The Last Days of Magic and Glory Chapter #12
In this chapter, the band of warriors reunites and Thor learns some magic. Some progress is made on the Thor/Loki front.
Chapter 12: Fire and Ice
“Surely it was not that bad,” Thor said, a grin on his face. He was happy to escape the palace grounds and the troubling matters with Jotunheim. He was even more excited about sharing the magnificent joy of riding down the northern plain with his brother, his nephew, and his best friends in the Nine Realms.
Loki rolled his eyes. “She hit me!”
“Come now, brother, you know that is how Sif shows her affection. Do you truly regret seeing her?”
Loki paused a long moment in thought. “I regret that she and the warriors three now know of my condition. But, no, seeing Sif again was not a hardship.”
Thor grinned, embracing his brother and half lifting him off his feet. “You pretend to be a solitary creature, brother, but I know that you enjoy our friends.”
“Your friends, you mean.”
Thor stopped dead in his tracks, causing Sleipnir to run into him. Surely Loki did not mean that. The six of them had been a tight-knit group since their youth when they began training together. Sure, Loki was slightly younger than the boys, but so was Sif. He had started out as Thor’s annoying kid brother - too small to lift a sword and often too sickly to follow them on adventures - but he soon came to be a good warrior and an equal member of their band. In fact, as the only one capable of high levels of magic, they often relied on Loki for alternate strategies or to ease the roughness of camp. They all still teased Loki, but surely half a millennium was long enough for him to learn that he was no longer the burdensome younger brother that their father forced them to play with.
“You don’t mean that,” Thor replied. “Volstagg and Fandral were overjoyed to hear that you had returned. And I thought I saw Hogun hiding a smile.” Thor frowned. “His lips twitched, I could swear it. Even Sif, who I know you do not always get along with, seemed excited for your return.”
“They’re just happy that you aren’t crazy. I told you I saw Volstagg attempting to spy on us, which he did poorly, by the way. They thought you were so mentally broken that you imagined your horse to be your brother.”
Thor was not good at direct argument, especially against Loki. But he could be persuasive. “If they are not your friends, then why does Hogun always claim you in sparring practice?”
“Because he doesn’t want to fight you.”
Thor ignored the protest. “And why does Volstagg help you with your many varied schemes?”
“Volstagg likes a good joke.”
“And Fandral, why does beg you like a puppy to sneak off to Midgard with him on your little adventures?”
“Because he wants someone who will blend in, not stick out like a weed.”
“And Sif? If Sif is not your friend then why does she schedule shifts whenever you are in the healing rooms so that you will not wake up alone?”
“An overblown mothering instinct.”
Thor turned to Loki, gripping both arms and staring deep into his brother’s eyes. “Trust me, brother, you were not forgotten in your long absence. You are loved.”
Loki shook Thor’s hands off and Thor let him go. He knew better than to try to restrain Loki when he was in this kind of hateful, nihilistic mood. “Loved from within your shadow, perhaps.”
“What do you mean?”
Loki sighed. “If you have not noticed in a thousand years, you’re not going to start now.”
Thor felt distraught. He thought finally seeing Loki vulnerable instead of hiding his true feelings in nets and traps of lies and mischief would help them grow closer, but it only seemed to be succeeding in tearing Thor’s heart apart. The look on Loki’s face was one of genuine hurt. Thor remembered Tyr’s words. Had Thor been the cause of that pain? Had he been hurting Loki all along and Loki just hid it from him?
Thor stopped. They had reached the river where they would meet their friends. He sat down on a moss-covered log and pulled Loki by the hand to sit next to him. Even when they were finally sitting knee to knee, prepared for a serious conversation, Thor did not release Loki’s hand. Loki lived in a world of magic and shadows and Thor had both feet permanently stuck on the ground, but today it was Thor who needed the anchor to the physical.
“Thor, you are more than just the eldest son. The kingdom, our father, your friends, they all adore you. You are the embodiment of everything Asgard values. Your strength, your guilelessness, your perpetual good cheer, even your temper is seen as a mere indicator of your passion. I know you do not mean to be so perfect in their eyes. You just are, as though when our parents conceived you they sent the exact dimensions of the perfect prince to a tailor to have you fashioned to order.”
“But I’m not!” Thor protested. “You agree that I make a horrible king.”
Loki chuckled. “Oh, Thor, as usual, you miss the point. It doesn’t matter if you will be a great king or go down in history as the utter buffoon you are. What matters is that people believe you to be great and any flaws to be merely charming. I am a prince as well, so none dare treat me with disrespect, but I cannot be your equal when you are so loved. I tried,” Loki admitted, looking down at where their hands were still twined in Thor’s lap. “I learned to be a warrior and I tried my best to act in the interests of the kingdom, but there is no use in competing. No matter how hard I try I can not beat you at a game you were simply born to dominate. So I decided to just be myself, cultivate my own talents and hope that people will see results instead of personality.”
“People do see the results. Sadly, they see the results of your pranks as well as your victories.”
Loki shrugged. “It doesn’t matter because ultimately they don’t care about results, not when you are there to wave your hammer around and awe them.”
Thor wanted to protest, but Loki was right. Thor had always had the attention of the court and of their friends and parents. They looked to him as a leader and in his arrogance, he often believed himself to be one. “You cannot blame me for being who I am!” Thor protested. Even though he did feel sad that he’d never taken the chance to heal his brother’s hurt before, he could not be held responsible for the way people responded to him.
Loki considered it. “No, I suppose not. You would be who you are even if everyone hated you for it.”
“Then what do you want me to do? How can I make things better for you?”
“As all powerful as you may imagine yourself to be, I don’t think you can.”
That was what broke Thor’s heart. But, then again, Loki had always been pessimistic - quick to see the worst in people and in a situation even though the many times he had predicted Thor’s foolishness would lead them into death, it had never come to pass.
Thor gave Loki a playful punch in the arm. “I may not know what to do to fix this, brother, but I will try.” He grinned. “And know that whatever the court gossips may say, I do not see you as lesser than I. We are very different, but as these past weeks have shown, our differences compliment.”
Loki grinned a little. Normally, Loki’s smiles were consuming and manic, but this small grin was tender and Thor couldn’t help but smile back. “Admit it, brother, you enjoy the shadows.”
Before Loki could respond, they heard the clatter of hoofbeats and armor and sure enough Sif and the warriors three emerged down the path.
Fandral was first to dismount, immediately walking up to Loki and pulling him into a quick embrace. “If it isn’t the great trickster himself!” Fandral grinned. “He who tricks gullible brothers and couples with horses!”
Thor noticed a slight twitch of annoyance in Loki’s jaw, but then Fandral pulled him in for another hug, patting his back heartily. “Oh, it is good to see you, again.”
“You had Thor in a fit of nerves when you left - like a dog without his master,” Volstagg added, picking Loki up off the ground in his enthusiasm to hug him.
“You were worried as well,” Sif said to Volstagg. “Don’t bother to deny it.” She kissed Loki on the cheek in a rare womanly greeting.
Hogun did not say anything, but he also hugged Loki, before making his way over to Sleipnir. Hogun needed only to extend his hand before Sleipnir was nuzzling him. “So this is the little one?” Hogun asked. They’d seen him before, of course, but Thor supposed seeing the foal out of curiosity for his excess of legs and seeing him as Loki’s son were two different things. “Those extra legs don’t get in the way?”
Loki beamed. “He’s actually quite fast. He puts the other foals to shame.”
“So he will ride out with us?” Fandral asked.
Loki nodded.
Fandral joined Hogun in his examination of Sleipnir. “He’s big. With all those legs it must have hurt like a gut wound to get him out.”
Loki scowled. “It was not a pleasant experience, no.”
“Nine moments of pleasure, nine moons of pain,” Fandral teased.
“More like three moments of pain, then eleven more moons,” Loki grumbled under his breath. It didn’t appear as though Fandral heard him.
“Though I suppose everyone needs a hobby,” Fandral continued, oblivious to Loki’s growing discomfort.
Volstagg also laughed. “I can’t imagine a hobby where I’d run around with this lump of muscle on my back.” He poked Thor. “What if you had shapeshifted back with him on top of you? How foolish that would have looked!”
“Not as foolish as you wearing nothing but gold grease and looking like a lobotomized dodo bird in molt.” Loki’s tone was cutting and angry, far more angry than the friendly teasing seemed to warrant. But then Thor thought back to their previous conversation. Maybe Loki didn’t see this as playful banter. Maybe he saw his friends undermining him.
“I’m sorry I missed that,” Fandral sighed dramatically. “We could have composed such ballads: An Ode to a Naked Fat Man; Red Hair, Gold Grease; The Spy with the Gilded Loins; Shall I Compare Thee to a Dodo Bird in Molt?”
They all laughed and some of the tension drained from Loki’s features. “It was a rather horrifying experience, Fandral. I would not wish it upon myself if I were you.”
Sleipnir had grown bored with their jokes and was now running around them, chasing a grasshopper.
“Sleipnir!” Loki called. “Don’t tire yourself. We have a great adventure ahead of us.” Sleipnir trotted obediently up to where his father crouched down and Loki calmed him with a few pats to his withers.
“He really is your son.” Fandral seemed astonished.
“I gave birth to him, so of course he is.”
“No, I mean, you treat him like your real child.”
Loki stood, eyes ablaze. “He is my real child. He may be a horse, but I carried him in my body for eleven months. How dare you imply that I would abandon him because his form is not familiar. He’s . . .”
Loki’s rant stopped at Sif’s calming hand on his arm. “I’m sure none of these empty-headed fools, least of all Fandral the Great Bandit of Women’s Loins, pretends to understand the bond of a mother with her child.” She glared at Fandral.
“Oh, so now the women stick together!” Fandral retorted.
Sif’s punch was swift and well-targeted, as always. “Yes, because those of us who have the honor of being able to bring forth life should be a separate category. Perhaps a weaker category? One that will not kick you in your child-giving part and punch you in the nose the next time we spar?’
Fandral, luckily, knew when he was beat. Sif did not tolerate any implication that women were the weaker sex. And now her rage seemed to extend to protect all those who could bear children.
“Yes,” Thor mused. “As a man with small amounts of Jotun blood, I may also be able to bear children and I would certainly not kick you in the seeds and then punch you in the nose the next time we spar.”
Fandral looked properly terrified now, until Thor laughed, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Come, friends, let us ride. Loki and I have explored this country and it is wild and beautiful. I wish for you to share this beauty with me and help to give my nephew his first long adventure.”
Sif and the warriors three walked back to their horses, but once mounted, they looked at each other awkwardly.
“Forgive me, my princes,” Volstagg finally said. “We did not plan adequately and I did not think to bring the two of you a mount.”
Thor and Loki looked at each other. In truth, Thor had not thought about asking for a mount either. He’d had a horse for the past year - the perfect horse. He had not thought of riding another.
Loki quickly hid his embarrassment with the overconfident regal expression he used when he was about to talk his way into or out of something. “You need not worry yourself, Volstagg. I think following me as a horse will better guide Sleipnir and it will not be the first time I have taken this oaf on my back. Ride on ahead and we’ll catch up to you.”
Their friends looked a little bewildered, but followed Loki’s command.
“Are you sure, brother?” Thor asked. He was eager to ride the great white horse once again (he’d missed it in the last months of Loki’s pregnancy), but he did not want to see his brother humiliated by the submission. “We could run back to the stable for more horses.”
Loki shook his head. “It’s too late now. They will think me even weaker for going back on my word. And to tell you the truth, I miss running.”
“I miss it too,” Thor said sincerely. He squeezed his brother’s arm, proud that Loki was not ashamed.
“Would you like a saddle? I can conjure one.”
Thor shook his head. The horse had not had a saddle when Thor found her and in the months he rode her, Thor had learned not to need one. There was something exhilerating about riding bareback, a bond between horse and rider that felt unbreakable.
Loki smiled. His eyes stayed on Thor’s as he slid out of his tunic. Thor blinked and the familiar figure of the horse stood before him. When he pulled himself onto her back it felt like coming home.
***
They didn’t ride for long. The sun was lowering on the horizon and despite being fast, Sleipnir did not yet have the stamina of the adult horses. Loki made them rest frequently so he could give Sleipnir nourishing tastes of milk. The sight was common to Thor, but it clearly made the warriors three uncomfortable. Loki probably didn’t appreciate them seeing him do it either.
Before the sun set, Loki chose the place to make camp. It was an intensely turquoise glacial lake, with cold, still waters and snow capped mountains behind it. The wind blew swiftly across the plain, but the waters refused even a single ripple. The lakeshore was covered in white gravel that looked like bones just contemplating becoming sand. Thor could see why this inland sea would appeal to his brother. It was stark and a little haunting. Its strangeness sent a thrill down Thor’s spine.
They made camp under a long-dead tree in the golden grass by the lakeshore. Sif had gone to the market and purchased them the freshest fruits, including some of the golden barberries from Alfheim that had just come into season. Loki loved the berries so much that one season he had transformed himself into grassbear so he could gorge himself without needing to trade. Thor made sure to give Sif a grateful smile when Loki wasn’t looking. Hogun was a skilled fisherman and the lake was full of a particularly delicious orange trout, so he had volunteered to catch dinner. Loki had gone with him, which left Thor trying to calm a nervous Sleipnir, who paced the lakeshore nervously watching where Loki and Hogun were sitting with fishing poles on a magicked iceberg as though it were a raft.
Sif was setting up the tents while Thor, Fandral and Volstagg worked on setting up their firepit by the lakeshore.
“So, Loki really gave birth to that horse,” Volstagg said.
“He did,” Thor assured him. “I was there the whole time.”
Fandral wrinkled his nose. “Must have been gruesome.”
“It was a very difficult birth. With a eight legs you can imagine why. It didn’t seem like it at the time, but Loki was in real danger of bleeding to death,” he admitted quietly.
That shocked the two warriors, who paused in their work of arranging the fire logs.
“Loki has not had an easy time this past year. I would appreciate it if you did not tease him so.”
“We tease Loki about everything. If we suddenly stop he will wonder about our sanity,” Volstagg pointed out.
“Well, don’t tease him about this or be too harsh. He hasn’t talked to anyone but me for a year. He might be overwhelmed.”
“Maybe it was easy to forget when he was an innocent white horse that couldn’t talk, Thor, but Loki is hardly defenseless,” Fandral reminded Thor. “Volstagg and I joke, we tease, but when Loki has it in him to take retribution, he can be downright cruel.”
Volstagg nodded. “Or have you forgotten how he almost ruined your first hunt?”
“Or that Sif used to be blonde?”
“Or the time Lady Freja fainted when the golden necklace she kept bragging about turned into a snake?”
“Not to mention how the servers roll dice over who must deliver food to the high table for fear of the cruel pranks he plays on them.”
“Or the time he put you in a wedding dress?”
Thor sighed. It was all true, of course. It was hard to say which came first, the teasing or Loki’s mischief. Was the teasing a way to downplay the serious power that Loki wielded, to keep him in his place? Or were Loki’s oftentimes malicious acts of mischief only cruel as a result of resentment caused by teasing? Either way, Loki hardly comported himself honorably. And he hadn’t asked for Thor to intervene anyway. He’d probably just grow resentful of Thor fighting his battles for him.
“You’ve made your point,” Thor replied. “I just ask that you leave the matter of Sleipnir’s conception alone. As funny as it seems that Loki would copulate with a horse, I assure you that it was no laughing matter. And neither was the fact that he was trapped as a horse until Sleipnir was born.”
They both nodded solemnly.
“Concerning that exact matter,” Volstagg finally said. “You were spending all your time with him, talking to him when you thought he was a horse?”
“He wasn’t.”
“But you thought he was,” Volstagg pushed on. “It didn’t occur to you that was a little strange?” He exchanged a worried look with Fandral.
Thor shrugged. “I’m sure a part of me knew the horse was Loki.”
“The part that wanted to ride him,” Fandral laughed.
Thor punched him hard on the arm. “I would appreciate it if you did not tease me either.”
Fandral rolled his eyes. “Not possible, my friend. Not possible.”
“I think we’re ready,” Volstagg interrupted, gesturing to the practiced arrangement of wood and kindling. “Go ahead, light it.”
Thor looked around, remembering that he did not have his saddle and thus did not have the saddlebag, where he kept his firestarter. “Lend me your firestarter and I will.”
Volstagg shrugged, picking up a small piece of wood. He stared at it for a long moment before the tip burst into flame. He lit that main pile of kindling and they watched the fire develop.
“I’m surprised you do not know a basic fire spell,” Volstagg remarked. “It’s really quite simple and very helpful if you lose your firestarter.”
Thor blushed a little. He wasn’t ashamed of his lack of magic, but he was slightly ashamed of not having what was obviously a very basic and useful skill.
“I have had little need for magic. It is Loki’s skill, not mine.”
“Yes, we do have one of the most powerful sorcerer in the Nine Realms with us at most times, but this last year has taught us that we cannot rely on him,” Fandral explained.
“So you’re telling me you can do a fire spell also?”
Fandral smiled and snapped his fingers. A small little flame appeared to dance on the tip of his thumb like it were a candle.
“And Hogun and Sif?”
“We all know a few spells. We’ve been practicing and trying to expand our abilities since Loki left,” Volstagg explained. “I have been learning the cooking spells. Sif has studied healing. Hogun is trying very hard to master that ice spell that Loki just used to make their ‘boat’ and other elemental spells.”
“And you?” Thor asked Fandral.
“I have been trying to create illusions. Nowhere close to Loki’s level, of course. If I could make an amorphous black cloud, I’d be happy.”
Thor nodded. It was a smart plan, to have redundancies in their skill set in case something happened to Loki (or he simply wandered off). Thor would have enthusiastically approved the effort if they had brought it up to him. “Why did you not involve me?”
Volstagg coughed, looking uncomfortable.
“You were preoccupied,” Fandral argued, an annoying pleading tone in his voice. “And you have never been the best at magic.”
Thor nodded, wondering why Fandral was using the voice he normally used to get women to lay with him. It was designed to flatter and poorly covered Fandral’s insecurities.
“It is fine, Fandral. Do you think I would be offended that you state the obvious? I have not mastered practically a single spell despite having all the same lessons as Loki, who can send a projection of himself halfway around the world and turn entire buildings into pastries if he wants to.”
Fandral grinned uncertainty. No, he was not insecure over insulting Thor’s magical ability. That left the fact that Thor had not spent much time with the warriors since Loki disappeared. Perhaps they did not include him because they had slowly stopped seeing him as an integral part of their group.
“I know I have been as involved as usual lately. But now that Loki has returned to us, once father wakes all will be as it was.”
Volstagg sighed, looking regretful. “Thor, we will always be there to fight by your side when you have need of us. But you must admit that when you are king, you will have other duties. There will be no time for the grand quests of our youth. And even in war, you will not be able to plunge yourself into battle deep within the enemy territory as you once did. You will be needed for decisions of strategy.”
“But I am Asgard’s mightiest warrior! And together we are unstoppable. It would be strategically unwise not to use us this way.”
Volstagg didn’t argue. He looked resigned when he gave Thor a hearty pat on the back. “Things are changing, my friend. They will change with or without your consent. Odin has named you his heir. You sit on the throne in his stead. Your brother is a responsible parent now,” he motioned to where Loki was stepping back onto shore, cuddling Sleipnir and reassuring him that he would always come back and the horse need not worry.
Hogun dumped a bag of fish next to Volstagg. “If you are going to eat most of them, you can clean them.”
Volstagg grumbled, but picked up the bag and walked to the edge of the lake to begin his task. Thor noted that he used a spell to flake the scales off, but filleted the fish with his ordinary knife.
“He really is learning kitchen spells,” Thor remarked.
Loki seemed to perk up, watching Volstagg. “One sorcerer is not good enough?”
Fandral laughed. “Are you really objecting to Volstagg cleaning his own meat for once?”
“No. I would be a fool to deny Volstagg the chance to sympathize with the poor palace cooks that must keep up with his appetite. But you lot have never shown any interest in magic before. I believe Volstagg dismissed it as soon as the spellmaster explained that he could not summon pastries out of thin air.”
“We started getting interested in magic when you abandoned us,” Sif remarked, pushing Loki aside so she could share the weathered log he was sitting on.
“It was for a good cause,” Loki replied. He gazed fondly at Sleipnir, who was curiously watching Volstagg clean the fish, jumping every time Volstagg hurled some of the guts into the water and it made a splash.
“We obviously will never be at your skill level,” Sif continued. “But we’re making progress. And with the new librarian beings well-formed as she is, Fandral is on his way to becoming a mage.”
They all shared a laugh at Fandral’s notoriously single-minded motivation.
Loki smiled slightly. “Well, I’m no shapely librarian, but perhaps you would care to demonstrate what you are learning and maybe I can give some advice.”
After Volstagg had finished cleaning the fish and they were waiting for dinner to cook, they went around in turns, showing off the spells they had already learned and complaining about those that never seemed to quite work properly.
Thor couldn’t help but smile. He’d never seen this side to Loki before. He was a good teacher - patient, knowledgeable, easily able to switch approaches if his message was not understood. Combined with the tenderness with which he treated Sleipnir, Thor imagined he would make a great father to an Aesir child one day.
“I would like to know how you made us the iceberg to fish with,” Hogun requested. “It would be very useful magic if we are ever trapped against a body of water.”
Loki grinned. “That’s one of my favorites, actually.”
They all walked to the water’s edge, where Loki placed a palm on the water’s surface, closing his eyes and concentrating. Ice crystals spread out from his hand, solidifying and deepening until it an area wide enough for all of them to stand was covered in ice. “It will take practice to get the thickness you need to support body weight, but the spell itself it relatively simple.”
The explanation didn’t make sense to Thor, but Hogun seemed to understand. Still, he struggled to even make the water feel colder.
“That’s strange,” Loki said. “This was one of the first spells I learned and I found is easier than all the others. But each mind is different. For me, I picture the water relaxing into its natural, most comfortable state, as though it has longed to find its place in a solid structure. But maybe your mind does not work that way. Perhaps you need to focus on feelings of rigidly.”
After much trying, Hogun was able to form a thin, almost imperceptible layer of frost.
Loki smiled and clapped him on the back. “That’s a start. You will manage it eventually.”
“Thank you,” Hogun gave a little bow. “You have been surprisingly helpful.”
Sif also seemed surprised with how supportive Loki was, not poking fun at the way she accidentally switched two of Volstaggs toes while trying to heal his a bunion, but instead examining exactly what she’d been thinking and why it lead to that result. Loki was still imperious in his pronouncements and pretentious in his manner of explaining things, but they had all expected Loki’s usual ridicule when it came to lording his intelligence over them. Clearly all one needed was to give Loki the stage and he seemed happy, almost desperate to share all that he knew.
“Thank you,” Sif smiled, leaning into Loki’s side with a sigh. “But bunions are one thing, healing a battlewound, quite another.”
“Healing magic is tricky. It is something that runs in the blood. Even if I grew a hundred times as powerful, I would not be able to manage all of the magic that Eir performs. You were a wise choice to learn these spells, Sif. Women are better conduits for healing spells.”
Sif leaned away from Loki again, scowling. But Loki held his hands up in surrender. “I’m not saying you couldn’t beat me in a fight, Sif. We all know that without magic you do so without breaking a sweat. But magic is intertwined with the physical as well as consciousness. You should be happy for the advantage your body provides. You won’t ever be able to heal a knife wound, but I think I can at least teach you how to convince the blood to remain in the body.”
All the warriors looked suitably impressed.
“That would be wonderful,” Fandral said (probably because he was usually the one that was in danger of misplacing his blood), “but the real miracle would be if you could teach Thor.”
“Teach Thor what?”
“He couldn’t even manage to light the fire,” Volstagg pointed out.
“Thor, that was the first spell Master Freyr taught us!” Loki laughed with mock outrage. “Did you do anything at all during our magic lessons?”
Thor blushed, offering sheepishly, “I composed you that ballad you like about the two princes who battle the dragon?”
Loki rolled his eyes. “That’s a no, then. No wonder Master Freyr always seemed so frustrated when he had solo lessons with you.”
The fish had finished cooking and the group ate while Loki explained. “There are many different ways to make a simple fire spell. You’ve noticed that even among our little band, we have different methods. Volstagg uses a starter object. He heats the object itself until it it combusts. Fandral uses his own body’s magic to make his fingerprints like flints and his sweat like wax to create a candle-like effect. Hogun transforms a pocket of air into a gas that ignites with even the slightest heat. But it is Sif who you should try to emulate, because her method is more applicable to other spells.”
Usually Loki ate daintily, but in his enthusiasm to explain, he had gotten a smear of barberry juice on his cheek. Thor smiled and wiped it away with his thumb without interrupting the lecture.
Loki paused briefly to smile back at Thor before continuing. “You need to change the state of the molecules of air. To do this, you need to first develop your elemental gaze. Look not with your eyes. Close them, if you must. You need to slip beyond the visual, into the part of yourself that inhabits more than your physical form.”
“This sounds difficult,” Thor complained.
Loki smiled at him, leaning close when the others were distracted by laughing at one of Fandral’s tales of Midgard. “You know the feeling of magic, Thor. When we were riding together, we went to places where the veil of reality is stretched thin. I know you felt it. You should feel it here too.”
Thor reached out for that feeling of wonder from their long summer’s ride, but with the warriors laughing and Sleipnir nudging at Thor’s thigh and Loki so distractingly present he could not seem to concentrate.
“Here, take my hands and we will find it together.”
Loki’s hands were cold and dry as always, probably because his fingers were so long and much slimmer than Thor’s. After a year without sparring practice, Loki’s palms were smooth, like Thor had only felt from the palace maidens.
“Look over my shoulder at a place about the same distance away as your height. Let your gaze unfocus so that you are not looking at any particular spot, but your eyes still do not move.”
Thor did what he said, only seeing a blurry palate of white and turquoise where the beach met the lake.
“Good. Now you want to see the elements themselves - the individual miniscule pieces that make up all of reality. I will lead you there.”
Thor felt the presence of another consciousness brush lightly up against his. It felt natural, of course. He’d known his brother all his life. They were like two puzzle pieces, both needed to make up the whole, fitting perfectly together with no overlap. It was not the keys to the secrets Loki had promised him. They would never mix, never intrude. Their differences kept them firmly in their separate domains, but Loki’s presence filled the voids, the little pockets that remained blind spots in Thor’s understanding of the world. And suddenly he was looking beyond. The brilliant turquoise of the lake disappeared into a world where color itself could not be, for color was a million elements arranged to reflect patterns of light. But they were looking at single waves of light, not patterns, single elements, not a vast canvas.
The elements drifted. They approached each other then repelled, drifting like balloons at a festival. They did not touch, but moved in a pattern that suggested that they might desire to mingle after all. Thor was entranced. Was this what Loki saw all the time?
He blinked and Loki’s mind was gone, leaving Thor aching in places beyond the physical.
“You saw it.” It was not a question.
Thor nodded.
“Now, to make fire, you need to imagine those elements you saw becoming agitated. They were mostly floating when you saw them, right? They didn’t react with each other. What you must do is make them so agitated that they will collide and combine.”
“How do I do that?”
Loki shrugged. “There are a lot of ways. Some imagine anger, others panic, others prefer not to anthropomorphize and just imagine speed.”
“What do you do?” Thor asked. He remembered, ashamed, that in all their many years together, he’d never asked Loki what it felt like to do magic or how he did it. He just took for granted that it was one of those things of Loki’s domain that never crossed into Thor’s.
Loki’s gaze was intense, his green eyes reflecting the still-roaring fire. “When Master Freyr first taught us - well, when he first taught me - he told me to imagine the elements were being playful and excited, jumping about like on the plants of a spring-bog. But the spell was never my strongest. I found the creation of ice much easier.”
Thor remembered all the times Loki had frozen his soup in the dining hall or encased his favorite sword in an impenetrable locker of ice. Once, when they had been fighting, Loki had even give Thor frostbite in order to force him to let Loki go.
But now Loki used hot bursts of energy as much as he used ice when they did battle. “What changed?” Thor asked.
“I learned passion.”
Thor smiled. To all that knew them, Thor was the passionate one - easily incited to great acts of devotion or to rage. Loki was cool and frigid, living in a head full of machinations with no room for the heart. But Thor knew better. He knew his brother felt deeply even if he did not always show it.
“Passion, then,” Thor said, squirming a little with nerves.
This time, when he saw the elements, he imagined them yearning, throwing themselves at each other like doing battle or making love. They strained against the casual floating; they resented that it should be their natural state, when all they wanted was passion.
Thor came back to himself with Loki’s hand on his thigh. There was a small red-tinted fire burning in the air between them in the shape of a perfect sphere.
“I’m containing it,” Loki said with a grin. “With your hotheaded passion you would ignite this whole lakeshore. It would make Sif angry.”
Thor laughed. “And not making Sif angry is the most important reason not to let everything burn?”
“Sif is particularly hilarious when she is angry, yes, but I know you do not like it when she plots against you.”
The others had stopped their conversation when they saw Thor’s flame and now that she was listening, Sif smacked Loki on the back of the head.
“I can’t believe I actually missed you,” she complained, but the way she seemed to cuddle up to Loki belied her true affection. In fact, Thor was not sure he enjoyed a world in which Sif and Loki got along. They caused enough trouble for Thor without allying.
The warriors congratulated Thor on his first act of magic and Loki on conquering the infinite army of Thor’s woeful magical skills.
They spent the rest of the evening talking, reminiscing about their previous quests and telling each other the of all things they’d missed in the past year. Loki embarrassed Thor by relating the tale of Thor’s dalliance with Prince Seupu, which made Thor so angry that he chased him around the campsite (with Sleipnir joining in as though it were a game). Loki saved himself by running out onto the water of the lake with ice forming instantly beneath his feet to support him. In the end, Thor retaliated by relaying the story of the first time Loki had tried to make his anti-conception potion and it had ended up turning his loins the same bright blue color as a Jujubi.
Sif and the warriors three had been on quite a few quests by themselves and had many tales. Volstagg related of the story of how Fandral came running out of the hut of a giant with his pants on backwards and the grand plot they had to execute in order to steal his armor back. Another time, Volstagg and Sif had played a prank on Hogun and kept moving his favorite dagar to locations that suggested that Loki’s spell to make it sentient had succeeded after all. The created a grand romance where it kept following one of Sif’s throwing knives around until one day a bunch of little paring knives were born. In order to gain money to stay at an inn overnight when they were stranded on Alfheim due to bad weather conditions that could interfere with the Bifrost, Sif had entered a singing competition and though she’d lost badly, had gained the attention of amorous Elf who took Sif to bed but made the warriors three sleep in the barn with his goats.
After Sleipnir fell asleep in Hogun’s lap and they had all downed a considerable amount of mead, Fandral decided he would recite poetry, particularly Midgardian poetry. Thor didn’t understand why Fandral loved it so much. As far as Thor was concerned, no great lyrical epics had come out of Midgard since Fandral and Loki had returned having seen a performance at some Globe Stagehouse about the brave and honorable King Henry and his invasion of the French Realm. After Loki had recited it for Thor, he had begged their mother to stage a formal reading of it.
“Before we retire,” Fandral announced, slurring slightly. Fandral never could take his mead. “I have a poem that is particularly apropos, considering the magic we have been learning this eve. From Frostson of Midgard:”
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.”
Thor’s eyes automatically sought Loki’s over the smoke from the fire. Volstagg was teasing Fandral for choosing a poem that didn’t even bother having a metrical line and Sif was slumped on Loki’s shoulder, half asleep from mead, but Loki’s eyes were lively and suddenly Thor felt more awake than he had in a long time.
“Do you think that Frostson is implying that it will be the Asgardians and not the Frost Giants that will cause Ragnarok?” Sif mumbled sleepily.
“He is a Frostson, so maybe it is a point of pride for his people,” Volstagg argued.
“What happens to Midgard, again?” Sif asked. Sif had been notoriously terrible in their literature lessons, particularly in the prophetic poems.
“A great wolf swallows the sun.” Loki’s voice was a gravely whisper. He looked as though he were half in a trance. “The world is slowly coated in snow and ice until nothing survives.”
“So it does end in Ice?” Sif asked. “Do the Jotun go there?”
“No,” Thor remembered this part, “they make war on Asgard and the flames from the battle reach Midgard somehow.”
“The Bifrost?” Hogun asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Loki snapped. “It’s all just myth and speculation. I am going to nurse Sleipnir and then I’m going to sleep.” He cast a spell around the fire to keep any sparks from escaping and picked Sleipnir up out of Hogun’s lap to walk around the bend where he wouldn’t be seen transforming.
The rest of the group disbanded as well. Sif and Volstagg went to one tent and Hogun and Fandral to another, leaving one tent for Thor and Loki as usual.
Thor stayed watching the dying embers of the fire as they slowly extinguished.
When Loki and Sleipnir returned, they didn’t head for the tent. Instead, Loki sat down next to Thor and tucked his body against Thor’s as they looked out at the moonlight and the still lake. It reminded Thor of the day he met the horse.
Suddenly, the wind picked up, tugging at Thor’s hair and blowing a few stray leaves around them. The air had been chilly, but there was something electric in the wind. It tickled down Thor’s spine and settled as a warmth in his bones. The stars seemed to sparkle brighter, to move just slightly with the wind, as though they were lights hanging from invisible threads in the firmament. Thor felt as though something decoupled, in the Earth or in his chest, and reality broke loose from its moores to offer the world up to him like a canvas. He was an infinite being, he understood at once, and space folded and pulsed around him, beating to the great heart that pumped life through the veins of the Yggdrasil.
“There’s magic here,” he whispered.
Loki’s smile was brilliant, so pure with joy that Thor could not imagine the layers of lies and mischief that usually obscured it. And, for the first time since Loki was a babe kept swaddled and protected and hidden from Thor for his delicacy, Thor looked upon his brother and saw him as beautiful.
Magic stirred in the air, stilling every muscle in Thor’s body and filling him with the instant peace of revelation. This is what had been building between them this long year. It was hardly a diplomatic peace, as Loki had suggested. They could be no small gestures of appreciation and trust, no gradual thaw to allow each other access to the inner workings of the soul. It was a heart flung wide open. It was like hurling himself from the bifrost and into the great unknown.
Loki’s eyes were an intense, unfathomable green, glinting like daggers in the moonlight and they were knowing. But how could Loki know what Thor himself had only just discovered? Loki did not move. He did not seem to breathe, looking like a great alabaster-skinned statue with achingly kind eyes. He would accept Thor’s choices, his gaze said, but he would not move a hair’s breadth to spur the choice forward.
It did not seem to matter, for Thor did not perceive himself moving. It was the universe that moved around him, the space between them that folded, the magic on the wind that drew them together like the agitated, crashing elements, impelled to passion by an outside source.
This kiss was soft and tender, but lingered far longer than a kiss between brothers should. To Thor it felt as though time stopped, like the strange stillness of this place had permeated his bones. As he drew back, he let his hand remain on Loki’s cheek.
Loki smiled his soft smile again, taking Thor’s hand so they could return to their tent. It was the first night in a year that they had not slept under the stars.
***
Thor woke up to the feeling of warmth and another body against his. He smiled and opened his eyes to find that the warm body was not Loki, but Sleipnir, who appeared content to sprawl half himself on top of Thor with his legs dangling off to the sides.
The next thing Thor noted, upon waking, was that Sif was screaming. He pulled on his tunic and rushed out of the tent, disturbing Sleipnir, who stumbled to his feet, following his uncle.
Thor’s heartbeat immediately calmed, his battle-senses leaving him the second he spotted the four figures sitting on the lakeshore.
“Loki Odinson!” Came Sif’s high pitched screech. “I will kill you! I will kill you in a manner so humiliating that the Valkyries will laugh at you and you will never be admitted to Valhalla for shear embarassment. I will learn to all the magic I need so that I may curse you and every one of your future children! And the next time we spar you had better cover your . . .” Sif continued in that vein from where she was standing with two tents on an iceberg in the middle of the lake. At least Thor no longer had to worry about the unholy alliance that he had seen developing between her and Loki the previous night.
Thor ambled over to the four other figures who were sitting on the shore watching the show. He sat down next to Loki, wrapping his arm around his brother. “One day. You could not last one day without torturing Sif?”
Loki grinned. “My aim was not to torture Sif. It was a lesson to help Hogun learn the water-to-ice spell.” He gestured to where Hogun was sitting calmly in all his hunting gear. “When properly motivated, he figured out the spell to let him walk back over here.”
“It was quite brilliant,” Fandral added. He was soaking wet and wearing only his underclothes, spread out in the sun to let everything dry.
“True,” Volstagg agree, munching on an apple and not seeming particularly bothered that he too was soaked in what was probably freezing cold glacial water. “An innovative and effective teaching method.”
Sif hurled something at them from her perch on the iceberg. “Thor! Use your hammer and come get me!”
“Well, that wouldn’t be sporting,” Volstagg frowned. “Fandral and I had to swim over here.”
“Are you going to let the mighty Thor rescue you like a damsel?” Fandral shouted, which just prompted some curses on his name and more inventive propositions for their next sparring session.
After it became clear that neither Thor nor Loki was going to assist her, “I hate you all!” Sif screamed, stripping off her tunic and diving into the lake.
The second she hit the water, Loki snapped his fingers and the tents and the rest of the gear materialized back on the shore next to them.
Fandral laughed, putting an arm around Loki. “Valhalla, I have missed you.”
Next Chapter: On the Futility of Maintaining a Soap Bubble
***
A/N: It’s sort of my headcanon that Fandral sneaks off to Earth periodically because he just kind of likes it there (I think I remember someone saying that in the comics Fandral is Robin Hood) and sometimes Loki goes with him (why else would Loki be wearing a suit when he goes down there?). Also, am considering crackfic/art in which Fandral is Barney Stinson.
I tried to make the concept of magic in this fic mostly secular, but some religious elements snuck in there. Sorry. Also, I was terrible at chemistry, especially organic chemistry, so I also apologize for any mistakes in the explanation of how things burn.
Chapter 12: Fire and Ice
“Surely it was not that bad,” Thor said, a grin on his face. He was happy to escape the palace grounds and the troubling matters with Jotunheim. He was even more excited about sharing the magnificent joy of riding down the northern plain with his brother, his nephew, and his best friends in the Nine Realms.
Loki rolled his eyes. “She hit me!”
“Come now, brother, you know that is how Sif shows her affection. Do you truly regret seeing her?”
Loki paused a long moment in thought. “I regret that she and the warriors three now know of my condition. But, no, seeing Sif again was not a hardship.”
Thor grinned, embracing his brother and half lifting him off his feet. “You pretend to be a solitary creature, brother, but I know that you enjoy our friends.”
“Your friends, you mean.”
Thor stopped dead in his tracks, causing Sleipnir to run into him. Surely Loki did not mean that. The six of them had been a tight-knit group since their youth when they began training together. Sure, Loki was slightly younger than the boys, but so was Sif. He had started out as Thor’s annoying kid brother - too small to lift a sword and often too sickly to follow them on adventures - but he soon came to be a good warrior and an equal member of their band. In fact, as the only one capable of high levels of magic, they often relied on Loki for alternate strategies or to ease the roughness of camp. They all still teased Loki, but surely half a millennium was long enough for him to learn that he was no longer the burdensome younger brother that their father forced them to play with.
“You don’t mean that,” Thor replied. “Volstagg and Fandral were overjoyed to hear that you had returned. And I thought I saw Hogun hiding a smile.” Thor frowned. “His lips twitched, I could swear it. Even Sif, who I know you do not always get along with, seemed excited for your return.”
“They’re just happy that you aren’t crazy. I told you I saw Volstagg attempting to spy on us, which he did poorly, by the way. They thought you were so mentally broken that you imagined your horse to be your brother.”
Thor was not good at direct argument, especially against Loki. But he could be persuasive. “If they are not your friends, then why does Hogun always claim you in sparring practice?”
“Because he doesn’t want to fight you.”
Thor ignored the protest. “And why does Volstagg help you with your many varied schemes?”
“Volstagg likes a good joke.”
“And Fandral, why does beg you like a puppy to sneak off to Midgard with him on your little adventures?”
“Because he wants someone who will blend in, not stick out like a weed.”
“And Sif? If Sif is not your friend then why does she schedule shifts whenever you are in the healing rooms so that you will not wake up alone?”
“An overblown mothering instinct.”
Thor turned to Loki, gripping both arms and staring deep into his brother’s eyes. “Trust me, brother, you were not forgotten in your long absence. You are loved.”
Loki shook Thor’s hands off and Thor let him go. He knew better than to try to restrain Loki when he was in this kind of hateful, nihilistic mood. “Loved from within your shadow, perhaps.”
“What do you mean?”
Loki sighed. “If you have not noticed in a thousand years, you’re not going to start now.”
Thor felt distraught. He thought finally seeing Loki vulnerable instead of hiding his true feelings in nets and traps of lies and mischief would help them grow closer, but it only seemed to be succeeding in tearing Thor’s heart apart. The look on Loki’s face was one of genuine hurt. Thor remembered Tyr’s words. Had Thor been the cause of that pain? Had he been hurting Loki all along and Loki just hid it from him?
Thor stopped. They had reached the river where they would meet their friends. He sat down on a moss-covered log and pulled Loki by the hand to sit next to him. Even when they were finally sitting knee to knee, prepared for a serious conversation, Thor did not release Loki’s hand. Loki lived in a world of magic and shadows and Thor had both feet permanently stuck on the ground, but today it was Thor who needed the anchor to the physical.
“Thor, you are more than just the eldest son. The kingdom, our father, your friends, they all adore you. You are the embodiment of everything Asgard values. Your strength, your guilelessness, your perpetual good cheer, even your temper is seen as a mere indicator of your passion. I know you do not mean to be so perfect in their eyes. You just are, as though when our parents conceived you they sent the exact dimensions of the perfect prince to a tailor to have you fashioned to order.”
“But I’m not!” Thor protested. “You agree that I make a horrible king.”
Loki chuckled. “Oh, Thor, as usual, you miss the point. It doesn’t matter if you will be a great king or go down in history as the utter buffoon you are. What matters is that people believe you to be great and any flaws to be merely charming. I am a prince as well, so none dare treat me with disrespect, but I cannot be your equal when you are so loved. I tried,” Loki admitted, looking down at where their hands were still twined in Thor’s lap. “I learned to be a warrior and I tried my best to act in the interests of the kingdom, but there is no use in competing. No matter how hard I try I can not beat you at a game you were simply born to dominate. So I decided to just be myself, cultivate my own talents and hope that people will see results instead of personality.”
“People do see the results. Sadly, they see the results of your pranks as well as your victories.”
Loki shrugged. “It doesn’t matter because ultimately they don’t care about results, not when you are there to wave your hammer around and awe them.”
Thor wanted to protest, but Loki was right. Thor had always had the attention of the court and of their friends and parents. They looked to him as a leader and in his arrogance, he often believed himself to be one. “You cannot blame me for being who I am!” Thor protested. Even though he did feel sad that he’d never taken the chance to heal his brother’s hurt before, he could not be held responsible for the way people responded to him.
Loki considered it. “No, I suppose not. You would be who you are even if everyone hated you for it.”
“Then what do you want me to do? How can I make things better for you?”
“As all powerful as you may imagine yourself to be, I don’t think you can.”
That was what broke Thor’s heart. But, then again, Loki had always been pessimistic - quick to see the worst in people and in a situation even though the many times he had predicted Thor’s foolishness would lead them into death, it had never come to pass.
Thor gave Loki a playful punch in the arm. “I may not know what to do to fix this, brother, but I will try.” He grinned. “And know that whatever the court gossips may say, I do not see you as lesser than I. We are very different, but as these past weeks have shown, our differences compliment.”
Loki grinned a little. Normally, Loki’s smiles were consuming and manic, but this small grin was tender and Thor couldn’t help but smile back. “Admit it, brother, you enjoy the shadows.”
Before Loki could respond, they heard the clatter of hoofbeats and armor and sure enough Sif and the warriors three emerged down the path.
Fandral was first to dismount, immediately walking up to Loki and pulling him into a quick embrace. “If it isn’t the great trickster himself!” Fandral grinned. “He who tricks gullible brothers and couples with horses!”
Thor noticed a slight twitch of annoyance in Loki’s jaw, but then Fandral pulled him in for another hug, patting his back heartily. “Oh, it is good to see you, again.”
“You had Thor in a fit of nerves when you left - like a dog without his master,” Volstagg added, picking Loki up off the ground in his enthusiasm to hug him.
“You were worried as well,” Sif said to Volstagg. “Don’t bother to deny it.” She kissed Loki on the cheek in a rare womanly greeting.
Hogun did not say anything, but he also hugged Loki, before making his way over to Sleipnir. Hogun needed only to extend his hand before Sleipnir was nuzzling him. “So this is the little one?” Hogun asked. They’d seen him before, of course, but Thor supposed seeing the foal out of curiosity for his excess of legs and seeing him as Loki’s son were two different things. “Those extra legs don’t get in the way?”
Loki beamed. “He’s actually quite fast. He puts the other foals to shame.”
“So he will ride out with us?” Fandral asked.
Loki nodded.
Fandral joined Hogun in his examination of Sleipnir. “He’s big. With all those legs it must have hurt like a gut wound to get him out.”
Loki scowled. “It was not a pleasant experience, no.”
“Nine moments of pleasure, nine moons of pain,” Fandral teased.
“More like three moments of pain, then eleven more moons,” Loki grumbled under his breath. It didn’t appear as though Fandral heard him.
“Though I suppose everyone needs a hobby,” Fandral continued, oblivious to Loki’s growing discomfort.
Volstagg also laughed. “I can’t imagine a hobby where I’d run around with this lump of muscle on my back.” He poked Thor. “What if you had shapeshifted back with him on top of you? How foolish that would have looked!”
“Not as foolish as you wearing nothing but gold grease and looking like a lobotomized dodo bird in molt.” Loki’s tone was cutting and angry, far more angry than the friendly teasing seemed to warrant. But then Thor thought back to their previous conversation. Maybe Loki didn’t see this as playful banter. Maybe he saw his friends undermining him.
“I’m sorry I missed that,” Fandral sighed dramatically. “We could have composed such ballads: An Ode to a Naked Fat Man; Red Hair, Gold Grease; The Spy with the Gilded Loins; Shall I Compare Thee to a Dodo Bird in Molt?”
They all laughed and some of the tension drained from Loki’s features. “It was a rather horrifying experience, Fandral. I would not wish it upon myself if I were you.”
Sleipnir had grown bored with their jokes and was now running around them, chasing a grasshopper.
“Sleipnir!” Loki called. “Don’t tire yourself. We have a great adventure ahead of us.” Sleipnir trotted obediently up to where his father crouched down and Loki calmed him with a few pats to his withers.
“He really is your son.” Fandral seemed astonished.
“I gave birth to him, so of course he is.”
“No, I mean, you treat him like your real child.”
Loki stood, eyes ablaze. “He is my real child. He may be a horse, but I carried him in my body for eleven months. How dare you imply that I would abandon him because his form is not familiar. He’s . . .”
Loki’s rant stopped at Sif’s calming hand on his arm. “I’m sure none of these empty-headed fools, least of all Fandral the Great Bandit of Women’s Loins, pretends to understand the bond of a mother with her child.” She glared at Fandral.
“Oh, so now the women stick together!” Fandral retorted.
Sif’s punch was swift and well-targeted, as always. “Yes, because those of us who have the honor of being able to bring forth life should be a separate category. Perhaps a weaker category? One that will not kick you in your child-giving part and punch you in the nose the next time we spar?’
Fandral, luckily, knew when he was beat. Sif did not tolerate any implication that women were the weaker sex. And now her rage seemed to extend to protect all those who could bear children.
“Yes,” Thor mused. “As a man with small amounts of Jotun blood, I may also be able to bear children and I would certainly not kick you in the seeds and then punch you in the nose the next time we spar.”
Fandral looked properly terrified now, until Thor laughed, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “Come, friends, let us ride. Loki and I have explored this country and it is wild and beautiful. I wish for you to share this beauty with me and help to give my nephew his first long adventure.”
Sif and the warriors three walked back to their horses, but once mounted, they looked at each other awkwardly.
“Forgive me, my princes,” Volstagg finally said. “We did not plan adequately and I did not think to bring the two of you a mount.”
Thor and Loki looked at each other. In truth, Thor had not thought about asking for a mount either. He’d had a horse for the past year - the perfect horse. He had not thought of riding another.
Loki quickly hid his embarrassment with the overconfident regal expression he used when he was about to talk his way into or out of something. “You need not worry yourself, Volstagg. I think following me as a horse will better guide Sleipnir and it will not be the first time I have taken this oaf on my back. Ride on ahead and we’ll catch up to you.”
Their friends looked a little bewildered, but followed Loki’s command.
“Are you sure, brother?” Thor asked. He was eager to ride the great white horse once again (he’d missed it in the last months of Loki’s pregnancy), but he did not want to see his brother humiliated by the submission. “We could run back to the stable for more horses.”
Loki shook his head. “It’s too late now. They will think me even weaker for going back on my word. And to tell you the truth, I miss running.”
“I miss it too,” Thor said sincerely. He squeezed his brother’s arm, proud that Loki was not ashamed.
“Would you like a saddle? I can conjure one.”
Thor shook his head. The horse had not had a saddle when Thor found her and in the months he rode her, Thor had learned not to need one. There was something exhilerating about riding bareback, a bond between horse and rider that felt unbreakable.
Loki smiled. His eyes stayed on Thor’s as he slid out of his tunic. Thor blinked and the familiar figure of the horse stood before him. When he pulled himself onto her back it felt like coming home.
***
They didn’t ride for long. The sun was lowering on the horizon and despite being fast, Sleipnir did not yet have the stamina of the adult horses. Loki made them rest frequently so he could give Sleipnir nourishing tastes of milk. The sight was common to Thor, but it clearly made the warriors three uncomfortable. Loki probably didn’t appreciate them seeing him do it either.
Before the sun set, Loki chose the place to make camp. It was an intensely turquoise glacial lake, with cold, still waters and snow capped mountains behind it. The wind blew swiftly across the plain, but the waters refused even a single ripple. The lakeshore was covered in white gravel that looked like bones just contemplating becoming sand. Thor could see why this inland sea would appeal to his brother. It was stark and a little haunting. Its strangeness sent a thrill down Thor’s spine.
They made camp under a long-dead tree in the golden grass by the lakeshore. Sif had gone to the market and purchased them the freshest fruits, including some of the golden barberries from Alfheim that had just come into season. Loki loved the berries so much that one season he had transformed himself into grassbear so he could gorge himself without needing to trade. Thor made sure to give Sif a grateful smile when Loki wasn’t looking. Hogun was a skilled fisherman and the lake was full of a particularly delicious orange trout, so he had volunteered to catch dinner. Loki had gone with him, which left Thor trying to calm a nervous Sleipnir, who paced the lakeshore nervously watching where Loki and Hogun were sitting with fishing poles on a magicked iceberg as though it were a raft.
Sif was setting up the tents while Thor, Fandral and Volstagg worked on setting up their firepit by the lakeshore.
“So, Loki really gave birth to that horse,” Volstagg said.
“He did,” Thor assured him. “I was there the whole time.”
Fandral wrinkled his nose. “Must have been gruesome.”
“It was a very difficult birth. With a eight legs you can imagine why. It didn’t seem like it at the time, but Loki was in real danger of bleeding to death,” he admitted quietly.
That shocked the two warriors, who paused in their work of arranging the fire logs.
“Loki has not had an easy time this past year. I would appreciate it if you did not tease him so.”
“We tease Loki about everything. If we suddenly stop he will wonder about our sanity,” Volstagg pointed out.
“Well, don’t tease him about this or be too harsh. He hasn’t talked to anyone but me for a year. He might be overwhelmed.”
“Maybe it was easy to forget when he was an innocent white horse that couldn’t talk, Thor, but Loki is hardly defenseless,” Fandral reminded Thor. “Volstagg and I joke, we tease, but when Loki has it in him to take retribution, he can be downright cruel.”
Volstagg nodded. “Or have you forgotten how he almost ruined your first hunt?”
“Or that Sif used to be blonde?”
“Or the time Lady Freja fainted when the golden necklace she kept bragging about turned into a snake?”
“Not to mention how the servers roll dice over who must deliver food to the high table for fear of the cruel pranks he plays on them.”
“Or the time he put you in a wedding dress?”
Thor sighed. It was all true, of course. It was hard to say which came first, the teasing or Loki’s mischief. Was the teasing a way to downplay the serious power that Loki wielded, to keep him in his place? Or were Loki’s oftentimes malicious acts of mischief only cruel as a result of resentment caused by teasing? Either way, Loki hardly comported himself honorably. And he hadn’t asked for Thor to intervene anyway. He’d probably just grow resentful of Thor fighting his battles for him.
“You’ve made your point,” Thor replied. “I just ask that you leave the matter of Sleipnir’s conception alone. As funny as it seems that Loki would copulate with a horse, I assure you that it was no laughing matter. And neither was the fact that he was trapped as a horse until Sleipnir was born.”
They both nodded solemnly.
“Concerning that exact matter,” Volstagg finally said. “You were spending all your time with him, talking to him when you thought he was a horse?”
“He wasn’t.”
“But you thought he was,” Volstagg pushed on. “It didn’t occur to you that was a little strange?” He exchanged a worried look with Fandral.
Thor shrugged. “I’m sure a part of me knew the horse was Loki.”
“The part that wanted to ride him,” Fandral laughed.
Thor punched him hard on the arm. “I would appreciate it if you did not tease me either.”
Fandral rolled his eyes. “Not possible, my friend. Not possible.”
“I think we’re ready,” Volstagg interrupted, gesturing to the practiced arrangement of wood and kindling. “Go ahead, light it.”
Thor looked around, remembering that he did not have his saddle and thus did not have the saddlebag, where he kept his firestarter. “Lend me your firestarter and I will.”
Volstagg shrugged, picking up a small piece of wood. He stared at it for a long moment before the tip burst into flame. He lit that main pile of kindling and they watched the fire develop.
“I’m surprised you do not know a basic fire spell,” Volstagg remarked. “It’s really quite simple and very helpful if you lose your firestarter.”
Thor blushed a little. He wasn’t ashamed of his lack of magic, but he was slightly ashamed of not having what was obviously a very basic and useful skill.
“I have had little need for magic. It is Loki’s skill, not mine.”
“Yes, we do have one of the most powerful sorcerer in the Nine Realms with us at most times, but this last year has taught us that we cannot rely on him,” Fandral explained.
“So you’re telling me you can do a fire spell also?”
Fandral smiled and snapped his fingers. A small little flame appeared to dance on the tip of his thumb like it were a candle.
“And Hogun and Sif?”
“We all know a few spells. We’ve been practicing and trying to expand our abilities since Loki left,” Volstagg explained. “I have been learning the cooking spells. Sif has studied healing. Hogun is trying very hard to master that ice spell that Loki just used to make their ‘boat’ and other elemental spells.”
“And you?” Thor asked Fandral.
“I have been trying to create illusions. Nowhere close to Loki’s level, of course. If I could make an amorphous black cloud, I’d be happy.”
Thor nodded. It was a smart plan, to have redundancies in their skill set in case something happened to Loki (or he simply wandered off). Thor would have enthusiastically approved the effort if they had brought it up to him. “Why did you not involve me?”
Volstagg coughed, looking uncomfortable.
“You were preoccupied,” Fandral argued, an annoying pleading tone in his voice. “And you have never been the best at magic.”
Thor nodded, wondering why Fandral was using the voice he normally used to get women to lay with him. It was designed to flatter and poorly covered Fandral’s insecurities.
“It is fine, Fandral. Do you think I would be offended that you state the obvious? I have not mastered practically a single spell despite having all the same lessons as Loki, who can send a projection of himself halfway around the world and turn entire buildings into pastries if he wants to.”
Fandral grinned uncertainty. No, he was not insecure over insulting Thor’s magical ability. That left the fact that Thor had not spent much time with the warriors since Loki disappeared. Perhaps they did not include him because they had slowly stopped seeing him as an integral part of their group.
“I know I have been as involved as usual lately. But now that Loki has returned to us, once father wakes all will be as it was.”
Volstagg sighed, looking regretful. “Thor, we will always be there to fight by your side when you have need of us. But you must admit that when you are king, you will have other duties. There will be no time for the grand quests of our youth. And even in war, you will not be able to plunge yourself into battle deep within the enemy territory as you once did. You will be needed for decisions of strategy.”
“But I am Asgard’s mightiest warrior! And together we are unstoppable. It would be strategically unwise not to use us this way.”
Volstagg didn’t argue. He looked resigned when he gave Thor a hearty pat on the back. “Things are changing, my friend. They will change with or without your consent. Odin has named you his heir. You sit on the throne in his stead. Your brother is a responsible parent now,” he motioned to where Loki was stepping back onto shore, cuddling Sleipnir and reassuring him that he would always come back and the horse need not worry.
Hogun dumped a bag of fish next to Volstagg. “If you are going to eat most of them, you can clean them.”
Volstagg grumbled, but picked up the bag and walked to the edge of the lake to begin his task. Thor noted that he used a spell to flake the scales off, but filleted the fish with his ordinary knife.
“He really is learning kitchen spells,” Thor remarked.
Loki seemed to perk up, watching Volstagg. “One sorcerer is not good enough?”
Fandral laughed. “Are you really objecting to Volstagg cleaning his own meat for once?”
“No. I would be a fool to deny Volstagg the chance to sympathize with the poor palace cooks that must keep up with his appetite. But you lot have never shown any interest in magic before. I believe Volstagg dismissed it as soon as the spellmaster explained that he could not summon pastries out of thin air.”
“We started getting interested in magic when you abandoned us,” Sif remarked, pushing Loki aside so she could share the weathered log he was sitting on.
“It was for a good cause,” Loki replied. He gazed fondly at Sleipnir, who was curiously watching Volstagg clean the fish, jumping every time Volstagg hurled some of the guts into the water and it made a splash.
“We obviously will never be at your skill level,” Sif continued. “But we’re making progress. And with the new librarian beings well-formed as she is, Fandral is on his way to becoming a mage.”
They all shared a laugh at Fandral’s notoriously single-minded motivation.
Loki smiled slightly. “Well, I’m no shapely librarian, but perhaps you would care to demonstrate what you are learning and maybe I can give some advice.”
After Volstagg had finished cleaning the fish and they were waiting for dinner to cook, they went around in turns, showing off the spells they had already learned and complaining about those that never seemed to quite work properly.
Thor couldn’t help but smile. He’d never seen this side to Loki before. He was a good teacher - patient, knowledgeable, easily able to switch approaches if his message was not understood. Combined with the tenderness with which he treated Sleipnir, Thor imagined he would make a great father to an Aesir child one day.
“I would like to know how you made us the iceberg to fish with,” Hogun requested. “It would be very useful magic if we are ever trapped against a body of water.”
Loki grinned. “That’s one of my favorites, actually.”
They all walked to the water’s edge, where Loki placed a palm on the water’s surface, closing his eyes and concentrating. Ice crystals spread out from his hand, solidifying and deepening until it an area wide enough for all of them to stand was covered in ice. “It will take practice to get the thickness you need to support body weight, but the spell itself it relatively simple.”
The explanation didn’t make sense to Thor, but Hogun seemed to understand. Still, he struggled to even make the water feel colder.
“That’s strange,” Loki said. “This was one of the first spells I learned and I found is easier than all the others. But each mind is different. For me, I picture the water relaxing into its natural, most comfortable state, as though it has longed to find its place in a solid structure. But maybe your mind does not work that way. Perhaps you need to focus on feelings of rigidly.”
After much trying, Hogun was able to form a thin, almost imperceptible layer of frost.
Loki smiled and clapped him on the back. “That’s a start. You will manage it eventually.”
“Thank you,” Hogun gave a little bow. “You have been surprisingly helpful.”
Sif also seemed surprised with how supportive Loki was, not poking fun at the way she accidentally switched two of Volstaggs toes while trying to heal his a bunion, but instead examining exactly what she’d been thinking and why it lead to that result. Loki was still imperious in his pronouncements and pretentious in his manner of explaining things, but they had all expected Loki’s usual ridicule when it came to lording his intelligence over them. Clearly all one needed was to give Loki the stage and he seemed happy, almost desperate to share all that he knew.
“Thank you,” Sif smiled, leaning into Loki’s side with a sigh. “But bunions are one thing, healing a battlewound, quite another.”
“Healing magic is tricky. It is something that runs in the blood. Even if I grew a hundred times as powerful, I would not be able to manage all of the magic that Eir performs. You were a wise choice to learn these spells, Sif. Women are better conduits for healing spells.”
Sif leaned away from Loki again, scowling. But Loki held his hands up in surrender. “I’m not saying you couldn’t beat me in a fight, Sif. We all know that without magic you do so without breaking a sweat. But magic is intertwined with the physical as well as consciousness. You should be happy for the advantage your body provides. You won’t ever be able to heal a knife wound, but I think I can at least teach you how to convince the blood to remain in the body.”
All the warriors looked suitably impressed.
“That would be wonderful,” Fandral said (probably because he was usually the one that was in danger of misplacing his blood), “but the real miracle would be if you could teach Thor.”
“Teach Thor what?”
“He couldn’t even manage to light the fire,” Volstagg pointed out.
“Thor, that was the first spell Master Freyr taught us!” Loki laughed with mock outrage. “Did you do anything at all during our magic lessons?”
Thor blushed, offering sheepishly, “I composed you that ballad you like about the two princes who battle the dragon?”
Loki rolled his eyes. “That’s a no, then. No wonder Master Freyr always seemed so frustrated when he had solo lessons with you.”
The fish had finished cooking and the group ate while Loki explained. “There are many different ways to make a simple fire spell. You’ve noticed that even among our little band, we have different methods. Volstagg uses a starter object. He heats the object itself until it it combusts. Fandral uses his own body’s magic to make his fingerprints like flints and his sweat like wax to create a candle-like effect. Hogun transforms a pocket of air into a gas that ignites with even the slightest heat. But it is Sif who you should try to emulate, because her method is more applicable to other spells.”
Usually Loki ate daintily, but in his enthusiasm to explain, he had gotten a smear of barberry juice on his cheek. Thor smiled and wiped it away with his thumb without interrupting the lecture.
Loki paused briefly to smile back at Thor before continuing. “You need to change the state of the molecules of air. To do this, you need to first develop your elemental gaze. Look not with your eyes. Close them, if you must. You need to slip beyond the visual, into the part of yourself that inhabits more than your physical form.”
“This sounds difficult,” Thor complained.
Loki smiled at him, leaning close when the others were distracted by laughing at one of Fandral’s tales of Midgard. “You know the feeling of magic, Thor. When we were riding together, we went to places where the veil of reality is stretched thin. I know you felt it. You should feel it here too.”
Thor reached out for that feeling of wonder from their long summer’s ride, but with the warriors laughing and Sleipnir nudging at Thor’s thigh and Loki so distractingly present he could not seem to concentrate.
“Here, take my hands and we will find it together.”
Loki’s hands were cold and dry as always, probably because his fingers were so long and much slimmer than Thor’s. After a year without sparring practice, Loki’s palms were smooth, like Thor had only felt from the palace maidens.
“Look over my shoulder at a place about the same distance away as your height. Let your gaze unfocus so that you are not looking at any particular spot, but your eyes still do not move.”
Thor did what he said, only seeing a blurry palate of white and turquoise where the beach met the lake.
“Good. Now you want to see the elements themselves - the individual miniscule pieces that make up all of reality. I will lead you there.”
Thor felt the presence of another consciousness brush lightly up against his. It felt natural, of course. He’d known his brother all his life. They were like two puzzle pieces, both needed to make up the whole, fitting perfectly together with no overlap. It was not the keys to the secrets Loki had promised him. They would never mix, never intrude. Their differences kept them firmly in their separate domains, but Loki’s presence filled the voids, the little pockets that remained blind spots in Thor’s understanding of the world. And suddenly he was looking beyond. The brilliant turquoise of the lake disappeared into a world where color itself could not be, for color was a million elements arranged to reflect patterns of light. But they were looking at single waves of light, not patterns, single elements, not a vast canvas.
The elements drifted. They approached each other then repelled, drifting like balloons at a festival. They did not touch, but moved in a pattern that suggested that they might desire to mingle after all. Thor was entranced. Was this what Loki saw all the time?
He blinked and Loki’s mind was gone, leaving Thor aching in places beyond the physical.
“You saw it.” It was not a question.
Thor nodded.
“Now, to make fire, you need to imagine those elements you saw becoming agitated. They were mostly floating when you saw them, right? They didn’t react with each other. What you must do is make them so agitated that they will collide and combine.”
“How do I do that?”
Loki shrugged. “There are a lot of ways. Some imagine anger, others panic, others prefer not to anthropomorphize and just imagine speed.”
“What do you do?” Thor asked. He remembered, ashamed, that in all their many years together, he’d never asked Loki what it felt like to do magic or how he did it. He just took for granted that it was one of those things of Loki’s domain that never crossed into Thor’s.
Loki’s gaze was intense, his green eyes reflecting the still-roaring fire. “When Master Freyr first taught us - well, when he first taught me - he told me to imagine the elements were being playful and excited, jumping about like on the plants of a spring-bog. But the spell was never my strongest. I found the creation of ice much easier.”
Thor remembered all the times Loki had frozen his soup in the dining hall or encased his favorite sword in an impenetrable locker of ice. Once, when they had been fighting, Loki had even give Thor frostbite in order to force him to let Loki go.
But now Loki used hot bursts of energy as much as he used ice when they did battle. “What changed?” Thor asked.
“I learned passion.”
Thor smiled. To all that knew them, Thor was the passionate one - easily incited to great acts of devotion or to rage. Loki was cool and frigid, living in a head full of machinations with no room for the heart. But Thor knew better. He knew his brother felt deeply even if he did not always show it.
“Passion, then,” Thor said, squirming a little with nerves.
This time, when he saw the elements, he imagined them yearning, throwing themselves at each other like doing battle or making love. They strained against the casual floating; they resented that it should be their natural state, when all they wanted was passion.
Thor came back to himself with Loki’s hand on his thigh. There was a small red-tinted fire burning in the air between them in the shape of a perfect sphere.
“I’m containing it,” Loki said with a grin. “With your hotheaded passion you would ignite this whole lakeshore. It would make Sif angry.”
Thor laughed. “And not making Sif angry is the most important reason not to let everything burn?”
“Sif is particularly hilarious when she is angry, yes, but I know you do not like it when she plots against you.”
The others had stopped their conversation when they saw Thor’s flame and now that she was listening, Sif smacked Loki on the back of the head.
“I can’t believe I actually missed you,” she complained, but the way she seemed to cuddle up to Loki belied her true affection. In fact, Thor was not sure he enjoyed a world in which Sif and Loki got along. They caused enough trouble for Thor without allying.
The warriors congratulated Thor on his first act of magic and Loki on conquering the infinite army of Thor’s woeful magical skills.
They spent the rest of the evening talking, reminiscing about their previous quests and telling each other the of all things they’d missed in the past year. Loki embarrassed Thor by relating the tale of Thor’s dalliance with Prince Seupu, which made Thor so angry that he chased him around the campsite (with Sleipnir joining in as though it were a game). Loki saved himself by running out onto the water of the lake with ice forming instantly beneath his feet to support him. In the end, Thor retaliated by relaying the story of the first time Loki had tried to make his anti-conception potion and it had ended up turning his loins the same bright blue color as a Jujubi.
Sif and the warriors three had been on quite a few quests by themselves and had many tales. Volstagg related of the story of how Fandral came running out of the hut of a giant with his pants on backwards and the grand plot they had to execute in order to steal his armor back. Another time, Volstagg and Sif had played a prank on Hogun and kept moving his favorite dagar to locations that suggested that Loki’s spell to make it sentient had succeeded after all. The created a grand romance where it kept following one of Sif’s throwing knives around until one day a bunch of little paring knives were born. In order to gain money to stay at an inn overnight when they were stranded on Alfheim due to bad weather conditions that could interfere with the Bifrost, Sif had entered a singing competition and though she’d lost badly, had gained the attention of amorous Elf who took Sif to bed but made the warriors three sleep in the barn with his goats.
After Sleipnir fell asleep in Hogun’s lap and they had all downed a considerable amount of mead, Fandral decided he would recite poetry, particularly Midgardian poetry. Thor didn’t understand why Fandral loved it so much. As far as Thor was concerned, no great lyrical epics had come out of Midgard since Fandral and Loki had returned having seen a performance at some Globe Stagehouse about the brave and honorable King Henry and his invasion of the French Realm. After Loki had recited it for Thor, he had begged their mother to stage a formal reading of it.
“Before we retire,” Fandral announced, slurring slightly. Fandral never could take his mead. “I have a poem that is particularly apropos, considering the magic we have been learning this eve. From Frostson of Midgard:”
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.”
Thor’s eyes automatically sought Loki’s over the smoke from the fire. Volstagg was teasing Fandral for choosing a poem that didn’t even bother having a metrical line and Sif was slumped on Loki’s shoulder, half asleep from mead, but Loki’s eyes were lively and suddenly Thor felt more awake than he had in a long time.
“Do you think that Frostson is implying that it will be the Asgardians and not the Frost Giants that will cause Ragnarok?” Sif mumbled sleepily.
“He is a Frostson, so maybe it is a point of pride for his people,” Volstagg argued.
“What happens to Midgard, again?” Sif asked. Sif had been notoriously terrible in their literature lessons, particularly in the prophetic poems.
“A great wolf swallows the sun.” Loki’s voice was a gravely whisper. He looked as though he were half in a trance. “The world is slowly coated in snow and ice until nothing survives.”
“So it does end in Ice?” Sif asked. “Do the Jotun go there?”
“No,” Thor remembered this part, “they make war on Asgard and the flames from the battle reach Midgard somehow.”
“The Bifrost?” Hogun asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Loki snapped. “It’s all just myth and speculation. I am going to nurse Sleipnir and then I’m going to sleep.” He cast a spell around the fire to keep any sparks from escaping and picked Sleipnir up out of Hogun’s lap to walk around the bend where he wouldn’t be seen transforming.
The rest of the group disbanded as well. Sif and Volstagg went to one tent and Hogun and Fandral to another, leaving one tent for Thor and Loki as usual.
Thor stayed watching the dying embers of the fire as they slowly extinguished.
When Loki and Sleipnir returned, they didn’t head for the tent. Instead, Loki sat down next to Thor and tucked his body against Thor’s as they looked out at the moonlight and the still lake. It reminded Thor of the day he met the horse.
Suddenly, the wind picked up, tugging at Thor’s hair and blowing a few stray leaves around them. The air had been chilly, but there was something electric in the wind. It tickled down Thor’s spine and settled as a warmth in his bones. The stars seemed to sparkle brighter, to move just slightly with the wind, as though they were lights hanging from invisible threads in the firmament. Thor felt as though something decoupled, in the Earth or in his chest, and reality broke loose from its moores to offer the world up to him like a canvas. He was an infinite being, he understood at once, and space folded and pulsed around him, beating to the great heart that pumped life through the veins of the Yggdrasil.
“There’s magic here,” he whispered.
Loki’s smile was brilliant, so pure with joy that Thor could not imagine the layers of lies and mischief that usually obscured it. And, for the first time since Loki was a babe kept swaddled and protected and hidden from Thor for his delicacy, Thor looked upon his brother and saw him as beautiful.
Magic stirred in the air, stilling every muscle in Thor’s body and filling him with the instant peace of revelation. This is what had been building between them this long year. It was hardly a diplomatic peace, as Loki had suggested. They could be no small gestures of appreciation and trust, no gradual thaw to allow each other access to the inner workings of the soul. It was a heart flung wide open. It was like hurling himself from the bifrost and into the great unknown.
Loki’s eyes were an intense, unfathomable green, glinting like daggers in the moonlight and they were knowing. But how could Loki know what Thor himself had only just discovered? Loki did not move. He did not seem to breathe, looking like a great alabaster-skinned statue with achingly kind eyes. He would accept Thor’s choices, his gaze said, but he would not move a hair’s breadth to spur the choice forward.
It did not seem to matter, for Thor did not perceive himself moving. It was the universe that moved around him, the space between them that folded, the magic on the wind that drew them together like the agitated, crashing elements, impelled to passion by an outside source.
This kiss was soft and tender, but lingered far longer than a kiss between brothers should. To Thor it felt as though time stopped, like the strange stillness of this place had permeated his bones. As he drew back, he let his hand remain on Loki’s cheek.
Loki smiled his soft smile again, taking Thor’s hand so they could return to their tent. It was the first night in a year that they had not slept under the stars.
***
Thor woke up to the feeling of warmth and another body against his. He smiled and opened his eyes to find that the warm body was not Loki, but Sleipnir, who appeared content to sprawl half himself on top of Thor with his legs dangling off to the sides.
The next thing Thor noted, upon waking, was that Sif was screaming. He pulled on his tunic and rushed out of the tent, disturbing Sleipnir, who stumbled to his feet, following his uncle.
Thor’s heartbeat immediately calmed, his battle-senses leaving him the second he spotted the four figures sitting on the lakeshore.
“Loki Odinson!” Came Sif’s high pitched screech. “I will kill you! I will kill you in a manner so humiliating that the Valkyries will laugh at you and you will never be admitted to Valhalla for shear embarassment. I will learn to all the magic I need so that I may curse you and every one of your future children! And the next time we spar you had better cover your . . .” Sif continued in that vein from where she was standing with two tents on an iceberg in the middle of the lake. At least Thor no longer had to worry about the unholy alliance that he had seen developing between her and Loki the previous night.
Thor ambled over to the four other figures who were sitting on the shore watching the show. He sat down next to Loki, wrapping his arm around his brother. “One day. You could not last one day without torturing Sif?”
Loki grinned. “My aim was not to torture Sif. It was a lesson to help Hogun learn the water-to-ice spell.” He gestured to where Hogun was sitting calmly in all his hunting gear. “When properly motivated, he figured out the spell to let him walk back over here.”
“It was quite brilliant,” Fandral added. He was soaking wet and wearing only his underclothes, spread out in the sun to let everything dry.
“True,” Volstagg agree, munching on an apple and not seeming particularly bothered that he too was soaked in what was probably freezing cold glacial water. “An innovative and effective teaching method.”
Sif hurled something at them from her perch on the iceberg. “Thor! Use your hammer and come get me!”
“Well, that wouldn’t be sporting,” Volstagg frowned. “Fandral and I had to swim over here.”
“Are you going to let the mighty Thor rescue you like a damsel?” Fandral shouted, which just prompted some curses on his name and more inventive propositions for their next sparring session.
After it became clear that neither Thor nor Loki was going to assist her, “I hate you all!” Sif screamed, stripping off her tunic and diving into the lake.
The second she hit the water, Loki snapped his fingers and the tents and the rest of the gear materialized back on the shore next to them.
Fandral laughed, putting an arm around Loki. “Valhalla, I have missed you.”
Next Chapter: On the Futility of Maintaining a Soap Bubble
***
A/N: It’s sort of my headcanon that Fandral sneaks off to Earth periodically because he just kind of likes it there (I think I remember someone saying that in the comics Fandral is Robin Hood) and sometimes Loki goes with him (why else would Loki be wearing a suit when he goes down there?). Also, am considering crackfic/art in which Fandral is Barney Stinson.
I tried to make the concept of magic in this fic mostly secular, but some religious elements snuck in there. Sorry. Also, I was terrible at chemistry, especially organic chemistry, so I also apologize for any mistakes in the explanation of how things burn.