At the Feet of the Prince (Loki/OFC, NC/17), Chapter 2
Chapter 2
Blood rushing in Brynja's ears drowned out the murmurs of the crowd as she ascended the dais and came to stand before the royal family. Panic rose in her throat - What am I expected to do now? Not being of age before this year, she had skipped the selection of Thor's handmaid and thus had no clue of the protocol. Blood colored her face even more deeply as her humble origins shamed her yet again.
A sharp whisper from her right called her attention to a dark girl standing in the ring. Astryd, Brynja recalled, the sword smith's daughter. Astryd had always been a friendly sort, and now she was gesturing for Brynja to kneel before the Allfather. Bless you, Astryd, she praised silently as she tried to come to her knees gracefully without betraying their weakness. Kneeling as still as she could muster with her eyes trained on the gilded surface of the dais, Brynja waited for Odin to approve his son's choice. It was painfully obvious that Allfather was reluctant to admit this muddling dishwater creature into his household, and the silence that stretched before her was like the void below the Bifrost.
After what felt like years, Odin's voice boomed through the great hall. "Loki's handmaid has been chosen!" Thank the gods...what would have become of me had Odin rejected me? Brynja breathed silently in relief, her mind racing. Would I be made a kitchen slave? Thrown outside the gates in disgrace? Would that have been a lesser evil than-
Her thoughts were cut short as a guard urged Brynja to her feet, and she stood to face the assembled throng, the faces all a melted blur. She jumped when Odin's hand came to rest on her head, being that she was considerably shorter than he. "May she serve her Master well, both in Asgard and in Valhalla!" The crowd hesitantly began to applaud, and soon the cheers resonated through the high golden buttresses. The royal family turned and retreated the way they had come under earsplitting trumpet fanfare, but Brynja caught sight only the curved tip of Loki's golden horned helmet as he passed her.
Immediately, guards surrounded Brynja and she was propelled forward inside the insulating cocoon of bodies toward the jewelled doors at the rear of the great hall. Through the doors and down snaking hallways she was led, until before them stood a pair of golden doors marked with the runic symbols. Through these doors she passed, leaving her old life behind her.
------
It took all Brynja's concentration not to fidget as she stood in wait for Prince Loki. She wished she could see herself in a looking glass - see the creature the palace servants had turned her into. She certainly felt nothing like herself.
The servants in the bathing chamber had been as mystified by the entire scene as Brynja was. Many hands stood idle as they wondered aloud what should be done. In the end the servant girls briskly yanked her purple dress over her head and sent it off to be quickly washed and mended. Brynja had no time to be self-conscious of her nudity before she was shooed into a large copper tub full of steaming water and unceremoniously dunked. "No one knows what to do with you," a ladies' maid had whispered guiltily as she poured fragrant water over Brynja's head, rubbing up a cloud of bubbles. "The princes usually have a list of what preparations they want performed before they receive their handmaid - shaving of body hair, piercing of the nipples, painting of face...but Prince Loki left none, save to say that he wanted you as you were - no paint, no jewelry, no shaving." The girl's nimble fingers massaged a pink cream into Brynja's scalp that made her skin tingle. "Giving you a good bath is all he would allow." Brynja said a silent prayer of thanks to the gods that Loki hadn't demanded her nipples be pierced. This thankfulness gave her the strength to submit to the rest of their ablutions.
Her skin glowed rosy from scrubbing with soapy water, and her hair had been unsnarled and brushed and left hanging loose to her waist, drying in haphazard waves but shining like she had never known it could do. Even my hands look alien. The servant girls had filed and buffed her nails smooth and scrubbed off the callouses from years of stirring and grinding. Her dress was freshly washed, but her feet remained bare against the cold metal floor of the prince's chamber. This entire place feels so...hard. Hard metal floor, hard gleaming walls. Everything golden, nothing ordinary. Brynja ran a bare toe over the carved patterns in the floor, so different from the rough stone floors of her home. But its not your home anymore, she reminded herself. This cold, strange place is now your home, and this dark, strange man your master.
A metallic bang in the antechamber caused Brynja to jump. As if on cue, the door to the chamber flew open and Loki strode into the vast room on impossibly long legs, green cape of royal station flapping in his wake. Thoroughly startled, Brynja took a deep breath and continued to look at her (fascinatingly smooth) feet, her nails, the floor - anything but at the tall silent figure who now stood with his back to her at a small side table. Hazarding a peek, she saw his armor-clad torso hunched over the surface of the table, palms flat on the surface as if for balance. Brynja's uncanny perception picked up the tension radiating off him in waves, and another emotion she couldn't quite identify. Almost instantly her fear morphed into something much less potent. He's having a time of it as well. Summoning her strength, Brynja drew her head up and stood as if she felt no fear or discomfiture. I'm good at this. I know how to be solid, how to do what must be done.
After a beat or two the prince turned to face her in a swirl of green, and for an instant Brynja saw surprise in his eyes at her boldness in making eye contact. Steadfast she stood, and he did the same, tall and still as a statue.
When Loki finally spoke, the sound rang through the high ceilinged room. "What is your name?"
In as clear and calm a voice as she possessed, she answered him. "Brynja Ivardottir, my lord."
"Ivardottir," Loki repeated."The daughter of Ivar the alchemist?"
"The same, my lord."
"Your father is chief alchemist for the palace and surrounding villages, so I hear. Do you assist him?"
Assist is an understatement. "Yes, my lord. My father has been...unwell, these 7 years past, and I took over the brewing when he was unable, maintaining the business." Despite all the trials of her situation, Brynja remained quite proud of the work she had done.
Loki was silent in thought for a moment, giving Brynja the chance to examine him surreptitiously. Without his golden horned helmet, Loki had longish hair that was black as pitch, and dark tidy eyebrows framing his otherworldly green eyes. He stood straight and tall, with the bearing of royalty, but there was an invisible yoke laying heavy upon his shoulders - this was a man with many worries. Brynja recalled Odin's hand upon Loki's shoulder at the selection ceremony, and how Loki tensed under the contact. A son chafing under his father's rule.
Giving a great sigh Loki turned to the sideboard and unstoppered a cut glass bottle. He examined the clear liquid in the carafe as if judging it for imperfections, and upon appraisal made a quick wrist movement and the fluid became a dark ruby red. The master sorcerer, Brynja reminded herself. The trickster of Asgard. Wielder of wit, rather than weapon.
Loki's smooth voice rang out again. "Is there anything you care to say? You may speak freely." The prince wrapped his long, pale fingers around the carafe of wine and poured a stream of blood-crimson into his gold cup, and turned to face her. "I'm waiting."
"My Lord, may I ask...Why did you choose me?" Brynja fingered the unravelling embroidery on her left cuff, very conscious of her shabbiness and inexperience in the presence of royalty.
Loki's laugh was unexpected and surprisingly melodic. "Why not?" His eyes never left hers as he drank from his cup, the penetrating green outshining the gleam of the metal chalice.
"I'm lowborn, my lord. I'm untrained in the arts of the bedchamber, and I have neither the beauty nor the talents of a woman of the Select. Surely one of them would make a more fitting -"
The clang of the golden cup was deafening as it hit the brazier in the center of the room, and the fire within flared along with Brynja's heartbeat. "And that's what you expect I want, is it? A pretty mouth and a seasoned quim? Someone to flaunt in front of the drunken louts on feast days, someone to suck my cock while they watch?" She could feel the anger sweeping over him as he began to stalk around the room like a caged beast. "I. Am. NOTHING. Like. Them." Indeed. "You have no idea what I desire."
Adrenaline singing in her veins made Brynja bold. "What DO you desire, my lord?"
Loki slowed his pacing. "I desire solitude and privacy above all else. I cannot abide the idea of one of those manipulative harlots crawling all over me like a snake with greedy hands in my pockets, searching for ways to control me."He's speaking of The Select. "I never wanted this. I told my father this was a vile custom, scurrilous and archaic. I begged to be released from this obligation, but Odin refused. He said it was my duty as a prince of Asgard."
Brynja's mind flashed with questions - Is it as Garth said? Does the prince prefer men, and if so, why didn't he choose one of them? She felt her cheeks redden. "My lord, if I am distasteful to you..."
In 3 long-legged strides Loki crossed the room and stood before her, close enough for Brynja to smell the leather of his armor. He was so tall that the top of her head came only to his breastbone. With thumb and forefinger he grasped her chin and tilted her face to meet his, and his skin was shockingly cool. Brynja fought the overwhelming urge to pull out of his grasp, to turn her face away from his frank appraisal. His eyes...she shuddered. His eyes are like a tempest, blowing me about like no more than a dry leaf. An age seemed to pass with those eyes raking smoothly over her face before he spoke again, his smooth baritone whafting the warm scent of wine over her skin.
"Distasteful you are certainly not. On the contrary, I found you to be the most pleasing creature among all assembled today. You I chose from among scores of your peers."
"But why?" Her entreaty sounded plaintive even to Brynja's ears, and she regretted it as soon as she said it. I cannot sound like a mewling child. I will soon be a woman, with woman's burdens.
Loki released her and stepped back from their contact, returning his restless pacing. His hands flicked and twisted at his sides, as if practicing conjuring motions."You were the one whom I looked upon and saw a spirit of substance beyond this place, beyond warring and rutting and drinking. What I saw in you answered something in me. What that is, I don't know.
"I know what is expected of me. I am supposed to take you to bed, bend you to my will, break your spirit. I desire nothing less. We are both bound in this, and I am not," he spit the words from his lips as if they were poisoned, "amonster who takes young women by force. I will not call you to my bed, nor ask you to attend me intimately. You will do the small tasks I ask of you in maintenance of this chamber and keep your own bed. My only requirement is that you never - ever- lie to me." The prince folded himself into a nearby golden chair, shaped like reversed halves of a sphere and lacking any cushion or padding. Even the walls and floors were bare of tapestry or carpet, curtains or furs. He denies himself physical comforts, Brynja noticed. He even refuses the comforts of sexual congress, even though it is his due. He will not touch me tonight, or any other night.
Brynja's mind raced with this change in fortune. She could serve like a chambermaid, much as she had done for her father all these years, keeping to herself and needing only to keep Loki's chambers in order. Her body would remain her own. She would never know a man's touch, but how much could she be missing, really? Isn't the body just a vessel for the mind, a fragile chalice that cracks and crumbles so easily with pain and misuse? Years of brewing for the sick and injured gave Brynja much experience with the pains of the flesh, but precious little exposure to pleasure. Her own few attempts to find pleasure in her body had been fruitless and fleeting, and she nursed no hope that any other touch would rouse her. A life of celibacy had always suited her just fine, especially in the face of the alternative -marrying Rikwald. Just the thought of his pudgy, greasy hands on her body made her skin crawl, and the leering eyes of the men who came to buy her potions had not engendered her to the other sex in general.
But standing here, with her new Master before her so dark and mesmerizing, her traitorous body was stirring and stretching like a napping cat. It was impossible to ignore the whisper of disappointment that had trilled through her when Loki told her he'd not bed her. If she questioned his refusal, would he send her away? Could she live as a stranger in his rooms, untouched, unopened, until she followed him into Valhalla? Or could it be that something else is afoot, something to be unearthed in him through patience and care, something she could search for, reveal, polish until his soul shone?
Loki sat silently waiting, endlessly patient and controlled, green eyes gone flat and unreadable. Brynja closed her eyes, and focused her thoughts intensely on the days and years to come, begging the gods to guide her. What direction did her path take? What lay over the horizon? In her mind she could see and feel nothing concrete, save for one thing she knew for certain - her future lay in orbit around the tall, lean figure seated in front of her. Her world was inescapably drawn to him by the force stronger than her fear, her hesitation. She could no sooner walk away from him than levitate herself.
"I will serve you in the way you need, my prince." But it remains to be seen if he knows what it is he really needs.
She would spend the rest of her days seeking that truth out.
--Ch.3 coming soon, and will open the doors marked "EXPLICIT".
Thanks for reading! Please review!