Wine and Wheat

When Mobius yanked his arm away, his breath heaving and his eyes watering, he saw a searing brand on his pulse point. He winced, shuddering with pain. Gods, it felt like pure hellfire. He stared at Loki with a feeling of betrayal like a bloodcurdling scream in his heart. “Loki, why did you-”

With a shake of her head, Loki grabbed his arm again in a panic, running her fingers gently over the burn. It sent an almost euphoric sensation through his entire body, like fresh water through his blood.

Loki’s fingertips then brushed against his cheek. “I’m sorry, dear. I couldn’t risk you being caught without the brand. It’ll be like your free ticket into Asgard at any given moment. You’re official now.” She offered a reassuring smile, but something else seemed to flash in her eyes. Something much darker. Not wicked, really. Just… less gentle. “My Mobius… you are free to roam Asgard as you please.”

Just as Mobius felt he might fall into her, Thor placed a hand on Mobius’s chest and pushed him away from the goddess of mischief. “This is wrong, Loki. You can’t do this again. Send this man home, for his own safety.”

Loki’s eyes darkened once more, nostrils flaring. “He will be staying with me, and you will stay out of it!”

“Greta would’ve-”

“If you speak her name again, I will gut you like a fish and use your blood as a lip stain!” Loki thundered. Her voice echoed through the library like a roar. Mobius swore he could see sparks of green fly from her body and Thor stumbling back. She was menacing as a snake, furious as a thunderstorm. Who was Greta? Why did Loki feel so threatened by her name?

The rest of the moment was a blur. The quick throbbing of Mobius’s heart, the quiet bluntness of a blow to the thunder god’s face, then the deafening silence that followed. There was a sort of gentle hypnosis that overtook the lowly man when he saw Loki with bloody knuckles and that flash of insanity in her eyes.

The next thing he knew, he was lying across his bed in the guest chambers, the sound of running water coming from the washroom. He sat up, squinting and rubbing his temples, just as Loki entered the room.

Her expression was as soft and warm as honey, and as she came to brush some of his shaggy hair out of his face, he saw blood under her fingernails. It made him flinch away, nausea pulling, squeezing, and churning at his stomach, along with that strange hypnosis.

“What ails you, dearest?” Loki offered him a cool glass of water and a rubbish bin, just in case.

“You’re bloody,” Mobius uttered, his voice no more than a breath.

Loki glanced at her nails and hummed. “Suppose I am. I thought I’d gotten that all cleaned up.”

“Did you kill Thor?”

That seemed to startle Loki. “Norns, what made you think such a thing?! No, no. I just had to remind him not to snoop into the business of his dear sister.”

“Because he spoke of this Greta?”

Loki cupped Mobius’s cheek and chuckled. “Why, she just isn’t any of his concern. And you,” she touched his nose with a gentle tap, “are the same. You needn’t fret about him, nor me, my dearest.”

“You fought him.”

“Yes, I did. We’re siblings, after all. Sometimes I feel like we are of the same brood.”

“Aren’t you?”

Loki shook her head, playing with a strand of Mobius’s hair. It brought her calm, and it brought a shiver to his spine. “I was born to a frost giant king and an unknown mother. King Odin found me in the cold and brought me home. Queen Frigga raised me as her own, and Thor… he has been my brother ever since I can remember.”

Mobius nodded along to her words, trying to focus on the story rather than the strange, tingling warmth pooling in his chest. “It turned out fine, it seems.”

“I’d say so.” She smiled, swinging her feet up onto the mattress where she sat, propping herself up on one arm and still toying with her priest’s hair with the other. “And what of your family? You have never spoken of them.”

“My father was a cobbler, and my mother a baker. They cared for myself and my sister well.”

“Where is your sister now?”

“Married. She moved with her husband to London.”

“London,” Loki spat like the name left a poisonous aftertaste on her tongue. “I’ve visited once. It’s an awfully messy town. Muddy. I dirtied a wonderful pair of boots there.”

“She used to send me letters each week. Now she rarely does.” Mobius fell silent, as if he mourned her, even while she still breathed.

Loki nodded. “I’m sure that feels awful.”

“Can you see her?”

“Does she pray to me?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then no.” Loki rested her head upon his chest. “I’m sorry, dearest.”

“Don’t be. I know you have a pure heart.”

“Not really. Not when I know happiness.”