Tantrum
The next day passed uneventfully. Loki made brief eye contact, but didn’t wink or give any other indication of favor when he walked past me to the conference room. I wanted to be relieved, but instead felt mildly disappointed.
That evening, I went over my impressions of what I’d observed at the party with Aizerue and Daucus. They confirmed that I hadn’t leaked any important information, and that Loki was definitely up to something, although they couldn’t agree what exactly his intent was. I also shared my theory that the golden swirls across his aura indicated deliberate deception. At my request, Laharu created a minor spell that would help me burn off alcohol more quickly and added it to the aetheric pattern of my Aesir shape. The rest of the guards ended up using it too, though the diplomats chose to go without.
Those new pattern adjustments were soon put to the test. Each of us eventually attended a party or two over the next handful of evenings, the guards alone or in pairs, the diplomats always with one or two guards. When we were alone, we could participate in the revelry if we chose, but when we were on duty with our seniors we had to maintain the stoic, expressionless image we’d cultivated so carefully.
We were all very aware that we were always being watched. The policy decided on before we arrived was that we would not block our quarters from Heimdall’s view unless there was an emergency, while Scathsa’s security net identified and disabled anybody else’s attempts to monitor our suite. As soon as we walked out of the door, though, we were fair game for anyone who wanted to spy on us in the palace. We spotted at least half a dozen cameras aimed at our door during our time in Asgard, but there was only ever one aetheric tracer buzzing around, and it always followed me in particular. I didn’t mind much, since I had a similar tracer on Loki, following him whenever he left his own well-warded rooms. I had no idea if he was aware that I was watching him exactly as he was watching me, since he never brought the subject up, and I certainly wasn’t going to be the one to broach the topic.
By the fourth day, things had settled into a routine. I’d been passing the time during the afternoon shift by practicing aetheric mind-weaving—the art of creating magical patterns without using one’s hands, a skill I was rather weak in and determined to improve—when Thor burst out of the meeting room, slamming the doors open, his aura blazing with fury. The half-formed pattern disintegrated immediately as my attention snapped to the angry Aesir.
“You would give the very ground we stand on to these creatures!” he roared, holding out his right hand in a strange gesture. “We know their history, we know they cannot be trusted. These negotiations are a farce!”
Something came whirring down the hall, a streak of light that I barely had time to register before it smacked firmly into Thor’s hand. Mjolnir glazed with aetheric and technological power, brightly enough to make my eyes water.
“They are here to learn our defenses, find our secrets, and once they have that knowledge they will use it to invade and destroy us.” Thor glared at myself and Malalik, who happened to be standing beside me on the same side of the doorway. We looked back impassively, though both of us were tense, acutely aware of the power of the weapon he held.
“Thor… we have spent centuries laying the foundations for these talks,” one of the Aesir diplomats said in a weary tone, still inside the room. Zie had obviously given this speech several times already. “The Niddroghn have complied with every security demand, have even given us information to guarantee—”
“Enough!” Thor waved his hammer in our direction. I couldn’t help flinching away from it, and Malalik twitched visibly. “I will not take part in these games any longer! My friends have told me of conflicts brewing among the realms, no doubt at the direction of these—monsters.” As he ranted, Loki emerged from the conference room. He glanced around, then walked to stand between us at Thor.
“It is past time for us to ride out and quell those disturbances,” Thor continued, though he lowered Mjolnir to his side as he transferred his scowl to Loki. “Brother, you will come with me.”
“As much as I’d love to join you on your petulant rampage, there are things here that I am responsible for,” Loki replied. His expression was calm, but his tone had a biting edge and his aura rippled with pulses of a dark, greenish-red disturbance. “If you are so intent on abandoning your own obligations to go play at being a petty warrior king, by all means, don’t let me stop you.”
I saw by the white flashes across Thor’s aura that his adopted brother’s words had accurately targeted his tangled knot of duty and guilt, but they were almost immediately displaced by a bloom of dark red fury. “More likely, you’re enjoying the company of these—reptiles,” he sneered. “Your blood is as cold as theirs.”
Loki raised an eyebrow, but didn’t rise to the bait. After a moment, Thor turned and stomped away down the corridor, Scathsa and Laharu stepping back quickly to stay well out of his way. The Jotun sighed, looking around at all of us and then into the room. “I’m very sorry you had to be subjected to that,” he said with a slight wince before returning to the conference room and closing the doors firmly behind him.
We resumed our positions in the hallway, staring at the equally impassive Aesir guards opposite us, but I could sense the crackle of worry in my aura reflected in those of my companions.