Prompt Post 3
Welcome to norsekink .
Keep up the awesome, folks.
Announcement: All new and continuing fills for Round 3 should be posted in the Overflow Post.
THIS ROUND IS CLOSED TO NEW PROMPTS.
( Rules )
Keep up the awesome, folks.
Announcement: All new and continuing fills for Round 3 should be posted in the Overflow Post.
THIS ROUND IS CLOSED TO NEW PROMPTS.
( Rules )
Thor tilts his head, considering.
“Dragonslayer?” he suggests.
She gives him a flat look, and shrugs defensively.
“Dragonslayer is a fine name!”
“It is no name at all for a child,” his mother refutes. Her gaze turns back to the babe, and even as he privately disagrees, he thinks that she can pick whatever name she likes if it will do something to chase the dark stormclouds from her head. He can tell she is thinking of something by the way her lips briefly purse, and she jiggles the tiny hands in hers. “Loki,” she says.
“Loki?”
“Hmm. It was what I wanted to call you, actually, but your father was set upon Thor.” She leans over, then, and returns the babe to his lap, brushing her hand through his short black hair. “It is a good name,” she tells him, strangely distant again.
Thor looks at her, and nods.
“I like it,” he agrees. “Loki Dragonslayer.”
His mother bites off a laugh only one second too late; he is glad for it.
“At least wait until he has actually slain a dragon,” she requests.
Thor gives this some consideration, and agrees that perhaps that would be best. Then he lets the nurse take the newly-dubbed Loki back again, and sets off to find Sif and Fandral, who have doubtless been wondering where he was for those mysteriously lost months. Or he means to. Until he finds that he is not permitted by visit them - or anyone - without his thrice-cursed new ‘guards’ peering over his shoulder at everything. He gives his mother a despairing look, but she is as immovable as his father on this matter. And in her case, he cannot even bring his anger into play, as she only looks at him sorrowfully, as if some great wrong has been done.
“I swear it on my word as a prince of Asgard, I will not leave the grounds!” he promises. “I will not go anywhere near the Bifrost, but do not ask me to endure the humiliation of baby-sitters!”
In the end, the best he can get is that they will keep an unobtrusive distance. He tries to think of a way to explain them to Sif and Fandral which is anything short of embarrassing (and considers perhaps not explaining them away at all, and simply taking the opportunity to rant to sympathetic ears) but neither of them seem as concerned with his guards as they do with near-tackling him as soon as he is within sight. Sif almost bowls him over, and then punches him soundly in the arm. Fandral settles for a swifter hug, and holds his punches. Thor stares. There is a hint of a moustache on his friend’s upper lip and chin, a growing circle of hair, that was certainly not present before he left. It seems a strange proof that more than a mere couple of days have, indeed, passed. Sif is taller as well.
“You idiot,” she says to him. “What possessed you? And what’s this we’ve heard about a baby?”
Fandral shoots her a distinctly betrayed look, and then rolls his eyes.
“Need I tell you again that we are not supposed to know about that?” he asks.
Sif ignores him in favour of shaking Thor, who only shrugs.
“I rescued a babe from a Jotun sacrifice,” he explains. He has decided that ‘sacrifice’ is a much easier way of phrasing it than ‘cliff-murder’. “He is being cared for at the palace now. We have dubbed him Loki. I shall bring him to meet you next time, he has very green eyes.”
Fandral gives him a steady look. Then he reaches up and pinches the bridge of his nose, letting out a long-suffering sigh. Sif punches Thor’s arm again.
Reply
“I could not have brought you,” he says. “The three of us together would never have made it past Heimdall’s notice. Besides which, it wasn’t my intent to battle giants myself. I meant to hunt boar.” He shrugs, aiming for nonchalance. “The giants were incidental.”
Sif looks like she means to punch him again. Thankfully, that his when Fandral speaks, and this seems to halt her.
“How did you come to find an Aesir infant in Jotunheim?” he asks. “That would be the height of bad parenting, taking your child over there.”
Thor throws a conspicuous glance towards the guards who are still trailing him. Sif and Fandral seem to notice them at the same time as well, but fortunately, neither seem to be paying them much mind, and they are just beyond what should be hearing range. Satisfied, he beckons his two friends closer.
“This stays between us,” he says. “But the babe isn’t an Aesir. He’s a Jotun; he changed his appearance when I found him.” And he goes on to explain the encounter, starting with a blow-by-blow of his daring trek and ending with his discovery that he had somehow lost four months of time in all of that. It isn’t long before he gets onto the subject of his parents’ odd behaviour. Surprisingly, however, neither Sif nor Fandral seem to be is baffled by it as he is. He is almost relieved when they share a glance with one another. At least if they know what is wrong, then they can tell him.
“What? What do you know?” he asks.
Another glance is exchanged. By some silent communication, Fandral is elected to explain.
“You disappear. For months,” he says carefully. “Do you, ah, do you recall when my cousin went to ‘visit’ my aunt for several months? And when she came back, she had a new younger ‘sister’?”
Thor nods, uncomprehending.
Fandral shoots Sif something of a beseeching look, but she is apparently in no mood to take pity on him, and only raises her hands in the universal gesture of ‘I’m not touching this’. He sighs.
“When young people disappear and then come back with mysterious babies, most will come to the conclusion that the child is… you know…” he waves a hand vaguely through the air. “Theirs.”
Thor blinks. His first thought is actually well, I did rescue him - that sort of makes him mine, doesn’t it?, but then his brain catches up, and he feels an unbidden surge of heat rise up in his face as all the pieces abruptly fall into place.
“That is - I wouldn’t - I have never even - that is not what happened!” he declares, almost shouting, and then shoots a self-conscious glance towards the guards. They’ve looked over, but when he gives him a cheery smile and a wave, they decline to come over. He moves a little closer to Sif and Fandral. “I did not give birth,” he hisses. “That would be preposterous!”
Sif shrugs.
“Good luck convincing anyone else of that. It’s a little less common with men, but you wouldn’t be the first,” she points out. “And if you want to keep it a secret that that babe’s a Jotun, no one’s going to believe he’s not yours.”
“Why do you want to keep that a secret anyway?” Fandral asks.
Again, Thor glances towards the guards, and moves his hand in a shushing gesture. “Keep it down,” he says. “If my father knows that Loki is a Jotun, he’ll send him back to Jotunheim. And sooner or later, they will kill him. I did not do battle with those warriors and endure his wailing and stinking just to have him die anyway.”
“But if he stays here,” Sif feels compelled to point out, “he’ll still be a Jotun. What if he grows up into a monster?”
Reply
“For now, he is only small and helpless,” he decides at last. “If he should begin to act like a monster, then we will deal with it. But… I have never heard of a Jotun changing shape before. So perhaps he is different?” He cannot help but think of the wolf cub again, of how wolves raised by humans are not quite dogs; but they are not quite wolves, either.
Sif seems to know his thoughts. “This is much bigger than that wolf cub you wanted to keep,” she tells him, and he bristles. “A Jotun baby…” Her head shakes.
“I know the scale of it,” he snaps, though internally, he is not quite sure that he does. But that only serves to make him more defensive on the subject. “By all means, if either of you can think of a way to solve this, I am more than ready to hear it.”
She ducks her head, chastened for a moment. Fandral looks at him a moment longer before doing much the same. If Thor didn’t know any better, however, he would say that there was an odd quirk to the corner of his friend’s mouth.
“Well,” Fandral suggests after a long, awkward silence has stretched between them all. He nods towards the guards, who have finally taken note of their conspiratorial huddle and are attempting to - subtly - move closer. Whistling is actually involved. “At the very least, you might rid yourself of your guards if you can convince your parents that he came from… oh, from sleeping in an enchanted cave, or eating a piece of magical fruit, or snow, or somesuch,” he suggests. “Then they shall feel less need to guard your ‘virtue’.”
Thor gapes.
“That is what they are here for?!” he says, almost shouts, and then winces and pointedly lowers his voice again. “My virtue?!”
Sif and Fandral exchange another look.
“Most likely.”
“Yes.”
They both answer at the same time.
Thor exhales noisily, and wonders how he got himself into this mess. He’d only wanted to hunt boar! Boar! That was it!
“I would not wish to lie,” he finds himself saying. “They have let themselves believe that Loki is mine, perhaps, but he truly is not. It is one thing to let them misbelieve on their own. It is another to purposefully deceive them.”
Sif reaches over and pats him consolingly on the shoulder. “I could start a rumour,” she suggests. “The other ladies and most of the maids have been asking up and down about this whole thing ever since you came back. If I said that you had told me something…” she shrugs. “It would become known. Even if it was only, perhaps, idle speculation.”
Fandral gives her a moderately impressed look. “That,” he says. “Is an excellent idea.”
But Thor’s stomach twists. “It seems… wicked, somehow.” Coming from anyone else, this comment would seem insulting. But he speaks so genuinely that neither of his friends have the heart to take offence. Willful deception is so far from Thor’s element as to be like fire to a fish.
“It would be far wickeder, I think, to twist your parents hearts with worry,” Fandral points out. “For at they moment, they doubtless believe you to have been despoiled before you left, and feel themselves great failures for not protecting you better.” He has some experience in these matters. Fandral comes by his charming ways honestly, and has more cousins than he can typically name on any given day. Rabbit jokes generally abound in their presence.
Reply
He will never fully wrap his head around magic and engineering, however.
When his lessons are over, he finds himself at loose ends. Unable to train or spar. Unable to seek out the company of his friends, as Fandral and Sif have lessons of their own, and have gotten to rumour-mongering besides. He does not much care for the thought of seeing his parents, now that he knows what troubles them. So, after some consideration, he heads for the nursery section of the palace. As he’d hoped, Loki and his nursemaid are there. Neither she nor his minders make any protest as he scoops up his apparent-bastard, and winces as he forgets to watch his hair. Loki latches on, and pulls. His round face is smiling, though, Thor notices for the first time, he does not laugh, nor seem to make any sound at all when he is not crying.
Babies are fun to play with, Thor finds, when there is someone else at hand to take care of the crying and cleaning up parts. Loki like shiny baubles. He reaches for them, and his eyes follow them. So Thor ensconces them in a corner, and entertains them both with little odds and ends of his finery. Loki’s grip is surprisingly strong, considering how small his hands and fingers are. The nursemaid warns that he will try to put anything and everything into his mouth, given half a chance; but Thor watches, and Loki does not try to eat anything. Instead he looks it at it all with such an intent face, it makes Thor wonder what he is seeing. If he sees things the same way that everyone else does. He stares at the engraved side of Thor’s bracers as if they are the most fascinating of things, his eyes eagerly following as Thor twists them in the light, watching them glint. And Thor watches him in turn, and if he could see his face, he would note that it looked no less fascinated than Loki’s.
There is no hint of red in his eyes. No ghost of blue beneath his pale skin.
Thor finds himself unaccountably relieved.
(A/N: More to come~!)
Reply
YES! I'd love to see older Thor interact with a grown Loki, that would be amazing.
Reply
I do hope there is a lot more to come. I enjoy this sooooo much! *fanpersons author-anon*
Reply
Reply
Poor Laufey though.
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
(Here's hoping it's not too late for more, because young!Thor being fascinated with baby!Loki is just too adorable not to get more of.)
Reply
Reply
Reply
Gosh, what a story.
Does Laufey know/suspect that the child is his favourite son? How does that affect the Jotunheim Asgard interactions?
How is Thor banished? (will he be? will loki go with him?)
(loki's brood: Grandbabies!)
Are you on FF.net?
Reply
Leave a comment