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The first time Fandral sees Loki during one of Those Nights, it’s a complete surprise to him.
He isn’t surprised that Loki has isolated himself, nor is he surprised that Loki seems to be immersed in some sort of ritual or at least a type of behavior that bears reverence for something only Loki would understand.
The reason Fandral is surprised at seeing Loki this way is how soft the movements of the other áss is. Fandral doesn’t make a sound, but that doesn’t stop Loki from sighing and asking,
“What is it you desire, Fandral?”
Fandral makes a strangled noise despite himself. He’ll never understand how Loki sees someone coming like that. Loki’s not exactly Heimdall, after all.
Loki hums in amusement and for some reason, the sound makes Fandral want to prove himself to Loki somehow.
“I desire nothing, trickster,” Fandral admits genuinely. “With the exception of knowing why you choose to isolate yourself once again, instead of joining in the festivities. The Wild Hunt was a great success this year, and one would think you’d be the first to gloat at the table.”
Loki continues his slow movements over his skin, but the muscles in his arms are more taunt. “You and I both know how my gloating turns out for Odin and Frigga’s self-absorbed little dinner parties. Moreover with mead in my stomach.”
Fandral takes offense to that. “Your mother and father have done nothing to deserve your disrespect, Loki.”
Loki hums again, and somehow makes the sound even lighter and yet more arrogant than it was before. “And yet they have done nothing to deserve my praise tonight either. The Wild Hunt is the same as it is every year. I once looked forward to its coming. Now I am utterly bored by the events.”
Fandral grits his teeth. “You would do well to remember your place, Loki.”
Loki’s eyes flash to Fandral, and the blond can see something ancient and powerful hidden in the depths of the Odinson’s eyes. Like the forces of nature itself. “As would you, Fandral. I am a son of Odin, after all.”
Fandral sighs. This isn’t even what he wanted his evening to look like. “I apologize, Loki,” he says, bowing as low as his rank and pride requires. “I meant no offense.”
Loki makes a sound like he doesn’t believe that, but he smirks, nonetheless. “Of course, Fandral. You were always better with a sword than you were your tongue.”
The implication has Fandral rolling his eyes. “The maidens of Asgard do not seem to mind my tongue.”
Loki’s smirk only widens in response. “The maidens of Asgard would have a braying asni if they thought it would be an interesting venture. It would hardly be a compliment to catch their affections.”
Fandral’s brows knit together in irritation. “Isn’t that your tendency?”
Loki’s smirk doesn’t fall but he also doesn’t reply.
It’s another few minutes before Fandral decides to change the subject yet he is still irritated enough from the previous atmosphere that he wants to be petty.
“Why don’t you try to get along with others?”
Loki takes his time with walking out of the water and towards his clothes folded neatly on a rock on the bank. Then he slowly puts on his clothes and Fandral’s just about given up on an answer when Loki finally decides to grace him with a response. “Why don’t others try getting with me?”
Fandral frowns. “You know what I mean. You come across as aloof, mean-spirited, flippant…. How are people supposed to treat you? I know for a fact that Thor and all of us as his friends have tried to include you in years past, but you seemed to think yourself too superior for the likes of us.”
Loki finally turns to actually look at Fandral, wringing out his hair of the extra moisture. “Oh yes, what I wouldn’t give to be a part of Thor’s little entourage.”
Fandral bristles. “It’d do you more good than being associated with Amora the Enchantress.”
Loki barks a sarcastic laugh. “Amora’s hardly worse company than that squawking girl who calls herself a warrior.”
“Surely you don’t mean Sif?” Fandral’s indignant now, and actively reminds himself of the trouble he’d be in for attacking a son of Odin.
Loki gives a strange expression then, halfway between a smile and a sneer. “Is there another in your merry band of fools?”
Fandral shakes his head. “What gives you the right to dismiss us all? Aren’t you the one who desires the throne so desperately? What type of king would degrade his own subjects?”
Loki whisks the remaining wetness in his hair away with a wave of a spelled hand. “I desire nothing desperately, Fandral. I desire only the things I am fit to have.”
Fandral chooses to say nothing, taught by his mother when he was young that it’s best not to say anything when it isn’t nice. He wonders, though, how Loki’s become so adept at the art of annoyance. If there’s a lecture for it in the school somewhere, Fandral would love to take it, at least to know how to get under Loki’s skin as much as the raven’s able to do to everyone else around him, even his own parents, the noble Odin and compassionate Frigga. He settles for petty blows.
“You would have more friends if you changed your attitude towards others,” he says.
Loki scoffs. “What do I need with the likes of Thor and the company he keeps? Isn’t that what you’re really trying to say, Fandral the Quite Plain—”
(Fandral winces at the use of his former title.)
“—that you can’t stand the idea that someone may think about you and your friends differently than every other simpleton in this forsaken realm?” He smiles then, and the image reminds Fandral of a fairy with a vicious streak for cruelty. Loki saunters toward Fandral and as he comes, he slips easily into the shape of a statuesque woman with raven hair tumbling down her back.
“Or do you desire my company for your own selfish desires? Is that what you want? A maiden in this kingdom you have yet to see the shape of in the moon’s glow?”
She reaches Fandral and pulls herself into his arms. Fandral can’t deny the attraction he feels towards Lady Loki—refuses to acknowledge the attraction he feels toward Loki himself—but he manages to untangle himself from Lady Loki’s snare.
Lady Loki laughs and the sound begins to deepen as Loki shifts back into his usual form. “Come now, Fandral,” he says between laughs, “Answer the question.”
Fandral shakes his head. “Do you enjoy pushing others away?” It’s the first thought that enters his head, and it leaves his mouth so quickly that Fandral barely has time to register his own question before Loki’s eyes narrow dangerously.
“I enjoy a great many things,” Loki says. “One thing I get no particular pleasure from is explaining myself to a commoner who thinks his skill with a blade makes him my equal.”
Fandral scoffs. “You would rather your destiny be one of loneliness?”
Loki pushes past Fandral, taking great care to bodily shove himself into Fandral’s shoulder. “My destiny,” he says as if his thoughts and voice itself are miles away, “is none of your concern.”
Fandral’s left alone in the dappled moonlight, listening to the lake water throw itself onto the bank.
--
The second time Fandral’s able to see Loki, is only after Fandral has walked by the original meeting spot several nights in a row.
He almost thinks Loki’s moved to another hidden place in Asgard, away from where Fandral might see, and Fandral is most definitely NOT trying for another meeting with the feisty little prankster. But then he sees Loki’s paleness in the moonlight, half shadowed by the surrounding trees.
Fandral’s heart jumps through his chest and runs off in the opposite direction, leaving Fandral staring dumbly at Loki. Loki looks up and tilts his head slightly, a small smirk on his face.
As if he knows Fandral has been circling this spot like a pathetically curious rabbit seeks out a wolf, and Loki is amused by this knowledge.
Fandral frowns, but still sits nearby where Loki bathes in the dark water.
Loki ignores Fandral after he sits down, turning back to the ritualistic steps of his bathing process. Softly humming to himself, Loki takes great care in slowly washing his shoulders and biceps and things between the two are otherwise silent for several long moments.
Fandral takes the time to actually take in Loki’s…sanctum. There are sharp, scarred mountains on the far side of the lake Loki bathes in, on the far side of the meadows between the mountains and the lake. The mountains shine almost like obsidian glass in the moonglow. A horseshoe of trees surrounds three of the close-side banks of the lake, providing the cover from Mani’s night-eyes that Fandral and Loki used for their conversation last time. The moonlight shines through these same trees onto the lake water, shading 3/4ths of the water into darkness. The darkness is where Loki bathes himself.
Finally, Fandral breaks the silence.
“Where have you been?” he asks. Immediately, he regrets the question. The wording makes it sound desperate and accusatory, like Fandral’s been waiting for an appointment with Loki, or has been looking forward to seeing him again.
Which Fandral has not.
Loki smiles, and an emotion lurks within the depths of that smile that Fandral can’t at all place. It’s too…almost seidr to be chained down. Like tying down a storm with a few pieces of twine.
This time, Loki stands in the middle of the pool of water, instead of toward the edge. He makes slow, deliberate strides and it takes Fandral a moment to realize Loki’s tracing perfect triangles in the water.
“Are you not going to answer the question?” Fandral asks, as his voice comes out more enraptured by Loki’s movements than he really means for it to.
Loki hums again, but his expression remains unchanged. “What do you desire tonight, Fandral?” He asks instead.
Fandral huffs like a child, despite himself. “Nothing.”
It’s unconvincing, even to his own ears.
To his surprise, though, Loki just laughs and continues what he’s doing.
Unable to stop another question leaving his mouth, Fandral asks. “Why triangles?”
“For the trinity’s trinity.”
‘Trinity’s trinity…?’ Fandral thinks, confused.
But then he remembers something in school about nines and twenty-sevens being more perfect representations for the number three that’s found a lot in nature. Then he watches Loki’s movements more closely and sees Loki’s slight pauses after three sets of three triangles, and slightly longer pauses after three sets of nine triangles.
Fandral continues watching Loki for several long moments, listening to the calming rippling of the water. As the time continues to pass, the clearing seems to glow brighter in the moonlight, and with it, the air between him and Loki lighten as well, to the point where Fandral just comfortably waits for Loki’s ritual to come to an end.
Eventually Loki makes his way to the bank to dry off.
“What are you doing?” Fandral asks.
Loki smirks. “I am in the middle of drying off. Could you not tell?”
Fandral rolls his eyes, but a small smile tugs at the corner of his lips. “No, this,” he gestures lamely at the scene and atmosphere enveloping them, and knows he isn’t getting his clarification right, never mind looking irreverent of…whatever this place is. “This…water ritual or bath thing that you do.”
Loki blinks at him, and Fandral realizes he’s never seen Loki so…surprised. “Why do you wish to know?”
Fandral thinks for a moment. Why does he want to know? What is it about Loki that, despite his biting tongue and cold arrogance, keeps Fandral trying to break through Loki’s walls?
“I just…. It looks so ancient. So mystic. Like the prayer of Mother Jord herself—”
Loki flinches at the mention of Jord.
Fandral backpedals, still not entirely sure why he’s attempting to soothe Loki’s sprits or even why he wanted to return to this place. “Not that I’m comparing the two of you. I just…mean…the tie to nature itself. One that almost preludes the Aesir.”
Loki shrugs. “I feel…compelled to come here,” he admits. “I wouldn’t feel refreshed if I wasn’t here.”
Fandral frowns. “But you have baths at the castle to feel refreshed. I’m not sure I understand the difference they mean to you.”
Loki looks into Fandral’s eyes, and Fandral feels weighted by the green of Loki’s eyes. Like Loki could trap Fandral here, in this place, and no one would ever find him again.
The thought should chill Fandral. Instead, he has to will down a smile.
“I take baths at the castle to maintain my hygiene and appearance. This is where I go to feel clean.”
Fandral’s brows knit themselves together. “You don’t feel clean after a bath?”
Loki laughs, but the sound is neither light nor malicious. “There’s a difference between feeling clean and feeling cleansed.” At Fandral’s expression, Loki smiles and the visage made is surprisingly gentle. “There’s a difference between physically clean and spiritually clean, Fandral.” His eyes drop just as Fandral sees that same emotion from earlier in Loki, that emotion he saw when Loki smiled after Fandral asked where he’d been.
The emotion is a little more readable now, if Fandral can trust his own interpretation: regret.
“Something’s coming, Fandral. A bastard of the old traditions, who wants to tear down the world and create it again.”
Fandral thinks this might be the longest he and Loki have ever gotten along. He opens his mouth to say as much, when Loki steps away from the temper he and Fandral have created between themselves.
“Goodnight.” Loki’s eyes and tone are as light and flippant and arrogant as they ever were whenever Loki was in classes with them.
“Goodnight,” but even as Fandral calls after Loki, he’s once again left in the clearing by himself, and even the moonglow itself seems to follow wherever Loki’s gone.
--
A week later, Fandral’s trying to sleep.
It’s a modest domicile, and one he shares with the equally unmarried Volstagg and Hogun, as bachelor Warriors Three, and good friends to a prince of Asgard willing to pay for the accommodation. But it’s close to the palace, in case the three are needed to join Thor in battle or to protect the palace from sneaking and less audacious threats to the royal family.
Fandral’s lying in bed, willing the three moons of Asgard to leave his window so that he might sleep more peacefully. Though, he knows that the white, yellow, and red moonlight isn’t the only thing keeping him awake this night. For the past few nights, Fandral’s been plagued by thoughts of Loki and their last meeting together.
Fandral shifts his hips under his covers, desperate to relieve himself of the feeling pooling in the pit of his stomach. Trying to distract himself, he can’t help but stare at those moons outside of his window. After a few moments, Fandral sits up in disbelief.
One of the three moons, the white moon, descends toward Fandral’s window, shifting between the shape of a man and the shape of a woman. Fandral can’t tear his eyes away, and he’s certain that either Nott or Mani has come to visit him, though why and why in his bedchamber are both questions with answers that escape Fandral.
The figure steps through the window with all the grace and beauty that should belie the darkness but ends up complimenting the concept somehow. When the silhouette enters the bedchamber, Fandral can see the features more clearly.
It’s Loki, still effortlessly shifting between male and female.
Fandral tries to speak but can’t find the words. Like every thought other than Loki has left his brain.
Loki finally reaches where Fandral’s still sitting up, dumbstruck, in the bed. Loki reaches out a hand and Fandral can feel even that shifting where it lightly touches his right cheek.
Fandral leans into the touch, despite himself. Loki climbs into the bed and the things that they do under the sheets….
Fandral wakes with the realization that it was all a dream. He lets his head fall back onto his pillow, not caring about the potential stains his sweaty scalp will make. He aches with the feeling that the dream was so real, and wishing Loki were actually here beside him.
Even though he knows it can’t possibly be true, Fandral can hear Loki’s laughter ringing in his ears.
--
Because of the dream, Fandral is a bit late getting to the first feast that heralds the beginning of the month-long Vanir’s fertility festival. By the time he gets to the Grand Hall, Amora and Sif are arguing about something. Sif is flanked by Thor and the other of the Warriors Three, while Loki stands at Amora’s side, sneering at Fandral’s friends.
It’s not a look Fandral likes to see. Especially not this early in the morning.
“Whether or not Loki’s to blame for the prank resulting in that black abyss on top of your head, you were the one only a week ago who was so vainly flaunting your golden tresses,” Amora scoffs. “Always acting like you had the softest personality despite unsexing yourself to prove your worth in swordplay, describing yourself as the most beautiful maiden inside and out—above the All-Mother, I might add. You even claimed to be the ideal all of us should and do aspire to. If a mere laugh at your expense manages to bring that ego down even slightly, it did wonders for that personal growth you seem so fond of peddling toward Loki and myself.”
“Amora…” Thor says, voice dripping with injured disappointment.
Amora rolls her eyes and refuses to recant it, even as she looks away from Thor’s eyes.
Fandral looks to Sif’s hair, barely contained in an ornate decorative helmet. A single wisp of hair falls from the helmet, showing strands as inked as the night before. Fandral clears his throat and looks away from Sif’s hair.
It’s then that Fandral sees the blood dripping from Loki’s nose, just as Loki meets his eyes. Loki quickly casts a glamor to make his appearance unmarred.
Fandral frowns. “What’s going on?”
Loki stares at him silently for a moment before walking further down the grand table, Amora following him.
Fandral looks helplessly at his friends, brows furrowed in confusion, but they’re already smiling at him as if nothing happened. Thor’s arm is around Sif in comfort, lighting up her otherwise scowling face, but Fandral knows the Asgardian prince is oblivious to both Amora and Sif’s feelings for him.
Halfway through the meal, Fandral looks down the table and catches a glimpse of Loki smiling as Baldur tells him and Amora some joke or story to cheer them after arguing with Sif.
“What’s wrong?” Thor asks, between swallowing a great bite of food and tearing out a new one. “The numbles* aren’t sitting right with you? I could check them for you, if you’d like.”
Fandral barely registers Thor’s wink and the latter frowns.
“Seriously.” The prince pushes his plate away, but then has to fend off Volstagg, who thinks Thor’s done with it. After getting Volstagg to focus on his own plate, Thor turns back to Fandral. “You look ill.”
Fandral shakes his head. “I’m fine.”
“You’re sneering,” Hogun acknowledges.
Fandral looks at him in surprise. “I’m not!”
Hogun shrugs. “Not anymore,” and goes back to his food.
Fandral just looks at Thor, who nods in pity.
Fandral shakes his head again. “I’m fine,” he repeats. And to emphasis his point, he grabs a giant portion of numbles, impressing Volstagg, who cheers loudly.
And he tries his hardest to drown out the sound of Baldur and Loki laughing together down the table.
--
Fandral doesn’t have to wait nearly as long as the last time to see Loki in that spot once more. Mostly because he waits the same amount of time—around a fortnight—to travel there in the first place, which is around the middle of the second week of the festival. He hears Loki’s laugh in his ears before his eyes reach Loki’s form.
“Hello again, Fandral, I trust you didn’t come around every night this time, seeking whatever it is you want from me.”
Fandral can hear that same self-satisfied smirk in Loki’s voice and tries not to let it sting him as badly as it has previously. He breaks through to the small clearing and Loki’s already sitting on a large rock on the bank of the water, finishing his drying off with a spell.
“Feel clean?” Fandral asks. He attempts to be cordial, but the god before him makes it so hard. He sits beside Loki. The other god doesn’t make room for him.
Loki makes a noise, but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge Fandral anymore.
Fandral, on the other hand, hopes to use this meeting to get back into Loki’s…friendship of sorts? Somewhat? So he tries again.
“I think I’ve been eating too much during the festival this year. I don’t think the maidens will—”
“I don’t like that you’re here tonight, Fandral.” Loki’s admission is low in the throat. A warning.
Fandral draws up. “Why?”
Loki’s laugh is biting. “Once again, a sniveling girl like Sif is chosen over Amora, who was clearly in the right for what she said to Sif.”
Fandral frowns. “I didn’t choose Sif’s side.”
Loki sighs. “You didn’t choose Amora’s either. Is that not the same thing?”
“I don’t think so.”
Loki snickers, and again the sound is malicious in nature. “You’re an idiot anyway.”
Fandral bristles. “At least I don’t regret my actions, once I’ve made them.” He feels validated by the way Loki’s head snaps to look at him, eyes wide. He feels validated as well as if he’d just punched himself in the gut. He continues, determined that if he just goes with this vein of conversation, he’ll distract himself from his feelings. “Isn’t that why you come here to bathe? To feel spiritually clean so that all of Asgard, even your family, don’t distrust you anymore?”
Loki gives him a look that makes Fandral thankful the phrase “if looks could kill” isn’t true. “That’s none of your concern.”
“Like your destiny is none of my concern?” Fandral can’t stop himself from needling Loki at this point, even if he wants to. He only wants one shot, one blow to Loki that hurts as much as Loki’s barbs hurt him.
Loki looks at the warrior sitting beside him, much too close for Loki’s comfort. He wants to tell Fandral about Volla’s prediction of Ragnarök and of Loki being the cause and her predictions of all of the terrible things Loki will do before that happens. He wants to tell someone other than Amora, who suggested giving in to his compulsions for this bathing ritual in the first place. Loki’s heart could burst from the desire to tell Fandral everything, if Loki had a heart. But he can’t trust Fandral anymore than Fandral trusts Loki.
And that’s the way it stays.
Fandral immediately regrets his words, especially at Loki’s prolonged silence after. And he wants to tell Loki about his dreams and get Loki’s interpretation on what that means. Hopes Loki’s interpretation matches with Fandral’s own, burgeoning desires. But Loki speaks instead, and the opportunity for Fandral to apologize evaporates for now.
“Destiny?” Loki murmurs. Despite his volume, his tone is haughty and cruel. “Destiny? Fandral the Dashing? Fandral the Commendable? Fandral the Gallant?”
Fandral frowns. “I feel as if you’re mocking me.”
“Fandangle the Fizgig,” Loki mutters.
He sounds like a petulant child, but Fandral has enough sense not to mention it.
Fandral almost does, though.
“Why don’t you get along with others?”
Loki grimaces. Not in embarrassment, but in disdainful pain. “You’ve asked me before. That first night.”
Fandral shakes his head, smirking his signature smirk for once during these encounters with Loki. “No, I believe I asked why you don’t try getting along with others.”
Loki stares at him for a moment, expression unreadable. Then he grins—an actual, full grin—and Fandral’s stomach flips pleasantly.
“I suppose you’re right,” Loki says slowly, eyes glittering. “That is what you said.” Then his eyes darken slightly with something other than anger, but Fandral isn’t able to read what it is before Loki’s looking away from him again.
“Why must I burden myself with getting along with others? Playing the same social game as Odin, Frigga, Thor, and Baldur? I’ll never have the throne, nor do I desire it.”
Fandral shakes his head. “I don’t believe that,” he says before he can stop himself.
Loki looks at him again, but he isn’t angry with Fandral still. “Believe what you wish. The gap between what you wish and what I’ve said doesn’t make it a lie, though.”
Fandral hums, staring ahead instead of at the young god beside him. “What do you desire, then?”
Loki’s silent for so long that Fandral worries Loki might have left without telling him. But then Loki speaks again. Quietly. Almost to himself. “That throne is a chain I do not wish to place around my neck for the rest of my days. Let others have it instead. I desire freedom.”
“From Asgard?” Fandral asks, watching as Loki stands and makes to leave.
“From my destiny.”
And then Loki’s gone again.
--
It’s the first day of the last bit of the fertility festival and Loki still acts like Fandral doesn’t exist. Every time Fandral tries to initiate conversation with the infuriating trickster, Loki only gives the warrior a strange look and walks on. It’s been happening all month, so today, at the start of the final week, Fandral’s hoping to engage Loki in a friendly bit of sport, so to speak.
He’s accepted now that he’s attracted to Loki in all of his forms, so why not?
Fandral gets to the main court of Asgard, where most of the…physical activities will take place.
The fertility festival represents the Vanir side of Asgard, as much as the Wild Hunt represents the Aesir. Being nature gods, the Vanir honor and celebrate each spring with a grand fertility ceremony. It starts with a week-long dancing ritual with Frigga the first day and the rest of Asgard for the rest of the week, then two weeks of harvested vegetation and good ale, leading to the last week full of good bed company.
Consorts and royalty, soldiers and servants, and all of the common people can join together in the main court or various rooms of the palace and participate with each other in the celebration, or politely decline if they wish not to. Though, Fandral hasn’t heard of anyone declining participation in the festival in a very long time. It’s perfectly acceptable socially to do so, and no one will give that person grief over that decision, even if refusing a request from the royal family. But it’s akin to refusing to have dinner with the royal court. The opportunity is almost always taken when it’s offered. Even Odin and Frigga celebrate among their people in the main square as marriages, royal and common, are open during this week, as long as the opportunities are accepted.
All of the realms under Asgard are welcome to participate as well. Even the Jotun like to show up some years the festival’s held but during those times, Fandral wonders if that’s because they’re honoring the Vanir’s unity to the Aesir, or because they’re enjoying watching Asgardians “debase” themselves under a Jotun’s touch, if only for an hour or so.
Fandral manages to see Lady Loki in the main court and swallows nervously, even as her back is to him. Of course, even with her facing away, it’s easy for Fandral to recognize her hair, her shape, and most distinctly, her desire to remain female and naked for the entirety of the festival’s final week. It’s not required for the common people of Asgard, never mind the royal family, but it’s something Lady Loki does every time the festival’s held, since her very first time of being able to participate.
But just as he’s walking toward her, he sees her surrounded by a large group of males and females from other realms, mostly light and dark elves, trolls, giants, and even some of the animals of Asgard. And if Fandral thought to wait it out until the week neared its end, he’s wrong.
Lady Loki never gives Fandral a chance to approach her alone, and the fertility festival ends before he can even talk to her.
The most infuriating part? Her haughty eyes, every time her eyes meet with Fandral’s. As if she knows exactly what she’s doing to him, the entire final week of the festival.
But Fandral won’t be kind to Loki either, if that’s the game they’re playing now. Prince of Asgard be damned.
--
Their next meeting a fortnight later is awkward. Fandral doesn’t quite know how Loki sees these encounters or why the other even wants to talk still, especially after the festival’s final week. And he can see the same questions in Loki’s eyes.
But right now, they talk of slightly easier things.
“Baldur helped me learn my dagger skills. I…I would regret it greatly if something were to happen to him,” Loki finally admits.
Fandral considers the words carefully. Something he wouldn’t have thought to do a few months ago.
In school, Loki was arrogant and unskilled in pretty much everything save for magic, and the latter made Loki even more biting of a classmate than he likely would have been otherwise. That is, Loki was unskilled in strategy and swordplay until Baldur took his own time out to help Loki with studies other than magic. No one else wanted to help Loki because of his pranks and the stigma attached to males who perform magic very well, but that’s just the kind of guy Baldur is.
So Fandral can understand Loki’s sentiments toward Baldur, even through his own jealousies and the fact that Loki doesn’t regret what happens to anyone, save for himself, Amora, and apparently Baldur.
“I’m sorry. That I didn’t help you more in school.”
And Fandral remembers the teasing Loki endured for his magical skills, and he remembers how Sif loved to beat Loki soundly when they were paired together in their swordplay class, and he remembers how Loki only liked learning things that had to do with the other realms, sorcery, and Odin’s history.
He feels terrible. “I’m so sorry for everything we put you through.”
Loki shrugs. “And I’m sorry, too. For everything I will….” he trails off and doesn’t speak again for several minutes. He only stares intently at the bathing pool. He stands suddenly.
“I have to go.”
Fandral looks up in surprise. “This is the longest we’ve…. We don’t usually get along the entire time we speak to each other. Wait a moment.”
Loki shakes his head. Then he seems to war with himself. He leans down and kisses Fandral, light and chaste, on the mouth. Then, before Fandral can get over his shock, Loki’s gone.
Fandral frowns.
He’s got to stop letting Loki do that.
--
The last time they meet, Loki’s quiet. Sometimes he’s quiet because he’s listening to Fandral talk, and sometimes it’s his volume.
Regardless, they soon turn to the topic of the throne.
“I find Thor to be disgustingly idiotic most of the time,” Loki admits. “As well as the entirety of Asgard and Jotunheim. I don’t mind Odin so much. And I don’t mind—”
He cuts himself off, but a small glance toward Fandral makes the latter think that maybe, just maybe Loki’s not talking about Amora or Baldur—
(Everyone’s favorite. Seriously, who doesn’t love the guy? Fandral does…most of the time.)
—but maybe Loki’s actually talking about Fandral.
Loki continues, oblivious to Fandral’s crisis of affection. “I don’t find Thor to be a good fit for the throne. I find him reckless, pig-headed, wholly overconfident in his own combat and leadership skills…. He’s my brother. I care about him, but I know what he is. He’ll destroy Asgard in the first few moons after his coronation.”
Fandral nods absently, lost in his own giddiness.
“I know my destiny, Fandral. Not Ragnarok. Something greater than the pigeonhole they’d all place me inside of.”
Loki’s possibly talking about not minding Fandral. It’s almost too much to fathom.
Loki glances at Fandral again and stands. “In any case, it’s time for one of Odin’s gaudy dinner parties, where Frigga prattles on about nothing. I know how you hate to miss those.” But now Fandral can hear a small bit of affection in Loki’s voice.
Loki stands and offers his hand as a young gentlemen might to a maiden. Fandral blushes as he pushes Loki’s hand away lightly and stands himself.
They walk away together, exchanging pleasantries and jokes until close enough to the castle that a frostiness enters Loki’s demeanor once again.
--
Multiple times after that, Fandral tries to meet with Loki again, but Loki never shows up. And every time Fandral ventures to that spot in the forest where he and Loki could be alone, one more thing seems to be missing.
First the meadows.
Then the mountains.
Then the lake.
Then the moonlight itself.
Until finally, the trees grew so close together, Fandral wonders how he even found the path that first night. Or perhaps it never existed in the first place, and his encounters with Loki were mere dreams. After all, the prince of Asgard doesn’t treat Fandral any differently now than when they were youths.
At Thor’s coronation three months after the spot’s disappearance, Fandral is hurt and confused when his eyes manage to meet Loki’s for just a moment. Within those few seconds, Loki seems to assure Fandral it was all real, all while shaking his head so minutely, Fandral wonders if he imagined it.
Loki returns his gaze where it needs to be, keeping his eyes trained anywhere but Fandral. And neither know that their thoughts meld into one mind between them.
“I wish I could tell you everything.”
