he said, so quietly that Darcy barely caught it, and then he leant forward, gathering her towards his chest and leaning back until they were both lying down. Darcy briefly entertained the idea of rolling away from him, but she was utterly exhausted and he was surprisingly comfortable.

There was something about the intimacy of cuddling that set her teeth on edge. Sex was one thing, but comfort implied a kind of relationship she was adamant that they were not in. But, before she could muster up the will to extricate herself, she fell asleep.

She had disturbing dreams, flashes of memory all stuck together like a patchwork quilt. She saw Eybörg die over and over as Sólveig, bloodstained and cold, watched impassively, dagger in hand.

She woke up screaming.

Loki was talking, his voice low and even, his hands outstretched towards her, but not quite touching. She was shaking, full of a desperate pent up energy without an outlet, and she wanted to run. Loki watched her, mixed pity and concern written all over his face, but he was patient and soothing, moving slowly to run his hands up her arms and through her hair. He rubbed her back in slow circles, and she shuddered under his touch, torn between a desire to move closer and to bolt.

His hands were cold against her back, and she grabbed hold of his shoulders, pressing her forehead into the skin above his collarbone and breathing deeply.

She went still, focusing on the motion of his hand as it moved rhythmically over her back. She focused on his fingers, long, lithe and cold, as they skimmed over her shoulder blade and up her spine. She shifted against him, moving into his lap and pressing up against the line of his body.

Loki’s hand stilled on her back, and he said, warningly, “Darcy.”

She felt his chest rumble as he spoke, and she pressed her hand to the centre of it, fingertips touching his skin. She pressed her lips to his collar bone, scraping her teeth across it, and his fingers pressed tightly into her back as he let out a breathless gasp.

“Darcy,” he said again. “This... isn’t wise.”

“Do you want me to stop?” she asked, bringing her hand up to the back of his neck and running blunt nails across the nape. He swallowed, and she kissed the hollow where his clavicles met, pressing her tongue into it.

He shifted, tilting his pelvis away from her. “I believe you may regret this,” he said.

“I didn’t feel anything,” she said, sitting up and pulling his mouth towards her. She kissed him, holding the back of his head, and his hands slid down to her waist. “This,” she said, breaking this kiss and rocking her hips towards him. “I feel.”

“Darcy,” he said, pleadingly. She rocked forwards again, and his brows drew together as his grip on her waist tightened.

“Ask me,” she said, cupping his chin with her hand and resting her thumb on his lips. “Tell me what you want.”

He looked up at her, his cheeks flushed and his eyes bright, and he parted his lips taking her thumb into his mouth. He swirled his tongue around it, caressing the pad before scraping his teeth along the length of it. She gasped, and he smirked, closing his eyes and making an absolutely filthy sucking noise around her finger.

She pulled it back and kissed him soundly, pulling him towards her, and he rolled his hips up, his erection pressing into her. He rolled them over, hiking her knee over his hip as he pressed downward, and she arched her back into the bed. He grabbed the hem of her top and pulled it up, and she managed to sit up enough for him to get it off.

He licked a long, wet line between her breasts, and she arched, taught like a bow, digging her nails into his scalp. He took one of her breasts into his mouth, teasing the nipple with his tongue, flicking it quickly and then circling it agonizingly slowly. She moaned as the sensation went straight to her clit, building in a mixture of pleasure and a desperate craving for more.

He brushed his thumb over her other nipple, flicking it lightly and she gasped, digging her foot into the back of his thigh. He sucked down hard suddenly, and she cried out. Something about the sound of her own voice, heady and desperate, simply turned her on even more.

Loki’s other hand was inching slowly up her thigh and she decided her pants needed to come off right the fuck now. She shoved him up, and he let go of her breast with a mournful sound, sitting up. She squirmed out of her pants and started tugging on his shirt, her hands clumsy and overeager. He was busy fumbling with the laces of his trousers, and they got tangled as she tried to pull his shirt off while he scooted backwards to remove his pants.

He kicked them off with a glare, hair tousled, and stared at her, his breath catching. She felt her skin flush under his gaze, and she ran her hand up her own thigh, pressing her fingers over her clit. He stared, fixated, as she slowly began to move them, circling with a smooth, even rhythm.

She watched him, and he swallowed, his lips parting as his eyes tracked the movement of her fingers intently. She rocked her hips up into her hand, spreading her legs wider, and he reached forward and placed his hand on her ankle, matching the movement of her fingers with his thumb as he rubbed circles into her skin. She leant backwards, moving her fingers faster now, and he slid his hand up her leg, moving to sit closer.

He batted her fingers aside, and she moaned, painfully close to the edge. For a moment he was still, his thumb resting excruciatingly motionless on her inner thigh, and she tried to replace her fingers but he batted them away again, needing friction desperately. She was wound tight, so close, so close, so close, and he bent down. He blew gently on her clit and she nearly screamed, the cool air ghosting over her skin a torment and a parody of what she needed.

His fingers went cold against her skin, enough to chill her but not cold enough to burn, and she looked at him, wide-eyed. He seemed a bit dumbstruck, staring down at his hands, and she whimpered.

Then, finally he brushed his finger over her clit and she fell back, arching into his hand and babbling, ordering or pleading, she wasn’t quite sure, for him to go faster, harder, now.

He slipped two fingers into her, and she shivered, her hands clenching in the bedspread. Her skin felt impossibly hot against his hands, and she shuddered, wallowing in the odd sensation of his cold fingers working inside her. She tugged at his arm, scraping her fingers across his skin and falling back.

His fingers worked faster circles over her clit, rubbing in a frantic tattoo that she felt echoing all under her skin. She clenched down on his fingers, pulling him in closer, deeper and then came utterly undone over his hands.

She felt him slip his fingers out of her, and she lay boneless on the bed. He was examining his hands curiously, his expression oddly perturbed, but when he saw she was watching him he brought them up and wantonly licked them. He grinned, but it faded under her steady regard.

She lifted herself up, sitting in front of him, and she traced her fingers over his hands. She ran them along the length of his forefinger, down, and then back up again, and then across his palms. He went still, only his chest’s rapid rise and fall giving away the effect it had on him.

She laced their fingers together, bringing their hands up and pushing him back, straddling his waist so that he lay flat on his back with her atop. She pinned his arms to the bed with one hand, and he watched her intently.

Slowly she trailed kisses down his neck, scraping her teeth along his collarbone in a way that made him hiss and rock his hips upward. She shifted her hips downwards, rubbing herself against his erection. His hips stuttered upwards, and her clit, over sensitized, gave a sharp mix of pleasure and pain that made her rock forwards and press her forehead to his chest.

Keeping her hand over his wrists above their heads, she reached down and guided him in, rocking her hips downward. He moaned, long and low, and she dropped, taking the rest of him in in one go that made his back arch upwards. He braced his feet on the bed and she rocked forwards, riding him in a slow, easy rhythm.

He closed his eyes, his hands closed into fists as his hips thrust upwards to meet her. She picked up the pace, leaning forward to bite his shoulder, pressing into him and feeling the head of his penis press back into her. He turned his head and kissed her sloppily, messy and wanting, and she kissed back as hard as she could.

“Say my name,” she said, running her fingernails over his nipple and grinning at the way his hips jerked messily into her as she did.

Loki looked at her, his face open and vulnerable, like she could shatter him like glass if she wanted. “Darcy,” he said, and she gasped, rolling her hips forward as he broke her grip and put his hands on her waist, pulling her downward. He came, shaking, his hands pressed into her skin and his back arched, and she had never seen anything so beautiful in all her life.

His hands went lax, tracing lazy circles over her thighs as she slipped off him and curled up on the bed next to him. He draped an arm over her waist and pulled her close, tucking her head under his chin and tracing his thumb down the length of her spine.

She breathed deeply, loose-limbed and complacent at last. He tugged a blanket over them both.

“I will need to depart before the morning,” Loki said, quietly. “I have no desire to be returned to Hjördís’ cells.”

She nodded, curling closer to him. He ran a hand through her hair. “Sleep,” he said. And she did.

...

When she woke up again, Loki was gone and daylight was filtering down onto the bed. There wasn’t even so much as a note, and she felt sticky and awkward at his absence.

There was food, a washbasin and clean clothes lying out for her, and she happily availed herself of all of them. She had to fold the sarong in half and wrap it to keep it from trailing on the floor, but it felt good to be relatively clean at last.

When she’d finished, she poked her head out the door, and was whisked away by an escort to the throne room. As soon as she entered, Hjördís rose to her feet, dismissing the person she’d been speaking to, and came down towards her. She grabbed Darcy’s forearms in a Roman handshake and smiled.

“You have rested well, I hope?” she said, without preamble.

“Yes, thank you,” Darcy replied.

“Your friend has disappeared during the night,” Hjördís said, wryly.

“He’s not my friend, Darcy replied automatically.

“Hmm,” said Hjördís, unconvinced. “I owe you a debt of gratitude,” she added, changing the subject abruptly.

“I really didn’t do much,” Darcy said regretfully. “I am so sorry about your husband and son.”

Hjördís looked at her kindly. “I judge a person’s ability by the things which they can do, but I judge their character by the things they are willing to do,” she said. “You displayed tremendous strength.” She placed a hand atop Darcy’s head maternally. “Do not grieve, child, for my family. My daughters live because of you. We have grief enough between us to spare you its bite.”

Darcy looked down at her feet as her throat tightened, and said nothing. She had no idea at all what words could possibly be appropriate here. Hjördís simply patted her on the head gently and then let her hand drop to her side. She crossed over to the guards who stood flanking the throne, and took a long knife from one. She presented it to Darcy, who looked a bit stunned.

“In memory of your courage,” she said. “Ever shall you be a friend of my house.”

In Hjördís’ hands it was little more than a dagger, but it was roughly the size of a short sword on Darcy. She took it nervously. The blade was made from obsidian, long, black and wickedly sharp. The hilt had been covered with animal hide, and a woven pattern of gold braid overtop. It felt awkward and heavy in her hand, and she doubted it would be replacing her taser any time soon, but she accepted it with as much grace as she could muster.

Hjördís nodded, looking pleased. “Will you now depart?” she asked. “You are welcome here as long as you wish.”

“I would like to say goodbye to Sólveig,” Darcy said. “But I should go – my friends will come looking for me soon if I don’t.”

“Of course,” said Hjördís, leading her out into the hall. Sólveig was standing just beyond the doorway, red eyes wide and lips pressed tightly together.

“You are leaving?” she demanded.

Darcy nodded.

“Don’t,” she said. “Remain here. With us.”

“I have family and friends at home,” Darcy said gently.

“We are family,” Sólveig said insistently.

There was something fragile and frightened about Sólveig’s expression that utterly broke Darcy’s heart, and she stepped forward, wrapping her in a tight hug. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I won’t ever forget you, and I’ll visit if I can.”

Sólveig said nothing, pressing her face into the curve of Darcy’s neck. Then, abruptly, she stood up straight, pushing Darcy away and gathering her composure around her in a mask of premature adulthood. “I understand,” she said. “I hope that we will meet again.”

“I hope so too,” Darcy said honestly.

The three of them walked together from the palace. Hjördís led them to the base of the carving of Yggdrasil Darcy had seen when she’d first arrived.

“Farewell, Darcy,” she said. “May your road lead you to victory.” “You too,” Darcy said, with a sad smile.

With a nod of acknowledgement, Hjördis placed her hand upon the trunk of the tree, and it seemed to come alive, glowing brightly as the branches rustled and moved in an invisible wind. The light grew brighter and brighter until Darcy could no longer bear it. She felt a tugging sensation, like something had grabbed hold of her heart and pulled, and she stumbled forwards into nothingness.

She was flying, out of control, whizzing through a blur of stars that blended together into long streaks of light. She was everywhere and nowhere at once, inside out and rightside in.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it ended. She was standing in the middle of her bedroom, her belongings scattered messily around her, (having been) blown back from the impact. Her downstairs neighbour banged loudly on his roof with a broom, shouting at her to stop rattling the light fixtures.

She shouted an apology through the floor and sat down, looking around in a daze. She saw something glinting, half-hidden underneath a gag-gift Iron Man sweater Jane had bought for her, and she pulled it out.

It was unmistakably one of Loki’s throwing daggers. The hilt was leather, acid-etched with a Norse design. In the centre was the silhouette of a hart, dyed silver and green.

“You cheeky bastard,” she said, half laughing.

There was a note skewered to the blade. It simply said: courage is not the absence of fear, but the overpowering of it. Since I cannot rely on you to trust the wisdom of your own sense, the next time you overpower fear in the face of untimely death, you may as well be armed. It is, perhaps, better suited to your courage than my own.

She put it next to the obsidian knife and sat back, feeling an odd mix of amusement, pleasure and dread at his words.

He had said he was descending to Helheim. She couldn’t help but wonder if this was not a gift after all, but a bequest.

Chapter 6: Furs and Rags

Summary:

Darcy gets a bit kidnapped, Loki's in a lot of trouble, and the cat comes out of the bag.

To say that the whole ‘boinking Loki’ thing had become a problem would be to commit an egregious act of understatement. It was more than a problem: it was five bouts of emotionally confusing, elephant-in-the-room, ‘oh, by the way I had sex with your fiancé’s morally ambiguous brother’. Five times.

Once was a serious error in judgement. Twice was a serious error in self-restraint, but five times was inching towards the sort of regular, we’re-forming-an-emotional-bond sort of sex that Darcy really, really should not be having with Thor’s slightly homicidal brother. The real problem, though, was that Darcy was thinking about it at work. Somehow, without her even realising it, Loki had crawled beneath her skin and taken root, and she was having a hard time getting him out of her mind.

The real reason was quite simple: guilt. She felt it, like a sharp stab whenever she looked at Jane. The words seemed to hover on the tip of her tongue, like they were going to explode out of her at any moment, like she could barely hold it in. It popped into her brain constantly. Jane would ask her to pass her notebook, and Darcy’s brain would say, “by the way, I’m sleeping with Loki.” It was visceral and involuntary, and she wanted to claw her own skin off with her fingernails at times to get away from it. She wanted to just blurt it out, but the time was never quite right (she knew, deep down, it would never be quite right).

So she handed Jane notebooks and pencils, and updated their notes, and collected data, and said nothing at all, and it ate at her inside.

“You okay?” Jane asked, as they sat side by side, pouring over endless graphs of gravitational shifts Jane had picked up with her telescope.

There it was, on the tip of her tongue again – the whole, complicated story. “I’m just tired,” was all Darcy said.

“Me too,” Jane replied, running a hand through her hair. “Do you want to take a break?”

“Oh my god,” Darcy said, feelingly. “You’re suggesting a break? Are you okay?”

“Hilarious,” said Jane with a wry smile.

“Well, normally your solution is to just keep drinking coffee until the numbers on the page start vibrating.” Darcy gathered up their notes into a pile and grabbed her bag off the back of her chair.

“I thought we could talk,” Jane said, absently, fishing her notebook out from beneath a haphazard pile of graph paper.

Darcy’s stomach dropped. “What about?” she asked, as nonchalantly as she could.

Jane frowned, looking at her for a moment before stuffing her notebook in her messenger bag. “I don’t know. I just feel like I’ve been so busy at work, and then busy with Thor outside of work, that we haven’t spent much time talking lately.”

Darcy smiled at her, leaning up against the lab bench. “It’s okay, you know – that you’re busy. I understand.”

“I know you do,” said Jane. “But it’s still not okay. I don’t want to be the girl that gets engaged and then suddenly stops having time for her friends.”

“Or her astrophysics,” Darcy added, grinning.

“Never,” said Jane vehemently. “Coffee run?”

Darcy laughed, and backed into the lab doors, swinging them open behind her. “By all means,” she said, gesturing down the hallway.

“I feel like we’re getting really close,” Jane said, after they’d returned with their purchases. She sat down, coffee in one hand and a muffin in the other. “I mean, obviously we’ve not got a cohesive formula, but the information Thor was able to give me access to in Asgard has been really helpful.”

“I think you mean you,” Darcy said wryly. “I just input data.”

“Which is what gives me the chance to actually analyse it rather than spending all my time on input,” Jane replied firmly. “Darcy, I really do need you.”

“I know!” Darcy replied. “God knows you’d never find anything in that lab of yours again if I ever quit.” She smiled softly. “I’m not feeling underappreciated if that’s what you’re worried about – I just meant that it’s your discovery. I’m happy for you.”

Jane looked oddly bashful as a shy smile spread across her face. “Thanks,” she said, softly. “Have you given any thought to what you’ll do when this project wraps up?”

Darcy shrugged, sitting back and holding her coffee in her hands to warm them. “I’m not sure. To be honest, I picked my degree because I was interested in it, but I haven’t a clue what sort of job I’d want.”

“Well I’ll give you a reference, of course,” Jane said. “But if you want to stay on... I know it’s not necessarily a field you want to work in, but I’ll be applying for a grant later this year that should cover enough to pay for an assistant, and I’d be very happy to have you. Just an option. Plus you already have clearance, and I can tell already that’s going to be a nightmare.”

Darcy laughed. “Oh, god, yeah. Thanks, Jane. I’ll think about it.”

“Sure,” Jane said, smiling. “Now, tell me, what’s up? I can tell something’s been bothering you.”

Darcy blanched and froze, and Jane’s brow immediately furrowed in concern. “Darcy?” she said, worriedly.

Darcy looked down at the lab bench, everything she’d wanted to say to Jane and to Thor since this whole thing started rising like a tumult in her mind. “I have something to tell you,” she began, awkwardly. She had to put down her cup of coffee because her hands had begun to shake, and she felt Jane’s body language shift next to her, like she was bracing for a blow.

“Whatever it is,” Jane said, after a moment, “Darcy, it’ll be okay.”

“I –“

Of course, it was that moment that the lights went out, and the room was thrown into pitch darkness.

Darcy couldn’t help but jump as the comfortable hum of the fluorescent lights died abruptly. Jane leapt up from the bench with a curse.

“I hope you saved what you were working on,” she said, prodding futilely at the keys of the lab computer. “I wonder why the generators haven’t come on.”

Darcy peered out the lab windows, pulling up all the blinds to let in the light. “It’s just our building,” she said. “The library across the way still has power.”

“The emergency lights haven’t come on,” said Jane, sounding perturbed. “They’re battery run.” She paused for a moment, then turned back towards Darcy. “I think we should find out what’s going on.”

“You know this is how people wind up dead in horror movies, right?” Darcy said with a faint grin. Jane just flashed her a dry glance. Grabbing her bag off the back of her chair, Darcy followed Jane out into the hall.

The building seemed eerily deserted in the dark. The hallway had no windows, and Darcy immediately regretted her horror movie quip as she saw it stretch out, growing darker and darker in front of her.

“Stairs are this way,” Jane said, brusquely.

It seemed to grow colder as soon as they entered the stairwell – colder than a building with inadequate AC in September really should be. She could see Jane shivering slightly in front of her as they went down the stairs, and Darcy’s breath began to mist in the air in front of her.

“Jane,” Darcy said, dread coiling unpleasantly in her stomach. “Something’s wrong.”

Almost as soon as she said it, a door opened several floors down and Darcy heard heavy footsteps and low voices as several people entered the stairwell.

“She’s not on the first floor,” said one, his voice deep and guttural in a way that set Darcy’s teeth on edge.

“She’s here,” a second voice replied. “Find her.”

Jane looked up at Darcy, her eyes wide in alarm, and gestured back up towards the door. A thin sheen of frost was creeping slowly up the banister behind Jane’s back, and Darcy stood, riveted to the spot as she watched it.

The people below were mounting the stairs, their steps echoing like drumbeats. Jane gave Darcy a shove, and clung to the back of her shirt as they crept up the stairs as quietly as they could back towards the door.

They weren’t fast enough.

Darcy’s hand was on the door when Jane shrieked. The frost giants had come around the bend and caught sight of them, and one of them let out a wordless bellow that seemed to make the walls shake. He bared his teeth and raised his hand, forming a dagger out of ice in his grasp.

“Go,” shouted Jane, shoving Darcy again, and they stumbled through the door and took off at a sprint down the hallway. Behind her, Darcy heard the frost giant wrench the door clean off its hinges.

“This way,” Jane grunted breathlessly, tugging Darcy around a corner. She led them through a series of twists and turns so convoluted that Darcy hadn’t a clue where they were anymore. They ran into labs and back out the other side, and took shortcuts Darcy wasn’t even aware existed.

They rounded another bend, heading for the south stairs when they saw another frost giant searching the labs on the corridor. He caught side of them and took off, and Jane whirled around, grabbing Darcy by the arm and yanking her back they way they’d come.

They took a sharp left down a hallway and Jane shoved Darcy into the women’s washroom and locked the door.

“What are we doing here?” Darcy hissed frantically. “We’re trapped.”

“I don’t know, I panicked,” Jane said, her whisper oddly high-pitched in fright.

They could hear footsteps in the hall just outside, and Darcy dragged Jane into a stall and shut the door. They both crouched on the toilet to keep their feet off the ground, holding on to each other for balance. Darcy squeezed Jane’s arm tightly, and Jane stared back at her wide-eyed in fright.

“We need to get Thor,” Darcy mouthed silently.

Jane made a face. “How?” she mouthed back, shrugging in frustration.

“Heimdall?” Darcy asked silently. Jane and Darcy looked straight up at the water-stained ceiling tiles above their heads. The bathroom stayed eerily quiet. Jane gave Darcy a helpless look.

“Are they gone?” Jane mouthed. Darcy shrugged.

Just then, the door to the bathroom was violently flung open. Jane jumped and grabbed a tight hold of Darcy’s arm, her nails sharp even through the fabric of Darcy’s shirt. They could hear footsteps as slowly making their way into the room.

Her hands shaking, Darcy carefully pulled her taser out of her bag and braced herself against the wall, aiming it straight at the door of the stall. Then, she took a deep breath, and waited.

The door was literally ripped off its hinges, and Darcy fired. The frost giant staggered backwards with a cry of pain, and collapsed to the floor twitching. Jane scrabbled forwards first, stumbling over the broken door and Darcy scuttled after her. There were two more in the doorway, and they seemed momentarily taken aback that Darcy had managed to take them out. It didn’t last for long, however.

They lumbered into the room, like dogs closing in on a fox. Despite their size there was a deadly sharp intent to their movements that was almost more terrifying than their sheer bulk. One of them looked directly at Darcy and grinned maliciously.

“Grab her,” said the second. “We’re wasting time.”

The frost giant Darcy had tasered was staggering to his feet again, glaring at her with near apoplectic rage. Darcy made a move towards Jane, intending to shield her, but the giants went straight for her instead. One grabbed her arm and tugged Darcy straight towards him. His fingers burned cold on her arm, and Darcy fell to her knees from the sharp, biting pain of it, squirming futilely in his grasp.

Jane leapt forward and started whacking him with her bag, and he gave her a sharp backhand that sent her sprawling.

“Jane!” Darcy shrieked.

“Leave that one alone,” said the giant Darcy had tasered. “The two of you will have bigger troubles than me if you kill the bride of the Odinson.”

Jane stood up, looking furious. “You’ll have bigger problems if you take her too,” she said, gesturing at Darcy. “She’s my friend, and Thor’s. So you either let her go right now, or I promise you Thor and I will find you, and we will hunt you down.”

The frost giant let out a deep, bellowing guffaw of laughter, and sneered maliciously at Jane. “Odin has disowned his stolen son,” he said. “There will be no blood spilt in aid of the lover of Asgard’s bastard cast-away.”

“What?” Jane said softy, her gaze flickering to Darcy. “What’s he talking about?”

“I’m sorry,” was all Darcy could manage before she was hauled to her feet and out the door. The leader of the trio stepped into the hallway, raised his hands, and seemed to literally part the universe, leaving a gaping, impossible, black hole hovering in the air. Like he was spreading a curtain, he pulled it wider until there was room enough for Darcy to fit.

The giant holding her arm gave her a shove, and she fell inside.

She felt like the floor had been yanked out from under her feet. There was simply a void, with nothing to orient herself. Darcy couldn’t tell if she was falling, but she felt weightless and so utterly confused, as if she could no longer distinguish up from down, or motion from stillness.

The only real sensation she had was that of the bitingly cold hand against her arm, and the faint chill radiating off the frost giant’s body. She felt as if her skin was trying to hear something just beyond her reach, searching for some kind of reference to re-orient herself. At last, they emerged – in the void one moment, and the next her feet were on the ground. She stumbled, disoriented and dizzy, and the frost giant hauled her unceremoniously back to her feet.

They were standing in the ruins of what must once have been a great hall. Its walls rose high up towards the open sky, made of carved ice, opaque and clear in patterns so it reflected and refracted the light like diamonds, and seemed to give off a glow of its own. The hall was built right into the face of a cliff on the far end, and Darcy couldn’t help but fleetingly wonder what it must have once looked like.

It was ruined now, one wall half-smashed and the ceiling gone. It reminded her a little of the photos of bombed French cathedrals she’d seen from the Second World War. The hall itself was bare and forbidding, with rubble still strewn about the floor, giving it an eerie and abandoned feeling. However, it was not empty.

There was a throne on the far side, set into a carved, high balcony. It seemed to be set into the rock face, and a large, dark overhang rose forbiddingly above it, like a great glowering brow. The giant on the throne rose slowly to his feet, and leant over the parapet.

“Let her go,” he said, his voice sonorous and smooth, but brooking no argument. Darcy felt cold dread settle in her chest despite his words. Though his voice was toneless, the way he held himself and the way he spoke commanded absolute obedience, and raw power. His red eyes looked Darcy over once, slowly, as the frost giant that had been holding her released his grip and gave her a shove. She cradled her arm to her chest and stuck her chin up.

“What am I doing here?” she asked.

The king looked down at her for a long moment. “Even the damned are afforded their due,” he said at last. “Take her to Angrboða.”

“Damned?” Darcy asked in alarm. “What do you mean, damned?”

But the king had once again receded into the shadows, blending into the rock face behind him, and Darcy was led from the hall.

She was shivering violently now. She hadn’t noticed in the hall, but as soon as they stepped out fully into the open air the chill hit her so hard it took her breath away.

They led her through the streets of Jotunheim. If anything, it looked like a refugee camp. Groups of Jotun were clustered in small tents made of animal skins and the cannibalised remains of buildings. They stared at her, falling eerily silent as she went past, until her own footsteps seemed unnaturally loud on the packed snow.

In all her life, Darcy had never felt so utterly and completely hated. One of them, with a jagged scar covering one eye and running across his face, spat at her as she passed, and it stung her cheek until she wiped it off.

There was a thick trench running straight through the middle of the city, burnt black like a ragged wound to the earth itself. It had bisected several houses in its path, leaving them split open, some of their contents spilling, burnt and mangled, out into the streets like innards. She nearly stepped on a mangled cup lying on the ground at her feet, a small patch of delicately painted knot-work still visible, the other side warped and charred beyond all recognition.

She had to close her eyes and turn away.

...

Angrboða was, apparently, a young Jotun woman. Darcy was lead into a large, circular complex made of small houses, not entirely unlike igloos, arranged in a snowflake-like pattern, concentric circles radiating inward, with roads spreading out like spokes, and a high tower made of ice glinting in the dim light at the centre.

Darcy was escorted into the tower and through winding corridors and frankly obscene number of narrow staircases, and at last into a room draped with furs and hanging lamps with long wicks burning in some kind of fat. It reeked, but Darcy was so glad to be somewhere warm she didn’t much care. Angrboða stood as Darcy entered, and wordlessly gestured for the guards to leave. The one that had grabbed her in the lab gave her a particularly evil looking smile as he left.

“Have a seat,” was the first thing Angrboða said. She stood nearly twice Darcy’s height, and, despite her blue skin and red eyes she reminded Darcy more than anything of her third grade teacher. There was something equal parts patient and no-nonsense in her expression that made Darcy cross the room obediently and take a seat on a fur-covered bench. Her feet didn’t touch the floor, and she had to hop to get up on it.

Angrboða watched silently. “What is your name?”

“Darcy,” Darcy replied. “And you – you’re Angrboða?”

“Angrboða,” she replied, correcting Darcy’s pronunciation. “Yes.”

After a moment, Darcy said, “I don’t understand why I’m here. Are you – are you going to kill me?”

“Not you, no,” said Angrboða, unreassuringly. “Then who? And why am I here?”

Angrboða crossed the room to a table and began to prepare something in a bowl. “Even the condemned are allowed absolution,” she said, turning to look back at Darcy. “Before death it is the custom of our people to choose a guardian for the soul, and to give him his shrift to make reparations and requests for his memory. This, we grant, but it will be you who will decide if he is worthy of remembrance.”

“I don’t understand,” Darcy said, though she was beginning to worry she knew who Angrboða was talking about.

“You have been asked for,” Angrboða said. “He may be a bastard and a destroyer of worlds, but Jotunheim gives even its monstrous sons their due. He will die for his crimes, but we do not slaughter without honour.”

“You’re talking about Loki,” Darcy said, hollowly, her own voice sounding oddly detached to her ears, as if she’d somehow become separated from her own body. “The destruction outside – you think it’s his fault.”

Angrboða made an angry hissing noise, sucking are in over her teeth. “’Think’? He has been judged. We know.”

“And you want me to watch him die?” Darcy asked, feeling sick.

Angrboða simply shrugged. “You may close your eyes if you wish.” She picked up the bowl and brought it over to where Darcy was sitting. “Stand. You must wash.”

“What?” Darcy exclaimed, blinking. “No, I’m fine, really.”

“It is not optional,” said Angrboða in a tone that brooked no argument. “Remove your clothing.”

Bathing on Jotunheim seemed to consist of a thick paste made of oil and something gritty that served as an exfoliant, which was rubbed into the skin and then scraped off with a piece of worked bone the approximate size and shape of a hair comb. To Darcy’s immense relief, after demonstrating the process on Darcy’s arm, Angrboða seemed content to leave her to it. She didn’t feel clean precisely, but her skin tingled and felt fresh where she’d scraped it.

Angrboða gave her clothing made of fur, which was deliciously warm. Then, Angrboða carefully painted Darcy’s face and hands, leaving a pattern of faint, white lines across her skin. It looked similar to the patterning on Angrboða’s own skin, and she briefly entertained the idea of asking about it, but something about the solemnity of the moment made her hold her tongue. Finally, Angrboða cradled Darcy’s face between her hands, leant forward and blew out softly on Darcy’s hair.

She shivered from the chill, and she felt a thin sheen of ice droplets form in her hair, resting atop it like stars.

Angrboða sat back, looking contemplative. “What do you see in such an abomination?” she asked softly. “Why do you lie with such hate?”

Words caught in Darcy’s throat as she found herself entirely at a loss for what to say. Angrboða watched her for a moment longer, and then turned away in disgust.

“Come,” she said, rising to her feet. “I will take you to him.”

Numbly, Darcy followed her down a hallway, wrapping her arms around herself like she was trying to give herself a hug. Angrboða’s footsteps rang loudly in the corridor, and she led Darcy up yet another long, narrow flight of stairs and down a thin, dark hall, coming to stop before a closed, metal door.

Angrboða flashed Darcy a final, dark look, and then swung the door open and pushed her firmly into the cell, slamming the door with a reverberating clang behind her.

Loki rose from the bed with cat-like grace, his brows raised in surprise. Then he stopped, standing, almost tentative, his hands clenched anxiously by his sides, and waited.
He was blue from head to toe, a faint pattern of raised lines running across his skin, and his eyes were a deep red. It was odd, the effect it had on his appearance – she’d known all along, of course, that Loki was something other than human, but it was easier to pretend when he was all but indistinguishable. Now, now he was otherworldly.

“They said you’re going to die,” Darcy said, thickly, surprised by the sudden well of tears in her eyes.

Loki blinked in surprise, but didn’t move. His brows were drawn together, and he watched her, his expression carefully guarded.

“Is this what you are? What you look like?” Darcy asked.

His expression hardened. “I am what I choose to be,” he said. “Here, I have no choice.”

“Okay,” Darcy said. “And that – outside? The houses burnt to the ground and the giant trench dug right through the middle of their city?”

Loki said nothing, staring fixedly at the wall behind Darcy’s head, but she saw a muscle twitch in his jaw as he swallowed.

“They called you a destroyer of worlds,” she said. “Are you just going to stand there? They’ve condemned you to death.”

“That’s not important,” Loki replied quickly.

“Not important?” Darcy echoed incredulously. After a long moment in which Loki stared at nothing, Darcy added, “If your dying isn’t important, then why am I here?”

“It is my right,” Loki replied, hollowly. “To company.”

Darcy stared at him for a beat, and then said flatly. “You’re getting executed and you brought me here for a conjugal visit?”

Loki’s eyebrows shot up at that, and he looked at her in amused surprise. It faded quickly, and he said soberly, “I brought you here to say goodbye. There is no one else.”

Darcy felt her heart stop for a moment, and she swallowed, rocking back on her heels. “That’s not true, Thor –“

Loki scowled furiously. “You don’t know Thor. You think you know the first thing about Thor after a scant year in his presence? I have known him for more than a millennium. There is history there that neither you, nor your friend Jane can ever touch.”

“Okay,” Darcy said again, softly. “But, I – I can’t...” She took a deep, shaky breath. “What do you need?”

Something seemed to collapse in Loki’s expression, and he visibly sagged, sitting back onto the bed and resting his arms on his knees. “I am leaving everything to you – you must promise that you’ll take them. It is your right.”

Darcy leant back against the door behind her, her knees shaking too hard to stand up straight. “Loki –“

“No,” he said, sharply, looking straight at her. “This is important. You must take everything of mine with you to Midgard.”

She nodded, pressing her lips tight together to keep from blurting out any of the hundred things that were on the tip of her tongue.

“And – I will let you leave, of course, if you wish. But I would like you to stay,” he added, quietly.

“I’ll stay,” Darcy blurted out. “Of course I’ll stay.”

Loki looked openly relieved.

“Is it true?” Darcy asked, after a moment. “Did you do it?”

“Yes,” replied Loki, flatly.

“But you’re –“ she paused, awkwardly. “I mean you’re – you’re a Jotun.”

Loki visibly winced, and his gaze flickered to the floor as he forced his expression back into something neutral.

“I don’t understand,” said Darcy, softly.

“There are great many things you are not obligated to understand,” Loki snapped.

“You asked for me,” she said. “They said I was here for absolution.”

“You offered sex,” said Loki waspishly. “I’d rather have that.”

“Stop it.”

“Then cease prying into things that do not concern you,” retorted Loki.

“Why did you choose me, then?” Darcy asked evenly. “If none of this is ever my business, why involve me at all? If you’re not going to talk to me or listen to me, then you could have anyone here with you right now – so why me?”

“Must you make this difficult?” Loki looked fixedly at the ground in front of him, his fists clenched tightly on his knees.

“You’re asking me to watch you die,” Darcy said, incredulously. “I was kidnapped and dragged here, and stuffed into a cell with you, and now I have to watch you die. I deserve to know why.”

“Then leave,” said Loki, hollowly. “Leave me.”

She stood, back pressed up against the door of the cell, so utterly beyond her depth that she hadn’t the least idea what to say. Loki was hunched over, his hair falling in his face and his jaw clenched so tightly she thought his teeth might crack.

“You’re an idiot,” said Darcy.

Loki’s back stiffened incredulously, and he glared up at her.

“Fine,” she snapped. “We won’t talk about it. We’ll just spend the last night of your life sitting miserably in silence and doing fuck all, if that’s really what you want. Because I said I would stay – so I’m staying.”

She crossed the room and sat down on the far side of the bed, bringing her knees up to her chest. Loki watched her, his expression guarded, but said nothing.

The cell was sparse, save the bed and a washbasin, and she wondered how long Loki had been in there. There seemed to be little sign of occupation, but it was possible Loki was just bizarrely neat. Besides, there wasn’t much to make a mess with.

He was sitting silently, still watching her as she examined the room. Then, to her surprise, he reached out and gently traced his finger over the lines of paint on her hand. She jerked it back in surprise, and he sat back at once, his expression oddly closed and defensive.

“Sorry,” she said, holding her hand out, palm up, towards him. “You startled me is all.” He looked at her for a long, silent moment, searching her face for some kind of confirmation. “It’s paint,” she added, turning her hand over. “Angrboða did it. I’m not sure why.”

“It is meant to match my own markings,” said Loki, softly, turning her hand in his and examining the lines contemplatively. “You are becoming responsible for my memory, and so you bear my signs so you might become me when you write my history.”

“So the markings are unique?” Darcy asked, scooting closer.

“Hmm,” Loki said, in reply. “Will you remember me?”

“Of course,” Darcy said, frowning.

Loki nodded slightly and released her hand. “Then that is enough,” he said quietly.

Darcy swallowed, biting down to keep her eyes from welling with tears. “Are you really going to go through with this?” she asked.

“I had been expecting this for some time,” said Loki. “I had hoped to avoid it. Obviously I was not as successful as I would have liked.”

“And all that stuff – you were planning to go to Helheim?”

“Ah,” said Loki. “That was plan B. But, no, to answer your question: regrettably, I do not have a way out of this.”

“Why did you do it?” she asked again, before she could stop herself.

“I did what I believed was necessary,” said Loki tonelessly, looking up at the ceiling.

Darcy swallowed, thinking of the great gouge in the earth through the middle of the city below. “And now – do you still think it’s necessary?”

Loki pursed his lips together, then shrugged. “I no longer know what is necessary. Those bereft of home, family and honour are also bereft of purpose.”

Darcy stared at him, uncertain what to say to that. Loki met her gaze for a moment, before turning away with a grimace. “It is odd to see you marked as mine,” he said.

“You don’t like it?”

“It is rather the reverse,” he said, quietly. “It is... unexpected.”

“Because this is not the skin you choose to wear?” asked Darcy, reaching out to trace her thumb along one of the raised lines on his cheek.

“It is more than that,” said Loki. “It is deeper than skin.”

“And now,” she asked, shifting towards him and turning his head so that he met her gaze. “Like this – what are you?”

“I am condemned as a monster and an abomination,” said Loki. “I am a traitor, and a bastard son.”

Darcy traced her fingers slowly along the marks on his cheeks, and his eyes fluttered closed and then open, staring heatedly at her. She felt the muscles of his throat work beneath her fingers as he swallowed. “Nothing else?” she asked, softly.

Loki pressed his lips together tightly and watched her, his eyes hooded. Slowly, Darcy shifted forward, straddling his lap, still holding his face in her hands and she traced her fingers down the marks on his neck.

“I have become you,” she said. “I have become yours. Your markings are mine; your memory is in my hands. When you look at me, what do you see?”

She heard Loki’s soft intake of breath, and his hands clenched tight in her shirt. He pressed his face to the crook of her neck, breathing in and out slowly, before pressing a long, lingering kiss to her skin. “What do you see?” she said again.

He slipped his hand under her thigh and lifted her up, flipping her over and lowering her onto her back on the bed in a single, smooth motion. “Remember me,” he said, his voice low and raw with emotion. He pulled apart the leather ties that held her clothes together, spreading it open on the bed and she shivered as the cool air of the room hit her skin.

“Remember me,” he said again, desperately, pressing a kiss to the side of her breast, down her stomach, to her hip. He spread her legs, settling himself between them, and hooked one over his shoulder, bent down low enough that she could feel his exhalations against her thigh. “Remember me as you see me, not as I am.”

Then he pulled her hips towards him with a firm tug and kissed her clit, sucking it hard enough that Darcy cried out, arching her back and scraping her nails across his shoulder. He swirled his tongue around it, setting a quick pace that was almost too fast, like he was trying to imprint himself upon her, imprint himself within her. He slipped two long fingers inside her, crooking them back towards his body and she arched her back even higher off the bed, digging her heel into his back to get leverage, to get closer. He swirled his tongue over her clit and she felt the pressure build.

Her hands grabbed onto the fur of the bedspread and held tight, and she moaned, sinfully, obscenely loud in the quiet room. Loki moaned against her, and she felt the vibrations of his voice against her clit and it made her gasp, digging her fingernails into the skin of his shoulder so hard she thought she must’ve drawn blood. Loki seemed to take the hint, and moaned again, long and low, and she squeezed tight around his fingers, pulling them deeper into her body, and came apart, shuddering and senseless beneath his tongue.
He sat up, stripping his tunic and pants with clumsy, shaking hands, and he bent over her. His arm was shaking, and she reached up, grabbing his head from behind and kissing him, hooking her leg over his hip and reaching down to grab hold of his penis. His entire body shuddered as soon as she wrapped her hand around him, and he pressed his forehead into her shoulder, rocking forward into her grip.

She ran her hand up the length of him once, swirling her thumb over the head, and that was enough – he cried out her name as he came, his come spilling all over her stomach, and he rolled onto his side, tangling his hand in her hair and pressing his face into the crook of her neck. She rolled over, wrapping a leg around his hip, and held him, shivering as her sweat cooled on her skin.

She managed to disentangle herself long enough to clean them up with the washbasin and cover them in furs, but Loki seemed firmly disinclined to either speak, or let go, and eventually his steady breathing lulled her off to sleep.

...

Angrboða flung the door open with a bang the next morning, leaving her scrambling to put on her clothes. Loki was dressed already, staring vacantly at the far wall.

He stood, and looked down at her. “You will remember your promise – everything that is mine, is yours. You will take it with you,” he said.

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and she reached out to touch his face. He grabbed her hand, and then brushed it aside. “I would rather you did not watch,” he said.

“I said I wouldn’t leave.”

“And you have not,” Loki replied, tracing his thumb gently across the inside of her wrist. “But you have done your service. Darcy – do not watch.”

Then he brought her hand to his lips and placed a gentle kiss on the backs of her bent fingers, before letting it fall. “Everything that is mine, is yours,” he said again. He turned to Angrboða. “That is my request.”

Then, without looking back, he followed her from the room.

In the end she did watch – but from a distance. The Jotun who had brought her here was standing in the hallway, and he looked at her in disgust before leading her out of the tower and down into the square. Loki stood, bound, in the centre of a ring of Jotun, looking up at the king.

The king raised both hands above his head, and a long, sharp dagger of ice formed between them. Darcy turned away, closing her eyes, but her Jotun guard simply grabbed her bodily by the shoulders and turned her back to face the scene, and she watched as the king plunged the dagger deep into Loki’s body. He pulled it out slowly, and Darcy heard the sickening squelch of blood, and Loki fell, unmoving to the ground.

...

The paint had rubbed off her skin.

She was made to wait, numb with cold and a gaping hollowness she couldn’t even begin to articulate, while the Jotun around her stared. Angrboða stripped the body right then and there, wadding up Loki’s belongings and handing them to Darcy who took them automatically. They were sticky with blood, and it got on her hands.

She was pulled to her feet, and she followed dumbly behind as she was led once more through the void, and dumped unceremoniously back in the lab, Loki’s bloody clothes still clutched to her chest.

Jane had been talking to Thor, their heads bent over the desk, and then both stood up straight at Darcy’s sudden entrance. Thor’s face took on an ugly snarl, but her Jotun escort merely sneered and turned around, heading back through the void the way he’d come.

There was a loud ringing in her ears, an endless unnatural tone that seemed to blot out all other sounds. Her skin itched where it had been painted, and it seemed like the world around her was moving impossibly slowly, carrying on in way she was not a part of.

“Darcy,” Jane said, tentatively, stepping around the lab bench and coming towards her.

Slowly, Darcy placed the clothes out onto the table, and looked up at Thor, whose face had gone utterly pale.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

Chapter 7: The Firestone

Summary:

Darcy mounts a rescue mission, Loki's plan B doesn't work quite like he'd expected, and nobody has any fun at all.

Thor had never looked particularly old to Darcy, despite the fact that he really was older than dirt. He did now.

There was a deep weariness written in his face, and a defeated slump to his shoulders as he sat, holding the remains of Loki’s cloak in his hands. He looked hollow, like he was collapsing from the inside out, and Darcy found it almost unbearable to look at. She was sat across from him, a mug of tea warming her trembling hands. Jane had washed them in the sink, after Darcy had simply stood there staring blankly down at the tap.

“Start at the beginning,” said Thor.

So she began, skirting around the awkward details, but telling them how she’d met Loki on Álfheim, and not known who he was until the unmasking. She told them he’d bought her the harp on Svartálfhiem, and she’d seen him steal the cloak on Vanaheim. Thor’s expression darkened somewhat at that, but he kept silent. Darcy stopped short, clasping her hands together to try and still them.

“And then you were taken to Jotunheim?” Jane prompted, leaning forwards to rest her hands on Thor’s shoulders.

Darcy could feel Thor’s gaze on her, and she wanted nothing more than to just run away from it, or possibly bury herself alive from shame and mortification.

She shook her head. “I saw him in Asgard.”

Thor shifted forwards. “My brother has found an unguarded route into Asgard?” Then he froze as the import of his tenses hit him.

“I don’t think so,” Darcy said, slowly. “It was more like astral projection – or a dream.”

“Ah,” Thor replied thoughtfully. “Loki was adept at such tricks.”

“There’s more,” Darcy said nervously, pulling at the furs she was still wearing. “He asked me to get something for him – a book. I know I shouldn’t have – I’m so sorry, Thor. He had it, I don’t know where it is now, but I promise –“

Thor held up a hand, stopping Darcy in her tracks. “Loki has beguiled much older and more suspicious minds than yours in his time. What’s done is done – whatever mischief he had planned is surely at an end now.”

Darcy found it suddenly very hard to swallow. Thor was watching her silently, though not entirely unkindly. She couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Tell us about Jotunheim,” Jane said quietly, her fingers pressing so hard into Thor’s shoulders that her knuckles had gone white, though Thor didn’t seem to take any notice.

“The Jotuns told me that he’d asked for me,” Darcy explained. “As part of their last rites. He’d been sentenced to death.” She shivered, looking down at the table in front of her. “The city had been destroyed, people living on the streets.”

“Did he ask anything of you?” Thor leant forward, resting his arms on the table between them. “Send any message?”

Darcy felt almost sick to her stomach with grief for Thor. “No message,” she said, quietly, shaking her head. “He kept insisting that I had to take his belongings. You can take them, of course. If he left anything, it’s there.”

“No,” replied Thor gently. “If he left them to you, they are yours.”

An awkward hush fell over the group, and Darcy still couldn’t quite bring herself to meet Thor’s gaze. She almost wanted him to lash out, rather than this relentless kindness she wasn’t sure she deserved.

“Why didn’t you say something?” Jane burst out at last. “All this time.”

She felt utterly chagrined. “I’m sorry. I never meant for it to get this far – and when it did, I was afraid to say anything. I thought you’d be angry.”

“I am,” said Jane, flatly. “You’ve lied and stolen for him, and then he had you kidnapped and dragged to watch his execution. That’s all on top of the fact that he tried to kill us, did very nearly kill Thor –“

Thor’s hands closed over Jane’s and squeezed them, and she looked down at him in surprise, almost as if she’d forgotten he was there.

“Loki was adept at manipulating the minds and hearts of others,” said Thor. “He has induced others to steal and lie for him before.”

Darcy scowled, and couldn’t help but retort, “he didn’t manipulate me. I chose to keep seeing him, I chose to steal for him, and I chose to lie for him. They were my decisions – and they were wrong, and I’m sorry for them, but I’ll stand by my own actions.”

Thor’s gaze seemed to be assessing her. “As you wish,” he said at last. “I loved my brother dearly and unconditionally once; I love him still, though I have been made less blind to his faults. I grieves me greatly that he would not call for me when his need was so great. I am, however, grateful that he had such a friend in you. For all his faults, my brother had also a capacity for goodness. Perhaps you have seen it.”

Jane was standing rigidly behind Thor, watching Darcy with a guarded expression.

“I think so,” Darcy said, quietly. “I think –“ She swallowed, but forced herself to keep going. “I think he loved you too, though he wasn’t willing to admit it.”

“I have more memories of Loki than these past few unhappy years,” said Thor, looking downcast. “I wish, perhaps, that both of you could have said the same.”

Jane squeezed his hands gently, and then ran her hands down his arms, stepping back. “I’ll take you home, Darcy,” she said.

Darcy gathered up Loki’s belongings, cradling them to her chest like a child holding a security blanket, and followed Jane out of the room. Thor walked down to the car with them, pulling Jane aside for a hushed conversation while Darcy sat awkwardly on, before bidding her goodbye. With Thor gone, a tense, awkward silence fell between her and Jane, and she found herself staring out of the window to avoid acknowledging the other occupant of the car.

“This is what you were going to tell me,” Jane said at last, her fingers white-knuckled on the steering wheel.

“Yes,” replied Darcy hollowly.

Jane pursed her lips and stared steadily out at the road ahead of them. “I don’t really understand,” she said. “I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but, Darcy – the guy’s a jerk. I mean, everything you said just makes it sound like you’re in the sort of relationship you can’t tell your friends about because the guy’s too much of a douche.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

“Then what was it like?” Jane turned towards her, frowning in concern, and stared at her for a long moment before looking back at the road. “Because all I’m getting is he put you in danger over and over, and got you to lie and steal.”

Darcy shrugged, looking down at her hands. “It wasn’t great – I know. I mean, I knew all along. That’s why I was afraid to say anything. But... Jane, I think he was just lonely. There was something there, somebody worth knowing despite all of his crazy plots and the idiotic things he’d say, and his holier than thou attitude and –“ She broke off chuckling. “He was irritating as fuck sometimes.”

Jane’s lips were still pursed in a thin line, but she gave Darcy a sidelong glance. “Were you trying to save him?” she asked.

“Not really. I think he was trying to save himself.”

“Hmm,” Jane replied, noncommittally, as they pulled up in front of Darcy’s house. She parked the car and sat back. “Do you want me to stay with you?”

Darcy blinked in surprise. “No, thanks. I’ll be alright, I think.”

“You sure?” Jane asked, looking Darcy over in concern. “I don’t think you should be alone.”

“I think Thor might need you more than I do,” Darcy said, gathering her things. “Thank you, though. Really.”

After a moment’s hesitation, she leant over and gave Jane an awkward hug. She felt Jane’s hands close on the fabric of her shirt for a moment, holding her tight, before she let go.

“This conversation isn’t over,” Jane said. Then, smiling sadly she added, “call me if you need anything.”

“Thanks,” Darcy replied again, stumbling out of the car and waving goodbye. Jane watched her all the way up to her front door, and didn’t drive off until Darcy had gone inside.
The house seemed unbearably empty and quiet now that she was alone, and she almost wished she’d asked Jane to stay after all. Darcy bundled herself up in a heavy quilt, sitting cross-legged on the middle of her bed, and placed the bundle of Loki’s belongings in front of her. It felt oddly like last rites, to be going over his things like this, and she felt obligated to somehow give the bundle of his clothing some sort of dignity.

It hadn’t been unwrapped; everything had been bundled inside Loki’s green cloak. Carefully she pulled the cloak back, and ran her fingers over the familiar leather jerkin he always wore. She traced the gold crescent that went across the breast with her thumb.

It almost seemed entirely unreal, save for the blood that clearly stained the cloak, and the large, jagged gash in the front of his jerkin. She traced that too, and she felt a deep chill in her bones, like a shadow had just passed through the room. She didn’t touch it again. Instead she carefully separated out all the different pieces of his outfit, thinking them over each in turn.

There were patterns to his clothing she’d never noticed before, almost like the patterns to his skin she’d not seen until the very end. She couldn’t help but think of Loki as a man whose complexities were so intricate and deeply layered that, like his clothing, there was always something more to see if you looked harder. But above all, the way his clothes reminded her most of him now, was the way he’d always seemed so empty and lonely. They seemed small now, with no one to wear them, and fragile.

She was about to put them away when the book slipped out and fell to the floor with a heavy, resounding thunk. She wasn’t sure where it had come from – the book itself seemed heavier than the bundle of clothes had been, and she’d been through them one by one so she was sure she couldn’t have missed it. But there it was – lying on the floor: Odin’s codex.

It was unmarked, and looked precisely as it had done the last time it had been in her possession. Carefully, Darcy picked it up, smoothing her hand over the cover. Her first thought was to return it to Thor immediately and she was already halfway up and reaching for her phone when another thought hit her. The memory of her conversation with Loki on Muspelheim ran vividly through her mind – he had said he was using the book to get to Helheim.

Helheim. It hit her like a ton of bricks. He’d told her – he’d told her that’s what the book was for. She’d travelled with the book once before. And he’d been insistent, so insistent that she take his belongings with her.

“Oh my god,” she said aloud. “You absolute asshole. You planned this. This was plan B.”

She looked at the empty suit of clothes on the bed, and thought about the way Loki had looked at her before he’d been led off, the way he’d practically begged her to ensure she’d take his belongings.

“Goddammit,” she muttered, feelingly, and she picked up her phone. Dialling quickly, she waited for Jane to pick up. “Jane, hi. Can you pass me to Thor? I think I have a way to bring Loki back.”

...

Thor was sitting at her kitchen table, carefully perusing the codex. He turned the pages one by one, squinting at them each in turn.

“Can you read it?” Darcy asked after a long, drawn out silence broken only by the sounds of pages turning.

“No,” Thor replied, and then he sighed, sitting back. “I have never been adept at magical arts, nor much of a scholar. I will have to consult my father.”

Darcy felt her heart skip several beats at that, knowing that there was probably not going to be a way of having that conversation that didn’t also involve the awkward ‘I totally slept with your other son and watched him die’ conversation.

“I used it before, without knowing how it works. Maybe we could just... ask it?”

“We can’t just ask it,” Jane said. “It’s not sentient.”

Thor, however, looked contemplative. “Why not? Darcy is correct – the book has worked for her before, perhaps stating our intent might not be entirely unfruitful.”

Jane stared at them both as if they were complete idiots. Then, not entirely without sarcasm, she said, “well, go ahead then.”

Darcy and Thor looked at each other over the book. Then, Darcy leant forwards and said, awkwardly, “take us to Helheim.”

The book stayed stubbornly still. “Show me Helhiem,” she tried. Then, she flipped through the pages. Nothing. The letters on the page were still illegible, and the book was entirely inanimate.

Jane tried hard not to look vindicated. “What now?” she asked.

“We will go and speak to my father,” said Thor. “And seek his counsel.”

“Do you think he will help?” Darcy asked. “I mean, he did cast Loki out, and the book is stolen...” She trailed off awkwardly.

Thor’s expression hardened. “My father has not disowned Loki, though many have assumed so when Loki’s true parentage became known. He may not choose to help, but we would do well to ask. If anyone can help, it is he.”

“Sorry,” Darcy muttered.

Thor rose to his feet. “I will make arrangements. I must speak with Heimdall.” He cast a quick glance at Jane, and she immediately fell in step beside him.

“Stay put,” said Jane, as the two of them headed outside.

The kitchen fell quiet again as Darcy heard the front door close behind them. Her heart was beating nervously in her chest, and she felt ill and shaky at the thought of having to stand in front of Odin and admit what she’d done. Thor was one thing – they were friends, and he’d been kinder than she’d expected. But Odin... Odin frightened her a little. And the fact that she’d stolen from one of the most powerful people in the universe, while a guest at his house, meant that he was well within his rights to get very, very angry.
Almost as if the book knew she was thinking about it, it seemed to stir. The cover flipped open, and the pages rustled.

Darcy approached it cautiously, moving slowly around the table to come to a stop just in front of it. It sat quietly, lying open to a page on Helheim.

“Thor! Jane!” Darcy called out. An eerie sort of quiet had fallen over the room, and her voice barely seemed to carry through the kitchen, like it was somehow getting stuck. There seemed to be a shadow bleeding off the pages of the book, a subtle darkness that was infusing itself into the table, and there was a distinct chill in the air. The book made a noise like a long, shuddering gasp, and she felt something tugging at her, pulling her towards it.

“Thor!” she called out again.

The book gave another long, slow breath, and she felt it wrap invisible tendrils around her arms, pulling her forward. Her hands touched the pages and seemed to sink in like quicksand. She pulled away, stepping back, and the book gave a violent shudder on the desk.

She looked towards the door, and back at the book, and she wondered if this might be her only chance – if the book really were sentient in some way, and it was giving her this opportunity. She didn’t know the first thing about Helheim, and she definitely didn’t like the cold and slippery feeling she’d got from the book, but Loki had, in his way, asked for her help, and she couldn’t leave him in that place either. So, she grabbed her bag from the counter top, and, with a deep breath, she stepped forward and plunged both hands deep into the book.

She landed hard on soft earth. It smelt damp and of mildew, and it stuck to her fingers when she tried to wipe them off. She could feel it seeping into her clothing, and it was cold enough to make her shiver. It was also completely and unrelentingly dark.

She held up a hand in front of her face and waved it about, but she couldn’t see it at all. “Well,” she said aloud, “I’m so glad we have that cliché covered.”

Her voice sounded oddly small and muffled, and the air was thick and heavy with the smell of rotting vegetation. She could hear in the distance the slow gurgle of water, but there was nothing else around she could use to orient herself in the darkness.

Carefully she tucked the book into her bag, and zipped it shut. Cautiously, and perhaps a bit foolishly, she called out, “hello?”

The empty darkness did not answer her, but she had the sudden, awful sensation of being watched on all sides. She could hear something slithering off in the distance.

Screwing up as much courage as she could muster, Darcy got to her feet, brushing her hands off against her trouser legs, and then set off slowly through the darkness. She had her hands spread out in front of her, walking weirdly zombie-like to keep from running into anything. But it was her feet that found the water.

It lapped against the tops of her shoes, bitterly cold, and she leapt back away from it. Her feet went instantly numb, and she couldn’t feel her toes when she tried to wiggle them. A deep, bone- chilling coldness seemed to be working its way up her legs. She stumbled sideways, walking bandy-legged like she were half drunk into a boat, which was pulled up on the riverbank.

She felt along its prow with her hands, and then down along its hull. It seemed to be small, the size of a rowboat, but not quite so wide. There was a long coil of rope in the prow, but no oars that she could feel. She gave it a shove out into the water anyway, and clambered ungainly inside, her numb legs barely making it over the back. She had to haul them in front of her, and she slapped them and rubbed them to try and get some feeling back into them.

The boat, with no tiller and no oars, drifted out into the river.

There was a cold wet mist gathering in the bottom of the boat. Darcy could feel the chill on her fingers even as the numbness in her legs seemed to creep up her body. She felt oddly light-headed and giddy, and the boat seemed to be picking up speed. She could hear the rippling of the water beneath the boat as it moved along, but there was no breeze. She lay back, looking up at the blank darkness above her, and felt her own breath misting in the air in front of her nose.

The boat struck land with a bump, and it took her a moment to realise what that meant. The water was lapping against the side of the boat like a heartbeat, and she thought she could hear something scraping like fingernails against the wood. She shivered.

She felt oddly detached as she moved, as if this were something happening to someone else that she was just watching. Dazed, she scrambled towards the front of the boat and clambered out of it. Her feet touched the water again, and something cold and definitely mobile crossed over her foot, and she felt something slimy and slim like cold wet fingers grip her ankle.

She stumbled backwards onto the bank, crawling crab-like away from the water, and lay back, too numb to move.

She felt an odd, hazy contentment settle over her as she lay there. Her limbs felt heavy and her mind oddly detached. She was alone on an empty beach, with no purpose, no name.
She could hear whispers coming from the darkness and flying shapes, like low swooping bats circling overhead.

There was a light in the distance. It seemed odd and impossible to Darcy, but it was there – a faint pinprick of red light away from the river. She’d lost any sense of reality or purpose, but she wanted the light. Carefully, she got her legs up underneath her and began to crawl.

It was slow going. She couldn’t quite seem to get her legs working right, and she hobbled almost baby-like across the barren land. The light grew brighter slowly as she drew closer, but always, above, she could hear the rustling and beating of wings. Sometimes they’d swoop down close and she’d feel the rush of air on her back as they went by. The whole time they were calling her name.

One of the shades above her head swept down, and scraped long, talon-like fingers across her scalp. “Darcy,” it whispered in her ear. She shuddered, and struck out at it, and felt its sharp talons scrape her hand.

She sucked on her finger where it had been scratched, and then kept crawling forwards, desperate for light. She had almost reached the source of it, and she could begin to make out a little of the ground before her and see the faint outline of her own hands pressed into the wet earth, when a shape emerged slowly from the dark beside her.

“Darcy,” it said, kindly, extending out a hand. “Get up, child.”

Shivering, Darcy took the hand she’d been offered and was pulled to her feet. She could smell a familiar mixture of cigarettes, mint gum and perfume that sparked something in her confused memory. “Grandmother?” she asked, quietly.

“Look at you, child,” her grandmother replied, brushing dirt of Darcy’s hands. “You’re a mess. Come.”

Her grip on Darcy’s arm was surprisingly firm, and she began to pull Darcy away from the light.

“No, wait, Grandma,” Darcy said, covering her grandmother’s hand with her own and tugging back. “This way.”

“That’s not the way, Darcy,” her grandmother admonished. “This way – there’s a house, you’ll be safe there.”

She could smell mint and cigarettes all around her now, and she felt bombarded by flashes of memory of her grandmother’s house. Of the bunk bed she used to share with her cousins. Of the old, lumpy sofa they used to transform into a fort. Of the candy her grandfather would buy her from the corner store with a wink and a promise ‘not to tell mom’. She felt comfort run through her veins, warm like brandy on a cold evening.

But the light was the other way.

“How far is the house?” she asked.

“It’s our house,” replied her grandmother softly. “You remember.”

She shivered. The light behind her seemed to grow dimmer.

“Come on, Darcy,” her grandmother said once more, tugging at her. “Come inside.”

There was something niggling in the back of her mind that she couldn’t quite get rid of. The grip on her arm was slightly too tight, the light behind her growing too dim, and the air too cold.

“No,” she said. “There’s something... I was doing something.”

The hand on her arm clenched tight, almost so tight her knees buckled, and she felt sharp nails digging into her skin. “You have come down to the depths,” her grandmother said, her voice dropping low and guttural in a way Darcy had never heard her speak in life. “A place awaits you.”

She squirmed against the grip on her arm, prying at the long, spindly fingers. “You have turned your back on everyone you have known, Darcy, and for what? For a murderer and a traitor? A man who killed his own father and attacked his family? Know your place.”

She kicked out as hard as she could, lashing out with her nails. “Let go. Let go.”

“I am ashamed to call you my granddaughter,” her grandmother continued, her nails still biting into Darcy’s skin, and her breath foul and cold in Darcy’s face. The smell of mint was gone, replaced with the sharp odour of decay. “Did you think nothing of your family before you threw your life away? Of your friends?”

Darcy dropped to her knees, the fight going out of her and her hand going limp in the grasp of her grandmother. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Sorry does not bring back the dead. You have made a wasted journey. He is not here.”

Loki. She was here to find Loki. To bring him back. With a final wrench, Darcy managed to get her arm free.

“Look at you,” howled the decayed spectre of her grandmother. “Look at you crawling on the ground after a man who cares nothing for you. You are no grandchild of mine. Your mother would be ashamed.” She fell upon Darcy like an animal, clawing at Darcy’s legs and pulling her backwards.

“My mother would be ashamed if I turned my back on a friend who needed my help,” said Darcy, kicking at any part of her she could reach. “My grandmother taught me to be kind and compassionate, to help people when they need it. And she would have helped me.”

“You will never be anything, you will never amount to anything,” the spectre snarled viciously. “You are worthless from a worthless family. What do you offer your friends? You haven’t the intelligence of Jane, the might of Thor, you’re not clever enough to save Loki. You’ll rot here. You’re not worth anything.”

Darcy scrabbled at the dirt, kicking and clawing her way forward inch by inch. She managed to knock the spectre back with a swift kick, but it was only for a moment before it leapt forwards and grabbed her leg in its long, sharp hands. The light, however, was getting brighter.

She rolled over in its grip and brought both feet up, managing to kick it straight in the chest before scrambling the last little bit towards the light. It was emanating from a glowing red stone, which lay half-buried in the earth. She picked it up, and held it aloft, and caught, for the first time, a good look at the thing that had been attacking her.

It looked half human, half ghoulish, with preternaturally long fingers and sharp teeth, but, at the same time, it was unmistakably her grandmother. Its flesh, however, seemed half-rotten, and tinged blue. It shrank from the light, throwing its arms up, and curling in on itself, before seeming to vanish into the pitch black of the landscape.

Panting, Darcy clutched the stone out in front of her, and wept.

It was a while before she could recompose herself enough to go on. The light from the stone seemed to penetrate only a few feet in front of her, so it was hardly enough to get a good look around. She was, however, extremely disconcerted to note that the stone itself was familiar to her. It was the firestone Loki had taken from Muspelheim – which meant that Loki was both around here somewhere, and in enough trouble to have left it behind.

She hadn’t the least idea which way to go, so she settled for heading on the way she’d been going. She could still sense things watching her in the dark, but none of them drew close to her now. She tried lifting the stone up above her head, but she could only barely make out the outlines of dark, winged creatures circling overhead, and the scarpered as soon as she caught sight of them.

However, from the darkness ahead, she began to hear noises. Either the river circled around, or there was another as she could hear the burbling sound of running water. But there were also low voices, too low to make out any of the words.

When she drew closer she could make out their shapes. Loki, his skin so pale as to be almost translucent, was on his knees in the water. He was bare to the waist, wearing only a thin pair of dark trousers, and he was looking up at the spectre of a frost giant, who hovered above him, his long talon-like fingers on either side of Loki’s face.

“Unwanted,” it said, drawing the word out long and low. “Unwanted by your father, and kept as a pawn by your foster father. Did you really think they could ever love you? They ripped our home apart, destroyed our people. They cut the heads off prisoners and murdered the women in the streets. Did you really think such people could ever love the mongrel they’d brought home?”

Loki let out something Darcy couldn’t quite make out. She saw dark hands begin to rise from the water and grab hold of his legs.

“Loki,” she shouted sharply, and both he and the spectre turned to look at her. The spectre of the Jotun snarled, baring sharp yellowed teeth, and hissed dangerously. Loki seemed to be in some kind of trance, his eyes vacant.

The Jotun’s hands tangled in Loki’s hair, dragging him forward, and the hands crept up out of the water, tugging at his waist, pulling him down.

Darcy leapt forwards and threw the light up in front of her, shoving the stone straight into the Jotun’s face. It snarled, shrinking away from her, and she wedged herself between it and Loki. The water on her feet was cold, and she felt hands closing around her angles and climbing up her shins, pulling down. The smell coming off the spectre was so foul she nearly gagged, putrid flesh and the acid, sickly smell of decay. It fell back from the light, and she heard Loki groan behind her.

“Release her, my son,” the Jotun said, holding out one long, wicked hand. “I claim you. You are mine.”

Loki shuffled forwards, somewhat hampered by the hands that held him in the water.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Darcy said in exasperation, shoving him backwards and placing herself directly between Loki’s line of sight and the Jotun. “Leave him alone,” she said.

It laughed, a deep, awful sound that made her shiver. “Let him come if he wishes.”

“What did you do to him?” she asked.

The Jotun sneered. “Do not interfere. Know your place.”

“Currently, my place is right here,” said Darcy, stepping forwards and shoving the firestone towards his face. “Now leave.”

“I do not answer to you,” it hissed, its gaze drifting to Loki behind her.

“Fine,” she muttered. Whirling around she grabbed Loki’s face, turning him to look towards her, and she held up the firestone between them. He looked vacant and pale, as if he were staring through rather than at her. She bent down, and felt the cold slimy hands climb up to her waist, tugging at her shirt to pull her down. They writhed like eels in the water, grabbing hold of every part of her they could reach.

“Loki,” she said as sternly as she could manage. “Look at me. Look at me.”

He remained vacant, and she pulled back her hand and slapped him once across the face. He barely even moved, still staring unblinkingly. Then, out of desperation, she grabbed him and pulled him close, kissing him.

That seemed to work. He sprang to life, jerking away from her with a shriek. “Let me go, let me go,” he said, batting frantically at the hands that held him, his eyes wild with panic.

“Loki,” she said again, as calmly as she could manage. “Loki, it’s me. It’s Darcy.”

“No,” he said, almost moaning the word. “Stop.”

She reached for him, but he batted her hands away and fell back into the water. Creatures, faceless and dark, like human forms shaped from the mud of the riverbed itself, rose up and began to cover him.

Darcy reached forward, trying to pull them back, but they crumbled under her hands, simply breaking apart and rising up again like waves. And the more they broke apart, the more they covered him, until he was entirely subsumed beneath the water.

She turned around, but the Jotun had gone, and the river hand gone quiet. Without stopping to think, she held the firestone out in front of her, took a deep breath, and plunged beneath the water.

He was lying on the bottom, unmoving, half-covered in silt. Long, wispy reeds of seaweed tangled around him, and felt slimy against her skin. As soon as she was under the surface, the bottom seemed to explode into frantic motion. Hands clawed up from the riverbed, pawing at her and pulling her down to the bottom. A human shape seemed to form itself out of the ground beneath her, and it grabbed her in a bear hug, pulling her down to the bottom.

She hit the bottom hard enough to knock the air out of her lungs. She squirmed in its grip, breaking its arms apart and trying to get away before another set could re-form again. She managed to get her head up above the surface only just long enough to take a breath before she was pulled back down, but she crawled slowly towards Loki’s motionless body.
She managed to reach out and grab his hand, and then, getting her feet under her, stand up. The creatures came with her, bursting out of the water hands outstretched with a noise like a great waterfall, a horrible rumbling that seemed to be coming straight towards her. She clung to Loki’s hand and pulled, dragging him along as hands tugged at her legs and tried to trip her up, and the creatures grabbed at her hair and her arms, smothering her as she tried to get away.

She managed to stumble onto the bank, and she gave Loki a sharp, final tug, pulling him half on top of her as she fell back into the dirt.

He lay unnervingly still. Darcy rolled him over with a shove and held the light up to his face. She held her hand up, hovering it just over his mouth and nose to check for breath, but felt nothing. There was no pulse either, so she placed the stone down and tilted his head back, checking his airway.

Her hands were shaking as she started compressions, and she could barely keep herself together enough to count them out. When she went to breathe for him, pinching his nose and covering his mouth with her own, he seemed to suddenly spring to life.

He rolled away from her, coughing up water and sputtering, and she sat back, pale and shaking. “Get away from me,” he said, his voice low and rough.

“I just saved you, you absolute dickwad!” she shouted back.

Loki froze, and blinked. “Darcy?” he asked, cautiously.

“Who did you think it was, Santa Claus?”

He looked her over suspiciously. “Let me see your hands.”

She held them out. They were filthy, utterly caked in dirt and silt, but they seemed to relieve Loki. “How are you here?”

“The codex. You left it for me. I came here to rescue you.”

Loki looked at her in utter bewilderment. “Rescue me?” he echoed. “What are you talking about?”

“The codex,” Darcy said. “The book from Asgard. You said you were using it to travel to Helheim. You left it so I could come and get you.”

Loki kept staring at her, looking incredulous. “I left it to you for safekeeping,” he said, at last. “You... you came here alone?”

Darcy stared back at him, and then completely snapped. “You absolute asshole,” she said, slapping any part of him that she could reach. “Is that all you have to say? You left it for ‘safekeeping’?”

“I didn’t think you’d come to Helheim!” Loki retorted.

“Well you should have been more specific,” Darcy replied, kicking him in the shin.

Loki simply scowled darkly at her. After a moment, she picked the firestone back up, turning it over in her hand. “So, what was your plan, then?”

“To fight my way out,” Loki replied. “The stone is the only light that will penetrate the darkness here. I had an inkling that I might need it one day, but I had intended, initially, to use it myself. I had business with the ruler of this domain.”

“You got yourself executed to pay a visit?” Darcy asked, hollowly.

“Hardly,” Loki replied. “I had intended to travel the same way you did. The universe, however, had other plans.”

“So, how do you have the stone?” she asked.

“I ate it,” Loki replied, looking mildly chagrined.

“You ate it,” Darcy echoed.

He shrugged. “It seemed the most efficient way of keeping it with me.”

“How –?” she started, then shook her head. “I don’t want to know.”

“Probably wise,” Loki said, mildly. “Do you have the codex with you?”

“It’s in my bag,” Darcy replied, pulling it out. “It’s a bit wet.”

Loki gave a sharp hiss and snatched it from her hands, carefully peeling pages apart. Then he scowled darkly and shut it tight.

“We’ll have to go another way for now,” he said, standing up. “We must get across the river.”

“Wait,” Darcy said, scrambling to her feet. “I am not going in there again.”

“Would you prefer to stay here?” Loki asked.

“Not intensely,” she replied. “But what happened to you back there? What are those things in the river?”

“It’s best not to touch the water,” Loki replied. “There should be a boat....”

“I used it earlier,” Darcy said. “It was back...” She paused, looking out into the relentless gloom. “Somewhere.”

“Oh, good,” Loki said sarcastically. “If we follow the river this way, we should run into somewhere eventually.” He set off slowly, leaving Darcy no option but to follow along behind.

“There’s no need to get snippy,” Darcy said. “It was hardly like your plan was going perfectly when I got here. Who was that, anyway?”

“Don’t let anything make you bleed,” Loki said, flatly. “One drop of blood and the shades take form, bringing back the souls of the dead who want to speak to you.”

Darcy went still, a shudder running through her. “They’re real, then? When they take form – they really are the person?”

Loki gave her a penetrating look. “In a way,” he said. “The person is there – but the realm of Helheim does not suffer the dead to wander as they please. They will do anything to put you back where you belong. Think of them like shepherds.”

Darcy thought of the horrible figure of her grandmother, rotten and hateful, and found it hard to reconcile with the word ‘shepherd’. “So they’re not the same people,” she said.

“Who did you see?” he asked, his voice softening slightly.

“My grandmother.”

“Ah,” Loki said. Then, after a moment he added. “The Jotun you met was my father, Laufey.”

“Your biological father?” she asked.

“How many fathers do you think I have?”

“What did he say to you?” Darcy asked, ignoring him.

Loki turned away from her, and pointedly looked out into the darkness. She’d heard enough when she’d arrived, however, to make a fairly good guess at the gist of it.

“Is that what you thought I was?” she asked. “Why you asked to see my hands?”

“Yes,” Loki replied, tersely. “I didn’t expect you to be here.”

“I’m not dead,” she pointed out.

Loki shrugged. “This realm has a way of playing tricks on you. Of perverting the things you wish you could see, into things you’d rather avoid.” He paused, and turned back towards her. “Hold the light higher.”

As she did, she could make out the very faint outline of the boat, pulled up on the shore. She stumbled forwards, grabbing hold of it and clambering inside. Loki reached for it, and then recoiled as soon as his hands had touched it.

“What is it?” she asked, leaning forwards over the prow.

He was holding his hands up. They’d gone utterly black, as if they’d been burnt. “Curious,” he said.

Darcy scrambled back out, taking his hands in her own. “Oh, god,” she said. “I don’t have anything on me – we should bandage these.”

“I do not believe I can pass this way,” he said, then he turned her hands over in his. “It does not affect you.”

He seemed to study the boat for a long moment. “You overcame the shades,” he said sharply. “How?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “I just kept kicking at it until I got the light, then I shined it at them and they backed off.”

Loki made an irritated noise. “No, that can’t be it. Unless –“ He looked her over speculatively. “Perhaps it is because you are not dead.”

“Neither are you,” Darcy said.

“Not entirely, no, but I am not entirely alive either. I was sent here – you came of your own volition.”

“Meaning?” she asked.

“Meaning you can cross the river, and I cannot.”

“That... is a problem,” Darcy said. “That’s a big problem.”

“Hmm,” Loki said in agreement. “It may, however, also be our solution.”

Darcy stared at him. “You’ve lost me,” she said.

“I have a method of joining minds,” he said, slowly. “We’ve done it before – in Asgard. If, perhaps, we join together, the boat will accept us both.”

“Or?” Darcy asked.

“Or it will accept neither of us, and we will need to find another means of crossing the river,” he admitted. “But it is the only option I can think of.”

“What will it do to me?” Darcy asked.

“Nothing permanent,” Loki replied. “I have not attempted it on anyone while they were awake before, but in theory it should be a very similar experience to the one you have already had.”

“In theory,” Darcy said, dubiously.

“It is the best I can offer,” Loki replied, somewhat apologetically. “If not, we should look for another way to cross.”

“Is there one?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” he said, looking steadily at the boat.

Taking a deep breath, Darcy nodded. “Alright. Go ahead.”

Loki gave her a long, searching look. “You are certain?”

“No point in coming all this way only to leave empty handed,” she said, shrugging with considerably more nonchalance than she actually felt.

Loki stepped forwards, his hands outstretched, and he placed them gently on the sides of her face, cradling it. Then, with a slight intake of breath he leant forward, and it felt as if the floodgates had opened.

She could feel him enter her mind, and she had the odd sensation of being in two places at once – both herself, and holding her own face in her hands. She felt flashes of memory go by, her own face smiling, Thor, her hands glowing with cool, green magic for the first time. She felt Loki’s consciousness wrap around her own mind, quicksilver and sharp, and she realised she was flickering between looking up at his face and down at her own, uncertain which body she belonged to.

“Loki?” she asked, and both her own and Loki’s bodies spoke the word aloud simultaneously.

Loki’s mind did a kind of soothing gesture against her own, a gentle brush like fingers down the back of her neck. His memories were spilling out into hers, like a basin overflowing, and she caught snippets of his childhood, of Asgard, and she remembered them like they were her own.

“The boat,” said their bodies simultaneously. She tried to reach out to Loki’s mind to ask how to move, how to function as two people. She prodded him gently, but it was like bursting a balloon and snippets of him seemed to flood her, to overwhelm her. She saw all of his memories of her like a montage, and she felt everything. Felt anger, and happiness, his joy, his affection. She felt her own hands against his skin.

Almost as soon as she’d picked up on that, their minds seemed to run with it. She felt her own hands against Loki’s skin, she felt herself running them over his cock, and she gasped, suddenly, inexplicably horny. She felt what it was like to be hard, felt herself pressing her own erection against herself.

She staggered backwards, leaning back against the boat as the flood of sensation wracked her body. She felt hands everywhere at once, touching her in impossible ways, tongues against her nipples, her tongue, her nipples, she couldn’t tell anymore. She sank down, panting heavily, as she relived the memory of Loki pounding into her, felt the tight warmth of her own body enclose his...

She reached down with one hand, utterly heedless of where they were, and just brushed her fingers once over her clit, squeezing her legs together. At the same time she moved her hand on Loki’s body, grasping her erection and squeezing, and her knees buckled.

She came shuddering, and Loki, in her mind, felt it too, coiling around her in pleasure and running phantom touches all over her skin.

“Fuck,” they both said aloud, breathing heavily.

“I take it that wasn’t part of the plan?” Darcy added after a long moment, pulling herself to her feet.

She got a definitive sense of amusement from Loki. “No,” she heard herself say in response. “This is... unusual.”

“I won’t do that again then,” she said.

“Perhaps not,” Loki replied, using her voice as well as his own. It was odd to hear an inflection so obviously his coming out of her mouth. “At least not now. However, it would appear we can touch the boat.”

“Goody,” Darcy said, and she carefully pushed it towards the water. The only way she could manage was to have both bodies climb in simultaneously. It was horridly ungainly and awkward, and she knocked their heads together, but somehow they wound up both lying in the bottom of the boat, side by side.

“Now what?” she asked aloud.

“The boat will take us across,” Loki answered.

So, as content as she could be while brain sharing her way down a river in the underworld, she simply lay back and looked up at the starless sky. It seemed an unnaturally long time before the boat touched land again. The whole way down the river she thought she could hear the scraping of hands against the bottom of the boat, and with every ripple of water she expected something to leap up from the depths.

Loki was, however, a calming influence. She could sense him in the back of her mind, his own thoughts oddly quiet and soothing. She wondered if he was doing it deliberately.

“Yes,” he answered aloud. “It would be wise to avoid further undue... agitation.”

“I think this is the first time you’ve ever said you don’t want me horny,” she replied – but even the thought of it seemed to spark something in him, which reverberated in her and amplified itself up and up and up until Loki tamped it back down sharply.

“Not now,” he said, tersely.

The boat did strike land eventually, however, and Darcy managed to get them both back onto dry land. Loki took control of her body, and she felt Loki’s body grab her own face in his hands once more. Then, slowly, as if he were unhooking claws, Loki pulled himself away. She felt his mind recede and her own swell to fill the spaces he’d left behind, sensation returning properly to her own limbs as she lost the sense of being two people at once.

When he was done, she staggered backwards. “Never again,” she said. “I am never doing that again.”

“I am sorry,” said Loki, stiffly.

She waved his apology off, still shaking slightly. “It was just weird, that’s all.”

He looked her up and down for a moment, then held out his hand. “Come,” he said.

“Where are we going?”

“Out,” he replied, shortly, then he stopped and turned to her. “It may be... unpleasant.”

She swallowed. “Let’s just get it over with, then.”

She felt a bit silly clinging to his hand, but it was dark and cold and she didn’t feel silly enough to let go. They walked in silence, trudging through the dirt, before coming to a stop before a great gate.

Loki looked back at her, and then, to her surprise, pressed a kiss to her forehead and squeezed her hand tight.

“Whatever happens,” he said, “do not let go.”

She nodded, and looked back towards the gate. Then, Loki reached out and pushed it open.

The earth seemed to come crashing down around them, burying them in a rain of dirt. It filled her nose and mouth, and the only thing she could feel was Loki’s hand squeezing hers tightly. He began tugging her upwards, and she crawled through the earth, shoving it and kicking at it as she wormed her way towards the surface.

Loki readjusted his grip and tugged, hauling her out of the ground, and she emerged, gasping and coughing beneath a bleak, grey sky.

They had crawled their way out.

Chapter 8: A Crown of Gold

Summary:

Loki and Darcy have made it out of Helheim, but they're not even remotely out of hot water yet. In which Loki continues to make bad life decisions, Darcy puts up with superhuman amounts of shit, and this fic continues the proud tradition of putting sex scenes into increasingly inappropriate locations.

Notes:

This chapter liberally steals inspiration from Tolkien, in ways which should be pretty obvious. Also, the release of Thor: The Dark World renders this fic hilariously non- canon compliant because boy did I ever get Svartalfheim wrong.

The smell of wet earth was overwhelming, full of rotten leaves and mildew, and Darcy could still feel soil caked under her fingernails. They lay panting, looking up at a bleak grey sky, and she felt chilled utterly to the bone with the lingering gelid air of Helheim.

“Where are we?” she asked at last, her own voice oddly raw.

Loki rolled onto his side, curling up with his face half-pressed into the dirt. She saw his hands curl into the soil, like he was grounding himself, and he muttered, “Niflehiem.”

Then, after a moment he snorted and added, “I hate this realm.”

“We just came from Helheim,” Darcy pointed out flatly.

Loki’s reply was indecipherable as he shut his eyes and mumbled something into the dirt. Darcy rolled onto her side to face him, all of her limbs feeling heavy and lethargic, like she’d been ill for weeks. Which, given she’d just be sort-of dead, probably wasn’t that surprising. But she found it increasingly difficult to keep her eyes open, and she watched the slow rhythmic rise and fall of Loki’s chest – content enough for now to see him breathing.

It was still freezing, and her fingers were growing stiff and numb, but she found she didn’t have the strength to move.

“Loki,” she said, reaching out to prod him. Her arm shook with fatigue. Loki simply grunted, his eyes flickering open to glance at her before closing.

“We have to get up,” she said again, her voice low and sluggish. “Can’t stay here.”

There was something urgent – she was sure of it. Something she had to do. Get up. She had a growing sense that something was really, horribly wrong, but her mind was too dulled to process it. She saw Loki, who had gone unnaturally still, begin to slowly sink beneath the surface, his face utterly placid as the ground rose up around it.

She tried to squirm, but her limbs were far too heavy and she seemed be stuck in a sinkhole. The air grew fetid with decay and a cold wind seemed to run down her spine as the earth swallowed her back down again.

...

There was someone slapping her face, tapping repeatedly on her cheek and shouting her name, and Darcy reacted in the only way anyone sane and sensible would. She slapped back, flailing and kicking, and Loki fell back with a squawk of alarm.

“What the hell?” Darcy asked, sluggishly, sitting up and looking around blearily.

They were in a cavern, lit by a single, pale torch which was stuck in a rusty iron bracket. The walls were low enough that Loki stooped awkwardly as he got to his feet, and the floor was covered with detritus and cobwebs that stuck to both their clothes. She could see two archways leading out of the room, one on either side, and both were carved with a pattern of dead kings, their faces thin and elongated and their hands crossed upon their chests. Their clothes seemed to shift eerily in the flickering torchlight, and she had the uncomfortable sensation they were looking straight at her.

What was of considerably more concern to Darcy, however, were the bones that lay neatly in niches along the wall, femurs and skulls stacked neatly in patterns that stared with sightless eyes out at her.

“What the fuck,” she amended.

Loki grimaced, tapping the frontal bone of one of the skulls. “We’re in an ossuary,” he said. “Charming I’m sure, but I thought you might prefer different company.”

“How did we get here?” She slowly got to her feet, careful not to bump her head on the ceiling. The space was cramped and claustrophobic, and she had the unsettling feeling that she was being watched. There was a slight breeze and it made her shiver, but the air smelt stale and faintly of decay.

“Niffleheim is a liminal world, where the border between the dead and living is weakest,” Loki said quietly. “Sometimes things pass the border.”

Darcy cast a nervous glance at the bones. “Out of Helheim?”

Loki gave an odd sort of shrug. “We did.”

“So, wait, we’re in the super secret underground tunnel out of the underworld with a bunch of escapee dead people?”

“No,” said Loki. “We are in a super secret underground tunnel out of the underworld with the tunnel’s watchmen.”

The room fell silent and Darcy shivered, looking around nervously as she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. “How do we get out?” she asked.

Loki plucked the torch from its bracket and held it up in front of him. “Not sure,” he said, mildly. “But this way is as good as any.”

He turned on his heel and started through the far archway. Hurriedly Darcy scurried along behind him, and she had the preternatural sensation of cold, thin fingers running across her shoulder as she passed beneath the arch. She shrieked, jumping forwards and into Loki, who let out a yelp of surprise and grabbed hold of her arm hard enough to leave bruises. The image of the king on the wall looked down at her, his eyes sightless, but she felt it looking at her.

“Sorry,” she said.

Loki gave her a long, irritated look, and then, letting go of her arm and looking for all the world like a disgruntled owl, he scowled, straightened his shoulders and turned away from her. “Do try and keep the screeching to a minimum,” he said.

“The next time you die I am leaving you in Hell,” said Darcy, kicking at the back of his feet. “You are the most ungrateful–“

Loki whirled around and snarled. “I never asked you to come.”

“You never ask me to do anything,” said Darcy. “You just expect me to do it, or drop me somewhere by myself and let me figure it out. What did you think I was going to do? You made me watch you die, and then left me the key to finding you. Did you really think I was just going to walk away?”

“Yes!” Loki took a step back, looking surprised. “You weren’t meant to come. Why would you come? You could have died.”

Darcy stared at him. “You are such an idiot,” she said at last. “It’s actually unbelievable.”

Loki bristled defensively. “Because I’m not bowing and scraping over your reckless, foolhardy and unnecessary endangerment of your own life?”

“Okay, yes, now that you mention it – a thank you would go a long way,” Darcy said. “But not everything is about you, Loki. You don’t get to decide when I’m allowed to take part. You don’t get to drop things in my lap without any explanation and walk away and expect me to psychically stick with your plan. You are not the only one who gets to make decisions – and I made mine, and I saved your sorry ass and I will not put up with you treating me like a child who broke the rules.”

“If you recklessly endanger your life so utterly needlessly –“

“Needlessly? Which one of us was it again who got stabbed through the chest –?”

“I am just trying to protect you –“

“Obviously I don’t require your protection based on my recent track record.”

“You are young and a fool, and a single victory does not guarantee you will always be successful. Do you know what I would do if anything happened to you?” He stepped forwards, his face contorted by the torchlight. “I would burn the world to the ground to protect you –“

“Has it ever occurred to you,” Darcy cut in flatly, “that I might have been similarly upset about watching you die?”

Loki stopped abruptly, bonking his head on the ceiling as he tried to straighten up. “I –“

Whatever Loki had been about to say was abruptly cut off by the roaring of wind from down the corridor behind them. Darcy bent double as the wind whipped her hair around her face, and the torch abruptly blew out plunging them both into darkness.

Loki grabbed hold of her, pulling her close to him, and she felt the winds pick up, swirling around her and pulling bits of stone and shards of bone off the floor which whipped past, cutting her skin.

“What’s happening?” she shouted.

“This way,” Loki replied, dragging her along by the hand down the hallway.

There were voices in the wind, low and haunting, and she felt hands grabbing at her clothes, pulling her hair as she ran. Loki came to a sudden and abrupt stop, and she slammed into him, sending them both staggering forward.

The room sprang to light as torches along the walls seemed to light themselves all at once. It was long and shaped like the inside of a boat, the walls carved with long, coiling sea serpents whose scales seemed to glow a pale green in the dim light. In the centre of the room was a large sarcophagus, and around it lay scattered various grave goods, pots and jars of food, now shrivelled and rotten, ransacked by rats and spread out onto the floor, a harp, a bed and piles of moth-eaten clothing. But atop the sarcophagus stood a pale grey figure of a king, his crown tall and sharp like ghoulish fingers and a long sword clasped in his skeletal hand.

“Ah,” said Loki. “So there is someone here after all.”

“The dead are not permitted to leave Helheim,” said the king, and the torchlight flickered ominously around them. “Go back the way you came.”

“If it’s all the same to you,” said Loki, “I’d rather not. We are not dead – your rules do not apply.”

“Go back, son of Laufey,” said the king. Darcy felt Loki’s posture stiffen, and his voice was sharper when he spoke.

“Let us pass.”

The king laughed, and the sound of it set Darcy’s teeth on edge and made her want to cover her ears. It felt unnatural and discomfiting, uncomfortable almost to the point of pain.

“None who enter here pass this way,” the king said, looking straight at Loki. “There is no way out.”

Loki half-turned towards Darcy and said flatly, “if there is a way in, there is a way out. If you will not let us pass, we will find it ourselves.” He then turned, pulling Darcy towards his side.

In a flicker of light the king vanished from atop the sarcophagus and appeared right in front of them, blocking the door. He stepped forward, his feet crunching on the shards of pottery crushed on the ground, and raised his sword. Without stopping to think, Darcy swung her bag around and whacked him in the face with it.

The spectre disappeared, dissolving into a fine mist as she swung her back through it, and Loki let out a bark of surprised laughter. But, instead of darting forwards, he spun around again and began rummaging through the objects scattered throughout the room.

“What –?” Darcy began to ask, but the spectre reformed in the air in front of her and began stalking forwards towards Loki. Darcy swung her bag at it again.

“Keep doing that,” Loki shouted, tossing furs aside. A gold inlayed shield skittered across the floor coming to rest at her feet, and she picked it up.

All the warning she had was a faint gust of air on the back of her neck before she whirled around and found the spectral king looming over her. She shoved the shield hard into his face, and was surprised to feel it make contact. The king stumbled backwards with a snarl, raising his sword high and bringing it swinging back down on the shield.

“Excellent!” said Loki. He bent down and pulled two short swords out of the pile, twirling them both around in his hands. Darcy shoved forwards with the shield again, and felt it crack under the blade of the sword.

Loki darted forward, blades whirling almost faster than she could track, and she ducked out the way. She could hear the clash of metal against metal as Loki was suddenly put on the defensive, using both blades to block the sword as it came down at him.

Darcy bent down and started scrabbling around, picking up potsherds and chucking them at the head of the king. She threw hunks of stale bread, a drinking horn, cups, anything she could get her hands on – and the king whirled around towards her with a deep snarl that reverberated throughout the cavern, raising his sword and stalking towards her.

She stumbled backwards, tripping over a chest of goblets and went sprawling as the spectre moved forward, sword in hand. He stopped suddenly with a jolt, and Darcy saw the tip of a blade sticking out of his chest. With another jolt Loki pulled the blade free and swung it in a single, quick movement to slice his head clean off.

The spectre seemed to shatter as it hit the floor, and the torches flickered wildly and the wind picked up to what could only be described as an unholy shriek. Loki stumbled backwards, wrenching the lid off the sarcophagus and sending it crashing to the floor, crushing a tray of desiccated fruit.

He leapt inside, scattering the bones and crushing the skull beneath his feet, before pulling a golden crown from the coffin and placing it on his head. He picked up the sword and gave the bones a final kick.

“What are you doing?” Darcy demanded.

“Getting us passage out of here,” he said, leaping out of the coffin and grabbing a torch. “Kill the gatekeeper – take his place.”

There was something coming – a rushing noise like a great wave filled the cavern, moving towards them, and Loki shoved her forwards and pressed on. The hands were back, ripping at her clothes and her hair, cutting her skin, and she ran, blindly, stumbling down the path. She ran smack into a wall, hard enough to see stars, and she staggered back.
Loki stepped forward and wrenched the sword into the wall with a great cry, and shoved at it with all his weight.

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” Darcy shouted.

“No,” Loki replied, grunting. “Do you have a better plan?”

He shoved once more, and the wall started to give way with a crack. The sound of stone splitting echoed ominously through the halls, and a trickle of dirt began to rain in through the hole Loki had made.

“You’re going to bring it down on our heads.”

“That’s the plan,” Loki said, bracing himself and shoving harder, using the sword for leverage to widen the crack.

Try desperately not to panic, Darcy pulled her sleeves over her hands and shoved against the flat part of the blade beside him.

There was a loud crack that echoed like a gunshot throughout the space around them and then a deep powerful rumble as the wall gave way. Dirt poured down, and Darcy barely had time to take a breath and hold it before she was drowning in it, and she clawed frantically upwards, pulling herself through the dirt as best she could.

Loki was pushed away from her, and she tried to reach for him but found nothing but heavy, damp earth. It filled her ears and her mouth, and she kicked and clawed at it as hard as she could.

She felt something grab the back of her shirt and she was lifted out of the ground and dropped unceremoniously, sputtering and gagging. Loki was on his knees, dirt streaking his face and hair and hands bleeding, watching her carefully as she coughed up chunks of dirt and tried to breathe.

He was, astonishingly, still wearing the crown, though it was tilted at an odd angle on the top of his head.

“You take me on the worst vacations,” Darcy managed to get out between coughs.

Loki laughed, looking startled. “If you can stand,” he said, “we should move.”

It had once been a barrow, she could tell by the shape of the mound, but there was a great gaping hole where they had climbed their way out, dark earth spread across the side of the grass-covered mound like an open wound. Darcy shivered, and staggered to her feet, wobbling a bit before she managed to steady herself.

“Move where?” she asked, looking around.

The landscape was dotted with barrows, like spots across the land. The sky was a pale grey, making everything below a sickly colour that made her feel even colder and deader than she did already.

“We should find shelter,” Loki said quietly. “And then, a way home.”

“I hope you’ve got food on that list somewhere,” Darcy said, trying to sound more upbeat than she felt at the prospect of walking across the landscape of Nifleheim.

Loki grimaced. “Not much lives here,” he said. “I hope you like cricket.”

Darcy shuddered feelingly. “You were right,” she said. “I hate this realm.”

...

Loki made her walk until her legs very nearly gave out, looking each spot she suggested over and declaring them unfit. She would have argued, but she remembered the sensation of being sucked into the earth and accepted Loki’s refusal to stop. But, at last, he came upon a small hollow, surrounded by trees, and he declared it “safe enough”.

Darcy sunk down, practically collapsing onto the ground and rolled onto her side.

Loki watched her for a moment, dropping down to sit, his back against a tree and one leg bent. He plucked the crown off his head and examined it contemplatively, before placing it carefully atop her bag on the ground. He carefully plucked the worn codex from her bag, its pages still damp and mildewy, and flipped through it.

“Can we use it?” Darcy asked.

“No,” Loki said, bitterly, snapping it shut. “Not like this.”

“I’m sorry,” Darcy said, quietly.

Loki simply shrugged and tossed the book aside. “We will find another way.” He turned to look down at her, pursing his lips. “Are you... injured?” he asked, after a moment.

Darcy snorted. “I am sore in muscle groups I didn’t even know I had, I haven’t eaten since approximately the dawn of time, and I am so cold I’m pretty sure I should be dead, but other than that I’m great.”

He seemed to hesitate for a moment, before scooting forwards and lying down next to her, pulling her close to him and tucking his legs behind hers and his arm firmly around her waist.

“Spooning, really?” Darcy asked, chuckling.

“It seems a sensible course of action,” Loki replied evenly, but his hand was clenched tightly in the fabric of her shirt and the line of his body was tense.

Darcy sighed. “How are we going to get out of here, Loki?”

“I don’t know,” he said quietly.

“We’re going to need food – I mean, we can’t stay here.” Darcy snorted bitterly. “We escaped the underworld only to starve to death and go right back again.”

“No,” said Loki, as if the word had been ripped right out of him. He rolled over, throwing a leg over her hips and straddling her, crouching over her and looking down, his hands resting on either side of her head. He leant forwards, pressing his forehead against hers.

“Loki,” Darcy said, slowly.

“I –,” he stopped, swallowed and started again. “I am sorry.”

Darcy blinked, and then bit back the desire to be sarcastic.

“We will not die here,” he said, forcefully, and she almost had the impression the sheer force of his words were enough to make it come true. “We will not die here.”

Darcy reached up and placed one hand against his cheek, running her dirt-smeared thumb across his equally filthy cheek.

“Okay,” she said.

Loki bent down and kissed her, pressing her down into the earth and clasping their hands together, interlocking their fingers and she spread her arms out and pressed them into the ground on either side of her head. She arched against him, rising to meet him halfway, and he made a broken moaning sound against her mouth.

She shoved him, and he rolled, looking up at her in surprise as she flipped them over, pressing his hands into the dirt and looking down at him.

“We are not going to die here,” she said.

His breath caught, and his legs wrapped tight around her waist. She bent forward, pressing a kiss to the centre of his sternum.

“You are never, ever going to pull anything like this on me again,” she said firmly, scratching her teeth across his nipple until he gasped and arched backwards, his nails digging into the backs of her hands.

“You are never, ever –“ she broke off, resting her forehead against his chest above his heart. “Never again.”

She kissed him as hard as he’d kissed her, pinning him beneath her and grinding her hips down over his. He wrenched his hand from hers, tangling his fingers in her hair and shifting his hips upwards pressing his erection against her. She shoved him back down, pressing her hand into his chest and he looked up at her, wide-eyed and tousled.

She stripped him, all but ripping his pants off and pulling down her own, straddling his waist and pinning him down to the ground. He bucked his hips underneath her, bending his knees to gain purchase against the ground and she rocked forwards, running herself along his length and back down, pressing her hand down hard into the centre of his chest.
Slowly she slid it upwards, passing it over his neck and tugging down on his hair. His eyes closed tightly and he arched back, hands digging sharply into her thighs and she pulled them off, pressing them into the ground above his head and biting down on his shoulder as she rocked her hips back and forth slowly. She could feel him twitching beneath her, egging her on to go faster, but she just ran her nails down his side as she sat back up.

He shivered with his entire body, shuddering under her fingers, so she did it again, leaving bright red angry marks down his sides.

“Darcy,” he said, low and long, and he brought his hands back to her waist. She slapped them away.

“You don’t get to move,” she said. Rocking her hips forwards and backwards, rubbing the tip of his cock rhythmically over her clit. She bit her lip, digging her nails into his chest hard enough to leave marks.

He slowly placed his hands back over his head, swallowing and looking up at her. She rolled her hips over the head of his cock, faster now, arching backwards to change the angle. She could feel her legs shaking against his hips, and he watched her, eyes wide and unblinking as she rocked faster against him. His hands were visibly shaking, and she bent forward, bracing herself with her arm and looking straight down at him as she worked herself against him.

He shifted beneath her and she slapped his side, and his breath caught with a gasp that had her bucking hard against him as she came, shaking against him.
He ran his hands over every inch of skin he could reach, over her breasts, teasing her nipples until she hissed from the overwhelming sensation. She leant forward, kissing him, and he latched onto her, his hands in his hair, on her back.

Then, he reached down between them and guided himself inside her, and he let out a low moan, pressing an open-mouthed sloppy kiss to the soft skin beneath her collarbone.
She arched against him, shuddering with each thrust as he drove into her, and she tugged his head back by his hair and sucked on the skin of his neck hard. He came beneath her, incoherent and graceless as he tried to both kiss her and cry out at once, and he wrapped his arms tight around her, panting messily against her skin.
She felt oddly hollow when at last he pulled back and slipped out of her, and she shivered immediately in the cold air.

He tossed her clothes to her rather unceremoniously, but she was glad to put them back on. The air was still chilly, but rolling naked in the dirt was less charming when she wasn’t painfully turned on.

Loki was still watching her, his eyes half hooded and his expression guarded.

“You know,” she said, “using sex as a proxy for talking about our emotions is probably a really, really bad idea.”

Loki looked startled, and then simply raised an eyebrow derisively. “I have no complaints,” he said.

She gave him a half smile, the loose-limbed feeling of satiation clouding her mind. “We should try and get some sleep, then,” she said.

Wordlessly Loki spread his arms and she couldn’t help but laugh. She crawled towards him, and he fell backwards, cradling her head on his shoulder and wrapping an arm around her waist.

“There’s nothing here that’s going to eat us, right?”

“Hmm,” Loki said, noncommittally. “I’ve heard stories of the crickets growing large enough to eat a fully grown man.”

She went very still. “You’re making that up.”

“I’ve heard stories,” he insisted.

“Carnivorous giant crickets?”

“We should be able to hear them coming,” Loki replied nonchalantly.

“No, seriously, tell me you’re making that up,” Darcy said. “Loki.”

He simply wrapped his arm tighter around her waist and made a transparent attempt at pretending to be asleep.

“I hate you so much,” said Darcy.

...

The sun rose, as much as it did rise on Niflheim, early the next morning, covering the land in a dull grey. Darcy came sluggishly to her senses, her limbs stiff and sore from the cold, to find Loki sitting with his back against a tree examining the landscape.

“I’m starving,” she muttered.

“It is a serious concern,” Loki replied evenly. “We should –“ He stopped abruptly, staring out at the sky with a look of deep perturbation.

Darcy frowned. “What –?” she began, following his gaze, and then stopped.

There was a dark cloud forming above them, swirling like a tornado around a central point as it slowly gathered momentum. She’d seen it before – over the skies of New Mexico.

“Is that –?” she began slowly.

Loki snarled, and got to his feet, then he stopped suddenly, looking straight at Darcy and he seemed to sag.

She looked back at him steadily. “We don’t have any other options,” she said.

“I will not go back to Asgard.”

“Then we both starve here,” she replied, flatly. “I’m not giving you a choice.”

His eyes darted between her and the growing column of cloud, looking visibly pained. “It will be alright,” she said gently.

He rounded on her, glaring. “Do not speak about that which you do not understand.”

“I think I understand a hell of a lot more than you give me credit for,” she replied. “And right now I understand that this is our only way out of here, so it is your only option. Make the best of it.” Then, she sighed, and reached out a hand towards him, moving to grab his shoulder but then thinking better of it, leaving it to fall awkwardly between them. “I’ll be with you.”

Loki turned away from her, and, with a crack, the Bifrost opened and she was ripped, racing through space and time, past countless stars in a breathless rush her brain couldn’t quite process before landing hard, hard enough to send her staggering, on the smouldering remains of what once had been the lawn in front of her apartment building.

A car alarm immediately started going off, and she looked blearily around. They had been dropped back on Earth.

Chapter 9: Twelve Carnations

Summary:

In which everyone talks about their issues, Thor and Loki reach a kind of understanding, Darcy and Loki reach an entirely different kind of understanding, loose ends are tied up, and this fic finally draws to a close.

People were peering out the windows curiously at them as the car alarm continued to blare relentlessly.

“Come on,” Darcy said, grimacing. She tugged Loki by the arm, glad she wasn’t especially close with her neighbours and hoping no one would ask why there was a knotwork pattern permanently burnt into their lawn and she was standing in the middle of it with a shirtless man. The odds of that, however, seemed unlikely.

They stumbled into the building and up the stairs, Loki oddly loose-limbed and compliant where she held him by the wrist. She turned the handle on her apartment door and gave it a firm shove with her hip, stumbling in and tugging Loki along behind her.

For a moment they stood in Darcy’s hallway, and the car alarm outside shut off leaving them in an abrupt silence. Slowly Darcy uncurled her fingers from around Loki’s wrist and let her hand fall.

“I guess I should make breakfast,” she said.

Loki looked at her, startled. She crossed to the kitchen, pulling eggs and milk out and starting to make omelettes while Loki stood, looking oddly lost, in the middle of her kitchen. His clothes were still sitting, crumpled and blood-stained, on her kitchen table, and he went utterly pale as he looked at them. He turned them over, running his thumb over the gaping rent in the front of his jerkin, and Darcy froze, feeling as if she were intruding on something that would have been better left private. But she couldn’t bring herself to look away, either.

He seemed to examine his fingers, slowly running his thumb and forefinger together where they were stained copper with flakes of dry blood, with a kind of trance-like intensity that seemed almost unnerving.

“Are you –?” Darcy began.

Loki’s head snapped up sharply, and he glared at her before he managed to school his expression into forced neutrality. “I thought you were making breakfast,” he said, utterly toneless.

Then, wordlessly, he put the clothes on. There was something defiant in the set of his chin and she could see the pale skin of his chest through the centre of his jerkin. His hands were clenched at his sides, and Darcy decided that he was way, way to friable for any kind of conversation right now. Not that she had any idea what to say.

So, she turned back to the eggs, and made ham and cheese omelettes in resolute silence.

Loki looked almost more out of place than Thor did on Earth. He seemed to take up all the space in her kitchen, making her feel oddly small and inadequate in her own home. But he ate his eggs without comment and – to Darcy’s complete and utter surprise – washed their dishes in the sink.

Darcy was still mulling over ways to break the increasingly awkward silence that hung heavy in the air between them when there was a loud banging on the door. She jumped, and Loki’s expression shifted to one of grim resignation.

Thor didn’t bother knocking a second time, he just flung the door open and strode into her kitchen, Jane following in his wake. He stopped abruptly on seeing Loki, and Darcy heard him gasp.

“So it is true,” Thor said, thickly, staring straight at Loki.

Loki sneered in a way that made Darcy extremely nervous about the safety of her kitchen. “Have you come to gloat?”

“I came to see that you were well,” Thor replied. “I had thought you dead.” “That is quickly becoming a habit of yours,” Loki replied heartlessly.

“Knock it off,” said Jane sharply. “We helped you.”

“Helped,” Loki said acidly, rounding on Jane in a way that made Thor take a protective step forwards. “Your help was neither requested nor required. Your help would bring the wrath of the Jotun down upon your world. Do you not think that all of Jotunheim is watching for my demise? They have ears beyond their borders – they will know I am here.”

“We thought of that,” Jane said. “We found a workaround.”

Loki’s gaze shifted between Jane and Thor. “Explain,” he snapped.

“We managed to piggy-back your trip on an open Bifröst path to Niflheim. If they were watching you they’ll know you’ve gone, but they shouldn’t be able to track where.” Jane looked smug, her arms crossed and her chin raised defiantly as she stared Loki down.

“Your idea, I presume,” he said, contemptuously.

“It will work,” Thor replied, placing his hand on Jane’s shoulder. Loki’s lip curled up in distaste.

“Perhaps,” he said. “But you have bought us only time. The Jotun have breeched Midgard once, they will know I am here.”

“You cannot go,” Thor said, sharply. “Loki, you cannot leave.”

“Fortunately,” Loki said, glaring balefully at Thor and looking as murderous as Darcy had ever seen him. “My actions are no longer dictated by you.”

“Come back to Asgard,” said Thor. “Brother, please.”

“So I can cower behind the throne of Odin?” Loki spat. “Save your entreaties – I have no desire to set foot in Asgard while Odin lives. Why come grovelling to me when you could have dragged me bodily back to one of your gilded cells? Why put me through the torment of dropping me here?”

Thor’s expression took on a pinched look and shot a glance at Jane.

“Ah,” said Loki bitterly, turning to Jane. “Another one of your ideas?” He turned to Thor. “Is being the All-Father’s puppet so insufficient that you would take orders from a mortal?”

“Whoa, hey,” Darcy cut in. “Don’t pick on Jane. Or mortals.”

Loki rounded on her furiously. “She inserted herself into the discussion when she presumed –“

“Enough,” Thor said, loudly. “I am asking you, Loki. Come with me. I have thought you dead twice – I could not bear it again.”

Loki looked him up and down. “You bear it well enough.”

“I would have brought you back,” Thor said darkly. “I went to the All-Father to find the means –“

“To what end, Thor?” Loki shouted back, his hair tumbling in disarray around his face and his expression twisted in a grimace of pain. Darcy took an involuntary step back. “To bring me back to what? A cell under the command of a father who disowns me?”

“He has not disowned you, Loki,” said Thor quietly. “None of us have.”

“Do not lie to me. You haven’t the skill,” Loki said, bitterly. “He cast me out.”

“You cast yourself out.”

“Do not lie to me.” It looked almost as if the words had been ripped straight out of him, and Loki staggered back, his hand pressed tight over the gaping hole in his jerkin.
Thor reached forward, his hand hovering over Loki’s shoulder, as if unable to bridge the gap, until Loki batted it away impatiently and stepped back. Thor swallowed, and Jane stepped up beside him, pressing herself close enough that her shoulder brushed his arm. Loki grimaced.

“I will not bring you back by force,” said Thor. “But I beg you, brother, to reconsider.”

“There is nothing to reconsider,” said Loki. “I do not need your pity.” He spat the last word out, and Thor visibly flinched.

“It is not –“ Thor began, but stopped abruptly as all the lights in Darcy apartment went out. Jane glanced over at Darcy, looking pale.

“It’s them, they’re here,” she said.

“Not again,” said Darcy.

Loki glanced between Jane and Darcy, and then let out a curse. “How many stairwells in this building?” he snapped.

“There are people in all these apartments,” Jane said. “We should evacuate.”

“And send them where?” Loki asked incredulously. “How many stairwells?”

“Just the one,” said Darcy.

Loki gave Jane an extremely pointed look. “Meaning the avenue for escape is straight down the stairwell and into the waiting arms of the merry band of Jotun here to drag me back for an encore of my execution.”

Thor crossed the hall and wrenched open the door, peering out.

“How do they even know we’re here?” Darcy said.

“Heimdall is not the only one who is far seeing. Evidently they were not so mislead as we had hoped,” said Thor, striding back into the room. “This space is enclosed – I am concerned the building is not structurally sound enough to withstand the might of Mjölnir.”

“Whoa, whoa,” said Darcy, stepping towards Thor. “Yeah, no. No hammer in my house. You’ll bring the whole thing down.”

“Then I suggest we leave,” said Loki. He made a curious gesture with his hands, and then pulled something ugly, black and feathered from inside a pocket that was definitely smaller than would be required to hold it.

“Freyja’s bird cape?” Darcy asked. “You had that the whole time?”

Loki looked at her blandly.

“You couldn’t have used that to fly us out of Helheim? Or on Niflheim? You made me walk.”

“It was in my jacket,” Loki said, rolling his eyes and putting it on. He looked like an over-stuffed vulture. “How could I have brought it with me? I couldn’t well eat it, could I?”

Darcy rolled her eyes. “If I’d known I’d’ve brought it – oh,” she said, breathlessly, running into her room, yanking her drawer open and spilling the contents onto the floor. Loki’s eyebrow arched when he saw her tossing underwear aside in her search, but he said nothing. She found what she was looking for, wrapped in a scarf, and pulled out the dagger Loki had given her and the obsidian knife from Hjördís and held them up.

Loki nodded tersely, an odd look on his face as he examined the blade. “Keep them with you. They may yet be of use.” Then, as if he’d simply conjured it from thin air, he shoved a scabbard into her hands.

She felt ridiculous placing the weapons around her waist, but at least she was armed. Jane’s face was pale in the dark room, and she looked as utterly nervous as Darcy felt.

“If we can’t get down the stairs, what are we going to do?” Jane asked.

“We fight,” said Thor.

“We run,” corrected Loki flatly. “Come on.”

“Run where?” Darcy asked.

In lieu of an answer, Loki grabbed Darcy’s arm in a tight grip and said emphatically, “do not let go.”

“Jane!” Darcy shouted, reaching for her hand.

Loki swore again and said. “Hold on, and do not let go.”

Jane’s fingers clasped Darcy’s wrist tightly and Darcy grabbed hers back, holding on as hard as she could.

She saw the Jotun appear in her doorway, snarling furiously as they went over the edge, and she saw Thor land a punch hard enough to send them staggering backwards.

Loki tugged them forwards, running out onto the balcony of Darcy’s apartment, and then, before Darcy could say anything, leaping over the edge, pulling Jane and Darcy along behind him.

For a breathless, terrifying moment, she thought it wouldn’t work. They tumbled downwards, but then Loki seemed to catch them, and the cape spread out behind him like wings, lifting them up. They hung like a ridiculous human daisy chain, Darcy clinging to Loki’s hand and Jane to hers, as the wind rushed loudly past her ears and they rose, up and up, into the sky.

She heard a triumphant shout from Thor, who leapt off the balcony behind them and took flight, Mjölnir in hand.

“Well played, brother,” he said, grinning. “We will lead them to the open and take them down.” The look Loki gave him could have withered a field of wildflowers, but Thor paid him no heed.

Then, suddenly, Darcy felt her arm wrench as Jane was tugged out of her grasp with a scream. One of the Jotun had leapt from the balcony and caught her around the waist, and they fell.

Loki readjusted his grip on Darcy’s arm, his fingers biting into her wrist. “Cease your squirming or I will drop you,” he said.

Thor banked sharply, dropping down towards Jane, picking up momentum as he fell. He swung his hammer, knocking the Jotun aside and pulling Jane towards him in a single moment, and he spun artlessly for a moment before regaining equilibrium, flying forwards with Jane clutched against his chest.

The frost giants were matching their pace on the ground, running through the streets and shoving bystanders aside as they followed. She could see them, bright blue, weaving through the streets below.

“Does this go any faster?” Darcy asked, nervously. She felt the ligaments in her shoulder starting to stretch uncomfortably, her fingers loosing their grip as they went numb from the clenching hold Loki had on her wrist. She twisted, trying to relieve pressure on her shoulder.

“Stop squirming,” said Loki, through clenched teeth.

“Shoulder hurts,” she said. “Loki, I can’t keep holding on like this.”

He let out a sigh, and dropped her. She shrieked, but it was suddenly cut off when Loki’s hands wrapped around her waist and stopped her fall, driving all the air out of her lungs.

“Ow,” she said, when she had her breath back.

“I assumed it was preferable to the alternative,” said Loki, drily.

“What do we do now?” Jane shouted over the sound of the wind. “We can’t let them run through the city.”

“Curse your realm,” muttered Loki. “Must your kind dwell everywhere?”

“This way,” Thor shouted, banking left and heading out towards the desert.

A loud cracking sound was the only warning they had before a great column of ice shot up straight in their path. Loki swerved left, rolling over as Darcy shrieked, holding on to him as best she could. There was a second crack and another pillar of ice shot up that they narrowly managed to avoid.

Thor let out a laugh and swung Mjölnir, sending shards of shattered ice flying past her.

“Watch it,” she shouted, ducking her head as a spray of ice grazed her cheek.

“I am sorry, Darcy,” Thor shouted back.

Loki swerved between the ice that rose up around them, his arms clenched tightly around Darcy’s middle, unable to fight back. Carefully, Darcy pried the throwing knife out of its scabbard and held it tight in her hands.

“It would be better to hold on to it,” Loki said, quietly. “It takes a good deal of skill to hit anything with a throwing knife.”

“I’ve never used a dagger before,” she said, quietly.

“I am endeavouring to ensure you do not have to,” Loki replied, changing his course and shooting upwards to avoid ice rising up in their path. But he wasn’t quite quick enough. A second column of ice hit him hard from the side with a sickening thud, and Darcy tumbled out of his grip as he dropped, unmoving to the ground.

Darcy reacted on instinct, reaching out and stabbing at the ice with the knife as hard as she could. It managed to catch, wedging itself in the column, and her grip nearly slipped as it caught her weight, leaving her dangling dangerously from the hilt.

Loki lay still on the ground below her.

“Thor!” Darcy shouted, scrabbling against the ice to try and find a foothold.

Thor turned around and shot straight towards the ground, dropping Jane on her feet at Loki’s side with enough force to send her staggering, he launched himself back up into the air, grabbed Darcy around the waist and gave her the same treatment.

Jane was at Loki’s side, carefully checking his limbs for fractures. He seemed to be stirring, and, with a groan, he batted her hands away.

“Is anything broken?” Jane asked, in a no-nonsense tone. “You shouldn’t move.”

“Get off,” Loki snarled, rolling over and tucking his knees under him before staggering, ungainly, to his feet. He wobbled precariously, looking dangerously pale, but he managed to catch his to his feet. He wobbled precariously, looking dangerously pale, but he managed to catch his balance. Thor gave Loki a once over before hefting Mjölnir up and bracing for an attack.

Darcy pulled the obsidian blade she’d been given by Hjördís, holding it out in front of her, and prepared to stand her ground.

The Jotun formed a ring around them, penning them until they stood, back to back in a tight group. There were twenty of them, all armed, and they towered over Darcy. She felt utterly and overwhelmingly out gunned – painfully aware of how little good she’d be in an actual fight.

“Step aside, Odinson,” said the leader of the Jotun. “Our quarrel is not with you today.”

“You have no right to set foot in this realm,” said Thor. “It is under the protection of Asgard.”

“Then Asgard harbours a fugitive, condemned to death by Jotunheim.” The Jotun smiled balefully. “And this world will burn.”

Thor seemed to straighten even further, adjusting his grip on Mjölnir in a way that couldn’t be read as anything less than threatening.

The Jotun snarled, his lip curling unpleasantly. Then, with a cry they all leapt forward. Thor knocked the leader back with a blow from Mjölnir, and Loki managed to hit one in the face with a throwing knife. He grabbed Darcy by the arm, tugging her behind him, but the momentary distraction was enough to give one of the Jotun an opening, and he hit Loki in the face with enough force to send him sprawling.

They were on him in an instant like a pack of wolves, and Darcy simply reacted out of instinct. She leapt forward, blade at the ready and slashed at the arm of the nearest Jotun, breaking his grip on Loki.

The Jotun whirled around with a roar of pain and fury and grabbed Darcy’s arm in a bruising grip, and she heard the sound of her bones crunching beneath his hand. She felt oddly detached from it, hardly cognizant of her own pain until he threw her back onto the ground.

The Jotun fell upon Loki again, and Thor looked equally overwhelmed, swinging his hammer madly in an effort to get to his brother, his face smeared with blood from here he had been cut by shards of ice.

There was a portal opening behind them, like the one they’d used to drag her to Jotunheim last time, and the Jotun had hauled Loki, still struggling and lashing out with everything he had.

“Thor!” Darcy shouted.

Jane was muttering to herself. “There has to be some way to disrupt it – some way we can shut it down. Think.”

Then, there was a loud boom that shook the ground, and sent Darcy scuttling backwards, clutching her injured arm to her chest. The Jotun portal flickered and seemed to disappear as a second beam of light, like the Bifröst cut through it.

The Jotuns tugged Loki back, and he stabbed one of them in the leg, rolling out of their grasp and stumbling to his feet.

Whatever Darcy was expecting – and to be frank, she wasn’t at all sure – it wasn’t this. When the light faded, a troupe of Fire Giants stood, deep red against the pale yellow of the desert, their teeth bared and their knives at the ready. And Sólveig was at their head.

Everyone seemed to go very, very still.

The Jotun leader, his face smeared with blood, stepped forward. “This is not your fight, Muspelheim. This is a matter for Jotunheim. Step away.”

Sólveig took in the scene in front of her, her gaze flicking to Darcy and her eyes narrowing. “The girl is counted friend to Muspelheim. She bears the blade of Queen Hjördís. You had no right to harm her.”

Darcy heard Jane’s quiet intake of breath, and she looked over at her friend. Jane was looking between Sólveig and Darcy and back again. “What did you do?” she hissed.

“She protects the destroyer of our world,” replied the Jotun.

Sólveig looked Loki over once and shrugged. “Take him, if you like. I care not. But you will not touch Darcy.”

Loki took a step backwards towards Darcy, and she reached forward and grabbed hold of his pant leg. “Yeah, sorry, that’s not going to work,” she said.

“Jotunheim will have justice,” the Jotun hissed. “Will all the realms stand against our right to see him pay for his crimes?”

“Him, no,” said Sólveig. “But you punish others with your actions.”

“She defends him.”

Sólveig seemed to begrudgingly admit the point. “Darcy,” she said, more quietly. “Step away.”

“I can’t,” said Darcy.

Loki looked down at her solemnly, his mouth sit in a grim line. Gently he pried her hand off him, running his thumb along the length of her forefinger in a subtle caress before letting it go.

“I have a suggestion,” he said. “If I may.”

“We do not barter with monsters and killers,” snapped the Jotun.

Loki flinched, visibly. Then, with an odd twisting movement of his hands, he produced the Casket of Ancient Winters. A murmur arouse amongst the Jotun, and they seemed to shift, pressing in.

“Not even for this?” Loki asked.

“Speak,” said the Jotun, his voice low and angry.

“You have slain me once – I have been accused of crimes and I accept my guilt. I have borne the pain of death, felt the ice of Jotunheim enter my breast and I have walked in Helheim. I live with the memory of that penance, and the echo of your blade within my chest – I will not forget it. But, leave this world, leave me, and I will live on with it, and you with the Casket may begin to rebuild your home. A chance at new life seems the greater penance that I can offer than my death, does it not?”

“You are meant to be dead,” the Jotun spat. “You have no right to bargain with what is rightfully ours.”

“If you kill me,” said Loki pointedly. “You will not get it back.” With a flick of his wrists the Casket disappeared back to wherever he had pulled it from. The Jotun leader flung out his arm, stopping one of his companions from leaping towards Loki.

“Loki,” shouted Thor sonorously. “You cannot return the Casket to Jotunheim, father forbids –“

“Damn Odin and his prohibitions,” snapped Loki. “The Casket is mine. I will return it if I wish.”

“You would bring us again to the brink of war?”

“In that you need no help from me, brother,” Loki replied coldly. “Father has tasked you in repairing the damage I have done, has he not? Is this not reparation?”

“We do not take pittance from you, Liesmith,” the Jotun cut in. “Return what is ours.”

“And you will leave this world alone? And consider my punishment paid?” Loki asked. “I have no desire to put the Casket in your hands only to be impaled once more.”

“It is no less than you deserve.”

“And it has been paid,” said Loki. “Rebuild your world – I will not set foot upon it.”

The Jotun looked him up and down consideringly, then took in the group around him. Sólveig’s Fire Giants were still armed, and Thor looked like he couldn’t quite decide whether to start swinging Mjölnir at the Frost Giants or at Loki for suggesting using the Casket as a bargaining chip.

“Then the realms will stand behind this deal? Will no one see justice for Jotunheim delivered?”

“Take your bargain,” said Sólveig. “We would see your world rebuilt.”

The Jotun whirled on her. “And we would see blood, for the blood of our people spilt upon our ice.” But he straightened and turned to Loki. “But we will take the Casket – and then, we will take what is ours.”

Loki gave a deceptively flippant shrug. “Suit yourself,” he said. “I care not.” Then, with a flick of his wrists, he passed the Casket over to the Jotun leader.

“Loki, no,” Thor shouted, springing forward. The Jotun, however, were already gone.

Sólveig stepped forwards, helping Darcy to her feet. She looked her over once, her large red hand unnaturally warm on Darcy’s shoulder. “Why do you defend such a man?” she asked, quietly.

Darcy shrugged helplessly. “I’ve stuck with him this far,” she said. “I – there is goodness there too.”

Sólveig looked dubious. “You remain our friend, Darcy, for what you have done. But we do not forget that Loki’s allegiance lay with Bergljót.”

“Pretty sure his allegiance lies to himself,” Darcy muttered darkly.

“Be that as it may,” said Sólveig. “I beg you to be cautious. He is dangerous.” Then, stooping down, she picked up Darcy’s blade off the ground and turned it around, handing it hilt first to Darcy. “But then,” she added, “perhaps so are you.”

“How did you know we needed help?” Darcy asked.

“The blade is enchanted,” replied Sólveig. “We will know when blood has been spilt. If you need it, we will come to your aid.”

“Thank you,” Darcy said, utterly heartfelt. “Really, thanks.” Then, impulsively, she pulled Sólveig into a hug, cradling her injured arm carefully against her chest.

Sólveig grinned widely. “For what you have done for me, it is a small matter. We repay kindness with kindness, courage with courage.” She pressed her forehead against Darcy’s, closing her eyes, and Darcy could smell the warm scent of fire and deep earth on her skin.

“Well, you are always welcome here,” said Darcy. “Even if I’m not being attacked by something.”

“And you in my house!” said Sólveig. “For as long as you live.”

Their conversation was abruptly cut short by the sound of Thor shoving Loki up against one of the ice pillars, pressing his arm across Loki’s neck to pin him still.

“You would sacrifice the safety of Asgard, of Midgard? And for what?” Thor shouted.

“Jotunheim will take years to rebuild,” Loki said, his fingers digging into Thor’s vambraces. “The All-Father has ample time to prepare.”

“The Casket was taken to prevent another war.”

“You started another war,” said Loki. “I finished it. And look where we are now.”

Thor went still, stepping backwards, and Loki doubled over, coughing and rubbing his neck. “I have paid for my sins,” he said flatly. “Perhaps it is time Asgard paid as well.”

“Would you see your home burn?” Thor asked.

“Your home, not mine. And it is well enough defended.” He laughed bitterly. “I take measures to end the war with Jotunheim permanently, and I am branded a monster. I take measures to repair the damage, and I am a traitor. And yet you insist there is room for me in Asgard.”

“They are a scourge across the realms,” said Thor.

“Then what am I?” Loki asked, hollowly. “But I have died once, and I have fallen through the abyss, and I will take care to do neither again. If Asgard burns, then so be it, but my part in it is over.”

Thor seemed to be looking at Loki as if he’d never seen him before. “You will not come with me then?” he asked after a long silence.

Loki rose to his full height, straightening his clothes and he sneered mockingly. “At last it seems we understand one another.”

Thor shook his head soundly. “I do not understand this at all, brother. But I will not bring you home against your will. If this is the path you choose for yourself then so be it – but you remain always in my thoughts, brother, wherever it is you go.”

Loki remained silent, still sneering, but he seemed somewhat uncertain, raw and angry. Thor simply nodded, and turned back to Jane.

“I must bid you farewell,” said Sólveig quietly. “I should return.”

“Say hi for me,” said Darcy. “Errr... respectfully.”

Sólveig grinned. “I shall. Farewell, friend.”

Darcy clasped Sólveig’s hand in hers and smiled back. “Take care.”

Then, with a nod, Sólveig returned to the group of Fire Giants, and, within a moment, was gone.

“I have absolutely no idea what’s going on anymore,” said Jane.

Darcy laughed. Loki, however, looked exceedingly grim, and he carefully took her arm and examined it, pressing with his fingers gently. She hissed in pain, pulling her arm back on reflex, and he murmured a ‘sorry’.

“It’s broken,” he said. “In at least two places.” Then, carefully, he pulled a stone from one of his pockets and laid it across her arm.

“What –?” Darcy asked, but he cut her off with a curt “shh.”

She felt a warmth spread through her arm, dulling the pain she felt, and then the peculiar sensation of her bones knitting themselves back together. She felt pressure as they moved, but curiously little pain, but the sensation was unbelievably unpleasant and it made her feel a bit ill.

It went on for at least a couple minutes, and Jane was watching open-mouthed. “How is it doing that? I mean, what are you using? It hasn’t even broken the skin, how can you possibly be working the bone on the inside? Is there some kind of accelerant for the formation of new bone? How do you control it?”

Thor chuckled softly, lacking his usual boisterousness. “Peace, Jane. It is a healing stone.”

“Yes, but how does it work?” Jane asked, sounding frustrated.

With a final shift of bone, Darcy shuddered and Loki removed the stone, tucking it back into his pocket. “Move your fingers,” he said.

Obediently she flexed her fingers and then made a fist, rotating her wrist in a careful circle. It felt sore, like she’d pulled a muscle, but everything seemed to work.

“Unbelievable,” said Jane. “Can I have one of those? I’d like to study it.”

Loki shot her an acidic look. “Do you not have somewhere to be?” he asked Thor, pointedly.

Thor recoiled as if he’d been slapped, but took the hint. “Come, Jane.” His gaze shifted to Darcy for a moment. Almost timidly he asked, “will you stay, or would you like me to return you to your home?”

Darcy swallowed, and felt her cheeks flush hot. “I’ll stay for a bit, if that’s alright? I’m not keen on flying anyway.”

“Darcy, are you sure?” Jane asked. “I don’t really know what’s going on here, but you were just injured.”

“I’m fine,” Darcy said, more confidently than she really felt. “I’ll call you later, when I get home.”

Jane nodded, looking unsure. “If I don’t get a call or a text in an hour I am coming over,” she said, firmly.

Darcy smiled. “Sure thing, mom.”

Thor simply nodded. “Until we next meet, then,” he said. And, wrapping an arm around Jane’s waist, he took to the sky, leaving Loki and Darcy alone.

“It would be faster if we flew back,” said Loki after a moment.

“I’m not exactly in a rush to see what’s left of my apartment,” Darcy said, grimly.

“Nevertheless,” he said, holding out his hand to her.

Darcy looked up at him, frowning. “Why did you give the Casket back?” she asked.

Whatever Loki had been expecting, that question certainly wasn’t it. He blinked, and then frowned, his shoulders shifting defensively. “It seemed the most expedient way to avoid further bloodshed.”

“Is Thor right? Will the Jotun come to Earth? Or Asgard?”

“Possibly,” Loki said. “It is difficult to say.”

“But it’s not unlikely,” Darcy pressed.

Loki sighed. “The balance between the realms has always been precarious,” he said. “Asgard was not always the supreme power Odin holds it to be now – we have all had our wars, with Vanaheim, Muspelheim. Jotunheim’s grudge is not with Midgard. Your people will be safe enough.”

“You can’t say that for certain,” said Darcy. “We can’t defend ourselves.”

“Jotunheim has little interest in Midgard,” said Loki dismissively. “You are little more than goats, bleating in the night.”

Darcy took a step back. “Goats?” she echoed. “Is that what we are to you?”

Loki grimaced. “Not you, no.”

“But my people?” Darcy demanded. “We once prayed to you as if you were gods. Were we ‘bleating in the night’ then, too?”

“That is not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?” Darcy asked.

“You don’t understand,” said Loki, straightening up so he towered over her.

“I think I understand a lot more than you do give me credit for. About humans, certainly.” She scowled, and crossed her arms. “Do you know why we have religion? Why every culture has a set of beliefs? It’s about fear, and control. About being afraid of dying, and wanting to do something about it. If I had been born back then my life expectancy would have been thirty years. My life would be two thirds over. And any children I had – most of them would have died. Many before their first birthday.”

Loki was watching her, brows lowered, his arms crossed.

“You just mended my arm in a couple of minutes. It would have taken a month, maybe two to heal, and I might have needed surgery. I might not have had full mobility in the arm again.” She glared at him. “Those people bleating were begging you to help them – to protect their children, and to spare them from death. We are not goats – we mourn our dead, and I will not be ashamed that my ancestors begged you for help you clearly might have been able to provide.”

Loki was silent. “When Midgard needed it, Asgard came to aid you. We are not in the business of sparing every babe.”

“I’m not asking you to,” said Darcy. “But that still doesn’t make us goats.”

“Be glad the Jotun think so little of you,” said Loki. “It will keep them off your realm.”

“In my experience, that’s not really how it works,” said Darcy. “They invaded before.”

“So have all the realms, in their own way,” said Loki. “The difficulty of living a very long time, is one accumulates a very long list of bloodshed.”

Darcy reached out and put her hand in his. “And if they do come here?” she asked.

Loki smiled bitterly. “You seemed a gallant enough defender of the Earth.” But he seemed to regret saying it almost immediately, dropping his gaze to her hand and running his thumb across the back of it. “You have ample protectors. You may count me as one of them.”

“I’m not worried about me,” she said.

Loki’s lips twisted unpleasantly. “What would you have me do? It is done.”

“I’m not lecturing,” said Darcy. “I saw Jotunheim – what it looked like. I saw what had been done. If this will help them rebuild, then... I’m not sorry. I’m just afraid.”

“Ah,” said Loki, pulling her close and wrapping his arm around her waist. “But aren’t we all?”

Then, with a leap, he launched them into the air. The ride was utterly smooth this time, but Darcy couldn’t quite shake the sensation of falling, of watching Loki fall, from her mind, so she turned in his arms and pressed her face into his neck so she wouldn’t have to watch.

When they touched down he gently pried her arms from around his neck before removing the cape and whisking it away to wherever he kept things he wasn’t using. Darcy walked into her apartment, taking in the overturned tables and smashed knickknacks and sighed.

“Could’ve been worse,” she said. She tracked down her phone and sent a quick text to Jane before she could forget.

Loki righted her kitchen table in silence, putting the chairs back in place with pursed lips. “They should not have come here,” he said.

“Did you know they were following?” Darcy asked, taking a seat at the table and clasping her hands in front of her.

“I assumed they might,” said Loki.

“Why here? Why not Niflheim?”

Loki shrugged. “Niflheim is hard to reach. The Jotun do not have a Bifröst, they exploit different means to travel. There are more branches that touch Midgard than Niflheim. If we had stayed, they would have found us in time.”

“You never said anything,” Darcy said, accusingly.

“There wasn’t much to be done about it.”

“So, what now?” Darcy asked.

Loki leant his hip against the kitchen table, standing close enough she could feel the warmth radiating off his body, and cupped her cheek with his hand. “Is this not usually how it goes?” Then, without waiting for comment, he swooped down and kissed her, cradling her head in his hands as her own matched his gesture unconsciously, cupping his cheek with her palm and tracing the line of his ear with her fingers.

She stood up, pressing into the kiss and pressing the lines of their bodies together. Loki lifted her and spun them so that she was sitting on the kitchen table, her legs wrapped around his hips and he rocked forward hard enough to send the table scooting backwards.

Darcy laughed, pulling out of the kiss. “Not on the kitchen table. It’s suffered enough abuse today.” She pressed her lips to his neck, dragging her teeth along the exposed skin there until he shuddered beneath her.

“There’s a bed.”

Loki required no other hints. He lifted her up, his hands beneath her thighs and walked her into the bedroom. They tumbled haphazardly onto her bed, and Loki’s knee caught her in the side as she accidentally whacked him in the face with her elbow.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“It’s a twin bed,” she said, fumbling with the clasps on his jerkin. “Too small for this sort of energetic nonsense.”

Loki sat up, looking down at her wickedly. “Energetic nonsense?” he asked. “Perhaps you’d prefer something slower?” He grinned, and began to drag the hem of her shirt up, agonizingly slowly, gently caressing her skin with his fingers. He stopped when he hit the underside of her breasts, pressing kisses to the skin there.

She was still trying to figure out how to get his jerkin off when he laughed, and she felt the rumbles of it against her skin, and sat up, removing it with a single efficient movement that was entirely unfair.

She settled for unlacing his breeches instead, pulling them down. When he sat back to let her slide them off, she took the opportunity to give him a well-placed shove and roll him over. Then, she stood up, pulling her top the rest of the way off and unhooking her bra.

Loki sat back on the bed, naked and clearly very amused. She felt her heart pounding in her chest as she undid the top button on her jeans and slowly pulled them down. Loki was watching every move, his gaze an almost physical touch against her skin, and she saw him reach down and take himself in hand. Slowly, she dropped her underwear as well, and simply stood.

He rolled towards her, sitting on the edge of the bed and tugging her forward by the hand to stand between his spread legs. He placed his hands on either side of her ribs and leant forward, pressing a kiss to the expanse of skin that lay between her breasts.

It wasn’t anything close to an erogenous zone, but something about the gesture was oddly intimate and it left her fiercely turned on. His hands drifted downwards, across her bottom and he slid off the bed to kneel at her feet. Then, he looked up.

She swallowed, placing a hand on his head. With deliberate slowness he brought his fingers to her clit, and at the first touch she shuddered, leaning forward to rest her arm on his shoulder for support. Carefully he brought her leg up and hooked it over his shoulder, and then he replaced his fingers with his mouth.

“Fuck,” said Darcy, loud in the quiet bedroom, and her hands tightened in his hair as she rocked her hips forwards into him. Her legs were shuddering, and it was only the hand on his shoulder and the grip he had on her leg that were keeping her upright as he swirled his tongue over her clit.

She made a high, desperate sound, and he sucked hard as she bucked against him, his fingers digging into her skin. Her legs seemed to give out, and she fell forwards, onto the bed, lying loose-limbed and sated.

Loki slowly crawled onto the bed beside her, kissing her exposed skin – long her hips, her waist, her palm as he pressed it to his lips. She brushed hair away from his face in an unmistakable gesture of affection.

He was always so much smaller without clothes – more on edge, but also more willing to be languid. She felt like she could tease comfort out of him, a moment of being unashamed in his own skin, and she realised she wanted to.

She pulled him close, hooking her leg around his waist and guiding him inside her. They moved slowly, fingers entwined and heads bent, exchanging sloppy mis-aligned kisses as they rocked together. She felt his orgasm building, his limbs tightening around her, and she kissed him hard, surprised at how much it mattered.

When he came he clenched his fingers in her hair and arched back, closing his eyes, and she watched.

The afterglow was quiet and still, and she was content to just lie there, her hand on his chest and their legs tangled haphazardly, half beneath the sheets.

“Marry me,” Loki said, abruptly, shattering the calm.

She sat up, looking down at him. “Are you nuts?”

He scowled. “No,” he said. “I have no desire to live without you. I wish to stay with you – marry me.”

Darcy blinked owlishly at him, and ran her hands through her hair. “Okay,” she said slowly. “As flattering as that is –“

“I have no one else,” said Loki. “There is no one else. Don’t you see?”

“I think that’s part of the problem,” said Darcy. “We don’t have a relationship – not a healthy one. We have a co-dependent fuckfest.”

Loki scowled, sitting up and stealing the sheets, bunching them around his waist.

“Very mature,” Darcy said, blandly. “I just – think we should spend more time figuring out how this works before we start talking about ‘til death do us part’.”

Loki’s face took on a pinched, pained expression. “Death comes swiftly for your kind,” he said. “How much time do you think we have?”

“I’m not going to keel over any minute,” said Darcy drily.

“But soon enough,” said Loki quietly. “I cannot prevent it.”

“I’m not asking you to,” Darcy replied, evenly. “And I’m not asking you to get out, either. But why marriage?”

He spread his hands out in a gesture that suggested he thought the answer was obvious. “We would be bound.”

“I stabbed a frost giant in the arm for you today. I went down to the underworld to go get you. I think we’re good.”

“Then why refuse me?” he asked, pointedly.

“You called me a goat.”

Loki threw his hands up. “I wasn’t referring to you.”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s... complicated. Marriage is a big step.”

“And the others are not?”

She scowled. “You know what I mean.” She ran her hands through her hair again in frustration. “I know it seems like a short time to you, but it’s my entire life.”

“I see,” Loki said, stiffly. And then he rose, getting dressed with his back turned. Darcy flopped back onto the bed and resisted the urge to scream in frustration.

When he turned back he was holding something in his hand. “You kept it,” he said, holding up the doe mask from Álfheim.

“Well, yeah,” said Darcy, sitting back up and frowning. “And the other things – I kept it all.”

He was looking down at the mask with an odd expression on his face. “The harvest brings luck to those who take the roles of the Stag and Doe,” he said. “They bring good fortune to Álfheim, and what is given returns to them. I have participated before, to bring good luck to certain ventures – but it does tend to manifest in ways one does not entirely expect.”

He looked up at Darcy, and handed her the mask. “I have indeed been lucky,” he said, meaningfully. “Perhaps it will still hold.”

She took it from him, cradling it gently in her hands.

“I will give you time, if that is what you ask,” he said. “I have... things I must do. When they are complete, may I return?”

She looked around her messy apartment, her tiny twin bed and her posters of art prints and boybands covered with fairy lights, and at Loki, otherworldly and so very, oddly and impossibly old in the middle of it all, and nodded.

“Be safe,” she said.

He smiled back, his eyes filled with warmth. “Of that I have no doubt. Luck is on my side.” And with that, he kissed her on the forehead, and left, winking out of existence with a single step.

Of course, it wasn’t until she finally pulled on some clothes and got back out of bed, stumbling blearily into her kitchen in search of tea and food that she found he’d left a bouquet on her kitchen table.

Twelve carnations and a note: see you soon.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of I Climbed a Tree to See the World