Chapter 3 - Thrym's Hall
The final winter month, Einmánuður, saw Jötunheimr’s freezing spring crest to a pallid summer, full of cold white sunshine over soft powdery snow banks. Laufey and his sons had traveled from their frozen keep at the rim of the pitch black sea to the edge of the black forests, at the cusp of endless night. Their destination was a lavish estate with a sullied reputation lorded over by a distant relation: Thrym.
Thrym had cut his teeth on the dark underbelly of the Nine, earning his fortune and his notoriety through illicit dealings and duplicitous affairs. Playing host to the peacekeeping engagement of Asgard and Jötunheimr’s youngest sons was a bid to scrub some of the red from his ledger.
Loki sat at the head of a wide horseshoe bench set in the center of Thrym’s hall, watching his father and his uncle bicker at its far end, their great heads bent together, their scarlet eyes narrowed in familial contempt.
The princeling had been glad to hear that his uncle was to host his engagement feast. As a child, Thrym’s hall had been a respite from the grim, weighty silence of his father’s keep. Loki had spent time hiding from Býleistr and Helblindi in his uncle’s well tended gardens, bewitched to bloom in all their splendor even through Jötunheimr’s endless frost. When he had come of age with magicks of his own, the youngest Laufeyson had sought to duplicate Thrym’s efforts and enchant his father’s courtyard to host the same blossoms. The clime was milder by the sea, and he had enjoyed more success than a fledgling mage could expect from such an undertaking. His uncle, pleased by his efforts and impressed at his results, had taken his young relation under his wing. For his enduring affection and mentorship, Loki could forgive Thrym for bearing the marks of a fat, pompous old man with too great an affection for the sound of his own voice. His father could not, and so the two were rarely on speaking terms.
Loki could remember slipping away from the dining hall in which he was now seated to prowl the torchlit labyrinths of the connecting corridors, tapping curiously at heavy doors and, when he was lucky and his forest cat footfalls bore him true through the dark, hearing something tapping back. The emerald torchlight that filled the hall now was the same as it had been then, but the giant that sat bathed in it had changed.
Loki was snapped from his reverie by his elder brothers alighting on the bench at either side of him. Býleistr, at his right, clapped a great clawed hand heavily onto his shoulder.
“Finally little Loki is at the center of attention,” he growled, his voice sharp with scorn.
“Surely your wedding feast shall see this charitable affair grow pale in its splendor,” said Loki evenly, keeping his eyes fixed on the floor in the middle distance, “if it is even remembered so long as to be referenced.”
“Ah, but perhaps I won’t ever be married,” Býleistr snapped back, tightening his grip on Loki’s shoulder to drag his claws against his skin “not now that little Loki has resolved our political battles for the next age.”
“Then I trust I have your thanks for relieving you of your courtly duties,” said Loki.
Helblindi interrupted in a voice that broke like spit freezing in mid-air, “At least Loki isn’t wasted on an eligible giant!”
“I leave it to your majesties to wade through our gene pool at your leisure.”
Helblindi snarled and raised a hand to strike Loki across the face, but Býleistr — quick as a flash — reached behind the young prince to catch their brother’s arm in mid air. He held it high above Helblindi’s head, twisting it painfully at the shoulder. Býleistr’s grip on Loki had been cruel, but the force with which he held Helblindi was crueler.
“Let him have his japes, Helblindi,” Býleistr said over his brother’s mewls, “he’ll soon be taught better.”
“Ahhh,” hissed Helblindi, “the thunderer….” His voice, high, whining, and smug, did not match the pained expression contorting his broad face. Býleistr ignored his younger brother’s wriggles against his grip and traced his free hand along Loki’s shoulder, drawing a claw along a pale white line of scar tissue that ran over its curve.
“Aye,” he said softly, “The Thunderer.”
“Surely his brotherly affection could not hope to outmatch yours,” said Loki calmly.
“Don’t rely on your silver tongues, little Loki, lest you be forced to use them in his service.”
“He and the whoreson war god blackened the snow drifts with our blood,” said Helblindi, his mouth twisting around his words in pain as his shoulder went numb from the angle at which his arm was being wrenched above his head “they’ll do the same to Asgard’s throne room once you set foot in it.”
“Why wait to sully their shining home, Helblindi?” Loki asked, turning for the first time to meet his eyes, speaking over the chimes of the heavy gold chains that decorated his great head, “Surely the æsir would rather blacken our uncle’s welcoming hall, where there is jötunn blood to spare.”
“They wouldn’t dare!”
“Then they wouldn’t dare to do so at court. I carry the same protections in this hall as I will in theirs.”
“…spells?” Helblindi guessed, his brows knitted together in deep thought.
“Intrajudiciary politics,” said Loki flatly.
Before the youngest Laufeyson could address the confounded expression on his middle brother’s face, their father’s voice rang out from the far end of the hall.
“Býleistr,” King Laufey barked, “unhand him.”
Býleistr did, Helblindi collapsing in a heap over the table before him to nurse his offended limb. Loki saw the opportunity to take his leave, and, swinging his legs delicately over the bench, crossed the length of the hall to meet his uncle. Thrym, having concluded his terse business with Laufey, was busy fussing with his gleaming tusk ornaments in a polished glass.
“Did they mark you, boy?” Thrym asked matter of factly without turning to check for himself.
“Even Býleistr isn’t fool enough to strike me so soon before our guests are to arrive,” said Loki, combing a strand of his dark hair through his fingers, “I imagine they’ll have something planned for me once they leave.
Thrym turned, oblivious or uninterested in what physical punishment awaited his best liked nephew after the festivities. “You look beautiful,” he said cheerfully.
“As do you,” said Loki with an inclination of his head. He turned back to see his brothers had taken their place at the rightmost end of the horseshoe shaped table’s head. Their father sat nearest to its center seat with a space saved to his right for his youngest. King Laufey’s brooding eyes met Loki’s for a moment before turning away.
“Then we shall be quite the sight for our honored guests! And we shall spy their faces falling as they look upon our kin,” Thrym crooned, snaking a hand around Loki’s shoulders and leading him to the entrance hall before a set of heavy oaken doors.
Loki drew a deep steadying breath as he prepared himself to weave flatteries for the new arrivals. As they poured in, it became clear to the young prince that he was tasked to spin air into gold. The gathered parties were hardly the finest that the nine realms had to offer, certainly not with two realms wholly declining the invitation. These were a collection of doormen and second cousins that the ruling courts could not be pressed to miss. The engagement of two youngest sons was sent the dregs of what the realms could spare, but Loki had honeyed words and false laurels to lay before them all.
First to arrive were Brokkr and Sindri, red haired blacksmith brothers from the dwarven realm of Niðavellir. They stood wrapped in heavy furs to guard against the cold, only their gleaming eyes and generous mustaches visible from between them. Drawn to their full heights they reached just past Loki’s navel.
Then, first visible from over the horizon line, came twin Pit Spiders from the frozen realm of Niflheimr. Their great black bodies and sixteen spindly legs maneuvered with care to fit through Thrym’s entrance hall, sized for two jötunn to walk abreast. They bowed low before attempting to enter, their bodies sinking towards the snow, sixteen shining eyes reflecting the gold adornments of the giants that welcomed them.
Then, crackling, roaring, and burning towards the heavens, came two flaming Múspellsmegir, wards of Surtur’s flaming realm. Their faceless, molten constitutions ran past their hosts and streamed into the dining hall, leaving only echoing cackles and floating cinders in their wake.
Having satisfied their duties in welcoming their motley band of merry guests, Thrym and Loki turned back towards the dining hall to wait for Asgard’s fashionably late arrival. Loki drifted towards his place on the righthand side of the table, chatting politely with the dwarves, spiders, and various servingmen he passed. But his churning mind whirled elsewhere, and as he took his place at his father’s side, it turned to thoughts of his intended.Balder the Brave, beloved by all creation.
Some weeks past, he had written Loki a letter, his shaky hand blazed across a length of vellum, delivered to the jötunn prince in his enchanted garden by one of the Allfather’s damnable twin birds. He could still remember it line for line.
Dear Loki, the note began, its recipient’s lip curling up from the unearned familiarity, I take great joy in the news of our marriage. Well that made one of them.
It is my hope that the peace between our realms will far outlive even the children of our children’s children. Surely just a pretty turn of phrase, but Loki had felt his stomach turn sour at the thought of bearing æsir brats. He had comforted himself with the thought that this was to be a firmly barren arrangement, meant to unite but certainly not to continue the family line. Balder the Overly Brazen seemed to have other plans.
I await our meeting with great anticipation, and wish to make you happy from this day onwards to eternity. How quaint.
Our duty shall be not only to our realms, but to each other. Signed with the greatest of affection, Balder the Brave, son of Odin and the realm eternal. Loki seethed. His duty had always been only to himself, and so it would remain. Regardless of how Jötunheimr’s court could benefit from his dealings they were his, and his alone. He hated this letter so much he thought to eat it. Consume it, digest it, and shit it out in some black forgotten corner of the barren woods for lesser creatures to dig through. He very nearly did, bringing it to his open lips and towards his needle teeth to snuff the wretched thing from existence. But at the last moment he lowered his hand and thought better of it. The saccharine insincerity would only lead to canker-bitten insides.
The beady eyed unblinking bird that brought its master’s missive sat waiting on the same flowering bough it had landed on. Loki shooed it away with a black taloned hand. He had wandered through his garden well into the night, seeking to indulge the foul humor that had beset him. The sun rose late in Góa, and by the time its first pale and feeble rays touched the peaks of the black mountains, his mind had found some ease. He had retired to his chamber and penned a letter in appropriate courtly tones, his siren feather quill looping long, steady strokes to elegantly echo Balder’s hopes of devotion and domesticity. He had burned that letter.
For a time the æsir prince’s message went unanswered. Then one frigid afternoon, when the pallid light of midwinter fell over King Laufey’s barren grounds, the princeling had a thought. He wandered down a black untended path and found a clump of mistletoe clinging to a long dead tree, untouched by the merciless frost. Loki plucked a sprig and held it to his mouth, so close that as he whispered, his thin scarred lips brushed its long round leaves in a shower of butterfly kisses. From the kitchens he stole a whortleberry branch, its shinning black berries neatly echoing the mistletoe’s white fruit. With a wave of his jeweled hands and a sculpting of his breath, he had pulled a magpie from the air, dewey with melting frost. He conjured a ribbon to bind his gift and entrusted it to its carrier.
She had far to travel. Over the tundra, past the black forests and the windswept steppe, and past other realms besides before she reached the gilded city. For all the waiting the Odinson would have to do for his response, Loki very much hoped he found it lacking.
He had spent the following weeks doing his utmost to push his intended from his mind, while his intended seemed to do everything in his power to affix himself there. There hadn’t been further courier ravens, thank the Norns, but Balder’s æsir influence seemed to rear its bothersome horned head at every turn. Most prominently in the goblin controlled mountain pass of Niðavellir, where Loki had arrived to find æsir muscle had already beat out his jötunn wit. Whether their engagement had truly emboldened Balder in his diplomatic excursions or if Loki was simply noticing it more now that he had reason to detest it, the young prince could not say. Regardless, this public announcement was poised to curtail that particular trend. The rumors had already started, thanks in large part to Loki having started them. Asgard’s throne falls to jötunn influence! Allfather leads his youngest son to slaughter! Whatever uncertainty his allies had felt at his engagement, tales of an ill wind blowing in the æsir’s direction had done as much to soothe their worries as Loki’s sharp toothed, black gummed smile.
To his left, Loki’s older brothers murmured about a lack of ale, and to his right his father was stoney faced and silent. On either side of the U-shaped table, the invited guests sat in tense, heavy silence, the enchanted emerald torchlight flooding the hall with an unsettling gloom. Loki sat admiring his well groomed nail beds, restraining himself lest he begin to purr.
The oaken doors to Thrym’s keep swung open once again, and over the howl of the late winter wind the gathered parties could hear their host welcoming the royal family of Asgard to his hall. All eyes turned towards the entrance in anticipation.
Thrym was first to enter and first to speak, his booming voice filling the hall like a peal of thunder as he stepped through the archway, “We bid welcome to the realm of Vanaheimr,” he boomed, “and to the Allfather of the realm eternal that rules above us all.”
Odin followed close behind, his bearskin cloak open across his chest, his twin ravens flying off from his armored shoulders to hide among the rafters. Beside him was the lovely Lady Freya of Vanaheimr, Allmother of all nine realms, followed by her two sons. Balder the Brave, beloved by all creation, entered the hall with his horned helm tucked beneath his arm, his short cropped auburn hair sticking out in a dozen different directions. Loki could see the softness of his tender heart outlined on his provincially beautiful face. It disgusted him.
Just behind him was the Thunderer, heritor to all nine realms, protector of Asgard and soon to be lord of all creation. He stood half a head taller than Balder, clad in a floor length cloak of crimson dragonhide. His long blond hair was pulled back from his handsome face in a loose braid. His blue eyes lit his face with a roguish mischief, from the arch of his strawberry blonde brow to the ruddy stubble across his jaw. He was resplendent. For a moment Loki felt himself possessed. He thought of the shining net of influence they could cast across the nine. With his cunning to match the óss’ brawn, the realms could be their playthings. They could form a new beginning, forged in thunder and in witchcraft, and purged in Helfire. One lightning strike to burn clean the realms of their fathers’ influence and an eternity black as pitch in which to sow a brand new history. An end to all creation and a screaming rise to something greater; something new.
Loki’s brief jaunt of madness was interrupted by black eyed Tyr, trailing in behind his brothers with his cold hard stare fixed on the youngest Laufeyson. Scrambling to pull his expression back together, Loki cast his great red eyes down.
Following Thrym’s lead, the royal family of Asgard took their places on the lefthand side of the table’s head, the bastard war god relegated to a seat beside the Pit Spiders. They did so in silence, as not a word had been spoken nor a breath drawn since Thrym had made his entrance. Cheerfully slamming a hand across his youngest nephew’s shoulders, the old jötunn happily took up the task of breaking the silence that had stretched across his table.
“Put your silver tongues to work, boy,” he bellowed, “I would have you spin a yarn to open this feast.”
Loki smiled graciously, rising from his seat and trying to regain the breath that had been knocked out of him.
“You honor me, uncle,” he said, before casting his gaze out to the rest of the hall, “as do you all, denizens from across the Nine, come to share in the joy and the joining of our two families; may they be joined as one to usher in a peace everlasting, that it may outlive even the children of our children’s children.”
From the corner of his eye, Loki watched as Balder’s breath hitched and his face began to glow. Perfect. He turned to his betrothed and gave a subtle inclination of his great ornamented head, inviting him to speak. Balder rose from the bench hastily, splaying his fingers before him as if to bear his weight.
“May our duties be not only to our realms, but to each other,” he announced. How inventive. So a hand’s length of vellum had carried all his courtly phrases with it. Stunning.
Thrym brought his hands together in approval and stood from his center seat.
“Fine words from our fair princes,” he boomed, “and I shall venture to extend my own thanks to my honored guests. Less eloquent than my nephew’s, I am certain, but no less sincere.”
Loki settled his pointed chin into his hand and watched his uncle orate, lying as he breathed about the accomplishments and accolades of the gathered parties. An easy smile stretched over Loki’s thin lips as Thrym droned on. As he listened to his uncle speak — first about the gathered guests, then about the royal family of Asgard and,ooh, the accomplishments of Lady Freya’s three children, and finally about his own royal family — Loki was keenly aware of the Odinsons’ eyes on him. Balder’s stare was clingy and cloying; he could feel it tracing the petals of his belladonna engagement wreathe through his hair and skittering away from his eyes lest it be caught. The Thunderer’s gaze was weighty, like a gathering storm. Despite himself, Loki could feel it bearing down into the center of his chest, tempting him to turn towards its source and be blinded by his light.
Blessedly, Thrym concluded his speech, bending at the waist in a bow that took his nose nearly to the surface of his table. He stood swiftly, without pausing for applause, and clapped twice, signaling the many servingmen of his hall to pour in from the adjacent corridors and pile the center table with a feast under which it threatened to break. In addition to the delicacies procured by their host, the United Elven Realms had sent a rich blood pudding to be displayed in their stead, and the Lady Freya, as representative of Vanaheimr, had supplied barrels of the finest honey wine in all the nine. As the embarrassment of riches poured in, a band began to play a jaunty tune, and in the presence of meat, mead, and melodies, the dining hall underwent a thaw.
Loki ate sparingly and sipped on barley wine, keeping his gold rimmed eyes cast down and his ear pricked. He noted that Thrym was sat next to his dwarven guests, gesticulated wildly. Their expressions seemed to suggest that he was commissioning a large and extravagant work. Kings Laufey and Odin sat together on the right side of the table, their heads inclined together, their lips brushing the silver rims of their chalices as they whispered and the color began to rise in their cheeks. The flaming Múspellsmegir chatted between themselves, the troll and goblin musicians livened the air, and even the Pit Spiders had the ear of the fair Lady Freya, who leaned towards them as if they were old friends.
Loki’s eye drifted again to Balder, who sat awkwardly beside his elder brother, periodically running a nervous hand through his hair. The Laufeyson had misjudged his letter. It had not been a concerted effort to play the perfect diplomat, painting a portrait of earnest desire and proper courtship. Far worse, it had been an expression of earnest desire and want for proper courtship. Loki had misjudged the Odinson to be a power hungry tyrant like his father, sitting on a gilded throne suspended on a web of lies. He was not. Instead he was weak, he was kind, and Loki found that his patience for the soft hearted prince had already run dry. It was clear to the Laufeyson even now that the stinger of his influence would eat away at the tender flesh of Balder’s heart until it rotted out from under it. Such a waste as to not even be a pity.
Loki blinked his gold rimmed eyes clear of their wolfish expression. It wouldn’t do well to have Balder’s prying eyes alight on his features cast in cruelty.
The evening went on pleasantly enough, the varied guests consorting between themselves and their hosts with increasing gaiety. Soon the dancing emerald torchlight and the ever flowing barley wine made Loki’s great jeweled head spin. Rising from his seat at the table with the well practiced grace of a young giant who had spent his nights at indecorous courts across the nine, Loki padded off to an adjacent corridor to shake the dancing shadows from his eyes. Brushing politely past a serving girl with a heavily laden tray, turning right, then left at the first set of double doors, he came upon a familiar enclave that had served as his favorite hiding spot as a young giant.
The wall of the corridor bowed outwards and gave way to a little alcove, a stone bench carved into its curve and lined with beautifully embroidered cushions. Six fine corinthian columns stretched floor to ceiling and blossomed into exotic stone flowers at their capitals. It looked like a beautiful open air balcony on which to spend a summer afternoon; except the portion of it clearly intended to open into the temperate, perfumed air was filled by cold grey stone.
It was an abandoned bit of half magic, no doubt a pet project to bring a balmy slice of Asgard, Vanaheimr, or Midgard to Jötunheimr’s frozen forests. Loki sank down onto the bench, pressing his back against the wall and stretching his legs out in front of him. The melodious chimes of his heavy gold jewelry echoed off the enclosed space like frozen rain. No sooner had his gold rimmed eyes shut for a moment’s rest than they snapped open again at the sound of approaching footsteps.
Loki stood quickly, the pleasant haze of barley wine evaporating from his mind. The footsteps carried a voice with them, thick with mead, butchering an æsir drinking song. Loki felt his lip curl up over his needle teeth as he thought very pointedly about how unarmed he was and how enclosed the space. The youngest prince of Jötunheimr widened his stance and balled his hands into fists.
Around the bend of the torchlit corridor came the Thunderer, Thor Odinson, an empty drinking horn in his right hand and a twinkle in his bright blue eyes. He had shed his dragonhide cloak and courtly armor to wander Thrym’s hall in his leathers. The young óss sang out into the air with no shame or standard for his poor performance, and feigned surprise when he caught Loki’s eye.
“Prince Loki,” he called out warmly, raising his hand to toast in the jötunn’s direction, “how fortunate that we should meet!”
“Yes,” said Loki, rising with grace from his defensive crouch, “had fortune played any part in our meeting I would be sure to thank it.”
Thor chuckled so good naturedly it made Loki’s teeth rattle.
“Do you make it a habit, Odinson, to stalk strangers through the night?” Loki snapped, “drunk?” he added sharply.
“I would never dream of it,” said Thor, “When the strangers are drunk I have an ungallant advantage.”
He waggled his blonde eyebrows and grinned in a manner Loki could only describe as dazzling, though he did try desperately to find another adjective.
“And I see no strangers here besides,” he continued, advancing towards Loki, close enough now that the jötunn prince could see the flush of his cheeks creeping over his spattering of pale freckles, “as we are to be brothers, you and I.”
Loki lowered his eyes demurely. Half to play the coquette, half to free himself from the snare of Thor’s shining eyes. The Thunderer sat heavily on the stone bench, brushing his golden hair away from his fair face and tossing his empty drinking horn aside.
In a fluid motion, Loki stepped forward and lowered himself to sit at Thor’s side, his gold adornments chiming as he did so.
“Then we shall sow brotherly love between ourselves,” he said with a sinister smile, the words hissing past his teeth. The grin that Thor flashed back at him, bright though it was and brimming with royal showmanship, had a wicked edge to it.
“Perhaps that’s the more fertile ground to till,” Loki continued, his serpentine eyes tracing a path from the ruddy stubble on Thor’s chin down the muscles of his neck and on to his suntanned chest, his left clavicle just visible beneath his wide collar, “Fair Balder is beloved by all creation, there seems little room left for my affections.”
“You produce such dour predictions,” said Thor with a crinkle of his nose, “our dear Balder is beloved by all creation because he has the heart to love it in return. I’m sure Asgard’s halls will soon ring with the patter of tiny feet.”
Loki, rather involuntarily, let out an irritated growl. This, maddeningly, made Thor laugh.
“Did the Allfather plan that I should bear the æsir line?” he hissed.
“If he planned otherwise he has yet to inform Balder,” Thor said, “Is that a customary arrangement to make in Jötunheimr?” He said with a tilt of his head. Before Loki could open his mouth to speak, Thor rallied with another inquiry.
“And if I were to marry you, witch, who of us would bear our children?” he asked, leaning so far towards Loki that he had to brace a hand against the bench to bear his shifting weight.
“Surely you’ve only the capacity to sire children, Thunderer,” said Loki, taken aback by the question. He didn’t move back from Thor’s advance. So close was the Giant Slayer now, that his breath moved the ornaments in Loki’s plaited hair to chime.
“Aye, speak ye true,” said Thor cheerfully, “But what of you, serpent-tongue? Possess you such magicks as to carry an heir to Asgard?”
“No heir of mine would sit the throne of Asgard, thunder god,” said Loki, flicking his black tongues out briefly over his lips, “But yes I possess the… capacity to carry my own children.” He chose the word carefully, but Thor’s brows furrowed regardless. Loki sighed and spun a ring around his little finger, casting his eyes down as he explained. He’d hardly had enough wine to play teacher, but the young prince judged it best to indulge the heir apparent while he was in his cups.
“The throne of Jotunheimr is unlike that of Asgard. Our birthrights are passed down along our birthing lines,” said Loki patiently, “Ymir carried forth Laufey and his kin to our frozen shores on a tide of his spilled blood. Laufey brought his successor to those same shores on a tide of his own making.”
“Then King Laufey is your mother,” said Thor, who appeared to be thinking very hard.
“No,” said Loki politely.
“Did your mother not die in birthing you?” Thor asked. Loki heard his teeth click together sharply at the end of his question, as though he’d tried and failed to close his mouth before he’d gotten all the way through it.
“As I was brought into the world I did take Farbauti out of it,” Loki replied, a peaceful smile curling up the corners of his thin lips, “although to hear some tell of it, I was born clutching her heart impaled on a poisoned blade, or else strung through my sharpened teeth.”
A look passed over Thor’s flushed face to suggest that had heard both those stories, and many others, but that he had decided not to share them. Instead he opened his mouth and thought for a moment before shutting it again. There was no tactful way to ask his question.
Loki came to his aid.
“Laufey carried Byleistr, third of his line and rightful heir to Jotunheimr. Helblindi and I were of no consequence, the matter of primogeniture having already been settled. Were you seeking to produce an heir to lord over a united kingdom of gold and frost,” Loki lifted his eyes to meet Thor’s, peering at him slyly from beneath his dark lashes, “you would be speaking to my brother.”
“And perhaps you should be, thunderer,” he continued, tilting his head and letting the gold plaited into his hair chime through the moment of silence, “as we have made clear that I am promised to yours.”
“Surely I could not be faulted for wanting to know more of the line into which my youngest brother is to marry,” said Thor innocently. Loki could see his blue eyes tracing his scarred lips. Sitting at kissing distance, he was well poised to strike.
“And what am I to learn of yours, Thor?” Loki purred, testing his name on the tips of his tongues pressed against the backs of his teeth, “what can you tell me of the throne of Asgard?”
“That a halfling bastard may never hope to rest his arse on it.”
The young princes’ heads snapped around to the darkened end of the hall before them, panic rising momentarily in Loki’s throat. But it was only Tyr, dark of eye and ill of humor. He, too, carried his emptied drinking horn in his right hand. What an irritating and boorish æsir habit…
The godling was still slumped over on the bench, his fingertips still perilously close to Loki’s knee. The blush spread across his beautiful face was strong even in the emerald torchlight, but the mischief in his eyes had sputtered out. A moment of unease stretched through the air like a length of wire pulling taut.
“Any children of mine, Lord Tyr,” quipped Loki brightly, “shall follow your perfectly set example of never trying to.”
Thor laughed. Tyr did not.
“Come back into the firelight of the feasting hall that I may better note your influence on my younger brother,” he said darkly, “and that I may suffer none such magicks to take root in the minds of my youngest.”
Loki rose from his seat and gave a flourishing bow and a saccharine, black gummed smile. To be ordered around in his family home by a bastard halfing war god was certainly the right feather of indignity in the cap of this farcical engagement feast. He left with a toss of his raven hair, showering the floor behind him with violet petals of belladonna. As he made his way back down the winding corridors towards the gathered parties, he heard the æsir shouting behind him. Their words were indistinct, but “pit-viper” was among them.
Wandering back toward the dining hall at a leisurely pace, Loki traced a claw tipped finger along the corridor’s stone wall. He soothed his injured pride with the thought that it would have been time to return anyway, lest anyone note his absence. But picking at the wound were thoughts of the Thunderer’s laughter; bold, bright, and unashamed, bursting through the frozen labyrinths of Thrym’s keep like a summer storm. His breath had been sour from honey wine and hot over Loki’s face, pouring from his mouth which he had brought towards Loki’s with an incorrigible impropriety unseen even in subterranean goblin courts. The young prince couldn’t help but dwell on how Thor’s well muscled frame had melted into the stone beneath him, almost as if his limbs were tired from carrying the radiance of his smile. And he certainly couldn’t have imagined the static that had arced across the nearly non-existant distance between Thor’s hanging fingertips and his bent knee. Or how the heavens seemed to part when their eyes met, to unleash a cleansing rain across the nine and draw a flood to fill every pit and eclipse every parapet.
Loki shook his head free of such fancies. A haze of enchanted torchlight and barley wine had shrouded his better judgement once again. The troll musicians must have sung him quite insane. This was madness and nonsense from which he’d force himself free. He lowered himself to his place at Thrym’s table resolutely, catching Balder’s guileless eye. He winked, flashing a razor edged smile, and watched the prince’s cheeks flush scarlet and his jaw go slack. Loki sat prettily, tracing a wet finger over the silver rim of his chalice and looking pointedly away from his betrothed, ensnared in conversation by his dear, auspicious uncle. It wasn’t long before Balder disentangled himself, and came to Loki’s elbow shyly.
With an uncertain clearing of his constricted throat, Balder spoke his first words to the withdrawn Laufeyson, “May I refill that for you?”
Loki smiled, and found himself with honeyed words to spare. “You would do me an honor, Odinson,” he purred, sliding his empty glass towards the óss. “Quite the guest list we’ve managed to attract,” he said snidely, watching Balder’s hands shake.
“Not the finest of the nine,” he said, placing the flagon of wine back onto the table with a hearty laugh, “but surely a reflection of our birthrights.”
“Does my lord Balder find his lacking?” asked Loki sharply, balancing the tips of his tongues between his teeth.
“He finds it happy among present company,” Balder parried. So there was his ambassadorial repertoire at last. Loki could have smiled, had he not been quick to couch his wit, “And I meant only that the realms sent a reflection of what they thought to gain.
Loki growled in annoyance, “What a shrewd assessment of our engagement, Odinson.”
“Shrewd, but not unkind,” Balder assured, “Asgard has, after all, sent all that it has.”
Yes, thought Loki, feeling that same bothersome coil in his chest that had tightened at the Thunderer’s attentions, and it has saddled me with the chaff.
Before his rumination could curdle to self pity, the two elder princes of Jötunheimr appeared on either side of the betrothed, Býleistr curling a hand across Balder’s broad shoulders as easily as he had surrounded Loki’s earlier in the evening. His black talons sat along his right arm, their knifepoint tips sinking into the prince’s chainmail.
“You do us an honor with your patronage, lord Balder,” he hissed, his voice thick with scorn.
“It is you who honor me with yours,” said Balder steadily. The uncertain tremble of infatuation had fallen from his voice and was replaced with sterile diplomacy, “allow me to pour my brothers some wine.”
“So we are brothers, then,” Býleistr purred, his gold rimmed eyes sparking cruelly, “I had grown so used to being fodder for the Asgardian hordes. To meet an óss who caters to the game with which he stocks his woods is a rare honor.”
“Could we expect the same kindness from lord Thor?” Helblindi grunted from over Loki’s shoulder, with all the subtlety of a battle axe to the head. The name again caught Loki off balance.
“We are all of us here to atone for the blood spilled between us,” said Balder, navigating past the accusation with the expert ease of royal entitlement, “had my brothers and I not waged our father’s war against you we would not be here to remedy it. Our blood was spilled across Jötunheimr and now our bloodlines will begin their joining, that the rift between our peoples can be mended.”
And the realms had seen fit to deem him the Lie Smith, thought Loki as sour rage curled from his gut and made his tongues itch with rebuttals. The Thousand Year War, as it was being called even now, in the infancy of its resolution, hadn’t been a war at all. There had not been strategy, nor treaty, nor parlay. There had been slaughter. Merciless and unrelenting. Stretching over a thousand years across a land a thousand thousand miles away from the goat’s milk and honeyed wine fed to Asgard’s children off finely smithed silver. This was not an engagement but a blood sacrifice, an underfed lamb at the feet of a jealous god, its meat bitter from a life moreso.
“By the shining threads, you even sound like one another,” Býleistr spat.
“We revel in your approval, dear brother,” said Loki coldly. Freeing himself from Helblindi’s grip on his shoulders, Loki reached for the flagon of wine Balder had set between them. As he busied himself refilling the chalices around him, his attention was caught by scuffle at the far end of the table. Dark eyed Tyr had his younger brother firmly by the back of the neck, and was forcing him bodily back into his seat.
“If you wish your concerns addressed by those you raise them against,” Loki said, watching Thor brush a strand of hair from his eyes with the back of his hand, “I believe you’ll now have your chance.”
Helblindi and Býleistr whipped their great horned heads around in fear as Loki watched the Thunderer toss a jovial wink in Balder’s direction. He was exaggerating his drunkenness, that the Laufeyson could tell. When they’d spoken his limbs had been heavy but not ungainly, and his tongue had been sharp even through his foolishness. Thor caught his eye and for half a heartbeat’s moment, he dropped the act, his lips pulling into a languid, knowing smile below his wicked eyes. Loki cast his eyes from his flushed and handsome face to the mortified expression of his betrothed at his side, preoccupied with the social calamity of his brother’s intemperance. His thin lips parted, but his retort was pushed back behind his needle teeth by Thrym’s thunderous baritone swelling through the hall, silencing the merry band and the pleasant chatter therein.
“Wonderful! The night grows dark around us, fair friends,” he boomed, “Let us gather to present our young princes with their engagement gifts.”
Engagement gifts? Loki furrowed his brows, surely the presence of the assembled parties had been the only things the realms had spared for the occasion. Curiosity etched across his face, Loki let himself be lead with Balder to the center of the table. Thrym squeezed their hands together before them and stood back as the heavy-laden table at the hall’s center was magicked away to make room for his guests to present their gifts. Balder’s hand was warm against his, and Loki felt him thread their fingers together as Thrym continued his pronouncement.
“Thanks are due to the United Elven realms, whose blood pudding graced our table,” Well it had certainly been a presence at the table but to say it graced— “and to the sun soaked realm of Vanaheimr whose fine mead filled our drinking horns this night.” And made quite the spectacle of Asgard’s royal family…
“But we have more gifts to bestow on our young princes before this night is through. From the rocky realm of Niðavellir, I am honored to present Brokkr and Sindri.”
The two dwarves had shed their warm winter furs and stepped forward, looking decidedly less like the two piles of tightly wound pelts that had first arrived. Brokkr, with a finely oiled red beard and a gleaming bald head, came forward with a shining boar. Each of the innumerable golden bristles on its great body shone like starlight. Its name was Gullinbursti, and it was to be Balder’s companion through the darkest night, the deepest cavern, or the blackest sea, to carry him steadfast through water or through air.
Balder stammered through his thanks, taken aback by the extravagance of the creature before him. Loki failed to suppress a chuckle, but blunted its edge with a wink.
“This, Prince Loki,” announced Sindri “we call Draupnir.” He held a gold ring in both hands and raised it to the level of his eyes, “From this ring, on every ninth night from this night, eight new gold rings of equal weight and splendor will emerge.”
Loki was spellbound. He felt his claw tipped fingers itch with the desire to hold it, to slip it onto his arm and watch it birth new treasures for him again and again.
“You honor me greatly,” he said breathlessly as Sindri placed his gift before him, “your craftsmanship is unparalleled.”
Next to present their gifts were the Pit Spiders of Niflheimr, who arranged their great mass of hairy black limbs carefully to fit between the horseshoe shaped bench. The first, indistinguishable to Loki from his twin, spoke in a phantom voice that seemed to rise from the center of its many-eyed head.
“Sweet prince,” it said, extending a leg forward, “it would honor us, were you to wear this veil at your hand tying. We have woven it in spider silk, a treasure to us more precious than gold.”
Comparison noted, thought Loki, his eyes tracing the shapeless, shifting, gossamer, thing draped over the spider’s limb. It was a bridal veil, its shimmering moonlit threads brought together in a witching weft lighter than air and paler than mist. Loki forced his eyes away from the effervescent treasure before him to meet all eight of its artist’s.
“Its beauty is unmatched,” he said, lending weight to every word, “and it would be my honor to wear it.”
The spider bowed low, and shuffled back to make room for its brother, who presented Lord Balder with a blade forged of tempered spider’s silk.
The flaming Múspellsmegir, having brought nothing but their hollow bellies, and having happily left those behind, fled cackling from the hall without a parting word. Having presented their treasures, the other guests also took their leave. Only the two royal families remained, and on the wings of Thrym’s declaration of the lateness of the hour, they made their way to the threshold of his hall. Freyja and her sons stood by the great oaken doors, tying their cloaks back around their necks in preparation to meet the night’s cruel chill. Thrym fussed, his great head bobbing through the air as he took bow after flatterer’s bow.
Býleistr and Helblindi sulked behind their father, who stood abreast with the Borson, his cold red eyes studying the Thunderer, the Beloved, and the bastard son in turn. They alighted on Loki for a moment, stood between the gathered families, his great jeweled head turned over his shoulder. Before he could search his father’s face, the Allfather’s voice rang out over the crackle of enchanted flame and the polite snuffling of Balder’s gifted beast.
“Your courtship is to last through the summer months,” Odin announced.
“You will be welcomed at my court through Haustmánður, prince,” King Laufey followed icily.
“It would be my honor to attend,” Balder chirped.
“As it would be my honor to host you,” said Laufey, his words so lacking in sincerity that they may have sucked some away from the heart of the young prince he spoke them to, like a swarm of black flies.
“And it will be your honor to be welcomed at my court, in the realm eternal, through Gormánður,” Odin barked at Loki, “you are to be wed at the equinox.”
With a flourish of his adorned claws, Loki bent into a bow so deep his raven hair brushed the floor, the movement setting free a shower of belladonna petals. “I’m humbled by such accolades, Allfather,” he said silkily.
He straightened and turned on his heels, prepared to face his betrothed at the entryway. What greeted him instead, was the no longer flushed face of his older brother, his blue eyes alight with wicked starfire. Striking like a viper, he took Loki’s outstretched hand into his own and brought his fingers to his lips in a chaste and lingering kiss.
Loki’s scarred mouth — startled out of the charlatan’s grin it had been pulled into — fell open, the sharp tips of his two black tongues visible just beyond his needle teeth.
When, finally, a thousand years after he had first touched his skin to Loki’s, Thor lifted his head, the tension in the room was palpable. It stretched like catgut through the air, pulled taught and near to bursting, running through the faltering hearts of the gathered parties.
“May the Norns weave kindly until our threads entwine again, brother,” Thor said softly, the ruddy stubble on his chin brushing over Loki’s fingers, his hand still propping them up near his mouth.
Loki felt his breath rattle over his teeth and a flame rise in his chest. For a moment he felt that he, in all his glittering splendor, might fall freely through the hole that had opened up around and below him. The only thing keeping him afloat in the great black yawning void of the present moment was one maddeningly warm æsir hand pressed tightly against his palm. Thor held his gaze from beneath his bright blonde lashes, his blue eyes underscored by a damnable smile. From deep in his churning black guts the youngest prince of Jötunheimr felt a strange and particular calling arise. A column of flame piercing through black and endless night. A vision of terror and damnation. Fingernails of the unhappy dead at his back and raked across his belly. A world ending burn seared into his impish face. And Thor’s warm, calloused fingers supporting his palm, twisted into his hair, wrapped around his neck and sliding down his back. The feeling lasted a moment, only as long as it took for the giant slayer to straighten his back and release Loki’s hand, but that was enough.
“May their stitches be swift,” the Laufeyson managed through his collapsing throat. He held the thunderer’s gaze, not daring to meet his family’s eyes behind him, nor to see what rage had bloomed in the Allfather’s stormy grey eye. Balder said something over his shoulder. It blended in with the patient snuffles of his shining golden boar. It mattered as much.
Thrym, bowing as low as an aged jötunn’s knees would allow, escorted Asgard’s royal family beyond the threshold of his hall and closed the door against the howling wind. Loki watched them go through a dreamlike haze. He noted Odin’s grip on Freya’s arm, Tyr’s hands balled into white-knuckled fists at his side, and Thor’s hand clasped cheerfully against Balder’s broad back, their heads inclined towards one another in what looked like lively conversation.
Loki caught the flash of blinding light as the Bifrost swallowed them up just as Thrym closed his heavy oaken doors against the howling wind. Slowly, his back to his father and his elder brothers, his red eyes turned towards but not seeing his uncle’s back, Loki raised his left hand to his mouth and pressed his lips against the backs of his fingers. Had he been a creature twice as foolish, he would have sworn he felt a spark.