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The March sun strikes the snow-covered peaks of Norway, its light glancing off the blinding white of the pistes with a brilliance that forces the eyes to narrow. All around them, the air hums with the steady rhythm of the ski lifts and the whispering scrape of steel edges carving across the ice.
Thor is in his element. He has come hurtling down the slope like an avalanche of unrestrained enthusiasm, bellowing Asgardian battle hymns from atop a snowboard that appears woefully undersized for a man of his build, sending great plumes of fresh powder billowing into the air with every turn. Whatever he lacks in technique is more than compensated for by an astonishing measure of recklessness and utter disregard for personal safety.
Eili follows close behind, swift and sure on her skis, long accustomed to the mountain's merciless logic, where no one waits for those who fall behind.
And then there is Loki.
The God of Mischief, master of sorcery and portals, sits at a wooden table outside the mountain lodge, his feet imprisoned in two enormous rigid plastic ski boots that utterly destroying any claim to aristocratic poise. His dark ski jacket hangs half open, his scarf is damp, and he is left with the distinct and deeply unpleasant suspicion that snow has somehow found its way beneath the collar of his thermal shirt, until a sharp flicker of green magic sends it vanishing from his skin.
All he had wanted was to remain by the fire with a book.
When Thor and Eilionóir slip off their mirrored goggles and settle onto the benches opposite him, their faces flushed from the cold and the wind, Loki greets them with a look that could freeze a Jötunn where he stands.
«You abandoned me up there,» he says at last, his voice as flat and icy as the sheet of ice beside the chairlift.
Eili runs a hand through her red hair, utterly unruffled. «It was a field test. We were evaluating your performance.»
«You abandoned me up there!» Loki growls, leaning only slightly across the table. «I bent down for the briefest moment to ensure these accursed technological contraptions weren't about to shatter my ankles, and by the time I looked up, the pair of you had vanished beyond the ridge.»
«It's a long-standing family tradition,» she replies serenely. «My mother left my father behind too.»
«You acquitted yourself admirably,» Thor cuts in with a laugh, undoing the bindings on his snowboard. «I must say, brother, you fell with remarkable elegance. By the third tumble there was genuine consistency to it. A splendid arc.»
Loki turns his gaze upon his brother, his eyes narrowing to slits. «I should have descended with considerably greater elegance had I been permitted the use of a portal. Apparently, on Midgardi, even avoiding a fractured coccyx is considered unsporting. A single portal would have spared me the indignity of sliding fifty metres downhill on one hip.»
«Using magic on the slopes is cheating. Everyone knows that,» Eili replies with perfect seriousness, resting her elbows on the table. «Besides, I came back for you almost immediately. It had only been eighteen minutes.»
Loki goes still, saying nothing for the space of a heartbeat. «You timed it?»
«Of course.»
«I do not find that remotely reassuring,» he hisses, folding his arms. «On the contrary, it is an aggravating circumstance. It means the whole affair was premeditated.»
Eili bites the inside of her lip, suppressing a smile at this magnificent declaration of offended majesty. She exchanges a glance with Thor before leaning a little closer, adopting the diplomatic tone of someone attempting to defuse an international incident. «All right, all right. Shall I buy you a hot chocolate?»
Loki narrows his eyes. He appears to give the proposal serious consideration. His gaze drifts towards the snow-covered peaks before returning to her, as though carefully weighing the political implications of the offer.
«With whipped cream,» he says at last. «Lots of whipped cream.»
Thor lets out a breath of laughter, waving one broad arm. «Are you bargaining away your millennia-old dignity for a dairy product?»
«Silence,» Loki cuts in without so much as looking at him. «It is an excellent bargain. Furthermore, I insist upon a sauna this evening. A private one. Not because I need it, but as a matter of principle.»
«Now you're pushing your luck,» Eili protests, raising both hands. «The hotel's sauna has to be booked at least three hours in advance, and there's already a queue of German tourists—»
«I am an ancient Norse god,» Loki declares, straightening his back with renewed dignity. «I refuse to spend the remainder of the afternoon in the company of you two traitors without receiving adequate compensation.»
Thor shakes his head, thoroughly amused, as he rises and heads towards the lodge counter. «You're allowing yourself to be bribed with chocolate and whipped cream, brother.»
«I am merely receiving adequate compensation,» Loki pronounces with absolute conviction. «The legal distinction is a significant one.»
Five minutes later, Thor returns carrying three steaming mugs, setting one down in front of Loki, which is quite literally buried beneath a mountain of Midgardian whipped cream.
Loki considers the state of his wounded dignity. His determination to remain offended falters for the briefest instant as the scent of cocoa reaches him. With almost surgical precision, he picks up the spoon, gathers the first generous helping of whipped cream and brings it to his lips, keeping his gaze fixed on Eili to make it perfectly clear that, cholesterol notwithstanding, the debt has not yet been fully repaid.
«Next time,» he says before dipping the spoon in again, «I'll be the one pushing you downhill. Without the snowboard.»
Eili smiles over the rim of her mug, cradling it between her hands. A glint of mischief flashes across her eyes as she leans towards his ear to whisper something Thor is most certainly not meant to hear.
It is only a brief remark, yet Loki suddenly discovers that the people of Midgard possess a remarkable degree of ingenuity where whipped cream... and its possible applications are concerned.
The spoon comes to a halt halfway to his mouth. Slowly, Loki raises his eyes to hers, his aristocratic composure giving way to a flicker of genuine and entirely unexpected interest. «Oh. Are you suggesting that...»
«Let's just say it would have quite a different effect in Asgardi,» Eili interrupts, sitting back with impeccable nonchalance. «Up there you've nothing but that thoroughly depressing oat porridge. Down here, we know rather better how to enjoy life.»
Thor's gaze shifts from one to the other, his brows knitting together with the unmistakable expression of a man who has been spectacularly excluded from the heart of the conversation.
Loki rests his chin lightly against the palm of his hand, the faintest asymmetrical smile curving one corner of his mouth as he continues to look at Eili. «Very well. Perhaps we can dispense with the sauna after all.»
Thor sets his mug down on the wooden table with a firm thud, looking more suspicious by the second. «Why do you suddenly seem so remarkably reasonable, brother? What exactly have the two of you been plotting?»
«Nothing, brother,» Loki replies, returning to his whipped cream with renewed, knowing composure. «I have merely discovered that the people of Midgards excel in fields which history has, rather inexplicably, neglected to record.»
His eyes meet Eili's across the table. The corner of his mouth curls ever so slightly. Some traditions are unquestionably worthy of thorough investigation. For the first time since forcing his feet into those preposterous ski boots, the remainder of the day promises to be considerably more agreeable than the morning.