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]

Snuggles! Sigyn is ever so cuddlesome.

[purposeful_glory]

Yaaaaay cuddlesome.

When slightly less postcoital but still pretty cuddly:

"Imagine," says Loki, "that you want to learn to write, and all you know is the alphabet - no words, no grammar, no concept of paragraphs or punctuation."

[thevictorious]

"...That sounds maddening," he says. "But perhaps less maddening than the reverse. And how did this come about?"

[purposeful_glory]

"Accidentally. I touched something I wasn't supposed to touch and came away with two hundred and nine little - concepts, burned into my brain. Assigned them all symbols. Got to work."

[thevictorious]

"Well. Isn't that something. Who else knows about this unusual hobby?"

[purposeful_glory]

"Heimdall, I must assume. No one else."

[thevictorious]

"And how maddening is it to invent writing with nothing but an alphabet to go on? Clearly you've had some success."

[purposeful_glory]

"Some, yes. It does however take a very long time to write an entire library."

[thevictorious]

"I imagine so."

[purposeful_glory]

"And starting over when there's a mistake is worse still. But I have a few things, and with the alphabet I can make them perfect."

[thevictorious]

"Perfection's hard to come by. What have you written so far?"

[purposeful_glory]

"Healing spells. A suite of them, I think jointly comprehensive. All-purpose visual and auditory illusions. And the first one - when I was little I tripped, a lot. I couldn't learn to fight, I'd have impaled myself on something before a week had gone by. So -" She waves a hand, perfectly graceful. "I fixed it."

[thevictorious]

"Oh, well done," he says admiringly. "And of course I am very grateful for your healing spells."

[purposeful_glory]

"I'm proud of them. They don't see very much use. It varies how often I can get away. The illusions help, of course."

[thevictorious]

"Oh, yes. They would."

[purposeful_glory]

"The illusion spell's usable in pieces, even," she remarks, "I could turn invisible or make simple lights before I could do fully animated images."

[thevictorious]

"Invisible sorcerers. How alarming."

He doesn't sound alarmed; he sounds delighted.

[purposeful_glory]

Ha. For that he gets a kiss.

[thevictorious]

Excellent. He loves those.

[purposeful_glory]

She noticed.

"I am not at all sure that I can teach the alphabet," she mentions. "I have symbols for the atomic concepts but they are fairly indescribable. And my notation doesn't at all resemble any of the lectures on conventional magic theory I've snuck into, so I doubt I could work backwards from a typical spell and break it down from there either."

[thevictorious]

"Could you teach me one of your spells and then work backwards from that?"

[purposeful_glory]

"Maybe. I don't know. They snap together in my head from pieces. I write words and then I have them forever, same as the letters. Sentences paragraphs chapters books encylopedias spells. How does one usually learn a spell without the pieces?"

[thevictorious]

"Haphazardly and with difficulty. I stopped trying before I ever managed it."

[purposeful_glory]

"I mean, I can show you what they look like written down, if you like." She kisses him again, then rolls out of bed to pad towards the bookshelves. "Which one do you want to see?"

[thevictorious]

"I can't decide between 'whichever you think simplest' and 'a healing spell'."