deceived, by illusion

[purposeful_glory]

Sigyn goes on hanging around the Three and Thor and Loki. Fandral, charmed in spite of her vocal disgruntlement, doesn't go so far as to kick him out of bed for her embarrassment, let alone insist on kicking him out of their practices; Hogun is too quiet to bother objecting if she harbors negative opinions; Volstagg is put off but not enough to throw her weight behind her objections. Thor considers his fighting respectable enough, and Loki doesn't mind the addition at all.

Loki wants to be queen one day and has not neglected learning to talk to people, learning the names of important sorts - but she has neglected assembling close friends (why should she do such a thing when she can tell them so little about herself?), and piggybacks on Thor's. So she is invited along when Thor decides she wants to go hunting for giant aurochs and thereby enjoy the supposedly superior flavor of fresh-killed beef one has personally killed.

And when Sigyn asks if he can come, well, nobody contradicts Thor when she says "Very well," even though this follows a longish pause.

Aurochs, come out, come out, wherever you are.

Comments

[thevictorious]

"Thank you," he says. "If you are ever considering being swallowed by a monster, I have to say I recommend against it. If it'd had me another minute, who knows what could've happened. As it is, I may have to sit out the rest of this hunting expedition."

[purposeful_glory]

"Yes, I imagine so. I'm not in much of a hunting mood anymore either. Let's drag its head to the others," suggests Loki.

[thevictorious]

"Let's," he agrees.

His impression of a person injured enough to be slightly impaired but not enough to worry about permanent damage is impeccable. In the process of getting the head wrapped up to carry - it takes the pair of them working together to lift it - he acquires enough miscellaneous cuts to explain all the blood.

[purposeful_glory]

Loki may have briefly had a concussion, but she really wasn't bloodied, and there's plenty of plant debris in her hair and mud on her outfit.

It's a heavy head, but they can haul it. Drag. Drag. Draaaag.

"Sister!"

[einridi]

"...Is that a landwurm?"

[purposeful_glory]

"It was. Now it is a head."

[einridi]

"So I see! What a tale that must make."

[thevictorious]

"Oh, not such an exciting one," says Sigyn. "I put my sword in its eye. It swallowed me. She stabbed its other eye and retrieved me from its interior, somewhat the worse for the experience but still, as you can see, entirely undigested."

[einridi]

...This is not the sort of tale-telling Thor is used to, but it is undeniably vivid in its imagery. And there indeed is Sigyn's sword, still stuck in the beast's eye.

"You are a warrior," she declares.

[purposeful_glory]

"He is indeed."

[einridi]

She shakes her head in amazement. "I can hardly credit it. A landwurm!"

[thevictorious]

"I've fought one before," he says. "Smaller. Disguised as a snowbank. I had a longer sword then. It didn't eat me."

[einridi]

Thor laughs.

[purposeful_glory]

"But we've somewhat lost our taste for aurochs in fighting this one."

[einridi]

"Ah well," shrugs Thor. "We haven't found any. I wonder if Hogun and Volstagg have had better luck."

[purposeful_glory]

"Maybe. Should we stay with the head while you look for them? I wouldn't like to find a pack of jackals gnawing on the trophy."

[einridi]

"Aye, do. Come, Fandral."

Fandral casts a confused glance back at Sigyn as she follows Thor.

[purposeful_glory]

"Fandral," Loki says, when they're out of earshot, "cannot a bit decide what she makes of this."

[thevictorious]

"I see that," Sigyn agrees cheerfully.

Even with no one else around, he doesn't drop the pretense of mild-to-moderate injury; he moves with a touch of stiffness that contrasts his usual efficient fluidity.

[purposeful_glory]

Loki peers at him out of the corner of her eye - is something wrong with her spell or is he just method acting? - but doesn't remark on it.

[thevictorious]

"Oh, don't worry about me. I'll be just fine by tomorrow."

[purposeful_glory]

"That's good to hear."

[thevictorious]

He grins.

[purposeful_glory]

Eventually Thor and Fandral come back with Hogun and Volstagg, who found aurochs and killed one, so they get campfire-cooked aurochs for dinner anyway. They're pretty good. But could use some rosemary and onion.

They go home, dragging the landwurm head and one particularly shapely aurochs horn to be fashioned into one of the various things you can make out of horns, and Loki has Sigyn's silence.

Isn't that good of him.





Years go by. Loki works in earnest on learning to turn into a bird. And then she suddenly spends a lot less time on that because she has abruptly Discovered Boys.

If she has complaints about her gender role in Asgardian society, at least she does not have complaints about the bit where she is welcome to discover boys in any way that suits her. Midgardian girls - and to a certain extent Asgardian boys - are constrained in this manner, but there is no particular reason Loki (especially given that she is a princess who decapitated a landwurm in recent memory, and isn't half bad-looking either) should not sidle up to pretty faces (pretty whatevers) who are loitering in a way suggesting that they're open to liaisons and liaise with them. Not all of these people are boys - why not be thorough in discovering her preferences experimentally? She can, it's completely socially acceptable, isn't that novel, and she has plenty of leisure time - but it's usually boys. Thor teases her, a little - comparing her to Fandral. Loki just laughs.

She calms down after a little while. Not that she stops, but other interests reassert themselves. And the shine's worn off random pretty boys (occasionally girls - who knows when she might find an exception to the pattern) who are mostly interested in her being a landwurm-decapitating princess.




Fandral doesn't have any sort of commitment from Sigyn. They just sometimes fuck. Sigyn sleeps around, this is known, this is (when certain people are full of mead) discussed in slightly too intimate detail without even the saving grace of cunning rhymes. This is, if one wanders into the wrong alleyway in the right neighborhood, witnessed. If Fandral preferred that people personally known to her stay away from her sometime-boytoy then this should have been made clear years ago and it hasn't been.

Loki hasn't touched him because involving complications in the ugliest possible case of blackmail has seemed like a bad idea. But it's been a while now, and his silence has been absolute, even to her.

And she could teach him the alphabet.







But first things first. She corners him alone one day. She grins, gives him a minute to flinch or signal if he plans on doing so, and when there is no sign she should back off, she kisses him.

[thevictorious]

Well isn't that delightful.

Sigyn kisses back.