Trickster or Treatster

“Corn maze. Definitely the corn maze. I’ll solve it in one single heartbeat,” Loki said, dripping with smugness. “You know, Love my love, when I was a lad on Asgard, I won the Rainbow Romp every year. You know, the sack race across the Rainbow Bridge?”

Love shrugged. “If you say so, Uncle Loki!” Loki and Sylvie each took one of Love’s hands and they all took turns skipping gleefully together across the massive open field that led to the corn maze.

Thor grumbled alongside them the whole time, muttering. “Oh, of course, you’ll skip with Uncle Loki and Aunt Sylvie, but if Uncle Thor wants to skip, suddenly you’re too grown up. I see, I see how it is.”

As they approached the maze, though, Thor stopped grumbling. He listened intently to the conversations of the families who were leaving the area of the corn maze.

“That was so difficult, darling! I was sure we’d be lost in there forever!”

“Oh, hush, Father, it was jolly good fun! I just wish we could’ve gotten to the special surprise at the center…”

“Dear, no one could possibly make it to the center of that maze! I’m just glad we got out of there!”

Thor overheard multiple worried parents expressing their dismay, and he could tell that they weren’t just playacting for their children (all of whom seemed quite exhilarated by the treacherous labyrinth). The maze sounded genuinely mind-boggling.

“Psst…Loki,” Thor whispered. “Can you and Sylvie go in first and map the maze for Love? She’s insisted on going through it by herself, and I’m terrified she’ll get stuck in there… Our powers won’t work in there, you know…”

“No? Who designed this maze, anyway?”

“Axl.”

“Axl? A child? Well, it can’t be that hard. Especially for me. You remember I always crushed the competition in our boyhood games of Pin the Tongue on the Serpent—”

“Not just any child, Heimdall’s child,” interjected Thor, who didn’t need to be reminded of those bitter defeats.

“Right,” said Loki, considering this. “Fair point. Well. I’m sure it’ll be a piece of cake anyway. Love, darling, we’ll meet you there! Ready, Sylvie?” And Loki grabbed Sylvie’s arm and teleported her the rest of the way to the maze.

As Thor continued walking, Love chewed on the piece of Kablooie Sylvie had given her. “Ten bucks says they can’t make it out of there unless Axl lifts the anti-magic spell.”

“No!” Thor objected weakly. “No, I’m sure they’ll be…I mean…well…”

Thor sighed. “I can’t take that bet, dear. You may be right.”

When Loki popped into existence near the corn maze, he was immediately astounded at how vast it was. “My word, Sylvie! It looks so much bigger up close.”

“That’s what she said.”

“That’s what who said? Love?”

“Never mind, Loki. You need to catch up on the Midgardian sitcoms. Come on, let’s get started.”

Seven Minutes Later

“Oh, no…that’s where we just…erm. Maybe we should just go back to the beginning and start over…”

“Loki…where’s the path we just came from?”

“Ah. That path. Wasn’t it just…”

“We’re lost. Admit it.”

“No! No, we’re…momentarily misrouted.”

“Yeah. That’s called lost.”

They were completely alone in the maze; everyone else had given up. Loki rubbed his forehead, looking around and widening his eyes as though this might give him some new insight into their predicament.

“We’re not lost, not at all! We’re exactly where we need to be. Come on, Sylvie…”

And she rolled her eyes as Loki stalked ahead, turning back down the path they had just rejected as a fool’s errand.

Six Minutes Later

“It has to be a right turn, because we’ve tried left four times now and we’ve gotten nowhere,” Sylvie said, scrunching up her nose.

Loki shook his head rapidly. “It has to be left, because we haven’t fully explored the walls over there to see if there might be a secret passageway.”

“Walls?! What do you mean ‘walls’? It’s corn. If we really wanted to, we could just smash it all down.” And Sylvie pulled out the horn of her unicorn costume, revealing it to be a hefty cudgel.

Loki blinked twice. “Your horn is a cudgel?!”

Sylvie flicked her eyebrows up and down. “Wait ‘til you see what my tail is.”

“Never mind, just…don’t smash it all, okay? Let’s just go left again and…”

Sylvie ran her hand over the head of the cudgel, up and down. Up and down. “If we’re really stumped, Loki…you know what the answer is. The only proven solution that clears our minds every. Single. Time.”

Loki flushed; he understood her perfectly well, but he waved his hand at her. “What? No, no. I can solve this. That’s not…” He sneaked a glance at what her hand was doing to the cudgel and temporarily lost his focus. Then he shook himself. “No. Come on, left.”

“Right.”

“Right. Exactly. Left.”

“No, I mean, we’re going right.”

“...Okay, fine. Right.”

Five Minutes Later

Sylvie was perched on a hay bale, which seemed to have been placed at just the location where weary travelers were most likely to need to regroup. She’d balanced herself on the balls of her feet, elbows on her knees.

Loki paced back and forth in front of her, refusing to sit. “I’m going straight again,” he said finally, gesturing widely.

“It’s another dead end. You can see the blockade right there in front of us.”

“Well, maybe it’s just a mental thing.” Loki tapped hard at his temple with his fingertips. “Maybe I just have to really believe that I can get through.”

“All right. Go for it. Believe away.” Sylvie tilted her chin up, not moving.

Loki looked back at her as though he’d expected her to try to stop him. “Really?”

“Sure. Be my guest.” 

Loki set his jaw, braced himself, and ran straight at the barrier.

For a bunch of corn stalks, the barrier was astonishingly solid. Loki crashed backwards onto the ground with bits of fiber and husk stuck to the fabric of his costume.

Sylvie grinned and stalked over to him, standing above him with her hands on her hips and her feet planted on either side of his hips. “You know what we have to do.”

Loki looked dazed; his gaze wandered to the approximate region of her cleavage under her shapeless costume. “It’s not…appropriate. There are kids around…”

Sylvie pulled the costume tight around her, so that it hugged her curves. “There’s not another living soul in this damn maze anymore. It’s too hard.”

Loki laughed weakly. “That’s what she said.”

Grinning, Sylvie tugged down her zipper in the back and let the costume fall to the ground, stepping out of it. “Well done. You figured it out.”

“Oh. You know…context clues…” Loki’s jaw had gone slack as he took in the new lingerie she was wearing: black and purple and lacy, with an embroidered bat right at the top of her panties.

“Oh…you like the bat?” she asked innocently.

“Yes. Very…Halloweeny.”

“It’s quite a coincidence. I didn’t know bats were a Halloween thing. I just adore them.”

“As well you should.” Loki slid his hand up her shin to her knee, and then began to walk his fingers up…and up higher.

Slowly, she lowered herself so that she was straddling him, rocking herself lightly on his pelvis. His hands settled on her hipbones. “Now, Loki.”

“Yes, m’love?”

“Nearly every time we have sex, one or both of us has an earth-shattering revelation about something. It’s our superpower, darling, and it’s our only way out of here.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and made a low purring sound deep in his throat.

“But Sylvie…when I was a child on Asgard, I was always victorious at Musical Thrones—”

Sylvie stopped gyrating and scowled at him. “Oh, for goodness’ sake! Did you ever win at a corn maze competition? No? Then come on, Loki, Love is counting on us! We’ve already been in here for ages, and she’s waiting. Get your damn costume off and fuck me—”

Loki set his brows in a determined scowl, pursed his lips, and sat up. Rolling her eyes, Sylvie slid off the ends of his legs and did a graceful backwards somersault.

“No. Thank you. My brain is perfectly sharp without relying on these little tricks, as is yours, my dear.” He bowed annoyingly toward her as she gathered up her costume and tucked it under her arm. “Come on. One more try back this way.”

Four Minutes Later

Loki’s hands were permanently embedded in his mussed-up hair. “It’s just…I mean, it’s completely impossible. Axl designed this? Is he a sadist?”

“No, he’s just too smart for us. Admit it, Loki, a kid is smarter than you.”

“No one is smarter than—!”

Sylvie stood back, raising her eyebrows.

“Yes, Loki?”

“Well, I mean—”

She tapped her foot at him, refusing to move or speak. She hadn’t put her costume back on; she was well aware that she cut an impressive figure in her lacy underwear and combat boots.

Loki sighed and allowed his hands to fall to his sides. “We’ll have to fuck, won’t we.”

“Mm-hm.”

“It’s the only option available to us.”

“Unless you want to use my cudgel.” Sylvie produced it again, smiling violently.

Loki cracked his own smile. “I’m tempted to take your two suggestions in conjunction with each other.”

Sylvie smacked her cudgel against her hand. “Next time, maybe. I think the name of the game tonight is efficiency.” She tossed the cudgel to the side and ran at Loki, knocking him to the ground.

She watched as Loki instinctively tried to magick off his clothes, then grimaced when he realized that wasn’t possible within the anti-magic confines of the maze. He roared in frustration, and Sylvie leaned down and ripped his costume with her teeth, right down the center. Loki pulled out his favorite dagger from somewhere and sliced her bra and panties right down the middle, avoiding her skin with practiced skill.

“I see I’m not the only one with a concealed weapon,” Sylvie said, gripping his cock firmly.

Loki gave her a look. “That is, once again, what she said. Now sit on me before I lose my mind entirely.”

Sylvie peered down at him, considering him. “Not yet.” She pinched his nipple with her other hand.

“What? Why?! I thought you wanted to get this done quickly!”

“I do. But I also want you to tell me what you’ve learned.”

“Oh, blast, Sylvie, must we really—” His cock strained into her hand, dripping copiously.

“Yes, Loki, we must.” She released his cock and rolled his other nipple with her now-available hand. “We promised solemnly, when we found each other again, that we’d try to tame our basest Loki-impulses, and this is one of them. What’s the little lesson that we’ve learned today?”

“I feel like you still have plenty of lessons to learn too, Sylvie; I mean, you were ready to smash the maze to bits, and you’re using sex as a weapon right now, and—”

“Tell me, Loki!” she hissed, twisting his nipples and dabbing at the base of his cock with the wetness of her folds, teasing him senseless.

“Ahh, ahhh! All right, all right! I, um…”

“You what, Loki?”

She slid her left hand down and tapped at his leaking tip as he cried out in agony.

“I…I…I was being vain.”

“About?” She flicked his sensitive frenulum.

“In-intelligence. I still…ah…have a tendency to think…oh, fuck Sylvie, fuck…that I’m the smartest person in the room. Always.”

“And sometimes you might…?” She pressed his cock backwards against his belly.

He grimaced as he completed her prompt, “...not be.” She released him, and his cock sprang back toward her.

“And how do we feel about that?” she asked, spitting on her hand and hovering it a millimeter away from his hardness.

“Fffffff mmmmmmm ahhhhhh… I…accept it. Sometimes there might be somebody smarter than me. At least in the moment. Or even…always.”

“Excellent, good boy, here you are, then.” She took hold of him and pumped him one, two, three times, then slid her folds up his shaft, slicking him and making him moan with anticipation — and then lowered herself down, relishing in the thick glide of his cock as he filled her up. 

He settled into her, and she watched as his face softened. There was something about her Loki that would always be a bit haughty; his superiority complex and his inferiority complex would always be at merry war with each other. But the longer they were together, the more she witnessed him even himself out and become a more balanced Loki.

“Sylvie,” he whispered.

“Shh,” she said, once again beginning to rock her hips against his. “You’re fine now, pet, you’ve learned your lesson. Time to relax now. 

She gazed at his expression as she bounced up and down on him; he looked so relieved and grateful and in love; see, Loki, this is what you get when you learn about yourself…

Loki licked two fingers and brought them to her clit, sliding them up and down firmly, flicking the nub back and forth; Sylvie’s mouth fell open and she clutched at the remnants of his garments, pulling herself into him, reaching under her leg and stroking his balls tenderly as she bucked into him… He rose up to meet her and anchored her hip with his other hand, straining as they approached their climax.

“Oh, fuck, Sylvie, fuck, you’re so good…so good to me…”

“Loki, harder, harder, that’s it—”

He drove madly into her with a rapid, frenzied series of upward thrusts; her clit twitched and raged under his attentions; and then he was holding himself inside her, crying out her name over and over — and as she felt his seed embed itself within her, she smashed his fingers against her clit and felt a wicked heat spread throughout her core and she shook, shuddered, went wild with bliss as she rode him.

They kept it up, rolling their bodies into each other, letting it build even more, even more, until Sylvie was gasping and her cunt had milked him so much that he was shuddering under her, his cock utterly tortured but still begging for more of her, more Sylvie.

Sylvie fell down against him, giving it to him, letting her folds massage him. Here you go, Loki. More of me. You deserve it.

When there was absolutely nothing more they could possibly squeeze out of their physical pleasure, Sylvie rolled off of him — reluctantly, but with determination. They still had a mission, after all.

Sylvie shrugged her costume back on as best she could as her muscles wept with release. Next to her, Loki sat up, stroking his chin, with a newfound gleam in his eye.

And she felt it too: the post-coital clarity that she had known with absolute certainty would present itself.

“Loki, oh my god, I’ve got it—”

“Oh, Sylvie, yes, it’s the—”

They stumbled to their feet and ran hastily back to the hay bale that Sylvie had rested on. They prepared to heave it to the side, but it turned out to be astonishingly light when they picked it up together: iit fell open, revealing a trap door to an underground tunnel.

“See, I was sort of right about the secret passageway,” said Loki. “I just didn’t think of underground passageways. But…” he said, as she raised her eyebrows at him. “I do acknowledge that I was bested. Axl’s mind may be, at least in this instance, superior to my own.”

Sylvie nodded. “Very well, then.” 

As they tucked themselves into the passageway that led to the special surprise at the maze’s center, Loki asked her, “Sylvie, we share a soul. Why were you so much quicker to admit your shortcomings?”

Sylvie chewed on her lip and frowned. “I think…I had to learn humility, when I was on my own for so long. Even when I thought I knew everything, I had to keep on my toes. Just when I thought I had an apocalypse memorized, I discovered that I didn’t. In order to survive, I had to admit my failings…even though of course I was usually the smartest person within fifty miles.”

“Well, that should go without saying.”

“Yes.” They reached the center of the maze and were greeted with a jolly-looking plastic jack-o-lantern that contained custom lollipops. Loki selected one shaped like a pirate goat; Sylvie chose a skeleton-patterned Mjölnir. 

“My god, Sylvie, this is the best…what’s it called?...candy I’ve ever tasted. Well worth the trip.”

“Yes, I quite agree. Now, look at this, Loki, it’s a straight shot out to the exit.” Sylvie indicated a path that did, in fact, somehow, appear to bypass all the twists and turns and head directly out of the maze.

“Brilliant!” cried Loki. “Truly, Axl has made a fine maze. Anything simpler would be a travesty.”

When they reached the exit, which was next to the entrance, they became acutely aware that their clothes were still ripped. Since they couldn’t use magic in the maze, they backed up slowly out of it, and as soon as they had stepped outside its boundaries, Loki flourished his hands. His costume and Sylvie’s undergarments stitched themselves neatly back up.

When they turned around, they witnessed a charming scene of Thor, Love, and Axl playing charades while they waited for the Mischief Gods. Sylvie took Loki’s hand, and he squeezed it, giving her a tender smile before interrupting the little group.

“Here you go!” Loki called to Love, producing a piece of paper and a feather quill and quickly drawing out the route they had taken, with a large “HB” to indicate the pivotal hay bale. “Time for you to venture into the maze!”

Love grabbed the map, rolled her eyes, crumpled it up, and shoved it into Thor's palm before he could stop her. “I really don’t think I’ll need it.” And she ran off into the maze.

“Love, wait!” called Thor, but she was gone.

Axl smirked and crossed his arms. “Find the maze difficult, did you?” he asked Loki.

“Not at all, Axl, I…”

But Sylvie gave Loki a significant look and he stopped. He put out his hand to shake Axl’s. “My hat is off to you. It was a fine puzzle, and you thoroughly bested our abilities. The only way we could possibly solve the maze was to engage in—”

At this, Sylvie fell into a fit of coughing and stepped heavily on Loki’s foot. He looked affronted. “We engaged in some mental decluttering exercises! That’s right, isn’t it, Sylvie?”

“Well, however you did it, well done,” said Axl. “I suppose it might be better if I hand out maps so that people can actually solve this thing.” Axl looked quite impish, not at all troubled by the near-impossibility of the maze he had created. With a great sweep of his hands, Loki conjured hundreds of copies of the map and Axl ran off to distribute them to the families who were scattered around the perimeter of the large clearing.

“You know, Thor,” said Loki, as Axl scampered away. “Axl’s a bit of a mischievous fellow. I wonder if he might not be the trickster we’re searching for!”

“Oh, I don’t know, Loki. I’ll add him to our list of suspects. Right now, I’m just so worried about Love. She might be in there all night, wandering around; she doesn’t have the map…”

But suddenly, less than three minutes after entering, Love emerged from the maze with her lollipop, shaped like the ghosts of Odin’s ravens.

Love jutted out her chin proudly. “That was tricky, Axl. Well done. It took me forever.” Axl high-fived Love as Thor, Loki, and Sylvie stared at each other, mystified.

“I’m officially done with the corn maze,” said Loki.

“As am I,” said Thor. “So. What’s next on the agenda?”