aloft, by wingbeat

[purposeful_glory]

Loki learns to become a bird.

She can be only one sort of bird, a swift, bad at takeoff from the ground but tireless and quick in the air - and who needs to take off from the ground when the transformation leaves one six feet in the air from a standing start? It would be nearly as hard to add another creature to this spell's arsenal as it was to manage the swift in the first place. She is satisfied with the bird for now; she slips out of the palace and flies, invisible, for hours, and lets Thor tease her about the assignations that must have kept her up late and left her tired in the morning.

(She sometimes has assignations too, but fewer with the first blush of hormonal need worn away. Sometimes Sigyn, sometimes whoever else. Mostly: flying.)

A few months after she has begun to spend time as a bird (and picked up the idea of teleportation, which will be desperately difficult but not, she thinks, outside her reach) there is a parade. They have these every few decades, on the bicentennial or centennial anniversaries of things. The queen, the king, the princesses, a lot of neatly marching warriors, decorative performers with competent dance steps and pleasing voices and desperately incompetent illusions, all winding around in a slow trek around the capital city to be looked at and wave.

It is somehow even duller to sit in a parade and wave and smile when she could be being a bird.

But she can't, not really, so she sits, smiles, tries to remember without checking her notes what this is the twenty-seventh centennial of exactly, waves her hand at the crowd.

And then there's a crackling burst of light and Frigg, the king, her father, has collapsed from their vehicle to the street.

The smoking staff of power aimed at them is just barely visible in the distance among the crowd. Thor has already seized her hammer; Thor will handle that -

Loki leaps after her father, to duck another blast, to see the extent of the injury. "HEALER!" she cries. "IS THERE A HEALER?"

Comments

[purposeful_glory]

Knock knock.

[thevictorious]

He opens the door.

"Hello."

[purposeful_glory]

"Hello. Someone shot my father full in the chest during a parade and he's currently in perfect health. Guess my mood."

[thevictorious]

"Displeased. That is my guess," says Sigyn. "Do you want to come in?"

[purposeful_glory]

"Yes. Frigg - has taken it rather well, but Odin is furious and Thor does not understand and at this moment I wish very badly to be understood."

[thevictorious]

He opens the door wider and makes a welcoming gesture.

[purposeful_glory]

She goes in. She flops on the nearest floppable surface. "Thank you."

[thevictorious]

The nearest floppable surface is a very comfortable padded bench. Sigyn keeps a cozy house.

"You're perfectly welcome, of course."

He goes over to sit next to the flopped princess.

[purposeful_glory]

Snuggle.

"They only know I can heal, that's all that's come up. And Thor's the only one who knows I invented the spell. My parents just got 'the Tesseract taught me'. True as far as it goes."

[thevictorious]

Snuggle.

"Was it very public?"

[purposeful_glory]

"Spectacularly. My spell isn't flashy, but everyone near where we were in the parade on that side of the vehicle saw me shout for a healer and not get one and saw Frigg sit up regardless."

[thevictorious]

Much snuggle.

"We'll see what comes of it," he murmurs.

[purposeful_glory]

"Yeah. I'm betting either 'princesses who have touched the Tesseract are special and may be magic' or 'so, which planet that isn't this one would you like to spend the next forever on'."

[thevictorious]

"I hope for the first," says Sigyn.

[purposeful_glory]

"Yes, so do I. But if I do wind up banished to Midgard do you want to see if they'll let you come?"

[thevictorious]

"I might," he says. "I like you, and Midgard sounds interesting."

[purposeful_glory]

Snuggle. "It would be nice to have company, especially if I'm going to be there longer than three years. But I'm probably getting ahead of myself."

[thevictorious]

Snuggle. "Yes. It would be less disgraceful to her to pretend she allowed it, I think."

[purposeful_glory]

"That is my hope. Thor feels awkward about the entire matter; she doesn't want me banished or all-but-banished but she's always been fond of Odin."

[thevictorious]

"Hard for her, I'm sure."

[purposeful_glory]

"Yes. But it is frustrating for me that it is hard for her. She likes me, she's just always been... unobservant... and it took her this, this moment at which I most keenly need support, for her to even notice that liking me was in tension with anything else that has ever appealed to her."

[thevictorious]

"Yes," Sigyn agrees sympathetically. Snuggle.

[purposeful_glory]

Snuggle. Not a whole lot else to say about the matter.

[thevictorious]

Well, then, they can snuggle instead of speaking.

[purposeful_glory]

That is good. Sigyn is helpful.