Chapter 4
Loki glares at the targets in frustration, no matter how well he understands what Amora's been explaining or how perfectly he pronounces the incantation, he just can't get it to work. He can pronounce the incantations correctly, knows the movements by heart, but his magic just won't react!
Amora hums, then says "Maybe it's because you use a different kind of magic?"
Loki blinks, asking "What now?"
Amora nods, saying "Hela said the armbands she made me would allow me to use any magic I learned until I adjusted to it. It's how I can use Asgardian Magic until my own Magical Core adjusts naturally. So, what if you can't use the kinds of spells I knew before coming here because it's a completely different kind of magic? One you have to adjust to?" And who knows how long that would take on its own?
Loki hums, then asks "Well, any ideas for how I could use a completely different kind of magic from the one I know?"
Amora bites her bottom lip in thought, absent-mindedly turning a lock of her hair around between her fingers in the process, and says "Well, we could merge our magics."
Loki blinks, asking "Come again?"
Amora nods, apparently warming to the idea, and says "I read about it in a book I found in the library. Apparently, it's possible for two people to merge their magics and share their abilities."
Loki grins mischievously, and asks "You think I'd be able to understand the Snake language you speak then?" It bugs him to no end that he can't understand it, and even moreso that it's impossible to learn - he's tried imitating it, but Amora broke down laughing in hysterics at his attempts…and then eventually told him he said 'the pink chicken squeaks at midnight.'
Amora shows him the book, and it turns out the ritual is fairly easy…as in, it takes two people consenting to it, basically pushing their magics together and mixing them, pretty much tying them together. It takes maybe five minutes in an empty classroom, but the power-high the two of them get is quickly interrupted when Hela mutters "You've gotta be kidding me…"
Both of them jump, Amora pulling Loki behind her on instinct, and only relax some when they recognize her. Hela looks exasperated, and gets across the room in four long strides with a distinctly annoyed look on her face. A wave of her hand, and a black-and-green glow over both of them, and Hela facepalms and mutters "Note to self, next time tell them before they mix magics with someone…"
Amora blinks, asking "Why?"
"Because, Amora, you just shared the Hallows with Loki. I've now got an eternal little brother as well as you." She resigns herself to coming to visit four people instead of two, because the chances of Loki and Amora being Soulmates are astronomically low. And they'll need to find some source of power for Loki to absorb as well - Death Magic specializes in absorbing a person's life force. If Amora came into contact with the Infinity Stones, for instance, they'd bond with her. Now...now she's got to think of...wait, that would be hilarious. The look on Odin's face when Loki shows off his newfound mastery over the very same magic passed down in the bloodline Odin adopted Loki into would be priceless. Well, I'll just need to get Loki into Odin's chambers when he's in his Odinsleep. That should do the trick.
Loki's jaw practically crashes through the floor, and Amora asks "Come again?!"
"Loki's immortal now to. Same as you." And it's a good thing I like being around Loki, because I'd go MAD if I didn't after a few centuries.
And Hela doesn't even want to touch on the detail that they just basically got married. Via their magics.
She can already hear Hades laughing his biker-ass off from Asgard.
Though, the look on Odin's face would be priceless…
The thought makes Hela smirk for a moment, until Loki pulls her from her thoughts by asking "Hela? What's going on, Sister? You aren't usually here until later?"
Hela shrugs, nonchalantly saying "Yeah, well, Odin and I usually get into screaming matches. It's not worth the headache to spend weeks at a time and deal with him constantly. Not when I can visit whenever I please thanks to Amora here, and get here immediately if she opens a gateway to the underworld. Now, c'mon, you two need to see Osiris." She'd honestly thought she was over Odin after all this time, over his blatant betrayal, over him wiping her from history, covering up the countless wars they'd waged together...but just a few minutes in his damn presence never fails to get on her very last nerve and reduce her to raging and screaming at him.
She'd rather just avoid the constant migraine that comes with him altogether and try to time her visits when he's busy - she wants to get to know her half-brothers, and she does like Frigga, but she'll never not despise Odin and everything he does. Which makes Amora and Loki being immortal much sweeter all of a sudden, if she's been completely honest with herself.
Amora blinks, asking "We do? Why do we need to see Osiris?"
"To see if you two binding yourselves together for all eternity is going to do anything else to either of you. Now, follow me. And don't touch any food or drink unless I say it's safe. Not even any water, the stuff in the underworld is weird." She takes Loki's hand in hers just to be on the safe side, and Amora opens up another gateway to the Underworld with a lot of concentration - they've been working on it, but creating a pathway, even a temporary one, to another realm is difficult enough. Creating a pathway to another realm you're not supposed to be able to come and go as you please is even harder.
Hades makes it far enough away that he's not in Osiris' commandeered 'medical room' - seriously, it's the underworld, they're not getting any deader down here! - before completely breaking down in laughter.
He ends up holding his sides, tears streaming down his face as he laughs uncontrollably - but, dammit if that isn't a hilarious way to stick it to Hela's oh-so-hated father. He's gonna flip his lid when he learns that Loki and Amora just got married! For all intents and purposes, anyway - they might not realize it, but they tied themselves together irrevocably by making it so Amora has Seidr in her Core and Loki can use Midgardian Magic so easily like that.
It would've happened on its own...eventually. A few centuries before Loki's magic adapted to the new form he was trying to force it into, and the same amount of time for Amora's magic to be able to work with Asgardian spells without the Snake-Hallows adapting her magic. But, he has to say, this is easily the fastest way...as well as the funniest when Odin figures it out.
He's got to head to the 21st century and get one of those giant buckets of popcorn for the occasion.
Thor watches in confusion as Loki and Amora walk down a corridor together, heads bent together and identical mischievous looks on their faces. And then...they start hissing, Thor swears it.
From the absolutely delighted look on Loki's face, it's more than just hissing...but that's all it sounds like to him, the two of them hissing back and forth. Whatever they're saying, though, seems to be highly entertaining if the grins on their faces are anything to go by.
Sif looks like she's about to go off, her face slowly going as red as Amora's hair, but the two are joined by Queen Frigga so she holds her tongue.
Loki grins to himself as he stares at the snake he summoned - via the snake-summoning spell Amora taught him, no less! - and can understand what it's saying. And, for having no limbs, the snake is a better conversationalist than Thor by a long shot.
Sif and the Warriors Three, as they've dubbed themselves ever since that first battle they huddled together to save their lives in, walk past, and Sif gives him a disdainful look before walking off as if he isn't even worthy of her time. The snake hisses "Forget her, little speaker. If she is as proud as the showy bird with the massive tail, then that's her problem. Where is this other female you told me about?"
Loki hisses "Amora? She's either in the library or Mother's garden." Amora prefers the peace and quiet to the general chaos that is Asgard. Prefers her - their - magic to weapons, prefers to take out enemies from afar rather than get stabbed in the chest and have to heal it. She can fight with a sword well enough, as well as knives, but nothing compares to her cutting down enemies with her spells or unleashing bolts of red-black magic via a dozen illusionary copies of herself. He's seen her shield an entire village all by herself via an energy shield, and have a group of rebels singing like birds with a hypnosis spell in her voice when she asked them where the others were hiding after forcing them to look her in the eye. She's also shown him how to construct impenetrable mental shields, a combination of Asgardian Magic and what little she knew of Occlumency...which she's added onto through comparison to Asgardian Magic, as it happens.
Yes, Amora's quickly becoming a Master of Magic, and Loki's sure that she could've done anything she wanted if she'd been allowed to do so back in Britain.
Sure enough, Amora breaks out in a grin when she sees Loki walk into the garden - though, worry appears on her face when she sees the snake wrapped around him. "Loki," she says carefully, "you know that snake's extremely poisonous, right?" She's pretty sure that's a King Cobra.
The snake preens in delight, saying "Finally, another who recognizes my worth! Greetings, Speaker, it's rare to find even one of you, much less two."
Amora grins, and says "We're special. How'd you end up with Loki?"
Loki grins happily, and hisses "I summoned him!"
The two keep speaking in Parseltongue like that with the snake, even they aren't sure how long, until Frigga and Odin come running in, Thor close behind with a panicked look on his face and startle all three participants - Loki finds himself pulled behind Amora, with the snake he summoned rearing up and poofing out its hood warningly. It takes a minute for Amora to recognize the two adults and older Prince, and Loki breathes out a sigh of relief as he feels her magic sink back into her skin - he learned during that first uprising that Amora's got magical reflexes and shields, her own magic can react faster than her body alone can and with much deadlier consequences.
Sif was nearly maimed when she attempted to awaken Amora from a light doze, after all - the closest thing to true sleep Amora managed to get, Loki noticed, surrounded by strangers she didn't know and trusted even less.
The two of them were doing a recon mission and were ambushed…her own magic ended their lives before Loki could do much more than turn around, since they'd grabbed Amora instead of him in the worst mistake of their lives - they still did the rest of the recon mission under Amora's cloak, though…and Loki could barely breathe Amora was so tense, her magic was so thick around the both of them. He can't deny he felt every bit as safe as in the castle, though.
And Loki's very sure his parents just came this close to getting maimed or even killed because they startled a girl who's gone through a war, was an old man's puppet, and a child soldier in the most literal sense of the words.
Frigga glances at the snake in apprehension, Thor having burst into the throne room saying Fandral had mentioned Loki having a snake trying to strangle him, then says "Loki, hold still for a moment."
Amora and Loki glance at each other for a moment, and then Amora says "Ooohh, I know what this is about..." To Odin and Frigga's shock, Amora turns to Loki, holds a hand out, and hisses something…and the snake obligingly slides off Loki's body and winds up her arm to curl up in her hands. She then Banishes the snake back to wherever it was before, with many thanks for the enjoyable conversation.
Odin looks extremely out of his element - and furious about that - but Frigga looks more confused than threatening. "What was that? What just happened?"
Amora asks "Where'd the snake go? Or how'd I speak to it?"
After a moment, Frigga says "…Both."
"Well, I Banished it back to where Loki summoned it from. And I can speak the magical Snake language, called Parseltongue. And I taught Loki how to as well."
Loki gets a mischievous gleam in his eye, and asks "Amora, you want to make some snakes? Immortal ones?"
Amora grins, and hisses "Sure! Maybe they can be our Familiars! Let's go!" The two run out, intent on heading to the library and looking up ways on how to twist a spell to create something instead of just summoning it.
Frigga watches them go with a fond smile, just happy Loki has someone he can spend time with who won't belittle him or mock him for his usage of magic - someone who can and does accept her son for who he is, rather than who Asgard as a whole wants him to be. She's neither blind nor deaf, she knows perfectly well that Loki is practically an outcast by Asgard's standards despite being part of the Royal Family. She also knows the people are starting to fear Amora herself, after she single-handedly ended the uprising in Vanaheim - there may have been an army, but she knows Amora Sigyn is the one that killed the most people no matter how much Sif boasts and the Warriors Three tell their stories. Not to mention the dozens of other smaller incidents that 'mysteriously' vanished soon after reaching Odin's ears.
There's whispers, rumors of a deathless witch who dyes her hair with the blood of her enemies, who cuts down all who stand in her way - and, as if that wasn't enough, the people by and large are starting to treat her differently. The servants are nervous whenever she's around, only Eir doesn't hesitate to treat her in the Healing Room, she's barely acknowledged by anyone who isn't close to her…or Sif, in her mostly one-sided rivalry with the red-haired woman.
They're good for each other, Frigga can tell - Amora's Loki's staunchest defender, closest companion, and trusted confidant while Loki brings out Amora's gentler side if anyone else would bother to get to know her. Plus, she's very certain they did something to share Amora's Parseltongue with Loki - she's not sure what, not completely, but she can take a guess if Loki's sudden usage of Amora's spells and Amora's sudden leap in mastery over Seidr are anything to go by.
And, honestly? She approves.
Amora is perfectly matched with Loki in terms of power - even before they hypothetically mixed their magics and shot themselves to a league all their own - has a wit and intellect to match his, and is possibly the only person besides herself and Thor who cares for Loki. Not Thor's brother, not Odin's second son, but Loki himself.
Odin may value Sif's skill as a warrior enough to disregard her treatment of Loki, let her off without so much as a slap on the wrist, but she's never approved of the way she speaks of her son, degrades him at every possible opportunity simply because he's more suited for magic than physical combat. Perhaps that's why she favors Amora so much, she's not only Loki's best friend but so very willing to put Sif in her place should she go too far - an interesting, if infuriating, trait about Amora, she doesn't care what people say about her, but she'll go rabid over Loki. If she didn't know any better, she'd say they're Soulmates.
Except, it's impossible to know for sure who one's Soulmate is until they find each other and kiss for the first time.
But, even if Amora isn't Loki's Soulmate, she'd still give her blessing to a marriage if that's what they desired.