Chapter Text
The courtiers cannot determine where the clumps of dirty snow come from.
It rains on them, nonetheless, and they disperse accordingly.
It is a tricky bit of seiðr manipulation on an environment that does not naturally produce dirt or grit and snow – ice, yes, but not snow, and perhaps some fungi or mold. And it is made even trickier by the fact that the courtiers can detect whose seiðr is in use if the user is not careful, unlike those in Asgard. But Loptr does it, and it goes well, and he does not even need to involve the Monarch in the scheme.
He is not sure if he should not involve her anyway when the attention of the mother and child home in on him and him alone, afterwards.
The problem is not the attention itself, truly. He is used to such, in Asgard. But he is not used to such attention – such fascination, such curiosity – lingering on him, and it is not in the negative spectrum, at that.
They only briefly ask about his mother. The rest of the conversation, after he tells them – stiffly, stiltedly, but they thankfully neither ask about it nor linger on it – that the Monarch is busy catching up with matters of governance, is spent talking about him.
Not his background, at that: Who he lived with, how he came to be here, why he calls his own mother “the Monarch,” all that.
They instead talk about his hobbies, points of interest, studies, favourites, plans for fun – him, just him.
He feels seen, and he is not sure if he loves it or wishes to run far, far away from it.
Álti never delved this deep, and their mother even less, and both are his only points of reference thus far.
Ala is certainly much less chaotic and daring than Álti, though.
And he finds that he really wants to see how the two might or might not jive with each other and himself in the long run. Somehow.