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You were always looking south
Young and beautiful
You said that you’d wait behind the highway,
You’d wait for me to run away.
Together, we looked south,
But I never went that far
As not to find on the other side,
The certainties I lost
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
If anyone were to ask Amora how it first occurred to her to lay her eyes on the Crown Prince of Asgard, she would die before admitting she no longer remembers. She spends a far greater amount of time than she should dwelling on that trivial matter —although, for the record, she considers the only amount of time acceptable to be zero. Young and romantic people often believe love comes as sudden and unexpected as lightning when in truth most times it’s a slow gradual process not unlike the much-overused metaphor of the snowball.
However, even the busiest of villains finds a moment or two of solace and silence seeping inevitably into their screaming-filled lives, moments in which all of them find impossible to quiet the voices in their heads, and The Enchantress repeatedly finds herself to be no exception to the rules she would want most to be excepted from.
Amora ponders over the cold fire that seems to consume her from within and declares it to be the flame of true love; she clutches at the searing tendrils of pain in her chest and thinks she feels Fate’s strings curling themselves around her bare heart; she names Thor’s qualities, both physical and spiritual, like a mantra; calling for his essence to fill all those empty spaces, and when the damn voice in her head simply won’t shut up, she even bitterly reckons her jealousy of that damned vixen Sif must have gotten something to do with it.
What she refuses to acknowledge ―no matter the circumstances― is that she has been a greedy creature of hungry eyes for as long as she has memories. What she never admits is that she’s also not excepted from the rule that states we must always crave that which we can never have.
However, if anyone were to ask Amora what possessed her to dedicate herself to seduce the second prince of Asgard, she would unabashedly admit that it was an act of pure greed. She will most likely never need to answer such query, nevertheless, given the fact that there are only three people besides herself that know enough to ask about it; the first wouldn’t listen to her explanations and would assume the worst of her as ever, the second would turn a deaf ear to any motive of her that showed her in a half-indecent light, always willing to believe her perfect, and the third… well, he knows her too well to ever need or ask for explanations.
It wasn’t like Loki hadn’t a fair amount of qualities of his own to draw women to him; he was, after all, royalty, manipulative, attractive in an uncanny dark manner, dangerously charismatic, wickedly clever, a pathological liar and a sociopathic bastard who was always surrounded by the most unsettling rumors. All traits that never fail to drive women completely crazy.
Foolish women, that is.
Amora is no fool, Loki’s poison had held no charm for her. The first time she had walked up to him on a balcony one night, her interest had been first and foremost, his power and talent. She had flirted with him because that was what she did, because that’s what had always gotten her anything she wanted, because that had never failed to work on any man she had laid her eyes on (except, obviously, for Thor, but she never says that out loud). The thing is, that, even if it makes Amora feel like she dies inside a bit when she admits it, she is similar to Loki in many ways (Sif had once called them “two drops of poisoned, filthy water”, but Amora refuses to quote Sif even in the privacy of her thoughts). Amora also has all the qualities to draw the opposite sex to her; she’s absolutely beautiful, the embodiment of femininity, she dresses provocatively, she teases but rarely satisfies and knows the exact amount of seduction it takes to drive any man crazy for her (And, yes, she wishes she could at least list a few of her good qualities without the damn voice in her head commenting “except for Thor” at the end of every sentence). However, that first time she had, sadly, already found Thor to be immune to her charms, so she hadn’t given it much thought when Loki had received her attentions with a cold and flat rejection.
When any and all attempts to get Thor to notice her had inexplicably failed, she had resorted to asking for Loki’s help. She had gotten it, created a perfect plan and watched it gone wrong again and again. Even so, frustrating as it had been, she had yet to know the pain and loneliness that would on later years come to fill the space that Thor’s requited love should have occupied, so she had simply picked herself up and kept trying.
Loki was ever willing to help ruin Sif’s life for some reason she hadn’t cared enough to ask about (she felt then and still feels now that hating Sif is just part of the natural order of things), so an alliance had been born, and, a hundred betrayals on both sides later, she had found herself even starting to like the tricky bastard. They had always ended up teaming up in class since both of them had been the only ones smart, wicked and talented enough to keep up with the other. They had started trying whichever new spell they ever learned on each other (such experimentation had been almost always nonconsensual and had always had awful consequences to whoever lost the inevitably ensuing magic duel). They had even on rare occasions spent time together in the library or on field trips in search of magical components or whatever other activities that unbelievably didn’t encompass serious harm coming to anyone.
Mortals often believe that their Gods are all-knowing, all-powerful beings that simply come to existence and remain unchanged for eternity. In truth, they are not very different from the people who worship them: they are born, they grow, they learn, they just don’t die. Not for what mortals call natural causes, at least. Potential immortality gives them a different perspective of life, though, but that’s a story for another time. The thing is, gods, like mortals, need to study, and that need very logically created the necessity of organized places of learning. As soon as Amora had arrived at Asgard, she had been rushed, like any promising magical talent, into their Sorcery School. The whole concept of teaching something that came from innate talent was pretty bizarre, she had thought at first, but her classes had turned out to be a mixture of intensive magical theory and plenty of practice with her classmates, who were always envious and petty women who hated her passionately. So she had found school pretty agreeable most of the time.
The only person in Sorcery School who had been more hated than the seductive, beautiful Enchantress had been the cunning Liesmith. Some would think that being the only boy in an all-girls’ school would have made him quite popular, but that was never the case. He was arrogant, self-centered, smarter than all of them, bitter, and, worst of all, apparently not remotely interested in any of them. They still could have forgiven him for all that if only he hadn’t also been a man (and a much younger man at that) that bested them all in what was largely accepted as an almost exclusively feminine talent.
Being the two most hated people in one place had left them both quite isolated, so at some point, to both pass the time and get revenge, they had started a series of pranks and practical jokes on everyone that had barely even given them the cold shoulder. Luckily, Amora’s crush with mischief, which was Loki’s kingdom and domain, hadn’t lasted long, unlike the physical and mental scars of their victims. As a foreseeable consequence, if they had been disliked before, by the end of it all, they had become almost pariahs.
Amora is a sensual person, she flirts almost on instinct (and of course, the chance that she can put someone under a mind-control spell doesn’t hurt either) so the fact that she had had no interest in Loki or that her flirting had been constantly dismissed by him hadn’t changed her actions around him one bit. Of course, being two loners that suddenly seemed to be spending too much time together, people had started talking. Anything from nice comments about the prettiest girl on Asgard dating the Prince to not-so-nice comments about the vile Enchantress having placed Silvertongue under a love spell had reached her ears. She had simply laughed and ignored them, and Loki had seemed to do the same thing. The girls at school, on the other side, hadn’t been as forgetful.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
It had all started during a class break; Loki had disappeared as soon as the class had been dismissed and was nowhere to be seen, so without anything better to do, Amora had decided to kill time by baiting the other girls.
In retrospective, she thinks now perhaps it would have been more sensible to have found herself a book instead.
Only after a well-fought round of elaborated insults one of the girls, whose name Amora hadn’t cared enough to learn, had brought the hottest subject on Asgard’s gossip up. Even as the girl had to run like she was being chased by Hel-wolves when Amora had responded by setting her skirt on fire, and amongst the furious screaming of the teacher, Amora hadn’t turned around as she stormed off. Really, Amora had been called a social climber before, and if she’d had a gold coin for every time another woman had called her a whore… well, let’s just say that she’d had more gold than the richest dwarf on Nidavellir only counting Sif. But never before had anyone dared accuse her of not being pretty or skillful enough to get a man to like her back (no one had such death wish to even mention Thor anywhere near her). And to even bring such an accusation about a man that she wasn’t even trying to captivate. The insolence.
That incident had had two major consequences on Amora’s already too complicated life: first, she had been given three months detention cleaning the classrooms without magic, always under the teacher’s vigilant eye, which meant she couldn’t bewitch some idiot to do it for her pretty smile. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Loki, of course, always had found spare time of his own to come to watch her suffer. Second, it had made her finally realize that Loki did not like her.
Having had nothing else to occupy her mind with while scrubbing potion-stained floors on her knees, she had contemplated that newly acquired piece of information. Loki did not like her. It wasn’t like she cared much, she had told herself, but the mere idea seemed preposterous. How much insolence was she to suffer in such a short period of time? What was wrong about her lately that not one but two men had rejected her? Wasn’t she the smartest, most beautiful woman within a thousand leagues radius? Really, if those were the smarts of the Royal line of Asgard, they were completely doomed. After she had finished stroking her wounded ego, she had come up with a couple of possibilities. Thor, of course, was completely deaf and blind and probably even dumb as a brick if he hadn’t noticed how infinitely better than Sif she was; if he wanted to ignore her then to Hel with him. But Loki was a whole different matter. He noticed her, he talked to her, he spent time with her. There was no way he couldn’t notice just how incredible a woman she was, so he should have rejected her for a completely distinct reason (Norns forbid she had to declare both brothers to be idiots, she had come to actually respect Loki’s sharp wit). There was also the option, she had told herself while glancing back at his smirking face from behind a ridiculously dirty cauldron, that he was not interested in girls at all. That thought had apparently reflected on her face as she laughed that day because for the following weeks Loki’s cauldron was always suspiciously filthier than usual.
Any woman who successfully lives on her beauty and her effect on men knows one thing: more often than not, they’re not enough. Amora is practically the authority on such matters, so even at such a young age she had (again) not been the exception. She knows all too well that men fall in love with beautiful women as easily as they later grow bored of them, and even that there are some jackasses (not that she’s thinking about any particular member of the Royal Family here) that for some reason plainly refuse to fall for them in the first place. She, like all of those women, has much subtler and finer weapons than open seduction for those cases; some men needed their egos stroked, some wanted someone to listen, some wanted someone who understood. Smarter men needed subtler weapons but they all had something, a weak spot that could be taken advantage of. But using those weapons required a careful observation of the would-be victim and an ability to use them steadily and patiently as to not raise suspicion. Fortunately for Amora, she was a very patient woman when she needed to be. She had also known Loki closely almost her entire life (an advantage she didn’t have on Thor) and had effortlessly become immune to that smug façade of his that seemed to work so well on everyone else. Unfortunately for Amora, Loki knew that last part all too well to ever let his guard down around her. Also, as a talented liar and trickster, he was both always expecting people to lie and trick him and great at telling when they actually were.
Amora had faced the truth then, on the last evening of her detention: her beauty and natural charisma would not work with Loki, they wouldn’t be enough. She couldn’t use magic either; Loki had become superb at mind-affecting counter spells ever since that time when she had succeeded in placing him under one and gotten him to wear a pink robe for a whole week (and, yes, coming home to find all her favorite dresses reduced to ashes had been worth it. Completely) She would have to win him over clean and nicely (The ‘nicely’ part was arguable). She would have to resort to that aforementioned set of skills, assess Loki’s weaknesses, take advantage of them and make him let her in. Amora was young, adventurous, inexperienced in matters of complicated, sick, symbiotic relationships, so she had only looked at the difficulties lying on her path as a bigger addition to the challenge. And she was all in for the challenge rather than the prize.
She had even thought that if (when) she succeeded, she would have perfected a new field of expertise to later try on Thor.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Loki had always been alone.
The Second Prince had been too smart, too mischievous, too different to fit in on golden Asgard. While growing up, his only companion had been his brother, the only one naïve enough to be mesmerized by little Loki’s wit and unusual talents. Older, wiser people knew better, and as Thor grew older, though probably not wiser, he had learned by the adult’s table to look down on him as well. Even as he slowly became the best sorcerer Asgard had seen in millennia, his teachers, mentors and fellow apprentices all but secretly feared him and openly disliked him. A long life of mischief had also been one of punishment, scolding, loneliness and rejection and, as an obvious result, Loki’s introverted nature became even more pronounced; he became distant, reclusive and was unaccustomed to positive attention.
Amora, painful as it may be to admit it, had also always been alone. Sent to Asgard at a short age along with many others as spoils of the war between the Realm Eternal and her native Vanaheim, she barely remembered the rest of her family apart from her sister with whom she never got along. The closest thing to a friend she had was Loki (she didn’t need to even begin to tell herself just how sad that was), and the only attention she constantly received was from lascivious men (which served her purposes just fine but didn’t help with loneliness one bit).
Loki was alone with no one around him. Amora was alone in the middle of the crowd.
However, while Loki dealt with it by retreating into his own thorny shell, Amora did the exact opposite: she became a physical person, partly because it was necessary for the art of seduction, partly because that was just who she was. She was always gesturing, always getting on people’s personal space, always touching them. As it was only unavoidable, one tiresome afternoon when they had been buried to their ears among books in the library, she had absent-mindedly placed her hand on Loki’s back for the first time. The way he had stopped reading mid-sentence and went rigid had startled her enough that every counterspell she had ever learned had crossed her mind. But he had not attacked her, he had simply held his breath for a millisecond, as if in shock, and then let it go to slowly resume his reading. Her hand had stayed where it was for the rest of the evening.
Only then as she laid awake thinking about her newly conceived plan did she realize just how much she touched Loki on a daily basis and, even more stunning, how much did secluded Loki allowed it. She held onto his arm when they walked the Palace’s corridors, she laid her hand on his shoulder when they worked together, she pressed their backs together when they read, she grabbed his hands when she showed him the correct gesture for a spell. That first well-concealed emotion she had mistaken for shock she eventually found out to be vigilance. Under the completely reasonable assumption that she wanted to place him under some spell, he remained ever wary of her touch, and yet he did not reject it, willing to take that risk for some reason he himself probably didn’t know. But Amora knew.
She kept very few things from the simpler days were she had been a young magical prodigy back at Vanaheim; a few souvenirs from her family she wouldn’t admit to having even under torture, a small book of Vanir children stories she used to hide on a spell-protected safe in her room and some scrolls she had managed to steal from her teacher even at such a young age. Some of these scrolls, she would learn later, were of great magical value and even greater age, and if she had to judge by Loki’s expression when she had placed one of them on his bedroom’s desk the morning after that last day of her detention, they were also extremely rare. Loki had managed only to mumble, “Just how were you able to acquire this?!?” before snatching them and starting a desperate search for a dictionary of the Vanir language on his enormous bookshelves. Amora had simply responded, “A girl has her ways,” before adding, “sit back down, I can translate."
The way she had so freely given up such a valuable item only to satisfy some inane whim back then made her realize now just how young she had been. Nowadays, she wouldn’t give a single rune on those scrolls for anything less than her life, and she’d make that half a rune if Loki was the one receiving it. Youth makes people believe everything’s worth whatever outrageous goal they have on their minds at that time, and that day as she had watched Loki’s transformation from vicious mischief-maker to something more resembling a child with a new toy, she had thought the sacrifice had been worth it, if only to imagine the expressions the Asgardian people would make if they could see their most hated trickster now: utterly entranced, feverishly making notes at incredible speed, dark green eyes radiant with fascination. Although Amora prefers now to steal knowledge from unsuspecting sorcerers and wizards with more hormones than wit, she wasn’t born the greatest sorceress in the Nine Realms (Yes, she said the greatest. And, yes, she will kill anyone who mentions Karnilla). Even if it does not help her image of femme fatale seductress, back then the prospect of long hours submerged in old books had been an enticing one (if only to escape from crowds and their loneliness while taking refuge in her talents, in a manner not at all different than what he did), and in consequence they had shared that whole afternoon and night and the afternoons and nights after those studying every inch of the paper in front of them, eating light meals over the numerous book piles growing steadily scattered on the floor, only stopping to sleep when they could no longer keep their eyes open.
On one such night, or, better put, on one such early morning hours, she had interrupted her reading out loud as she had seen Loki’s hand slip and his head hit the notebook in front of him. They had started sitting by the desk and as hours went by, ended up sprawled on the rug fighting the losing battle against fatigue. Amora had shaken him by the shoulder to wake him up, exasperated. She had made a vow to eviscerate him if he insisted on making her go through the same paragraph over and over while he dozed off and asked him when he had last slept. She had taken a few naps on his bed that very same day and the ones before, but as far as she had known, he had not had any sleep since she had first brought him the scroll three days before. After he had responded with some not-so-witty remark about her growing tired too often, she had congratulated him on his ability to stay an asshole even on sleep deprivation and had ordered him to go to bed. “I don't think I can even stand up, let alone get to bed,” he had said, and faced with the choice of either laughing or sighing, she had chosen the third one. Amora would forever blame everything that happened after that on the enormous headache that sleep deprivation had given her, because some seconds after they had both fallen asleep on the rug; he had used his crossed arms as pillow, too exhausted to remember to keep his guard up, too exhausted to remember to freeze as she had laid her head on his back. As she had drifted to slumber, she had done so smiling: the first crack on his shell had been found.
No matter how dangerous it had been, no matter how high the probability of the existence of some complicated scheme behind her actions had been, no matter how righteously paranoid he had been, Loki simply had not even tried to reject her anymore after that night. Not her proximity, not her playful touches, not her attention; he had not even raised an eyebrow when she had slept beside him on his own bed the remaining days they had spent working on that scroll. And for her, what had started as a subconscious mannerism thus became the pivot of her carefully laid plan.
She would much later realize that there had been only two people that ever showed Loki some resemblance of physical affection. The first one had been Thor. The other one had been herself.
With age usually comes wisdom, or at least some semblance of it in the form of experience. At that time, it had been quite difficult for her to admit that she had found Loki’s company stimulating, that it had been refreshing to be able to talk with a man that wasn’t a drooling idiot, that it had been pleasant to have someone to share meaningless everyday experiences. She knows better now than to lie to herself, even with uncomfortable and embarrassing subjects that she would never admit to anyone else. Experience had taught her that. And yes, Amora is well aware that sages used to say that ‘experience’ is just the name we give our mistakes.
As smoothly as her plan had seemed to be going, she had still not felt secure enough to make a definitive move; she still had felt as if something was missing from her scheme, an unsettling event that would make Loki into an easier prey for her. Teenager as she had been, she had already had many difficult conquests on her resumé and there was always one day, one moment that determined their success or failure. She had always faced those crucial moments in the past stoically and confidently, even when her life had been at serious risk. However, as she had plotted the last part of her plan, an insubstantial yet appalling sensation had settled over her stomach. She had felt stupid, and had been mad at herself for acting like she was some virginal maiden. For the first time in her not-so-long life, she had found that she didn’t know what would happen, and most frightening still, that she wasn’t sure as to what she even wanted to happen in the first place, beyond wanting to be successful. Fortunately (that characterization is completely subjective and changes according to whether she regrets the whole thing on the particular day she’s remembering it), she had not given it any more thought and just went with it.
There are very few people who can make Loki upset enough to make him forget all caution: one of them was the Allfather, the other one was Thor. The Allfather was beyond her, so she had set in motion a scheme that would have made Loki proud of her if he hadn’t been more or less the intended victim.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
The day she had vowed to make Loki hers had started with her following Thor. The irony was not lost to her. She had realized as she had watched him, hidden under an invisibility spell courtesy of Loki's teachings, that it had been months since she had last felt that sweet, painful longing she used to feel whenever she looked upon him. The realization had left her feeling strangely empty.
By that afternoon, everything had been ready and she had gone to find Loki sitting on his favorite balcony, though surprisingly without any books to keep him company. It had been as though he had been expecting her, she had thought; when she had asked him to follow her he had done so without a word. She had led them to an empty room that was usually destined for class, where they had spent a few hours practicing counterspells. They found that sort of activity appropriate: the duality of working at the same time against and with the other. It suited them.
Thor had been on his way, Amora had known, and she had known because she had made it to be so. Thor, who she had made sure had spent his day walking into fellow warriors badmouthing his little brother in every possible way, though unbeknownst to him that had had less to do with Loki's flaws and more with the fact that The Enchantress had been previously talking to said warriors and turning them all down with a dreamy smile, as she had claimed to be eager to find out Loki's whereabouts, for they had unresolved business to attend to. And if among the attacks on his little brother's masculinity, the name-calling and shaming Thor had heard some of them whispering "what does she even see in him", Amora had trusted him to be too dense to be able to put two and two together.
The sun had been setting when Odin's firstborn had come through the door. Without knocking. He had been upset and it showed. She and Loki had been taking a break, sitting on the floor, talking and laughing as they shared glasses of wine with such good humor that she almost had regretted it when they had seen Thor standing there. Little did she know back then but the way Thor had found them would work providentially on her favor. 'Brother,' was all Loki had managed to say as he had gotten on his feet, and Thor, frowning, had almost grunted that their parents had requested he showed his face at supper time that night, deliberately ignoring Amora's presence all the while. Loki had been slightly taken aback by such cold manners but he nevertheless had answered he would be there. It had been only when Thor had been turning around to leave that Amora had deemed it fit to speak.
"Your brother has been studying vehemently, Your Highness." The phrase had been like a song in her melodious voice. A song whose lyrics she had thoroughly memorized. "I almost had to beg him to eat, so dedicated he has been to his sorcery that he has forgotten he has been missed at the family table." Her last words had been carefully chosen beforehand, a practice that she ironically had picked up from Loki himself. "At such pace, he will undoubtedly soon become the greatest Seiðmaðr Asgard has seen in all time, he has been defeating us girls even more spectacularly than usual."
There had been a moment of such heavy silence between the three of them before Thor had answered. He had looked at her all the while as he spoke, but as soon as he had opened his mouth it had become obvious his words had been aimed at Loki. "It is a small relief to hear that he has the decency to defeat women," Thor had said, his words like ice, "when he has not the honor to not fight as one."
Thor had left, shutting the door loudly, leaving only his words behind to resonate through the room and inside their heads. Amora had been completely familiar with their sibling rivalry by then so she knew Loki wanted nothing more than to blast a firebolt against the door, just where his brother's face had been seconds before. But such healthy anger outlets were beyond him, so he had been probably already setting a destructive prank to play on Thor in return to his oh-so-nice comment in his mind. He then had turned to face her as if daring her to make fun of him, but the expression he had seen on Amora's face had been one of carefully manufactured surprise. At that, a slight confusion had clouded his features for a moment, his anger forgotten. Taking good care not to make eye contact, she had gotten on her feet and stood beside him facing the door, she had placed her hand on his shoulder and muttered that they should continue practicing.
Several minutes after that, with the last rays of sunlight casting shadows all around the room, they had sat back down on the floor completely energy-drained. It had been about time they went to their respective homes, since Loki had yet to fulfill the promise he had made to his brother to show up to dinner for a change, yet neither of them had said anything, and a few more minutes had gone by as they caught their breaths resting their backs against the wall.
It had been under the cover of that semi-darkness that Amora had simply rested her hand on the back of Loki's neck, just like she had done a hundred times before. But it had been different.
She had lazily run her fingers through his hair, just like she had done a hundred times before. But it had been different.
That time, he had been too tired, mentally and physically, to push her away, simply whispering "Stop that," with the quietest voice she had ever heard him use. As if he knew.
She can't bring herself to take him seriously without a full round of elaborated insults, she had told him and he had half smiled sadly. As if he knew.
There had been a pause before she spoke again, she remembers, a silence that she now compares to the calm before the storm. There had been no point in playing mind games anymore, the tables were set and she only had to show her game and await the judges’ decision on whether or not she had won.
“It used to puzzle me,” she had started, sliding her fingers from his hair to his neck and back to his hair again. “The way you always allow me to touch you, surely you are smart enough to realize I could put you under any spell I wanted right now.” The phrasing had been very clever, spoken in Loki’s own taunting language, ambiguous and intended for him to do exactly what he had done then: deflect.
“Well, surely you are smart enough not to try.” The same whispered voice as before.
She had smiled. “Oh, Loki, you know me better than that, you do not allow this, ” —she had punctuated the phrase by caressing his cheek before returning to his neck— “because you trust my good judgment. You don’t even trust me at all.”
For a moment there, his eyes had been fixated on the empty space in front of them, and then he had answered in a weary voice: “Truly, Enchantress, I grow tired of your mind games and have no intention to play along, so please, do get to the point before I fall asleep from utter boredom.”
“The point is, Liesmith ,” she had mocked him with a smile while she turned her body towards him, though he did not move, “that you are starved .”
She had let the word hang in the air for a moment before continuing. “Your magical talents are unparalleled, your mind is so bright that few people can even keep up with your reasoning, your knowledge and power are, in all honesty, frightening.”
Loki’s green eyes had seemed emptier than ever, blankly staring, ignoring the way she had been looming over him by then.
“And where does all that get you?” she had all but whispered in his ear. “Who recognizes your genius, my Prince? Who praises your skills?” She had placed both her knees on either side of him then, both her hands gently grabbing his face. “You are starved, Loki. You crave attention, warmth, acknowledging, approval, company. You crave touch and affection and love. And you starve. You starve so much that you resort to mischief to make them at least glare in your direction. Maybe that will hurt less than their indifference. Maybe then somebody will notice you.”
His eyes had been wet as he had whispered, his words cold as a Frost Giant’s breath. “You know nothing.”
She had continued as if she hadn’t heard.
“You are so starved that you are unable to push away a woman that you know means nothing but trouble.”
Her golden blonde hair formed a curtain on both sides of her face; all he had been able to see had been her triumphant smile.
“You want to push me away so much now, but you cannot even bring yourself to try, can you?” she had whispered.
“What do you want from me?” His voice had been raw, all pretenses dropped.
There had been no turning back. There had been no turning back and he had known it. She had known it. He was trapped, they were trapped and spiraling out of control. As she had leaned in closer to him that same weight, that same pulling sensation she had felt while she planned it had settled over her stomach. There had been no romantically closed eyes; theirs had been deadlocked onto each other’s, green on green, like it all could be reduced to some sort of staring competition. Their noses had been touching when she had spoken again.
“You told me once that I could use my charms to seduce mindless barbarians,” she had whispered, their lips brushing ever so slightly with every word, “but that you wouldn’t fall prey to my magics.” Her fingertips had traced soft caresses on his cheek. “Yet here you are,” he had stared back at her, defiant, as she pressed her thumb against his lips. “You ask what I want from you. I want you to swallow your words. I will have no man escape me.”
His eyes had been suddenly aflame with anger, though his voice had come out as weak as before.
“Capricious, stubborn woman!” he had almost bitten the words. “Leave your stupid arrogance aside! Stop this nonsense!”
For a second she had considered it. She had actually considered calling it a win and simply stepping back, going back to her comfort zone, to teasing without satisfying.
“Stop this, ” he had repeated for the third time, graver and more honest than she had ever seen him, would ever see him in her life. “What will this accompli—”
He had not finished his protest, for young, naïve, bold and thoughtless Amora, who had always been, will always be too prone to contradict people just for the sake of contradicting them, had chosen that exact moment to press their lips together. And his grip on her wrists had become so tight it would leave nail marks, and he was feebly attempting to push her away, and he was trying to speak against her lips, and it sounded like her name, and then he was suddenly kissing her back and it tasted like victory.
Loki, ever-prone to breaking his promises, had not attended the Royal table that night.
There, on the cold floor of a dark and empty classroom, without even bothering to lock the door, without any more words exchanged between them, they had had sex for the first time.
After he had left she had gone to her bedroom and sunk into her bathtub for an hour before getting into bed.
Not an hour of restless tossing and turning later the only thing to comfort her wounded pride had been that he had also been on his way out to look for her when she had made it to his bedroom door.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
It had turned out to be different from anything she had ever expected or had before. The relationship (it had been only after three full months of late night sex every other day that she had given in and called it that) had been pretty much an extension of themselves, dark, cold and, in the rare occasions in which she could be objective enough to recognize it, sometimes downright twisted.
There were no arguments; whenever he pissed her off she would set his possessions on fire or send a particularly well built suitor of hers (she had those by the hundreds) to break his arm (which always ended up with said suitor in the Healing Rooms for a month and she laughing at it with a completely unscathed Loki). When she pissed him off, on the other hand, he would set a very unnecessarily intricate plan to get her in trouble (which always backfired somehow and ended up with some spectacular fight in which he always ended up aiding her anyway). There were no words of love since they both were completely aware there was no love between them whatsoever. There was no jealousy, Amora talked freely about her other conquests with him as if they were girlfriends, and Loki laughed alongside her at the stupidities men did for a pretty face. There wasn’t that much sex either. Mostly, they talked a lot. About the people they hated, (about Thor), about spells and incantations, (about Thor), about philosophy and science, (about Thor), about almost anything at all. And when they weren’t tangled in some fervent intellectual discussion (or the fierce insults exchanges that always came along with them), they simply sat in silence sharing space as they went through their daily tasks.
Those damned silent, calm moments are what deprive her of the small comfort of calling what they had a simple fling.
Of course, the intimacy that they had then started sharing carried a lot of inevitable consequences; Amora had learned a couple of new things because of it. She had learned, for example, that his eyes were only a shade darker than hers, except for their center, where they became much lighter and gave the impression of shining when they reflected the light from their many spells. She had also noticed that his skin was ridiculously soft when she laid her head on his chest, exhausted, at night. She had also noticed that when she took off his clothes, messing up his hair and causing it to fall all over his face, he looked even (oh, how she hated to admit it!) …cute .
It had changed almost nothing between them, only small things; they both used to hate group projects at school, after that, they simply looked at each other whenever they were mentioned; they both used to spend their nights alone, after that they slept over more often than not at the other’s bedroom; they both used to keep their guards up around the other, after that he not only had always allowed her physical contact, he had also initiated it, she hadn’t cared if her hair wasn’t perfect or her make-up was flaking. It had changed almost nothing between them, and that was what scared her.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
The hardest part of Amora’s life was a direct consequence of the best part. Of course, she took pride on the amount of attention she got from men, and sure enough she managed to make the best out of it, playing with men’s hearts like they were nothing (and they truly were nothing to her), but that attention sometimes came along with some other very disagreeable effects. Some of the men she had seduced had proven to be poor choices and added to those were the ones that had fallen for her without any encouragement from her part. Men didn’t just want her, they obsessed over her. She had been stalked, verbally and physically attacked, and sexually harassed. Once or twice some particularly dense and bold men had even tried to rape her. It never ended well… for them, of course.
A fairly mild side-effect of her popularity was also that whenever she took a special interest on someone, that someone was to expect all kinds of threats and violence from all her fixated suitors, which made her social life rather complicated.
As such, when she had entered his study to borrow (steal) a book one day and Loki had suddenly declared: “Your thug was here making all sorts of threats earlier,” she hadn’t been surprised.
Amora had been in a hurry and had wanted nothing more than to rummage through his bookshelves callously, throwing everything to the ground, and to ignore his attempt at a conversation, but a lady couldn’t allow herself such vulgarity, so as she slid her index finger over the many books’ covers graciously looking for the one she needed, she had answered him in her usual charming tone.
“Which one, my Prince?”
“The one they call The Executioner.” Loki had been sitting by the only window, and hadn’t lifted his eyes from the ridiculously big book he was holding. “Cheerful fellow.”
Amora had ignored his sarcasm. Incredulous, she had left her search forgotten and turned to face Loki. “Skurge was here? When?”
“This morning.” He had spoken absentmindedly, making notes on a piece of parchment beside him before adding “I was just in the middle of that amnesia potion. I had to throw it away and start again when he left, he made me forget which ingredients I had already added.” He had stopped, as if he had suddenly realized something. “Though that could have been caused by the potion’s fumes…”
“And he was making threats?” she had asked, still failing to make that mental image correspond with what she knew about Skurge’s personality.
“Well, you know…” Loki had started. “He mostly just stood there and stared at me…”
“Then how do you know he meant to threaten you?” Amora had interrupted him impatiently.
“I am very perceptive,” he had said, feigning offense. “And I asked.”
“What did he actually tell you, Loki?” Amora had been in no mood for his word games.
“So suddenly it’s no longer ‘my prince ’?” The words had been an extension of his smile, amused at her short temper as always.
“Do not test my patience!” she had pointed her index finger at him, emphasizing her words. “I have no time to stroke your ego today.”
He had kept smiling, impassive. “He knocked on the door, I let him in and he stood there staring at me for a good couple of minutes…” He had held up his left hand, indicating the place immediately beside the door.
“So I asked him if there was something I could do for him…”
Amora had folded her arms. “How awfully courteous of you.”
“Well, perhaps not with those exact words…”
“I’m shocked.”
He had ignored her. “And when he didn’t answer me, and after I considered all the possibilities…”
“In all your intellectual brilliance, of course.”
He had ignored her again. “...I asked him if he was looking for you.”
He had stopped, resuming his reading and apparently uninterested in giving her any more answers.
“And..?!?” she had almost yelled, while abruptly closing his book.
“He still didn’t say anything. Just stayed there, piercing me with a murderous stare.”
“Did he actually say anything to you at all?!?” Amora had sighed, now having lost her very limited supply of patience completely.
“Well, I told him that if he managed to remember the reason that had brought him here, I would be delighted to hear it, but in the meanwhile, I’d have to ask him to leave.,” Loki had calmly explained. “Apparently, he didn’t appreciate my tone.”
“Must have been a misunderstanding, seeing as to how you are always such a sweetheart," she had observed with a dead tone.
“Well, he doesn’t seem to share your high opinion of me, Amora," he had said, a perfectly fabricated expression of disbelief on his features. “He did speak then. It was shocking. ”
“I’m sure you are now scarred for life,” she had mocked in a sigh. “What did he tell you?”
Loki had laid back against his window before speaking. Damn him and his love for even the smallest theatrics.
“He said: ‘I know what kind of man you are.' He said: ‘I know what kind of games you amuse yourself with.’ He said: ‘Be careful with whom you play them.'”
Amora had taken a step back, surprised.
“I know, right?” Loki had raised his eyebrows. “Three entire phrases!”
She had rolled her eyes. “And you in some way construed that as a threat?”
“Oh, it was a threat. It may have even been a promise," Loki had assured, smile unfaltering.
“Well, you should be careful then…” Amora’s attitude had drastically changed, her right hand snaking its way to his cheek. “The man is strong as a storm giant…” she had whispered while tilting his chin up with her hand “…and so is his love for me.”
Loki had given her a scornful smile. “Poor little Amora. Always deluded by men whose words are bigger than their brains.” He had made a pause, as to allow his words to have the desired effect on her before adding: “He doesn’t love you.”
“Oh, little prince, don’t be jealous,” she had countered, tracing his smile with her thumb, provocative and caustic at the same time. “It looks too cute on you.”
“I could never be jealous of you, Amora.” His words had been endearingly sweet. “With the immense number of men you bed, I would never have the time.”
“Tasteful as ever,” she had responded with a venomous saccharine smile of her own. “And look who's talking of promiscuity. You in all your pretension of decency have probably had more women than I have dresses.” It likely wouldn’t sound like a lot to someone who hadn’t seen her wardrobe, but he had. All three floors of it. ”And I bet at least twice the men than I.”
She knew it. She was never naïve enough to believe she was the only one he slept with. He never talked about it nor did he mention any name enough times that it would have been suspicious (Amora was convinced he was more the type that never even bothers asking for names), but she sometimes noticed marks on his skin she hadn’t caused, different smells than his own mint or her intoxicatingly sweet perfume, even traces of someone else’s taste on his lips. She knew and he knew she knew.
“No one can prove that beyond all reasonable doubt,” he had denied anyway, smiling, of course.
“You most likely kill them and devour them when you are done," she had theorized. “Or prolonged exposition to your person drives them to suicide.”
“I believe that last thing has actually happened a couple of times.” His smile had grown even wider.
She had squeezed his face with more strength. “You have fantastic fun yet you are so petty that you would deprive me even of the small comfort that my admirers’ love provides.”
“A comfort based on a lie.”
“Do you doubt my Executioner’s devotion towards me?” Amora had seriously asked, still looking down at him.
“I do not. I am certain he believes he loves you with all his heart.”
His self-satisfied tone had been getting on her nerves a little bit too much, she had let go of his face before exclaiming: “Curse you and your pathological need to be cryptic! Explain yourself!”
For someone who always complained of Thor’s arrogance, he had acted pretty superior.
“He doesn’t love you.” He had repeated it. “I doubt he even knows what love is. He idealizes you, he worships you, he adores you, and of course, he desires you, but those aren’t the same thing as love.”
“And what does Loki the Unloved know about love!” she had sneered to no use, he had ignored her.
“How can he, or any other, love you if they don’t even know you?” Loki’s tone had turned scholarly, like he had been just explaining the mechanics of some basic, easy spell. “How can true love exist if they hold you to such high standards that for you to meet them they have to deny every last one of your flaws? To deny what makes you interesting, fun, unique?” He had smiled to her before adding: “The answer is it cannot. They don’t love you, not the real you. They love a distorted, romanticized, perfect version of you.”
Amora had become silent.
“It’s pretty simple, you see,” he had held one finger up. “Firstly, you can’t love someone if you consider them above you, that wouldn’t be love, it would be admiration.” He had lifted a second finger. “Secondly, you can’t love someone either if you consider them beneath you, that would be condescension, arrogance.”
He had lifted a third and final finger.
“True love can only exist between equals.”
She had held his gaze for an endless second before finally looking away.
“Well,” she had started. Her voice had sounded empty even to her ears. “As long as they revere the very earth I step on, why should I care about technicalities…”
“Indeed.”
He had let a moment pass before he spoke again.
“That man came here as a guardian. He came here because he believes me to be some kind of cold-blooded, cruel predator.” He had smiled once again, smirked, truly. “He knows me well. But by that assumption, he is making you the prey.” He had looked up and directly into her eyes then. “One can fairly argue that’s hardly the situation here.”
Amora had laughed. She had leaned closer to him until she was inches away, invading his personal space with her usual complete disregard, before whispering: “One could even argue it is the exact opposite.”
He had kept his smile unfazed, ever defiant.
“We’ll see about that.”
“In the meantime,” he had added, almost as a side note, “let your many thuggish lovers know that I am not your boyfriend, nor am I going to break your heart, please.”
“I’ll make sure all of them see me crying my eyes out because of you and that they hear all about how cruel you are to me," had been her immediate answer.
“You can’t say I didn’t ask nicely." He had re-opened his book. “Don’t complain when I’m forced to slit their throats in legitimate defense.”
She had mirrored his smirk and turned to leave, but as she had had her hand on the doorknob, he had stopped her.
“Amora.”
She had turned around. There on his extended hand was the book she had come for in the first place. She had reached, snatched it from him and left, but not without smacking him in the head with it first.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
What Loki had said to her had stayed with her for a while, bothering her, as Loki’s words tended to always do. She had started to notice more and more the idealized light under which many men thought of her, how much her looks blinded them to her true nature. Besides that curious revelation, she had thought about how strange it had been to hear Loki speak of a subject such as love (when she had asked him about the knowledge he had displayed, he had answered her shortly: “I read”). It had made her consider how much that theory was present in his life; the many women who stupidly and blindly fell for him, probably under the delusion of wanting to reform him (which lasted until he had toyed with their sanities long enough that they had none left to try anymore, or until he grew bored of them and they were left behind, discarded and forgotten), the condescending way in which his brother always treated him, as if he was defenseless, weak… inferior. She had realized something that Loki hadn’t mentioned: the fact that people loved a deformed version of someone else meant also that they secretly wished for them to be different. All those men that adored her wanted her to actually be as they imagined her: pure, sweet, naïve, which, like Loki had said, would have made her ordinary, even vulgar. All those women who wanted to save Loki’s soul and also his brother, who refused to believe any malevolence of him: they all actually wanted Loki to be good, to fit in. She remembers she had suddenly burst into laughter when she had tried to imagine a well-behaved Loki; to change Loki, what a ridiculous idea! And even if it were possible, why would anyone want to do that? If he changed, if he even had the capacity to change, he would no longer be Loki.
She owes him that epiphany, that knowledge she would after that learn to use to her advantage, finding out that men were even more inclined to do her will if they believed her to be incapable of any wrongdoing, if they didn’t know the true her (which also implied that they were forever to be kept at a very impassable emotional distance, so that she could remain alone, unloved and safe, but let’s not go there…)
All those musings had come back to her one night. She had been tired, but sleep oddly escaped her, so instead of laying down trying to achieve the unachievable, she had sat up on the bed and become lost in thought.
Did she mention it wasn’t her bed? Because it wasn’t. She had spent the night with Loki (again) and stayed to sleep after (again). It happened so often that she had stopped making excuses for it long before and just went with it.
Loki had been profoundly asleep beside her. He looked oddly peaceful; his hair disarrayed over the pillow, his left hand loosely holding the green bed sheets, his body curled up in the same position as always.
She had never been able to understand how nobody had ever noticed how poorly he slept. It was alarming, the number of things about him that nobody ever noticed, the number of things they would have realized if only they had cared to look at him.
His frequent crying, his propensity to become bored easily, his many self-destructive habits, his paranoid tendencies, his mythomania, his loneliness, his sociopathy, his dreadful diet and the most evident of them all: his awful sleeping habits.
He had severe insomnia; he barely slept a couple of hours each day, mostly in between classes and mostly while using her shoulders or lap as a pillow, and sometimes he renounced even that, going on for days without sleep until he collapsed from sheer exhaustion. He also had violent chronic nightmares, which Amora knew (although she can’t for the life of her recall how she had acquired that knowledge) that when he was little had caused him to crawl up into Thor’s bed in search of comfort, a comfort that was nowhere to be found as he had grown up and sleeping curled up in his big brother’s arms had become inappropriate. She had been petrified the first time he had woken up abruptly with an ear-piercing scream, conjuring up a knife and pointing it to the empty space in front of him with a terrified expression in his face. It hardly compared with the first time he had started kicking and screaming desperately in his sleep, though, startling her so much that she had fallen from the bed, and had had to protect herself with a magical ward from the spells he was casting in all directions (and really, if people thought sleep-walkers were dangerous, they had never known a fucking sleep-spellcaster ). That time she had yelled at him to stop, to awaken, to calm down, to go fuck himself even, with no result; she had climbed on top of him, immobilizing his arms with her hands and his body with her weight, and in her desperation she had covered his mouth and nose until he had woken up gasping for air and shaking. She had only said “…you’ve got serious issues,” as she handed him first some water and a strong liquor a little after that. As soon as she had pinned him down that day he had stopped struggling and started softly sobbing, crying as he talked to the nightmare, though the things she had learned, the things she had heard him say, she would rather not repeat.
If the whole thing sounded awfully melodramatic, it’s because it was. One can be positive Amora wouldn’t exaggerate to inspire pity towards Loki.
Moments like that one when he was able to fall into a deep slumber, undisturbed even by her running her fingers through his hair, were exceptionally rare. They usually occurred after long or intense periods of sex, which sometimes left him relaxed, amiable… docile even.
Her prolonged staring at his sleeping form that night shouldn’t be construed as romantic; it had been the mere product of boredom and a logical fascination for the change that seemed to operate in him. No one who had only seen him asleep would ever suspect the amount of malice that dwelled behind those closed eyelids. As an extra, if any of those deluded girls that thought they loved him could see him like that…. Amora hadn’t even wanted to consider what the image would do to them. On that thought, she had made a mental note to never let him sleep in public again, and especially not near the classrooms. She truly didn’t need those women hating her because of him too.
The way he almost always could effortlessly fall asleep around her could have been easily misread by a less wise woman as trust, but she knew better. Loki had never truly trusted her, in the same way she had never truly trusted him, but keeping one’s guard up all the time around someone who was going to find the way to stab you in the back anyway at least twice a week became pretty pointless after a while. Simply living with the other’s betrayals had been much easier and less energy consuming; after all, the ephemeral anger that those betrayals ignited in them could be easily dealt with by means of ferocious magical duels (which were great practice for them), merciless verbal abuse (also great practice), or even better, by having angry sex (not necessarily good for practicing purposes but great anyway). And if that sex had the aforementioned consequence of leaving him exhausted enough to help him get a full night of sleep, which made him less irritable, less aggressive and in general helped ease the symptoms of what Amora liked to refer to as his 'permanent state of PMS', even greater yet. It was, truly, a win-win situation.
She had leaned her restless head on her hand and her elbow on her knees, all the while watching him.
She had known it was pointless and of no consequence, but as she watched him she had wondered if anyone else had seen Loki so peacefully asleep, if anyone else had seen him asleep at all since he was a child. Just after that thought had crossed her mind she had wished it hadn’t, for the answer had been as scary as it was obvious. No one had. Not even Thor.
She had decided to try and fall asleep too, resting her head on the pillow and closing her eyes after taking one last look at his pale nakedness, at the many marks on his skin, both hers and who knows who else’s, at the delicate lines of his collar bone, at the almost content expression on his features.
He looked innocent, harmless in his sleep.
He was a liar even in that.
As she had been falling asleep, in the unguarded random thoughts that preclude slumber, she had suddenly found herself wondering if she also looked like that when she slept beside him.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Things had stayed the same for some time, a couple of unremarkable years had gone by, and with the possible exception of the great amount of trouble she seemed to get into because of Loki, they had been good years.
The young mages had had their first long field trip, a dangerous quest to Svartalheim to collect and replenish the school’s stock of giant spider’s poison, which had provided her with three full months to both practice killing big hairy things and try to get her classmates to suffer unfortunate accidents, always aided and instigated by Loki. She had also during those years succeeded in wrapping at least ten more men around her finger, and she had only had to sleep with two of them to achieve it, which meant she was getting really good at it. Those had been good years.
Her good luck had run out one morning when she had woken up from the sweetest dream she had ever had, the contents of which she will not reveal under any circumstance. It shall suffice to say the dream involved Thor and that she had gone to bed as a free, happy and hedonistic woman and had woken up turned into a scared, lonely, love-stricken little girl.
Each one of those feelings she had forgotten and neglected for so long as she had been busy trying to get Loki into her bed and then actually getting Loki into her bed had suddenly, abruptly, terribly resurfaced, brought back by the sensations of that ill-fated dream.
It had taken the destruction of a mirror, fifteen of her various decorations and her entire potion set to make her stop feeling like she was drowning.
Later that same day, she had been sitting by her school desk not-listening to a lecture on healing magic when she had seen Thor walking by through the window.
Without being able to contain herself she had whispered:
“Why must life suck so much…”
Loki, who was, as always, sitting beside her, had turned from the book that he had been reading (for a change) in hiding under the desk to look at her.
“What’s going on with you today?”
“Your brother is what’s going on with me,” she had answered softly, bitterly. And then, in a broken whisper: “Why won’t he even look at me…?”
“You give him too much credit, dear,” he had commented as she sighed. He had left his book aside and put his arm around her. “He’s a big, idiotic, blind oaf.”
She had sighed again, leaning her head on his shoulder.
“What does she even have that I don’t?”
“Probably testosterone,” Loki had whispered. “And slender, hairy legs.”
That had made her smile a little.
“Don’t be sad, Amora.” His tone and voice had shifted completely. “Can’t you be content with just one Odinson?” With a sweet whisper in her ear. “Can’t it be enough for you to know you are the only one for me?”
A moment of silence had passed.
“Loki,” she had started. “I have literally heard you say that exact same phrase to at least twenty people.”
“That was a long time ago, I have since changed and realized you are the one.” She had been able to actually picture the smile on his face. At the front of the classroom, the visiting lecturer was saying something about the danger of quickly re-feeding starved people.
“You said that to that redhead just yesterday,” she had pointed out.
“Oh.” He had stopped for a second. “Well, this is awkward… Let me think, I’m not used to dealing with intelligent women…” He had waited a bit, seemingly in deep thought, before adding: “Ah, yes… But I truly mean it this time!”
Amora had laughed. She had had to cover her mouth immediately after, though; her laughter had caused several girls in the seats in front of them to turn around with disapproving glares.
“Look, if things turn to worse, you can always put him under the Domination spell and have your way with him anyway,” he had suggested.
“That would be nice." The answer had come to her lips with a smile. The weight she had felt inside her since the morning had felt a bit lighter.
“I’ll even hold him down if…”
He hadn’t been able to finish the phrase since their teacher, who had been standing by the door at the invited speaker’s right, had then yelled:
“Didn’t I specifically forbid you two from sitting together?” They were almost young adults by then, but troublesome students are always like pre-school children for their teachers. The woman had pointed to the other end of the room. “Amora, go sit over there in the corner! And you,” —she had pointed a judgemental and fed-up finger at them— “put that book away, Loki!”
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
As years turn to decades and decades turn to centuries, Amora, like many immortals, tends to forget most of her past. Loki, in one of his rare insightful and tranquil (and mostly post-coital) moments, had once asked her while they were tangled in her bedsheets whether she missed Vanaheim. She had honestly answered she hardly remembered it. All she had, she had said to him, were memories of memories. However, a few images of her childhood and earlier adolescence remain with her through the ages: she remembers her younger sister’s red curls as she brushed her hair, she remembers the cold and wet feeling of her mother’s tears as she was ripped from her arms and sent to Asgard, she remembers the first man she kissed and the first man she bedded, she remembers the few occasions in which Thor had smiled to her, and she remembers the first time she talked to Loki.
It had been his eyes. Green eyes were the most common sight on Vanaheim, but all she had seen as a little girl in Asgard had been blue, grey, even some hazel eyes. Not a single pair of green eyes in that already strange, alien, different world. Driven by small children’s natural curiosity, she had wanted to take a look at her only male classmate up close, and upon a careful inspection, driven by small children’s natural spontaneity, Amora had spoken her first fatidic words to Loki: “Your eyes are just like mine!”
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Amora never cries.
Well, of course, there are exceptions, but as a general rule, she’s been told all her life by others and by herself to mask her faults, to appear strong. Crying, although not necessarily an act of weakness, shows a grade of vulnerability she can’t afford. In the rare occasions in which she can’t stop herself from crying, mainly from frustration or anger, she does so in private.
This is something in which they aren’t alike. While Amora had grown up scolded, Loki had grown up, had been still growing up, neglected and ignored.
Loki cried.
Not because he wanted attention or because he wanted to rub his pain on the faces of the people who caused it. Not because he couldn’t help it or because it was healthy.
He cried because no one cared if he did. No one noticed. Not even to yell at him.
Amora noticed. She had seen Loki cry multiple times. She was not and still isn’t at ease in the comforting role (especially around a man who already was a major exception in many other aspects of her life), and she doesn’t share Loki’s passionate, tormented love for drama, but she hadn’t left.
When he cried she usually just talked. She joked, discussed books, asked questions, insulted people, insulted him, showed him spells, and eventually he said something, started answering, stopped sobbing.
It was an extenuating task, really, and Amora often wondered at those times why did she put up with him in the first place (It was the sex), why hadn’t she hit him in the face even once (The sex was fucking amazing), why did she even bother with such a hopeless man (No, seriously, it was like… otherworldly) , why she didn’t just tell him to fucking grow up (That ‘Silvertongue’ nickname? He unquestionably lived up to it), why hadn’t she just left him already (Un -fucking- questionably).
Among everything they had shared, there were many things that would have surprised, or rather shocked those people who didn’t know how they were when they were alone, but those moments had been the most secret; he would never admit to bursting into tears without provocation, she would never admit to having comforted him.
There had been a certain man that had caught her at a certain place taking certain things that weren’t certainly hers to take. She didn’t need the blackmail and harassment of said man, but a spell was too risky, so she had chosen the next best thing: a potion. One afternoon, as the sun had been setting she had headed to Loki’s study, a place that suited him nicely, small, illuminated by a gloomy green lamp with cauldrons and books scattered all over the floor. As a prince, he had access to many ingredients, especially dangerous ones, that no one else in Asgard had, and since stealing from Loki was never an easy task, not even for her, she had decided to exercise her prerogative as his friend/accomplice/lover/bedmate/whatever-she-fucking-was and borrow them in good terms rather than risk having him swap her make-up with indelible black paint (again).
She had absent-mindedly performed the counterspell for the lock on the door that she had deciphered years before and went in without knocking. She never knocked, he never changed the spell, they never talked about it.
The room has (or had, it’s been quite a while since she last was there) a balcony that hovers above the yard in which the young warriors practice, it’s almost unnoticeable from the ground because it’s hidden under taller towers and other balconies. Loki had been sitting there, on the marble railing of his favorite invisible balcony, looking down. She had walked up to him and followed his line of sight; there, below them, golden, perfect Thor had been training with the company of Sif and Balder.
Now, the mere thought of seeing Thor evokes a heavy, cold weight inside her. Then, she had just smiled. The pain she had felt had been youth, romance, adolescence, and she had welcomed it. She would have him someday. She had had more pressing matters then (and maybe even some sweet pleasures to be had).
Both involved the man beside her rather than the one below her.
She had turned to face Loki to bait him like she always used to about his hatred for his brother and his friends. Loki rarely surprised her, she knew him too well, but nothing they had shared had prepared her to find him like that.
It hadn’t been just the tears that poured from his green eyes, sliding down to his neck. It hadn’t been even the way he held himself tightly, arms around his knees as if he feared he would fall apart if he let go. It hadn’t been the way he was trembling like a child.
It had been his expression.
Emptiness, despair, loneliness, whatever emotion had been eating him alive. He had looked utterly pathetic and she should have called him so. She should have known it to be so. She knew him, she knew his pain might have been well-deserved, that he might have been a bad seed among a flowered garden, that he might have been obsessed with over-analyzing and paranoid and destructive both to others and to himself.
But it didn’t make it less tragic. It didn’t make her any less understanding.
She should have left, she should have run. Whatever had been going on between them, she owed that man nothing. She didn’t need him, didn’t need his drama piled up over hers; she didn’t need him and he didn’t need her, she wouldn’t have known what to do or what to say anyway, she really shouldn’t try to peek under that mess, she really, really shouldn’t—
“You know.” Oh, but what would she be if she had ever listened to the voice of reason? “You could tell me. I promise I won’t laugh… much.”
Happy. That’s what she would be if she had ever listened to that voice.
The happiest bitch in the Nine Realms even.
He hadn’t dried his eyes as he had turned to look at her.
“I thought you knew.”
“And here I am, expecting to get a straight answer from the Prince of Lies,” she had smiled at him with that smile that turned all men into morons, that charming coy smile that always got her a smile back. Even from him. But not that day.
That day, he had just looked back down, where Thor and Sif had been sword-fighting while Balder cheered.
“You, more than anyone, should know.”
Amora doesn’t know what had done it.
Maybe it had been the embarrassment that hidden meaning held behind his words, maybe it had been that she had followed his eyes again then and saw what he was watching, maybe it had been her willingness to find similarities between them in an effort to feel less lonely.
Maybe it had been that Thor had chosen that precise moment to laugh, and his laughter had been, as it ever was, an extension of his perfect, golden, luminous and fucking unattainable being, and it had resonated inside her, reminded her just how much she loved him, how much he meant to her.
How much she lied to herself when she pretended not to care, when she pretended she could ever have him.
When she pretended she hated him.
Maybe it had been the way everything had suddenly made sense then.
Whatever it had been, she had known then.
“Norns, Loki…” was all she had been able to say.
“I know.” His answer had been just a whisper, and then, lifting his eyes from the people below them, he had looked at her, his voice sadder than ever.
“You and I are too much alike.”
She should have been disgusted at him for revealing her that truth, as it was only suitable between rivals.
She should have been angry at him for having lied to her, as it was only suitable between lovers.
He should have asked her to comfort him and she should have held him as it was only suitable between friends.
Instead, as it was only suitable between Amora and Loki, she had sat down beside him and placed her hand over his as he cried for hours.
It wasn’t much.
But it was everything.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
If she hadn’t been stupid enough to deny or ignore any and all signs that what was going on between them was making them dangerously close, if she had realized sooner that she had started getting too attached to him, if she could have seen everything with the perspective she has now, she probably would have run as fast and as far as she could.
The revelation of what Loki truly felt for his brother had been a sort of wakeup call in that sense. It had knocked her a little back on her senses and she had realized just how unusual things had become between them over time. Because realizing that you and the man you’re sleeping with like the same man could be awkward, but when that man happened to also be his brother, things could get seriously weird, even if you did come from a culture where incest wasn’t frowned upon, like she did.
Whenever other people were around, especially if those people included Sif, Amora and Loki were always getting into all sorts of trouble and as a consequence, fighting a lot. It was after Thor and all his friends had left in some ridiculous warrior quest that she had noticed how smoothly they got along when they weren’t causing any havoc. After a whole two days without a single insult or destructive spell exchanged between them, as she had been sitting by Loki’s fireplace, she had spoken to him.
“Is this a good idea?”
Loki’s head had been resting on her lap, a pouch of runes he was reading in his hands.
“Well, awful as I may be with divination magic I doubt these things are dangerous.”
She had taken the pouch from his hands. “You know what I mean.”
He had made a face. “Are you not listening? I don’t know. I’m terrible with divination magic.”
“You. Me. Doing… whatever it is that we are doing.” Her abrupt words had been drier than she had meant them to be.
He had taken the pouch back from her. It had been almost unnoticeable, but there had been a colder tone to his voice when he had answered. “A little late to be having second thoughts, don’t you think?”
“Is this a good idea?” she had insisted.
There had been a flash of some emotion on his face, not long enough for her to catch. He had sat up and moved away from her.
“I told you it wasn’t. I told you then. I told you to stop.” He had stared directly into her eyes in that way he did when he was looking for signs of lies.
“You didn’t mean that.” She had answered almost automatically. It had been a mistake. Answering him was never a good idea when he was in that state. No matter what you said, he would twist the words until he could interpret them in the worst way possible.
“Of course I did! You are always just too self-absorbed and stubborn and proud to ever listen!” He had stood up in a fraction of a second. “But it is not too late. If you do not wish to be here, you are free to leave now!” He had punctuated the phrase by throwing the leather pouch against his bedroom door. The runes had scattered all over the floor.
For a brief moment, Amora had just stared at him, wanting nothing more than to hit him. She had gotten up too, and faced the door; he had shifted suddenly, flinching, and looked away from her.
She had waved her hand and with a swift movement, all the runes had gone back into the pouch and flown towards her.
“Get me that book on rune meanings from your desk,” she had said at last, while she sat back in front of the fireplace. “Come here, let’s see if I can help you with these.”
For a moment, all that had interrupted the silence had been the fire cracking and the soft sounds the runes made as she slowly laid them one by one in front of her on the floor.
Suddenly, the book she had requested was in front of her and he had sat down beside her again.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
There are (still now as far as she knows) never few motives for celebration in Asgard; good hunts, bad hunts, good harvests, bad harvests, newborns and dead, everything merits a feast.
The day before one such feast, she had walked up to Loki on a whim and asked (ordered) him to take her to it. He had, as expected, scoffed and told her that he didn’t plan on attending in the first place, and that she should find some other man to wear as an accessory. She had smiled.
“Surely you wouldn’t pass up the chance to show me off in front of Asgard whole.”
He had laughed openly, staring directly into her eyes.
“Surely if anyone will be showing off, that would be you. Our lovely classmates may have forgotten the vile falsehoods they accused you of when they said… what was it? Ah, yes. That you hadn’t enough charm to make me even glimpse in your direction… Or was it that you were simply wasting time unless you mastered shape-shifting since you weren’t the right gender for me in the first place? But surely you remember.” The tricky bastard. He had picked up his book and continued reading.
“You should be thanking me, then,” she had countered quickly, “for helping to refute those rumors as it’s been a while since those diplomats from Alfheim last flirted with you.”
“Maybe I enjoy having elves flirt with me.” He had casually turned a page.
“Maybe you do,” she had agreed.
He finally had closed his book. “You are such a bitch, you know.”
“And you" —she had used her most sugary voice— "are such an understanding, smart, handsome man, Your Highness.” She had thrown her arms around his neck. He had rolled his eyes. “The kindest, most intelligent, most wanted Prince to all the elves of all the Nine Realms.”
He had laughed. That was it. She always knew she had succeeded when he laughed.
“What is this really about, Amora?”
She had smiled back to him in that mischievous, secretive way that partners in crime must smile to each other. It was the kind of smile she gave herself in the mirror, a kind of smile she would never give another man, for no other man would understand it.
“Sharp as ever, Loki. I have been presented with a new dress.”
He had tilted his head, in his features was a perfect replica of her smile. “By whom?”
“By a man whose expression I would be delighted to see when he sees me arrive wearing it by another man’s side,” she had added unabashedly.
“Poor soul, you vile woman.” There had been neither real surprise nor disapproval on his tone, of course. “Be ready at sundown, if you make me wait, I’ll make sure you regret it.”
She had smiled, gave him a kiss on the cheek and rushed off.
He had waited for her dressed in one of his many gold and green ceremonial attires, though without the full armor which was actually only for show, since he was a sorcerer. On his forehead, instead of his full helmet, he had mostly as an emblem his half-helmet (it was a tiara, she always told him, it was a damn tiara no matter what he chose to call it) with the curved horns that cast shadows on his face. Her dress was indeed magnificent and she had looked as the goddess she was that night, a point to which he had agreed seeing as to how the first thing he had said when he had seen her had been: “Oh, you mean, wretched, beautiful creature… That poor man… This is beyond vileness, this is pure evil.”
Even so, she hadn’t thought that her beauty was the only thing to give credit to for the way every pair of eyes had been upon them as they had entered the main hall arm in arm. Thor, mainly, had had his handsome blue eyes glued to them as stunned as if they had turned into Hel-hounds, a wary and somehow angry expression on his face. But it had been when the Allfather’s lone eye had joined in and followed them until they had sat down that she had decided it had been quite the entrance.
“Your father does not approve,” she had whispered trying to look as flirtatious as she could manage, which, coming from her, was a lot.
“What else is new,” had been his answer, but not bitter or hurt like it should have been, like it always was.
The only person that hadn’t seemed to be surprised (or disgusted) at them had been the Queen, who sat by Loki’s right while Amora was at his left. She is not, and was not then either, an affectionate woman, but she was sweet and caring and shared with her youngest child a sort of bond (perhaps because she was a woman, perhaps because a mother always loves her children no matter how much of a piece of shit they are) that said son hadn’t had with his fellow Seiðmaðr father. She knew Amora’s name and many details about her, she had chatted with them, asked about their progress at school and similar polite nothings that grown-ups always feel compelled to ask teenagers and children. Amora had had a good view of her from where she was, and she had caught her smiling at them, at her, since Loki had his back turned to her. Amora had understood then what Loki meant when he said his mother could say everything with a single expression. It had probably been the most honest, accepting, motherly, and encouraging smile she had ever received.
The night had gone by fast as they talked and laughed and had more fun than they had ever had at such events before. The man she had wanted to humiliate had had his eyes glued to them all night and, for what she could see when she glanced at him through her pocket mirror, he had been positively incredulous and heart-broken. It was still early in the night, by Asgard’s standards at least, when Amora, who blamed her Vanir ancestry for her inability to enjoy wild Asgardian festivities, had started considering leaving the party, most likely towards her bedroom and most likely to find better things to do, which most likely included Loki. She had leaned over towards him to drop whispers in his ear, to which he had smiled, painting a pretty accurate picture of a couple of hormonal teenagers in love to anyone watching. And people had been watching.
Thor in particular, more carefully than anyone else as he pretended to listen to something Fandral had been saying.
She had kissed his cheek and taken his hand to pull him on his feet. “We are leaving,” had been his choice of words when he had said goodnight to his mother. The way she had looked at them while she answered in plural “Goodnight, darlings,” had had Thor frowning and them both laughing as they left the hall.
They hadn’t laughed for long, though; at the first turn of the corridor, she had pinned him against the wall and kissed him.
The image of hormonal teenagers in love comes to mind again as she remembers it.
Among the kisses and words and giggles and him telling her that as much as he loved her new dress, he would love it even more if she would take it off (she had forgiven him for that cliché and blamed it on the mead), she had thought she heard someone walking down the corridor, towards where they were rather poorly hidden. Loki had not seemed to care, arguing that they had already been too obvious to worry now. Amora’s laughter had been loud as she had said to him: “It’s much more fun to keep it as a secret. To see their dim wits trying to decipher it…” He had laughed with her and kissed her again. “You can almost hear them thinking… 'are they pretending? Is it true?''” she had said, in what she evidently considered a perfect portrayal of an imbecile person’s tone. “That’s because you,” he had asserted, underlining the last word with a kiss on her neck “and I… are the only people around here that aren’t complete idiots.” She had smiled again and said, “I still have my doubts about you, though,” before she kissed him back again, this time without any more verbal interruptions from any of them.
As it had turned out, it hadn’t been such a good idea, given that with their eyes closed they hadn’t noticed the person standing there beside them, merely steps away.
“A word.”
Thor’s voice hadn’t been a request. “Brother.”
They had pulled apart a bit too quickly.
“Brother!” had been Loki’s oh-so-creative answer, and maybe there had been a little too much emphasis on the word, though Amora could have just imagined that. He had been smiling, sincerely and amusingly smiling at Thor’s livid face.
“Now,” Thor had grunted.
Loki had scarcely deigned to lift an eyebrow.
“Oh, I’m really sorry, dear brother, I’m sure it would be lovely to listen to your many objections to my life, but I am” —he had looked around and at Amora then— “…rather busy at the moment.” He evidently was having too much fun for the fact that Thor seemed quite prone to hit them both with Mjölnir at any given moment.
“We have so much to do, Your Highness, you’ll have to excuse us.” She had been the one talking then, leaning her head on Loki’s shoulder, and it had probably been the mead.
“Piles of… homework,” he had added nodding, holding her by the waist.
“Of course, homework. Magic, Your Highness, you know. Boring stuff.” She had made a dismissive gesture with her left hand, while her right snaked around Loki's neck.
“Yeah, girly stuff, brother, you wouldn’t be interested.” Of course, what would Loki’s life be if he passed up such opportunity to rub something that was said years ago to someone’s face?
“Well, let’s not bore him any longer. Let’s go. To play with dolls and braid each other’s hair and all that,” she had said as she pulled his arm, and that had definitely been the mead.
They had turned around and ran, hand in hand, through the corridor towards Loki’s bedroom. Luck had seemed to finally be on their side, as Sif and Balder, having followed Thor out of the main hall, were holding him back from going after them.
Amora thinks she had heard Sif’s voice whispering: “Are they drunk?”
And Balder, infinitely wiser, he, who was the only one who never picked on Loki, who never showed any of them anything other than polite indifference, had said: “I think they are happy.”
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
The night had been as splendid as it had promised to be, and though more often than not she stayed till morning (another discrepancy with her calling what they had ‘casual’), she had decided that for that night they had already shown off too much and didn’t need the servants watching her leave his bedroom. So she had showered, thrown over a change of clothes and left before dawn (yes, she had kept clothes in his bedroom, just for practical reasons; no need to overanalyze how not-casual that was, no need to mention that she had never before done that even with men she had called her boyfriends).
To have found none other than Thor standing outside as soon as she had opened the door had been… well, unexpected, to say the least.
She had been just opening her mouth to tell some blatant lie in her sweetest voice when he had spoken.
“What are you up to?”
His tone had been openly hostile. Amora had blinked once, twice, thrice before answering him.
“Well, I was wickedly scheming on getting to my own bed and having some evil long sleep…” She didn’t know what was so funny about baiting Thor; she was supposed to adore the very earth he stepped on. It probably had something to do with the power she felt she had over him at that moment. She had stressed ‘my own’ slightly and unnecessarily: he had heard loud and clear. And he was seeing her clear as day. Hair wet, different clothes and with Loki's door right behind her.
“So, if His Highness would excuse me…” she had tried to sneak past him but he had moved and blocked her way again. A useless display of macho strength, really, since she could have just teleported if she’d wanted to.
“You know what I mean,” he had growled. Amora had lifted an eyebrow, she would only later realize she had been unconsciously mimicking Loki’s gesture towards him earlier. Thor probably hadn’t missed that detail, though.
“Actually… I do not.” And she just hadn’t been able to resist, damn her, she had never known when to stop. “But please, keep your voice down, my Lord, you wouldn’t want to disturb your brother’s peaceful sleep.”
That had seemed to be too much. He had grabbed her wrist. “Is this because I rejected you? You can’t have me so you take your vengeance by toying with my little brother in front of me?”
It had taught Amora a lot of things, that outburst. A lot of nasty, selfish little things about Thor. If she had ever been close to getting over him, it had been then. Her playful mocking smile had vanished instantly.
“You seem to be under the impression that my life revolves around you,” she had whispered. She did love him, she did spend a great deal of time thinking about him, but if anything, Amora is proud, and she wasn't going to stand silent while accused of being overly-attached like a love-stricken school girl. “I would have you know you are wrong. Now, unhand me this instant.”
He hadn’t. He had just stared into her green eyes, his own blue ones full of hatred and anger.
“Then what is it?” It had been rhetorical, evidently, for he had spoken again before she had had the chance to say anything. “You stay away from my brother. I won’t allow you to play him like another one of your toys. Norns help you if you disobey me.”
Above all other things, she believes she had been most shocked that Thor considered her skillful enough to fool Loki for a prolonged period of time, or that he thought Loki stupid enough to be fooled.
But that shock had been swiftly replaced by anger.
She still doesn’t know what had made her say it, though she attributes it to the utter outrage she had felt at realizing that Thor hadn’t even considered that possibility.
“Have you, in all your wisdom, thought that this has nothing to do with you?” Her words had been poison. “That he might love me and I, him?”
Thor had laughed. He had actually laughed.
And something had exploded inside Amora that precise moment.
“You giant gullible idiot.” The shock had been reflected on his face when confronted with the pure violence in her voice. “You know nothing about your brother. Absolutely nothing. Keep all your ridiculous threats and your pathetic act of the protective big brother. Keep them and see if they are worth anything when he ends up hating you. Keep them and see if they comfort you when you realize how blind and stupid you are. See if they hold any value against all the things I know about your brother that you...” she had paused before ending, “...will never know."
He had looked taken aback but he wouldn’t believe her. Not for long. She had just ruined all her remaining infinitesimal chances with him over an outburst.
“I will not warn you again, Enchantress, leave him alone.”
“Make me.”
She had broken free of his grip, and without dignifying him with another word, she had walked away, knowing perfectly well that further arguing was pointless, and that further provocation was dangerous.
She had never before that dared ask Loki if his little crush on his big brother had been reciprocated or somehow instigated by said brother, though she had always wondered. Always imagined she saw things, looks, hidden meanings between them both, little things that didn’t necessarily have to be anything other than fraternal concern.
But Amora had had her fair amount of encounters with her many bedmates’ jealous lovers to be familiar with the dynamics of such situations.
She hadn’t needed to ask after that night.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
“You are doing the hand-movement wrong, you need to be subtler!”
Two days had gone by since that incident at the feast and they had both been standing in front of a small cage where a terrified magpie tried desperately to avoid their spells.
“Subtlety is, like, my middle name!”
“Be silent and listen to me! No, no, no!” She had shaken her head in frustration. “Give me your hands, let me show you.”
He had shaken off her grip. He was a better teacher than pupil by far.
“Damn it, woman! By everything that is holy, leave me alone for once!”
He had performed the spell again. The magpie had remained unmoving.
“Enchantments require delicacy. I’m not surprised you are not able to perfect them.”
He had thrown her a furious glare.
“Or maybe it is because I have a fucking harpy talking to me and making me lose concentration all the time!”
Ironically, pronouncing that accusation had made him lose concentration and his spell had failed again. He had cast a fire arrow and thrown it at her as retaliation. She had evaded it skillfully, as she ever did.
“I can see you have no problems with evocation. Now, focus, by Valhalla!”
He had tried again. And again. And again. When he had finally given up, he had cursed and let himself fall to sit on the floor.
“To Hel with this! I’ll just keep manipulating people with lies until I’m dead.”
Amora had sighed.
“You have to learn it.”
“Says who? Whenever I need to use it I’ll just ask you to cast it for me.”
She had sat down in front of him.
“You have never before had so much trouble with a spell. What’s wrong with you today?”
He hadn’t answered but an idea had come to her at that moment.
“Thor has spoken to you, hasn’t he?”
“Do not mention that name in my presence.”
Amora had shaken her head. The only thing her life needed was that Thor, in addition to having yelled at her, caused her to have to deal with Loki in a bad mood.
“I imagine he has told you that you need to stay away from me because I’m using you to get his attention.”
Suddenly, as if he had taken a mask off, the ire on his features had dissolved into an expression of profound desolation.
“He would take everything from me, if only he knew how.”
Amora had sighed, tiredly, but said nothing.
“Is it like that?” he had spat abruptly, looking up at her and grabbing her by the shoulders.
“What is?” she had said, surprised.
“Are you using me to get his attention?” He hadn’t waited for her to answer. “Because I can handle anything but if that’s why I swear I—“
Amora had placed a finger over his lips to silence him. Unbelievably, it had worked.
“I could ask you the same thing. I won’t, though. By Odin’s name, Loki, there are better ways to get a man’s attention than by sleeping with his brother. Do you really think me that classless?”
Loki had stared at her through narrowed eyes, silent. He would not give up so easily.
“Do you think of him when you are with me?”
Amora had smiled, ignoring the killer look he had given her because of it.
“Again, I could ask you the same thing.”
“A sly way to avoid the question,” he had coldly accused.
Amora had rolled her eyes.
“I do not think of him.” She had stood up again. “How could I? You two couldn’t be any more different if you tried.”
He had remained sitting on the floor, still looking at her suspiciously.
“Now, will you quit throwing tantrums and come to practice?”
He had eventually gotten up again and stood in front of the cage. Not even ten minutes after that, she had smiled, marveled, as the completely bewitched magpie flew around the room following his hands.
“You did it! You learned it in less than an hour! It’s amazing.” She had held and clung onto his arm. “Damn your talent! You’d better not even dream of using my own spells against me!”
Loki had guided the magpie towards his hand, where it had laid completely submissive.
“Let Asgard tremble and let them throw me into a dungeon! I have just taught Loki to ontrol minds !” she had cheered, amused, as she petted the tiny wings of the bird that gave them an empty stare.
“I don’t either.”
Amora had stared at him, confused.
“I don’t think about him either.”
The expression with which he had looked at her then had been of strangeness, as if she had shapeshifted, turned into something else, as if he had suddenly noticed something absolutely shocking about her.
“You are nothing like him.”
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Though she had imagined that Thor would come to yell at her or something of the sorts eventually, as she had seen Sif approach her a couple of days after the night of the feast she hadn’t know what to expect.
She had been sitting and reading alone by a fountain in one of Asgard’s many gardens when Sif had put her foot several feet beside her on the marble and bent over to tie her boots.
“Amora,” she had said coldly.
“Sif.” Amora had answered in the same dry tone.
There had been a silence so long that Amora had actually believed the damn woman was not going to ruin her beautiful day with her presence for more than a minute.
“I see you have managed to find another way into Asgard’s Palace." No, of course not, Sif would never be able to even walk by her without saying something caustic. She had probably still been angry about that incident with the Mirror of Mycha that had happened so many years before. “And here I thought you were actually honest when you swore your love for Thor to the four winds.”
Amora had been still hurt for the way Thor had treated her outside Loki’s bedroom, though she also remained very rightfully angry at him. Her words, however, had shown none of that.
“Well, not all of us have had so many opportunities as you to exercise our feminine charms over Asgard’s heir,” she had said absent-mindedly.
Sif had frowned just a little, like she always did when one had hit a nerve. “It might be a foreign concept for an experienced whore like you, but it is also possible to win a man over by one’s personality.” She had straightened up and looked down on Amora’s sitting form. “As is the case between Thor and me.”
“Oh, of course,” Amora had mocked. “I’m sure he loves you because of your high intelligence and interesting conversation.”
Sif had ignored that. Amora had considered it a victory, as she did every time the other woman didn’t answer with a bigger insult.
“And what about Loki, Amora?” Sif had asked. “Does he love you because of your high intelligence and interesting conversation?”
Amora hadn’t taken the bait. She had smiled and answered cryptically, “I’m afraid that’s something you’ll have to ask him.”
Sif had laughed shortly. “Oh, but I already did that. Years ago at this same spot. You want to know what he said?”
Amora had stared at her manicure. “I’m sure you will tell me anyway.”
“He said you had captivated his heart. He said that no matter how poorly you treated him, he couldn’t escape your charms.” Sif had studied her face for a reaction; Amora hadn’t even looked at her.
“Oh, yes, and if my memory does not betray me that convinced you to help him steal the Mirror of Mycha and got Thor to stop speaking to you for weeks…“ Amora had said, still examining her fingernails. “But well, as I always say, Loki’s lies are only dangerous for those stupid enough to believe them.”
Sif had just stared at her for a while.
“If what you wanted with your little charade the other night was to get Thor’s attention, you should be proud of yourself,” she had spat suddenly at Amora.
“Not all of us gravitate around Thor like you do, Sif,” Amora had said, for the first time turning her eyes towards her with a smile. “Although, if you are going to denigrate yourself like that, you should probably try being subtler when you walk up to question me under his request.”
Sif hadn’t bothered denying that last part. “He believes you are going to break Loki’s heart. I myself couldn’t care less what you two do to each other, but I will have you know that angering Thor is an awful idea. Especially if you plan to mess with his brother to do so,” she had said gravely.
“Of course, he probably believes that to be his prerogative alone," Amora had sneered. “And he is ever so protective of his little baby brother, isn’t he, Sif?” And there she was, going again with her spontaneous verbal carnage. “I bet you count the times Thor has chosen to side with Loki against you, I bet there’s no one else you feel more jealous of. Yes, I can actually see you telling yourself in the mirror not to worry because Thor will eventually come around and see him for what he is, as he will come around to see you are the one he truly loves. I’m sure you rationalize your jealousy for him telling yourself that Thor’s love for him is only fraternal and shouldn’t worry you.” Amora had shaken her head slowly. “If only you knew.”
Sif had looked confused, as if she couldn’t figure out whether she had correctly understood her innuendo. She had seemed to decide she had.
“You are sick.”
Amora had laughed.
“You are sick and that’s the most pathetic attempt someone has ever made at unnerving me,” Sif had said, dignifiedly. “You are losing your touch, Enchantress.”
Amora had gotten up and talked without looking at Sif as she fixed her clothing.
“A bit too stilted for a lie, don’t you think? But sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. Oh, I’m not losing my touch, Sif. I just don’t need to bother with you anymore. You are no longer competence.”
The warmaiden still had looked revolted at her insinuations. “I know very well the kind of perversions your people indulge in, but you should bite your venomous tongue before uttering such accusations on Asgardian soil, witch.”
Amora had laughed even louder. “You know, it is interesting that you mention it. There’s a popular belief in Vanaheim that there can be no bond more desirable than the one that occurs between two born from the same parents, since they are joined forever from their birth.”
Sif had looked at her, dumbfounded, as if she could not believe her ears. Amora had taken the chance to slip her final words in.
“The jealousy fit Thor threw the other night was all I needed. I know now where his heart is truly set.” She had walked by Sif, stopping for a moment to place her hand on the brunette’s cheek. “And it will never be yours, Sif, for how can you expect to compete with the bonds of blood and brotherhood?” she had walked away from her with that final question.
What she had said had obviously set in motion the warmaiden’s mind; as Amora had been leaving she had turned around and seen her staring into nothingness with her hand covering her mouth and her eyes widened.
She had smiled. Sif hadn’t ruined her day after all.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
“We should get married”
They had been lying on their backs on her bedroom’s rug for an hour, procrastinating doing nothing, avoiding obnoxious tasks, as teenagers often do. It had become the norm for them to enter the other’s bedroom unceremoniously, as he had done that day, and throw themselves over the nearest surface without a word, especially when they were hiding from someone. No one had yet thought of looking for him at her chambers, not even Thor who presumably suspected that was where he always was. She had joined him on the rug shortly after he came in, the top of their heads touching, their bodies resting on opposite directions.
The hand holding the small brush she had been using to paint her fingernails hadn’t even shaken a bit.
“Yeah, we should." She had answered him in the same distracted, carefree manner as he.
“We could be king and queen.”
She had smiled.
“King Loki and Queen Amora...” She had announced pompously. “Can you imagine…?”
“My first ruling...” he had announced, the words escaping his lips almost unconsciously, “would be to have Sif’s head on a pike.”
“Mine too,” she had whispered as she watched her nails natural pink disappear under dark green nail polish.
“See, we are already agreeing. We should definitely get married.”
His voice was sleepy, lazy. It felt comfortable.
Getting up carefully as not to brush her recently painted fingernails against anything, she had turned around and, while propping herself up on an elbow, faced him upside down.
“We would have to kill your brother for you to be king.”
She had spoken with a neutral expression.
“Hmmm…” he had pondered. “All the better, don’t you think?”
Her long blonde curls fell forward and tickled his face. A pale long-fingered hand had run through them.
“A shame that he wouldn’t live to see Sif’s head mounted on our bedroom wall, though.” She had tilted her head out of habit in that way that never failed to drive men crazy. It had no effect on him.
“I thought you loved him.”
His words had had as much emotion as they would have when discussing the weather.
“I do,” Amora had answered honestly. “I thought you loved him as well.”
“Hmmm…” He had started braiding her hair. His own usually neatly-combed a mess surrounding his head on the rug like a black aureole. He had started a third braid and added casually: “I love you .”
She had reached for his hands, interrupting him, wetted the brush again and pressed it against his index fingernail. Two pairs of green eyes laid on those pale hands as she went to the next finger and the one after that. When she had answered her voice had been as casual as his.
“Liar.”
He had smiled his most charming smile at her, the one that always managed to get him out of the worst kinds of trouble. It had no effect on her. “Don’t you love me?”
She had admired her work on his fingernails. A frown had set upon her face as she noticed the nail polish looked way better on him than on her.
“I hate you.”
His smile had become even wider.
“Liar.”
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
“I hate this perfume.”
She had sprayed it over him teasingly, punishing him for not paying her enough attention while she talked. She so hated when men didn’t pay her enough attention.
His words had been involuntary, focused as he was on the chess table in front of him on the floor. She had noticed it, she always did, and she wouldn’t be Amora if she didn’t pester him about it.
“Owww, what’s wrong? Is it perhaps this smell reminds the little prince of someone?” she had said in her most sugary voice, like she was talking to a little kid. And he was pretty much a little kid.
He hadn’t looked at her as she put her many perfumes back in her shelf, simply ignoring her and moving his white knight to capture her black bishop. Unexpected, a mistake. It didn’t matter, she would recover quickly enough.
“Your turn,” he had sentenced, urging her as always to pay attention to the game.
She had moved her rook, securing a whole line of the board before sitting behind him and throwing her arms around him.
“Is this perfume perhaps the one of some young maiden?” she had continued teasing, speaking into his ear. “Some rebellious pretty girl who resists my little prince’s charms?”—she had pouted to him, grabbing his chin to make him look at her; he had scoffed, dismissing her— “Who doesn’t care for his raven black hair?” —she had caressed it— “For his beautiful emerald eyes?” —she had gazed at them— “For his poisonous and talented Silvertongue?” —she had kissed his lips lightly.
And bittersweet, wicked, sheltered Loki, ever weak against the affection he so desperately craved, had smiled at her, adoration painted perfectly all over his features. And for the first time in a long while, she hadn’t cared if it was or wasn’t fake.
“A maiden who resists my charms too little, actually,” he had answered finally, making his next move on the chess table and resting his head on her chest, leaning in towards her, towards the only warmth and tenderness he knew.
“Ow, is this maiden truly in love with my precious prince?” She had asked him in a whisper as her queen captured his remaining bishop. Things were suddenly not looking well for Loki.
“They are all truly in love with me.” He had sighed and closed his eyes. “Until they aren’t.”
Another move. Amora had lost a pawn.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll be able to push this one away too, darling,” she had said softly, as if it was a secret that only the two of them knew. And perhaps it was.
“She’s too stubborn,” he had argued in the same secretive tone.
“Yeah, Sigyn is way too stubborn,” she had theatrically said.
Loki had been surprised and had quickly turned to look at her. “How...?”
Amora had smiled her charming smile to him. “You can’t hide anything from me. I read you like an open book, remember? And, by the way, check.”
He had frowned and stood up, escaping from her arms. Ah, perhaps too much truth for the Prince of Lies. He had moved his king. Things were definitely not looking good for him.
“I’ve seen the way she looks at you. And at me. And Norns if looks could kill…” Amora had pondered, smiling.
“Just tell me one thing…” she had asked, amused. “Is she jealous of me? Because that would be lovely.”
Loki hadn’t answered immediately. His mind had escaped back to the game again. Check. Loki had moved his king again. Things were not looking good at all.
“They all are.” The sudden whisper had taken an unexpected turn, surprising even she who knew him best, admitting to something he had never admitted before.
“They hate you. Thor too. They think…” he had trailed off, unwilling or unable to finish the phrase. “They don’t understand. I should kill them all.” His voice had been very low, as if he were merely thinking out loud.
“Sigyn too?” Amora had asked, moving her queen again. Check.
“Sigyn first.” Loki’s answer had been a whiplash. He had retreated his king again. He was cornered.
“She probably does love you.” Amora had said, not knowing why.
“She doesn’t,” he had said, shaking his head.
There had been no room for arguments. She had indulged him and played silently for a short while before speaking again.
“What if she does?”
There had been something in her voice she hadn’t recognized. Anxiety? Doubt? …Fear?
He had dismissed her with a wave of his hand. “She doesn’t.”
“What if she does?” she had insisted, this time definitely tasting fear in her dry mouth.
And right then and there, like the tiniest spark can cause the biggest of fires, he had suddenly lost it.
“SHE DOESN’T!” The yell had been an explosion. “SHE DOESN’T LOVE ME!” he had repeated, furious. And then, certain, ominous, grim:
“Nobody does!”
It had been like the echo of the phrase had broken something inside him, just like a shrill scream that was sharp enough to break glass. He had stayed there, frozen. Horrified at his own words.
As if reality had suddenly sunk in. As if only by saying it had he become fully aware of his tragedy.
The next second he was on the floor.
She had not thought. No words had formed in her head. It had been instinct.
All she had known was that he was broken, he had been breaking. A million little pieces of Loki all scattered on the floor. And all she wanted, all she seemed to have ever wanted was to fix them. Fix him. Putting him back together.
She had run towards him. She was still running towards him. He was always so far away, and she could never quite reach him. But she ran nevertheless. She had run nevertheless.
Her hands had shot to his face, his desolate, tear-stricken face, and his eyes had suddenly become locked with hers. She had read everything there. Every long lonely night, every unacknowledged accomplishment, every cold shoulder, every bitter reply. Every embrace that never came.
She had known he had read the same in her eyes too.
She had not thought. She had held him.
Tight and tighter and tighter.
And he had cried.
Lonely and lonelier and lonelier.
But not that time.
All she had wanted was to put this broken little thing back together.
And then, she had known.
Certain as she knew that had been the one and only time Loki had found himself crying on someone’s welcoming arms.
Certain as her denial had been just moments before.
She had known.
And there, over his shaking shoulder, she had seen it. The forgotten chess table. The game they both so deeply adored. The game they excelled at. The game they were always playing.
By being focused on attacking him, she had neglected her defense.
There, on the floor, a perfect victory laid.
Checkmate.
Loki had won.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Both Loki and Amora are extremely impatient and singularly cruel people, apart from also being particularly skillful in knowing exactly what to say to turn the recipients of their words into a shapeless mass of tears sprawled on the floor. As it was to be expected with such combination, violent fights had always been an almost every day part of their relationship, without neither of them giving them too much thought or worth, without neither of them seeing them as anything else than simple venting of built-up anger (against each other, against themselves, against the whole world), without neither of them feeling them as anything else than inevitable, without neither of them remembering them for too long after their anger was soothed, without any of those fights being able to keep them away from each other for more than two, three days at most.
However, there had been a fight between them that hadn't met any of those characteristics.
It could be said that everything had started that afternoon, in which she had convinced Loki to somehow let go of his magic books and go out with her on a shopping spree throughout Asgard's fairs and markets. Shopping was something that a normal girl would do with her girlfriends, instead of with her… —whatever Loki was to her, but Amora had never seen eye to eye with other women. She found them insipid, boring, stupid, and above all, and even though she did so with her characteristic skillfulness, she saw no fun in manipulating them. Her personality and her actions as a seductress also never failed in making her hated by absolutely each and every woman that crossed her path. Luckily, compulsive shopping was something in which both she and he enjoyed spending an immense amount of hours and gold. And if the Asgardians thought it weird to see the younger prince waiting patiently for the Enchantress outside a dresser (or worse, getting inside the dresser with her and helping her change) to later make expert and lengthy critique of the outfit she modeled for him, they were very careful not to say a single word about that in front of the two of them.
For those reasons, that afternoon, when she had met the first woman that she had liked in her life, she had been able to recognize that fact immediately.
They had both been in a very unusual good mood, their destructive instincts recently sated by an excellent cruel joke played on their beloved classmates which had involved exploding cauldrons and potions that melted hair (Loki had wanted to change those potions for acid but they hadn't been able to get that done on time). It had been an excellent week, and after they had spent more than six hours adding to the already incredible number of outfits they both owned and making sure that Asgard's provision of green fabric completely ran out, she had on impulse told him that they should head to a new scrolls and books store and, to the awfully hidden shock of the citizens that watched them, she had offered him her hand and he had accepted it.
That's where she had met her. She was tall and very pretty, and she was holding one of Amora and Loki's favorite books in her pale hands as she awaited customers behind the counter. Her eyes were green and warm and her red hair had made her immediately think of her sister, of her mother, of the forcibly abandoned homeland.
Loki had let go of her hand to go check his favorite sections of black magic. Amora, almost out of inertia, had started a conversation with her, asking her about her presence there, and about why they hadn't seen her before. She had felt as if her stomach had been turned inside out when she had answered that she had just arrived a few days before to Asgard from Vanaheim .
For some reason that even today she still can't understand, Amora had been incapable of telling her that she was also a Vanir.
The talk had turned then to the book she was holding. They had discussed its merits and worth over a while and Amora had discovered that she was intelligent.
They had left the store eventually, when Loki had finished burying the royal house in debt by buying any and all books that called for his attention or Amora's. At that point, neither of them were certain as to whom half of the books they owned belonged to.
It would take him at most a week to read them all and come back to buy more, Amora had thought. She would see her again in a week.
The scene had been repeated once and once again, with Loki even sometimes joining those literary discussions in his usual superior and derogatory tone. Other times Amora went alone pretending that she wasn’t only trying to find out more about this woman who didn't seem to hate her and with whom she seemed to have so much in common. She still didn't know her name.
After the fifth or sixth visit, as they both went out of the store, each carrying an enormous pile of books, she had said it out loud for the first time.
"I like her."
Loki had looked at her, a bit perplexed.
"The girl from the store," Amora had clarified. "She reminds me of…" Of my sister. Of my home. Of the life they took away from me.
"Of what?" he had asked. He had a strange look in his cold green eyes. Amora had suddenly felt invaded by a melancholy that had treacherously shown in her voice when she answered.
"Nothing… just… things," she had muttered, without knowing and without understanding why she had decided not to tell him the truth.
Overanalyzing is Loki's flaw. However, on several occasions, Amora had found herself falling victim to it. Meeting her had been one of them. What would it have been like? What would have happened if the damned Asgardians had chosen another tribute as payment for the lost war? What would Amora's life be like if she didn't have to look at the small oil painting she kept hidden under her bed to remember her mother's face? How would it feel to be able to get a kiss from her father every night before sleep, to be able to talk with her mother about the doubts that raided her sometimes, to be able to speak of Thor, of Loki, to a little sister that should have already been a teenager by then? How different would she have been like if loneliness and abandonment hadn't all but pushed her to use her best resource, her beauty, to manipulate everyone around her? How would it be like to not have fear nor doubts and simply be able to trust someone? How would it feel if the only person able to appreciate her for who she really was wasn't a hate-filled manipulative sociopath?
How would it be like to be this girl’sfriend?
* * * * * * * *
She hadn't spoken about those feelings to Loki. It wasn't as if they normally spoke of such things, but she had never before consciously withheld information from him without having a good reason to. And she had never before had trouble finding good reasons to withhold information from Loki either.
On impulse, she had decided to invite her to meet an afternoon, with the excuse of lending her a book.
She had thought she hadn’t given any indication of what was going through her mind, however, as always, Loki had seemed able to read her with the same ease in which he read any of his magic tomes. The way she had caught him staring at her —as if he was watching her— during those days had made her feel that he was perfectly aware of everything that was going through her mind, even when neither of them had said anything about it.
It had been an utterly unnerving sensation.
* * * * * * * *
"Stay."
The word had escaped his lips when she had gotten up from his bed, aiming for her clothes, untangling herself from within his arms.
"You will have to survive without me, honey," she had whispered, mockingly.
She had placed a kiss on his forehead. His expression as soon as he had felt it had transmuted into one of extreme disturbance. As if her kiss had actually physically hurt him.
Sudden mood changes were something awfully common in him. However, in general, she was capable of identifying immediately what had triggered them, to the point of being able, as she had been the first afternoon they were together, to provoke them consciously herself. She had pulled away from him, just like someone would do with a work of art too complex to be understood and appreciated without the correct perspective.
"What's wrong?"
He hadn't answered. She hadn't known what had led her to believe he would.
"Where are you going?"
It was not an accusation. She had stayed silent, staring at him, staring at the almost scared expression on his face.
"Tell me what's wrong…" she had repeated. Patiently. Uselessly.
He had shaken his head. "Where are you going?"
Her answer had come out completely natural.
"I arranged to meet with the girl from the store."
He had fallen completely silent for a long while.
Emptily staring at her. As if his stare went through her. As if he could no longer see her.
He had finally looked away and stood up.
Before Amora could even protest he had got dressed and was running for the door.
"Loki!" Nothing. "Loki, answer me!" Not a word. "What the Hel is wrong with you?!?" Only silence.
He hadn't turned to look at her as he had said: "Have a good time."
He had left without giving her any explanation.
As she got dressed, Amora had remembered to curse his entire family tree going back a least ten generations.
* * * * * * * *
She had slowly sat down in her room in the dark. She had come back from the city's downtown without talking to anybody, avoiding her tutors and suitors.
She could not believe it still.
Earlier, after she had taken her accustomed three hours to get ready, she had headed to the agreed place to meet her. Maybe an afternoon without sudden shifts of emotions, without love-hate relationships, without lies, would help her clear her head. Maybe that day she would even dare to ask her name.
She had waited for an hour before she had realized she wasn't coming. Without knowing her own motives or intentions she had headed towards the store to look for her.
What she had seen upon arriving was what she could not believe still.
Nobody knew what had caused the fire, the onlookers positioned outside what was left of the store had told her. It had simply begun a few hours before, abruptly, turning everything to ashes in minutes.
She had found her there. In between tears, she had given her a sincere and honest apology for not having shown up to their reunion. There had been other women there, most likely her friends, and one of them had asked her what she would do now.
She had lost everything in the fire. It was a miracle that she hadn't been inside the store and died among the flames too. She would return to Vanaheim the next day.
Amora had left the scene to never see her again. She had left without even finding out her name.
Later, she had been sitting on her bed, cursing her bad fortune and the damned ill-timed fire that had come to take away the only illusion of healthy friendship that she had had in her entire life.
The fire...
Fire.
* * * * * * * *
Never in her life had she been so furious.
He had a special gift to make people around him angry and especially make her angry, but this had been different.
She felt completely consumed by anger.
As if his damned fire was burning her too, as it had burned that opportunity.
"But of course, I should have expected this!!! It was only a matter of time until you showed your true colors and joined this accursed city in their wish of making me guilty of everything!!!"
liarliarliar
A spell, an electric ray, deflected by the magic barrier that he had conjured up just in time.
"You should at least have the fucking decency to tell the truth for once!!! You can't fool me, you damn psychopath!!!"
IhateyouIhateyouIhateyou.
A violent strike from him against the wall in frustration.
"Paranoid woman! You will not be happy until I have crawled and humiliated myself begging for you to believe me, won't you?!?"
Trickstertrickstertrickster
A scream of pure ire from her, another spell filled with grudge.
"Crawling is what you should be doing, you treacherous serpent!!! Damned sycophant, liar, silvertongue!!! Who in the Nine Realms would even try to love you!!!"
None of that verbal abuse was unusual in their fights.
"Oh, but how fitting!!! Keep all your cheap lovers, while you cry alone in your room because Thor would rather cut his hands off than lay them on you!!!"
None.
"Well, would you look at all we have in common!!!"
A spark of pure resentment in his green eyes. A spell this time against her as an answer. A fire spell.
Fire.
The meaning of his name. Fire.
"I will kill you! I should kill you! You could have killed her!!! You wanted to kill her, you sick bastard!!!"
A violent dismissive gesture in his hands.
"Cursed harpy!!! Go with your damn girlfriend if you want it so much and leave me alone once and for all!"
Friend.
The anger had been such that she hadn't been able to use magic. She had thrown at him the first book her hands had found instead.
"So that's what it was! Your stupid jealousy finally showing!!!"
He had stared at her, his face contorted by anger, by fear, by pain. And suddenly and without warning, he was crying. He used to break into tears helplessly at moments like that, when things were rapidly running out of his control.
"What do you plan on doing from now on?!? Kill anyone that dares speak to me?!?"
Magical attacks at least had been over. He had thrown a book at her too.
“THAT BITCH IS NOT JUST ‘ANYONE’!!!”
She had taken her growing anger out by kicking his favorite armchair.
"So you light them on fire!!! Is that your brilliant solution to all your problems?!? Oh, no, wait, now I remember!!! Your solution is crying, blaming everybody else and occasionally cutting women's hair off!!!"
He had struck a nearby desk this time. Tears didn't mitigate his anger in the least.
"Of course, you, however, have it right!!! Insulting me, mocking me, and your favorite activity in life: lying to yourself!!! Mourn all you want, that won't change the fact that that... woman ... would have never been your friend!!!"
Two seconds of silence. Two seconds of staring with hatred into each other's eyes.
"You don't know that!!!"
He had gotten closer to her. She hadn't stepped back.
"Lie to yourself, lie to yourself all you want!!! What preposterous fantasy had you imagined?!? Does she even know you?!? Does she know what you're capable of?!? Do you really believe she would come to accept you, to love you?!?"
No. No. Never.
"Shut up! Shut your damned mouth up!!!"
Well, the fact that he had upset her enough to make her scream at him instead of answering with an even worse verbal stab definitely scored a point for Loki in that argument.
"I know the truth and you know it too!" His white hands had barely brushed against her curls before he extended them towards both sides of his body. "We are cursed, you and I… They will only look for us when they need our help to later throw us aside, reject us, mock us... They did it to me and they will do it to you too!" He had grasped her face almost lovingly, sweetly. "We are pariahs. Outcasts. No being in the Nine Worlds would ever love us..."
A pause in which he had stared at her eyes with those of his filled with tears. A final pause before pronouncing that sound contradiction.
"We are alone."
She had laughed bitterly. She had shaken his hands off herself roughly, she had stepped away from him, walked around the furniture, putting it between them, as if creating a barrier.
"And fear those who try to prove you wrong, the ones you can't push away with your lies and your games and your rejection, you will simply burn with the flames of your magic!!!" The profound pain that unexpectedly had fallen upon her had manifested treacherously in her words. "What do you care if all you manage is to make us both wretched and miserable in the process!"
His hands had held tightly the back of the chair that was in front of him, the chair of the desk at which he had been sitting when she had entered the room and thrown everything that was on it to the ground to make her aggressive intentions explicit. He had hung his head to his chest. His next words had been barely a broken whisper.
"What am I supposed to do… Sit and wait till you abandon me like everybody else...?"
Her ire hadn't evaporated in front of his sudden honesty.
She should consider it some kind of personal victory that she almost always managed to make him own up to the truth when they fought, but if it was so, it was a very bitter victory.
"I can't... I won't allow it..."
His last two words had been loaded with denial, with fear.
He was like a child sometimes.
"The day that I wish to abandon you, Loki, there will be no force, fire or words you can summon that would stop me."
Her yelling would have been preferable. The plain and calm tone with which she had spoken had left him frozen.
On his face, there had been shock, surprise, pain. No trace of the boiling anger from seconds before.
Nevertheless, never had the tyranny of his chaotic emotions been an impediment for him to remain himself: all sharp perception, guile and words' webs, all over-analysis, questions and lies.
"...then ...why haven't you?"
The words had come to her mind as certain as the conviction of not pronouncing them.
Because I don't want to.
He had stared at her. Simply stared at her standing in front of him: proud, impassive... silent.
All of a sudden, his face was all wrath again.
"And they call me the God of Lies!" He had wiped the tears soaking his pale face with the back of his hand. "God of Lies, indeed!" He had let out a burst of anguish-filled laughter. "But not only of my lies at least..."
She had spoken in a hiss. Half command. Half plea.
"Shut up."
Once his relentless stream of accusations had started, he would not stop so easily.
"Keep lying to yourself, Amora! Lie to yourself! Lie to me!"
Hadn't this conversation started with her complaining about him trying to burn a woman alive just because she had gotten too close to her?
"Lie to yourself!" he had yelled once again and then added, repeating her words like a grim echo: "What do you care if all you manage is to make us both wretched and miserable in the process!"
She should have yelled at him. Or hit him. Anything would have been better than that silence filled with tacit concessions.
Instead of that, overcome with anger and other emotions just as negative, she had simply left.
* * * * * * * *
The following day during the morning class which Loki hadn’t been bothered to attend, their teachers had informed them of a new trip. They would leave that very afternoon. Three months away from Asgard, three months buried in ashes among Nidavellir’s forges.
Three months away from Loki.
She had accepted immediately.
It had happened during the first week of the trip.
On one of their multiple journeys through the dwarves’ dark tunnels and blinding forges, a guide had made mention of the Old Tongue. When they were asked about it, no one in the class had been able to say anything about it and when the guide had tried to explain it, all her classmates had had trouble with the simplest of concepts.
It had taken her and Loki only an afternoon of boredom to learn it.
It had happened again, over and over, comments, famous magical objects they encountered in their way through the armories, scrolls mentioned by their teachers. Even in the interpretation of a piece of poetry they had found among the pages of an old dwarven tome.
She was surrounded by ignorant idiots. There was no trace of anything even resembling intelligent conversation in miles and when she had tried to establish it, even explaining herself in simple words to make them understand, it had been in vain.
They did not comprehend her. They were beneath her.
She had spent so much time mirroring herself on Loki’s brilliant —although twisted— mind that she had forgotten how much imbecility surrounded her the rest of the time.
Lonely nights were longer than she remembered. Colder.
Silent days slipped away slowly in desperate and utter boredom.
Between leisure and solitude, the memories of the fight had repeated themselves like echoes in her mind. And although (or maybe because ) she had found herself thinking that she would've never been so bored if he had come with her on the trip, the only thing those memories had accomplished had been to anger her even more.
Other memories had also slipped in the corners of her mind, in spite of her. Memories of things she should have noticed, moments in which he had shown that… that possessiveness that had ultimately lead him to burn (if out of desperation or in cold blood, she daren’t say) the source of the threats to his absolute monopoly of her emotional life.
One of those memories had bothered her more than the others then.
Apart from the incident of the feast, they rarely showed each other affection (in lack of a better term) in public. It wasn’t so much that they worried over the rumors that buzzed permanently around them, nor that they purely wanted to make fun of the sudden attention that their private lives had seemed to be getting from their fellow citizens. It was merely that that je ne sais quoi, that connection that existed between them manifested itself much more naturally when they were alone, when they were only judged and watched by the mirror of the other’s green stare.
That was why —though after the fight she had found his motives to be obvious— when Loki had suddenly kissed her at that store while they were both holding and flicking through the same book, she had inevitably been surprised.
She had kissed him back, as she always did unless they were playing one of their predator-prey games. When they had parted, he had smiled at her. A strange, indescribable sensation had taken over her while she smiled back at him.
Later that day, after an excellent night brought on partly by the seduction game that kiss had started, she, while lying down on her back on her bed had spoken to him, who had been resting his head on her stomach, tired eyes peacefully shut.
“Why did you do that?”
Honestly, with her annoying trait of bringing a past matter to the conversation without any reference, she should have been surprised that he had immediately understood what she was talking about.
After the fight, she had perfectly understood the cause of his quick comprehension.
“Have I not permission to kiss you whenever I want to?” he had whispered, his voice sleepy. “Did we have a rule about that?”
Typical of him to answer a question with another question. Two questions even, that time.
“We have no rules.” She had spoken barely frowning, but without ceasing to caress his hair absent-mindedly. “You hate rules.”
He had opened his eyes and, through his dark eyelashes, stared at her directly into hers, almost oblivious to the nakedness of the rest of her body.
“You hate them too.”
She had given up as she caressed his cheek, his temple, and he had closed his eyes again. She would never get a straight answer from him.
Several minutes had gone by and she had been sure that he had already fallen asleep.
“Loki.”
“Hmm.”
“If I ask you one question, will you promise to be honest just for this one time in your life?”
He hadn’t opened his eyes while he answered.
“If you promise not to tell anyone… I have a reputation to honor, you know.”
At some other time, she would have smiled at that. Then, however, the doubt that had been raiding her intermittently since she had argued with Thor outside Loki’s room that night years before, had been darkening her mood.
“Do you promise?”
“I promise,” he had whispered casually.
She had let a couple of seconds go by.
“…so?”
He had so carelessly interrupted the wrecked train of her thoughts.
“If to get Thor to return your feelings you had to kill me, would you?”
He had opened his eyes, staring at her. There were confusion and some other indiscernible emotion on his tired features.
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It’s just a hypothetical question.” She had tried to free her voice of any worries. She had thought she had accomplished it. “You promised.”
He had stared at her still with that strange expression. He had gotten up slowly, until their heads had been at the same level and he had kissed her unhurriedly.
Sweetly.
When they had parted he had gone back down to her stomach and had spoken without looking at her.
“Never.”
He had kissed her skin just above her navel, as if that kiss were the full stop at the end of his one-word answer.
He had then looked at her, searching for her reaction with something like shyness that didn’t suit him.
She had smiled at him.
She had not believed him.
She couldn’t.
With him, it was impossible to trust. With him, everything was doubt. With him, everything was lies, or worse yet, suspicion of lies.
However, she had thought one afternoon in which she had yet again found herself missing the warmth of his head leaned on her shoulder, on her lap, on the back of her neck while she read or talked or put on her makeup… what beautiful lies they were.
* * * * * * * *
She had finally found herself back in Asgard, back on the house she shared with her tutors and fellow orphans, now with an enlarged collection of armbands and sets of light armor made by the dwarves.
It hadn’t been until she had retired to her room to go to bed that she had found Loki awaiting her there.
The anger that had but barely soothed itself just a bit during the months she hadn’t seen him had resurfaced like an erupting volcano.
“Leave.” All she had deigned to say to him.
“Amora…” He had stared at her, without obeying her for a change.
“Leave now.” She had repeated it, even drier than before.
“Amora...”
He hadn’t moved still.
“GET OUT, LOKI!!!” she had suddenly exploded.
He had taken one, two steps towards the door. Amora had sighed in relief. She was in no mood to start another fierce exchange of verbal abuse. She was in no mood for his accusations.
She would never know how he had managed to turn around so quickly and effectively pin her against the wall.
She had tried to push him away, but, taking advantage of the second it had taken her to react, he had grabbed her arms with a strength she hadn’t thought him capable of.
He had kissed her.
Without adding another word.
He had simply kissed her.
And a good half-an-hour later, while he had been hidden face-first between her legs and she hadn't been able to do anything but shake and repeat his name incoherently, while she entangled her fingers in his hair, almost ripping it out from the strength with which she pulled at it, while she completely forgot that she had spent the last twelve weeks profoundly furious at him and right at the exact moment in which he had done who-damn-knows-what with his fucking despicable, shameless, lying tongue, she had cried out: “Shit… I missed you so much…”
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
As years had gone by, they had remained together (or something like that), making Amora the one and only close witness to Loki’s descent into darkness.
Slowly, without many people noticing (they all hated him too much to even believe he could be capable of being even worse), what once had been playful practical jokes turned into vicious parodies of pranks, what had been mischievous lies turned into dangerous schemes, what had been desperate cries for attention turned into mere attempts at inflicting harm; the awkward, bookish prankster boy turned into a charismatic troublemaker young man. Although he always remained the best sorcerer within any surrounding worlds, he was no longer the top of their classes and lessons, too absorbed with his lonesome incursions into ancient dark magic and energies to be bothered to even attend classes sometimes.
Alongside that, his attitude towards people changed. Where he had been anything from nasty to openly hostile in the past, he then became polite, diplomatic: a sycophant. Where he had all but exclusively exchanged insults with Thor’s inner circle of friends before, he then started tagging along in many of their journeys and adventures.
The only thing that remained constant was their relationship; the many nights he spent mocking the idiocy of Thor’s friends with her are all the proof Amora had of his undying hate, of his accomplished lies. Lies which only Sif and she had seemed to be able to recognize.
Loki had always amused himself by pouring salt into people’s wounds, dropping poisonous whispers into their ears, and he did so with such insight and accurate judgment that even though everyone knew him to be manipulative and dishonest, no one could shake the effect of his words off. It was a vice she had picked up quickly and one they had practiced on each other almost on a daily basis. As such, she had been the worst possible factor to add to that equation. Without the emotional outlet she provided, perhaps he wouldn’t have been able to bear the stress that all that pretending crushed him with, he would have exploded earlier, before carrying his plans to fruition. Without her voice resonating with cruel truths on his ears, perhaps the flame of hatred wouldn’t have burned so hot in him. Without her kinship to reassure him he wasn’t alone, perhaps he would have considered that maybe, just maybe, he was the problem.
As most kindred spirits tend to do, they didn’t neutralize each other. Being together accentuated both their shared virtues and their shared flaws. They fueled each other’s destructiveness, added to each other’s chaos, always willing to go further together than they were alone. Amora took enormous sick pleasure in bringing out the worst on people, and Loki’s worst was always as disturbingly beautiful to watch as his best, if not better. Loki, in all his method, his millimetric schemes and his solid logic, showed his true character only when deeply upset. The destructive, emotional, raw, even dangerous man that seemed to break with hysterical laughter while he transferred some of his inner chaos to his surroundings looked almost like a wild, unstoppable force of nature, not unlike the element he was named after.
Being caught in the eye of the hurricane, and actively participating in its making, she hadn’t recognized in him the slow spiraling down into what could only be despair, what could only be madness.
* * * * * * * *
As crucial days tend to do, it had started quite normally. The dawn had been just breaking; he had been lying between the many furs of her bed as she brushed her hair, sitting at her enormous boudoir. It was only supposed to be a joke, he had told her with his most sincere and fake smile as he had placed a kiss on her temple and a small vial on her hands. She had asked him about it, but he had merely said he didn’t want to spoil the surprise. She had returned the kiss and left a bit later, leaving him, like many times before, to oversleep on her bed, unaware that deep concerns and anxieties had kept him awake all night as she slept peacefully cradled on his chest.
She had recruited Skurge for the endeavor. The poor Executioner, as she used to tell Loki, would go through Jötunheim barefoot if she merely asked him to (which wasn’t a very good example of devotion since he was native from Jötunheim, but well, still got her point across). It was only supposed to be a joke.
Asgard’s finest warriors always have lunch together in the same room; as Skurge was one of them, he had performed his task brilliantly and a different content laid on a single cup. The warriors had taken their seats, all carefully watched by The Enchantress through her Vanir crystal ball. They had toasted and a foolish young man, a warrior who liked to show his fancy for Sif by annoying her, had taken her cup from her hands, toasted to her health and drank its entire contents in one gulp.
It was only supposed to be a joke. The man had fallen down immediately. He was dead before he had even reached the ground. Loki’s sense of humor had always been a curious thing.
The Warriors Three, Thor, and Balder, everyone, had been panicking, trying to somehow help a very obviously dead man. Sif had become even paler than the young, innocent, ill-fated man, lying on the floor, unimportant, nameless and forgotten to his killers.
The warmaiden had gotten over the shock in seconds; she had darted herself back on her feet and out the door in her full bolt-like speed.
She had kicked open the door to the Throne Room where the Allfather and his Queen had been listening to their people’s requests, as usual, their youngest son standing in silence on his place at the left of the throne.
“You vile, treacherous serpent!!!” she had yelled as she knocked over some very shocked peasants. The next second she had Loki by the throat and had slammed him against the nearest wall.
“Sif, calm down!” Fandral’s voice, shortly followed by the rest of the warriors’ steps.
If Loki had been surprised to see her still breathing, he hadn’t batted an eye. “As much as I enjoy being beaten up by you, Lady Sif, it would be lovely if I could know what’s about this time.”
“You. Know. Damn. Well. What. This. Is. About. You. Lying. Murderous. Bastard.” She had slammed him against the wall over and over to punctuate every word. Thor had intervened, grabbing Sif and taking her away from his brother as the guards escorted the peasants out of harm’s way since fights between Sif and Loki rarely ended without the complete destruction of several rooms. It had been then when the Queen, who, alongside the Allfather, had been astonished at the utter disregard everyone seemed to be paying them, had spoken.
“What is happening here?!?”
The fact that no one had seemed to care about her assaulting a member of the Royal Family should be all the proof one needs to understand the extent to which Loki’s guilt was assumed on pretty much everything by pretty much everyone. Not that it was an unfair assumption, though.
Sif, restrained by Thor’s arms, had been unable to hurt Loki any further, though she had been evidently skinning him alive with her eyes. Silence had only followed until Thor had dared speak.
“Someone poisoned Sif’s drink.”
“Not someone! Him!” Sif had always been secretly afraid of her own weaknesses, of her limitations, always having to prove herself to her all-male comrades in arms, striving to be independent, stronger, a better warrior. That the thought of someone having so effortlessly come that close to killing her had driven her completely out of her mind wasn’t surprising at all. Maybe added to that was her outrage in the face of the cowardly murder of an innocent, an outrage that always accompanies honorable beings, one that neither Amora nor Loki could ever understand.
Fandral had explained in whispers the complete incident to the Allmother, who still looked astounded.
“And you think my son did this? He has been here by my side all morning,” she had said softly to Sif.
“Are you positive that poor man didn’t choke?” Loki had said while fixing his collar, nonchalant and uninterested. “It does seem to me you are being a little bit paranoid…” he had softly added, pushing his luck a little bit too much.
“Shut your filthy mouth, you coward! You obviously had help!” she had shouted, struggling again to be free of Thor’s restraint.
“Sif, please, calm down, you are not thinking straight." It had been Fandral who spoke, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. But she hadn't been listening anymore, her own words reeling freely in her mind.
“Help. You had help. That damn witch. It was you and that damn witch.”
A mutter filled with the utmost certainty.
Thor, who of course was much more willing to believe the worst of Amora than of his sadistic little shit of a baby brother, had soon enough added: “The Executioner was there, he must have done it on Amora’s orders.”
“Please!” Loki had interceded, his voice a little bit louder than he had intended it to be, even if only Amora could notice it. “Now you are truly not making any sense!”
Thor had ignored him. “Get her,” he had grunted to the guards.
“Thor!” Both his brother and his mother’s voice had tried to stop him, to no avail.
“Get. Her.” He had all but yelled at the guards again, and sure enough, the orders of Asgard’s golden Crown Prince crushed those of a woman and a sorcerer, queen and prince or not.
They had left immediately as Amora dispelled the enchantment on her crystal ball and braced herself to look shocked.
She had been dragged in front of the Allfather with no ceremonies. Odin was yet to speak a single word, but things appeared to have gone even further downstream in the short period she hadn’t been watching. All warriors that had been present were there, including Skurge who apparently had already been proven guilty and was being interrogated —which actually meant that people were asking him question after question and he remained silent and expressionless all the while, Norns bless him. Amora had looked up and, for a brief instant, met Loki’s green eyes, which had given her a significant look.
She had stood looking dignifiedly outraged as she listened; only commenting at the end. “With all due respect, my Lords, I did not realize that the mere accusations of a hateful woman were all the proof required by Asgardian justice.” She had seen Loki smiling at her performance from where he was standing. Let him smile while he could, she had thought, she’ll wipe that self-satisfied smirk off his damn face when this was over.
The queen had spoken. “The poison was very rare…” She was holding the empty cup in her hands. “Only a very accomplished magic user would be able to concoct it.”
Amora had smiled. “By that logic, my Queen, you, your husband and your son would also be suspects.”
Silence had filled the room as everyone weighed her words. Sif’s eyes had been still glued to Loki.
“Certainly, mother, if that’s all,” Loki had quickly added, moving towards his mother and placing a hand over her shoulder. “I would have you stop this nonsense and allow us to investigate properly, as to bring justice to the true murderer.”
“We all know who the true murderer is.” Sif’s voice had held an astounding poisonous hatred, now freed from Thor’s grip as he apparently had deemed her calm enough. “Even if we can’t prove it… yet .”
Loki had reasonably chosen to simply ignore her. Amora should have done the same. But Amora never listens to the voice of reason, does she.
“Please, Lady Sif, surely you realize such paranoia is even beneath someone like you.”
The blazing hatred within Sif's eyes had turned its destructive gaze towards a new target.
“Oh, Enchantress, it’s actually quite ironic you would say that! Even though I know Loki well enough to know him capable of enlisting a scapegoat for all his cowardly plans, I would have thought it beneath you to be handling his dirty work.” She had stepped towards Amora, staring directly into her eyes before she spoke again. “I guess that means he’s fucking you over in more than one way.”
Many people had told Amora her pride and temper would be her downfall. Loki used to say he had learned the power of words from Sif, and she couldn’t agree more when thinking of how her blood had boiled in that moment. She doesn’t know still if it was the insult or the implication it carried. The words had left her mouth before she could think.
“To Hel with you,” she had spat back at Sif. “To Hel with both of you.” She had looked up straight at Loki’s face.
“Amora!” Oh, and how the ambiguous tone suited him; it was both warning and threat, both anger and concern. But it was too late.
“Leave.” It had been the calm command of the Allfather. “All but the Enchantress and the Executioner.”
“Father!” Loki had tried, unmoving while everyone else left the room swiftly. Sif had a detestable triumphant smirk on her face.
“You too. Leave.” His father’s tone had left no room for complaints. Loki had insisted anyway.
“If you would just let me explain…” Amora would have been truly touched by his concern, if she didn’t also want to choke him.
“I will not sit still and listen to your lies. NOW, Loki.” It had been the last warning. Loki still hadn’t moved but his brother had intervened, grabbing his arm and forcibly dragging him out of the room effortlessly.
Exile.
That had been their punishment.
Hers and Skurge’s, that is.
Least-loved and neglected as he might have been, Loki was still his son. He would not impose such a hard punishment on his child with two perfectly believable scapegoats at his disposition.
It had been really late night when she had finally been on her way, followed closely by both a carriage with most of her worldly possessions and Skurge.
In later years, when loneliness and pain had worked their way into making her finally grow up, she had spoken to Skurge one night. “I am so sorry you were dragged into that mess” . He had answered in that stoic manner of his, “It was my choice,” to what she had smiled her trademark smile and leaned on his enormous shoulder. “Well, I am not sorry you came with me.”
Then, nevertheless, she had been young and selfish, concerned only with her own pain at having to leave the only place she had ever called home, concerned only with her own thoughts of skinning Sif, Thor and especially Loki alive.
They had been riding their horses on the rainbow bridge silently, slowly, unwillingly. She hadn’t truly expected it, but she hadn’t been surprised either when she had heard a third horse galloping rapidly to catch up with them.
“It is Loki.” Skurge had spoken without turning to look at her.
“I know.”
“Do you wish for us to hurry up?” He had asked in a low voice, like he feared somebody would hear him shamefully suggesting running away.
The sound of the horse’s hoofs had been getting closer.
“No. Stop.”
Then, he had indeed looked at her. So suddenly that it could have been interpreted as shock even though his face had been as impassive as ever. She had ignored it, ignored him, and dismounted.
She had given Skurge no further explanations as she turned back and started walking slowly towards Loki, who had also dismounted and was running in her direction.
“Came to gloat?” had been the first anger-drenched words that had left her mouth as soon as he had been within hearing range.
“What the Hel happened?!?” He had been out of breath, upset. The absence of any witty remark, of the slightest trace of antagonism on his voice had thrown her off center for a moment.
“Your father has exiled me, that is what happened.” She had crossed her arms, still attempting to convey a hostility he seemed completely oblivious to.
“What?” He'd looked truly incredulous. “Why?”
“He seems to be under the very accurate impression that I murdered some poor fellow.” Her words had been ice-cold. He had taken a step towards her; she had taken a step back.
“He has no proof!” He had almost yelled, offended. “Why didn’t you tell him it was me?!?”
His tone hadn’t been angry or reproachful. He had seemed mostly… anxious.
“Oh, believe me, I tried. Skurge even tried to take the blame for me. Your father doesn’t care.” He had shown no reaction to her betrayal, if anything, he appeared even more perplexed.
“He can’t make you leave!” He had suddenly exclaimed in such a childish fashion that Amora had been suddenly reminded he was a lot younger than she was. “It’s not fair!”
It had been that last outburst that had done it for her. To listen to Loki talking about fairness had been too much.
“Why on the Nine Realms are you making such a fuss!!!” she had yelled, indifferent to those who could hear her. “This was exactly what you wanted!” She had pointed towards the carriage and horses waiting behind her. “Everything went just according to your plan ! You made damn sure I followed it blindly to the letter!!!”
Amora must now clarify that Loki had never been, will never be impulsive. Prone to overreacting? Yes. Melodramatic? Definitely. Vindictive? Absolutely. But never impulsive. She had had, as such, no way of anticipating what came next.
She hadn’t even seen it coming, just felt the hot burn of the slap on her cheek. She had thought she could hear Skurge coming towards them to defend her then.
She had looked at him, stunned in silent outrage. There were unshed tears in his eyes.
“Don’t you dare… don’t you even dare!”
Shouldn’t those have been her words? Why was he whispering words of indignation towards the woman he had just struck? And if he wasn’t impulsive, if he had never ever been impulsive, why was he suddenly kissing her so fiercely? And if she had wanted nothing more than to shred him to pieces with her bare hands merely seconds ago… why was she kissing him back?
She had eventually tried to break away, though his hands were stronger than they looked holding her face in place; she had only managed to put an inch between them, so she had spoken against his lips.
“Why does everything have to be a drama with you…”
“Come with me, I’ll tell my father the truth…” he had whispered, and of course he had been thinking of himself, of his own need for her, of his pain. The fact that he hadn’t been able to come up with a scheme to save her pinning it all on somebody else only showed how desperate and disturbed he had been.
“Loki…”
He had ignored her. “That it was me… that you didn’t know…”
“Loki… listen…” She had tried again but he had silenced her with another kiss.
“I won’t. I don’t want to.” Overt stubbornness. “He’ll have to believe me.”
She had taken the opportunity to finish her sentence.
“Loki, your father knows it was you.”
He had stared back at her, confused.
“He knows. He has just chosen to deny it, he doesn’t want to punish you. Nothing you say will change that.” She had spoken softly, all the while running her fingers through his hair, as it was her almost subconscious custom.
“No…” A defeated whisper, so cold that she had been able to feel it, to feel it chilling him to the bones. “This isn’t about mercy or denial…” His hands had slid down from her face to her shoulders. “This punishment was meant for me.”
He had been right. It explained everything. Of course Odin knew; it was a master move. Getting rid of the bad influences and showing the prodigal son the consequences to his actions, everything without having to give the smallest hint of proof.
It was brilliant.
It was also inevitable.
“There must be something I can do… something someone can do…” he had whispered against her lips.
“It’s alright,” she had answered, wiping the tears away from his cheek with her thumb.
“I didn’t want this…” he had suddenly cried out, holding her face again, looking directly into her eyes. “That’s why I didn’t tell you… So you could shake off the blame in case everything went wrong… I didn’t want it to fall on you…”
He had spoken with such passion. It would have been so easy to believe him. It was always so easy to believe him.
“You know that, don’t you?” he had finished.
She had smiled sadly to him. She truly, truly had wanted to believe him. And that’s exactly why she had chosen not to.
“It’s alright,” she had repeated. “Loki… it was bound to happen…” she had started.
“Don’t leave…” he had interrupted her with that whisper. That plea. That prayer.
“You are smart… you knew this could happen…”
“Please… Don’t leave…” he had shaken his head as if he could shake the weight of reality off that easily.
She was used to seeing him lashing out in anger, throwing fits like a child, even to the worst and most purely evil parts of him; there was always some kind of twisted splendor there. But there was no beauty then, she could have never gotten used to seeing him like that; pleading, weak, raw… broken. She had kissed him to silence him, or so she had told herself.
It had been to no use, as soon as they had parted, soft as a secret, he had repeated:
“Amora… Don’t leave…”
“Don’t be sad, darling,” she had again wiped the tears that continued pouring endlessly from those green eyes that were just like hers. “Loki, don’t cry,” he was pressing his hand atop hers, keeping it where it was caressing his cheek.
“Don’t cry… It’s for the best…” How stupid her excuses must have sounded. “After what happened today you must know… It could have never worked out…”
She had known it was a cliché, but she hadn’t cared. She hadn’t cared who was watching, who could hear her being pathetic and stupid and sentimental. She had kissed him again, and again and all the times it took for her to gather all the courage in her cowardly soul to finally take a step back and away from him.
He had stared back at her, dismayed, defeated against her definite smile.
“You and I… We are too much alike…” her fingers had run through his hair for what she had told herself would be the last time. “We could never trust each other…”
She had turned around, turned her back on him and started walking away.
He was calling her, yelling at her to stay, begging her not to leave, undoing himself in lies-truths, making irresponsible promises, collapsing in tears, pleading for a dishonest forgiveness, vowing to kill everyone if that’s what it took, screaming her name.
But he hadn’t come after her and she hadn’t turned back.
She had reached her horse and left Asgard as fast as she could.
And she never ever cries, and she never ever shows vulnerability in front of men she’s trying to control, and she is no fragile foolish maiden, but then… Why were there tears running helplessly down her face, and why was Skurge holding her close with such sweetness as if he thought she would break, and why was she feeling sick like that, like her insides had been ripped off?
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
As she has noticed things in her life tend to do, it hadn’t turned out to be anything that she had wanted it to be. If there was something to be learned from all that, she never found any use for that knowledge.
She met many intelligent men after that, but she was never again able to talk to any of them like that. She found many capable allies after that, but she was never again able to respect any of them like that. She came to love a man after that, but she was never again able to sleep like that beside anyone else, as if she were peacefully alone in the universe. She gave up information freely after that, but she never again shared knowledge only for the sake of the pleasure of intellectual discussion. She had brief moments of honesty after that, but she never again felt that comfort at being completely naked body and soul. She wiped away other’s tears after that, but never again did she comfort anyone else.
Now she realizes how easy it had been to be alone before she hadn’t known anything else, how much pain it caused her to have lost something she hadn’t even known she wanted before she had it.
Sometimes she wonders what Loki had felt after she was gone; wonders how long he had stayed at the Bifrost that night, where he had gone after that, whom he had blamed for his own mistakes, what kind of self-destructive activities he had indulged in later.
She wonders if he was there in the distance, forever an outcast trapped among Asgard’s golden walls, regretting ever have met her, as she had regretted to have met him sometimes, if only for the pathetic comfort of never having known there could be so much more than the emptiness with which they had been both cursed at birth.
She admits that to herself and no one else.
She attributes those thoughts, those differences, to her past self’s youth, naïveté, stupidity and loneliness.
Not to Loki. Never to Loki.
That possibility, whispers the damned voice in her head, is still too scary, too painful to even consider it.
Just like that other possibility, the possibility of what could have been if she hadn’t talked him out of coming clean to his father, if she had realized that what Odin had wanted hadn’t been to punish him for his actions, but to force him to own up to them in order to save her.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Even though he had probably seen and heard enough to draw his own conclusions, Skurge had never asked Amora about Loki. She also never speaks of him. She never had the habit of speaking of herself nor telling her story nor discussing her emotions nor any of those healthy and completely reasonable things, and she didn’t plan to start then.
Only once in later years had they mentioned Loki. They had been dining at a tavern in silence, a silence that had allowed them to overhear the conversation taking place at the bar. Some adventurers were discussing the latest news of Asgard there, the impending war with Jötunheim, the short banishment of the first prince.
The death of the second prince.
She suddenly had felt as if she was underwater, all sounds drowned around her. She doesn’t know how she had managed it, but she had somehow gotten up and gone up the stairs to her room.
Suicide, she had managed to hear, were what rumors said. She didn’t need confirmation, it was only suitable that his death had come by his own hands. Even though many people hated Loki enough to attempt to take his life, no one would ever be able to hate Loki like Loki himself did.
She had been lying on her bed, staring emptily at the ceiling when he had come in and stood by the door. As ridiculously cliché as it seemed, she had found herself wishing she had taken Loki’s many gifts with her when she left Asgard. He used to place expensive jewelry on her neck while she brushed her hair at her boudoir whenever he wanted a favor; he used to leave presents with notes attached on her bed after particularly vicious fights (the gesture shouldn’t be construed as ‘nice’, the notes were always one word, and always insults). And sometimes, when he had none of those excuses, he made some up. It amounted to a considerable number of rings, necklaces, gems, tiaras, and earrings among books and rare tokens from other worlds.
All left behind on Asgard after her banishment.
If she hadn’t been able to take any of them or she hadn’t wanted to, she will not say.
She had only memories, only past. Nothing substantial. No proof.
It was probably for the best. She didn’t think the look of the grieving widow, clenching her dead lover’s belongings while she cried over him would suit her.
“Are you well?” Skurge’s deep, rough voice had come from the door. What a sweet man he was, and how caring despite his silent gloomy appearance. He was nothing like Thor.
He was nothing like Loki.
“I am,” she had answered; it hurt, of course, a little too much for something she had always expected, for someone she had always known would end badly, for someone she hadn’t seen or heard off in decades.
But it wasn’t necessarily a lie, not necessarily the truth either.
A moment of silence had passed by, and she had been able to tell he had been deciding whether or not to believe her, whether or not to ask any further questions. He had spoken again.
“Did you love him?”
Ah, he was such a brave man too. Braver than anyone she had ever known, at least. Not even Thor would have had the guts to ask that question.
Loki didn’t need to ask. Loki knew.
Amora had pondered over the multiple answers she could give him; lies, truths and anything in between. But Loki was dead; he was dead. They all had sounded empty and meaningless in her mind.
“Don’t be silly,” she had finally said. “A love for Loki The Heartless would eventually destroy any woman.”
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
I must say something to you
—Anything
Before you step off this train
And I’m left lifeless
Look into your eyes,
and perhaps remind you
That before we gave up, we were eternal
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It's almost been six months since Loki was dragged back from Midgard by his brother. He's being held in the castle's dungeons but tomorrow he'll be transferred to a tower that stands on a small island in the starry sea that surrounds Asgard. The tower was built eons ago, built to hold mages thrice more powerful than Loki, and he will be put under a sleeping spell and be guarded by Asgard's finest warriors and witches while he's moved, no one will stand a chance to help him once the operation has started. Now, however, only a couple of guards stand close to his cell. They fear nothing since said cell’s location is only known to members of the Royal Family (all four of them, ironically) but it takes more than a few well-placed spells and golden walls to keep The Enchantress off her goal. She has spent too much time around Loki’s sorcery, blocked or not, it is a part of him, and she would recognize its energy signature anywhere. The guards are not cautious, only outside help could aid Loki now and who would ever want to help him? It proves to be an effortless task for Amora to break their necks with a wave of her hand in front of their faces. She smiles to herself as Loki turns around in his cell when the guards fall like rag dolls, unable to see through the invisibility spell he himself had taught her so long ago.
Thor has just left; Amora entered the dungeon when he opened the door to leave. Asgard's Golden Prince has spent yet another morning trying to get his little brother to eat with no success. He doesn't understand Loki, he never has, and attributes his hunger strike to some form of self-harm. He’s a melodramatic fool, any form of harm Loki inflicts on himself is far greater and lasting than simple hunger, and it's hardly ever done bconsciously. Amora knows that it's actually self-preservation what prevents Loki from accepting food from the people he perceives as enemies.
It's been a long time since she last saw him, almost a century; she realizes that, but the sight still shocks her. There's little to nothing left of the sleek and mischievous young man she had known, the man standing in front of her is paler than ever before, has been stripped of his armor and royal garments and stands before her only in simple black clothes that show how much thinner he has got. His once bright and vivacious green eyes are now bloodshot, sunken and swollen from both tears and lack of sleep. He is covered in small cuts and bruises that can’t heal properly with his magic suppressed by the shackles that bind his too thin wrists. The look in his eyes as they dart right and left searching all over the room is more befitting of a beast than a man.
She ends the invisibility spell and steps out of the shadows. As he sees her standing outside his prison, his features shift into a strange expression. Amora could argue it was impossible to decipher it if she wasn't so sure her own face is a perfect mirror to his. She wonders for a moment what he would say to her and thanks the muzzle that silences him for the small mercy of never knowing.
She has known him for such a long time now, she has cared for him and she has been indifferent to him, she has hurt him and she has comforted him, she has loved him and she has hated him, both because those were her true feelings and because it has been the wisest thing to do. But as she slides her fingers over the magical lock and breaks it open, it's not the enormous amount of dire times she's thinking of. It's not the punishment that would come to her if she was to be found not only back in a place she's been exiled from, but also helping a war criminal. She's thinking of not-lonely nights, of shared laughter, of secrets whispered under the bed sheets. She's thinking of wicked endless fun, of fierce intellectual pursuits, of warm intertwined fingers. She's thinking of silence. Of quiet green eyes, of soft smiles, and peaceful silence.
She has betrayed him and been betrayed by him more times than she cares to count, but how can there be betrayal where there is no trust? She tells herself so as she opens the muzzle and handcuffs. It is sweet temptation to leave him in chains, the quiet memories of power games played in the past, added to the sensation of having him at her mercy, whisper promises in her mind. Or maybe what the whisper is truly begging her for is to keep his lips silent. Maybe the sensation of having him at her mercy is called safety. Maybe the temptation to leave him in chains is called fear. But she's been telling herself for a while now that she needs him to be able to use his magic in case they get caught, in case they need to fight. Her resistance to that lure has been rehearsed. It comes easily.
As soon as she makes the muzzle fade into thin air, all he can come up to greet her with is a smile.
"My lovely Enchantress," is all he adds, and what more is there to add? It has all been a giant deception between them. To him, she had been always anything but The Enchantress. To him, she had been always anything but lovely. To him, she had been always anything but his.
There’s a question unspoken in his eyes. Amora doesn’t want to hear it. She doesn’t want to answer. She has no answer. She's not sure as to what she wants to tell him or do with him, so she simply smiles back instead.
'What has happened to you?' she doesn't say as she runs her fingers through his overgrown hair, pushing it out of his face in reminiscence of the gesture she had when they were but children. He flinches ever so slightly at the intimate touch, in the same way he must flinch when it’s Thor’s rough hands providing it. But he allows it, as ever, in the same way he will never allow Thor’s.
"You look awful," she says eventually.
"You look beautiful," he whispers.
The smile on his face is at the same time sad and happy, fake and truthful.
"Don't waste your Silvertongue, you will most certainly need it if we aren’t miles away from Asgard before they notice your absence," she dismisses his words and without further explanation, she breaks the moment by casting an illusion spell over them, not daring to ask for his help despite him being the real shapeshifter and illusionist. They now look like the guards lying dead on the floor, keys in hand to lock the exit door. He follows her with a silent obedience that doesn’t suit him. He follows her like he had followed her that afternoon when they were first together so many years ago.
The corridors are full of memories and ghosts of her past life. She knows it's the same for him. They pass by their old teachers and classmates, now turned into powerful witches, heading for the Allfather's Throne Room, undoubtedly to discuss Loki's soon-to-be new living arrangements in the tower. They see Sif and The Warriors Three discussing how light and unfair they think Loki’s sentence is. But the hardest trial comes as they almost collide with Thor, who passes them by on the opposite direction. Worries and responsibility oddly suit the Golden Prince, Amora thinks, his features are dark and his blue eyes look as tired as his little brother’s green ones are. He looks just like the king he one day will be. They stand there for a second looking at him, and even though it’s been more years than she cares to count, even though they must hurry and leave Asgard, she can’t bring herself to move. It’s the second but not the last time today she and Loki share the same expression.
It lasts only for a second before survival instincts take over: Thor's heading for Loki's cell and he's going to find it empty. Amora grabs Loki's wrist and urges him to walk as fast as possible without arising suspicion. They are almost running when they reach the streets heading for Asgard's forests. She dares not ask Loki to help her now either as she performs the spell that opens the hidden path that has brought her to Asgard, a path that Loki himself had discovered and showed her. The deafening sound of horns of alarm fill the city as she whispers the last words of the spell and they vanish into thin air.
* * * * * * * *
She's sitting on her bed inside her dim-lit bedroom, holding a cup filled with a blue liquid. Beside her, he’s still silent as she places a damp cloth over his many bruises. She hasn't used magic since they left Asgard ten hours ago, fearing that someone would trace her energy, suspecting she had something to do with Loki's escape or believing he would go to her in need of help. She was never good at healing magic anyway, neither of them were, so it's a strong potion she soaks the cloth in.
As soon as they had reached her bedroom he had collapsed on her.
“… is this a delusion? ” he had whispered, mostly to himself as she helped him lie down on her bed.
“…Oh, for Yggdrassil…” she had pressed her hand against his forehead, checking for fever. “…When was the last time you ate?”
He had looked at her, then around the room, confused. “I… don’t remember…”
“You have to.” He had closed his eyes, bordering unconsciousness. She had slapped his cheek to wake him up. “Loki! I did not go through all that fucking trouble for you to die of starvation! It’s really important! When?!?”
He had stared at her, dazed, trying to focus.
“…I ....Thor… forced me... I think… two months ago…”
She had sighed before she poured an elixir from her night table into a chalice.
“Drink it.” She had held the chalice for him. “It will help you without killing you like he probably almost did.”
Loki, who minutes before had been six months down the road to a painful death of his choice, who had been choosing to let himself slowly die of hunger before accepting food from his own family, had drunk the infusion given by Amora’s hands without the slightest hesitation.
It was a potion crafted to treat starved war prisoners, both to rapidly nourish them back to health and to keep them from dying from shock due to the stress of digesting food with a weakened body. It had also been mixed by Amora with her strongest sleeping potion. It’d taken him exactly two seconds to fall asleep.
Now, as she puts down the cloth and checks his wounds, he looks her in the eye as if trying to read her.
“You should stay the night. I cast a spell to hide this house earlier, but you are not strong enough to hide from Heimdall’s sight.”
He says nothing.
“You can’t stay much, it’ll be a matter of days until they can track me down, and they… your brother…” There’s a meaningful pause. “This will be the first place in which he’ll look for you. But no matter where you go, you’ll be pretty safe; they cannot properly track you with the Bifrost broken.”
He looks away.
“Leaving now would be suicide, Loki.”
A bitter, short laugh.
“Yes. I tried that already. Didn’t work out so well.”
She pinches his cheek.
“Don’t be a drama queen. It suits you too well. Go to sleep.”
He doesn’t, but he lies back on her bed.
She gazes at the crystal ball in the middle of the room, its bluish glow casting shadows all over the walls and ceiling. Things in Asgard seem to be calmer. They must have realized Loki is probably light years away from them by now. Neither Asgard’s witches nor Thor have considered her involvement yet.
“Where’s your Executioner?”
Loki’s voice startles her. She picks the crystal ball up and sits by his side on the bed.
“Out,” is her plain answer. “Sleep.”
He looks at her, stares , and for a moment she is sure he is going to say something really stupid and corny and dangerous.
He doesn’t.
She lies down beside him anyway.
Through the ball she sees Asgard’s Council of Mages meeting with Odin. They are making progress; they have come to the conclusion that Loki had help escaping. Amora is not worried; those idiots will never have half the talent to find them. Only the two best sorcerers in Asgard would be able to track Loki or Amora. And Loki and Amora are those two sorcerers.
Loki is watching her, lying on his side while she lies on her back with the small glass sphere in her hands.
A ghost of a flashback runs through her mind; she had once woken up in the middle of the night to find a naked and much younger Loki not asleep as she had thought he ought to be, but lying on his side, staring at her in silence. Back then, she had asked him what was wrong. “Nothing,” he had said and turned his back to her. “You were staring at me,” she had said to him. “I was,” he had answered before falling asleep.
“Why aren’t you asleep already?” is what she tells him now.
He closes his eyes.
Thor is sitting in silence looking gloomy inside her crystal ball. She feels a sick pleasure as she watches him, finds herself thinking it was her who took his precious little brother away from him again, far away, where his twisted, selfish idea of fraternal love can’t hurt him anymore.
Loki has finally given in to sleep and with the image of Thor’s concerned features on her mind, she joins him.
It is almost twilight when they finally wake up. He doesn't say a word as she gives him whatever supplies she has for his journey: gold, potions, food, water, one of her own green cloaks in lack of any more suitable clothes.
It's that uncanny silence what convinces her.
He's gone.
Too much time has gone by since they last shared their loneliness, too many things have happened since they last were they . She had known without realizing it back then as she leaned to kiss him for the first time that it would only end badly, that it would only bring them pain. She knows now they were foolish, naïve, brash, young .
He looks at her as he is about to leave, tries to read her one more time. He can’t. So the dreaded question finally occurs before her.
"Why?"
There is a moment of silence. It’s too wide a question. He could mean anything, everything. In any case, she only has one answer.
“Does it matter?”
There’s no need for tears this time, they’ll see each other again soon enough. Now, today, she has proven they can’t stay away from each other. And they never will.
There are no words left to be said.
He's too far away, too far gone for her to reach.
There is never any hope for the cursed ones and there was never any hope for them.
He leaves and she watches him leave and they don't even share a kiss.
They are far too old and wise now.