The Last Days of Magic and Glory Chapter #8
In this chapter, Loki gives birth to Sleipnir
Warning: this part contains the semi-graphic birth of an eight-legged horse.
Chapter 8: The Birth
The delegation from Alfheim had finally left, along with the traitorous prince Seupu. Seupu had tried many times to talk to Thor about what happened and even to send further courtship overtures in the form of rare herbs and trinkets, the finest bow and arrow Thor had ever seen, and even a ring that was enchanted with the faint traces of Seupu’s scent. Thor ignored them all. Seupu was the worse kind of political - forcing an alliance between the kingdoms through an undesired heir. The worst part was that Thor had genuinely liked Seupu and might have even considered marrying him in many years time. But Thor was not a man of deceptions and after suffering many a lie from his brother, Thor knew that he was too trusting to identify them. He did not mind the occasional prank from Loki, because he trusted Loki to never do something that would truly harm him, but Thor could not afford to be involved with a man who deceived well and without the restraint of a good heart. Thor could forgive, but he could not allow himself to be placed in a position to be deceived again.
Thor ignored his mother’s warnings about shunning his fellow prince and how it would anger Odin. He was fairly certain that if she knew of Seupu’s deception, she would agree with Thor. At least she should agree with Thor. But Thor could not bring himself to tell her of how utterly stupid he had been to let Seupu deceive him so. She would be even more disappointed in him than she already was.
To make matters worse, Thor was not convinced that Seupu’s father was free of blame for Seupu’s plot. He did not seem surprised that Thor was refusing to talk to Seupu and despite being a seriously diplomatic slight, it had not affected the negotiations (otherwise Frigga would have been astoundingly agry). Thor knew that his parents would need to know how much the kingdom of Alfheim hungered for the Asgardian throne, but he still could not bring himself to tell them.
“Do you think it’s wrong to keep this from my mother?” Thor asked the horse.
The stable hands had warned Thor that the birth could take place any day now based on the fact that the horse’s udder had begun to swell with milk and that they usually happened at night, so Thor took to sleeping with the horse in the stables - not wanting to break their routine or risk missing the birth of the foal. Thor knew that the stable hands had reported this behavior to his mother and that she did not approve of it. It was one thing to enjoy sleeping under the stars and quite another for the crown prince to spend his nights in a pile of straw with his horse.
The horse did not seem to think that Thor needed to tell his family about the indiscretion with Prince Seupu, but she had been aloof and a bit judgemental towards him ever since the incident. Thor hoped it was just the impending birth that had her behaving this way and not some betrayal he had commited by not heeding her warnings.
“Have you ever given birth before?” Thor asked the horse.
She had not.
“I looked at diagrams in the library. It looks painful.”
The horse snorted, as if to say ‘of course it’s painful, you fool.’
“But at least it’ll be quick - much quicker than Aesir women. Are you scared?”
The horse nodded.
“I’d be scared too,” Thor admitted. “A battle with unwinnable odds doesn’t scare me, but pushing a child out of my body does.”
The horse seemed to want to ask a question, but couldn’t articulate it.
Thor answered the question a reasonable person probably would have asked. “I do not know if I’m fertile. I never had the test done. My brother definitely is, so chances are that I am too. Mother wanted me to have the test, but what would be the object of knowing that I’m fertile if I would never allow a man to do that to me?”
The horse looked at him like Thor was stupid. It was the same look that Loki had given him when Thor had explained his reason for not doing the test. Unlike the horse, Loki had then proceeded to go into graphic detail about how amazing being taken by a man could be. It had only succeeded in making Thor want to take more men, especially those who felt as Loki did and to have a very inconvenient erection in front of his brother. Despite Thor’s protests, Loki hadn’t seemed to believe him. In retrospect, that was probably why Loki allowed Thor to watch him make the anti-conception tea so many times when he did almost every other piece of spellwork in secret.
Thor smiled. His brother would always look out for him, even if he didn’t want Thor to realize he was doing it.
“I do not understand why men allow themselves to be taken by another man in that way. Does it not make you feel weak?” Thor asked the horse.
She nipped him.
“I suppose you enjoyed how you came into your current condition.” The horse seemed too clever to allow herself to be mated if she didn’t desire it.
She stared at Thor for a long moment before shaking her head.
“I’m sorry.” There wasn’t much more to say. He petted her, imagining how much more violent things must be in nature for his sweet magical horse to be taken against her will. When they were riding across the plain or sleeping beneath the stars, she had never let him see the many ways that nature could be cruel.
“Even then, it doesn’t make you feel weak?”
The horse did not respond. It seemed this issue was beyond their meager ability to communicate. But, then again, maybe that was why Thor was willing to discuss it. Any talk of sex with the warriors three turned raunchy in a heartbeat and to suggest to Sif that women were weak in any way was asking for a mace to his groin. Thor didn’t even feel comfortable discussing it with his brother, despite the fact that Thor felt comfortable telling Loki most things. Maybe, when Loki returned, Thor would ask him more about it and hope it did not end in another inconvenient erection.
With his brother’s absence and his mother angered with him most of the time, Thor was aware that he had withdrawn from even the friends he normally talked to. He had never been one for talk and always preferred action, but he had been social, drinking mead with the warriors and quick to join games. Now all of his ‘kingly’ duties reminded Thor that he was not one of the men and could not behave like a drunken bohr, as his mother always cautioned him. He was royalty and thus apart and more lonely than ever.
“You have a good life, horse. No responsibilities.”
The horse looked pointedly at her swollen belly.
“You make a good point; you have responsibilities, but you have instincts to help with them. You need not force yourself to be what you are not for the sake of others. It is like pounding my head continuously against Mjolnir, this business of ruling. Half the kingdom would probably be more naturally inclined to it than I am, but the task falls to me. You would probably make a better king than I and you cannot even talk.”
The horse seemed to agree.
***
Thor was in the middle of royal audience - a wife who had burned her husband’s genitals for laying with another woman and a husband who wanted reparations - when one of the stable boys burst in, panting.
Frigga stared down at him with a storm brewing in her eyes. She had been making Thor suggest solutions to her before he settled each audience and, according to her, he had been making increasingly stupid decisions. With his mother’s patience already at its breaking point, Thor feared for a second that the stable boy would spontaneously combust from her glare.
“To what do we own this interruption?” Frigga asked, turning away from the poor trembling boy as though she could not stand to even look at him.
“Pri . . . Prince Thor,” he stuttered, “asked . . . he asked me to tell him if . . . if his horse went into labor, your majesty.”
Frigga’s glare shifted to Thor. “Son, do you think it appropriate to interrupt royal audience over a horse?”
Thor grimaced. He knew his mother couldn’t possibly understand his relationship with the horse, but he had hoped that she’d grasp that it was important to him. He had hoped that the horse would foal at night, as was typical, but she was not a typical horse. It didn’t matter what political nonsense Thor had scheduled, he needed to be there for her. She would be scared and hurting and after all she had helped him through, Thor owed it to her to be there.
“You do not need me for this, mother. I will only make more mistakes and anger you further.”
He turned to the arguing husband and wife. “I am sorry, citizens of Asgard, but I must excuse myself.”
Frigga looked resigned, but the anger in her eyes said they would be discussing the matter privately and at great length when there were no longer citizens present.
Thor didn’t bother to wait for the stable boy. He swung his hammer and used the momentum to fly to the stables. The horse was not in her stall, but her whinny’s of pain drew Thor easily over to one of the larger enclosed stalls. The horse lay on her side, taking deep wheezing breaths, clearly agitated. She would move as if to stand up and then lay back down again. The contractions danced visibly across her skin as she whimpered and pushed, hooves scrabbling helplessly on the dirt of the stable floor.
The lead stable hand and two of the stable boys were looking on from outside the enclosure. Thor pushed them aside, “Why are you standing there? She’s in pain. Do something!”
“Horses are skilled at labor,” the lead stable hand pointed out. “They resist human interference and almost never need it. We are here only in case of complications. The foal should be born in moments.”
Thor ignored the warnings and the restraining hands in order to open the stable door and rush to the horse’s side.
“Watch out, she might bite you!” someone shouted when Thor lifted the horse’s head and placed it in his lap.
It was probably one of the few times that the horse did not try to bite him. Thor stroked her white mane, feeling the sweat on her neck - worse than even their most strenuous rides.
It was not long before the foal began to emerge. Thor knew that foals emerged headfirst, but he could hardly tell, as it just appeared to be legs exiting.
“You are doing very good,” Thor reassured the horse. “I can see your child! Just push a little more.”
But despite the heaving breaths and all the horse’s restless pushing, the foal did not emerge further. She became increasingly distressed, crying out and kicking her hooves in pain.
Thor looked at the stable hands and his heart beat faster seeing their worry. One of the boys ran to grab healing materials and the lead stable hand finally entered the stable. He ran a comforting hand down the horse’s side in reassurance.
“Don’t worry,” Thor told the horse. “We’ll help you.” He turned to the stable hand. “This isn’t normal?”
He looked down at the foal, shaking his head. “It looks like it’s coming out with all four feet first. All my time working at the royal stables and I have never seen this. We’ll try to ease him out, but if this is as bad as it looks, we may have to cut her a little to allow this one out.”
Thor stiffened in horror. He’d heard of such practices for Aesir women, but it was rare and done by a team of healers. Horses were not as valuable as Aesir women and Thor wondered if the stable hands would do so and expect the horse to survive.
“We should get her to stand,” the stable hand said, but despite all their attempts, the mare would not budge.
“She needs to stand so that the foal will return to the womb and can reposition itself.”
The horse shook her head violently, glaring at Thor.
“She does not desire to do that.”
“Too bad! She can’t deliver the foal with all four feet first.”
The horse shook her head again, begging Thor with eyes blown black with fear and adrenaline.
“She thinks she can.”
“She’s a horse!”
Thor did not have time to argue the intelligence of his magical horse with the stable hands who already thought he was crazy for spending so much time talking to her. “Look, let her try a little longer and then we can force her.”
The stable hand sighed, murmuring about know-everything princes with obsessive relationships with their horses.
The stable hand pulled away the membrane that covered the foal and looked closely at its four hooves. He grabbed ahold of them and pulled at little, eliciting a pained noise from the horse. Thor patted her head, trying to reassure her.
Tense moments later, the horse’s struggling finally seemed to result.
“Oh, wait, we have a head,” the stable hand shouted.
“Is that good?”
“I can’t say. The foal must be contorted into an almost impossible position for there to be all four legs and a head.”
The horse shuddered, forcing the foal out further.
“Oh Valhalla,” the stable hand said in awe.
“What?” Thor demanded.
“The foal isn’t coming with all four legs first. It has four forelegs!”
The horse’s child was deformed? Thor shuddered, but continued to sooth his companion, whispering to her that everything would be fine and that she was almost there and would see her baby soon.
The rest of the labor was slow and pained compared to what Thor had read in the library, but eventually the foal was born. The horse collapsed into Thor’s lap with great heaving breaths, her belly looking strangely concave and empty. She nudged him with her nose, sad green eyes shining with relief and entreaty.
For once, Thor understood her meaning so he lay her head down on the floor to check on her baby.
Pulling the rest of the membrane away revealed that the little dapple grey foal had eight legs instead of four.
“Helheim,” the stable hand swore, “I cannot believe it.”
Despite its abnormality, the foal did not seem deformed. It nuzzled Thor’s hand when he used a towel to clean it and all eight legs moved independently. They waited a long while - until after the sun set - hoping that the horse would find the strength to stand and server the cord on her own before deciding to cut the umbilical cord. Thor thought to use his runic knife (the one gifted to him by Seupu) but, moving for the first time since she’d finally delivered the foal, the horse kicked out, knocking the knife from Thor’s hands. The stable hand shook his head, grabbing a special knife from the healing kit and easily accomplishing the task without getting kicked.
“Normally, the mare would start licking the little one, but her labor was the most difficult I’ve seen and she is very tired. We’ll let her rest while we try to get the foal standing.”
It was a trial, learning to stand on eight legs, but eventually the foal managed it, looking surprised once he arrived on his feet. The stable hands quickly cleaned his belly button with healing gel and checked him over for any problems other than being born with eight legs. He leaned against Thor, probably expecting milk.
“We have to get her up, now,” the stable hand said after a long while letting the horse rest. “The baby needs to nurse soon after birth.”
Thor moved slowly away from the foal once he was certain that he could stand on his own. The horse’s panting breaths were less desperate now, though she still lay on her side. Thor roused her gently, stroking her neck.
“You did very well, horse. But your baby needs milk now. We will help you stand.”
The horse was too tired to nod, but she moved as if to stand before flopping back down. Thor and the three stable hands slowly helped push and pull her to her feet. Luckily, the foal did not need any help finding a way to nurse.
The foal stuck close to its mother, even when she delivered the afterbirth considerably later. The stable hand warned that horses would try to eat the afterbirth, but she ignored it, walking with her foal towards the stable door and then out into the pasture to eat a little sweet grass. Thor gave her a few apples and thanked the stable staff. It was dark now, but the moon was still close to full. The foal nuzzled and played with Thor for a short time before clearly tiring. Thor expected the horse to head back to the stable to sleep, but instead she walked over to the big apple tree in the middle of the pasture. She obviously wanted her foal to spend its first night sleeping under the stars as she and Thor loved.
Thor retrieved several blankets from the stables to drape over them all. He fell asleep pressed against the horse’s back with the foal curled up between them.
***
Thor awakened to a frigid hand on his chest and someone shivering. It was still dark outside, but in the ethereal glow of the moonlight he could see the form of another man with long black hair cuddled against him. He at first thought that Seupu had somehow returned to molest him again, but after blinking the sleep from his eyes, he knew that there was only one person it could be. He’d know the body sprawled naked against him almost his entire life. He knew the way every muscle played over bone on that lean body, every scar and imperfection, every expression on the face that was now looking languidly up at him, green eyes shining.
“Loki?” Thor whispered, almost afraid to break the spell of this silent moonlit night. He’d been hoping for this moment for nearly a year and now that it had finally arrived it seemed so surreal that Thor was half convinced that he still dreamed.
Loki nodded. His smooth black hair was much longer now and greasy. His naked body was covered in sweat, dirt, and a little blood. He had deep bags under his eyes and a weight to his movements that spoke of utter exhaustion. He looked so far from his usual polished self and yet he was the sweetest thing Thor had ever seen. Thor pulled his brother to him, pulling back one when Loki gasped, obviously sore.
“Where have you been all this time?” Thor asked, pulling the blankets tight around them in order to ease Loki’s shivers.
Loki didn’t answer, just looked pointedly at Thor in the exact way the horse did when she wanted him to know that her lack of response had nothing to do with the fact that she couldn’t talk and everything to do with the fact that Thor’s question was too stupid to warrant an answer.
Speaking of the horse, she wasn’t anywhere in the field, even though the foal slept contentedly curled up against Loki’s back. “What happened to the horse?”
Loki sighed, his voice scratchy and slow with sleep. “Thor, you lovable idiot, I am the horse.”
Before Thor could even begin to process that, Loki closed his eyes, nuzzling against Thor’s chest in the same way the horse had always done. A heartbeat later, Loki was asleep, curled against his brother under the stars.
A/N: I'm not quite sure what the fallout of this is going to be. Obviously, Thor was not expecting this and I have no idea how Odin and Frigga will react. A lot has changed for the brothers and I'm not sure how far I am going to take the lessons they have learned. After this, they obviously have enough fodder for change that this could be an AU where the events of Thor and the Avengers never happen or it could make for an even more tragic situation when they finally part ways. It may be a bit longer than usual before the next update while I meditate on this.
Next Chapter: Secrets
Warning: this part contains the semi-graphic birth of an eight-legged horse.
Chapter 8: The Birth
The delegation from Alfheim had finally left, along with the traitorous prince Seupu. Seupu had tried many times to talk to Thor about what happened and even to send further courtship overtures in the form of rare herbs and trinkets, the finest bow and arrow Thor had ever seen, and even a ring that was enchanted with the faint traces of Seupu’s scent. Thor ignored them all. Seupu was the worse kind of political - forcing an alliance between the kingdoms through an undesired heir. The worst part was that Thor had genuinely liked Seupu and might have even considered marrying him in many years time. But Thor was not a man of deceptions and after suffering many a lie from his brother, Thor knew that he was too trusting to identify them. He did not mind the occasional prank from Loki, because he trusted Loki to never do something that would truly harm him, but Thor could not afford to be involved with a man who deceived well and without the restraint of a good heart. Thor could forgive, but he could not allow himself to be placed in a position to be deceived again.
Thor ignored his mother’s warnings about shunning his fellow prince and how it would anger Odin. He was fairly certain that if she knew of Seupu’s deception, she would agree with Thor. At least she should agree with Thor. But Thor could not bring himself to tell her of how utterly stupid he had been to let Seupu deceive him so. She would be even more disappointed in him than she already was.
To make matters worse, Thor was not convinced that Seupu’s father was free of blame for Seupu’s plot. He did not seem surprised that Thor was refusing to talk to Seupu and despite being a seriously diplomatic slight, it had not affected the negotiations (otherwise Frigga would have been astoundingly agry). Thor knew that his parents would need to know how much the kingdom of Alfheim hungered for the Asgardian throne, but he still could not bring himself to tell them.
“Do you think it’s wrong to keep this from my mother?” Thor asked the horse.
The stable hands had warned Thor that the birth could take place any day now based on the fact that the horse’s udder had begun to swell with milk and that they usually happened at night, so Thor took to sleeping with the horse in the stables - not wanting to break their routine or risk missing the birth of the foal. Thor knew that the stable hands had reported this behavior to his mother and that she did not approve of it. It was one thing to enjoy sleeping under the stars and quite another for the crown prince to spend his nights in a pile of straw with his horse.
The horse did not seem to think that Thor needed to tell his family about the indiscretion with Prince Seupu, but she had been aloof and a bit judgemental towards him ever since the incident. Thor hoped it was just the impending birth that had her behaving this way and not some betrayal he had commited by not heeding her warnings.
“Have you ever given birth before?” Thor asked the horse.
She had not.
“I looked at diagrams in the library. It looks painful.”
The horse snorted, as if to say ‘of course it’s painful, you fool.’
“But at least it’ll be quick - much quicker than Aesir women. Are you scared?”
The horse nodded.
“I’d be scared too,” Thor admitted. “A battle with unwinnable odds doesn’t scare me, but pushing a child out of my body does.”
The horse seemed to want to ask a question, but couldn’t articulate it.
Thor answered the question a reasonable person probably would have asked. “I do not know if I’m fertile. I never had the test done. My brother definitely is, so chances are that I am too. Mother wanted me to have the test, but what would be the object of knowing that I’m fertile if I would never allow a man to do that to me?”
The horse looked at him like Thor was stupid. It was the same look that Loki had given him when Thor had explained his reason for not doing the test. Unlike the horse, Loki had then proceeded to go into graphic detail about how amazing being taken by a man could be. It had only succeeded in making Thor want to take more men, especially those who felt as Loki did and to have a very inconvenient erection in front of his brother. Despite Thor’s protests, Loki hadn’t seemed to believe him. In retrospect, that was probably why Loki allowed Thor to watch him make the anti-conception tea so many times when he did almost every other piece of spellwork in secret.
Thor smiled. His brother would always look out for him, even if he didn’t want Thor to realize he was doing it.
“I do not understand why men allow themselves to be taken by another man in that way. Does it not make you feel weak?” Thor asked the horse.
She nipped him.
“I suppose you enjoyed how you came into your current condition.” The horse seemed too clever to allow herself to be mated if she didn’t desire it.
She stared at Thor for a long moment before shaking her head.
“I’m sorry.” There wasn’t much more to say. He petted her, imagining how much more violent things must be in nature for his sweet magical horse to be taken against her will. When they were riding across the plain or sleeping beneath the stars, she had never let him see the many ways that nature could be cruel.
“Even then, it doesn’t make you feel weak?”
The horse did not respond. It seemed this issue was beyond their meager ability to communicate. But, then again, maybe that was why Thor was willing to discuss it. Any talk of sex with the warriors three turned raunchy in a heartbeat and to suggest to Sif that women were weak in any way was asking for a mace to his groin. Thor didn’t even feel comfortable discussing it with his brother, despite the fact that Thor felt comfortable telling Loki most things. Maybe, when Loki returned, Thor would ask him more about it and hope it did not end in another inconvenient erection.
With his brother’s absence and his mother angered with him most of the time, Thor was aware that he had withdrawn from even the friends he normally talked to. He had never been one for talk and always preferred action, but he had been social, drinking mead with the warriors and quick to join games. Now all of his ‘kingly’ duties reminded Thor that he was not one of the men and could not behave like a drunken bohr, as his mother always cautioned him. He was royalty and thus apart and more lonely than ever.
“You have a good life, horse. No responsibilities.”
The horse looked pointedly at her swollen belly.
“You make a good point; you have responsibilities, but you have instincts to help with them. You need not force yourself to be what you are not for the sake of others. It is like pounding my head continuously against Mjolnir, this business of ruling. Half the kingdom would probably be more naturally inclined to it than I am, but the task falls to me. You would probably make a better king than I and you cannot even talk.”
The horse seemed to agree.
***
Thor was in the middle of royal audience - a wife who had burned her husband’s genitals for laying with another woman and a husband who wanted reparations - when one of the stable boys burst in, panting.
Frigga stared down at him with a storm brewing in her eyes. She had been making Thor suggest solutions to her before he settled each audience and, according to her, he had been making increasingly stupid decisions. With his mother’s patience already at its breaking point, Thor feared for a second that the stable boy would spontaneously combust from her glare.
“To what do we own this interruption?” Frigga asked, turning away from the poor trembling boy as though she could not stand to even look at him.
“Pri . . . Prince Thor,” he stuttered, “asked . . . he asked me to tell him if . . . if his horse went into labor, your majesty.”
Frigga’s glare shifted to Thor. “Son, do you think it appropriate to interrupt royal audience over a horse?”
Thor grimaced. He knew his mother couldn’t possibly understand his relationship with the horse, but he had hoped that she’d grasp that it was important to him. He had hoped that the horse would foal at night, as was typical, but she was not a typical horse. It didn’t matter what political nonsense Thor had scheduled, he needed to be there for her. She would be scared and hurting and after all she had helped him through, Thor owed it to her to be there.
“You do not need me for this, mother. I will only make more mistakes and anger you further.”
He turned to the arguing husband and wife. “I am sorry, citizens of Asgard, but I must excuse myself.”
Frigga looked resigned, but the anger in her eyes said they would be discussing the matter privately and at great length when there were no longer citizens present.
Thor didn’t bother to wait for the stable boy. He swung his hammer and used the momentum to fly to the stables. The horse was not in her stall, but her whinny’s of pain drew Thor easily over to one of the larger enclosed stalls. The horse lay on her side, taking deep wheezing breaths, clearly agitated. She would move as if to stand up and then lay back down again. The contractions danced visibly across her skin as she whimpered and pushed, hooves scrabbling helplessly on the dirt of the stable floor.
The lead stable hand and two of the stable boys were looking on from outside the enclosure. Thor pushed them aside, “Why are you standing there? She’s in pain. Do something!”
“Horses are skilled at labor,” the lead stable hand pointed out. “They resist human interference and almost never need it. We are here only in case of complications. The foal should be born in moments.”
Thor ignored the warnings and the restraining hands in order to open the stable door and rush to the horse’s side.
“Watch out, she might bite you!” someone shouted when Thor lifted the horse’s head and placed it in his lap.
It was probably one of the few times that the horse did not try to bite him. Thor stroked her white mane, feeling the sweat on her neck - worse than even their most strenuous rides.
It was not long before the foal began to emerge. Thor knew that foals emerged headfirst, but he could hardly tell, as it just appeared to be legs exiting.
“You are doing very good,” Thor reassured the horse. “I can see your child! Just push a little more.”
But despite the heaving breaths and all the horse’s restless pushing, the foal did not emerge further. She became increasingly distressed, crying out and kicking her hooves in pain.
Thor looked at the stable hands and his heart beat faster seeing their worry. One of the boys ran to grab healing materials and the lead stable hand finally entered the stable. He ran a comforting hand down the horse’s side in reassurance.
“Don’t worry,” Thor told the horse. “We’ll help you.” He turned to the stable hand. “This isn’t normal?”
He looked down at the foal, shaking his head. “It looks like it’s coming out with all four feet first. All my time working at the royal stables and I have never seen this. We’ll try to ease him out, but if this is as bad as it looks, we may have to cut her a little to allow this one out.”
Thor stiffened in horror. He’d heard of such practices for Aesir women, but it was rare and done by a team of healers. Horses were not as valuable as Aesir women and Thor wondered if the stable hands would do so and expect the horse to survive.
“We should get her to stand,” the stable hand said, but despite all their attempts, the mare would not budge.
“She needs to stand so that the foal will return to the womb and can reposition itself.”
The horse shook her head violently, glaring at Thor.
“She does not desire to do that.”
“Too bad! She can’t deliver the foal with all four feet first.”
The horse shook her head again, begging Thor with eyes blown black with fear and adrenaline.
“She thinks she can.”
“She’s a horse!”
Thor did not have time to argue the intelligence of his magical horse with the stable hands who already thought he was crazy for spending so much time talking to her. “Look, let her try a little longer and then we can force her.”
The stable hand sighed, murmuring about know-everything princes with obsessive relationships with their horses.
The stable hand pulled away the membrane that covered the foal and looked closely at its four hooves. He grabbed ahold of them and pulled at little, eliciting a pained noise from the horse. Thor patted her head, trying to reassure her.
Tense moments later, the horse’s struggling finally seemed to result.
“Oh, wait, we have a head,” the stable hand shouted.
“Is that good?”
“I can’t say. The foal must be contorted into an almost impossible position for there to be all four legs and a head.”
The horse shuddered, forcing the foal out further.
“Oh Valhalla,” the stable hand said in awe.
“What?” Thor demanded.
“The foal isn’t coming with all four legs first. It has four forelegs!”
The horse’s child was deformed? Thor shuddered, but continued to sooth his companion, whispering to her that everything would be fine and that she was almost there and would see her baby soon.
The rest of the labor was slow and pained compared to what Thor had read in the library, but eventually the foal was born. The horse collapsed into Thor’s lap with great heaving breaths, her belly looking strangely concave and empty. She nudged him with her nose, sad green eyes shining with relief and entreaty.
For once, Thor understood her meaning so he lay her head down on the floor to check on her baby.
Pulling the rest of the membrane away revealed that the little dapple grey foal had eight legs instead of four.
“Helheim,” the stable hand swore, “I cannot believe it.”
Despite its abnormality, the foal did not seem deformed. It nuzzled Thor’s hand when he used a towel to clean it and all eight legs moved independently. They waited a long while - until after the sun set - hoping that the horse would find the strength to stand and server the cord on her own before deciding to cut the umbilical cord. Thor thought to use his runic knife (the one gifted to him by Seupu) but, moving for the first time since she’d finally delivered the foal, the horse kicked out, knocking the knife from Thor’s hands. The stable hand shook his head, grabbing a special knife from the healing kit and easily accomplishing the task without getting kicked.
“Normally, the mare would start licking the little one, but her labor was the most difficult I’ve seen and she is very tired. We’ll let her rest while we try to get the foal standing.”
It was a trial, learning to stand on eight legs, but eventually the foal managed it, looking surprised once he arrived on his feet. The stable hands quickly cleaned his belly button with healing gel and checked him over for any problems other than being born with eight legs. He leaned against Thor, probably expecting milk.
“We have to get her up, now,” the stable hand said after a long while letting the horse rest. “The baby needs to nurse soon after birth.”
Thor moved slowly away from the foal once he was certain that he could stand on his own. The horse’s panting breaths were less desperate now, though she still lay on her side. Thor roused her gently, stroking her neck.
“You did very well, horse. But your baby needs milk now. We will help you stand.”
The horse was too tired to nod, but she moved as if to stand before flopping back down. Thor and the three stable hands slowly helped push and pull her to her feet. Luckily, the foal did not need any help finding a way to nurse.
The foal stuck close to its mother, even when she delivered the afterbirth considerably later. The stable hand warned that horses would try to eat the afterbirth, but she ignored it, walking with her foal towards the stable door and then out into the pasture to eat a little sweet grass. Thor gave her a few apples and thanked the stable staff. It was dark now, but the moon was still close to full. The foal nuzzled and played with Thor for a short time before clearly tiring. Thor expected the horse to head back to the stable to sleep, but instead she walked over to the big apple tree in the middle of the pasture. She obviously wanted her foal to spend its first night sleeping under the stars as she and Thor loved.
Thor retrieved several blankets from the stables to drape over them all. He fell asleep pressed against the horse’s back with the foal curled up between them.
***
Thor awakened to a frigid hand on his chest and someone shivering. It was still dark outside, but in the ethereal glow of the moonlight he could see the form of another man with long black hair cuddled against him. He at first thought that Seupu had somehow returned to molest him again, but after blinking the sleep from his eyes, he knew that there was only one person it could be. He’d know the body sprawled naked against him almost his entire life. He knew the way every muscle played over bone on that lean body, every scar and imperfection, every expression on the face that was now looking languidly up at him, green eyes shining.
“Loki?” Thor whispered, almost afraid to break the spell of this silent moonlit night. He’d been hoping for this moment for nearly a year and now that it had finally arrived it seemed so surreal that Thor was half convinced that he still dreamed.
Loki nodded. His smooth black hair was much longer now and greasy. His naked body was covered in sweat, dirt, and a little blood. He had deep bags under his eyes and a weight to his movements that spoke of utter exhaustion. He looked so far from his usual polished self and yet he was the sweetest thing Thor had ever seen. Thor pulled his brother to him, pulling back one when Loki gasped, obviously sore.
“Where have you been all this time?” Thor asked, pulling the blankets tight around them in order to ease Loki’s shivers.
Loki didn’t answer, just looked pointedly at Thor in the exact way the horse did when she wanted him to know that her lack of response had nothing to do with the fact that she couldn’t talk and everything to do with the fact that Thor’s question was too stupid to warrant an answer.
Speaking of the horse, she wasn’t anywhere in the field, even though the foal slept contentedly curled up against Loki’s back. “What happened to the horse?”
Loki sighed, his voice scratchy and slow with sleep. “Thor, you lovable idiot, I am the horse.”
Before Thor could even begin to process that, Loki closed his eyes, nuzzling against Thor’s chest in the same way the horse had always done. A heartbeat later, Loki was asleep, curled against his brother under the stars.
A/N: I'm not quite sure what the fallout of this is going to be. Obviously, Thor was not expecting this and I have no idea how Odin and Frigga will react. A lot has changed for the brothers and I'm not sure how far I am going to take the lessons they have learned. After this, they obviously have enough fodder for change that this could be an AU where the events of Thor and the Avengers never happen or it could make for an even more tragic situation when they finally part ways. It may be a bit longer than usual before the next update while I meditate on this.
Next Chapter: Secrets